雨后春笋 (yǔ hòu chūn sǔn) – After rain, the spring bamboo; i.e. many new things occurring in rapid succession.
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Tin Yeung Wong considered her niece gravely for a moment. “Is that what you truly want?”
“There's nothing left there for either of us,” Gong Lau Yan said. “If it's you, you could flood that land until the curse sank with it, couldn't you?”
“Come with me.” Tin Yeung Wong left the garden, and re-entered the Palace. Gong Lau Yan and Zeyi followed her.
Entering what appeared to be an office, Tin Yeung Wong took a seat on a very comfortable looking chair made of sponge, and extracted some waxed bamboo tubes, which she handed over to the two other women. They unrolled the contents together.
The documents were summaries written by Yuan Mu, with lists of creatures and creature parts, locations and dates. Each was entitled 'Recorded Movements of Tsaam Lei' followed by a number. There were at least six full pages. Gong Lau Yan's expression grew darker and darker.
“Your old friend is still alive,” Tin Yeung Wong said. “Do you still want to flood Dzue?”
“Is he even my old friend anymore?” Gong Lau Yan asked, returning the final page to its tube. “Perhaps it would be better for everyone if he were gone.”
“Wouldn't it harm you too, Gong Dze?” Zeyi asked gently.
“A river is a river, no matter where it is,” Gong Lau Yan replied. “I might be a little... different. But it wouldn't kill me.”
“Different... how?”
The loong shrugged off-handedly. “I might look a little different, maybe.” She caught sight of Zeyi's expression. “Oh... I'm sorry. I shouldn't be so...”
Running her hand through her fringe, she tried again. “I'll be honest. I don't know what'll happen. My appearance could change. My personality might even change.”
“That doesn't sound like a good result,” Zeyi said quietly.
“Before you make any decisions, there is one more thing,” Tin Yeung Wong said. “Tsaam Lei is being pursued by multiple parties at this present moment. You have met Yuan Mu's disciple, Yuan Yi Feng, I believe? They are the ones who provided the information in your hands, after I made a request to the Yuan Wei Temple to investigate. Recently, word came to me from the Hebei Wuchang that the Yamato Court of Hell, Jigoku, is also searching for him. They plan to put him on trial. If you take part, you might be able to come to a better-informed decision.”
“They'll have to catch him first.” Gong Lau Yan chewed her tongue pensively. “He was always very good at escaping.”
“I do not think he will be able to escape this time. There are too many eyes looking for him.”
Seeing her niece continued to furrow her brows, Tin Yeung Wong said, “Stay here a little while. Show Lady Zeyi around the palace. We have time, Lau Yan.”
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For a week, Gong Lau Yan seemed to forget about Dzue, and showed Zeyi the palace and grounds. There were many beautiful coral gardens, and ocean flowerbeds in pockets of air with strange plants that Zeyi could not have even imagined. Lau Yan's rooms were relatively small and cosy, and made of a grey stone darker than the limestone walls of the rest of the palace, whilst the furnishings were warm-toned greens and browns, not cool blues and whites. On the first day, they lay on Gong Lau Yan's bed, looking to the ceiling and talked about their childhoods.
Zeyi recalled when she first learnt to bamboo drift, a dance on a single bamboo log as it floated on Wine Lake, the main waterbody in Chun, and how she fell into the water so many times that her white inner robes were stained a faint rusty red that could never be removed.
For Gong Lau Yan, one of her earliest memories was crawling from the shelter of the pines in Tsaam Lam, her eyes fixed on the distant shine of the path of her elder sister. She passed between the peaks of Dzak Hau for the first time to see the basin where Ming Yuet would one day stand far below, and the ocean beyond that, and at the edge of the water there were her grandmother, her mother and her aunt, and her sister, all shining in the young sun as they waited for her.
When she fell asleep, her hands grasped the sleeve of Zeyi's robe.
They caught sight of the beautiful loong Maan Dzi King a few times during their stay. Once or twice, she tried to speak to Gong Lau Yan, but was ignored each time.
“Can I ask?” Zeyi said one night, as they lay together in Gong Lau Yan's bed. Somehow there didn't seem to be a need for Zeyi to go elsewhere. “What was your relationship with her like?”
“Not good,” Gong Lau Yan summarised. “That's not to say it was all bad, you understand. Of course there were reasons why we had a relationship. But overall, it was... painful. Do you really want to know?”
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“Only if you want to tell me.”
“Maan Dzi King is very intellectual. Understandably – she's very intelligent and rational. Well, mostly.” Gong Lau Yan's chestnut-coloured hair was loose, fanned out around her head. Zeyi lay on her stomach beside her, hands propping up her chin.
“Maybe it would make more sense to say that she seems very rational. But when I think about how she acted, it wasn't really rational at all. We didn't have a big argument, I just slowly came to realise that her way of seeing the world and mine were too different. It meant she had expectations of me that I couldn't answer, and I tied myself in knots trying. When I ended things, she was intensely angry. She couldn't accept it for a long time. It got to the point where other people were starting to get caught between us, and A Yi had to step in and threaten to demote her.”
“That sounds obsessive.”
“I think she saw it as a challenge she'd 'lost'. She hates losing.”
“Good to know,” Zeyi smiled wickedly. “I'll make sure to kiss you when she's looking and then give her a smirk.”
“Only then?”
“Only then what?”
“What about now?” Gong Lau Yan's grey-brown eyes suddenly seemed alight with mischief. “Don't you want to kiss me now?”
“I... Well... Uh...”
The loong laughed heartily. “Your face is so red!”
“Don't tease me like that,” Zeyi fumed, twisting to get out of the bed.
Gong Lau Yan caught her around the waist. “Dzak Yat, Siu Yat, don't be angry. It's... Do you know, you look so pretty when you're flustered.” She dropped her head onto Zeyi's shoulder. “Sometimes I remember how sick you looked when we first met, like a corpse. Seeing you blush is just... You're alive.”
Zeyi thought her heart would stop, or perhaps her cheeks would catch fire first. She glared at the top of Gong Lau Yan's head. “What a smooth talker. Why do I find it hard to beli-”
Her words were cut short. Gong Lau Yan pulled back and dropped her head onto Zeyi's shoulder again. “Zeyi, I've lived a long time. I don't think it means much, really. Time passes differently for me. I'm still fairly young for a loong. Which means I'm still silly and inexperienced and won't grow up until I start to feel the weight of age.
“If you were to finish your Still Heart cultivation, and Ascend to the Immortal Realm, we could have a long time together. Unless you got sick of me, of course. But I want to know... would you want to cultivate to Ascension? Forever is a long time.”
“Assuming I could do it,” Zeyi laughed uncertainly.
“You can. You're the direct disciple of that old man, the Black Tortoise of the North, after all.”
“I've never met him.”
“Maybe we can get A Yi to convince him to leave the Immortal Realm for a bit and visit.”
“So easily?”
“Not really. I'm just saying nonsense.”
They laughed together. Gong Lau Yan sobered up first. “Zeyi?”
“Hm?”
“I'm sorry for not always being honest with you.”
“Well, I understand. It's been tempting for me to, after what happened with my mother. But it's also because she broke my trust that I have keep trying.”
Gong Lau Yan took her hand and considered it carefully. Zeyi looked too.
The loong's fingers were long and tanned, with elegant nails. Zeyi's were shorter, paler, and covered in scars. Unpleasantly, she thought of the coldly beautiful Maan Dzi King, and almost pulled her hand away. Before she could, Gong Lau Yan had raised it to her lips and kissed it reverently. “So much stronger than mine,” she murmured.
Forgetting everything else, Zeyi slid back into the bed, and held Gong Lau Yan tight.
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“Have you made a decision?” Tin Yeung Wong asked. She was once again tending to her gardens when her niece found her. She had left Zeyi, completely absorbed, in the palace library, and made her way alone to find her aunt.
“Has anything happened regarding Tsaam Lei?”
“I have requested that Yuan Mu bring Yuan Yi Feng back from investigations in the west to find and capture him.”
“I'll go.”
Tin Yeung Wong looked her niece in the eyes. “Could you do it?”
“No. No, I couldn't. But will Yuan Yi Feng be able to? I know they're a direct disciple too, but they're still a human, and Tsaam Lei is smart and much, much more experienced.”
“Yuan Yi Feng will be bringing a necromancer with them.” Tin Yeung Wong plucked a flower-like polyp from the coral before her. “With their Wood energy, and the necromancer's powers over the dead, together they should be sufficient to face Tsaam Lei.”
“Necromancer...” Gong Lau Yan vaguely remembered the pale, foreign woman at the auction.
“That said, they have run into some problems along the way. Yuan Yi Feng was forced to kill a rampaging creature in self-defence, which has deprived a region of its guardian spirit, and the local people want retribution. Will you go to speak with them?”
“I'll go. Zeyi knows about diplomacy better than me, I'll ask her to come along too.”
“I doubt she will reject your request,” Tin Yeung Wong said drily.
“And I'll go to Jigoku for the trial. Why are they holding a trial, anyway?”
“It seems Tsaam Lei has been working for the Land of the Dead in Yamato, Yomi.” Tin Yeung Wong handed the polyp to Gong Lau Yan. “He broke one of the rules.”
“Which one?”
“Killing mortal beings.”
“Ah. All those creatures he was selling parts from.”
“Those, and a human woman.”
“A human woman? Who?”
“I do not know that detail.” They moved together back towards the palace interior. “A cat Immortal, or demon... Yamato is not clear about these things... came to the Queen of Yomi to petition for Tsaam Lei's arrest for the murder of a favourite human. This fox-hunt is a consequence of that request. When will you be leaving?”
“As soon as Zeyi is ready.”
“Good. Your destination is a city named Vurdʑɕahar on the Jade Road. How much medication do you have left?”
“Two pills. I'll take one when I arrive.”
Tin Yeung Wong nodded. “Fly fast, niece. I will be waiting for you.”
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“Do you need something?”
Zeyi sat with her back to the door of the library, surrounded by books and scrolls. Without even looking around, she addressed the person who had just entered.
“Do you think you've won something?” Maan Dzi King asked, standing in the doorway. Her long robes whispered across the floor. “You're a fool, mortal.”
Zeyi sighed, and shut the book she was holding, West Journey Record. “I thought you had something important to say, but you're picking a fight because your ex-lover has a new girlfriend? I heard that you were intelligent and rational, Lady Maan. You're not proving it to me.”
The next words finally made her turn around.
“Is... Lau Yan well?”
“... As well as she can be, with her illness. She's content.”
“I see.”
This exchange made, Maan Dzi King turned abruptly and left.
Zeyi sighed and returned to her book.
Gong Lau Yan burst in a few moments later.
“Zeyi! We've got another adventure!”
“Really? Where to?” Zeyi laughed and shut the book again. Gong Lau Yan marched cheerfully over, glanced at the cover of the book, and pecked a quick kiss out on Zeyi's cheek.
“West!”