Getting Out of Court

"Welcome back?" Alex queried in spiting sarcasm while a drenched Qinguang quivered in the corner behind Arahabaki who pushed him to the front without warning, causing him to almost trip and fall face down in front of Alex.

"I've been to HELL and back," Alex growled.

A calm looking Kanghui turned at the trembling Qinguang and asked, "is this usually what happens after they exit the Mirror of Truth?"

Qinguang shook his head while keeping his eyes carefully trained on Alex, who glared at him. He bemoaned his fate at being sandwiched between the two volatile primeval beings and now this Alex who had turned into the third with those malevolent flames slowly disappearing from his body.

Qinguang cursed his bad luck at being there at the front of the receiving end. His eyes wandered to a red warning flashing on one of the holographic screens where his clerk discreetly signalled to him.

Bowing to the three and muttering his excuse to leave them, Qinguang scampered to the screen to check the readouts, in a hurry to keep his distance from Alex.

"Don't bother checking. Something is wrong with the mirror when I was in there," Alex called out after Qinguang, who stopped in his tracks. "I was… um… dropped from one room to another."

Kanghui watched Qinguang from the corner of her eye, irate to learn of the issue. The clerk started whispering something to Qinguang's ear and if the Judge-King of the First Court of Hell was pale enough, something turned his face into bleached white as he shuffled his way to the offending screen.

"Is he done?" Kanghui asked.

"Yes, yes," Qinguang replied absentmindedly while staring at the holographic screen in front of him.

"Then where do we go next?"

"Just register him," Qinguang instructed his poker faced clerk, whose fingers expertly ran over the commands.

"He doesn't go to the nine other courts," Qinguang said to Kanghui. "But the Xitian Registry of Beings."

"Hey, don't I get to go back to Earth on the 7th day of my passing to talk to my loved ones for the final farewell?" Alex interrupted as Arahabaki looked on with his arms behind his back.

"No. You can't."

"What do you mean I can't?"

"Well…," Qinguang crunched up his face.

"OUT with it," Kanghui stomped her foot, causing him to fluster.

"The Mirror of Truth voided that entry for him… he had visited his parents in the dreams," Qinguang pointed his shaky finger at the screen, "says so in the reporting."

Kanghui approached Qinguang and pushed him aside to read the information displayed on the screen. Then she turned to him, "it does that?"

"One malfunction formed a bridge between the veil and Earth. Ask him. He would know that vision," Qinguang said. "I can't reverse what the Mirror voided."

"Did you enter any memory of your past life when you were inside?" Kanghui asked.

More than a damn memory, more than just one past life. Alex bit his lips at the thought. He sighed in resignation and nodded. "A middle school memory when I was younger and something happened then."

She studied his face as Alex tried to turn away. "Something else you are not telling me?"

What was there to tell? That Kanghui was a man instead of a woman right now? Then he erased the thoughts quickly. Kanghui could read minds, but her expression had not changed, giving him no clue of her own thoughts.

"My personal business," Alex replied.

"Ah must be old girlfriend stuff as well," Arahabaki slapped Alex on the shoulder, making him cringe. "Intimate details of his bed time lifestyle."

"I-I-I… um…," Alex stuttered nervously, wary of the warning to not mention Fuxi's name, realising the likely consequences which may befall him and those around.

Arahabaki shifted his eyes at Kanghui with his back to her. Alex got the hint to play along. Then Arahabaki mouthed the words, "you owe me one."

Kanghui appeared distracted by a trembling Qinguang, enough to waive the answer with her hand.

"Door there," Qinguang pointed to an appearing door. "Exit out of the courts of Hell, through the path of the Huangquan."

Alex widened his eyes at the Qinguang's words. Huangquan, or rather the yellow springs in English, referred to hell. "Aren't I considered being in Huangquan now?"

"Only by human definition," Qinguang replied, still looking fearful of Alex. "Huangquan is more of a river of the dead in our location now, a highway of tributaries that…"

Qinguang halted, threw a quick glance at Arahabaki before looking at Alex again and then he said, "Huangquan links to the Sanzu river from Takamagahara side. Joint processing area for those incomplete or shattered souls destined for reincarnation. Just don't follow the path where there is the only bridge that leads to the Pavilion of Forgetfulness, which is the reincarnation department."

"Great, I have to deal with one big flower spirit who lives there," Kanghui grumbled.

"Flowers?" Alex asked. "Why would they be in such a ghastly place?"

"A flower blooms better by seeping into decay," Arahabaki replied. "However, there is only one type of flower spirit there. Higanbana —"

Alex recalled the eerie sea of blood-red flowers billowing on land on his visit to Japan a year ago. Higanbana was the Japanese name for Lycoris radiata, a plant in the amaryllis family Amaryllidaceae, also known as a red spider lily. He remembered the words 'Higan' referred to the distant shore along the Sanzu river.

"Bi-an is all the flowers there. She is trouble even for me," Kanghui said Higanbana's Chinese name, and paused.

"Why can't we go from the front again?" Kanghui asked.

"It's the rules," Qinguang said apologetically.

"How about we make him open a path to the front?" Arahabaki grinned and cracked his knuckles loudly while Kanghui held out her arm in front of him before Arahabaki could advance on Qinguang.

"Please don't. The layout of the Courts of Hell was determined by the Xitian Council and they control this entire location. If it was up to me, I would give all of you an express ticket out of here to the front," Qinguang pleaded.

Kanghui's eyebrows furrowed, then she leaned into Arahabaki and asked in a whisper, "ever dealt with Higanbana?"

Arahabaki nodded. "Hard to deal for even with two of us. All those flowers outnumber me, even in the Sanzu river when I first explored below."

"Qinguang, how do you exit out of the courts to Youdu during the seventh lunar month?" Kanghui asked.

"Same way for you three. Higanbana has an agreement with the Xitian Council to let us go about our business unfettered," Qinguang replied.

"That will not happen for me," Kanghui muttered under her breath, knowing well the council's answer if she asked, and she looked at Arahabaki, "We might have to walk through it."

Arahabaki folded his arms and thought for a while before looking at Alex, who stared at both of them with nothing to say. "I flank him and you go front?"

"You back him."

"That's troublesome," Arahabaki protested.

"He…," Qinguang pointed at Alex. "Won't be a problem if his soul is at risk. I don't know whether Higanbana can tolerate those defensive flames from him. Or if her flowers can overwhelm them."

"What defensive flames?" Alex asked.

"The one which radiated from your body and caused Qinguang's sleeves to catch fire when he went to check on you," Kanghui replied. "First Da Siming and now Qinguang."

"Hey our own Molotov cocktail amassing a list of hits on all the powerful beings," Arahabaki snickered.

Kanghui smacked Arahabaki on the head. "Not funny."

"I can't control them…" Alex groaned as he looked at his pair of hands.

"That fire, like an automatic function within your soul, switches on when you think you are in imminent danger," Kanghui replied. "One of Chongli's powers when escaping."

"Yeah, first you learn how to flee, now you get to be a flaming Houdini while you flee, an improvement," Arahabaki grinned.