Chapter 5 - He’s protecting you, my dear (1/2)

My nape slightly burned the moment I stepped into the underworld. Of the three seals Yanwang gave me, one had disappeared. This meant that one of the three lifetimes Moxi promised me had also come to an end.

After returning to the underworld, I did not like walking alone along the Wangchuan anymore. What was the point, when I would be by myself anyway?

Each day, I leaned against the stone while waiting for Moxi to come once more through the door of reincarnation so that I could leave with him to earth.

Time tended to fly in the underworld. It only occurred to me that four decades had passed by on earth when I by chance met someone whom I considered somewhat of an acquaintance again.

I grinned at him. He, too, recognized me and was stunned for some time. It took him quite a while to recollect himself. “You?”

“Reverend, it’s been a while. You haven’t aged at all.”

He took little notice of my teasing and frowned. “Why haven’t you reincarnated?”

“I’m waiting for someone.”

I said what I said very casually, but it took him by surprise. He sighed after a period of silence: “It was I who caused you two to be worlds apart…”

I waved my hands and was about to say that it had all been the work of fate when he went on: “You’ve spent your whole life waiting in hell for him while he’s spent his entire life mourning for you on earth. I was wrong to have robbed the two of you of your happiness.” He paused, as if he was thinking of something, and then firmly declared: “What goes around comes around. Since I owe the two of you in this lifetime, I shall without fail repay you in the next.”

“There’s no need, really,” I swiftly told him. “This is between Moxi and me, and we wouldn’t want to drag outsiders into it.”

He flapped his sleeves, shook his head sighingly, and went on his way.

I believed it was unavoidable for those who lived too long to have the bad habit of using their own viewpoint to try and speculate or determine someone else’s mind.

No matter how accomplished he was as a priest in this life, one bowl of Old Meng’s soup, one step across the Naihe Bridge, and one jump down the reincarnation well would completely wipe his past existence clean.

The next life would never make up for the last’s mistakes.

After the Imperial Reverend reincarnated, I wondered if perhaps Moxi was also coming to the underworld. Each day, I gazed into the Wangchuan and groomed myself until I was so clean that I almost seemed out of place in the dreary underworld. In my free time, I sat by the stone to learn the humans’ ways. I picked up a stick and traced some circles on the ground, whispering: “Moxi, come down quickly, come down quickly.”

My sincerity must have finally moved the heavens. That day as I finished dressing myself and struck a pose on the stone, I saw Moxi stomping on the cluster amaryllises along the Yellow Springs as he made his way to me, looking rather furious.

Oh, he was furious all right.

I was still fairly confused by the time a ball of searing flame hit my feet. Startled, I quickly hopped away to dodge it.

The surrounding imps and spirits that had been watching immediately scuttled away at the sight of fire.

Not knowing what was going on, I looked over to Moxi. He was looking just as he did the first time I saw him – his presence ever heavenly.

But this heavenly creature was fuming for no reason, and it was giving me quite a befuddlement.

I felt a little aggrieved. I’d waited so long for him to come. We’d only met and hadn’t even said a thing before he already started to attack me. I was really hurt by this!

He neared and reached for my wrist. I protected my vital portal and ducked to the side, barely avoiding his clutch.

He scoffed: “So you’ve learned how to dodge and be afraid now. Why aren’t you letting me catch you? Why aren’t you letting me burn you? Have you realized that your life doesn’t come so easily and now you cannot bear to lose it?”

I pondered over the meaning behind his words. “Moxi, are you mad at me?”

“Mad?” He scoffed. “Why would I be? You protected me, sacrificed your life to shield me, and intercepted my tribulation for me. I can never thank you enough, how would I dare to be mad at you?”

I opened my mouth to say I didn’t know why he was so angry, and then to poke at his facade that his words and deeds did not line up. But seeing the fury scowling between his eyebrows, I shut up and swallowed it down, the feeling of grievance rising higher.

Seeing my aggrieved look and misty eyes, his face hardened as he rigidly said,

“You’re not allowed to cry.”

I kept looking at him with those same watery eyes.

The veins on his forehead twitched. In the end, he let out a heavy sigh. “Never mind.” His eyes softened, and then he patted my head and gave me a helpless smile. “I was really the one at fault.” Almost instantly, his expression darkened again. “Why has the scent of darkness in you gotten so much stronger?”

I hid my face sheepishly. “Since I thought you would soon be here, I’d been using the water in the stream to wash myself every day. Do you like the way I look?”

Moxi fell silent for a long while.

“I tidy things up every day,” I said, “while waiting for you to come down here. Moxi, when will you reincarnate so I can go with you?”

He frowned. “Go with me?”