"Why am I here? Isn't it obvious? Somebody called me." The being that stood just above the tops of the peach trees wore voluminous yellow robes and had the most sagacious beard Wen had ever seen. Is this the Heaven Honored Jade Emperor? "Besides, dear wife, I can't help but think that you're over-reacting here."
"Don't you start in on me," the Queen Mother of the West said, and now she no longer sounded like an imperious cat-goddess; she sounded like Mrs. Ling from next door. "This is my orchard and these are my immortality peaches, and these—these creatures have defiled them! I have every right to impose punishment!"
"You're the
Queen Mother of the West," the Heaven Honored Jade Emperor said. "Of course you have the right.
"But you also
have an obligation to consider more than your own feelings of pride. What you have been doing has been more human
than god-like, you know."
"I send plagues
to the black-haired people!" she shouted.
"It doesn't get much more god-like than that!" Or more human, Wen thought. Humans would do that to one another, if they
could.
As the two
senior-most gods in heaven argued with each other, Wen sidled across the grass
to where Yin Fengzi huddled, shivering.
When he touched her bare arm it was deathly cold, and he felt a
sickening, impotent fury that she should be made to suffer merely for trying to
help him.
"Not that you
should have done anything for me," he muttered.
"If not for you,
then for whom?" she replied, eyes still closed and lips hardly moving.
"You two raise
a good point," the god said, and suddenly the Jade Emperor was looming
directly over them. "Please explain
to us why you did what you did. It occurs
to me that you haven't had much of an opportunity to defend yourself."
"This wretch
Wen Xia has done nothing but defend
himself," the Queen Mother of the West said.
"That's
it!" Number One Grandfather, who
had prostrated himself the instant the goddess had first appeared and hadn't
moved a muscle since, was on his feet and shaking his bony fist at the
goddess. "I will not stand by in
silence while my descendant is impugned!"
He stomped over to the Jade Emperor, the other six grandfathers nervous
in his wake. "Most Exalted
One," he said, "I more than any other know the depths to which this
Wen Xia sank in his willfulness and disobedience. But ever since he has been made to see the
error of his previous ways he has behaved in a fashion that Confucius himself
would recognize as filial and devoted."
I have? Wen
thought. That certainly wasn't my
intent.
"One does not
have to be a Confucian to recognize filial devotion," the Jade Emperor
said. "This accepted form of
behavior predated Confucius and will continue to be accepted long after that
scholar and sage is forgotten."
"Which could
happen any day now and it wouldn't be a moment too soon," said a new
voice. Wen looked up to see an elderly
man—bearing a surprising resemblance to Number One Grandfather—shuffling into
the orchard. "Sorry I'm so late,
but you don't exactly make it easy to keep up with your Exalted Selves, you
two."
Yin Fengzi lifted
her head. "Lao Zi?" she
asked. Her voice was so thin Wen could
scarcely hear it, but it no longer sounded weak and frightened. "Master?"
Next Prologue Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7
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