Junior Brothers Turned into Gods, and I’m Just Here to Find a Rabbit.

On Mind Platform Mountain, I have swept fallen leaves for ten thousand years.

My Junior Brothers went down the mountain, and one by one they became gods and emperors, and stirred up storms across the Three Realms.

I did not care.

Until the little rabbit left too.

Three days, and it did not come back.

I set down the broom and went down the mountain.

The Three Realms shook.

Chapter One

There is no end to the leaves.

Autumn comes early to Mind Platform Mountain, and gold leaves bury the stone steps, so I take them one step at a time, Mountain Gate to back courtyard and back courtyard to Mountain Gate, and every stretch I clear fills itself up again before I get back to it.

Ten thousand years, the same every day.

Master stayed in his Cave Residence with his meditation, coming out now and then for one sermon and then going back in; he taught no techniques, he passed on no divine ability, he spoke only of the Dao.

Whichever Junior Brothers could make nothing of it came to me.

“Senior Brother, how do you actually practice that One Breath, Three Pure Ones Master talks about?”

“Senior Brother, I know the incantation for the Seventy-Two Transformations by heart, and still nothing comes of it.”

“Senior Brother…”

So I taught them, one at a time.

And when they had learned, down the mountain they went.

Each of them turned out more capable than the last: some took office in the Heavenly Court, some went down to the bottom of the sea and crowned themselves kings, and one raised hell in the heavenly palace, spent five hundred years pinned beneath a mountain, and came out the other side of it a Buddha.

I did not go down.

Up here it was quiet, the leaves were easy to sweep, and the days had room in them.

Until three hundred years ago, when something white turned up outside the Mountain Gate.

Sweeping my way toward the gate, I very nearly missed it: a rabbit no bigger than my palm, curled on the lowest step, its fur so filthy no color was left in it, its left ear hanging limp, and all mist in its eyes when it looked up at me.

I crouched down.

It shrank away, and had no strength left in it to run.

“Hungry?”

It looked at me. Its nose twitched.

Half a pastry was still in my sleeve, and I set it on the ground, and after thinking it over the little thing crept close and ate it in small bites.

Finished, it looked up again.

I found another piece.

That was how the two of us came up the mountain.

Master glanced at it. “Keep it,” he said.

So it became my Junior Brother.

Little White, I called it.

Three hundred years took it from the size of a palm to something that could hold a human shape: a child of seven or eight, white hair, red eyes, and ears that pushed up out of its hair whenever nerves got hold of it.

Breath work I taught it, and simple transformation arts, and reading, and how to brew tea, and how to sweep leaves.

Slow to learn. Thorough about it.

Every morning I swept the courtyard and it came along behind with a broom taller than itself, sweeping away in solemn imitation until its arms gave out and it sat down in the dirt to watch instead.

Watching put it to sleep, its head bobbing and bobbing, its ears working up through its hair to swing in the wind.

I carried it inside and pulled the quilt over it.

Three hundred years went by that way.

That evening I was brewing tea.

Little White sat across from me with its cup in both hands, the steam lifting its bangs and letting them drop.

“Senior Brother.”

“Mm.”

“Down there… what is it like?”

My hand stopped over the tea.

“Big,” I said. “Loud.”

“You have never been?”

“No.”

It blew across its tea and looked up again. “Where did they go, all those Senior Brothers, once they were down?”

I thought about that. “Everywhere.”

“Then can I go and see it?”

The pot kept bubbling away.

Bright they were with the stove fire standing in them, its eyes, and its ears had gone straight up, the way they stood only when it wanted something badly.

“Go.”

It stopped dead, then smiled and showed me two small teeth.

“I will come right back! Three days! Three days and I am back!”

It jumped up and ran twice around the table with its ears shaking.

I nodded, took a jade talisman out of my sleeve, and held it out.

“Crush it if you run into danger.”

It took the talisman and tucked it against its chest, and patted the spot.

“Do not worry, Senior Brother!”

And then it ran.

At the courtyard gate it turned back, threw its arms around my arm, rubbed its face against me, and after that it really was gone.

The small white shape bounced down the stone steps, smaller and smaller, until the cloud and mist swallowed it.

I picked up my cup and drank.

Cold.

The first day I swept the courtyard.

The second day I swept it again.

The third day I finished the sweeping and sat down at the Mountain Gate to wait.

I waited until the sun was gone.

Still it did not come back.

Morning of the fourth day found me at the Mountain Gate again.

The wind lifted the leaves off the steps and sent them spinning down the mountain.

I stood with the broom propped beside me and watched them go.

The talisman had not broken.

Which meant it had met with no danger.

So why had it stayed away?

I waited another half day.

When the sun tipped west I stood up and set the broom against the Mountain Gate.

Then I turned and started toward the Cave Residence.

Master had not shifted: eyes shut in meditation, his crane beside him combing out its feathers.

“Master.”

“Mm.”

“I am going down the mountain.”

He opened one eye and looked at me.

In ten thousand years I had never said such a thing before.

He held me there with that one eye for a long while, then closed it.

“Go.”

Then he stopped me and said, “Try not to take the mountain apart.”

What he meant by that I could not guess.

I changed into clean grey cloth, tied my hair back, and set off down the stone steps.

Step after step, along a road I had not walked for ten thousand years.

When the mist drew apart, the lower world’s air came up against me, noisy and murky and restless all at once.

Like nothing up there on the mountain.

I breathed in deep and kept going down.

Chapter Two

The lower world had changed since I last stood in it.

Ten thousand years ago, when Master found me and carried me home, this was all raw wilderness; cities stand on it now, and kingdoms, immortal sects too, and whole stretches of Demon Race ground.

The Three Realms had been pulled into three clean lines, each keeping to its own order.

East. Little White’s trail led east.

Thin enough to break, that trail: a thread catching at the wind, snapping, catching again.

Half a day’s walking brought me to a city.

Three characters cut into the stone above the gate read Yaoguang City.

Noise enough in that city for ten towns: people pouring in and out, cultivators shoulder to shoulder with Mortals, stalls heaped with spirit fruit, peddlers bawling over their magic tools, and in a teahouse somewhere a storyteller hammering through the old tales of the Three Realms.

“…and that was how the Great Sage Equal to Heaven stormed the heavenly palace five hundred years back, and went west after that escorting the Tang Monk to the scriptures, and came out of it the Victorious Fighting Buddha!”

My stride caught.

The Victorious Fighting Buddha.

My third Junior Brother, that monkey.

Filthy he was coming up the mountain, fur matted into knots, eyes bright in a way that frightened people once they understood what they were seeing; three days I gave to the Seventy-Two Transformations and then he had them, and the Somersault Cloud took even less, one shichen start to finish.

I walked on.

Down a lane on the city’s east side, the trail thickened.

At the end of the lane stood a mansion, and over its gate hung a plaque that read Yun family.

Two guards at the door, and no great depth of Cultivation Base on either one: Tongzi realm, the pair of them.

Over I went.

“Far enough.” The one on my left stepped across me and looked me over. “Business?”

“Looking for someone.”

“Who?”

“A white rabbit.”

The two of them traded a glance, and laughed.

Shoulders shaking with it, the left-hand guard got out, “A white rabbit? You mean that little demon?”

Disdain came out of the other one. “Our Young Lord took that scrap of a thing three days ago, and it is in a Spirit Beast cage in the back courtyard now. What is it to you?”

I looked at him.

“Its Senior Brother.”

“Senior Brother?” Delight all over him. He leaned an elbow on the doorframe and crossed his ankles and asked whether Senior Brother to a lowly rabbit demon was not a grand title, and which sect I came from, and how many layers of Cultivation Base I had under me, and whether I carried a visiting card, since no card meant no entry, the Yun family kept its rules.

Nothing said.

The left-hand one flapped a hand at me. “Enough. Do not clog the gate. No place here for your sort, and that rabbit belongs to the Young Lord now. A hundred thousand spirit stones if you want it back.”

He turned his shoulder as he said it and left off looking at me entirely.

I never shifted from that spot.

Up the mouth of the lane came a wind, and took the hem of my grey coat and lifted it.

“A Spirit Beast cage.”

Those three words again, out loud.

Softly, at that.

Cold prickled the back of the left guard’s neck for no reason he could put a name to, and his head swung round before he had meant to move it.

Nothing had changed there. Same grey figure in the same spot, the same face, the same way of standing.

None of it made any difference.

Heavier, the air had gone, that was the size of it.

“In or out, I am calling the watch!” He barked it, though his heart was not in the barking.

I lifted a foot over the threshold and walked in.

“You there —”

A hand came out to stop me.

His palm had no sooner touched my shoulder than he went off his feet, flung the length of the lane into the wall opposite, and three bricks came away behind him.

Pinpoints, the pupils of the other guard; he had his mouth open for a shout when something closed on his throat and let nothing past it.

Straight through I went, never breaking step.

Wide swung the mansion gates in front of me, with nobody laying a hand on them.

Mine were not among the hands.

Fright will do that to a gate, I suppose.

Chapter Three

Room enough for a small town in the Yun family estate.

Terraces, pavilions, a hill built by hand with water down it, spiritual qi so thick in the air you could taste it.

The trail ran straight back, through the front yard, through the middle hall, and deeper.

Servants I came level with stopped dead where they stood; one or two tried to block me, and one step later their legs folded and down they went, pressed by something they could not see.

Not one of them knew why.

Nothing I was doing on purpose.

Walking, that was all.

Along the deepest wall of the back courtyard stood a row of iron cages.

Every kind of Spirit Beast there is: fire fox, blue luan, horned python, all of them drooping, a restriction collar locked round each neck.

Smallest of them all was the cage in the farthest corner.

Curled up inside it lay Little White.

Back to rabbit form, palm-sized and folded in on itself, one cut laid open across its left ear, and a patch of fur torn away so that the pink showed through.

A collar sat on its neck too, thicker through than its own head.

It would not stop shaking.

I went down on my heels.

“Little White.”

Its ears gave a twitch.

Hard up came its head, and confusion went first through the red eyes, then flat disbelief, and after that nothing else I could name.

“S-Senior Brother?”

That voice was hoarse past hearing, and its nose kept jerking.

Out went my hand, and it closed on the bars.

Into them someone had cut formation patterns, the sort said to hold a Spirit Beast at Spirit Severing.

Squeezed, I did. Lightly.

Noodles would not have bent better than those bars did.

Flash, and the patterns were gone.

The whole cage fell apart, iron plates clattering off every which way across the ground.

Still as a stone it held, the collar at its throat humming away to itself.

One finger out, and I laid it against the collar.

Restriction mark after restriction mark went dark, candles going out one after another in a draft.

The last went dark, the collar split, and down it went into the dirt.

One long shudder went through Little White, and then it threw itself at me.

Light in my hands. Light as a leaf.

Shaking enough to shake itself to pieces.

Onto my palm I scooped it, and it pushed its head in between my fingers with its ears laid flat along its body.

“Hurts?”

A shake of the head is all I got.

Harder shaking pulled new beads of blood out along the cut in its ear.

Off they came on my sleeve.

“Who was it?”

Nothing said. Harder shaking still.

Up I stood, put it inside my coat, and drew the front of the coat over it.

Then I turned round.

In the courtyard doorway stood a young man, seven or eight guards at his back, and a white-haired old man besides.

Brocade robes on him, and a jade belt, and a folding fan turning over and over in his fist, and his face going all the way from surprise to fury.

“Who are you? Who let you in? That pet is mine!”

His eye fell on the cage in pieces and the collar cracked open on the ground, and he snapped the fan shut and stabbed it at me: did I know where I stood? Yun family ground. His father was the City Lord of Yaoguang City, and I —

“The ear,” I said.

He blinked. “What?”

“Its ear.” My eyes dropped to Little White against my chest. “Who?”

A second of staring, and then he laughed, and the laugh had contempt sitting in it.

“It is a rabbit. I teach it manners when it forgets them.” Open went the fan with a flick. “Tired of living, are you? Guards —”

At him I looked.

Looked. That was the long and short of it.

Whatever he meant to shout stayed where it was, wedged fast in his throat.

Every guard behind him gave ground at once, and their faces went colorless.

Small went the pupils in the old man’s eyes, and his legs began to shake under him.

He had seen something there.

Nothing came off the man in grey: no pressure, no ripple of spiritual power, nothing at all to put your finger on.

Which did not stop every year of that old man’s cultivation base from telling him —

Get out.

Now.

Run as far as your legs will take you.

“Y-Young Lord…” Even the voice shook on him. “This one is nobody we can lay a hand on…”

Still the young man had not caught up with any of it. “What is that supposed to mean? Some beggar in grey cloth!”

One hand of mine went up.

There the matter rested. Up.

Open came the ground of the entire back courtyard.

Out from under my feet the cracks ran and spread like a web, cages going down into them, stone tables going down, the hand-built hill breaking up and sinking into itself.

Burst went every cage, snapped went every collar, and off went the spirit beasts in every direction.

Up came the tiles under the young man; the blast took his feet from him and put him into the far wall, and the fan drove itself into a stone pillar.

There he lay, blood at one corner of his mouth and his eyes round in his head.

“You… you…”

Down at him I looked.

“It answers to Little White.”

Level, my voice was.

“It is my Junior Brother.”

Chapter Four

The Yun family went up.

No figure of speech in it, that was the trouble: something had blown open for real, the whole back of the estate down, dust and grit standing up into the sky, and half of Yaoguang City looking at that column of smoke.

By the time I picked my way out of the wreckage with Little White in my arms, the front yard was packed solid.

Servants, guards, stewards, Retainers, all of them pressing together in one dark mass.

Their head was a middle-aged man, square in the jaw with a beard trimmed to a point, robes of a City Lord on him and his brows knotted hard.

Three old men stood at his back giving off a deep presence; the last card in the Yun family’s sleeve, I took it, three Retainers at Body Integration.

First he took in the white rabbit in my arms. Then his son, being carried out behind me. Then his face turned the color of iron.

“Your Excellency does not lack for nerve.”

Low he kept it, that voice of his, like thunder shut inside a storm front.

“My son hurt, my estate in ruins. Do you know what follows from that?”

I stood on the pile of broken stone. Dust came down onto my shoulders.

“Three days your son kept my Junior Brother caged, and tore at its ear.”

The frown went deeper on him. “Over a rabbit demon?”

“Over my Junior Brother.”

“Grant you it is.” Coldness came out of him in a laugh. “My son took in an unclaimed spirit beast, and that is how the world is supposed to run. You forced your way into my estate, you hurt my people, you pulled my property down. The law of the Three Realms lets me strike you dead where you stand.”

Pressure came off the three Retainers at his back all together.

The weight of Body Integration filled the yard. Down went servants onto their knees. Breathing got hard.

Little White shrank in against my chest, ears flattened along its head.

I put a hand on it.

“Nothing to be frightened of.”

Then I raised my head to the three Retainers.

Met my eyes, all three of them did, and every one went rigid where he stood.

The eldest, the one in the middle, had a shudder go through his lips, and his pressure snapped back into him like a hand pulled off something hot.

Something in it struck the City Lord as wrong, and he turned to look.

Whatever had come over those three faces now, pale was not the word.

Grey was.

Corpse grey.

“C-City Lord…” Between his teeth the eldest got it out. “Stop. You have to stop.”

“What?”

“The presence off him…” Up and down his throat went. “Eight thousand years this old one has lived, and never felt weight like this anywhere, save one place.”

A frown. “Where?”

Nothing left in the old man’s eyes but fear.

“Mind Platform Mountain.”

Down those words went like five boulders into a lake.

The City Lord’s face changed.

Mind Platform Mountain.

The Slanted Moon and Three Stars Cave.

Under Master Subhuti.

Who in the Three Realms had not heard the name?

The Great Sage Equal to Heaven came out of that gate. Down went the Great Sage Overturning the Sea too. The Great Sage Confounding Heaven followed him down. Half the Seventy-Two Cave Demon Kings once sat inside it at a sermon.

The Heavenly Court never dared provoke it. The Buddhists would sooner not raise the name. The Demon Race counted it holy ground.

And here was this man saying the rabbit was his Junior Brother.

So who was standing in front of them?

Under him his legs started to go.

“E-Excellency…” None of the old tone was left in it. “Under Master Subhuti… which disciple are you?”

I gave that one some thought.

“The first.”

Silence.

Dead silence.

Even the wind packed up.

At the knees the eldest Retainer failed him, and down he went.

Submission had nothing to do with it.

His legs would not hold him, that was all.

Loose went the City Lord’s fan, clattering off across the stone.

Open went his mouth. Nothing came out of it.

The first disciple.

Master Subhuti’s first disciple.

Senior Brother to the Great Sage Equal to Heaven.

Senior Brother as well to every demon king, every immortal, every Buddha who had ever stirred the Three Realms up.

“I…” Shaking now, that voice. “None of us knew. My son never knew.”

Not at him did I look.

Down I looked, at Little White.

The cut along its ear had closed into a scab, though the new fur had not grown through and the pink skin still showed.

“Three days,” I said.

Frozen, the City Lord went.

“Three days it sat in that cage.”

Up came my head, and across the yard went my eyes to the son lying flat on the ground where they had laid him.

“Three months in bed, then, for yours.”

Not a hand did I lift.

No need of one.

No sooner had the words settled than the young man screamed, and both legs bent the way legs are not meant to bend.

Clear to every ear there, the crack of it.

Round went the City Lord in time to see what his son had become, and the last of the color left him.

One word he did not dare bring out.

Not one.

Round I turned and walked away, Little White in my arms.

At the gate I stood still a while.

“That collar,” I said, not turning my head, “I am keeping.”

On his feet the City Lord rocked, and came within a hair of going down.

Out through the great gates of the Yun family estate I went.

Everybody in the street had their heads up at the smoke, all of them talking over each other.

Not one of them noticed a man in grey cloth with a white rabbit in his arms, walking quietly the length of the long street.

Out of my coat pushed a small white head, and two red eyes blinked at me.

“Senior Brother.”

“Mm.”

“I am sorry. I have brought trouble down on you.”

One finger, and I rubbed its head, keeping well clear of the hurt ear.

“There was no trouble in it.”

In went the head again, and muffled came the voice. “Never again. I will never run off.”

Nothing said I.

Some way down the road, out it came again.

“Senior Brother.”

“Mm.”

“Are you angry?”

Down went my eyes to it.

Red, those eyes were, whether as red as they always were or red from crying, I had no way of knowing.

“No.”

“That is a lie.” A jerk of its nose. “Angry looks exactly like this on you. Nothing at all on your face.”

My feet stopped for a length of time I will not own to.

“…A little.”

“I am sorry.”

“Not with you, the anger.”

Still it went, then pushed its face down into my palm, and its ears drifted soft across my fingers.

Warm.

Soft.

I kept walking.

Chapter Five

Straight back up the mountain with Little White, that had been my intention.

Except that at the city gate it stirred against my chest.

“Senior Brother, wait.”

“What now?”

A hesitation, and then a very small voice. “I did not go down there only to look around.”

My walking stopped.

Climb out of my coat it did, and take human form again: seven or eight years old to look at, white hair thrown every which way, the wound on its left ear now a red seam along the rim.

There it stood picking at the hem of its clothes, not daring to raise its face.

“They say there is a Ten-Thousand-Year Lingzhi outside Yaoguang City.”

“A lingzhi?”

“Mm.” Smaller the voice got, if that were possible. “I thought I could make you tea again once we were home.”

My eyes rested on it.

“Ten thousand years of sweeping. Never down, never cultivating, nothing but your tea.” Between its fingers the hem went on twisting until the knuckles whitened. “I wanted a good lingzhi for you, and a good pot of tea, and… a present, that is all.”

The wind came between us and lifted its white hair and showed me the tips of its ears, red straight to the roots.

“I had not found one yet when that man caught me.”

Redder the eyes went, and it fought to keep them where they were.

“I am no use to anybody.”

So I stood there, and looked at it.

Ten thousand years.

A mountain I had kept for ten thousand years, teaching more Junior Brothers than I could put a number to, standing by while they went down and made names for themselves and got made into gods.

Not one had ever come back up.

Nobody had thought to bring me anything.

Down I went on my heels until the two of us were level, eye to eye.

It started, and gave ground.

With my hand I smoothed the tangle of white hair back behind its ears, skipping the hurt one.

“Where is this lingzhi?”

It blinked. “Wh-what?”

“This Ten-Thousand-Year Lingzhi you are talking about. Where does it grow?”

“East of the city. Sunset Cliff. Only a great demon sits on it, and I could not get past him.”

“Come on, then.”

To my feet I got, and knocked the dust off my clothes.

“We will go and pick it together.”

Three seconds Little White stood frozen, and then the eyes lit all at once and up shot the ears out of its hair, straight and stiff.

“Truly?”

“Mm.”

A jump, and it had my arm, and rubbed against it twice over.

“Nobody is better than Senior Brother.”

Off it hauled me toward the gate, and shorter than usual my steps went, so that it could keep up, though not so short as they had been coming in.

Thirty li east of Yaoguang City lies Sunset Cliff, a sheer broken face with red mist on it the year round, so that from far off it looks like evening light hung on a mountainside.

The sun was going down when we got there.

And gold-red on the cliff top stood a lingzhi, cap as broad as a washbasin, the spiritual qi in it thickened till it had all but turned liquid and was running off a drop at a time.

A Ten-Thousand-Year Lingzhi, and in fine condition at that.

A snake lay coiled beside it, though.

No snake either.

A python.

Black the whole length, thick round as a water vat, wound into the shape of a low hill, two bumps standing on its triangular head for a sign that it was halfway to becoming a dragon.

A demonic beast at Great Ascension.

Half its length it reared up off the ground, tongue going, slit pupils pinned to the two of us.

“Sssss —”

Half its head was all Little White left showing behind me.

“Senior Brother, that is the one. Last time it knocked me flying with its tail, and I never got near it.”

Over Little White the black python’s eyes slid, and came to rest on me.

Something it felt. Tight its body drew in on itself, and dry scales dragged across the rock behind it.

Forward I went one step.

Wide went those jaws, two fangs showing, and a roar came out of it loud enough to shake the cliff face.

At it I looked.

Looked, and nothing more.

The roar stopped short.

Out of the python went every bit of its strength at once, and down came that long body from the rim to coil itself into a heap in the corner, triangular head laid flat on the ground, tongue never once flicking.

Shaking, it was.

Shaking like any earthworm, a Great Ascension python.

Out from behind me leaned Little White with its mouth hanging in an O.

“…”

Over to the lingzhi I walked, bent down, and drew it up root and all, careful not to snap it.

Cliff grit and beads of dew still clung along the root threads.

I swung about and held it out.

“Here.”

Dazed, it took the thing, bigger than its own face as that lingzhi was, the gold-red light of it lying along its white hair.

“Home, then, and brew tea.”

With the lingzhi in its arms Little White looked at me, then across at the python shivering in the corner, then back at me.

“Senior Brother.”

“Mm?”

“How strong… how strong are you, really?”

Some thought I gave that.

“I have no idea. Never measured myself against anybody.”

Head tilted at me, ears twitching away.

Then it laughed, gathered the lingzhi in tighter, and trotted to catch me up.

“Home! Tea!”

Chapter Six

Straight up the mountain we did not go.

Sunset Cliff had hardly dropped behind us when figures blocked the road ahead.

Nothing ordinary about them: white robes to a man, gold cloud patterns stitched across the chest, jade plaques hung at the waist.

Heavenly Secrets Pavilion people.

The sharpest gatherers of intelligence in all the Three Realms.

A middle-aged scholar led them, feather fan in hand, mild and courteous to look at, though the sharpness down under his eyes would not stay hid.

Twelve men at his back, every presence there different from the next, and none of the twelve below Tribulation Transcendence.

“Zhou, steward of the Heavenly Secrets Pavilion.” He cupped his hands, polite without being humble, and told me there had been a stir in Yaoguang City not long since, and that he had come out over it.

His gaze settled on me, held there for one breath, and went elsewhere.

“Might this one ask… you came walking out of the Yun family estate?”

Word gets about fast here.

Nothing I said.

Little White stayed behind me, lingzhi in its arms, watching them warily.

A smile out of Steward Zhou. “No need for nerves, Your Excellency. Ours is a house of record, not interference, and yet —”

The feather fan stirred air, and he let it finish for him.

“A memorial from the City Lord of the Yun family has gone up to the Heavenly Court already.”

My eyes came to rest on him.

“Evil cultivator is the word for you. Men wounded for no reason, another man’s estate pulled down, a spirit beast carried off.” Flat as a tally read over a counter. “Somebody has come down from the Heavenly Court.”

In my coat, Little White’s fingers tightened.

“Senior Brother…”

Its head got a pat from me.

“How long before they get here?”

Steward Zhou went briefly blank, as though none of this was what he had expected me to ask.

“Half a shichen or thereabouts.”

“Understood.”

Forward I walked.

Aside he stepped, and watched me go by.

A few strides along, with his back to me, out it came anyway: “Excellency… the man the Heavenly Court has sent down this time is the Curtain-Lifting General.”

My stride checked itself.

The Curtain-Lifting General.

Number seven of my Junior Brothers.

A raw fool of a boy arriving at the mountain, nothing much in him for talent but willing to grind: three years of fundamentals I gave him before he was properly through the door, and down he went after that, into the Heavenly Court, and into standing guard at the Jade Emperor’s shoulder.

On I walked, and my head I did not turn.

Half a shichen. That was all it took.

Under a great tree beside the high road we sat, Little White gone back to rabbit form on my lap, while I smoothed its fur and waited.

Down out of the sky came a dull drumming.

The cloud cover came open, and gold light came pouring through the gap in it.

Down out of the light dropped a troop of heavenly soldiers, every plate of them shining, halberds standing like a grove of saplings.

At their head, a man built like a barn door, red of hair and red of beard, a Demon-Subduing Staff in his fist and lightning wrapped over him.

Juanlian.

More of him than ten thousand years ago, and more behind him.

Ten zhang in front of me he landed, drove the butt of that staff into the road, and the ground went to cracks around it.

“What demon walks here, who dares to”

There the voice stuck.

He had my face in front of him now, clear as day.

All of it gone by, and not one thing on me changed.

Round as bronze bells went his eyes, open went his mouth, and the staff very nearly left his hands.

“S-Se…”

Shaking, the voice had begun to.

The soldiers behind him traded looks, none of them able to say what he was looking at.

“Senior Brother?!”

Split clean in two it went, like a cat with its tail trodden on.

A nod I gave him.

“Juanlian. Long while since we spoke.”

Down went the staff with a clang, and there Juanlian stood frozen, his lips working away at nothing.

And then he did the thing that emptied every head in that troop.

Down went the knee.

“Senior Brother! This disciple, the disciple Juanlian, greets his Senior Brother!”

Shaking, that voice, and red round the rims of his eyes, and all of that great frame bent low over the road.

Utterly adrift were the heavenly soldiers behind their general.

One of the ten best fighters the Heavenly Court has, and a guard-general the Jade Emperor raised with his own hand, down on one knee.

To a man in grey cloth, at that.

“General!” One of them lost his hold on it. “Sir, what in the world are you”

Round swung Juanlian, and roared. “Silence! Down, every one of you!”

A start went through the soldiers. Stay where they were, every one.

Blood rose in Juanlian’s eyes on the instant, and he asked them did they know who stood here: Master Subhuti’s first disciple, and Senior Brother to the Great Sage Equal to Heaven, and his own Senior Brother, and the entire Three Realms besides,

Caught, the voice did.

“Every man that has walked out of Mind Platform Mountain learned what he knows at Senior Brother’s knee!”

Nothing whatsoever came back at him.

Along the high road went the wind and lifted a handful of leaves off it.

Then a great clatter went up, and down went the whole troop together.

Plate knocking on plate, and the noise of it standing over the length of the road.

Up off my lap came Little White’s head, and round went those red eyes over the whole business, ears gone straight as two pegs.

Its head I rubbed, up I stood, and gathered it into my arms.

“Get up, all of you.”

To his feet came Juanlian, rubbing one hand over the other like a boy caught out, none of his manner left.

Why had I come down, was the Master well, was I — and then his eye caught the white rabbit in my arms and he tailed off into, “Is that…?”

“My Junior Brother.”

“Junior Brother?!” Round again went his eyes. “Master has taken on another one?”

“Mm.”

Closer he crowded on the instant, and grinned all over his face. “Junior Brother! Seventh Senior Brother to you, that is who I am!”

Shrank back, Little White did, and threw a frightened look up at me.

It got a nod out of me, and nothing more.

Only then did the words come out of it, small: “S-Seventh Senior Brother.”

No man ever smiled broader than Juanlian, and out went his hand toward its head, though halfway there the wound on the left ear caught his eye and there was no smile in him at all.

“That wound…”

Dark came over his face, and round went his head toward Yaoguang City.

“Whose doing?”

I answered nothing.

Me he looked at, then at the white rabbit tucked away in my coat, and I heard his teeth come together.

“That young brat off the Yun family?”

Still I answered nothing.

Understood him anyroad did Juanlian.

Round he went and bellowed down the line: pass it along, the Yun family of Yaoguang City laid hands on a disciple of Mind Platform Mountain, treason it is, seize the estate, strip the City Lord, and that Young Lord of theirs,

“No need,” I said.

A blink out of Juanlian.

“Seen to it already, I have.”

Open went his mouth, and shut again.

At me he looked, then laughed all at once and scratched the back of his head.

“Never changed, Senior Brother. Your own Junior Brother, and nobody else’s hands will do.”

A pause, and on he went: that memorial, he would lay out plainly before the Jade Emperor once he was back, and any man bringing a complaint against his Senior Brother could expect to be torn in half.

A sidelong look I gave him.

“You have come up in the world further than I looked for.”

Laughter out of him, and a mouthful of white teeth with it.

Then something crossed his face, and down went his head, and thick came the voice.

“Senior Brother, ten thousand years I have wanted to come up that mountain and see you, only the Heavenly Court never leaves a man alone, I”

“Nothing needing to be explained.”

Up came his head.

“Doing well. That is sufficient,” I said.

Red came into Juanlian’s eyes. Twice he blinked, hard, and put his face up toward the sky instead.

“Report first, Senior Brother, let me, and come up another day. Another day I will bring wine up the mountain to you!”

“Fine.”

Up into the air he went with his soldiers after him, gold light going up like a column.

A long way off he twisted round in it and shouted down the wind: “Take care, Senior Brother! And you behave, Junior Brother!”

His voice went to pieces in the wind.

A white head eased out of my coat, watching the gold fade out of the sky.

“Senior Brother.”

“Mm.”

“All those Junior Brothers you taught. Every one of them that strong?”

I gave it thought.

“Middling. He is middling.”

A twitch of the ears, and back against me went its face.

Muffled out of my coat: “I am the useless one of them, then.”

Down I looked.

“You are the youngest.”

“Amounts to the same.”

“You went and picked me the lingzhi.”

Once, its ears moved. Spoke it did not.

Warm against my palm its face went, and that much I felt.

Chapter Seven

Something went wrong on the road home.

We were passing a city when the sky went dark all at once.

Not the dark that comes with sunset. Something was covering the sky.

I looked up.

A hand the size of a hillside reached down out of the clouds to shut out sky and sun, palm turned groundward, pressing down toward where we stood.

A Buddha’s palm.

A cry out of Little White, a shift back into human shape, and both arms locked around mine.

“Senior Brother!”

I did not move from where I stood.

The palm came down to within three zhang of our heads, and stopped.

A shaft of gold light fell out of the sky and landed in front of me.

The light broke apart. A monk was standing there.

Shaved head, monk’s robe, a nine-ringed staff in his hand.

His face was calm. But the pride between his brows would not stay hidden, however hard he tried.

He looked at me, and one corner of his mouth hooked upward.

“Senior Brother.”

I looked at him.

“Wukong.”

The Great Sage Equal to Heaven. The Victorious Fighting Buddha.

My third Junior Brother.

Far steadier than he had been ten thousand years ago, but he was still, once he smiled, the monkey he had always been.

“I said as much myself,” he said. He took the Buddha’s palm back and planted his staff on the ground. “Word from the Heavenly Secrets Pavilion reached Spirit Mountain. The Senior Brother of Mind Platform Mountain has come down the mountain. That much I did not believe.”

He walked a slow circle around me, clicking his tongue.

“Ten thousand years, and Senior Brother looks just the same. Not one thing changed.”

His shaved head I took in, and his robe after it.

“You have changed a good deal.”

Wukong rubbed his shaved head and bared his teeth in a grin. “Nothing to be done. Once you have become a buddha, you have to look like one.”

His gaze went to Little White behind me.

Little White was staring at him, eyes huge, mouth open a crack, the very picture of someone who has seen a ghost.

“G-G-Great Sage Equal to Heaven?!”

Wukong crouched down until his eyes were level with its own, his gold eyes bending into crescents.

“Junior Brother?”

Little White dived behind me. Nothing showed but its two ears.

Wukong laughed aloud. He stood and slapped the dust off his hands.

“Nothing to be frightened of. I do not eat rabbits.”

He turned to me. Some of the smile went out of him, and his voice turned serious.

“Senior Brother, I heard about what happened at Yaoguang City.”

“Mm.”

“That brat of the Yun family had it coming.” He stopped. “But Senior Brother, now that you have come down the mountain, the whole of the Three Realms knows.”

I looked at him.

Something complicated came over his face.

“You may not know it, Senior Brother… there has been a story running through the Three Realms for ten thousand years.”

“What story?”

“That Master Subhuti has a first disciple who has never come down the mountain and never once lifted a hand. Nobody has ever seen him. Nobody knows how deep his Cultivation Base goes.”

He looked at me. My shape stood in his gold pupils.

“Every disciple who walked out of Mind Platform Mountain, whatever they became afterward, be it Great Sage, heavenly general, demon king or buddha, has exactly one thing to say when the talk turns to the Senior Brother.”

“One thing?”

Wukong grinned.

“’I do not know how strong he is. But I know he is stronger than me.’”

He spread his hands.

“So when you came down the mountain, the Heavenly Court panicked, Spirit Mountain panicked, and the Demon Race panicked along with them. Everyone guessing at one thing: what has the Senior Brother come down here to do?”

Little White had its head shoved out of my coat, and down to it went my eyes.

“To find it.”

Wukong stopped short. Then he laughed out loud.

“Just… just for Junior Brother?”

“It said three days. On the fourth day it still had not come back.”

Wukong laughed harder than ever. He crouched down and pounded the ground with his fist.

“Hahahaha. The Three Realms shake, the Heavenly Court and Spirit Mountain turn themselves inside out, and all because one small rabbit stayed out a day late. Hahahaha.”

Little White’s face went scarlet. Its ears dropped.

I waited for him to finish.

He wiped the corner of his eye, stood up, and slapped the dirt off his robe.

“All right, Senior Brother. Let me put the word out for you — the Senior Brother came down only to look for his Junior Brother, not to tip over anybody’s table. That should save the rest of them their sleepless nights.”

He paused. “Though there is one thing I have to warn you about, Senior Brother.”

“Say it.”

“Senior Brother Juanlian buried the Yun family City Lord’s memorial, but the Yun family has someone standing behind them.”

I looked at him.

“Yaoguang City falls under the Eastern Sea Dragon Clan. On land, the clan does its business through the Yun family.” His voice stayed level, though something cold showed at the bottom of his eyes. “That City Lord dared to complain so fast because he thinks the dragons will stand behind him.”

“The dragons.”

“Mm. Ao Guang. The Dragon King of the Eastern Sea.” Wukong spun his staff. “Back in the day I went to his Dragon Palace and borrowed the Sea-Calming Needle. He has not let that go even now. If he finds out it was the Senior Brother’s own Junior Brother his people pushed around…”

He did not finish. The meaning was plain enough.

Ao Guang might not let this drop.

Not for the Yun family’s sake. For face.

The face of the dragons.

I nodded.

“I hear you.”

Wukong gave me a look, as though he wanted to say something else, but when it was over all he did was smile.

“Forget it. When Senior Brother handles a thing, it has never once needed me to worry over it.”

He rose into the air. The gold light went up with him.

“Senior Brother, one of these days I will come up the mountain too, to see you and Master. And I will drag that fool Bajie along.”

“Fine.”

Away into the distance it went, gold light and all.

Little White climbed down out of my arms and stood on the ground, head tipped back to watch the light fading from the sky.

“Senior Brother.”

“Mm.”

“The Great Sage Equal to Heaven… you taught him?”

“Mm.”

“And the Curtain-Lifting General as well?”

“Mm.”

It was quiet for a while.

“How many powerful people have you really taught, Senior Brother?”

I thought about it.

“I cannot remember them all.”

Little White looked at me. There was a complicated light in its eyes.

Admiration. Soreness. And a small measure of hurt.

“Then why… why not come down the mountain for ten thousand years?”

Off in the distance the mountain stood where it always had.

Through the cloud and mist wrapped around it, Mind Platform Mountain came out in a pale outline.

“There was nothing I wanted to do.”

“And now?”

Down my eyes went, to it.

It stood there, white hair blown every way by the wind, the wound on its left ear not healed over yet, hugging a gold-red lingzhi bigger than its own face, head tipped back to look up at me.

“Now there is.”

It tipped its head to one side.

“What?”

“Taking you home.”

Its ears shot straight up, all at once the red came up into its face, and it lifted the lingzhi to hide behind.

“L-let’s go! Let’s go now!”

I smiled a little.

A hair. Hardly at all.

But Little White saw it, and its ears began to shake harder than ever.

Chapter Eight

We had not gone far.

The sky ahead turned deep blue, and the stink of seawater came rolling in over everything.

Up through the ground it began to seep, water everywhere.

It was not rain. The water was coming up out of the earth, up over our ankles, up over our calves.

Little White cried out, went back to rabbit form, and jumped onto my shoulder with all four paws hooked into my collar.

“Senior Brother! Look at the water! So much of it!”

The water kept rising.

But within three chi of my feet, not one drop came near me.

The sky ahead tore open at a seam, and seawater poured down through the gap and hung there like a curtain.

A man walked out of the curtain of water.

No. Not a man.

Dragon horns, dragon whiskers, gold dragon robes, a coral jade staff in his hand.

Ao Guang. The Dragon King of the Eastern Sea.

Behind him came shrimp soldiers and crab generals, one dark mass of them filling the whole of the high road.

And one more man stood at Ao Guang’s side: the City Lord of Yaoguang City, that middle-aged man of the Yun family.

His face carried the hard, mean look of someone who has come through the worst and found himself a backer.

“That is him!” Up came a finger, and the City Lord aimed it at me. “Your Highness the Dragon King, this is the man! He wounded my worthless son and destroyed my estate!”

Ao Guang raised his eyelids and looked my way.

He let his gaze sit on me a while, and his brows drew together.

“You are the one who broke into the Yun family?”

I said nothing.

Little White had shrunk into a ball on my shoulder, shaking from end to end.

Ao Guang’s eyes swept over it, and one corner of his mouth lifted in a sneer.

“For a rabbit demon, you wounded my vassal’s son and pulled down my vassal’s house. Some nerve on you.”

He planted his jade staff on the ground. The water burst open and threw up a wave three zhang high.

“This Prince will give you one chance. Kneel. Hand over the rabbit demon. Break your own Cultivation Base yourself. This Prince will spare your life.”

Its claws dug in harder, and its voice shook. “Senior Brother… maybe… maybe you should hand me over… I don’t want you to be hurt on my account…”

I reached up, took it off my shoulder, and held it flat on my palm.

Its eyes were nothing but water. Its nose kept twitching.

I wiped the corner of its eye with my thumb.

“I told you before.”

My voice was very quiet.

“You are my Junior Brother.”

Then I put it inside my coat and settled the cloth around it.

I lifted my head.

And looked at Ao Guang.

“What was it you said just now?”

Ao Guang’s brows drew down. “This Prince said —”

“Not that,” I cut in. “The part after.”

“…Hand over the rabbit demon?”

“Further on.”

“Break your own Cultivation Base?”

“Further still.”

Ao Guang’s face darkened. “Spare your life.”

“Ah.”

I nodded.

“You will spare my life.”

I said it over again, in a voice as flat as though I had been remarking on the weather.

Ao Guang’s brows knotted tighter. He could feel that something here was wrong, and he could not have said what.

Behind him the shrimp soldiers and crab generals began to stir, and a few of the officers whose cultivation ran higher than the rest turned pale and edged backward without meaning to.

Fanning away at the fire, the City Lord hung at his elbow. “Your Highness the Dragon King, this man is insolent past all bearing! He must be some Rogue Cultivator off a bare mountain track, presuming on a scrap of Cultivation Base and looking down on his betters!”

Ao Guang snorted and let his dragon might loose.

Pressure of a Great Luo Golden Immortal came pouring down. The water boiled. The sky changed color.

“Last chance. Kneel, or die?”

I stood where I was.

The water had come up to my knees, but the hem of my coat was dry.

I raised my right hand.

Only raised it.

Did nothing at all with it.

And Ao Guang’s dragon might — broke.

Like glass. It split down the middle, then flew apart into pieces, then was gone.

Every drop of water, every wave, all the seawater falling out of the sky stopped in the same instant.

Then it ran backward.

It drew off with a great rushing sound, back into the tear in the sky, back down into the earth, until there was nothing at all left of it.

The ground was dry again.

The color went out of Ao Guang’s face.

His hands were shaking. He nearly let go of his jade staff.

“You…”

I took one step forward.

One step.

But what Ao Guang felt was a mountain coming down on top of him.

No. Not a mountain.

The sky.

His knees began to bend.

Not because he had decided to kneel.

His body was telling him: kneel, or you die.

“Who in the world are you?!” His voice had gone off its own pitch. The light on his dragon horns was flashing wildly.

It was getting through to the City Lord as well by now: the smug look drained off his face, and fear came into its place.

My eyes went to Ao Guang.

“Ten thousand years ago,” I said, “a monkey came to your Dragon Palace and walked off with an iron rod.”

Ao Guang’s pupils drew tight.

“That monkey is my third Junior Brother.”

The color went from white to grey in Ao Guang’s face.

“Five hundred years ago a monk came through your territory, and your son was taken from you and made into a mount.”

Ao Guang’s lips began to quiver.

“That monk’s eldest disciple is also my third Junior Brother.”

I took another step forward.

“The Curtain-Lifting General is my seventh Junior Brother. Marshal Tianpeng is my fifth. The Great Sage Overturning the Sea is my fourth.”

With every name Ao Guang’s body sank a little lower.

“Every one of them calls me Senior Brother.”

What gave way first on Ao Guang was his knees.

Something heavy struck ground, and the Dragon King of the Eastern Sea was kneeling on dry ground.

Down went the shrimp soldiers and crab generals at his back, all together, like wheat under a scythe, filling the road.

Whatever had been holding the City Lord upright gave way, and down he sat in the dirt with his face the color of ash.

Ao Guang knelt there shaking all over. Not a single gleam left on his dragon horns.

“S-Senior… This Prince was blind to what stood before him… I did not know…”

My eyes went down to him.

“You said you would spare my life.”

Ao Guang shook like chaff in a sieve.

“Now —”

My voice was very light. Light as the wind up on the mountain.

“I spare yours.”

Ao Guang’s forehead struck the ground with a dull sound.

“Thank you, Senior! Thank you for the mercy of not killing me!”

Never again did my eyes go back to him.

I turned and walked on.

Two steps later I stopped and turned my head for one look at the City Lord sagging on the ground.

Our eyes met, and the City Lord rolled his up into his head and fainted clean away.

Little White pushed its head out of my coat and looked back at the dragon army kneeling on the road, then at the City Lord lying where he had fallen.

It opened its mouth. It took it a long while to squeeze out any words at all.

“Senior Brother… you were so handsome just now.”

I looked down at it.

Its ears went red again, and it pulled its head back inside in a hurry.

Chapter Nine

The road home went slowly.

Not because I walked slowly. Little White insisted on doing the walking in human form.

“I want to walk myself!” it said stubbornly, its short legs pumping, the lingzhi held in its arms, climbing up the mountain one step at a time.

The stone steps were very long. Its legs were very short.

By the hundredth step it was panting.

But it would not let me carry it.

“I am three hundred years old. I am not a child.”

It got this out between breaths, its ears poking up through its hair, damp with sweat and pressed flat against its cheeks.

I walked beside it with my own pace slowed down.

Halfway up it could go no further, and down it sat on the steps with a thump, the lingzhi set in its lap, breathing hard.

“Senior Brother.”

“Mm.”

“Do you think… I could become strong one day?”

I sat down beside it.

“You want to be strong?”

“Mm.” Its head was down, one finger poking at the cap of the lingzhi. “I don’t want Senior Brother to have to come and rescue me every time. I want… I want to be able to protect Senior Brother too.”

I looked at it.

The side of its face was still a child’s face. The light in its eyes was not.

“I will cultivate properly,” it said, raising its head to look at me. “Whatever Senior Brother teaches me, I will learn. I won’t be lazy anymore.”

I reached over and lifted the damp ear away from its cheek.

“All right.”

It smiled, showing the two small tiger teeth.

Then it stood up, picked the lingzhi back up, and went on climbing.

Three steps higher it turned its head to look down at me.

“Hurry up, Senior Brother! I have to get back and brew your tea!”

I got up and followed.

The wind came down off the mountain carrying the familiar green smell of grass and trees.

We were nearly at the Mountain Gate when I saw someone standing there.

Master.

He stood in the gateway with his hands behind his back, watching us come up.

His face was as it always was. You could not tell whether he was pleased or angry.

The moment Little White saw him it quickened its pace and ran the rest of the way skipping.

“Master! I’m back!”

Master looked at it. Then at the lingzhi in its arms. And then across to the wound on its ear.

Then he looked at me.

I came up the last stone step and stood in front of him.

“You are back,” he said.

“Mm.”

“The mountain still standing?”

“…It is.”

He nodded, turned, and set off toward the Cave Residence.

Two steps on he stopped. He did not turn his head.

“The tea has gone cold. Heat it yourself.”

Then he was gone.

Little White tipped its head to watch Master walking away, then asked me in a small voice, “Is Master angry?”

I watched Master’s back.

His steps were a little faster than usual.

Only a little.

“No,” I said. “He is pleased.”

“…I can’t tell.”

“Watch him long enough and you will.”

I took the lingzhi out of its arms and started toward the courtyard.

“Come on. Let’s brew tea.”

Little White came along behind me, and had to trot to keep up with my stride.

“Wait for me, Senior Brother —”

I slowed down.

It ran up beside me and took hold of the corner of my coat.

I did not shake it off.

A new layer of fallen leaves had gathered in the courtyard.

The broom still leaned against the Mountain Gate, exactly as it had been before I left.

To the leaves my eyes went first, and then to the lingzhi in my hand.

“Tea first.”

“Mm!”

Little White ran off to build the fire, and I went to wash the lingzhi.

Spring water ran over its surface, and gold-red light spread out through the water like sunset clouds gone liquid.

I cut the lingzhi into thin slices, put them into the clay pot, added spring water, and set the pot on the stove Little White had got going.

The water took its time warming, and the smell of lingzhi spread through the air until the whole courtyard lay under one thin layer of pale gold mist.

Little White squatted beside the stove with its chin in both hands, staring at the clay pot.

Firelight lay across its face. Its red eyes were shining.

“It smells good.”

“Mm.”

“Senior Brother, can we drink this every day from now on?”

“One lingzhi will not stretch to every day.”

“Then I will go and pick more!” It stood up and thumped its chest. “When I am strong, I will go and pick piles of them!”

I looked at it.

“No need to go picking.”

“Why not?”

“You will do.”

It stopped dead.

Up its ears came, an inch at a time. Its face went from white to pink, and from pink to red.

“S-Senior Brother, what did you just say…”

“The tea is ready.”

I lifted the lid and poured two cups.

The tea was gold, clear to the bottom of the cup, with spiritual qi curling up out of it.

One cup I took, and drank it down.

It was good.

Better than any tea I had drunk in ten thousand years.

Little White took the other cup and sipped at it in small mouthfuls, its eyes bending into crescents.

“Is it good, Senior Brother?”

“It is good.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

It smiled until there were no eyes left to see, its two ears swaying back and forth above its head.

The sunset came down off the peak and dyed the whole courtyard gold.

The fallen leaves lay thick on the ground. They could be swept tomorrow.

Chapter Ten

After that day, word went out through the Three Realms.

The first disciple of Master Subhuti of Mind Platform Mountain has come down the mountain for the first time in ten thousand years.

Reason: looking for a rabbit.

The Heavenly Court held three emergency meetings about it, and settled, three sittings later, on one conclusion: nobody is to provoke that rabbit.

Spirit Mountain read sutras over it seven days running, and on the seventh the Buddha handed down a decree in his own hand: disciples of Mind Platform Mountain may pass freely anywhere in the Three Realms, and no one is to stand in their way.

The Demon Race was more direct. The Dragon Kings of the Four Seas put out a joint notice: the white rabbit demon is the youngest disciple of Mind Platform Mountain, and no tribe is to offend him. Anyone who does will answer for it.

Ao Guang himself, the Dragon King of the Eastern Sea, brought three carts of treasure up to the gate of Mind Platform Mountain, where Master’s crane made off with one night pearl while everything else went back untouched.

The Yun family of Yaoguang City was raided.

Not by my hand. By the Heavenly Court’s.

Once Juanlian was back, he told the Jade Emperor the whole story from beginning to end. The Jade Emperor was silent for a long while. Then he handed down an edict: the City Lord of the Yun family has neglected his duty and is stripped of office pending investigation; the Young Lord of the Yun family abused a Spirit Beast and is to take three hundred strokes of the rod and be made a Mortal.

They say that when the edict came down, the Young Lord of the Yun family was still lying in his bed with both legs in splints.

And that when he heard those last few words he fainted clean away.

All of this reached me later, from Wukong, when he came up the mountain.

He really had brought Bajie with him.

Bajie was thinner than he used to be, but he could still eat. He put away half a year of my stored grain in one meal, and got several hard looks from Little White over it.

“Fifth Senior Brother, you eat far too much! That is Senior Brother’s rice!”

Bajie belched, rubbed his belly, and grinned. “Now, now, Junior Brother, don’t be cross with me. Next time I will bring the grain myself.”

Wukong sat at the stone table in the courtyard with one leg crossed over the other, cracking spirit fruit between his teeth, watching Little White chase Bajie around and around the yard.

“Senior Brother,” he said, tipping his head toward me. “You have got it good here.”

I leaned against the veranda post with my teacup in my hand.

“It has always been good.”

“You used to say the same thing when you were up here alone.”

I drank some tea and let it go at that.

Wukong flicked a fruit stone away, and it struck Bajie square on the back of the head.

“Though looking at it now, it really is different.”

Out in the yard, Little White had all my attention.

It chased Bajie three times around without catching him, got so angry that it dropped back into rabbit form, jumped three chi into the air, and butted its head against Bajie’s shin.

Bajie danced about yelping. Wukong laughed himself half over backwards.

Master turned up in the doorway of the Cave Residence at some point, took one look at the ruckus in the courtyard, shook his head, and went back inside.

But I saw the corner of his mouth move.

Upward.

Afterward Juanlian came too, bringing three jars of heavenly wine from the Heavenly Court.

Later still, the Great Sage Overturning the Sea arrived with a basket of coral fruit from the Eastern Sea.

And later still than that, even the Bull Demon King turned up, carrying a roasted spirit ox over his shoulder as an apology. Back when he and Wukong had their falling out he had smashed a rock beside the Mountain Gate, and he had never once come to apologize for it.

Little White was badly frightened by all these Senior Brothers. It hid behind me and refused to come out.

But then it found how good every one of them was to it. Juanlian peeled fruit for it. Wukong turned himself into a tiny monkey to make it laugh. Bajie let it ride on his head all around the yard without ever losing his temper.

Little by little, it stopped being afraid.

It even started telling them where to sweep.

“Seventh Senior Brother, you have missed that whole patch!”

“Fifth Senior Brother, stop sneaking food and get to work!”

“Third Senior Brother, no magic! Senior Brother says it only counts if you sweep it yourself!”

Wukong stood there holding his broom with the look of a man who has given up on everything.

“Senior Brother, are you sure this is what you taught them?”

I drank my tea and said nothing.

But the corner of my mouth bent up a little.

That evening, the brothers all went away.

The courtyard was quiet again. Moonlight lay across the stone steps, and the leaves had been swept clean.

Little White lay on my lap, already asleep.

It had been too excited that day, changing shape back and forth and burning through a good part of its Spiritual Energy. Now it had curled itself into a ball the size of my palm, breathing slow and level, one ear twitching now and then.

The wound on its left ear had healed. The new fur growing in was white enough to shine.

I laid a big leaf over it for a quilt.

Moonlight fell across it, all soft fur, like a handful of snow that breathed.

Master’s voice came out of the Cave Residence, very quiet.

“When I picked you up all those years ago, you were this small too.”

I turned my head toward the Cave Residence.

I could not see him. Only candlelight leaking out through the gap at the door.

“A wisp of spiritual qi. No shape to it at all, drifting over the peak, very nearly scattered for good.”

I said nothing.

“I kept you for ten thousand years, and you would not take one step off this mountain.”

The candlelight swayed.

“I did think you would go on that way forever.”

A silence.

“And when all is said, one rabbit was enough to trick you into going down.”

Down went my eyes to Little White on my lap.

It rolled over and buried its face against my palm, and worked its mouth a little at something it was eating in a dream.

“Master.”

“Mm.”

“Thank you for picking me up back then.”

It was a long time before anything came from inside the Cave Residence.

Then a laugh, very soft.

“Stinking brat.”

The candle went out.

I leaned back against the veranda post, Little White cradled in one hand, the teacup in the other.

The tea had gone cold, but the smell of the lingzhi was still there.

The mountain wind came across with the cool of night dew in it.

There would be leaves to sweep tomorrow.

But there was no hurry now.

I closed my eyes.

For the first time in ten thousand years it came to me that —

there is more on this mountain than leaves and wind.

There is also a rabbit’s heartbeat against my palm, once, and again.

Very light.

Very warm.

Very good.