Epilogue
AFTERNOON SUNLIGHT slanted into the office. A humidifier pumped out soft white mist. The couch for visitors was occupied by a coat that had been flung there haphazardly and was now wrinkled—not that its owner cared.
The room’s silence was broken only by the clacking of a keyboard. Zhao Yunlan was busy trying to edit a report, but the more he read, the more tightly his brows knit together. After a while, he picked up the intercom to the criminal investigation unit across the hall. The swearing started as soon as he opened his mouth. “Lin Jing, what’s this bullshit you wrote? Get the fuck over here! Now!”
It took only thirty seconds for Lin Jing to get the fuck over there. “Heh heh, you asked for me, boss?”
Zhao Yunlan unleashed a tongue-lashing. “How many spelling mistakes did you make in this report? Just try to count them, you illiterate fool! Don’t you care about improving yourself?! You’re here all day, but do you do a shred of real work—” He broke off. “What are you doing?”
Lin Jing was in no mood to pay attention to the tongue-lashing. He inched closer, adjusting his camera angle. “C’mon, boss, say cheeeeeese—”
Zhao Yunlan did not say “cheese.”
There was a click, and then Lin Jing excitedly showed Zhao Yunlan the selfie he’d taken of the two of them. Thanks to his position and angle, Lin Jing’s face was so close to the camera that it looked like a huge pancake; meanwhile, Zhao Yunlan’s foul expression and placement in the background made him look like a ghost haunting Lin Jing.
“You showed up in the picture!” Lin Jing was weirdly happy. “I thought primordial gods couldn’t be photographed by mortal instruments… Wait, I get it. It’s like with Shen-laoshi, right? This is just your physical manifestation in the Mortal Realm, and you can assume your original appearance whenever you want? Hey, can I take a picture with you looking like that? Just one?”
“Fuck off,” Zhao Yunlan snarled.
As quickly as he’d arrived, Lin Jing fucked off again.
After less than five minutes of calm, there was a knock at the door and Zhu Hong walked in. “Director Zhao, I’d like to withdraw my letter of resignation.”
Zhao Yunlan pointed toward his paper shredder with his chin. “Already done.”
“Oh.” There was a pause before Zhu Hong said, as though looking for something to talk about, “Then I need to take a day off tomorrow. It’s the fifteenth of the lunar month.”
“Got it.” Zhao Yunlan didn’t even look up. “Focus more on your cultivation from now on.” When she didn’t take the hint and leave, he finally spared her a glance. “Anything else?”
“There’s something I can’t help wondering about.” Zhu Hong leaned forward, lowering her voice. “Why did the branch that Shen Wei gave me grow a third bud? What made the first two grow in the first place?”
The look on Zhao Yunlan’s face suggested that he didn’t want to answer. But Zhu Hong was a girl, and he was usually a little more polite to girls—especially ones he’d ruthlessly friend-zoned.
“The first bud sprouted when he swore that oath with Shennong. The second one grew when he upheld his oath, and the third was when he decided to…” Zhao Yunlan stopped. A shadow crossed his face. “The Reincarnation Cycle couldn’t be created in the Place of Great Disrespect because the gui didn’t have souls. The three buds on the branch of the Great Divine Tree reflected the fact that the King of the Gui had gained three ethereal souls. Since the King of the Gui is connected to the Reincarnation Cycle, Chaos is no longer just lifeless doom; as a result, the gui, who devoured anything and everything, have also disappeared. Understand?”
Zhu Hong thought about it. “That seems…very profound. Where did the gui go, though?”
“The gui are a physical manifestation of Chaos,” Zhao Yunlan replied. “They’re gone, but they’re also everywhere.”
“Everywhere like the ever-burning Soul-Guarding Lamp?”
“Mnh.”
“Then what about you?” Zhu Hong asked. “Will you go back to Kunlun Mountain? Does the Soul-Guarding Order still exist?”
“I’m not going back.” Zhao Yunlan copied a document onto his portable hard drive, then threw the drive to Zhu Hong. “Put the official government header on that for me and add the department stamp. Kunlun Mountain doesn’t have the right conditions for cultivating the land and planting trees, so it’s not like I can open a bed and breakfast there. What would be the point in going back? So I could spend my days with a bunch of dumbasses worshipping me? No way.”
Zhu Hong caught the hard drive. “This all still feels a bit like a dream.”
“Oh?”
“I had a crush on Kunlun-jun! I sure know how to pick them!”
Zhao Yunlan just stared at her.
“Oh, one more thing.” Zhu Hong took a cardholder from her pocket and pulled out a hotel discount card. “I heard that you, O Great Immortal, can’t return to your own home, so I’m giving you this. It gets you forty percent off, so you can stop spending all your pay to put a roof over your head. This is all I can do to help you.”
Silently, Zhao Yunlan accepted the card before saying, “Fuck off.”
No sooner had Zhao Yunlan gotten rid of Zhu Hong than Chu Shuzhi strolled in and got comfortable in a seat right in front of him, studying the real live Kunlun-jun as if watching a peep show.
Throwing his mouse down on the desk, Zhao Yunlan asked, “Haven’t you people had enough?!”
“Just one question,” Chu Shuzhi said.
Zhao Yunlan’s temper flared. “I’ve never loved you! And yes, xiao-Guo is indeed the reincarnation of the Soul-Guarding Lamp’s wick, okay? You can fuck off now!”
“So he has merits bestowed by the Heavens, just like Nüwa?”
“Always doing the same thing, always being the same person, day after day, for tens of thousands of years, keeping the lamp burning—is that any less worthy than the act of creating humanity? If you don’t know what you’re talking about, keep your mouth shut. Don’t fucking embarrass me.”
Chu Shuzhi gave that some thought. “In other words, xiao-Guo is the goodness missing from your heart?”
“Fuck! Off!”
Chu Shuzhi was ready enough to fuck off, but when he reached the door, he rested a hand on the doorframe and threw one last retort over his shoulder. “Ah, there’s no one more ill-tempered than an unfulfilled old man who has to stay in a hotel instead of going home.” He slammed the door and bolted like a rabbit.
“…Fuck,” Zhao Yunlan muttered.
With nothing better to do, he killed time playing Minesweeper until the workday was finally over. But just as he was about to leave for the hotel, the door to his office was pushed open yet again. Daqing poked his head in. “Hey, someone’s here for you.”
Zhao Yunlan looked up in surprise. His blue-light glasses almost slipped down his nose. “I don’t have any appointments…”
Daqing ignored him, turned in place, and then nudged the door open with his butt. Addressing the person behind him, he said, “Come on in, Shen-laoshi.”
The expression on Zhao Yunlan’s face clouded over at the speed of light. In a brisk, professional tone, he said, “Sir, if you have a crime to report, you’ll have to do so at your local police station. We don’t take cases directly.”
It looked as if Shen Wei had come straight from teaching. His hands were still full of lesson plans. “Yunlan…”
“Excuse me, who are you? Don’t call me that, I don’t know you,” Zhao Yunlan said, cutting him off. “Sorry, sir, I hit my head two days ago. I’ve got amnesia, and my thinking is still a little fuzzy. I’m in no shape to accept guests for a while. Please close the door for me on your way out. Thanks.”