Sky Pride

“The two seniors are benevolent in the extreme to be considering such a humane course as conferring an honorable post upon a ghost! But surely this is a matter for the Ministry of Rites?” Censor Henshen clasped his hands and saluted the two soaking in the tub.

“Mmm, our first thought as well. But old Qin kicked it over to us, claiming that since the case involved misconduct in the administration of the Imperial Civil Service Exam, that issue must be resolved by the Ministry of Personnel before the Ministry of Rites can step in. It’s a tricky problem, to be sure. Not much in the way of precedent. Making matters even more complicated is that this ghost appears to be, essentially, harmless. At the very least, we haven’t been able to verify any harm greater than alarming visitors here.” The Merchant half smiled.

“A violation of the social order in and of itself! Its three Hun souls should have entered the familial tablets, while its seven Po souls should be either dissipating with its body or already receiving judgement in the underworld. If it wasn’t properly buried or there is a problem with the ancestral tablets, or even if its family lineage was severed, then we can only say that there was a breakdown in the social morals and a failure to properly adhere to ritual and custom. Yet you want to compound the error by elevating this creature to an unearned office.” Goaty wagged his head, his wispy beard dragging through the pool.

Tian tuned out the argument as it quickly devolved into a debate over the importance of ritual, and the proper boundaries of various administrative departments. Not something he particularly cared about. The hot spring was pleasantly warm, though he could stand for it to be hotter. The water did, indeed, feel soft and smooth as promised. Perhaps there was a hotter bath. He would go inquire.

Later tonight, he would drag Liren along to find the ghost. He had seen plenty of evil creatures, and more zombies than he cared to remember, but to the best of his recollection, he had never seen an actual ghost, let alone a virtuous one.

The Saintess was a special case, of course. She was… Tian groped about mentally for a logical reason why the Saintess was not a ghost, and failed. He had, for some reason, classified her as a demon, but when he got right down to it, he was pretty hazy about the differences between the two.

The bones, maybe? Did ghosts have bones? He shook his head. Not enough information, and he was too cozy to go ask. Just five… ten more minutes, and he would go find out about a hotter bath. This pool was just too lukewarm.

Two hours passed.

“I can't believe I fell asleep.” Tian muttered.

“Shame you did, the herbal soak was great.” Hong grinned. “They also offer a variety of massages, but unless they employ ogres, I don’t think it’s going to do much for me.” She laughed as she snagged a little dumpling. The steamed parcels of egg and leek were, in their opinion, quite delicious.

Dinner was an elegant affair, with the fragrant consomme almost as clear as water, yet fresh and vibrant with the taste of herbs and the savoryness of chicken. The rice had been cooked in chicken stock, and was served with poached chicken, cucumbers and a delicious ginger sauce. All light, all tantalizing to the tongue. A servant stood at the side of the room, ready to dart in and refill a tea cup at a moment’s notice. Clearly well practiced in the arts of selective deafness and strategic invisibility.

The Censor had initially ordered wine, then immediately changed his mind with a muttered “Force of habit.” Tian could imagine why. The other diners in the pavilions they passed were all drinking wine. There was something about the red painted wooden beams and the black tiled roof, the lustrous low tables and comfortable cushions, all looking out over ponds and gently swaying trees… Something that seemed to call the spirit upward. Something that invited a sort of blissful tranquility Tian struggled to understand in words.

A place that invited guests to do away with words, then. A place to simply be, content, and even happy.

“I keep thinking about that statue of Concubine Gufu,” Hong murmured, looking through the pale green of her tea into the bottom of her teacup. “On the one hand, seducing an emperor is… a considerable achievement, for a mortal woman. On the other hand, that’s not what the poem said, was it?”

“So weak she needed to be lifted from the bath by her maids. The emperor had invited her here, so he was already a bit interested, but that was what made him seriously pursue her.” Tian suggested, but Censor Henshen shook his head.

“That’s not what the poem says either. I should note that it is just four lines from a much longer poem. The two were, by all accounts, as genuinely in love as Emperor and Concubine could be. Which is a lot. But neither law, custom or common sense suggests that their relationship was anything other than at his whim. She ‘received his advances’ not ‘invited his pursuit.’” The Censor’s voice was wry.

“Appealing prey, weakened. No need to chase what cannot run.” Hong slightly smiled. Nobody thought she was happy.

“More or less. But like I said, every account agrees there was a great deal of mutual affection there.” Censor Henshen spread his hands. “It’s illegal for me to discuss what I saw in the Palace. All I can say is that the Imperial household is like no other… and exactly like all others. The Emperor is a son, a father, a husband, and the head of the household. But he is also the Emperor, engaged with his court, touring the country, even going to the battlefield. You wouldn’t think so, but he works longer hours than a peasant, starting before dawn and often only finishing late into the night.” He paused, and let the silence serve as emphasis. He looked out over the swaying peach trees, then continued.

“The women of the Imperial Family are wives and concubines, mothers and daughters, and that is all. They will never set foot outside the back palace unless it is to visit somewhere as part of the Emperor’s retinue. And even then, they will have no contact with anyone outside the household. Interfering with politics, trying to have any say in national affairs, is a capital offence. One which is enforced mercilessly. The relations between people in the back palace are… delicate. And intense.”

Tian sighed a little and put a bit of chicken in Little Treasure’s bowl, then Hong’s. He paused, then flicked a particularly nice piece into the Censor’s bowl. Everything was always so complicated.

“I told Brother Fu that it was impossible to put three thousand women in a cell. You couldn’t even get a hundred in there, even if you shoved. Frankly, I think Brother Wang is going to feel crowded with just two extra bodies in his cell, and I can’t imagine Sister Su or Sister Mei will be any happier. Brother Wang just takes up too much space. Marriage is a sham. No more nonsense. Sis’ Liren, want to come meet a ghost tonight?”

Most people retired early, a bare few staying up to admire the moon and the scent of night blooming jasmine from garden pavilions. Often with pleasant company, laughter and the exchange of questionable poetry. Those who retired to their rooms were often no quieter than those in the pavilions. Most of the staff were available only during daylight hours. Chambermaids were, however, available at all hours, for rates set by the Inn.

It wasn’t the first time Tian and Hong had seen such an arrangement. Their brothers and sisters had told them exactly what to expect as they adventured along the rivers and lakes. They didn’t discuss it much, other than Hong telling the occasional off-color joke, or Tian forensically examining some of the literature left in hotel rooms and critiquing their medical accuracy.

They were Daoists. Sex was a natural part of life, and of cultivation. It wasn’t taboo. It also wasn’t something either of them wanted to deal with. Finding a ghost crouching at the edge of a staff dormitory building and peeking around a corner came as a relief.

They were sure he was a ghost, despite appearing quite solid. Nothing living could have so much yin qi pouring off of them. Tian and Hong glanced at each other, and subtly got ready to jump in. They paused, when the ghost jumped first, seizing something in the shadows and dragging it out into the moonlight.

“AHAH!” The ghost didn’t quite roar, but they heard it clearly enough. As they did the thud of its fist, as it lay into a writhing bath towel.

“Spare me, Big Brother!”

“Now you remember I’m your Big Brother?! Why didn’t you remember it when you went stealing?”

“I didn’t! Whoever told you I did was a liar!”

“Which eye is lying, my left or my right? Idiot Towel, do you think I can’t see Little Peony’s handkerchief and purse in your folds?”

“I found them. I was bringing them back, Big Bro!”

“Liar!” The ghostly fist rose and fell again. “You know Little Peony would be spurned by her little lover if she lost his token, and whipped by the manager if she lost the silver. You want to make her miserable. Maybe she will hang herself like poor Waterlilly, eh? Wouldn’t that be fun?”

“That. That was nothing to do with me…”

“Oh, I believe you. Big Brother will always believe you. But the Black and White Impermanences aren’t so trusting!”

“Big Bro?!”

The fist seemed to get bigger, darkening in the moonlight. “Explain how I wronged you to King Yan!” It fell with a dull thud that echoed in their chests. There was a writhing feeling as the yin qi of the towel convulsed, then dissipated. The ghost that had done the beating sniffed and sorted through the remains of the towel, pulling out a small silk purse and a handkerchief.

“The two immortals blaze in the night. If you are here to send me to King Yan too, I just ask that you deliver these to the chambermaid known as Little Peony. It won’t earn you anything, but such a deed is meritorious in the eyes of Heaven, Earth and Man.”

The ghost walked towards them with a heavy tread, getting bigger in the moonlight. By the time it arrived, it was taller than Liren.

The ghost was shaped like a man, dressed in faded and tattered robes of deep blue. His matted hair was coming loose under his filthy cap. His beard was a wild thing, bushy enough to hide a brace of partridge, and his eyes rolled in their sockets like they were half a size too small for the hole.

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He was ugly. Beyond how he dressed, or his hair, or his beard, he was ugly. It was one of those faces that made the homely count their blessings. It seemed to be subtly asymmetrical, the left ear a bit bigger than the right, the right ear a bit more pointed than the left. The chin was squarer on the left, while the right eyebrow was just bushier enough to make it seem like he was always half frowning.

The ghost fought like a bandit, dressed like a vagabond, and spoke like a scholar. Tian couldn’t wrap his mind around what he was seeing. He had just gone looking for the ghost out of curiosity. He hadn’t a clue what to do now that he had found it. At the end of the day, he was his father’s child.

Tian stepped forward, cupped his fist and bowed. “Ancient Crane Monastery West Town Outer Court’s Tian Zihao greets the senior. This is my Martial Sister, Hong Liren. It seems Sir has a story. Might this little daoist invite you to a pavilion for a cup of tea?”

The ghost blinked twice at Tian, then tilted his head back and laughed. It sounded like he hadn’t laughed in a very long time, and was a bit out of practice. Then he nodded, with the ghost of a smile.

“Senior Zhong, this is the Bamboo Medicine Hut’s prized fifty year old White Eyebrow Longevity tea. Please, give me your opinion on it.”

“I’m not sure about having an immortal calling a ghost senior. Nor am I sure I can drink, actually.” The ghost, who they had learned was surnamed Zhong, sat elegantly across the table from the attentive Tian and the bemused Hong.

“I know of at least one Yin spirit that can consume tea qi, and then there are all the offerings of food made to spirits. I don’t see why not.” Tian urged the ghost to drink up.

“You think I ever got offerings? Well, I thank the immortal for his generosity. Cheers!”

Ghostly fingers wrapped around the warm clay of the cup and sipped the tea. Then he took a longer pull, then finished the whole cup and put it down with a solid thud. “Good tea. Good…” Black tears welled in his eyes, which he roughly wiped away. “Forgive me. It has been a very long time. Ah! Your yang qi warms me like the memory of my friend's hearth. Warm, but not burning. Thank you. Forgive me.” The ghost wiped his eyes again.

“What is there to forgive? I am just glad my tea pleases you. Senior Zhong dresses like he has known hard times, but has better manners than most so-called gentlemen. If I’m not being too rude, may I ask what has happened?”

“Oh, a calamity. The most dreadful thing imaginable!” The ghost laughed bitterly. “I was the top scorer on the Imperial Civil Service Exam!”

Tian glanced over at Hong. She didn’t know how to respond to that either.

“And not just any exam, the Palace exam. The top scorer, on the top test. My papers were graded by the Third Assistant Deputy Minister for the Ministry of Personnel AND the Deputy to the Vice Director of the Department of State AND the Assistant to the Secretary of the Imperial Secretariat, and once they agreed, it was submitted to their superiors and once they agreed, it was put before his Imperial Majesty with four other exam results. Of those five, one stood out head and shoulders above the others. Mine. Until I was called forward to receive my recognition.”

“Ah.”

“Oh yes. No living family, no background whatsoever, I was only able to afford the trip to the capital due to a friend kindly taking me along, and apparently I am so ugly, just looking at me stripped years off the life of the emperor. The other points were forgivable. My face was not. Shortening the Emperor’s life is a dreadful crime, worthy of the death penalty. However, in recognition of my academic achievements, I was merely reduced to the rank of a slave and sent to work in the laundry at the hot springs here. This is back when it was an Imperial Residence, you understand, before the change in dynasties. Time flows a little differently for ghosts, but I think it must be a few hundred years ago by now.”

“More like a few thousand years, actually.” But Tian just nodded encouragingly and poured another cup. “Yet you don’t seem like a vengeful spirit. Quite the opposite, actually.”

“I was the top scorer on the Imperial Civil Service Exam.” The ghost chuckled, silently toasting Tian again and sipping the tea slowly, savoring it. “I had a lot of time to think. I had studied all the classics, you see, and they all went on and on about humility. About the virtue of accepting where you find yourself in life. That it is every person’s duty to cultivate themselves, improve themselves, but what their station is, is up to fate. So I asked myself, did I learn all this stuff, or did I believe it?”

Tian smiled. He could relate, very much.

“I decided I could be a miserable slave, or a content man. Did washing the soiled linens make me less of a gentleman? Others might think so, but I’m not required to think poorly of myself. I became a gentleman of the laundry tubs and a scholar amongst the scrubbing brushes. Strangely enough, the number of fights I got into increased. It seemed that nobody minded me when we were all miserable together, but a content slave rankles people. Particularly the other slaves.”

“Ah. I am sorry to hear that.” Hong offered her condolences.

“Yes. So it wasn’t much of a surprise when I was stabbed to death.”

“Ah. Sorry. Again.” Hong winced.

“A long time ago.” The ghost waved it away. “I laughed my head off when the man was executed for destruction of property belonging to the Imperial Family. He got it way worse than I did. But it was also the time when I started noticing resentful spirits were gathering around the Imperial residence. The Emperor’s Qi kept them out of the house proper, but a lot of the nearby lands were starting to build up yin qi. Since my Po souls were sealed in my coffin, and my Hun souls had nowhere to go, I started interceding and beating up the ghosts that were harming people. Before I was a scholar, I was an orphan. We grow up tough. I got my start suppressing evil ghosts when… hmmm. It would have been the twelfth year of the reign of Emperor Shengtu, which I believe was the previous dynasty. So it’s been a little while.”

Tian rapidly revised the age of the ghost upward. The Sheng were a borderline mythical dynasty, and had predated the ancient Wu kingdom. Mythical in the sense of a terrible example. Nobody ever thought of them as “the good old days.”

“So now that the immortals know my story, what is it you wish to do? Daoist Immortals are famous exorcists. Has my time come to an end at last?” The ancient ghost settled his hands on his knees, his ugly features calm.

The two shared a look. “Do you want it to?” Tian asked.

“The Ancient Teacher said this- ‘A person who showers all the people with blessings and assists everyone in the land cannot be called human. If you must have a name for such a person, call this person a sage, for even the enlightened Emperors Xi and Cao would seem lacking by comparison. As for Humanity: if you want to make a stand, help others make a stand, and if you want to reach your goal, help others reach their goal. Consider how you wish to be treated, and treat others accordingly; this is the method of Humanity.’”

The ugly ghost picked up his tea cup elegantly and bowed his head to the two immortals before finishing it off. He smacked his lips in appreciation, then set it down again.

“Being dead is no barrier to cultivating benevolence and virtue. I make my contributions to society as a gentleman should. Immortals, in this way, have I not cultivated humanity? Am I not humane? Orphan, Scholar, Slave, Ghost, I have only grown in my cultivation of benevolence and humanity. On either side of the grave, this life has been a blessed one. I do not fear King Yan’s judgement, but I am in no rush to receive it either. I am content laboring here, as I always have.”

Tian half closed his eyes. He got no sense of wickedness from the ghost. Yin, yes, but not wicked. It would be helpful if Little Treasure was here. The ghost should have accumulated a great deal of merit.

Hong chuckled. “Senior Zhong, how would you like another chance to enter the state rolls?”

Tian looked over at her, puzzled. Then his eyes lit up.

“That’s right! Those two from the Ministry of Personnel suggested posthumously making him a civil servant due to an administrative error. Well, one of them did.”

“Civil servant? You are thinking too small, Brother. We have a censor, two officers of the Ministry of Personnel, and I’d bet there is at least one officer from the Ministry of Rites here.”

“Yes, Old Qin is a regular here. He’s alright, always very gentle with the chambermaids and doesn’t bully the waiters.” The ghost nodded, his bushy beard wagging in the night air. “But I’m afraid I don’t see where you are going with this.”

Hong grinned, her smile bright in the moonlight through the lattice screen of the pavilion.

“Have you considered becoming a local God, Ghost King Zhong?”

They wound up waking Little Treasure. He complained that the glow from Senior Zhong was so bright, it hurt to look straight at him. The next day got very busy. It turned out that the procedures for establishing a minor local deity were not terribly complicated, but like all procedures, they had to be followed with exacting precision.

Or you needed two young-looking immortals with penetrating stares and a ghost with an accurate understanding of what you got up to in the illusory privacy of your hotel room. That moved things right along. There was no hurrying the confirmation from the Capital, but the manager of the hotel was delighted to put up a small shrine and hang a portrait.

“Our very own Ghost King to suppress evil spirits, ensuring our customers can sleep peacefully and without fearing yin taint? I swear the offerings on the altar will never go stale, and the incense will be refreshed three times a week!”

Before they left, as a little extra insurance and to honor the patient millenia of service, Tian and Hong put their heads together and made a gift for the senior. Hong had picked up a century old lightning-struck peach wood sword somewhere, and Tian was hanging on to some odd scraps of Blackpool Crocodile leather. They wrapped the yin leather around the painfully yang wooden hilt to give the ghost something safe to hang on to, and used what was left to make a crude sheath.

The crane didn’t understand much about what was going on, but was willing to contribute two white feathers and two black feathers to be tied by a strong red string to the hilt, adding a touch of wildness and immortality to the whole thing. Just to make triply sure that everyone got the message, they carved the Flying Crane of the Ancient Crane Monastery on the hilt, and signed their names on the blade. Then, since the madness of creation was upon them by this point, Hong sealed a drop of her Blazing Yang blood under a coat of clear lacquer on one side of the guard, and Tian sealed a drop of his Hell Suppressing blood under some lacquer on the other.

They agreed that if this wasn’t enough to put down any local ghosts, the ghost could have the whole damn prefecture as its fief. They certainly wouldn’t be coming back to stop it.

The newly ennobled Zhong looked rather stunned at the way the night had gone, and was already sitting next to a remote patch of nothing where he was buried. He would have to return to his coffin soon, the sky was already starting to lighten. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞

“Thank you both. I… well. Thank you.” Zhong shook his head. “What a strange life.”

The two immortals nodded. It was indeed a strange life. They cupped their hands and bowed, making ready to go.

“Ah, wait, immortals! I have something for you, or at least for Immortal Tian. You are the first person in… centuries, maybe even a millenia, that I have seen raising a tea pet. It seems to have fallen out of fashion. Do you see that triangular rock over there? To the left of the pine. That’s the one. It was a midden, long, long ago. Concubine Ting threw Concubine Fei’s tea set in there to spite her. All the pottery smashed up, but I noticed one of the tea pets survived. It’s not too far down. Please, take it. The tea qi has long since dissipated, but it’s been absorbing Imperial Yang Qi here for a long, long time.”

They dug with the dawn. The smashed porcelain was buried almost ten feet straight down, still enduring the wash of eras. Nestled amongst them was a perfectly round clay pig, no bigger than Tian’s thumb. Unglazed brown pottery, stained with who knows how many cups of tribute tea. It was, indeed, powerfully yang. It would make a marvelous addition to his tea tray.

“Alright, we didn’t rest as much as we had intended here, but I think we would all agree it was time well spent.” Tian crossed his wrists and looked majestically out over the river. The crane flew in, landed on his shoulders and extended her wings widely. Her bold red face looking down on all of creation.

“Not the moment, not the moment, shoo. Shoo!”

The crane would not shoo. It spread its wings even wider.

“Some help you are.” He muttered, glaring at Hong.

“I’d help, but I’m too busy laughing. Why are you rubbing your eyes, Little Treasure? Still tired?”

“No, Sister Immortal. It’s just that you are all glowing brighter today.”

“I guess we did quite a good deed.” Tian dropped the boat in the water with an unnecessarily large splash. “Alright. Onwards. Perhaps our next stop will be as peaceful as this one was.”