Work Text:
When the fruit of a thousand years’ wait was served as empty rinds, their precious meat and juice sucked dry, everyone reacted: the Queen Mother of the West’s serenity cracked, making her honored guests anxious despite their immortality, and even the Jade Emperor was speechless.
No so Li Tieguai. “I could have been insulted at home,” his complaint thundered into the celestial void, boldly chewing a handful of apricot seeds like the uncouth beggar he resembled.