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Tang felt like the blood vessel on his forehead was ready to burst. “So as a terasologist—”
“You study heat?”
“No, I study yao.” He adjusted his glasses, glaring at the bored man across the table. “Demons, ghosts, and monsters.”
“A theologist.”
“Terasologist.”
“Theologists study gods.”
“I didn’t say I study gods. I said I study demons, which are a sort of fallen god and can sometimes interlap into godhood in the case of the Monkey K—” Tang stopped himself, just sliding his stack of paper across the table instead. “Terasology is a serious academic discipline, and I need a grant for field research.”
The man picked up his draft of his thesis, holding it with a condescending look. “Why would you need the help of an archaeologist?”
“I don’t.”
“You said field research—”
“That’s not what field research is. Most of the time, anyway.” Tang tried to not look impatient as he tapped his foot. “Look, terasology goes hand in hand with anthropology and sociology, so if I could take this to the person in charge of either of those departments and ask—”
“Individual studies go to me.”
“But terasology is—”
“—a new social science that hasn’t been proven as useful yet.”
“What could possibly be useless about understanding demon behavior?!” Tang shook the table with a slam, the man leaning back to accommodate his outburst. “It’s just as important as why humans act the way they do!”
“And since demons have assimilated into human culture, there is little point in studying them any differently than humans.”
“Little po—” Tang threw his hands in the air. “They have horns and tails! Magic! The innate ability to use qi for shapeshifting! I can think of ten areas of study right now to pursue across multiple fields!”
“Really? I doubt that.”
“How a demon’s essential nature impact their behavior, why some demons’ essential nature gives them magical abilities and some don’t, how the essential nature is passed down between generations, why some are based off of forces of nature compared to plants and animals, if they have distinct blood types, the use of glamours and how they connect to qi, why some demons age like humans and some take centuries to reach sexual maturity, the hard boundary between immortality for a god and for a demon, how to define magic and mystic ability, the difference between yaoguai, yaogui, and yaomo and where those differences intersect—”
“Those last three were the same question in different phrasing.”
“No, they weren’t.” Tang felt a migraine coming on. “Just let me take this research to the other departments?”
“Independent studies go through me.”
“Alright then.” Tang took a step back, squeezing the doorknob with a customer service-worthy smile. “Thank you for your time.”
To Tang’s credit, he did not lose his mind the entire walk back to his office. He didn’t lose it when he closed the door, hung his scarf and jacket up, or opened his computer.
He did get upset when he saw the wifi wasn’t working. Nothing was smashed, but he had to take a few laps with clenched fists and grinding teeth. He repeatedly has his life’s work treated like chump change by someone who didn’t bother to learn what it’s about, and he can’t put the energy toward fixing it for another read through. He hasn’t been able to use his computer in his apartment, either, so he was relying on the ability to work in his office. Pigsy will not let him mooch his wifi if he’s not actually eating noodles, and he doesn’t have the stomach for it after such an irritating conversation. Sandy’s boat doesn’t have it. Mei uses her entire bandwidth for her streams, and he knows that she’s knee deep in some game he doesn’t remember the name of right now.
Who does he know who actually has that technology…
No. Tang absolutely maxed his credit with them by begging for an insider explanation on divine politics. There’s no way that will work.
Buuuuuut being up in the sky like that means he has direct access to the cloud and the best wifi possible. Tang reluctantly started scrawling out the symbols that Red Son taught him only for emergencies, hoping this counted as an emergency. He’s ruining his carpet for it, after all. He replaced the symbols of the Demon Bull Court with the Golden Cicada, switching out the fire magic seal with his own meager script. The writing will take him to the celestial realm, fingers crossed.
He screamed like a very serious man as the portal opened under him, not off to the side where it should, and dropped him in front of locked doors. So far, so good. He held his laptop under one arm, feeling like an idiot as he knocked on the door. There’s no way he’s leaving this place alive.
A god who looked like one of his college students opened the latch for him, his face as sour as ever. “What,” Ne Zha deadpanned.
“Uh. I have a request.”
“Even as the descendant of the Great Monk, your number of requests are few.”
“Cool. Can I use your wifi?”
Ne Zha blinked slowly, like if he waited long enough to open his eyes Tang would vanish. “Pardon?”
“I’m doing a master’s thesis and while I have my draft for it available on an external hard drive, I also need the internet to access certain websites. I kind of put a lot of my research in the cloud, and since you need wifi to look at it…” Tang hoped his pout was pleading not pathetic. “I’ll owe you one. The Great Monk will owe you one.”
“You are no Great Monk.” Ne Zha sniffed, then skated to stop blocking the way with his body. “But if you choose to waste your favors on something so trivial, I will not stop you.”
Tang nodded fervently, running into the temple and immediately setting up on a lotus-shaped pillow. The god trailed behind with quick glances around them, looking for additional intruders. “I’m not a distraction to steal from you,” Tang tried to reassure him.
“But you understand why I’m wary.”
“Yes. I just need your wifi.”
“Mph.” Ne Zha went to lean his spear against the wall, flames licking at the wheels on his feet. “Such an inane request.”
“If it makes you feel better, it’s for important work.”
“What important work could you be in charge of? There are no scriptures to deliver.”
“I’m a terasologist,” Tang announced with a proud puff of his chest.
“...you study malformed fetuses?”
“No! Teras like ‘monster’. You know, ‘omens’? ‘Divine signs’? ‘Wonders’?” Tang slumped where he sat, opening his paper while grumbling much quieter, “It’d be easier to recognize if they call it daemonology but since it’s the study of all uncanny life, not just demons, it’d be like if arachnology is everything with more than four legs.”
“You are a scholar on evil beings?”
“I mean, not evil evil. Pigsy isn’t evil. It’s a study of any creature that is both non human and sapient. I guess they were considered evil way back when, but it’s not like humans can judge after everything we pulled.”
Ne Zha scoffed, but begrudgingly grabbed a second pillow to sit down on with his arms slung over his knees. “I simply do not see why you should expend energy on something so nebulous.”
“It’s not that abstract. I mean, I’m sure scholars later will get pretty heady about it, but we’re just setting a foundation. Figuring out the big questions. Like, can a demon go against their essential nature and survive?”
“Can they live without eating humans? That has been proven by your recent trend of assimilation of culture.”
“Not every demon ate humans…did they?” Tang glanced up questioningly. “My research says that they could survive without meat even centuries ago.”
“The Eight Rules became vegetarian while waiting for the Great Monk.”
“So they can.”
“Yes.”
Good to have confirmation, at least. Tang pulled up his index and turned around the computer for Ne Zha to see, shocked that the prince leaned forward with mild interest. “So this is a bit I’ve been trying to integrate into my research but don’t necessarily have the backing for yet. I’ve mainly been doing this to help out MK, since…you know, not the best in a fight. But I understand words!” He scrolled down the list of demons and otherworldly beings he’s compiled. “So every nonhuman most likely came from something equally nonhuman, their access to qi giving them life, sentience, and sapience. We’ve been calling it their essential nature, since we don’t know what else to call it. Then their qi becomes their magic if they’re capable of it. So, for example—” —he rolled the mouse over to the sketch of Red Son— “—his essential nature is fire, and as a fire demon, holds fire magic. Those that have the essential nature of something that was already sentient, such as an animal, do not have magic as a direct consequence. Some are easy to figure out, like Pigsy being a pig, while others are harder. Sun Wukong was originally thought to have the essential nature of a monkey, but after some research he most likely has the essential nature of a stone, becoming a monkey as his own unique form of sapience that has to be further researched since it’s so rare. MK is the same, and that’s why they could harness qi so quickly. The Lady Bone Demon is a special case, where she seems to be both a bone and ice demon. We’re still theorizing how exactly she was like that, but perhaps you can also be an abstract concept, such as a bonechill—”
“Why am I on the list if I’m not a demon?”
Tang stopped, his face paling. “Uh. Because your essential nature is a lotus? You were remade as a god by growing out of one.”
“But I was born a human.”
“Technically you were born a meatball.”
Ne Zha had no reply to that, his cheeks reddening like an embarrassed child. To be fair, he is an embarrassed child. “Your studies may intrigue you, but they will soon prove pointless. There is no logic to categorizing the inhuman so rigorously.”
“I’m not trying to profile them. It’s just interesting how life develops.”
“Into evil.”
“The meatball-turned-lotus would be the scariest villain of them all, in that case.” Tang meant it sarcastically, but Ne Zha’s face flickered all the same.
“I was not a kind mortal. I paid for my sins with my life.”
“And you were human when you did it, so.” Tang shrugged, closing his list so he can go back to the beginning of his thesis. Maybe if he just reads through it from the start and finds where he needs more citations…
“You believe the access to magic comes from their essential natures?”
“With qi. That’s the theory, anyway.”
“Theorize?” Ne Zha cocked his head to the side. “I was going to tell you that you’re correct.”
“I mean, it’s great that I convinced you, but I need actual proof of that.”
“I can get you proof.”
Tang stopped scrolling, lifting his gaze with aching slowness. “You can what.”
“What you are describing the celestial beings have already recorded. We know when all yao are born, whether it is a spirit with six ears or demons of gold and silver. It is in the archives what their…essential natures, as you call them, are listed.”
“You have an entire room containing the census information I need for my research going back centuries that I can compile to prove my thesis and that it’s serious and worth studying and spending so so so much money on?” Tang trilled, fully discarding the laptop to crawl on the ground in his excitement toward Ne Zha.
The god frowned with concern at the hands grabbing the front of his armor. “Yes.”
“That I can look at without wifi?”
“Yes.”
“Can I look at it now?”
“It is unfit for a mere mortal to step inside of our divine archives. You are below a stableboy, so you cannot enter.”
Tang narrowed his eyes, slowly backing away. “Fine.” He opened his laptop, staring right at the prince as he typed. “I now have confirmation that demons are born from unnatural sources and can afterwards obtain godhood. While the most famous example would be the Monkey King, there is another god of the same status. This would be Ne Zha, the meatball demon, who changed his essential nature to a lotus god, therefore proving essential natures can be changed—”
“I. Am not. A meatball demon.”
“Will your record say you’re a meatball human?”
Ne Zha waited, looking fully aware of the trap and gauging whether he should step into it anyway. He sighed, standing and letting rosy fire spark on his wheels. The prince made a circle around Tang, the flames rising higher behind him, before stomping once on the gemstone floor. Tang screamed through a portal for the second time that day.
And he’s now in a dimly lit room full of scrolls, oracle bone tablets, books, carvings—his mouth watered more than when he smells lo mein boiling in Pigsy’s kitchen. Tang glanced back at the god, silently asking permission.
Ne Zha grumbled, dragging one hand down his face, before waving him off. Tang squeezed him in a hug that he sounded like he hated. “Letting me use your wifi and your library card? You’re the best friend a Tangy can have!”
“We are not friends!” Ne Zha screeched, but he didn’t dare spew any flames when Tang raced off into the stacks. He’s going to shove his citations down that stupid guy’s throat when he gets to say that his friend, the Prince Ne Zha, is a source for his thesis.
Although he was very disappointed when he found proof that he is, in fact, a lotus god, not a meatball demon.