Gaam Yuk Ying rejoined the carriage before it reached the outskirts of the city. Dzue Dziu Ming lifted his soft eyebrows in askance.

“Teem Djeung Baak.”

“Did you deal with her?”

“No.”

“But there’s no immediate danger?”

“She’s gone.”

The Regent nodded and sat back.

“Is something the matter, Your Majesty?” Cheon Maan Ging asked.

“Not at present, Your Highness. Sir Jade Exorcist has dealt with it.”

The princess turned her placid smile to Gaam Yuk Ying. “Thank you, Sir Jade Exorcist.”

The guards stopped jumping around and walked before and after the carriage, Gaam Yuk Ying following at the rear.

As the carriage pulled up to the main palace, two figures appeared at the doors, one rushing to greet them. Gong Ming Dzue stayed back, as the young noblewoman Mun Gong rushed forwards, her pale pink robes flapping in her haste. She almost stumbled to a halt as Dzue Dziu Ming left the carriage, then reached his hand out for Cheon Maan Ging as she stepped into the sunlight, blinking in astonishment at the towering buildings of Dzue.

Mun Gong bowed, hands gripped tightly. “Your Majesty.”

“This is Princess Cheon Maan Ging,” Dzue Dziu Ming said quietly. “Princess, Lady Mun Gong is of one of our oldest noble families and is similar in age to you. I hope you will get along.”

“I hope so too,” Cheon Maan Ging said in her soft voice, smiling at Mun Gong. “Let’s be friends, Lady Mun.”

Mun Gong smiled back. But when Dzue Dziu Ming and Cheon Maan Ging walked past, the look she turned on their backs might have set them on flames.

Gong Ming Dzue greeted Cheon Maan Ging and Envoy Laam graciously, although her eyes drifted over to where Mun Gong stood still in the courtyard, alone as the carriage was already pulling away to rest the horses.

“Sir Jade Exorcist.”

Gaam Yuk Ying turned his eyes towards Mun Gong. Her head lowered, she spoke as if to the ground. “That lady… Dziu Ming is going to marry her, isn’t he?”

“… I don’t know.”

“You don’t know, or you can’t say?” This girl was like a praying mantis, innocent-looking, but capable of vicious strikes.

“I don’t know.”

She raised blazing eyes at him. Gaam Yuk Ying’s hand unconsciously closed on the hilt of Yiu Tsing. There was Fire energy in that look. Not at a level that he would be concerned, and yet…

“Thank you for your time, Sir Jade Exorcist, and for bringing His Majesty back safely.” The flames were extinguished, and Mun Gong bowed. “Rest well.”

She turned, and walked away, away from the palace. Gaam Yuk Ying watched her go.

----------------------------------------

Barely a day had passed when the rare male loong, Dzit Dzan Fan, appeared at the palace with the news – the assembly was arranged, and it was time for the Dzue Regent to leave.

Dzue Dziu Ming and Gaam Yuk Ying sat on the loong’s long, scaled back, the former carefully wrapped in furs against the cold of the high altitude. Gaam Yuk Ying rode in his usual silence behind the king.

“Is there something you want to ask me?” Dzue Dziu Ming said, without turning around.

“No.”

“If you say so.”

The Dzue Regent was truly an interesting person. He had no cultivation, no special martial arts or alchemical skills, and the heavy black and gold robes of Dzue royalty didn’t suit his soft features. Yet he walked through the world with his head high and an almost sarcastic smile on his face at all times.

Gaam Yuk Ying stared at the back of Dzue Dziu Ming’s head.

How long would this man’s luck last?

Gong Lau Yan was waiting to greet them outside the portal. Before Dzit Dzan Fan even landed, Gaam Yuk Ying had jumped down.

“Teem Djeung Baak. She can create portals.”

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

The eyes of the loong princess immediately narrowed. “Run ahead and tell the others. I’ll guard Dzue Dziu Ming from here.”

The Demon Realm was as oppressive as ever, although the path from the portal towards the mountain had been repaired. A few demons clutched their pitiful weapons as Gaam Yuk Ying flashed by, but he ignored them.

He noticed, however, new and strange objects by the side of the path. They looked as though they had been unearthed during the repair process.

A broken pendent, that once had resembled an anatomical heart enclosed inside another, open one. Part of a statue, simply a flared wing made of some kind of mirror-black rock. Other detritus, that spoke of the civilisation that had once been here.

Gaam Yuk Ying only paused briefly to examine these things before he moved on.

At base camp, Cheng Baak-hap, eyes ringed with dark circles, was calling out orders left and right. Chan Bik was gathering papers, and it was clear that her cultivation had risen again. Gaam Yuk Ying doubted he could beat her in a race now.

There was no sign of Yuen Mu.

Or Wong Tang, for that matter.

He landed by Chan Bik’s side, and she immediately pushed a pile of scrolls into his arms. “Quick, there’s still a lot to prepare.”

Well, so much for a greeting.

Still, he stood still, letting her pile more and more into his arms until he was carrying a truly ludicrous amount.

“You’re not going to complain, are you? You’ve become much more coordinated in the time that I’ve known you. Don’t you think, Sing Sing?”

Cheng Baak-hap raised her eyes and Gaam Yuk Ying hopped easily away with his ridiculous pile. “Bik Bik, I don’t believe Gaam Si-hing was ever a clumsy person.”

“You have no idea! He crashed into things and tripped all the time!”

“I think that was Gaam Si-hing’s idea of a joke.”

A joke?

“Weirdo,” Chan Bik muttered.

Cheng Baak-hap pinched her cheek fondly. “Yes, yes. I wish my brother and I were half as close as you two. You should spar with him later to see how much faster you are.”

Her girlfriend grumbled but couldn’t help looking mollified. “You’ll see your brother soon.”

“You think this will be over soon, Bik Bik?” Cheng Baak-hap sighed. “I hope so.”

A large, round table had been set up in the shade of the mountain, and the demon nobles had already gathered around half of it by the time Dzue Dziu Ming and the other human representatives had arrived. One by one, the representatives bowed and took their own places, until every seat was filled. For once, Shikladak looked intensely uncomfortable. His strange demeanour had dropped, replaced with a hunted look. Wong Tang glanced at him over the drifts of smoke emanating from her pipe, and turned away.

Four of the demons at the table were familiar; the one that seemed entirely formed of blue frills, the humanoid with dark red skin and long earlobes, the ghostly pale one, and the one made of black smoke. There was no sign of the demon with the cracked brown skin. The red one grinned, his teeth sharp and triangular.

There was a new face, if that was the right description. Like the black smoke and white ghost demons, it had little in the way of shape, resembling a cloud or steam. However, it had a large and prominent mouth, with a long dangling tongue, like a ghost, and when it introduced itself, it spoke with a lisping voice. “I am Tiān Xīng.”

‘Heavenly Star’ was an extremely grandiose name, but Cheng Baak-hap explained that the demon had seen pictures of gypsophila flowers and thought they looked similar. The full name for gypsophila was mun tin sing, or Mǎn Tiān Xīng in the Xiang language but the demon had been persuaded to remove the ‘Mǎn’ as it was the name of the Mun noble human family.

The blue one introduced itself as Píng, to general amusement when it was determined that it meant ‘apple’ and not ‘peace’, but this amusement quietened down when it was questioned about the name. “Apples are tasty,” it said, “and I’m so hungry.”

How could anyone keep laughing at that?

The red-skinned one had the aggressive name Huǒ Tú, and like the usual Shikladak, he smiled almost continuously, although with sharp, triangular teeth. However, the leader of Wong was looking like a pale ghost of himself, although Näkṣātär appeared to have taken exception to Huǒ Tú’s face, so the two glared at each other across the table like animals prepared to fight.

The ghost-pale demon went by Dǎo, although it refused to explain which meaning the word carried.

Näkṣātär curled her lip, tossing out to Cheng Baak-hap, “I see you have continued to perpetuate that flaw of your language.”

“All languages use homonyms,” Cheng Baak-hap countered. The Dzang envoy did not respond.

The black smoke demon had a rolling voice, like storm clouds approaching, and the name it chose was Huán, meaning some type of owl.

Cheng Baak-hap had prepared rigorously. Not only were there dictionaries of terms of the new language available, but she had also created small tablets with common words on them, together with pictures, and pages of phrases that could be easily referenced.

Still, the discussions were painstaking. Flipping through books and scrolls, shuffling the tablets… and of course, emotions were high.

To summarise the demands of the demons, they wanted food, water, and above all, a safe place to live. It was hard to argue that these weren’t reasonable requests, but how many demons were there? A thousand? Ten thousand? A million?

Where would they live? Who would feed them? Would this be unending charity or would the demons be able to fend for themselves. Above all, the demons had already upset many humans with their actions, so would anyone in the Five Kingdoms be willing to live with them?

The answers to these questions were difficult. The demon nobles could give information about their own settlement, but not about others, so the rulers of the three kingdoms present couldn’t give answers to the remainder.

Elder Laan was particularly incensed. Mou Dang had been on the frontlines of protecting the people of Sek’seun from demon attacks. “What about reparations for the things they stole and the people they harmed?”

Once the meaning was translated across, Dǎo, the ghost-pale demon with sorrowful eyes, retorted, “You’ve killed plenty of our people in return. What’s there to repair?”

“You started it!”

“And you continued it.”

Wong Tang rapped on the table with her long nails. “Pointing fingers is not helpful. There are more useful ways to speak. I have had a question for a long time now, and I wonder… if the answer gives us a way…”

After hurried consultation of the dictionaries, everyone turned their eyes towards her.

She looked tired. Although she appeared old, she had previously had a boundless vitality and a ready wit, but now weary concern painted her face as she chose the words to phrase her question.

“This place… why is it like this? Or rather, how?”

There was no hesitation. Huǒ Tú pointed to a word in the dictionary, and everyone craned close to read it.

Shén.

God.