Archive of Our Own

happily ever after

[ By the combined forces of All Those Who Reside in the Heavens, Wei Wuxian, the god of death and calamity, is eradicated from existence. ]

[ Peace falls upon a brighter land. ]

[ One day, the scars will heal, the embers will die, and the pain will be forgotten. ]

[ No matter what it takes—no matter how long it takes—the divine Amaterasu-omikami will watch over her children. ]

[ Glory to the heavens! ]

once upon a time (1)

Wei Wuxian opens his eyes.

This isn’t particularly strange or out of the ordinary. Being awake is just part of being alive, isn’t it?

So the conclusion is this: Wei Wuxian is alive, and that’s worrying in more ways than one.

Well, that can all be worried about later.

For now, there’s grass beneath his hands, weaving through his pale fingers like it wants to call him back to whatever purgatory he crawled out of, and there’s a breeze, too, whispering in his ear like an old friend who may or may not want to drive him mad, and the sky above—

The sky above is the gentlest blue he’s ever seen.

The sun is looking down upon him, but it isn’t looking down on him. It sees him and it waves a peaceful hello. That’s it. No more, no less.

The first thing Wei Wuxian does in this strange, new life is laugh until he cries, and then a little bit more after that.

“Wen Qing,” he says, once he’s done rubbing the tears from his eyes. “And you too, Wen Ning. Are you up?”

Silence. Then, from his right wrist, up to his right elbow, to his right shoulder, to his right ear, in a tone so venomous it would’ve curdled his blood into fine cheese you could enjoy with bruschetta if not for the fact that they were all very, very dead:

“You sealed me in your arm, you goddamn ignoramus.”

“Sorry about that,” says Wei Wuxian, whose right arm is beginning to burn a little.

Wei Wuxian takes off his outer robes and stomps on them until the flames die out. He notices, peripherally, that the numbness in his left arm has mostly trickled away.

“I’m—I’m in your left arm,” says Wen Ning, whose words are, in fact, beginning to circle around his left wrist. “I think... I think it’s all over.”

“It’s been over since this idiot went and got himself killed,” says Wen Qing.

“To be fair,” says Wei Wuxian, “I didn’t get myself killed. They killed me.”

“Yeah? And what did you do about it?”

“Oh, well, you know how the heavens work, smiting every little thing they find unsavoury. It’s a miracle that I’m back at all.”

There’s another silence in which all three members of the party consider their stabilized existence in the mortal realm.

Divinity 101, Lesson Oh-One: Gods don’t exist without belief.

Though it’s nice to think that humans would be so in tune with the whirling ways of stars that pass that the name of the god who so helpfully renovated all of Yomi into a very nice, very fun tourist hotspot is within their sphere of comprehension, it’s far more likely for them to taunt mortality by consuming laundry detergent or living off energy drinks. Which is kind of worrying, and that’s saying something, because the backlog of causes of death is over a millennia long, and that’s what sticks out.

Long story short, Wei Wuxian is a name no mortal should ever know.

There is one mortal who knows, of course, and she doesn’t make for the most pleasant company. It’s always like that with family. It made Mid-Autumn a bit tense, but, well, mooncakes, right?

“We’re alive now,” says Wei Wuxian. “So let’s see where this life takes us, shall we?”

“I—I’m with you,” says Wen Ning, shyly, like a soft blanket that’s warm and cozy and good, because that’s what Wen Ning is, and it isn’t so much a metaphor as an appreciation for his goodness and ability as a divine garment.

“There’s no way in hell I’m leaving you unsupervised,” says Wen Qing, who’s always been as sharp as the sharp end of her blade, which is every end considering she’s double-edged, and she could cut them as much as she cut everyone else and they’d still adore her.

Wei Wuxian pushes himself up to his feet, brushes the morning dew from his palms, and gives the sky a thoughtful glance.

It really is foolishly blue.

Like a typhoon had passed through the day before, or the gods had spilled the seas all over the clouds; there’s a sky that’s seen every place and time, that won’t ever change or learn, that welcomes the rebirth of a god of death and calamity with all the joyous celebration as it would give a stray gale.

It doesn’t understand what it all means. It doesn’t understand anything, and that’s exactly why it’s so beautiful.

“Well,” says Wei Wuxian, looking to the east, “I suppose we’d better be off.”

And off he goes, with a blessed regalia in each arm, far more positive than he ever has any right to be, because there’s a whole world out there that he hasn’t seen properly since things fell apart, and he’ll be damned if he doesn’t make the best of it.

By chance, by choice, or by the convoluted prayers of people far beyond his understanding, Wei Wuxian is alive, and he doesn’t have a single obligation to serve the world.

denouement

It’s dark.

It’s always dark. It’s always been dark.

It doesn’t matter what they’ve done. All that matters is that it happened, and I need to... I need to figure out what to do from here on. Where to go. All that mess.

It’s just quiet, now that Wen Qing and Wen Ning are gone.

Well. They aren’t gone, to be exact. They’re just sleepy.

They’re falling asleep, slowly but surely. Where they are right now, nobody will be able to touch them.

Ha. Well, I certainly learned from the best.

I don’t need to be held.

I just—

Hah. This is one hell of a mess I’ve gotten myself into. I’ve been saying that a lot recently.

What should I do from here on out?

The heavens want me dead. My allies turned on me. Not that I blame them. God, if I had a choice, I would turn on myself, too.

Wow. I’m almost impressed.

You still believe in that part of me?

That isn’t me. Not anymore. I’m done cursing the world. I’m done making people miserable. I’m done culling the herd. There’s no point in it. It’s all just... so exhausting.

I’m tired. Ah, I just want to lie down and go to sleep.

Never wake up.

That sort of thing.

I remember very well what they did to me. And to you.

But, to be fair, I was the one who went and killed them first.

If anything, the fault lies with me. I brought their anger with me wherever I went, and I destroyed all the places that were precious to them.

Everything they did to me was painful, of course, but I deserved it, more or less.

I don’t—I can never get through to you.

There’s this wall that neither of us can jump over.

Promising. I feel so heard.

We’ll talk about this later. For now, I need to... need to... I don’t know. I just need to protect what I’ve built up, I guess. It’s the last box on my checklist.

Just a little longer, and the heavens will never be able to make hell into their plaything ever again. Humans will be able to live freely once they’ve died. They just can’t catch a break, can they? Until now, that is.

Well, I mean, Izanami’s the real spellcaster. I just sit there and look pretty.

I thought you’d complain about my helping humans again, you know, the typical spiel about how they’re animals and don’t deserve my mercy.

Hang on a second.

Mm. That’s them. That’s definitely them.

I can feel them here. They’re not too subtle, barging in with the entire procession. Guess they really mean to end it.

Forget it.

All I need to do is hold them off for a little longer.

Whatever happens after that is just what happens.

Yeah. I know.

I guess I don’t have much more blood to bleed.

And I never managed to see if it was black or not. Guess it’ll have to do.

[ The noble god of thunder, Jiang Wanyin, leads the charge against the cursed god. ]

[ Behind him is the full force of the heavens. Every divine being under the rule of the sun comes together to slay the treacherous plague that has befallen the world. ]

[ The battle is long and arduous. Many are wounded, and their scars will last for eternity, but by the power of a miracle granted unto the righteous warriors by She Who Is Merciful, Amaterasu-omikami, there is but a single death. ]

[ Glory to the heavens! ]

there was a boy (1)

It happens like this:

Wei Wuxian is introduced to the modern world rather rudely. He takes personal insult to it for a while, unaware that holding a grudge against a shinkansen is a fruitless task, and a shrieking, metal death machine shooting through the country at three hundred-something kilometers an hour is terrifying no matter how divine your blood is.

A splatter is still a splatter. Wen Qing makes him very aware of this fact and forces him to stay away from what he will later learn are train tracks for the duration of their journey.

Now, the thing about train tracks is that they lead to train stations. Wei Wuxian travels alongside them, keeping a very reasonable distance between himself and the occasional assault of whipping wind torn up by giant metal serpents, and he walks and runs and trips some more until something strange peeks over the horizon.

Would you look at that.

A town, not large enough to be considered an important stop along the route, but large enough for a respectable handful of people to shuffle out of those sliding doors.

“The train will be departing shortly. Please stand clear of the doors...”

The buildings are taller than anything they’ve ever seen. The roads are paved black and hot to touch. Strange vehicles are all around them, though it’s not hard to put two and two together and determine that they’ve missed out on more than a few hundred years’ worth of innovation.

Currency isn’t all that hard to come by. He’s always found it nice how people send money along with their dead, because it means more pocket money for himself. Wealth doesn’t mean anything once you’re dead, but Wei Wuxian is alive for some reason, so thank you, bereaved relatives and loved ones, for your generous donation. Your dead are... well, they’re somewhere, probably waiting for divine providence to sort them out, as slowly and inefficiently as their paperwork gets processed.

Hopefully someone found a way to sort out the vacant ruler of death thing. Maybe Izanami took over again. It was always an honorary position, anyway. She’s probably doing just fine.

The world seems to still follow the same currency-in-exchange-for-goods process as before, which is excellent. Everything’s much shinier and smoother than before, which is an interesting change in aesthetic.

Wei Wuxian quickly discovers the existence of packaged snacks. He buys an armful of the most colourful ones and walks out with two plump plastic bags and looks like a fool. He taunts Wen Qing about how nice the chicken is, deep-fried and flavourful and still hot, until she threatens to stick a toothpick in his eye once she reclaims her physical form.

So far, the new world’s looking pretty cool. Divine knowledge really helps with understanding the language, and luckily, he manages to get a change of modern clothes without much difficulty.

Wen Ning says he looks dapper. Wen Qing says he’s trying too hard.

By late afternoon, Wei Wuxian is happily seated in a small, family-owned diner with an excellent bowl of hello madam, could I please have that one, ha ha, yes, I wasn’t born in this country which I most certainly know the name of, but I grew up with parents who spoke this language whose name I also definitely know, so I thought I’d get used to the culture a bit.

The woman laughs good-naturedly, sets down a bowl of what Wei Wuxian will later learn is katsudon, and they have a wonderful conversation about her and only her, because that’s how conversations with Wei Wuxian end up.

He hops to it and finds himself following his nose. This, of course, leads him to the discovery that food has gotten absolutely wild since his sorry soul was shattered into a million-billion pieces, and there’s no stopping the beast once it’s locked onto a strange-looking food and wondered, “what’s that?”

He shreds through a cup of french toast (with lots of whipped cream), a beef croquettes (dripping with sauce), a serving of isobeyaki (mochi grilled in soy sauce? Gasp!), a bowl of anmitsu (topped with ice cream, bananas, and chestnuts), flour dumpling soup (with milk tea, a godsend, a true miracle), and a perfect swirl of matcha-flavoured ice cream (with a sweet wafer, wow, do these humans really know what they’re doing).

Wen Ning cheers him on as he proclaims his loyalty to the foodstuffs of the new world. Wen Qing tells him he’ll die of a bad diet.

All in all, things are perfectly fine.

By modern standards, the town isn’t all that big, which means Wei Wuxian gets lost immediately. Then again, he never had a destination, so it’s more accurate to say that he stumbles upon all sorts of strange things.

Multi-layered living complexes, indoor markets, clothing-washing services, and a whole slew of so-called convenience stores that, after inspection, certainly do look very convenient.

After a final meal of convenience store curry, Wei Wuxian realizes that he might need to figure out where he’s going to live if he’s going to be alive.

Housing might be an issue, since the heavens would definitely notice if he started taking up residence in an empty lot—oh, hang on, no they wouldn’t, they get the universe’s best seats to the tragedy that is human existence and don’t do shit. They’re blind as rocks, because rocks don’t have eyes, and that’s the point he’s trying to get across.

The heavens sort of suck.

Wei Wuxian sneaks into the heavens at the nearest temple. It’s a tiny one, which makes him ferociously grateful, and he sneaks away just before he’s spotted.

The heavens haven’t changed a bit since they smote the hell out of him, literally, and it’s a simple path down roads no sensible god would ever take. Glorious light turns to sweeping shadows, and before long, there’s a handwritten sign that reads,

in very familiar handwriting. It’s nice to see that they kept it up.

And below, another sign reads,

Hopefully the systems they put in place managed to stick. There were some pretty competent people on the council, so they probably still have the place running smoothly.

Wei Wuxian does some more sneaking. He checks the primary level—lots of phantoms, no surprise there—and then he sweeps across the basement level.

It seems like everything’s just fine. People are going about their undead lives like normal, some cheerful, some somber, and there are so many new planes for so many new eras, and Wei Wuxian can’t wait to slap on some mediocre disguise and wander through all the history he missed.

With that settled, Wei Wuxian forges an identity card, dumps all his extra baggage in a nice suite, and heads off to get into more trouble.

He clambers up through hell, then through heaven, and then pops out of the same temple. A passerby gives him a strange look, chalks it up to a long day’s work, and keeps walking.

He sees a park with a set of swings. He makes a beeline for them and seats himself down comfortably.

“I think I like this new life very much,” Wei Wuxian tells the regalia inhabiting his arms.

“Sure,” says Wen Qing. “So, what now?”

“Pardon?”

“What do you want to do? Now that she’s not whispering in your ear.”

Not yet, that is. They all know it, and that’s unfortunate, because Wei Wuxian is pretty good at ignoring mania until it breaks him in places he can’t see.

Anyway.

“This world’s big,” says Wei Wuxian. He leans back on his swing, gets a bit dizzy looking at the sky. Stupid, innocent, blue. “We don’t have a fate anymore. There’s just one road and anywhere in the world to go with it.”

“So we’re playing around until we run across malevolent spirits,” says Wen Qing, rather blandly.

“A god’s duty is to grant the wishes of humans. I’d say the underworld’s doing okay. Paperwork is slow, but that’s how it is with that big a population. I’m a god of death, right? So their wishes are all being granted without me.”

That’s a sad thought. Well, not entirely. It’s great to know that gods didn’t need to stick their hands into human business and muck it all up for wishes to be granted.

It would be nice to have something to do, though. Something that wouldn’t get him noticed by the big, bad heavens.

“Well,” says Wen Ning, “we could... always pick up, um, odd jobs and requests.” A pause, a sudden heat in the wrist that’s definitely a blush, then, “N-not that I would ever slander your name, Young Master!”

Wei Wuxian thinks.

Odd jobs and requests. Contract work. Freedom of choice, lots of good food, a whole new era to poke at and so many gods who don’t give a damn about mundane struggles.

What kind of places are there to see? What kind of people are there to meet? What kind of snacks are there to try?

The world’s a big place. It’s got the one thing hell doesn’t have: potential.

Wei Wuxian hops off the swing. His stumbles a bit, but he doesn’t fall. That’s the good thing about falling time and time again: you get used to it. You get better at catching yourself. If nobody else has the arms to catch you, then you’d better have the strength to pull yourself back up again.

He takes a deep breath, smells warm metal on his palms, and wonders.

“You know what,” says Wei Wuxian, “I think you’re onto something.”

a path with no end

The heavens are like a pool of tar.

Clear, unblemished, utter blackness. Oh, they try so hard to tell themselves they’re righteous, but if you truly believe that, try and say it to my face without breaking down into hysterics. It’s hard, isn’t it? It’s impossible for people like me, and my sense of humour is miserable.

They think just because I’m the god of hell, I’m special.

Boo hoo hoo, he had the decency to talk Izanami into sanity again and now he’s a threat to us all. What are they? Like, five?

Clearly they don’t understand that death might not be a democracy, but hell sure is. What do they want from me? Magic fingers, so they can point whoever they want onto the council?

They have no idea what they want, but they know it’ll make them powerful, and that’s why they want it. They’re fools of the highest calibre, and I’m done trying to explain how idiotic they are. It goes in one ear and out the other. Maybe if you caught it at the other end and fed it back in, it’d be an infinite loop.

Anyway.

Sometimes, you have to let the maggots fester. Eat them from the inside out. Decompose them, break them down, make something new.

She’s telling me to hate them for it. She wants revenge, and she wants me to want it too, and she wants to use me to make them suffer, and for that, she’s willing to make me suffer...

Oops. Lost my train of thought. Where was I?

Right. Revenge. I mean, I don’t really care at this point. I’ve had my fair share of revenge. It doesn’t make me feel good. It doesn’t make me feel whole, or complete, or at peace. I thought it did, once, but I’ve more or less come to the conclusion that she just convinced me that I was happy.

She’s good at that. But what else can she do? Other than revenge, what does she have?

Leaves a bad taste in my mouth, leaving her alone. If I tried hard enough, I could probably get rid of her.

After all, I’m a god, and she’s just a curse.

But what’s it matter, being a human, a ghost, a god, a phantom? What you are won’t save you when the world comes crashing at your feet. Not that it’s come crashing at mine. The world I helped build is perfectly fine, with great insurance policies and medicare.

The point is: I’ve got debts to pay. No matter how warped her belief in me is, or how venomous her love for me is, the fact is that she believes in me, and she loves me, and I can’t take that for granted.

I mean, how rare is it to be believed in? To be loved?

It’s hard for her to hear or see me here. An opportunity like this is just what I need to get them all out of here, to someplace safe, or at least someplace where their souls won’t be bound into names that don’t belong to them and chained in eternal darkness.

So I hold the paperwork in one hand, and a big, dumb seal in the other. Wen Qing gives me a strange look, but she’s too busy drawing borderlines to put her attention elsewhere.

The Wens all turn to me as I approach them. Their expressions are grave, exhausted, anxious. They’re tired of fighting, but they’re terrified of what’ll happen once they stop.

My eyes find the smallest figure in the crowd.

A-Yuan. He looks at me with those big, sparkling eyes, like the entire world could end and he’d still believe in me.

You can’t condemn a child for making a mistake. All you can do is teach by example, and hope they’ll learn for next time.

“Xian-gege,” he says, and a second later, his tiny hands are scrunched up in my robes and I wish I could protect him, I wish I could protect all of them, I wish I could send them to a brighter place where no gods and no ghosts will ever hurt them, but I can’t, because I don’t even know if a place like that exists in life, and the only salvation I can offer them is release.

“Well, hello to you too, A-Yuan,” I say, as cheerfully as I can. “Gege needs to talk to the adults.”

“Talk to me too,” says A-Yuan. “I want to talk to Xian-gege too!”

“We can talk all you want after this, okay? But you see, these papers really need to be signed, and it’s so annoying and hard to read. Once they’re all done, we’ll go get flour dumplings. How does that sound?”

A-Yuan’s eyes go sparkly and glassy in that childlike, dreamy manner. “The ones with black sesame?” he asks, probably two seconds away from drooling all over his chin.

“Anything you like,” I say. “Maybe we can even add chopped nuts if you’re good.”

That does enough to convince him. His grandmother scurries over, bows at the shoulders, and leads the boy away. He makes me promise that we’ll go find the best flour dumplings in the world after this is all done, and I make that promise. Hell’s where all the best chefs go.

It’s always hard to give up happiness once you’ve had it. But I have to let go. Let it all go. Give these people back their lives. Pray that they’ll be happier where they’re going.

“I need to speak with you,” I tell them. “Please, no matter what happens... hear me out.”

I can feel their exhaustion; it’s a mire of grey that hangs over their heads no matter where they should flee or hide. I can see the bags under their eyes; they don’t know if there’s a place they’ll ever feel at peace again.

No matter how bright someone is, no matter how good they are, spirit is a thing that has to be built up. That’s why it’s so easy to destroy.

What a nightmare.

I tell them my plan. I say things like, “I promise you rest and release”, and “I won’t watch you be turned into weapons against your will”, and “I wish I could offer you more”, and “I’m sorry”.

I don’t know why, but their eyes seem to soften a bit as I speak.

Death isn’t a scary thing. It doesn’t even hurt sometimes. The eternity after death is much longer than any duration of pain in life. But potential ends with the rise and fall of your chest, so it’s up to you how you piece your life together afterward.

Maybe that’s why they’re so willing to sign their names.

Choice: we all want it, but there just isn’t enough up here to go around. Down there, though, it’s a different story.

The stamp falls again and again. It’s reserved for the judges of Yomi, except I’m the one who hired them, so I’m sure they’ll let me do this one thing before I go. I press it down firmly, taking care not to smudge it with my sleeve.

Even after everything, they’re all so kind. They trick A-Yuan into scribbling down his name on a contract he can’t read, and he comes running to me with the biggest, proudest grin on his face, and he says, “Look, Xian-gege! I wrote my name!”

And I say, “You sure did. And you did such a good job, too.”

It doesn’t happen all at once, or one by one. They go in fours.

The souls depart quickly. But they linger on a little, float by my head, whisper words I’ll never forget into my ears, and take the path that’ll lead them home.

I hold A-Yuan in my arms. They’ve allowed me this. I don’t deserve it, but since when have I deserved anything I’ve received?

I watch them go, never changing, always the same terrible, selfish being, stitched together by pieces of a revenge I don’t understand, molded into a shape that doesn’t fit anywhere.

But hey: it isn’t all that bad. I get to be free. I get to do whatever I want, however I want. I don’t owe anyone anything.

“It’s so dark,” A-Yuan murmurs.

“It’s getting late,” I lie. “You should sleep. Growing boys need to rest.”

A tiny hand falls on my cheek. It’s so cold. It’s so, so—

“Xian-gege needs to sleep too,” says A-Yuan. “Xian-gege doesn’t grow anymore, but he’s always changing, and changing is growing...”

There’s something caught in my throat. I think it’s a bramble of thorns, or a knife, or fish bones. It hurts, and I can’t swallow it down.

All I can do is pretend I’m rocking this child to sleep, no matter how cold he gets, no matter how shallow his breaths become, because I can’t understand what part of me is changing, but no matter how many years pass, I’ll always pay back my debts and fight for people who have nothing to fight for anymore.

A tiny blue soul rises from his chest. It looks at me, confused, and beckons me to come along.

“Don’t worry about me,” I say. “I keep my promises.”

The last three souls gather around, muttering sadly amongst themselves. They slowly convince him to come along and be a good boy. He looks back at me, worried and confused, and it’s just one more thing I hate about this world.

They walk the path all their friends have taken, and he keeps looking back. I keep smiling. It’s only when the last of the blue shimmers are gone that I take a deep breath, let it all out, and wonder.

Alright. They’re safe. I’ve protected them the only way I know how.

Chin up, Wei Wuxian! You’ve done your good deed for the day. Now you can raise hell like you always do.

The next matter of business is convincing Wen Ning and Wen Qing to take a quick rest. I’ll be quick about it. They won’t even notice. They’ll just fall asleep, and then it’ll just be me and her.

I can’t tell her what I did. She’ll never let me hear the end of it. I’ll just tell her what makes her happiest: that they all ran, that they betrayed me, and now I’m all alone. The gods are going to love it, make a big show out of this stupid god who thought he had something, and he sure did, because that thing he had was a knife in his gut. They’ll probably put on plays once I’m gone to make it really dramatic.

What happened to the Wens?

Well, they betrayed me, got a few good hits in, and then got eaten by phantoms. That’s definitely what happened.

Yeah. That sounds—well, not good, but at least adequate.

Adequate is all I need.

The sky rumbles above me. A bolt of lightning cuts across the darkened skies, lighting up everything in this dark place for a split second, and then a moment later, the outlines of all the ridges and hills are already fading from the back of my eyes.

It’s going to rain soon. His temper was always so easy to predict.

If the heavens want to kill me, well, that’s just what it is.

But I’ve got one last thing to protect. All I need to do is hold my ground for a little longer, and then everything will be done, and I’ll be ready to go to wherever gods go when they die.

Not the heavens, and definitely not hell.

I imagine there’s nothing waiting for me on the other side. That’s peaceful, in its own way.

Alright! Delusional pondering aside, where have those two gone? Limbs probably won’t make for the best of housing, but they’re infinitely better than tiny coffins of eternal darkness, so no, Wen Qing, your landlord won’t hear your complaints, and you’ll just nap through it all, anyway.

I set off, looking for people I’ve lost, like always.

[ Betrayed by his closest allies, the terrible god of death and calamity is utterly alone in the world. ]

[ He deserves all the pain that has been inflicted unto him. There is nothing more to be said: he is a villain of the highest calibre, a disgusting smear on the whole of existence, and the world will be a brighter place without him. ]

[ He will face the heavens alone, and the might of Amaterasu-omikami will destroy him. ]

[ Glory to the heavens! ]

demon child (1)

The best thing about children is that they don’t operate on logic.

If you tell them something that doesn’t make sense, they don’t tell you that you’re wrong. They’ll hammer you with questions: Why? How? No, tell me more!

So, as someone who doesn’t operate on logic either, Wei Wuxian finds himself surprisingly at home as a daycare assistant.

It isn’t hard to forge up some identification, make up a believable backstory, all that jazz. It might be illegal for humans, but Wei Wuxian is a divine being, and he’s pretty sure that makes him above the law.

He takes up the name Wei Ying.

It’s never been a name he’s liked, given the context behind it all, but it’s a new day! A new life! He’ll be Wei Ying because there isn’t a single person in the world who can tell him he can’t.

It was Wen Ning’s idea to find odd jobs so they could grant wishes. Frankly, grown adults have rather troublesome wishes, and none of them want to dive back into that hole anytime soon. Maybe later.

But children don’t genuinely wish death or despair upon people in their life. If anything, it’s more likely for them to wish for material things, and in this strange, materialistic world, even Wei Wuxian can grant a few of those wishes.

It works like a charm. It works terrifyingly well, actually. By the time Wen Ning fully reclaims himself, Wei Ying, the resident god of small fortunes, has a small army of followers age eight and under who fervently believe in his existence as a divine being, or at least a really cool guy.

Time passes. Wen Qing reclaims herself, and with their group as corporeal as they’re going to get, they set off to build a comfortable, peaceful life.

Wei Wuxian—now formally renamed Wei Ying—finds more odd jobs than he knows what to do with.

The children at his daycare tell their parents about him, and those parents talk to other adults, and on and on it goes. Soon enough, word spreads about a kind young man by the name of Wei Ying who hails from a foreign country, who lives all alone due to unfortunate family circumstances, who has a sparkle in his eye and an intense desire to dedicate his entire being toward the betterment of life for the common people.

Somewhere along the way, his godhood turns into model citizenship, which has to be the world’s most entertaining game of telephone. Wei Ying embraces it in stride.

For once, people believe in him, and how incredible is that?

Wen Ning finds a job at a flower shop. Wen Ning starts working at a pharmacy. They mold into the town like they’re no different than the people who’ve lived here all their lives, and it’s nice to see them find a home somewhere.

They deserve it, after being on the run for so long. So, so very long.

Wei Ying becomes known as the town handyman, that strange, young fellow who always smiles and takes on any task no matter how obscure or boring it is. He finds work at grocery stores, flower shops, fast food restaurants, diners, and everywhere in between. He gets good at everything he can get his hands on. He repairs motorbikes, tailors clothing, bakes cakes, shapes wagashi, runs the cash, and talks to everyone and everything.

Contacts are very, very important.

Business cards are collected like trading cards. At the rate Wei Ying gathers them, he feels very comfortable utilizing a newly acquired “meme” involving a trading card game and a certain Forbidden One, but alas: priorities.

Wen Ning takes up some graphic design courses online once they can afford a laptop. He eagerly designs small stickers advertising the divine services of the god of small fortunes, Reikogami. Wei Ying finds a printing shop, slaps down three pages’ worth of vinyl stickers all around town, and pats himself on the back for a job well done, knowing that people won’t call him out for vandalism or anything of the sort, because when they actually manage to spot those stickers, it’ll be when they really need some divine intervention.

Desperation makes for some pretty effective eyeglasses.

Not all requests come in part-time jobs or one-time requests. Word gets out that there’s a new god in town, and unlike all those righteous assholes in heaven, he’s a proactive one.

The calls flood in. Some of them are simple. Some of them aren’t.

Their first day on the job—his real job as a god, not as a handyman—involves a peculiar case of a murder that happened some fifty-odd years ago. Too old to bring up any horrible memories for most, but certainly not old enough for the eighty-something year old couple residing in the home where it all went down.

When night falls, Wei Ying finds the house, peeks in through the window of the sole room he requested remain lit. He nods to himself, satisfied, and says a total of four words: “Wen Ning. Wen Qing.”

A familiar cloak falls over his shoulders and head. A double-edged sword, perfect for severing the chains of death and the call of life, unravels in his hand.

“Not even a bit of rust after thirteen hundred years,” Wei Ying says, admiring the silver-white sheen of the blade. He tosses it up and down. “Always so cutting. And,” he adds, “not even a bit of fraying at the edges. Well done, Wen Ning.”

“Just get this over with,” snaps Wen Qing, over a subdued backdrop of Wen Ning’s stuttering.

The job is straightforward. A recent article in the paper birthed a new wave of interest in the murders, and the poor elderly couple who lives in the house didn’t know how to handle the attention. In a small town, small troubles are big troubles. Anxiety might as well be a nuclear-powered machine in the world of gods and ghosts and phantoms; it shapes mundane concerns into not-so-mundane creatures.

Wei Ying slides the window open and steps inside. He does a primary sweep of the room, smells blood and human rot.

Spot-on. And spotless, too.

Now, Wei Ying prides himself on being one of the more merciful gods. People lose their minds when he tells them this, and seriously, have they even seen the heap of bodies left behind by Luxing and Shouxing? Really! It’s an insult to even be compared to them.

He could pull a few tricks, but he’s not who he was before, and he really doesn’t want to run the risk of being blighted.

As an unbelievably kind and merciful god, Wei Ying prefers to solve his problems by letting them uncover the root of their own grief and suffering. Maybe they let go, maybe they don’t. The point being that maybe exists in every scenario, and hasty conclusions are looked down upon nowadays by every field of science except maybe the social ones, and god knows what sort of humans are masochistic enough to subject themselves to the torture of figuring out what in the fresh hell dances across those weird, fleshy, pink mortal brains.

Anyway.

A few choice words and well-spoken taunts later, there’s a rather horrific phantom with half a face and half his limbs crawling on the ceiling, and it’s actually pretty terrifying.

“Oh,” says Wei Ying, scampering around the mangled thing like it’s the biggest cockroach he’s ever had the displeasure of seeing. “You’re not the victim. You’re that asshole with the scissors, aren’t you?”

The thing reaches into its gaping void of a mouth and pulls out a worrying large pair of scissors.

“A yes would’ve worked just as well,” Wei Ying tells the thing, and promptly removes its head from its shoulders.

With one murderous phantom annihilated from existence, Wei Ying sneaks down to the kitchen, collects his payment of a single coin from a small basket, and goes home.

This, perhaps, is where the unfaltering and merciless flow of time truly begins to work to his benefit.

There aren’t many people who can see gods when they don’t want to be seen. For some people, it’s like trying to pick out individual molecules of air, and for others, it’s like squinting at the sun.

Not that staring too long at a god will blind you or anything, unless the god you choose to direct your unashamed fish-eyes at is in a particularly bad mood or happens to wield lightning, in which case they’re always in a bad mood and choose transit by lightning to avoid congestion along the divine highways, both of which demonstrate a pent-up animosity toward themselves, the world, and the whims of fate, and it isn’t as much an attack on your person as an attack on existence as a whole.

Gods, though, can see each other just fine.

The tiny temple, more accurately defined as a shrine, obviously comes with a minor god. Said minor god stands by the stone posts at the entrance and gives Wei Ying a very bland, very unimpressed stare.

“You’ve been using my place as a stairway to heaven,” says the god, who’s dressed like any other perfectly respectable twenty-first century human. She crosses her arms, and despite the fact she’s half his height, her presence is quite intimidating. She has piercing green eyes and pupils like slits. Very snake-like.

Wei Ying thinks quickly. He says, “Things are hard when you’re as small as I am.”

“Yeah? What’s your name?”

“Reiko,” says Wei Ying.

The small god scrutinizes him. It’s not the suspicious kind of scrutiny. In fact, it’s the sort of look you’d give a stray cat if you were looking for scrapes and cuts.

“I’m Ugajin,” says the small god. She scuffs her feet along the ground. “I guess you can use my place as a door if you need to.”

And that’s how Wei Ying becomes divine roommates with Ugajin, a god of harvest and fertility, who has this one regalia that turns into a giant snake.

Some time passes, and they’re already roommates. Specifically, Wei Ying’s housing at Ugajin’s place in Takamagahara, and he helps out by playing maid when he can.

Ugajin’s a really cool god. She treats Wei Ying like he’s a nuisance and not a curse, and then she panics when he almost cries because of it.

She enrolls him in a crash course on How To Be A Minor God, instructed by none other than herself, which is immensely helpful, because so far Wei Ying’s just been winging it due to his hideous lack of experience in the wish-granting department. You know, with formalities and all that stuff.

“Answer their prayers like you’d talk to me,” she says, then points him off toward a worshiper who’s currently eyeing the sticker by Ugajin’s shrine that reads DIVINE HANDYMAN SERVICES: YOU NAME IT, I’LL DO IT!

So Wei Ying pokes his head out from behind Ugajin’s temple. He’s a bit nervous, since these people all know him as the town helper.

“Um, Reikogami,” the boy starts, clapping his hands together in front of the sticker, “I’m having some trouble with nightmares, and I was wondering if you could help me.”

“Now answer him,” Ugajin hisses. “Do your telepathy thing!”

“Uh,” says Wei Ying.

His mind blanks. People don’t pray pray to him, ever. How’s he supposed to act godly now when he’s been rolling in a barren field of fucks since the beginning of his existence?

With all the intelligence he can muster, Wei Ying says, “Uh. Spa—spaghetti.”

Ugajin literally starts appealing to the heavens. Wen Qing looks like her soul has vacated her body. Wen Ning gives him a weak thumbs-up.

They make him swear to always meet his clients in person. He swears. It’s better for everyone that way.

Life with Ugajin is incredibly entertaining. Exciting might not be the right word, but watching a perfectly sane god loser her composure when Wei Ying screams for the phantoms to possess him and dance him around like the little flesh bag he is if they’re so tough and scary.

“Plunge us into darkness, demons,” Wei Ying will shout from the top of the tallest building every Sunday, just because he can.

“I will rip your eyelashes off one by one and feed them to you,” Wen Qing will shout back. Wen Ning will be smiling and offering those same, weak thumbs-ups. Ugajin will be staring off into the distance, probably imagining a thousand ways to kill him horribly and hide the body.

But life’s good. It’s all a lot of fun.

When Wei Ying and Ugajin both have nothing better to do than enjoy each other’s company, they’ll hop onto her serpentine helper (who’s actually a charming young lady with unruly hair) and take off to the skies, because snakes can fly if they’re divine servants.

Summers are humid and hot, but the skies are always cold.

The town below them isn’t small, but it’s modest. There’s a shiny bit of developed land people call downtown, and the rest of it is quiet and cozy. It’s always fun to pick out the landmarks: the glowing neon sign of Sukiya, the shuttered windows of Mikazuki-do, the two-story cat cafe, the park at the top of the tallest hill, all the sort and more.

They don’t say much to each other. When they do talk, it’s never too much about themselves. Ugajin says makes a passing comment about how Benzaiten and Saraswati get all the attention. Wei Ying mentions something about being good with knives.

Then Ugajin will start talking about the history of the town, the significance of each nook and cranny, the best places to eat when you just want to take to the streets and see small town life at its finest.

It’s nice.

“Nice town,” says Wei Ying, on one of their flights.

“Just big enough for the two of us,” says Ugajin, and that’s that.

It’s a relief to have another god around, because Wen Ning and Wen Qing finally have someone to talk to about gods and their divine shenanigans. They get along shockingly well with Ugajin’s regalia, and all three of them wait for the other shoe to drop for a good year before arriving at the conclusion that Ugajin either isn’t old enough, doesn’t remember, or just doesn’t care.

Wen Ning familiarizes himself with modern tech like he’s the world’s most terrifying AI and kindest terminator. Wen Qing immediately picks up on modern medicine and hammers Wei Ying about his diet.

If Wei Ying’s going to die this time, it won’t be because of his diet. That would be even more depressing that last time.

They all grow accustomed to daily life. During the day, Wei Ying takes up jobs wherever he can, not because he has to, but because it’s fun to be at work with humans and not toiling away with politics and expectations drilling an ugly hole in your head.

Humans meet him, befriend him, and forget him. He fits anywhere and everywhere.

Some people learn his name and commit it to memory, and that’s not an easy task, but they manage it anyway.

The flower shop lady knows his name well; she calls him in when Saturday rolls around and she needs extra hands to help her dethorn and display all the end-of-week 200 yen roses. The old man at Mikazuki-do has him heat the red bean paste three times a week, all early in the morning and well into the afternoon. The manager of a honey shop tells him to come in whenever he feels like it, mostly at night, when business is slow and they’re too tired to care what they say or hear.

He gets a lot of roses, wagashi, and honey samples out of it. Wen Ning dries the roses out for tea. Wei Ying methodically eats his way through every product available at Mikazuki-do. Wen Qing mixes the honey into milk when it gets cold.

Not bad at all.

Not everyone remembers him, and he likes it that way. Last time everyone knew him, things didn’t turn out so well, and it’s nice to introduce himself again and again as Reikogami. He starts to feel comfortable in his new skin, even though he has the same garb, the same sword.

Wei Ying gets to know the town from the inside out. He’s the one cranking the wrench in a small garage, icing decorative touches onto cakes, scooping rice into bowls to top with beef and cheese, folding clothing for display.

He’s got hands for a reason, right? Might as well put them to use.

Every night, he flips the hood up on his cloak and wanders around town with a silver-white sword. Sometimes, it’s quiet. Sometimes, there are a few scuffles. Nothing to worry about.

Requests to both Wei Ying and Reikogami are steady. He hops to it, because there’s nothing better than a town full of people who believe in you no matter what you look like or what your name is, and damn, is that a good feeling.

When the day’s over and done, Wei Ying crashes at Ugajin’s place. It’s a modest home, complete with a nice kitchen and a shiny pressure cooker, and they alternate between buying groceries, cooking, and going out when neither of them can muster up the mental strength to prepare a meal.

Before he knows it, three years have passed, and none of them can believe how utterly peaceful it’s been.

The daycare children, both current students and alumni, greet him brightly. His existence is something carved into their concept of reality; they don’t forget him. Others do. It’s great.

One day, when he’s been called to the daycare once again, the teacher approaches him and tells him something he’ll never forget. Something he never forgot.

“We’re welcoming a new student today,” she says, smiling softly.

“That’s wonderful,” says Wei Ying.

She continues, says that this boy has had a rough time, losing his entire family in an accident of sorts. He’s from overseas, she says, and the family that runs a temple in a neighbouring town adopted him, but his mother lives here because of some specific strand of work, so we’ll be enjoying his company from now on.

Wei Ying beams. It’s nice to know that he finally has someone to ask about how home’s doing.

“What’s his name?” he asks.

And of course it would take them thirteen hundred years to chance upon each other again, because—

“He’s called Lan Yuan. Oh, and please be kind to him. The town where he came from...”

—Life is a fickle thing, tangible like water, nourishing you one second and drowning you the other, and time is even worse, because what the hell can you do with sand?

“...Insisted that he was cursed.”

revelations

I was a miracle child.

There is a sort of magic in the concept of time. Surely you understand, as someone who has always been grasping at it. The more time bends for you, the more power you hold; the more divine you appear.

I was born on the exact moment one day rolled to the next. I was born on the very first moment of Mid-Autumn, and from my very first breath, my fate would be written into stone.

As a child, I brought about life. I was the miracle of Mid-Autumn; as long as I was present, harvests would be prosperous, and family would never be apart.

When my parents lost their lives to illness, I remained untouched.

When surroundings towns burned to the ground, mine stood tall.

When storms ravaged the land, ours was pure, unblemished, blessed by the gods.

I truly believed myself to be a blessed girl.

Can you blame me? I was the figurehead. I was the conduit of divine power. I was everything to the town, and they loved me.

But everyone’s childhood comes to an end. The flow of time is impartial—you cannot fight it.

I’m not sure when it began, or when I started to lose my divinity. All I know is that one day, a terrible plague swept across our people, crops began to fail, and storms destroyed all we thought precious.

They blamed me. They called me a traitor. I had done something horrible and showed no repentance; this was the heavens’ way of punishing me.

And oh, the things they did to me. They were so desperate. They cut me, strung me up, and bled me like a pig. They offered my blood to the gods. They poured red, red, red over their fields, their land, their sick.

I was a tainted thing, but they believed me pure. Foolish. Vulgar animals, all of them.

They kept me in a shed, boarded up the windows, fed me once a day. I begged them for mercy; I begged for forgiveness. I prayed to the gods and asked what my transgression was. I suffered in silence, all while the voices of people who had once hailed me as a divine being mocked me.

When the gods failed me, I sought the demons. When even that failed me, I began to search for release. Anything that would end my suffering.

Tell me, my child: what would you have done?

You were always so kind. Even when those animals wronged you, there was nothing but perfect purity within you.

You are the definition of divinity, my child. So, so perfect.

I assume you would have done one of two things: pushed back against this injustice, or used your intellect to prove them all wrong. Alas, I was but a human, and the board was frighteningly torn. There must have been a perfect move, but I was no chessmaster. In the eyes of the gods, surely all moves would have been wrong.

I ran.

In the dark of night, I fled. I left with nothing, as a child of nothing. I was no miracle. I was a girl, hated by all who once loved me. I had nowhere to go but anywhere, and that terrified me.

It’s sad, isn’t it?

But this, my sweet child, is only the beginning.

Grudges are fleeting. I truly believed that with all my heart. I ran so far that the skin tore off my feet, and when tougher, harder skin grew back, it sustained my blind panic. I ran until I fell ill with a terrible cough, and only when my lungs began to fail did I stop.

A temple took me in. The priestesses there saw before them a broken child and insisted on making me whole again.

Can you imagine the words that spilled from my lips?

I was jagged, bleeding, feverish. I saw their robes and their scriptures. Oh, I was a miserable child. I begged forgiveness of them and the heavens; I eagerly awaited punishment for my actions.

They forgave me. I was a squabbling child with the arrogance to presume that the gods would give me any attention at all. I imagine it was a relief when I fed myself on their forgiveness and fell silent.

The illness passed. I reclaimed my health. The divine servants took me under their wing and raised me as a priestess of Ohirume-no-muchi-no-kami, though we lovingly call her Amaterasu.

Oh, what joy those days were. I was a holy servant once more, reborn from the weight of my sins. I was loved by the women who had taken me in. I was their little jewel, their unfaltering arrow, a beautiful little girl who had been twice-blessed and once-cursed.

Those days, I believe, were the brightest I ever had.

Not to repeat myself... but everyone’s childhood comes to an end.

Time is merciless. It runs ahead and leaves you weeping in its wake.

I will be honest with you, my sweet child. I did something horrible. An unforgivable transgression.

What was it, you ask?

Why don’t you take a guess?

Theft? Murder? Betrayal?

Oh, good guesses. Very good. The world of men and mortals truly is disgusting. But you’re not thinking hard enough, my child. I once bled everything that was in me for those animals; I certainly wouldn’t risk bleeding myself again, no matter how desperately I desired anything.

Tell me: what is the one force that makes mortals whole, that breaks them, that drives them beyond their reach, to the far shore that drowns them?

Yes, my child. You should know very well how tangled and wretched the bonds of emotion are.

Love.

It’s a powerful force, capable of great and terrible things.

We would know that very well, being the calamitous creatures we are. You truly are your mother’s son.

But I digress. That’s right; my sin was love. Simply put, I fell in love with someone I should never had laid my eyes on.

The life I lived before—my life as a miracle child—was my hell. And the life I was thrust into was a thousand times worse.

I wasn’t made to bleed. To them, you see, my blood was impure. A single drop would cast the entire city into calamity. Surely I was a demon, a malevolent spirit taken human form, because what disgusting creature would fall in love with a god?

What they could not see was the purity of my love. I never wanted anything for myself. When Amaterasu descended before me, put her hand on my head, and told me, you’re a good child, the only desire within me was to worship her for as long as my meager, mortal life would allow me.

So why was my life—my perfect love—warped into something monstrous?

I was cast into darkness. My friends, who taught me archery; my family, who gave me worth; my world, built upon the foundations of something I left behind.

All of it came crumbling down.

In that small, damp room, I heard many things. The voices of the priestesses, mocking me with their silver-white words. They called me a beast, a heathen, a rat that would die soon enough without food or water. But they brought me nourishment, and I lived.

Ah, but I have sharp ears. Years and years of hearing the voice of the gods made me very perceptive.

Servants of her excellency Amaterasu-omikami would never lower themselves to the level of murderers. Yet they yearned for my disappearance; they wished for me to silently pass, after which they would be free of this stain upon their reputation.

I heard them speak. They never kept their voices down. They said, surely if we keep her in there long enough, she’ll break by herself.

That, my sweet child, was the vile seed that started it all.

The darkness was my cage. Little by little, sanity slipped away from me.

My skin burned, and I scratched at it until I bled. And when I felt my blood upon my hands, I brought it to my nose and my lips. It smelled and tasted of iron, and I was sure I was human.

Are humans not worthy of the gods’ mercy?

Was it not the when humans were at their lowest—when their lives were meaningless—that the gods extended their hands and lifted them up?

What a foolish little girl I was.

In utter darkness, scraping off my own flesh, biting my nails jagged and growing them back thinner and thinner until they ripped off my fingers and no longer brought me relief, I prayed to Amaterasu and asked her a single question:

Why?

What had I done wrong? I neither lusted after her nor envied her power. I adored her, in the way a dog adores its master.

Days became weeks, weeks became months, and before my very eyes, three years had slipped away from me.

And I kept praying.

I prayed.

I prayed.

I prayed.

With every fiber of my being, I prayed.

Take my blood, take my flesh, take my life—

And once I am nothing more than bone and marrow, once I am purged of sin, have mercy on my soul.

Tell me, my child: do you think the gods answered me?

No? I suppose that would be the logical answer.

Allow me to tell you a secret of mine.

If the gods had truly left me to die, it is very, very likely that my spirit would have withered away until I faded from the world, never to be seen again.

The gods answered me. Can you guess what they said?

I heard Amaterasu’s voice in my ear. I felt her breath on my neck. In that moment, before she bestowed any words upon me, I felt blessed—more than I ever felt before.

And her excellency, she who bestows life and light upon the unworthy, said this:

You were never meant to be.

Ah... betrayal is truly a terrible thing. Terrible, terrible. Like a knife that cuts you open, slowly, silently, from your stomach up to your neck. By the time your innards have rotted away, it’s far too late for you.

I scratched, scratched, and scratched. My flesh burned, and I knew I had been cursed by the sun. The pain would remain with me always, scorching my skin, purging me of sins I never carried.

In that dark, damp room, I smelled blood, and I looked at my hands.

Of course, it was dark, and every colour was the same. It was one plane of black.

My blood was black. Everything I was—filthy. Undeserving. Demonic. Wretchedly, foolishly human.

What do you suppose happened afterward, my child?

That’s right. I died.

I assume I died by working myself into a fever. In more crude terms, I finally broke, and my sanity collapsed. My body couldn’t keep up with the effort, and it simply gave up.

A rather disappointing way to exit the world, in my opinion. In my ideal world, I would have torn the planks down, stolen a sword, and hacked away at them until someone cut me down. Perhaps I would have returned as a demon that way.

I was given no burial. My body was tossed in a river, and I drifted down, down, down...

But we know better. Death is never the end, is it?

I watched as my filthy corpse passed by villages and towns. I saw the expressions on those animals’ faces as they saw my torn skin, my black blood.

I hated them all. I hated those bystanders, who called me cursed and threw stones at my body. I hated the priestesses, who loved me and then wished for my slow demise. I hated that tiny, foolish town for making me believe I had ever been blessed at all.

Hatred coursed through me.

I can’t even begin to explain what I felt as my soul was dragged off to hell.

Revolusion. Anger. Every part of me once considered divine writhed with maggots that they had planted in me.

I shall spare you the details of what happened in hell, as that story is one of waiting and waiting until I finally had the chance to strike. You know the ending. I escaped, and I claimed a new body.

To celebrate my rebirth, I planted a phantom in the heart of the head priestess.

She was the one who had given my robes... and I would tear her to pieces.

Phantoms are contagious. I was an unwanted being, and so were they. We shared a kinship deeper than any selfish proclamations of love or family. So I sent them to the temple, laughed as those dirty humans turned on each other, and felt a vicious joy when the gods themselves erased the sight of tragedy from existence.

That joy lasted only for a moment. Because all the humans who had watched the priestesses destroy themselves—all those perfectly good eyes and hearts—

Forgave the gods.

Rumours spread quickly. My name was thrown around. I was the ember that burned everything to the ground.

The cursed child of Mid-Autumn had done this. She and her plague destroyed the peace they cultivated, and the gods had taken mercy on the poor souls subject to her vile touch!

And my response:

Are you animals all blind?

The gods struck them down! They could have blessed those venomous women slowly, emptied them of blight, but had chosen to execute them all instead! What was wrong with all of them? Were they delusion? Had they gone mad?

Had I gone mad?

No, my child. The truth revealed itself only after all my suffering.

I had not gone mad. The entire world had lost its mind, and it was up to me to return all to null.

I had no one to turn to. The heavens had forsaken me. I was no longer human. I yearned for destruction, but I yearned alone.

So I wished with all my soul for someone to answer me.

A god, a demon, a ghost... anything with the power to grant the only wish I ever wished.

For the first time, my prayers were answered.

Gods are created of desires. And you, my child, are the creation of my single, unfaltering, perfect wish:

Cull the herd.

As for everything afterward... you saw it unfold. We were there, together, as the gods wronged you time and time again. I feel sorry for you, my precious child. I truly do. You were born with the curse I never bore.

Yes. You are calamity. Death. Destruction. And I love you so much for it.

Do you see the root of my grudge? Do you understand why I hate them so?

The gods are free from any sin. They are always right. But who do you think forgives the debt?

Humans do.

No matter how much you take, how much you walk all over those filthy mortals, they simply accept it without a word of complaint.

That is why I will never let them go. Not the gods... or any of the idiots who forgive them.

Do you see now, my child?

Do you understand my wrath now, my child?

Do you love me still, my child?

Of course you do. You’re my greatest wish. My wonderful desire. My precious son.

Let us bring calamity unto this world. Let us break everything at its foundations and watch the heavens crumble.

Never forgive them. Do not forget what they did to you. Keep that hatred close, and use it as your blade.

And I will guide your hand, my sweet, precious child.

No matter how long it takes... no matter how many gods fall...

Mother.

Rather, she who hides colours.

I see. Your name was born in that dark, dark room, wasn’t it?

All of us are born in dark places. It’s so our eyes can adjust before we walk out into the world.

Some of us never made it out, I suppose.

death in a bottle (1)

It’s difficult to find the words you want to say after being apart for thirteen hundred years.

A-Yuan sits in front of him, having finished a wonderful introduction worthy of bringing tears to Wei Ying’s eyes, because look at him, he’s still so innocent, and it hurts so bad to see that he can never escape tragedy no matter what life he lives, but look at his smile, and his little backpack, and that adorable yellow hat, and his child-sized crayons that are still too big for him, and get a hold of yourself, Reikogami, or do you want to work yourself into heartburn like some sort of loser?

Now that Wei Ying has let the silence sit and sit until it’s no longer well done and more well burned, A-Yuan shuffles awkwardly. “Um,” he says, shyly. “Hello.”

Being the S-Tier idiot he is, Wei Ying says, “Hello. I’m a god; did you know that?”

If Wen Qing were here, she would’ve thrown him out the nearest window. Fortunately for her, Wei Ying has enough sense to realize that isn’t the best way to introduce himself to someone he considers a long-lost adoptive son.

A-Yuan looks at him curiously. “A god?” he says. “A god of what?”

“A god of small fortunes,” says Wei Ying, smiling as brightly as he can.

“Only small fortunes?” says A-Yuan. “Like when you get a winner popsicle, or when you get an extra egg in your ramen?”

Wei Ying breathes a short sigh of relief, then claps his hands together. “Right!” he says. “Or when you order a bowl of flour dumplings with sesame, and they give you chopped nuts even though you never asked.”

For a moment, A-Yuan goes silent. His brows furrow in deep thought.

“Mister god-of-small-fortunes,” he says, “have we met before?”

Ah. No, that certainly won’t do.

“Maybe at a shrine,” says Wei Ying.

“Oh,” A-Yuan says to himself. He brightens, breaking into a great, wide grin, and he directs the full force of the assault toward the god before him. “What’s your name, mister god?”

“Reiko,” Wei Ying answers. “But,” he says, suddenly subdued and secretive, “I go by Wei Ying nowadays. Alright?”

With one disastrous introduction out of the way, Wei Ying does his best to go about the day as calmly as possible. In his mind though, a single question repeats:

Why?

Why now?

Human lives are fleeting. They’re gone in an instant, and you’ll only ever catch the tail end of them. It’s like one of those incredible domino art setups, and gods are the idiots that only turn when someone shakes their shoulders and says, “Come on, you’re going to miss it!”

Nobody answers his question, obviously. Wei Ying’s a genius because he finds his own answers.

But he doesn’t care too much about disecting the reasoning behind all this. It’s not worth the energy. The fact is that they’re here, in the mortal realm, at the same time and place, and there’s no need to freak out over it.

So Wei Ying keeps living. He tells Wen Ning and Wen Qing about A-Yuan’s abrupt return into their lives. They mutter amongst themselves, then keep living, too.

For a while, the town is abuzz. There’s a new family in town consisting of a mother, her mother, and a young child. Wei Ying buys a set of wagashi from Mikazuki-do as a welcoming present. He greets A-Yuan’s mother—a kind lady with shiny black hair and gold-brown eyes—with all the dignity of a god, then reminds her that if she ever needs any help, he’ll always be here to do the heavy lifting.

Madam Lan thanks him, then says that she’d be more than willing to exchange stories of home with him.

And so Wei Ying starts visiting the Lan household twice a week for dinner. He always comes with gifts, no matter how much Madam Lan insists that he doesn’t need to be so generous.

Old Madam Lan pokes at him and tells him he needs to eat more. “You’re all skin and bones,” she says, which isn’t very accurate. “You’ve been feeding yourself, haven’t you? I bet you’re the kind that buys those big packs of ramen for days you can’t be bothered to feed yourself,” she says, which is frighteningly accurate.

So on the days when Wei Ying feels a bit down, he does his best to shuffle his sorry self over to the Lan household. A-Yuan always greets him at the door, receives his gifts eagerly, and deposits everything in the fridge before Madam Lan can tell him they’re not necessary.

The food is warm, filling, and tranquil. It doesn’t have too much flavour, but something about it makes Wei Ying feel safe, and he finds himself sinking into the peace he finds in this house.

A-Yuan warms up to him like they’ve known each other for a lifetime. “Ying-gege,” is what he calls Wei Ying.

Wei Ying almost swallows his entire spoon when he hears it.

Time passes. Life has barely changed at all, save for one new family in this one small town.

They mostly forget about the curse thing. Children can be cruel, but the children of Reikogami and Ugajin couldn’t care less about curses. Curses and miracles are more or less the same thing, anyway. It’s the intent that’s different, but the point is that belief is the source of all divinity.

Therefore, if you believe hard enough that a curse is just a really stubborn walnut, you can easily smash it with a rock, or if you’re feeling really intense, crack it to pieces between your teeth.

A-Yuan makes friends easily. He has the sort of smile that makes you want to see it again and again, and the other children gravitate to him naturally.

Wei Ying watches A-Yuan when nobody else can. They explore the town, peek in every shop, clap their hands and pray at Ugajin’s temple. Wen Ning catches them one day, and he trips over his tongue a thousand times and still doesn’t manage an introduction. Wen Qing comes along and introduces both of them, and it’s obvious that they’re trying not to tear up.

But things are good. Life is good. Things are quiet but lively, and that’s wonderful.

And then things hit a bump when a vent opens up not too far away from town.

Vents: a god’s greatest headache. Nothing ruins a perfectly good day than a torrent of malevolent phantoms from hell’s naughty corners, and from experience, Wei Ying knows that hell has a lot of naughty corners, and none of the phantoms in any of them are ever in the mood to talk.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” says Ugajin, when she turns on the weather forecast to see a giant storm of screaming phantoms pouring out of an otherwise normal field.

Unfortunately, nobody’s kidding, and that vent really is a mess. So they call up their regalia, put on their serious pants, and hop to it. To be accurate, they slither to it on a flying snake, but whatever.

Even with two gods, it’s tedious work. They set up borderlines again and again to keep all the naughty phantoms in, and they hack and slash until their numbers have dwindled visibly. Then they close in on the mob, whack the sorry beasts around again, rinse and repeat.

Once the vent’s been closed off, they haul their sorry selves back home, where they order two cheese and beef dons for everyone. They tip the delivery boy generously, turn him around as he stares confusedly at the small and very much vacant shrine, and bid him goodnight.

They eat and promptly pass out. Their regalia happily follow their example.

Life goes on as normal after the little vent incident. After a few weeks, it’s mostly forgotten. Night patrols are a bit busier for a while, but things die down as the phantoms die, and everything’s just fine.

Ugajin travels around a bit to her shrines across the country. Wei Ying introduces himself as the town handyman again and again, until one day, he doesn’t need to.

Things change. Things stay the same.

And then another vent opens up a few kilometers away from the old one.

Ugajin looks like she’s about to burst a blood vessel. Wei Ying just wants to sleep. Nevertheless, they inform their regalia about the development and steel themselves for another endless grind with no reward.

It’s like slapping at an endless mob of low-level monsters in a poorly-designed RPG. They’re well into the 90s, and they’re carrying a town full of 10s and 20s on their shoulders. It’s a one-shot kill, but it’s a one-shot kill that takes energy and focus, and at this rate, they really are just going to go full Pokemon and Struggle themselves to death.

Oops. No negative thinking, Wei Ying. Imagine it as some Disgaea nonsense: none of this matters, so you might as well stack on top of each other’s heads and combine your forces using the power of friendship.

“I’ve never seen a vent open up so quickly in the same place,” says Ugajin, once they’ve cleaned up.

“It could be coincidence,” Wei Ying offers.

Ugajin gives him a nasty look. “Once is an accident,” she says. “Twice is a coincidence. Three times sucks ass. Do you really want to risk that third time?”

“We don’t exactly have any preventative measures.”

“Find whoever’s opening up the vents and smack them around until they repent.”

“That,” says Wei Ying, “is a very proactive way of doing things.”

“I’m sure as hell not Ohirume-no-muchi-no-kami,” says Ugajin, and that certainly reveals a lot about where she stands in relation to the heavens.

This time, they order pizza. Lots of it. They have the world’s saddest and most exhausted pizza party, and Wei Ying wakes up with his face buried in a bowl of salad. He must’ve been astral projecting or something, because there’s no way he would ever put that shrubbery in his body unless he literally had nothing else to replace it.

With their battle plan vaguely arranged, Wei Ying and Ugajin set off in search of any suspicious characters who might be drilling holes to Yomi. They do one sweep, and then another, and when they don’t find anything, Wei Ying recruits his army of children to ask if anyone’s been feeling particularly down lately.

No dice. It kind of sucks, but they can’t really do much more than wait for the other shoe to drop and get it all over with.

The third vent opens up. Nobody’s in a good mood.

It’s pretty well known—at least, it was pretty well known—that the usurper of hell, the harbinger of calamity, Wei Wuxian himself, was kind of frugal when it came to regalia.

To be honest, he never really wanted any regalia in the first place. Who on earth would bother with a crazy god like him, right?

Well, turns out Wen Ning and Wen Qing aren’t as sane as they appear, because everything went down the way it did, and they decided to go and become blessed regalia just because they could, and now all three of them are permanent members of the deathly death squad since they’ve built the house around them and forgotten to cut out a door, and no, Wen Qing, there’s no such thing as a resignation letter when you party with the boys, and no no no hang on it’s just a joke, like you know that one meme, it’s joke, we’re all happy here and enjoy having our limbs remain attached to our bodies, so let’s just go about life and have a grand old time.

Anyway. The point is: Wen Ning and Wen Qing are pretty recognizable. The other point is: a cloak and a sword, no matter how blessed, are kind of lame next to military-grade weaponry.

Wei Ying has no idea how Ugajin has so many regalia whose vessel forms are firearms, and frankly, he doesn’t want to ask. He’s satisfied as he is, trotting alongside a god who could put lead between his eyes from half a world away.

What’s that quote again? Right. Just... just let sleeping gods lie.

Wen Qing cleaves through the sky a few times. Wen Ning catches phantoms with his tendrils and hurls them back into hell. Ugajin summons a few regalia they’ve never seen him use before, and it seems like it’s for a good reason, because when he summons a young, innocent regalia by the name of Natsume (name: Natsume, vessel: Kakki, form: giant ass missile launcher that makes Wei Ying want to twirl around and shout Tiro Finale and get his head rudely bitten off by a plush toy monstrosity), everyone takes cover as what sounds like every god of lightning in every divine pantheon in existence proceeds to play the world’s most violent game of Whack-A-Mole, except the moles are phantoms, and the mallet is divine missiles.

“You know,” Wei Ying tells Ugajin once they’ve altered the landscape into something akin to ground zero, “if we ever go out of business as gods, we could start a career as magical girls.”

Ugajin considers this for a moment. “Or idols,” she says. “Idols would work.”

“We’d be the dream team. Our social media presence would be our divine power.”

“Idols get a lot of worship these days, don’t they? Their words might as well be the word of the heavens.”

They think this over. The longer the think on it, the better of an idea it sounds, which is only one more reason why you should never leave Wei Ying and Ugajin in a room without supervision.

“We should try to get an online following,” says Ugajin.

“We could use Twitter to gain some international believers,” says Wei Ying. He pauses and thinks a bit. “Followers,” he corrects.

“Memes are more or less spiritual release,” Ugajin points out. She hefts Kakki off her shoulder, and everyone breathes a bit easier. “We could pioneer a new method of worship.”

Neither of them have the mental capacity to process exactly how bad of an idea that is. “Let’s get some food first,” says Wei Ying.

They crash at Ugajin’s place. All of them hop in the shower for a bit to clean off the impurities, and then it’s off to the shopping district to find a nice place to eat that isn’t too heavy on thinking or speaking coherently or anything of the sort.

The heavens are merciful for once, because they soon find themselves seated at a nice hotpot place, where they proceed to bring calamity upon all the lamb and beef they can. Ugajin makes the mistake of picking a hefty piece of bok choy from Wei Ying’s spicy side, which is a pot on its own and notably separated from the other spicy pots, because Reikogami’s reputation is built on the shattered egos of all the people who can’t handle a bit of chili.

Ugajin eats five napkins and demands a cup of milk. The serpentine regalia, Kusame (vessel: Soki), runs to the nearest convenience store and returns with a six-pack of milk boxes.

Wei Ying is formally banished to the corner seat. He takes it in stride, because that’s who he is as a person.

They eat until they’re sleepy and full. Then they make the walk home, a procession of gods and divine servants bumbling through small town streets, and nobody could care less.

There’s a glaring fact that nobody’s caught yet. Wei Ying chalks it up to how peaceful their new lives have been, and also maybe a bit of denial.

So when Wei Ying shoots up in his futon at fuck-all in the morning and screams, “Oh my god the curse,” he is immediately silenced by a pillow smothering any words he might say, courtesy of a sleep-deprived Wen Qing.

He saves it for the morning.

“We completely forgot about A-Yuan’s supposed curse,” he says, while mixing an egg into his rice.

“The Lan boy,” Ugajin says, wrinkling her nose. She moves to grab the soy sauce; Wei Ying grabs it first. “Asshole,” she adds, without any bite.

He slides the bottle back once he’s done. “You know how it is with curses,” he says. “The moment someone believes in it, it builds itself into reality. That’s why we use softer words, like impurities and blemishes.” The pickled radish squeaks under his teeth, and a satisfying tang of sour-spicy flavours the rice. “Hey, did you pickle these yourself? They’re pretty good.”

“Kusame made them,” Ugajin answers, smiling smugly. She downs her miso soup in one go. “Should’ve looked into the curse thing sooner. Never expected it to spawn literal hellholes.”

“It’s definitely a powerful curse,” says Wei Ying. “Oh,” he adds, “you should try the egg rolls at Tamagoyaki Sweets. They’re incredible.”

Ugajin frowns. “The new place? I’ve been there. It’s a bit sweet for me.” She cracks another egg in her rice to make it extra soupy, polishes off the remainder, and sets her bowl down. “It might be a hereditary curse. Those are the most powerful ones I’ve seen, since they pick up so much steam as they chug along.”

“Or,” says Wei Ying, “it could be divinely sourced.” He lets that sit for a moment, crunches a few more sizeable chunks of radish down. “And you have to try their ice cream. At least that’s supposed to be sweet.”

Ugajin sighs. She rubs her temple, like the very sight of Wei Ying is a headache. “And,” she says, “which god do you think cursed a child?”

“I don’t think it’s a curse curse,” says Wei Ying. He moves to wash the dishes; Ugajin stands and mans the sink, handing him the towels instead. “It’s probably like a bell,” he guesses, taking the towel and wiping their tableware squeaky clean. “The sort of rings when you go somewhere or do something you shouldn’t have.”

“Still a valid question,” Ugajin points out.

And then Wei Ying remembers something.

The thing he remembers is of decent importance and demonstrates a frightening lack of foresight.

“Mm, okay,” he starts, and Ugajin gives him a weird look immediately, because when does he start sentences like that? He coughs, then tries, “This is going to sound weird, but what if the forsaken god of death and calamity cursed him?”

Ugajin pauses. A buffering wheel spins metaphorically over her head. Then her facial features unpause, and she says, “Oh, you mean that guy from overseas?”

That guy from overseas. This is Wei Ying’s legacy. The most feared god of his time, turned into an annoying tourist. Fair play, heavens.

“Mm, yup,” he says again, and wants to punch himself in the mouth. “The guy from overseas. You know him?”

“Obviously,” says Ugajin, a little surprised. “What, you’ve never been to a divine council?”

Wei Ying thinks for a bit. “Not here,” he says.

“Guess things must be different over there,” Ugajin mutters.

“Is there a reason everyone here knows him?” Wei Ying asks, tentatively, hoping he won’t regret his decision.

“He ranks in the popularity contest every year,” Ugajin says like it’s the most bland and boring thing in the world, and Wei Ying chokes on his own spit. “Posthumously,” she adds, like it was needed at all.

“Popularity contest,” he repeats. “Popularity... wait, why is that even a thing?”

Ugajin ignores him. She’s done washing the plates, and now she has one hand on her hip and the other in the air, like she’s glad to be lecturing him. “Well,” she says, “the big shots calculate the number of worshipers, amount of merchandise sold, copyright revenue, media coverage, and all that stuff.”

The modern world is terrifying. “Uh-huh,” says Wei Ying, not following at all.

“And the thing with Japanese gods is that they get a lot more off branding than worshipers,” Ugajin continues. “But mister everyone-dies-someday went and made himself the legacy of death when he got blown to smithereens, and who doesn’t believe they’re going to die someday?”

That’s nice, except he did nothing of the sort. “Cool,” says Wei Ying. He laughs like he’s just been stabbed, then clears his throat. “Very cool. Super cool. So, basically, this guy wins because he’s the literal embodiment of death?”

“He’s not death death,” says Ugajin, which Wei Ying knows very well. “But he took over for Izanami and made Yomi into a hell of an attractive real estate market, and then he raised hell overseas, so both here and there, he’s got a pretty big reputation.” Ugajin shrugs, then adds, “Izanami makes sure to send postcards to the heavens via FeDeus thanking the gods for the award. She’s mastered the art of pettiness.”

Good on you, Izanami, but Wei Ying’s still suck on the previous point. “And how did that reputation thing happen, exactly?”

Ugajin shrugs. “I didn’t pay attention, so I can’t tell you,” she says, then snatches the towel that Wei Wuxian’s been using to clean the same plate for the last five minutes. “Now let’s get down to business and find this Lan boy, and you can tell me why you think someone who’s been dead for well over a millennium cursed a kid.”

Not unless everyone gets real cool about a bunch of stuff really quickly, and frankly, the world changes, but the gods don’t.

No offense at all, Ugajin. She’s cool. The stuff Wei Wuxian did wasn’t. So.

The story Wei Ying makes up is, for lack of a better word, atrocious.

“So,” says Ugajin, with skepticism that could curdle cheese, “you rebranded from being a god of children’s songs, and the reason you know the forsaken god at all is because of some vague overlap between funeral elegies and playground games.”

“Uh,” says Wei Ying.

“I thought you said you were new around here,” Ugajin continues. Her eyes narrow, and she kicks a rock into the playground they’re walking past. “Children’s songs have been around for a while.”

“Uh,” says Wei Ying, with emphasis.

Quick, foolish brain, come up with something believable! He’s supposed to be a genius, right? Where’d all that genius juice go?

And then it hits him.

At the back of his mind, sandwiched between two stale slabs of memories he’d rather not poke at, is a tune that can’t really be considered a children’s song.

It’s something he remembers from when the world tossed him around like he was a temari ball, and that was what he was, back then: a wad of old robes that no longer fit, cut up and stitched into something people actually wanted, because what are grudges but relics of the past?

“I’m really just the guardian deity of one song in particular,” Wei Ying says, because he has nothing left to lose.

“Yeah? And what song is that?”

He hums it for Ugajin to hear.

She listens. Wei Ying finishes the chorus. He tapers off weakly, smiles like the fool he is, and coughs into his hand.

“A children’s song without lyrics,” she says.

“The version for kids doesn’t,” Wei Ying lies. “It was originally written for voice, dizi, and guqin.”

And he knows this how? He doesn’t question it. The mind is an uncooperative thing, and his past is even less amiable.

Eventually, Ugajin either gets bored of his stupid story or finds interest in something else, like the sidewalk, or the cicadas, or literally anything that isn’t Wei Ying’s artisan-made train wreck.

It’s sort of a blur, but they walk through early afternoon streets, double-check their boundaries, and make their way toward the Lan residence.

And then they’re suddenly seated around the table, with Madam Lan placing out great big bowls of filling for nori wraps. It’s a little parade of colours and flavours: there’s pickled radish, squid natto, salmon roe, chopped lotus root, shrimp avocado mayonnaise, myoga, perilla, sesame yukhoe, corn, fish sausage, salmon, tuna, egg omelettes, kimchi, and a great big basin of rice with three wooden spatulas stuck in the heaping pile.

Ugajin is speechless in the face of... well, all this. She shuffles her chair a bit closer to Wei Ying, probably because she’s intimidated by the sheer volume of food.

“I had a feeling you were coming over today,” says Madam Lan, cheerful and bright as always. She hands A-Yuan a mini spatula, then seats herself as well. “You even brought a friend. Who’s this young lady?”

Before Wei Ying can come up with a convincing name, Ugajin straight up says, in the most unabashed tone he’s ever heard, “Ugajin.”

“That certainly is her name,” Wei Ying says, and laughs, and stops, because the look on Ugajin’s face tells him too.

“What an interesting name,” Old Madam Lan says, strolling into the kitchen with a warm smile. “It’s a lucky thing, to be named after a god.”

All three members of the household—elder, adult, child—look at each other and do something interesting with their eyes. Wei Ying is struck with the feeling that the ones who hold the most knowledge at the table aren’t the resident gods, and that’s an uncomfortable feeling.

“You’re like Ying-gege,” says A-Yuan, stuffing his cheeks with a mess wrap of yukhoe, rice, and nori. “I didn’t know there were two gods here!”

“Sure there are,” Ugajin says, not concerned in the slightest.

Of course she wouldn’t be worried. What’s wrong with letting humans know you exist? Ugajin probably wouldn’t mind some new worshipers, whereas Wei Ying would very much like to lay as low as he possibly can and blend in with the mortal population.

“We should get to business,” says Madam Lan, once they’ve finished half the basin.

“Business?” asks A-Yuan.

“That’s right,” Madam Lan confirms. “And you’re a very important part of it.”

Old Madam Lan sighs, leans back in her chair, and takes a very relaxed sip of tea. “About time we did something about that curse,” she says.

“The what,” Wei Ying and Ugajin shout in tandem, demonstrating a kinship neither of them will ever speak of.

“It’s been with him for a very long time,” says Madam Lan.

“Since his past life, I’d reckon,” Old Madam Lan adds.

“But not the regular wait between one life and the next. A long one.”

“Mm, most likely a bit over eleven hundred years. The edges are a bit sweet to be any older. And the words are too shiny as well.”

“Are they? Let me take a look.”

Old Madam Lan gestures casually to A-Yuan, who giggles at the attention. Madam Lan peers over her son, sees something neither mortal nor divine eyes can see, hums to herself, and wipes some grains of rice off his face.

“They certainly are quite shiny,” Madam Lan says. “Excellent handiwork, though not the best it could’ve been.”

“Hey,” says Wei Ying, a little offended.

All eyes turn to him.

Once again, his unconscious habit to draw attention to himself is kicking a shovel into the earth beneath him and making an outline for his future grave.

Ugajin looks a little unnerved. She spreads some salmon mayo and corn over her roll, then fidgets with the edges. “Your divining is abnormal,” are the words she lands on.

“That is frighteningly accurate and definitely not information mortals should be privy to,” says Wei Ying, happily casting the attention off himself.

“It’s a very long story,” both Lan women say at the same time.

Even A-Yuan nods along. “The Lan family is devoted to upholding the legacy of those forgotten by even the heavens!” he declares proudly.

That’s an interesting motto to have. It’s certainly worrying, since the list of shelved gods goes on forever, and one name on that list is a pretty big smear on Wei Ying’s current reputation.

Wei Ying puts some salmon roe in his role. He munches on it precariously, like all those tiny little beads could explode at any moment and blow his head to pieces. What would that be like? Lots of brain matter and skull shards. Maybe his teeth would shatter and blow out like shrapnel.

“Hang on a second,” demands Ugajin, holding up a hand. Her brows furrow, and she mutters furiously under her breath. A-Yuan continues to chomp down nori rolls happily. “I’ve heard that name before,” she says decisively.

“My name?” A-Yuan asks, perking up.

“The Lan name. You’re from overseas, right?”

“That’s right,” Madam Lan says.

“And,” Ugajin continues, a little heated, “your family has a history with a temple?”

Both Lan women smile.

The roll in Ugajin’s hands meets a slow and tragic fate. A bit of mayo and corn goop out sadly, falling onto her plate as she studies the hell out of her hands. “I know who you are,” she says, which would sound far more menacing if she wasn’t sitting at a kitchen table, enjoying a spectacular meal of make-it-yourself nori rolls, blissfully ignorant of the rice that’s sticking to her cheek. “You’re the keepers of the Yoru-no-Kagami-no-Mikoto, aren’t you?”

That’s certainly a mouthful. Wei Ying mouths it once, then repeats, “Yoru-no-Kagami-no-Mikoto. The god of the night mirror?”

“It gets a bit lost in translation,” Madam Lan explains. “It comes from an ancient belief.”

“Back in the day,” Old Madam Lan says, “people used to think that your daytime thoughts would be reflected in your dreams. If there was something you wanted to do but just couldn’t manage in reality, you could get it done in your dreams.”

Ah. Yes, that certainly sounds familiar. It’s a rather poetic way to translate it. The mirror in the night that reflects your innermost desires. It has a nice ring to it. If only it weren’t so long.

Wei Ying shoves the rest of the roll in his mouth, chewing slowly. Hmm, yup. Certainly has a nice sound. A pretty one.

“That name is a bit long, in my opinion,” says Madam Lan. “What’s wrong with Hanguang-Jun?”

Wei Ying chokes on his rice. He proceeds to hack up a lung.

Ugajin shoves her juice his way and smacks him on the back far more violently than needed. In an attempt to help, A-Yuan slaps his cheeks, which is a very sweet thought that almost makes him bite his tongue clean off.

The Lan women clean up the table calmly through his near-death experience.

“You’re,” Wei Ying begins, and fails. “You,” he tries again. “You’re Lan Zhan’s diviners?” he finally manages.

Old Madam Lan raises an eyebrow. “That’s not a name many know,” she says.

“But it’s a name you know,” Wei Ying presses.

It’s easy to say that his history with Lan Zhan is... complicated. Tumultuous. Very, very stormy, in a very literal sense. The heavens called their arguments heaven-rending, not because they wanted to emphasize the drama of it all, but rather because they carved out new canyons when they got angry at each other.

Things certainly could’ve gone better between them, but then again, things could’ve gone better in almost every aspect. Lan Zhan was just one of those unfortunate people caught in Wei Ying’s mess of a life.

“I’m serving myself up on a platter to get smote out of existence,” Wei Ying realizes belatedly.

“Hanguang-Jun isn’t fond of deicide,” Madam Lan says.

“He isn’t fond of anything,” Wei Ying argues, trying to get his plight across. “You don’t pray to him on a daily occasion or anything, do you?”

“Not in particular.”

“Okay,” says Wei Ying. He pauses, then quickly adds, “So, no need to tell him about Reikogami—that’s my name, by the way— and Ugajin intruding on your hospitality.”

“Best leave it out of divine communications,” Ugajin agrees easily.

At least they’re on the same page here. Getting noticed by big gods never ends well. They have their happy little world here with a town that cares and people in that town that care. There’s no need to drag the entire pantheon into this kind of peace.

Besides, Lan Zhan’s probably enjoying Wei Ying’s extended absence, just like everyone else. And good on them: Wei Ying’s enjoying it as well. Happiness to go around.

Once they’re all cleaned up, A-Yuan and Madam Lan see them to the door. A-Yuan firmly says, “You have to come back when we make soft-boiled eggs,” and then he runs to the fridge and returns with a tupperware container packed full of them. “It’s a secret recipe so you put eggs in kakuni salty-sweet sauce and you boil it for eight minutes and then you put it in ice,” he says severely.

Ugajin takes the eggs. “Thank you,” she says.

Madam Lan smiles.

They’re halfway down the street when Madam Lan sticks her head around the corner.

“Thank you for your assistance on breaking the curse,” she shouts. “It’s divinely sourced, so divine help would be nice!”

Before either Wei Ying or Ugajin can do a double-take on the fact that they were led completely off-topic by their own stupid mouths and a really good meal, Madam Lan beams and says, “Sort your thoughts out and stop by anytime!”

And then two foolish gods are left on the sidewalk, staring vacantly at nothing, wondering how they played themselves so hard.

“Let’s just go smack some phantoms around,” says Ugajin.

“I’m with you,” says Wei Ying, and the two of them meander back home to bother their regalia once more.