She had taken over the bed, leaving Rong Chen Zi unable to sleep properly at night — yet he was mindful of her status as Sea Emperor, and fearing a breach of secrecy, he dared not sleep elsewhere. Fortunately, the bed in his chamber was wide. He sat in meditation at the bedside, taking care not to so much as let the hem of his robe touch her.
The creature slept with spectacularly unrefined form — curling herself into a round little ball on the bed. Before long, she turned over in her sleep and a pair of small feet emerged. Her feet were of extraordinary beauty: delicate toenails coated in a kind of balm that gave off the warm, lustrous sheen of pearls. Her skin was luminously fair and translucent; a red braided cord was tied around her right ankle, threaded with a string of exquisite little bells. She looked every bit like a lively, playful young woman of the mortal world — not a trace, not even a half-trace, of Sea Emperor about her.
Do not look at what is improper. Rong Chen Zi turned his face aside, lifted the edge of the quilt, and covered her completely.
Outside the door came a faint rustling sound, like wind passing over paper. Rong Chen Zi’s eyes snapped open. He stretched out his right hand, lightly bent the nail of his index finger against his palm, and gathered a pinch of vermillion cinnabar from the small table beside the bed. He murmured a brief incantation and flicked his index finger. The cinnabar shot out in a scatter of vivid red sparks like firelight.
Outside the door, several paper cranes were drifting. The moment the cinnabar touched them, they ignited, burning with a dim blue flame — a cold fire, it seemed, that did not spread to other combustible materials. In a matter of moments, the paper cranes that had been attempting to approach the window were reduced to powder and dust.
Rong Chen Zi’s expression was solemn. It appeared that some within Daozong still harbored doubts.
Early the next morning, Rong Chen Zi had barely finished washing up when a village resident came running in a panic, saying that his sister-in-law had fallen ill with some strange affliction, and begging Rong Chen Zi to attend to her. Since Qingxu Temple had been established on Lingxia Mountain, most of the demons and evil spirits in the vicinity had retreated. So when Rong Chen Zi heard this report, he was genuinely surprised. He went into the room to change his clothes, intending to depart immediately.
The Sea Emperor was still asleep on the bed. Rong Chen Zi, being strict about propriety, could not change his clothes in the room with her, so he had to make do with the secret room instead. He was adjusting his sash when she came bounding in — white gauze thin but not transparent, making her look very pure: “Rong Chen Zi, where are you going to play?”
Rong Chen Zi had no time for her: “Down the mountain.”
She stood barefoot on the floor, the bells at her ankle chiming softly with a clear, pleasant sound: “I want to go too!!”
Rong Chen Zi straightened his appearance in the mirror. If in the past few days he had maintained a semblance of politeness toward this creature out of respect for her status as Sea Emperor, he now regarded her as thoroughly hopeless: “This humble Daoist is going to perform an exorcism and treat the sick. What use would you be?”
The creature was displeased: “It doesn’t matter! I want to go!!”
Rong Chen Zi’s Daoist robes were snow-white, and from him emanated a faint fragrance, part medicinal, part floral: “The mountain path is not easy going. What would you do down there? Besides, if anyone sees you, how would that look?”
“I don’t care!” The Sea Emperor grabbed hold of his wide sleeve with an air that plainly said: if you don’t take me, I won’t let you leave. Rong Chen Zi, mindful of the proprieties between men and women, did not wish to touch her and tried every means to free himself — all without success. Finally, at his wits’ end, he bit open his index finger, swiftly drew a talisman seal in his palm, and without another word pressed it to her forehead.
That at last quieted the creature. She stood there in a daze, motionless. Rong Chen Zi wrapped her snugly in a quilt, carried her back to the bed, and only then drew down the gauze curtain. So far he had not discovered any remarkable abilities in this Sea Emperor whatsoever, and he worried about her being cooped up. He left her head uncovered before letting the curtain fall.
He had not anticipated how badly things would look when he returned in the evening.
After bathing and changing, Rong Chen Zi entered the secret room to find the creature in tears, weeping like a person dissolved. The restraining talisman had not yet been released, so her crying made no sound — but her tears had soaked half the pillow. Rong Chen Zi was thrown at once into a state of flustered helplessness.
He had entered the Daoist life from childhood. In matters of magical combat, he had no fears; in lecturing on the scriptures, he was equally at ease. Had the creature chosen to fight him, he could have handled himself perfectly well; had she argued with him, he had a cartload of reasoned retorts ready. But when she wept, he was completely at a loss.
He fetched a damp cloth to wipe the restraining talisman from her forehead, rubbed his hands together, thought for a long while, and finally said: “Don’t cry!”
The creature still lay on the bed ignoring him entirely, her tears flowing even more freely. Rong Chen Zi was caught between laughter and exasperation. He thought it over — everyone in the temple was a male disciple, his martial sister was also far away, and there was truly no one to comfort her. He was at a complete loss: “I… I’ll go see what there is to eat in the kitchen. Don’t cry.”
He went quickly and returned quickly, carrying several large trays. He had not called for Qingxuan or Qingsu, not wanting them to see the situation. The minds of the young were prone to flights of imagination — seeing her weeping like this, who could say what conclusions they might leap to about what he had done.
He brought the trays to the bedside and kept his voice as low as possible: “Here — have some pastries, and stop crying.”
The creature turned her head away and went on weeping, not touching a single pastry. Rong Chen Zi grew so troubled his head began to ache. When his master had once passed down to him the secret methods of their lineage, and he had retreated into solitary contemplation, even then he had not felt so tangled up. He fidgeted and paced about the room, glancing out at the sky as it gradually darkened — and at last, clenching his jaw: “All right, all right, I’ll take you out, I’ll take you out! Get up, we’ll go down the mountain and buy candied fruit. Please stop crying!”
At this, the creature finally showed some reaction. She raised her head, eyes still shimmering with tears, expression somewhere between belief and doubt: “Really?”
Rong Chen Zi sighed: “Really, really!”
He returned to his own chamber and found a black cloak to drape over her, covering her thoroughly. The Sea Emperor bent her head to sniff at the cloak. The garment was one he had worn, and it carried his scent — that fragrance, part medicinal, part floral, beguiling and irresistible.
Lingxia Mountain was no small height, and an ordinary person would take at least one or two hours to descend. But Rong Chen Zi’s pace was rather different from an ordinary person’s. The creature behind him had lived in the ocean for so long that the flowers and plants of the mountain felt entirely novel to her. Even at night her eyes were sharp, and she frequently came to a dead stop over a butterfly she had spotted.
On the mountain, there were ripe hedge roses, golden-yellow. She looked up in delight: “Rong Chen Zi, can you eat those?”
Rong Chen Zi looked. Well — forget going all the way down the mountain; a walk around the mountainside would probably keep her perfectly happy. The thought of it made him relax somewhat: “Yes — though the thorns will prick your hands. This humble Daoist will go pick some. Stay down here and wait, and don’t wander off.”
The creature spun in a circle, the golden bells at her ankle chiming: “Ah-ah, I want that biggest, most golden one!”
Rong Chen Zi picked quite a number of hedge roses, looked around to make sure no one was in sight, and untied the sash at his waist. The sash, when spread wide, was quite broad. He bundled all the hedge roses inside and leapt down from above. The creature ran over and sampled one first. Hedge roses are sour, faintly sweet, with a mild astringency — a refreshing wild fruit.
Rong Chen Zi touched the fine thorns covering a hedge rose and said nothing for a moment. Seeing that she hadn’t spoken for some time either, he finally broke the silence: “How is it?”
The creature chewed for a long while: “Not bad — just pokes the mouth a little.”
“…”
For the rest of the journey, Rong Chen Zi deliberately led her toward places with wild fruit, clear springs, and tumbled stones. Seeing that she was happily entertained, he more or less forgot his original intention of descending the mountain. Coming to a mountain spring, the creature was very pleased — she shed her cloak, flipped forward, rolled into the waterfall, and transformed into a large river clam about four feet long.
Rong Chen Zi was utterly baffled. A river clam — how in the world had it cultivated its way into the Sea Clan?! And ultimately become the Sea Emperor, no less.
This was simply an unfathomable mystery.
Rong Chen Zi was still puzzling over it when a sudden and heavy demon energy surged skyward around them. His first instinct was to check on the great river clam in the waterfall — the creature seemed to sense something was wrong as well, and was looking around in startled suspicion.
Not her.
Rong Chen Zi quietly made a hand seal. Before long, a mass of white mist in the night sky slowly condensed into a human shape. The silhouette resembled a young woman in her prime, but the voice shifted between male and female: “It is widely said that Daozhang Rong Chen Zi strictly upholds Daoist principles and keeps himself from women — yet it turns out you have merely been deceiving the world.” The figure drifted to stand before Rong Chen Zi and switched to a soft, gentle female voice: “A Daozhang of such fine appearance and bearing — you could find any manner of demon you wished, and yet you’ve settled on a clam spirit.”
Rong Chen Zi’s patience was exhausted.
He was the reincarnation of Lucun Xingjun, born inheriting the bloodline of a deity; the fragrance of his flesh and blood held an enormous allure for demon creatures, and according to certain accounts, whoever tasted the flesh of an immortal could attain eternal life. Thus throughout his life he had always been surrounded by countless demons — those who feigned affection to get close to him, and those who simply tried to take by force, were all too numerous to count.
Before, his master had protected him on all sides. Over time, Rong Chen Zi had forged his own set of formidable abilities. Now, no matter how beautiful the true form of any demon he encountered, he could no longer summon even the slightest trace of a distracting thought.
Seeing the mist-demon drawing ever nearer, he curled the fingers of his right hand and flicked — summoning his sword. The mist-demon retreated a step, and in a hoarse male voice said: “How heartless of you, Daozhang. You can take the clam spirit out for a shared bath, yet you won’t allow anyone else within a single step. In what way does anyone fall short of this clam spirit, pray tell?”
Rong Chen Zi felt his skin prickle with goosebumps from his forehead outward. His flying sword condensed into a shaft of golden light. Meanwhile, the river clam had already crawled up onto a great boulder at the edge of the waterfall, beside which sat Rong Chen Zi’s sash — still bundled around what remained of the hedge roses. She had reverted to human form, was using the sash to rub the thorns off the hedge roses, and tossed one into her mouth, then called out helpfully: “Rong Chen Zi, it wants to bathe with you — why not go ahead and bathe with it first.”
Rong Chen Zi ignored this and engaged the mist-demon in battle. The golden light hemmed in all four directions, but the mist-demon had no solid form. It dispersed into mist and made its escape. As it withdrew, it left behind a parting line in a low, husky male voice: “Rong Chen Zi — I’ll definitely be back!”
The river clam sat upon the boulder, eating hedge roses, greatly amused.