The Nine-tailed Fox dreams of a weeping willow

As soon as Wu Yun opens his eyes he knows he's no longer in the Ou household. He's walking towards that same tall weeping willow, with the canopy that falls to the floor like nature's lament. This time he can't see the swing between the gaps of the branches.

He's barefoot on the cool grass, and the moon limns everything in silver. All the stars in the sky have come out to light his path.

He rubs a fresh leave between his finger and a great feeling of homesickness overwhelms him. Wu Yun knows at once that this feeling belongs to Ling Yan and not to himself. He has no home to feel homesick about.

"A sad tree for a sad face," comes a voice from between the branches.

Wu Yun pulls the canopy apart with both hands and comes face to face with a man sprawling leisurely against the willow's trunk. He's very handsome and his fine features seem chiseled from jade. His eyes are the colour of the setting sun. Wu Yun would gasp at seeing such familiar eyes on a stranger's face if he was in control of Ling Yan's body.

"This is my spot," Ling Yan says, crossing his arms.

"Is it? I don't see your name on it," the man says, making a show of inspecting the tree trunk.

"You don't even know my name!"

The man smiles, showing his teeth. "That's right, why don't you tell me?"

"Tell me yours first," Ling Yan says.

"My name is Shu Luan, pleased to meet you," he says getting up from the grass to bow to Ling Yan.

So this is what Shu Luan looks like. He must be dreaming about their first meeting. Did they know then, what they would mean to each other? What they would do together.

The thought flusters him, but Ling Yan is unimpressed.

"I'm Ling Yan, and that's my tree," he says, pointing at the willow.

"Why do you like it so much? It's such a sad tree, don't you know if you spend too much time near willow trees you'll be lonely for eternity?"

"Good, I don't want any company in this place."

Shu Luan throws his head back in a laugh. "I see the Heavens haven't impressed you much."

"I never wanted to come here in the first place," Ling Yan says with a frown. "I was fine in my sect, I miss my shizun, my shijie and shidis. And I miss the willow tree in my courtyard, shizun hung a swing on it when I was a child."

"He did? He must not have wanted you to meet anyone special and be whisked away, to let you spend all that time under a willow tree." Shu Luan's smirk is knowing.

Ling Yan looks away from him, and at the nearby lake, reflecting the moon's glow like a dark mirror.

"It didn't work all that well, did it?" Ling Yan says, bitterly.

"Are you hiding from him? Because you know no one comes out here?"

"Don't tell him I came here. He's always trying to make me like him, I can't stand it." There's a hint of panic in Ling Yan's voice, despite his best efforts to hide it.

Shu Luan nods, and smiles sadly. "You liked him when you met him, though, didn't you?"

Ling Yan averts his eyes, and walks towards the edge of the lake. "He lied to me, he isn't who I thought he was."

He looks down into the still water, and the face that gazes up doesn't resemble Wu Yun's. He expected Ling Yan to resemble his own human appearance, but he doesn't. He has the same smooth skin as Shu Luan; without any of the blemishes and imperfections of a human's. No dry or oily patches, just a flawless expanse of radiant skin. His eyes are a lighter brown than Wu Yun's deep black, and his hair is lighter as well, a thick waterfall of it that he also wears in a high tail, two thin locks of it falling loosely around his lovely face to frame it.

"That's true for every god, you'll understand that, now that you're one of us," Shu Luan says coming up behind him. Their reflections in the water look like a painting, fleeting and dreamlike.

Ling Yan dips his bare foot in the water to disturb his godly reflection, and smiles despondently at his twisted features. "I'd rather be a dog than one of you."

Shu Luan laughs, loud and unrestrained. "Do you know how many humans dream of ascending?"

Ling Yan shrugs, "I guess I'm not like them."

Shu Luan pins him with a sorrowful look, "That's exactly why you're here."

---

Wu Yun wakes up with a start, he feels something wet on his cheek, and raises his fingers to his face. He's crying, but why? Nothing sad happened in the dream. He knows now that both Ling Yan and Shu Luan were gods, despite Wan Mi's proclamation that she didn't know who they were he already suspected it. He doesn't know what to do with that information, or how it relates to him.

The dreams are getting more and more bizarre. He feels Lan Tian stirring behind him, rubbing his nose against his nape, and feels glad that at least Ling Yan and Shu Luan were just talking this time. He wouldn't be able to handle the mortification of waking up as he had that other night while Lan Tian held him by the waist.

They both struggle to raise Wan Mi, she moans sleepily every time they call her, and Wu Yun has to resort to pulling of her sheets and threaten to dump cold water on her to make her get out of bed.

Madam Ou has a breakfast of sweet congee set out, and tries to pry some more information out of them while they eat, but Wu Yun has learnt his lesson and gives her only vague answers. He doesn't want the entire population of Liucun to show up when they go to Bai Xiaoli's house.

"Don't worry Madam Ou, this problem will be solved by today," he tells her when they say their goodbyes at the Ou house.

He isn't sure how they're going to deal with the one who's been causing all the bloodshed when they meet them, but he's sure a timely solution will come to him.

Madam Ou nods, and pats Wan Mi's head fondly. "You be careful dear, do as your parents say."

Wan Mi gives her distracted smile; she's still half asleep, so it could be almost called sweet.

Wu Yun knocks on Bai Xiaoli's door, but no answer comes. He knocks again and the house remains silent.

"See, I told you she was lying to us yesterday," Wu Yun tells Lan Tian, exasperated. "Now how are we going to find the god who's been doing this?"

Lan Tian eyes the door with a analytical look. He leans his shoulder against it and gives it a vicious shove, the wood creaks under the impact, but remains closed. He shoves again, putting all his weight behind it and the hinges break apart with a metallic clang.

The inside of the house looks the same as the previous day, a mess of papers everywhere. Wu Yun looks around the room until he spots a toppled bamboo partition. Under it he finds an unconscious Bai Xiaoli.

"What the..." He drags her out of the partition and turns her on her back.

Her face is drained of color but her chest still raises and falls.

"What happened to her?" Lan Tian asks, examining her pale face with a complicated expression.

"What does it look like? Someone knocked her out," Wan Mi says, kicking Bai Xiaoli gently with the heel of her boot.

Wu Yun decides to try something. He's a little disappointed that Wan Mi got up before he had a chance to do it, so this is the perfect opportunity.

He goes into Bai Xiaoli's sparse kitchen and finds a porcelain pitcher filled with water that has gone cold. He brings it into the living room and turns it upside down over Bai Xiaoli's face.

She comes to with a huge gasp, spitting out water like a drowning woman. She rubs her eyes and looks around at their faces with a confused frown.

"What are you doing here?" she asks, still groggy.

"Saving you, apparently." Wu Yun smirks. "So, about that temple..."

Bai Xiaoli gets up from the floor with a start and looks around the room. "Where is she?"

"You were the only one here when we arrived," Lan Tian says.

"Why are you here? I told you to come tomorrow." She rubs her wet hair away from her face with a tired sigh. She doesn't resemble the inconvenient and cheerful scholar they met before, her face has a stony resolute expression, and her previously smiling eyes look cold as flint. It's a jarring difference.

"It's tomorrow already," Wan Mi says.

Bai Xiaoli curses under her breath, but her eyes betray her anxiety. "She could be anywhere now..."

"Who?" Lan Tian asks.

"The one who caused all the deaths, high goddess Xie Xiu," Bai Xiaoli says with a sigh.

"How do you know who she is," Wan Mi asks, with a suspicious glare.

"Because I'm a goddess myself."

Wan Mi's expression changes abruptly and she clasps her hands in front of her chest, bowing to Bai Xiaoli. "Wan Mi from the Kunlun Mountains greets the Heavenly Venerable."

Wu Yun has never seen her act this polite or deferential. He and Lan Tian exchange a look, wondering if they should bow as well. He decides that someone as unpleasant as Bai Xiaoli doesn't deserve that courtesy and remains still, Lan Tian follows his example.

Bai Xiaoli takes hold of Wan Mi's slender wrist and lifts it up until she raises her eyes. "Please little sister, there's no need for that. I'm only a minor goddess of no importance, a phoenix like you would probably outrank me in the Jade Palace."

Wu Yun doubts it, despite her flattering words Bai Xiaoli still called Wan Mi 'little sister', it doesn't take a genius to understand who has the higher rank.

"So you were sent here to investigate?" Wu Yun asks. "Shouldn't they have sent a higher god for that, one of the Celestial Justices? Xie Xiu is using one of their weapons isn't she?"

Bai Xiaoli nods, her expression grim. "She is, and normally a Celestial Justice would deal with a matter like this, however I've been sent by my superior, the high god I answer to wanted me to look into the issue quietly. Officially, Xie Xiu's actions are not known in the Heavens."

"Is anyone covering up for her?" Lan Tian asks.

Bai Xiaoli shakes her head. "Not necessarily. You see, the Heavens are very bureaucratic, every god has their own office of divinity and particular region of worship."

She realizes that both Lan Tian and Wu Yun aren't following her logic, Wan Mi is the only one nodding along as if this is all old news.

"It's like this; Let's say I'm the goddess of the spring harvest of northern Xia. I can only answer prayers related to the spring harvest, in northern Xia. If a human prays to me asking for a plentiful summer harvest I can do nothing; that's under the purview of the god of the summer harvest in northern Xia. If that same peasant migrates south and prays to me for a bountiful spring harvest, I, again, cannot answer his prayers, because that's under the purview of the God of the spring harvest of southern Xia."

That sounds like a very convoluted system to Wu Yun, but they have bigger issues right now.

"What does that have to do with Xie Xiu?"

"She is the the Rain Goddess of a single minor province. As far a high gods go, she is as irrelevant as it gets, however she has managed to start answering prayers unrelated to her office and region. This all started some time ago when she answered a prayer that infringed upon a human's free will."

Wan Mi gaps, "She can't do that!"

"She shouldn't be able to do that, yet she did. A Prince wanted his beloved to be unable to withstand being parted from him, and she made it happen. Regardless of who they are, a god can't answer a prayer where a human asks for something that goes against another human's wishes, because that violates the cosmic balance of the Dao. Just as a god can't create something from nothing. A rain god can't make rain fall at will, they have to move it from somewhere in their region where it is abundant. That's why so many prayers go unanswered, sometimes a whole region experiences a drought and no matter how much the humans pray the god can't do anything."

"I think I know who that Prince was," Wu Yun says in a whisper. He's sure the Prince was Min Guifen, and Xie Xiu must have been the goddess whose existence he cursed.

"Why do you have to keep the investigation a secret?" Lan Tian asks.

"If other gods discovered she can answer such a wide array of prayers they might want the same for themselves. My Heavenly Superior noticed something was amiss when Xie Xiu's recorded prayers started growing beyond the usual amount, an irrelevant high god shouldn't see such a high volume of prayers."

"It has been years since she answered the Prince's prayers, why haven't you been able to track her?" Wu Yun asks.

"She has been gone from the Heavens ever since, a god who doesn't want to be found is hard to find." Bai Xiaoli frowns deeply and lets out a tired sigh.

"Why is she killing the humans whose prayers she answers?" Wan Mi asks.

That's something Wu Yun can't wrap his head around either. If she's going to such lengths to find more worshipers wouldn't it be convenient for her if they remained alive to pray to her often?

"My Heavenly Superior believes that the consequences of her violations of the natural qi flow of the universe are getting worse. At first it might have been barely noticeable, the human might have experienced some slight mental or bodily alteration, but as she continues the universe tries harder to right itself. We suspect that something is happening to those whose prayers she answers that forces her to use a smiting weapon on them."