“Ahahahaha. Turn back now! You’re not even a match for a mortal turtle. Ai, but isn’t the turtle supposed to eat frogs? I suppose this is your punishment for upsetting the natural order. Go back to the swamp you pathetic tadpole!” Although the Ape-Faced Elk was said to be at death’s door, his tongue had yet to weaken. Every word was like a mountain crushing down on the toad’s soul.

Although he had managed to dislodge the turtle by now, it had simply shot back into the immortal spring. Even if it was ‘only’ a mortal beast, after decades of living in spiritual waters, it was blindingly fast. “Augh, augh…”

That was all Zhao Ze could say! He had been one hundred percent defeated. If his situation was summed up in one word, that word would be ‘defeated’! His whole family was defeated! “Augh, augh…”

But at that moment Bu Bian shouted,

“Are you only hiding so nobody will see your stupid face? Your granny! Your granny slept with humans! Go back to growing some decent fur over that stupid pink human face of yours!”

After he said these words, a weak and stammering “I…” drifted from the right-hand path through the caverns, and then a silence, a vast and terrible silence like a funeral. That one ‘I’ echoed and echoed until it became the sound of mocking laughter.

And in that moment Zhao Ze’s heart was overflowing with gratitude for Bu Bian. The last unslapped scrap of his face had been saved.

“YOUR GRANNY!” Combining their voices into a powerful roar they shot down the right-hand path.

The next cavern was made of grey limestone that had been shaped in grooved patterns as if a thousand snails had carved their tracks into the walls. From the grey earth sprouted startling violet spiral-patterned mushrooms that exuded a sweet, savory fragrance like roast pig.

Zhao Ze didn’t dare take a step towards them. In a place like this they were definitely another fiendish trap.

“Huh, you curse at me? Kid, forget everything you know about vulgarities. You might as well take your bald head and join a monastery, that’s how little you know about cursing!” Having recovered from his first defeat, the voice of the Ape-Faced Elk rang out bravely and echoed through the cavernous space. There were seven paths leaving this cavern, each with a trickle of immortal water flowing down it, and it was impossible to tell which one his voice came from.

He continued, “Your swamp was as clean as bathwater before I dipped a hoof in. Your mother was just a normal fish before I did her. Your father only turned green because he found out about us! You fat frog, you can take your bald green head and go home!”

“Have some shame! I said, have some shame!” Zhao Ze shot back, swelling up his enormous vocal sack to bellow, “You don’t know any, so I’ll give you some shame. I’ve never had any myself, because I’m always giving it away!”

And of course, the reason he could speak with such resolution was, he had Bu Bian waiting for his turn. A master of vulgarity! A true master!

He began, "If I know as little as a monk, then you're the kindest, gentlest elk that did ever gamble through the forest, running at even the barest hint of a profanity! You know only one curse, passed from your parents, from their parents, from their parents, and so on! And that's the curse of being a member of your family!" Bu Bian’s voice shook the whole of the cavern! His words were like thunder and his voice was sweet as milk, turning sour and sinister as he approached his devastating finale.

The actual spiritual energy within the cave seemed to have soured with these words, as if Bu Bian’s cursing could make the earth shake and the heavens weep. A passing snail happened to hear a few words and instantly became poisonous.

“Ai, well…” Gritting his teeth, the Ape-Faced Elk made an attempt to hold his ground, shouting, “You’re not qualified to use your tongue for anything but catching flies! Allow me to educate you! Your mother was a fish, as we’ve covered, and seven generations ago your ancestors were slime, the only creature that reproduces by splitting in two. And if you still reproduced by breaking up, you and your wolf bitch would have flooded this mountain with hopping whelps!”

“You, you-” Zhao Ze’s eyes blazed like fire. He would hold his own! He would be more than a lowly toadie begging his master to step in! With a roar he howled out, “As the great sages taught, better to have loved and lost, than to have been born destined to die alone! You really are shameful. Shamefully single! Shamefully impotent! Shamefully old, wrinkled, and proud to have made it so far by yourself. No wonder your cave is so small! I'd better be careful in case you try to sate your loneliness with me. Is that why you’ve tried so hard to lure me in? I'm sorry, but the the only thing I love about you is how pathetic you are!”

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His passionate roar resounded through the cavern, shaking dust from the ceiling and causing the walls to tremble. From one of the seven paths there was a sudden, choked sound, as if somebody was coughing up blood. Yes, his words were so foul that the Ape-Faced Elk was actually spraying blood from his mouth!

There was a legend that cultivators could actually die of fury or heartbreak, their dantians collapsing as they lost control of the shadows in their hearts. There were even soul manipulation techniques that could force this crisis to descend.

The Ape-Face Elk couldn’t stand their words! He couldn’t handle such vulgarity when he had one foot in the grave, knowing that he’d be remembered as a human-face pervert! With every word, Bu Bian and Zhao Ze were slapping his legacy into the dirt, crushing his dying dreams. His eyes were bloodshot and he coughed up blood again, the sound giving away the true path through the labyrinth.

And yet he couldn’t back down. There was no backing down! He was famous for his face, yes, famous for his wise dignity. When that face was slapped he had to fight back!

As Zhao Ze leapt through the caverns, threading the single true path through a labyrinth that stretched for countless kilometers through dark and slime, the venerable Ape-Faced Elk ground his teeth and prepared for his final offensive.

Finally, they reached a cave where water droplets fell from crystalline stalactites into perfect clear pools, creating a divine and quiet kind of music. It had always been a place of calm, the tranquil heart of the Elk’s many dignified meditations into the nature of the world.

And now it would echo with words like poison! So be it! He would slap back if it cost him his life! “Ai, you brats born from an egg have no respect for the elder generation! Don’t you understand you’re only inheriting the earth I’ve already pissed on? Even if you try to stick your nose up in the heavens, your fat belly would still drag on the ground! In a past life you must have really pissed off the gods! If you spent the rest of your life being a good little toad, you might qualify to be a hair on my tail!”

"Oh, you seem to know a lot about me. Have you been stalking me? Creepy!” Zhao Ze bellowed, glancing around the cavern. The voice had been close. “You should find someone your own age to obsess over!”

“I swear, if doing good would make me a hair on your tail, I'll never do good in my lives again. I'd sooner call on the heavenly judges to throw me straight to hell, just so I can escape you!” This was Bu Bian speaking, and the two worked together with perfect grace, trading off as they threw slap after slap at the old man’s face! “This is my pledge to the heavens, and may I croak immediately should I have to live under the same sky as a pervert like you!”

This time, it wasn’t just his words that resounded like thunder. Far overhead, a tremendous wind howled and claps of thunder rolled, threatening lightning. With a sound like a thousand bells the crystal stalactites overhead began to crack and fall like glittering daggers, shattering into sprays of a thousand razor sharp shards as they struck the cavern floor. They had gone too far and offended the very heavens by abusing their name in this battle. They had really gone too far!

“I could swear I didn’t say anything that bad. Isn’t this overreacting? I could have done worse!” Zhao Ze’s eyes had gone wide with fear, but Bu Bian was ready to argue with the heavens. “Really, isn’t the one at fault here this old goat that provoked me?”

In seconds, the ceiling had buckled and filled with cracks. A stalactite the size of a house came crashing down, and the whole of the cavern was shaken as it struck the ground, seemingly ready to collapse at any moment!

“Fool, you can’t argue your way out of this! Run!” Without hesitation, Zhao Ze seized control of their legs and leapt down a passageway he’d picked at random, leaving just as the ceiling came caving in behind them with a tremendous and musical crash like the breaking of a thousand bells.

They landed in a cavern that was full of limestone pillars and strange luminous plants. The walls were covered in precious firegems that glittered in the light from the glowing ferns, mushrooms, and pale flowers that sprouted from the floor.

And there, in the middle of the cavern, was the Ape-Faced Elk! The beast had the wise face of a gibbon and a body of golden fur, with silver horns and hooves. Its eyes were ancient and surrounded by a thick layer of dried blood. It lay on its side, nearly the size of a mountain, the blood that flew from its mouth as it coughed dripping into several great pools on the cavern floor.

The once great creature could no longer even stand. Other beasts would have sought out death in battle long before reaching this point, but to the Ape-Faced Elk, death was death! Any hope of survival was worth clinging to. The only thing he wouldn’t do to live was beg this brat of a toad named Zhao Ze. That was the last of his pride! “Hmmph! End it quickly then!” He turned his face away, refusing to look at Zhao Ze.

“Ai? But senior elk, I’ve come all this way to ask a few questions! First, I was wondering if you’d like to become our mighty Fiend’s second servant?” Lightning and thunder had ceased to rumble overhead, the heavens satisfied that they’d made their point, but even more shocking were the words coming out of Zhao Ze’s mouth.

“I- you-” For the space of three long breaths, the Ape-Faced Elk was unable to speak. “Didn’t you just say you’d rather croak than live under the heavens with me? Didn’t you just curse at me as if your heart was brimming with killing intent? My lifelong enemies wouldn’t speak to me that way!”

“Huh. Did I say that? Did I really say that? I wish I hadn’t said that, but in the heat of the moment I lose control of my mouth and things fly out. I guess I have no choice!” Striking a martial stance, Bu Bian lifted up his head -

- and croaked! A long, loud ribbit!

The Ape-Faced Elk’s eyes went very wide, and for a moment, all was silent. Then it tossed its head back and started to laugh. Raucous, wheezing laughter filled every one of the hundred caverns and thousand hallways of his underground labyrinth, for he really had been defeated by this brazen tongue.

This tongue that mocked the heavens!