Boom.

A tremendous crash came from Mount Cang, shaking the birds and beasts of the forest into a frenzy as they scrambled to flee in every direction. Unbelievable — the little demon king who ran amok had finally brought her chaos to their corner of the forest. One might well ask: vast as Mount Cang was, was there any patch of pure land left to shelter in?

A small Daoist girl with her hair tied in a little bun, dressed in a blue-green robe, swept out of the forest. In one hand she held a bird that sizzled and crackled where it had been roasted by the lightning fire; in the other, she carried a shattered Eight Trigrams formation disc of thousand-year-old peachwood.

Her figure moved with extraordinary speed, nimble as a leopard — a few leaps and she had vaulted from the forest all the way to the mountaintop, landing before a flat meditation stone, and crept on tiptoe toward the person sitting on the stone.

“My ears aren’t deaf.” The little girl seated in meditation on the stone — also dressed in plain blue-green with her hair tied up, her posture ramrod straight even while sitting cross-legged — spoke coolly. “You made that much noise; the entire mountain ridge shook with it, rocks tumbling down, birds and beasts scattering everywhere. Even someone deaf could have felt it.”

“Ah Yue, can’t you just play along with me for once?” The little Daoist girl hopped up onto the meditation stone and sat down beside her. She shook the bird in her hand. “Look — I caught a Nine-Spirit Bird. Let’s split it between us and eat it together, strengthen our bodies, and absorb its spiritual essence.”

The eyes of the Tantai Imperial Princess twitched. “You killed a living creature!”

“Don’t worry — on my way here, I already recited the Supreme Scripture for Salvation from Suffering three times over for it. It has already attained the fullness of the Dao and gone to serve as a celestial bird before the Most High Honored One.” The little Daoist girl who went by the Daoist name Qingyi grinned cheerfully. “To be roasted like this, after having already become a creature of spiritual refinement, and then to be eaten by you and me — that is the fulfillment of its merit and the completion of its Dao. It got a good deal.”

The Tantai Imperial Princess looked at the girl who had grown up at her side, watching her argue her case without a flicker of shame, and was struck by the mischievous, uncanny little smile on her face. She turned her gaze — a pair of eyes like colored glass — to stare at the bird’s eyes, and forced out a single line: “Are you certain it is not simply dead with its eyes open in resentment?”

The little eyeballs were still round and wide open.

Qingyi said with great seriousness: “It walked willingly into the trap. There is no question of dying with unresolved grievances — only the logic of the victor and the vanquished.”

“Here, let me help it close its eyes.” As she spoke, her slender little fingers lightly pressed the skin above the bird’s eyes, pushing them shut. Best not to startle Ah Yue — her Ah Yue was a celestial fairy descended from the heavens above, after all.

The Tantai Imperial Princess: “…”

She turned to look at the shattered formation disc nearby, and pressed her lips together. “Master gave you the peachwood Eight Trigrams formation disc?”

This formation disc — whatever great number of years it had been a ritual implement — was extraordinarily powerful. As a talisman to carry on one’s person, it was something few things under heaven could match.

Qingyi’s body stiffened slightly. Conscience clearly uneasy, she made a vague sound of assent.

The Tantai Imperial Princess heard the irregularity in her tone and her expression shifted. “You stole it, didn’t you?” she asked, her voice serious.

Qingyi, startled, tore off one of the bird’s legs and said sheepishly, “It’s not really stealing — I just took it because I wanted to take the formation disc apart and figure out how it worked. I didn’t expect that after all my tinkering, the thing exploded. Ha, it must have been sitting around too long and gone off.”

The Tantai Imperial Princess laughed despite herself, eyeing the roasted bird. “Are you telling me it had nothing to do with catching the Nine-Spirit Bird?”

Using a ritual-implement formation disc to snare a bird — naturally that was exactly the sort of thing she would do.

She also inspected Qingyi’s person and saw that aside from a slightly singed hem and a few strands of burnt hair, nothing was damaged and she was uninjured. The expression in her eyes grew complicated.

With an explosion of that scale, a formation disc ruined in the process — and yet she had come out almost completely unscathed. What had she relied on for that? Natural ability, of course.

Ah Qing was only ten years old, and yet on all of Mount Cang, her Daoist arts were already second only to Master’s. She cultivated the Dao as easily as others eat and drink, to say nothing of her gift for conjuring talismans from the faintest spark of inspiration. Too fast. And that was what made it… dangerous.

The Tantai Imperial Princess instinctively recalled a glance she had once caught unawares, and shuddered, murmuring under her breath: “Brilliance beyond a certain point must bring harm. Don’t advance so quickly.”

“Hmm?” Qingyi asked, muffled by the bird leg in her mouth, then tore off another piece and wrapped it in a leaf, pressing it into the Tantai Imperial Princess’s hand. “Here.”

Ah Yue was the bright moon of the sky, a celestial fairy — her hands must not be dirtied.

The Tantai Imperial Princess looked at the bird leg in her hands, lowered her head, and sighed softly, long and quiet, without taking a bite.

She turned to look at Qingyi eating away with grease all around her mouth, and in those bright glass-clear eyes, a trace of envy surfaced. It would be good to be like Ah Qing — she would probably be happy, too.

Qingyi finished eating, took a sip of flower dew, and lay back on the meditation stone, hands tucked behind her head, gazing up at the clear blue sky. “Ah Yue, is the outside world fun?”

The Tantai Imperial Princess had just taken a bite of her meat, and looked up. “You want to leave the mountain? Master won’t allow it — he’ll punish you harshly.”

At age five, Qingyi had sneaked down the mountain and been caught by Master and brought back. She had been put in confinement, and was not released until she had destroyed two fierce ghosts inside the Ghost-Suppressing Formation.

She remembered that when Qingyi came out, her face had been completely white, her hands trembling, her body saturated with a thick ghostly aura — yet those eyes of hers had shone with a brightness that was startling. And Master — what had his expression been?

Gratified. Satisfied. Not the least trace of surprise.

The Tantai Imperial Princess hadn’t understood it then. Now she thought she might. That look had been one of confirmation — of certainty.

Certainty about what?

The Tantai Imperial Princess thought again of another expression she had seen on Master’s face, and felt a trembling in her heart. Her face went somewhat pale; her fingernails scraped against the meditation stone and snapped off two.

Qingyi said, “The Dao also lies in the mortal world among common people. Only through wandering and experience can one perceive the Grand Dao. I have been on Mount Cang for ten years, and I see only mountains as mountains, trees as trees. My cultivation has no room to advance.”

“Ah Qing — you are only ten years old. Why must you be in such a hurry?” A tightening in the Tantai Imperial Princess’s heart. “If the foundation is unstable, no matter how high one climbs, one will fall. You are still so young — don’t fly so high.”

“You’re unusually talkative today. Normally you reply to ten things I say with one answer. What is it?” Qingyi suddenly changed the subject, eyes bright and intent on her. “Did Master scold you?”

The Tantai Imperial Princess smiled bitterly. “Have you ever seen him scold me?”

He had no need to scold. A single glance already conveyed his dissatisfaction and disappointment.

But Qingyi was different. When she did poorly, he would scold her, hit her, even punish her. She envied that deeply — because it was what made one feel truly present, truly real in this world.

“Then what’s the matter with you?”

“We’ve grown up.” The Tantai Imperial Princess answered with something entirely different from what had been asked, her gaze drifting to the green mountains in the distance.

Growing up, one thought more. One saw people and events with new eyes.

“Ah Qing — you are still young. Wait a little longer.” The Tantai Imperial Princess suddenly fixed her with a look, her expression grave.

Qingyi didn’t understand. What was wrong with advancing in her cultivation?

She had the audacious ambition that one day she would surpass even Master himself — the ultimate act of irreverence, to topple him! But she was still small now; that could wait for later. Like the waves of the Yangtze River, the ones behind surging over the ones in front — sooner or later she would wash Master up onto the shore ahead of her. When that day came, he would surely not be angry but would laugh instead! After all, the student surpassing the teacher was something to be proud of.

Qingyi crossed her legs and swung them gently. Her eyelids soon drooped, and she gave off long, steady breaths as she drifted off to sleep.

The Tantai Imperial Princess watched her sleep, eyes complex, and rejoined her meditation with hands forming a seal — not knowing that beside her, the little fox of a girl had opened one eye to peek at her and then closed it again before quietly slipping her divine soul free from her body.

If they wouldn’t let her go down the mountain, she would send her soul out instead. Ha.

The mortal world was waiting — she had arrived.