Tudi’s solution was his friend, a Fatewriter in the Hall of Terrestial Descent.

The Fatewriter, peering at me over the note from Tudi, looked amazed.

“We haven’t had a new addition to our workforce in decades. Everyone thinks this job is too tantalizing… you know, watching other deities go on mortacations to experience the mortal life when you can only write about it.”

A continuously moving dragon flew out of a hole in the floor. It snaked around the room before returning to the hole. The dragon was so long that as soon as its tail left the hole, its head would go right back in. On its back protruded spikes that held scrolls in the notches. Hundreds of deities sat in rows, grabbing the scrolls reflexively.

“The dragon comes directly from Yodu to bring life records with King Yan’s judgements. We, Fatewriters, use these scrolls to create a script for the mortal’s next life. In simple words, a good person becomes a king, and a bad person becomes a cockroach. The dragon then returns these new life scripts to Yodu for the Wheel of Reincarnation.”

“It’s a difficult job, you know? They,” the Fatewriter jutted his chin in the direction of Golden Gated Cloud Palace, “require each mortal life to be filled with sweet, sour, bitter, spicy experiences. Their lives script has to be creative enough to garner a repeat rate of less than 5%, inspirational enough for a transcendence rate of 1%, and happy enough for a suicidal rate of less than 20%--apparently mortals tend to kill themselves when their lives become too difficult, and then Yodu gods will complain about you when they get inundated with souls.”

He let out a sigh.

“On the other hand, this is a job with great potential. In a million years, you may rise to a Senior Fatewriter. In another million years, you may become Director of Fatewriter. In another million years, you could become the Head of the Hall of Terrestial Descent. And that, is a position of the Rhinoceros or Mandarin Duck rank.”

A million years? I had to scrutinize his face to make sure that he wasn’t joking.

“That’s not all. If you work hard, you may become a Fatewriter Emeritus.” He gestured to a group of gray-haired deities in corner. Each of them stared into a mirror-like device wearing stupid grins. Around them were tea and pastries. One goddess was so engrossed watching the device that she stuffed a pastry in her nose instead of her mouth.

“They are watching mortal lives for crimes and misconduct. Should they find any, they make note of these in the individual’s life record and send the revised version to Yodu for King Yan’s judgment.”

My heart skipped a beat. This could have been where things went wrong for the villagers. Someone was too busy stuffing his face with pastries and gave the villagers the wrong punishment. Then I remembered the yaoguai’s words. Or someone had instructions to do so.

“Where are old life records kept?” I asked.

The Fatewriter blinked, as if shocked by my interest.

“I would like to read some, er… to gain experience,” I lied.

The Fatewriter nodded approvingly and led me to a small room. I could barely contain my excitement. Somewhere on these nine shelves were the scrolls that could alter the fate of the villagers. I reached for one. It crumbled in my hand.

“Careful! Each of these big scrolls is actually made of thousands of tiny ones,” the Fatewriter exclaimed. He scratched his head. “We aren’t an important department, don’t have much room for storage.”

“How many scrolls are in this room?” I asked hoarsely.

“Trillions,” he replied.

Trillions… trillions… trillions… I couldn’t bear to calculate how long it would take to get through them all.

The Fatewriter cleared a table for me immediately and pushed a pile of empty scripts towards me. Apparently no training was required. As I pressed my brush to the paper, I felt the tether between Huayu and me fade away. I was no longer his disciple. Our paths would not cross again. When it did, I would just be a stranger to him, perhaps even worse than a stranger.

Thankfully, writing scripts only required knowledge of basic characters and not damned prosody. The workload kept my mind off Huayu, most of the time.

Gratitude, it had to be gratitude that I felt towards Huayu, gratitude and nothing else. Didn’t Ahu, whom I saved by sucking on his snake bite, follow me around like a puppy for months after? He only stopped after he was struck by lightening as my 7th date. Speaking of which, I forgot to confront Huayu for his date-wrecking!

“Remember the distressed he caused you,” I hissed at myself. “Stop obsessing about him.”

I wrote “STOP OBSESSING” in my script by accident and had to rip it up.

I wrote from sunrise to sunset and searched old life records during breaks. At nights, I went back to my deserted room. The Fatewriter did not arrange accomodations for me at the Hall of Terrestial Descent. The candidates had all moved to the palaces of their shifu, including Shangtian. Since no candidates would occupy these rooms for another year, no one noticed my existence.

I ate alone and slept alone. Sometimes, it was so quiet that I could hear my own breathing. During times like these, I sorely missed the village. We would be sitting under the moonlight, listening to a story told by the grandmas. One family would cook something special and share it with everyone. If only that yoaguai never appeared…

I seemed further away from saving the villagers, from finding the real culprit, from learning the truth. I sighed as I stared at the empty bed across from me. Even Shangtian, I rarely saw anymore. Her roommate at Queen Vesper’s palace was now Barette.

“You must be learning so much with his highness,” Shangtian said when we finally met.

I still couldn’t bring myself to tell her what happened with Huayu. Luckily, she didn’t notice.

“Her majesty has been teaching me how to manage account books. Watch this,” she said excitedly.

Her hand smoothed over what appeared to be a giant abacus. Instead of ten disks in each column, there were a hundred. On it, she stuck a Fu. The disks began to fly up and down.

“There! I created this Fu myself. It just calculated the entire allowance of fairies this month. This ensures that we don’t go into a deficit,” explained Shangtian. “Barette showed me how to draw a Fu for flying without casting a cloud. Want me to stick it on your dress to try?”

I had never used a Fu before. It was amazing what a little piece of paper with strange designs could do. I could think of a million things for which I wanted to create a Fu: one for invisibility so I didn’t have to curtesy all the time, one to make brushes write by themselves so I could take a break from scripts, one for reading Huayu’s mind…

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“Not now,” I replied with a voice that didn’t belong to me.

I spend the entire tea session listening to Shangtian talk about her lessons. I kept my head down so she wouldn’t see the envy in my face. When out teapot was half-empty, I made an excuse and fled.

But word was getting out that I was kicked out of Huayu’s palace. Apparently, gaining Huayu as a shifu and then losing him was like allowing a fat pig to run away right before slaughter, or allowing a cellar full of grains to flood on the eve of winter. My rise and fall seemed to ignite fears in fellow classmates’ hearts that it could happen to them too, or worse, that I was now on the prowl for one of their shifu. They avoided me like I was a rotting cabbage. I didn’t care about the opinions of strangers. I was just glad that Shangtian didn’t know.

“Ziyan!” A voice cried the next morning.

I looked up from behind my pile of scrolls. Standing in the street were Shangtian and Barette. They were dressed in glistening official robes. From the embroidery, I could tell that Shangtian and Barette were now goddesses of the eighth rank.

Shangtian looked up at the panel that read “Hall of Terrestial Descent” and back at me.

“Why aren’t you with his highness?” She asked.

“Uh, I’m running an errand for him,” I lied, keeping my eyes on the scroll in front of me.

“Drop the act, it is all over Pillowbook. You are writing scripts. Only those employed by the Hall of Terrestial Descent do that,” Barette said with hands on her hips.

A thousand lies flashed through my head. Not one sounded plausible.

I sighed and confessed.

“I can’t believe his highness would throw you out over a poem!” Shangtian exclaimed. “How absurd!”

I nodded eagerly.

“It’s understandable that a god of his highness’s rank and status would only want a disciple of the highest moral aptitude,” Barette said.

I felt my cheeks heat up. I hadn’t seen Barette since the ceremony.

“Barette, I’m sorry about the Bai Shi ceremony. You should have won. I didn’t deserve it,” I said.

Barette bit down on her lip. I understood immediately it was a mistake to bring up the subject.

“We all got what we wanted: Barette and I are studying with her majesty, and you are…” Shangtian changed the topic quickly. “Let’s go shopping.”

She grabbed my hand, but I gestured towards my pile of scripts.

“I haven’t finished yet.”

“That’s not urgent,” Barette dismissed.

Shangtian dragged me down the courtyard of the Golden Gated Cloud Palace. I wanted to tell her how relieved I was not to have to hide the truth from her anymore, but she was engrossed in a conversation with Barette about what fabric to use in Queen Vesper’s new dress. I could think of nothing to add to their discussion.

“You need to apologize to his highness.” Barette turned to me and said suddenly. “He is arguably the most important god in all of Shenjie! For you to embarrass him like that does not bode well for your future.”

I remembered the last time she told me to apologize.

“You definitely aren’t the first or the last to be cast out of Azure Vault Palace,” Shangtian comforted. “According to Pillowbook, he refuses the advances of multiple goddesses every day!”

That was probably true. Pillowbook was a communications system in Shenjie. When someone wanted to talk, they simply wrote a message in the book, which then showed up on everyone’s book. It was rather entertaining to read. Who got in an argument with whom? Who offended whom? Huayu dominated the Emotional section that focused on the dating scene in Shenjie. Unlike in the village where the matchmaker dictated matches, Shenjie gods and goddesses found partners themselves. Some were more proactive about it than others.

“He seemed so different from the first time we met.” I hesitated. I was still certain that he was the date-wrecker. And he came to give me a present for my birthday, despite how far-fetched these ideas seemed now. “That day, he looked…”

The look in his eyes when he stared at me etched into my mind, like sharp claws upon bare flesh.

“—He looked in your direction. He smiled at you. He must like you! Goodness, Ziyan, you sound exactly like everyone else!” Barette said with a roll of her eyes.

Shangtian broke out in giggles. I cleared my throat.

“Over there,” Barette said, pointing at a dark brown building that exuded a woody fragrance.

I wanted to ask what she wanted, but Shangtian already walked in behind her.

Inside the store were dozens of gods, some bent over papers with brushes, others rapidly moving the pieces of abacus.

“We are looking to purchase some items,” Shangtian said to the god who came over.

“Welcome to Hundred Wishes Emporium. We make your dreams come true.” He gestured towards the displays of canopy made of ropes of pearl, lanterns lit by magical beads from the East Seas, model cities carved out of jade… I didn’t dare to think how much chi these things would cost.

“I don’t know,” Shangtian said nervously, “something small, more practical.”

The god looked disappointed.

“How about a portable potpourri?” Barette suggested to her. “All the fairies in her majesty’s palace carry one.”

“You ladies are from her majesty’s palace?” The god perked up visibly. He led us to an elderly god with wrinkled fingers and hunched back. “This is our most experienced artisan. Usually he doesn’t pick up a brush for under five mililiters of chi. I’ll give you a discount, two potpourri only five mililiters of chi and you ladies put in a good word for me with her majesty?”

I bit my lip. Chi was not required to write scripts, so the Fatewriter had not taught me how to harvest it. I stared painfully at all the things that I liked to have.

“One for me,” Barette ordered.

The god nodded and turned to Shangtian.

“One for me,” Shangtian ordered as well.

The god nodded and turned to me.

“I don’t like potpourri.”

The lie tumbled out of my mouth before I could stop myself. One milliliter was the monthly salary of a fatewriter, which I wouldn’t receive for another few weeks.

The god wrinkled his nose. “Everyone in Shenjie uses potpourri.”

“Maybe I don’t stink like everyone,” I retorted.

“Preposterous! Who do you think you are? Chila? The Goddess of Flowers?” the god said with a laugh.

I did a double take. I knew Chila exuded a fragrance that attracted butterflies, but was the Goddess of Flowers naturally fragrant as well? How strange that the leader of demons and a Shenjie goddess shared the same quality.

Barette thrusted a potpourri into my hand.

“No, Barette, I don’t need—”

“A token of our friendship,” Barette said with a smile.

“Barette and I will split the cost,” Shangtian added eagerly.

My cheeks flushed with shame, but I could not refuse. So I turned to the shopkeeper.

“Generic design, mediocre material, this potpourri is only worth 1 milliliter of chi,” I said, remembering how I bartered with town merchants.

The god’s brows flew to his hairline.

“Preposterous! I only sell quality items!”

I held out my right arm to Shangtian.

“What do I smell like?” I asked.

“Um, like you,” she replied with a blush.

I set down the potpourri dramatically.

“This potpourri is filled with spices, yet she smells only me. Does it work? I think not!”

The shopkeeper’s eyes bulged. On my right, Shangtian bowed her head in embarrassment. Barette took a step to the left as if to put some distance between us. I didn’t care. The Village Chief had always taught us that it was a sin to buy anything without haggling first.

“Three potpourri for 5 mililiters of chi and we will take them,” I offered.

In the end, Barette and Shangtian spent the same amount of chi as if they didn’t give me a gift. I felt a little better. The god (visibly less attentive) took a device that drained chi from Barette and Shangtian fingers and left brusquely after leading us to a young artist. I recognized the artist as a fellow candidate, who clearly just begun to paint. But he recognized us and took great care in his paintings. Three surprisingly pretty potpourri flew from his paper when he was done.

“That. Was. Mortifying.” Barette declared when we left the store. “You should be able to afford a potpourri and not have to haggle,” she said as she thrust the object in my hand.

Shangtian nodded in agreement.

“I will have chi,” I said defensively. “Eventually.”

“At this rate, you will become the most undecorated Shenjie Champion ever. What does that say about me, the second place?” Barette asked.

I fell silent.

“Are you good at creating scripts for mortals?” Barette asked.

“Well, if by good you mean, dramatic and emotional—”

“If you are, Queen Vesper may be able to help,” Barette said, tapping her chin.

“But Barette, Ziyan snubbed her majesty in front of everyone. Why would she help?” Shangtian reminded softly.

“I’ve got a plan,” Barette replied.

I shook my head.

“Do you want to save your people or not?” Barette snapped.

“I’m trying the best I can!” I snapped back.

“Then come with me,” Barette replied firmly. She cast a cloud for the three of us and headed west. I was silent as we flew, while Shangtian fidgeted nervously. I had not, in my lowest moments, considered going to Empress Vesper for help. I may have, while writing a particularly boring script, daydreamed about Huayu regretting kicking me out, or another time, imagined Huayu on his knees apologizing to me. That Empress Vesper could help both bewildered and excited me.