3
“ACTUALLY, THE MORE I think about it, the stranger this situation seems,” Shen Wei said that night while slicing ham in the kitchen. “There are always those with stronger abilities than others. I can’t say for certain that there’s no one out there who could copy something I made, but that envelope was quite crude. A single touch would tell any true master that each seal was different. How could they be so stupid as to forge hundreds of copies of the same one?”
Zhao Yunlan leaned against the cabinet. Rather than helping out, he was making more work for Shen Wei: every time Shen Wei cut a slice of ham, Zhao Yunlan ate it right off the cutting board. “What if they used some sort of powerful artifact? None of the yao are what they used to be, but each tribe has its own long-standing history. Maybe someone has a fun toy that’s been passed down through the generations.”
Shen Wei finished slicing the ham. He paused and considered that notion, then turned to grab a ceramic plate. “But I can’t think of anything that was…”
Anything powerful enough to duplicate a seal made by the Soul-Executing Emissary, a King of the Gui, but used on such a menial task? What kind of artifact could it be?
A Pangu-brand photocopier?
Shen Wei turned back with the plate for the ham, only to realize that the cutting board was empty.
When Shen Wei fell silent, Zhao Yunlan followed his gaze, hastily finished chewing, and swallowed the evidence. Then, the very picture of innocence, he stretched out his back.
“Isn’t it salty?” Shen Wei inquired.
Zhao Yunlan was about to flee the kitchen to avoid punishment when his heart suddenly skipped a beat. Shen Wei looked up at the same moment. The two of them glanced southward.
“What was that?” Shen Wei asked.
“I don’t know, but…” Zhao Yunlan squinted. “It feels like…the Three Sovereigns…” The phone cut him off. “Hello? Zhu Hong?”
“Lao-Zhao, something’s happened to my fourth uncle!”
“Slow down and explain.”
“You know how he went to the South Sea? My tribe just contacted me and said the lamp representing the chief’s life has gone out! My uncle, he—”
“Calm down for a second,” Zhao Yunlan said. “When a great yao dies, there’s always some kind of portent to announce it. It wouldn’t happen so quietly. Maybe there’s been an accident that’s blocking his connection to his lamp. Ask your tribe to bring the lamp here, and Shen Wei and I will go take a look.”
There was no time for dinner now. Shen Wei hurriedly packed his half-prepared ingredients into the fridge. They’d just have to get takeout when they got back.
One of the Snake tribe’s elders arrived promptly with Fourth Uncle’s lamp of life. With it in hand, Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan teleported straight to the South Sea.
The tourism boom in the South Sea meant that things had been steadily going downhill for the South Sea Water tribe. Young yao, drawn to the dazzling human world with its sunshine, beaches, and coconut trees, no longer did anything but wear floral shorts and fool around among the tourists. But when these tourists’ vacations were over, they went back home and got back to work or school; the naive little yao, on the other hand, just moved on to the next wave of tourists and kept playing. As a result, they weren’t learning a damn thing, and their cultivation was suffering too. Their shrimp veins and fish scales were now tanned from the sun.
Theoretically, if the Snake tribe chief was paying a personal visit, these good-for-nothing yao were supposed to welcome him with a banner and fanfare. Who’d lent them the courage to act out?
Were they so high on fresh water that their egos were now badly overinflated?
Either way, Zhao Yunlan couldn’t figure it out.
When they arrived at the South Sea, Zhao Yunlan realized the local Water tribe was in total disarray. The yao in charge, upon hearing that Kunlun-jun and the King of the Gui were there, nearly peed their swim trunks. They knelt shirtless on the beach, kowtowing with their bare backs to the sky. Each of them had a huge letter inked on their back. Collectively, the message read “Our crimes are severe. Please punish us, O Great Immortal.”
It was such a sight that the hermit crabs were too fearful to even dare poke their heads out.
“Oh, get up! What are you doing? If you have something to say, just say it. Don’t embarrass me like this!” From his seat up on a cloud, Zhao Yunlan cringed at the sight. He and Shen Wei couldn’t even get off the cloud—the beach was so packed that there was nowhere to set foot. “I don’t get it. All this feudalistic nonsense has been buried for a hundred years, but it’s still somehow alive and well here with you yao? Please go educate yourselves!”
The South Sea was rich in resources, and there were ample varieties of seafood…or rather, of the Water tribe. This was a mixed-species tribe, created when the chiefs of each of the tribes had banded together to form an alliance. The one in charge was a three-thousand-year-old sea turtle, and the second-in-command was a two-thousand-year-old sea cucumber.
The pair were truly a golden duo. Neither of them thought the other’s explanations were too slow. Zhao Yunlan listened as they sobbed their way through the story, but by the time they were only halfway through, his soul had already made eight trips around the thirty-six great mountains. His gaze was distant. For the first time ever, he thought Guo Changcheng was actually a very bright child.
Shen Wei, thankfully, had the patience to pay proper attention. “You’re saying that the elder in charge of keeping watch over the South Sea’s forbidden area didn’t receive any applications, so he stole one and went into the forbidden area and made copies?”