“Just a moment now,” said a new voice, a high, squeaky voice. Yuan and Xian’s hearts leapt for joy as they saw a small, fuzzy, familiar figure dismount from a booth (where he’d been innocently doing paperwork and sipping tea from a thimble) and stride towards them, teensy weensy paws tucked into his robe sleeves. He eyed the shamans up and down, nose twitching.

“The woman clearly expressed her opposition to the exorcism of one ‘Yuan Shi,’ flesh stealing transmigrator, citing a clear train of precedence for her decision. You offered no positive reason to reject that precedence and instead chose to order an act of violence. What is your justification for that?”

The shaman would have made no reply to charge, except for the fact that he recognised the mouse’s robes and knew that mere sneering was insufficient to dismiss the charge. Unlike Xiao Bian, he was a government employee, and thus would have to give a legally suitable answer. “My justification, reverend sir, is that her activities are preventing the fulfilment of a contract. As I am obligated by said contract to remove those who prevent its fulfilment, I am therefore justified in removing her from the premises, prior to permanently removing the flesh stealer.”

Squeaky was unconvinced by this reply. “Said contract is legally invalid, and hence non-binding. If you feel particularly strongly about the case, you can submit it for arbitration - contrary to the lovely lady Xian’s articulation of the law, the state is normally inferior to friends, family, and employers in all decisions pertaining to the presence or absence of transmigrators in the bodies of their fellows, but has allotted to itself the prerogative to overturn this normative system in select cases - see Memorandum on Transmigrator Understanding of the Gangly Emperor, Memorandum of All That Creeps and Crawls of the Yeren-Obsessed Emperor, and so on and so forth. The precedent here is fairly strong.

“In such a case the state might uphold your contract and permit you to exorcise the flesh stealer presently controlling Yuan Shi over the lady Xian’s objections. Given the absence of such a permit, however, and given that the lovely lady Xian is entirely within her rights to deny you access to Yuan Shi - as she does in fact outrank his father, so far as the law is concerned - you have as yet no legitimate case here. Consequently, I’m going to have to ask you to, if you would be so kind, leave.”

Now a lesser man would have taken Squeaky’s olive branch and submitted the case for arbitration, but a lesser man would also have been an idiot. The Confucian mouse, the shaman knew, wasn’t only trying to resolve the situation peacefully - he was also trying to entirely cripple any further attempts at exorcising the transmigrator, by tying the legislative component up in years of legal disputes. And who knew how powerful the flesh stealing demon would be by the end of those?

“The Dao De Jing says, ‘legal matters are endless.’ I will have to respectfully decline your alternative proposal, and cite instead Bureau of Transmigrator Affairs codicil 432a, which asserts that an exorcist is permitted to use his own best judgement when in the field,” the shaman said, throwing his proverbial card on the table.

Squeaky’s eyes flashed - a bit, Yuan thought, like the protagonists in those card monster fighting animes he’d so enjoyed in his past life - and he countered the shaman’s card with his own. “Said judgement being exercised pursuant to the directives of nearby authorities, per Bureau of Transmigrator Affairs codicil 432b, with the relevant authority in this case being yours truly, moi. I would advise you to avoid such shallow tricks; I graduated from the Academy with the degree of yijia jinshi.”

The shaman internally cursed, but from the outside his expression was serene.

“I fear you’ve greatly mistaken my intentions, reverend sir. I would never try to deceive a member of the government, especially not one affiliated with… and what department did you say you were from, reverend sir?”

Squeaky raised one eyebrow. “Trying to invoke the Bill for the Administration of Regular Jurisdictions Article 134.e.27, are we? As it happens, I’ll have you know my area of bureaucratic expertise is related to transmigrator law - I’m a member of the Bureau for Irregular Cases, with sub-specialisations in spirit beast and transmigrator oversight. You can file a report with my superiors to check.”

If the shaman could rage, he would have. Of all the times to run into an expert in transmigrator law…

The reader should not mistake the shamans’ intentions. They were no noble adherents of the orthodox path, dedicated to the cause of right and justice - for all anyone can actually be described as belonging to such a farcical lie. They were there for one thing, and one thing only: money. (Which, really, is rather a noble motivation, when you think about it - for “money makes the world go round.”)

Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

Yuan’s father had offered to pay them a hefty and impressive sum for his successful exorcism, a sum they would lose en toto - including the advance - were the contract to be found null and void, as Squeaky the Rat held it was. And they needed the money, desperately. Cultivation was expensive, and transmigrators were tricky bastards, for whom no amount of income was sufficient to guarantee victory over in the field.

As often as not they’d spend much of their paycheck on the defeat and exorcism of the transmigrator - paying for supplies, talismans, medicines, pills, etcetera - and then have nothing left over to increase their strength in advance of the (inevitable) next fight. Had they been in a less combative area of Transmigrator Responses, Activities, and Practices (T.R.A.P.), as the state called it, they might have spent a more reasonable sum - but they were not, and so could not afford to walk away empty-handed in this case.

There was one legislative route open to the shaman. He hesitated to take it - it would get him in trouble with his employers - but if his goal was short-term success, well, then it was a risk he was willing to take.

The mouse must have realised what the shaman was about to do, because his teeny tiny eyes narrowed. “You shouldn’t, you know that, right?”

The shaman gave what he felt was a sheepish smile, but he did. “I invoke Clause 4.”

The mouse sighed as Xian and Yuan stared in confusion, trying to figure out what was going on. “As is your right, but I have to let you know I can’t accept such a ruling.”

The shaman smiled thinly, his attempt at a grin a tormenting sight to behold. “Be that as it may - I invoke Clause 4, which says that a relative’s request for amnesty may be overruled, if the exorcist present thinks that said relative lacks the capacity to see and to know. And since Xian Xinyue has somehow fallen in love with this… this… fiend, she must not be in the right state of mind.”

“Then you’ll know that Clause 4 also entitles any attendant Confucians to enforce the original law, if they feel the exorcist is acting in error. And I do.”

“As is your right.” Qi arced across the shaman’s fingers as their negotiations fell through, qi that cycled through the air in greater and greater arcs of lightning. The scent of fresh rain striking the earth spread out around them, and bits of electricity flickered across the restaurant furniture.

The other shamans circled about the trio, keeping them pinned, as the chief shaman launched his attack. A wave of lightning qi blasted out, threatening to consume the three.

“The Law prohibits fights in noodle shops,” Squeaky calmly intoned, and the attack disapparated as fast as it appeared.

The shaman winced. To think, the mouse knew The Way of the Law is the Way. Still, he wasn’t out yet. Conventional attacks were worthless, but then, he was a shaman - he knew far worse than conventional attacks.

Reaching into a pocket he pulled out a bundle of sticks, casting them onto the floor, then began to chant at length in a low voice. His drone was monotonous, his words repetitive, but the import of his speech was all too clear as the sticks started to vibrate where they lay on the floor, floating unsteadily into the air and spinning in a circle about the beleaguered trio.

The chanting grew louder and louder, the shaman’s hair drifting about his head, streaks of electric qi darting over his locks, and the space behind him began to blur.

Squeaky the Rat recognised the attack - it was a technique called Mass Expulsion, a variant of the standard exorcistic arts designed to hurl out from their bodies even the souls of those who belonged there.

Undaunted, the mouse began to perform the Nine Hand Seals, channelling the leifu thunder arts. There was, he knew, one technique that would prove absolutely efficacious here, much as he was loath to use it.

“Mass Expulsion - Soul Delineation,” the shaman cried, and a sphere of darkness expanded from his person, encompassing the rest of the restaurant. As it came across Squeaky’s own thunderous qi the two forces clashed, blending together, and then the darkness continued.

The shaman smirked. “It seems I need to bid you adieu.”

“How Good It is to Meet with Friends,” Squeaky replied calmly. The shaman’s eyes went wide.

“Wait- you can’t possibly know that one-”

A silver doorway opened behind the mouse, dispelling the darkness surrounding the trio.

“All transmigrators - even the most risible - are sent personally by the great scion of the gods. You neglect and contravene their will at your peril,” Squeaky the Rat said softly, finishing his technique. “Indeed, ‘tis adieu.”

The shaman turned and tried to run, but his attempt to contravene the rules of nature had been noted, and the great scion of the gods had indeed come to adjudicate his law.

The great scion of the gods, Truck-Kun, slammed into the shaman with all the force of a, well, a truck, sending him on a wonderful isekai adventure…

It also, by sheer good fortune, took out the six demonic cultivators behind him as they were in the middle of entering through the door.