From her place in the sea of clouds above Penglai, Nüwa had disintegrated. Her three ethereal souls formed the new Great Seal, her body turned into Houtu, and her seven corporeal souls landed in the thousands of mountains and bodies of water. Thin blades of grass grew from the cracks in rocks, revealing the green of new birth.
At some point, Shennong, old and doddering, had climbed up to the peak. “I’m leaving too,” he told Kunlun-jun. Then he fell to the ground, body turning rigid in death. His divine spirit, so long suppressed within a human body, whistled as it flew into the ground and became the Reincarnation Cycle. Something seemed to draw the souls that wandered in the air night and day, and they followed after him.
The earth gently quaked, steadied by the Mountain-River Awl. The Reincarnation Dial atop the Three-Life Rock began to spin, and the Merit Brush floated above the Ancient Merit Tree. As it rose out of the thousands of zhang of the Wangchuan’s waters, every soul now had a record of their merits and sins.
“One last thing,” Kunlun-jun said softly. The sky above him was suddenly covered in dark, heavy clouds. Lightning flashed, as though divine retribution was about to crash down upon them. “My soul fire set the Place of Great Disrespect alight. Its flame spurred the gui out of the mud, yet I left them to their own devices rather than caring for them. I decided all on my own whether the gui should live or die. It truly is a great sin. But there is one last thing I need to do.”
As Zhao Yunlan watched, Kunlun-jun extracted his heart’s blood and turned it into a wick while his body became a lamp. He suddenly felt like he had always known that these things had happened—not just from the Great Divine Tree or the Rock of the Great Seal but from living through them himself. It was as though he had briefly forgotten them and now remembered.
Thus was the Reincarnation Cycle created. Life and death became a circle, and life and death were no more.
Kunlun’s primordial spirit left his body; the mighty mountain winds swept past the little King of the Gui, who was crying himself sick. Then they both went down to the Huangquan River to guard the gate of the Great Seal.
Zhao Yunlan turned to Shen Wei. “And then what happened? Why did you say Shennong was your sworn enemy?”
Shen Wei was slow to answer, looking in the direction that the despondent little King of the Gui had gone. Finally, he murmured, “Actually, I have great respect for Shennong. He was truly more like a god than you or Nüwa.”
“Wait.” Zhao Yunlan raised a hand to stop him, brow furrowing as he thought. “This is all your fault for not being honest with me. Your lies are all over the place, but there’s a glimmer of truth in every direction. Trying to make sense of it is giving me a headache. Let me get this straight. When Nüwa created humans, Kunlun, my past life, was a little dumbass with zero filter who was barely out of diapers. I said there was something in the mud of creation, so Nüwa realized that humans had inherited the three worms—greed, wrath, and delusion—from the mud they were made from. Is that when Nüwa foresaw the inevitable Great War of Gods and Demons that would be brought about by humanity?”
Shen Wei nodded. “Yes.”
“Later, Nüwa called Fuxi over. The two of them built the Great Fuxi Seal that suppressed the flames in the ground, and that’s how the Place of Great Disrespect came to be,” Zhao Yunlan continued. Then his tone changed. “Oh, right, I wanted to ask. Legend says the two of them were a couple. Is that true or false?”
“…True,” Shen Wei answered.
“Wow, sometimes gossip gets it right! Okay, after the Fuxi Seal was created, everything was peaceful for a few short years, but the Great War of Gods and Demons happened anyway, which was the Yellow Emperor versus Chiyou. As they fought, Chiyou realized he was about to lose, so his spirit left his body and went to Kunlun Mountain to find Kunlun-jun. He begged Kunlun-jun to take care of his underlings—the wu and yao—but since Kunlun-jun was the type who’s too lazy to rotate the ring of flatbreads around his neck to eat the next one, he didn’t want to deal with that. Unfortunately, the god kneeling and kowtowing up the mountain every step of the way like he was worshiping heaven and earth was just a little too much, and also, Kunlun-jun had a stupid gluttonous cat that unknowingly licked some of Chiyou’s blood. That meant Kunlun-jun had to come out and return the favor, and he finally agreed.
“By the way, that stupid troublemaker of a cat is Daqing, right? God-fucking-dammit! I always knew that damn fatty was going to fuck shit up for his father!”
“In the first Great War of Gods and Demons, Kunlun-jun was able to preserve both the wu and yao. He gave them a place to live and cultivate and looked after them for many generations. But the peace didn’t last very long before the second War of Gods and Demons began. This time, it was an internal conflict between the Yellow and Flame Emperors. The Water God, Gonggong, and Zhuanxu, descendant of the Yellow Emperor, faced off against each other, while Houyi tried to take advantage of how chaotic everything was. The Three Realms descended into messy conflict, and the wu and yao were dragged into it once again. Since there were more humans, wu, and yao around this time than there had been before, more of them died, providing Shennong with more specimens. Shennong reached two conclusions: that death is Chaos, and that the souls who are not content with Chaos cannot find peace and are therefore in more pain. Humanity—Nüwa’s creation—lived unhappy lives and died in pain, so Shennong and Nüwa discussed ways to break away from death forever. That’s when Shennong thought of reincarnation.”
There was an edge to Shen Wei’s laugh. “Perhaps it was simply because he himself had become mortal and had to face a mortal life: short like a cicada, born in the spring and dying in the fall. Perhaps it was only because he was afraid of death.”
Zhao Yunlan shook his head. “Later, in the name of ‘soul-guarding,’ Shennong asked for the soul fire from my left shoulder. But when he passed by Buzhou Mountain, he unfortunately got caught in the crossfire when Gonggong carried out the world’s first suicide bombing, and he dropped the fire.”
“I think he did it on purpose.” Shen Wei scoffed. “He was just afraid of not being able to justify it to Nüwa, so he found an excuse. He wanted to set up reincarnation deep beneath the surface from the very beginning.”
“Okay, you can let go of your grudge. He’s already suffered retribution.” Zhao Yunlan pulled out a cigarette and lit it, squatting down on the ground. Like a large monkey, he rested his arms on his knees and carelessly polluted the air at the top of the divine mountain.
“Then, after the accidental creation of the gui, Shennong realized you were missing something: you didn’t have souls. Not only was it impossible to build the Reincarnation Cycle on top of you, but as soon as the Great Seal opened even a crack, you’d go to the surface and bring ruin upon all living things. The sky leaked and the earth sank, so the gods collectively brought the living up onto Penglai. The wu were abandoned because they forgot the hand that fed them while the humans and the yao survived. Nüwa repaired the sky and turned into the earth; Shennong’s body died of old age as his spirit turned into the Reincarnation Cycle; Kunlun gave the blood of his heart to seal the Four Pillars and then finally gave up his divine form and sent his primordial spirit to keep watch over the Great Houtu Seal. I think I get it now.”