My cloud evaporated to steam with a hiss. The noise was so loud that I thought Yuanshi Tianzun would surely scold me, but when I peeked at him, I saw that he was staring at the sky… with his eyes closed. His fingers moved rapidly as if to calculate something. Then, a series of strange instruments flew out of his sleeves: a round disk, a canister with wooden sticks, some sort of shell, and countless scrolls.

I heard some gasps. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one staring at him.

“Xiansheng, are you forseeing? Can I learn that instead? I already know how to fly.” Someone asked excitedly.

Yuanshi Tianzun jumped and looked at us as if he had forgotten we were here.

“Do what you want, just don’t bother me,” Yuanshi Tianzun said absently as he dipped his brush in water instead of ink. With that, he bent over his desk and began to scribble. The stack of name-plates lay amidst his instruments forgotten.

“My shifu has always wanted to learn forseeing.” Shangtian turned to me excitedly. “I can’t believe Yuanshi Tianzun is allowing us to try.”

“Why not?”

“Well, forseeing is about reading the future, but attempts to affect the future have severe repercussions. And only the most powerful gods could withstand the exhaustion to their chi. Therefore my shifu told me it is highly regulated and esoteric.”

“Sounds like a waste of precious chi to predict what could barely be changed,” I said. “I just learned how to fly, I’m not about to lose what little chi I have over this.”

“But Ziyan, don’t you want to predict who your shifu is? Or… or… or.” Shangtian blushed and lowered her voice. “Who your husband might be?”

I whirled around so fast that my hair slapped Naricssus on the cheek.

“Do gods have to get married?” I demanded.

“No, most are single,” Shangtian replied with a perplexed look.

I let out a sigh of relief. Thank heavens I no longer had to get married to fit in. I was tired of parading myself like a piece of meat. But for some reason, the face of that god popped into my head.

“We will be fast, and then I’ll go distract him while you fix your name plate,” Shangtian said excitedly, already unrolling a book.

“I suppose we can try this thing first. Yuanshi Tianzun doesn’t look like he will go through the name plates anytime soon,” I said. Shangtian already buried her face in the pages. I had no choice but to read the instructions from behind her shoulders.

“Three Life Method. Bagua. Yin Yang Bowl. Plum Flower Calculation. Oracle Bone Method,” I muttered as I went down the table of contents. Shangtian had already left to retrieve the tools needed for the first method. The first few were for prediction of the future, but the last method… My eyes stopped at the description of Oracle Bone Method.

“Oracle Bone Method: carve question onto the plastron of a tortoise. Then apply heat until the bone cracks. The answer will reveal itself through a pattern of cracks,” I read.

Perhaps I could use this method to find out the name of that god.

I looked around. The candidates who were no longer flying were all tossing, cracking, shuffling, examining instruments of divination. Shangtian was back, shaking a jar of incense sticks. Compasses, bowls, and manuals lay in messy piles. But I did not see a single tortoise plastron.

“I did it!” exclaimed a boy, capturing my attention.

“What does it say,” a delicate looking girl next to the boy asked softly.

“It says we are flower and jade,” the boy grinned at the girl. Upon hearing his words, the girl displayed a happy smile and blushed. The boy read aloud.

One was a flower,

One was pure jade,

Yet if fate had meant them for each other,

Why was their heavenly union all in vain?

As the boy neared the end of the poem, tears collected in the girl’s large eyes.

“Why does it say ‘in vain’?” the girl asked softly.

The boy quickly produced a handkerchief from his sleeve and rushed to comfort the girl, “I’m sure I messed the prediction up somehow.” When that didn’t stop her tears, he said to a girl near him. “Pardon, can I test the Three Life Method with you?”

“Of course,” replied the girl. The boy asked for her birthday and began calculating her numbers according to the instructions of the Three Life Book. Another poem appeared shortly.

All commend the marriage of gold and jade,

He recalls the bond stone and flower made

While his vacant eyes behold beauty pure and cold,

His mind can not be banished the blossom from the world had vanished

“See Vivi, this is nonsense. It says she and I are married, but I don’t even know her!” exclaimed the boy.

“My name is Barette.” The girl smiled. “Nice to meet you.”

The boy scratched his head, “Forgive my lack of manners. I am Yu, and this is Vivi.”

But Vivi was crying harder than ever, and no amount of comforting from Yu could ease her flood of tears.

“It’s all stupid,” I joined in. “A flower, a jade, gold? What a joke!”

“Actually,” Vivi said softly. “I am a flower.”

Horrified, I blurted out, “You are a yaoguai—”

Shangtian’s hands went to my mouth.

“Say yao, not yaoguai,” she whispered. “Any animal that can take human form is a yao. Yaoguai refers to the evil ones.”

It turned out that Yu and Vivi were from Penglai Mountain, a favorite vacation spot of deities. The heavy traffic from the gods caused chi to accumulate in the air. Through chi-infused dewdrops, a flower began to take human form and became Vivi. But Vivi didn’t want to part with the stone next to her. Luckily, two gods passed by and carved a poem on the stone. Also receiving chi, the stone became Yu. They came to Shenjie for deification so they could be together forever.

“So romantic,” I breathed. When they looked at one another, it seemed as it nothing else in the world existed.

“Can we see your original forms?” Shangtian asked, dabbing her eyes with her handkerchief.

In an instant, Yu turned into a translucent stone and Vivi transformed into a stalk of violet. Before I could examine closely, they transformed back.

“Very interesting poem on you,” commented Barette. “I am a yao as well.”

In the blink of an eye, Barette disappeared and a golden hairpin cleverly carved in shape of a pavilion appeared. The hairpin was not the normal wood ones I was used to seeing in the village; it was fancy enough for a queen.

We all admired her for a while, until Shangtian cleared her throat.

“I’m going to ask Yuanshi Tianzun some questions,” she said and glanced pointedly at me. I knew it was cue to grab my name-plate.

“There is a specific way to speak to senior gods,” Barette immediately said. “I’ll show you how.”

We watched as they make their way to Yuanshi Tianzun. I slowly backed away to find—

“I SAID I DON’T WANT TO BE BOTHERED!”

The class chatter fell silent.

Shangtian’s face was as red as a monkey’s behind.

“I CAN’T EVEN DO CALCULATIONS IN PEACE.”

His chest heaved up and down as he yelled.

“Go receive a bolt of lightening from Lei Gong!”

If Lei Gong was the same God of Storm that I heard about as a mortal, then he casted bolts of lightening that left permanent and painful marks on bodies.

I rushed over, but Yu already stepped in front of Shangtian and Barette.

“Xiansheng, I ask to receive their bolts,” he said chivalrously.

Barette looked at him, stunned.

“No!” A figure broke through the circle of spectators that had formed around us.

“Let me receive his punishment for him,” Vivi cried, tearing streaming down her face again.

“Four bolts for him,” Yuanshi Tianzun snarled, “Two more if you don’t take this show elsewhere.”

Perhaps it was the sight of Vivi crying, or maybe it was Yuanshi Tianzun’s derision that triggered something inside me. I felt the need to stand up for them.

“Why come here if you don’t want to teach?” I demanded.

Shangtian gasped. Vivi stopped crying. Everyone stared at me with horrified expression.

Yuanshi Tianzun advanced towards me. I suddenly realized how menacing he seemed despite his stature.

“What did you say?” He snarled.

I knew the smart course of action would be to apologize, but of course, I was too stubborn.

“We are students. We learn by asking questions. Perhaps you should stop teaching so you can focus on your… whatever.”

Yuanshi Tianzun’s face turned white with rage.

“Whatever? You dare to call what I do ‘whatever’? Get out. Get out of here. Get out of Shenjie,” he shouted. A name-plate rose from the pile at his words.

The silence was deafening. Thousands of eyes watched what I would do next. In front of such an attentative audience, I strode up to his desk and snatched back my name-plate. The characters on it still read “Zi Yan”, but the characters no longer meant “purple haze” but “seed haze”. Someone had already changed it.

Eons later, so it felt like, the Goddess of Propriety found me lying in the grass near the courtyard where Yuanshi Tianzun’s Qilin dumped me.

“Never receive guests without appearing presentable,” she lectured.

I sullenly tidied stray hairs and smoothed my dress. What was the point of etiquette now? I was about to be kicked out. I didn’t regret speaking out against Yuanshi Tianzun; I regretted not doing so smartly. I came to save the villagers and find their murderer, but I accomplished neither.

“Slightly better,” she said when I turned around to face her. “Now, give me your name plate.”

“What?” I asked, astounded.

“I need it to enroll you in the ceremony tomorrow,” she said with an eye roll.

“I… I can stay in Shenjie?” I stuttered.

The goddess sighed adoringly.

“I totally understand your desire to stick up for me. You probably have heard of my animosity with... Yuanshi Tianzun. You probably thought stirring up trouble with him would avenge me. But remember, the nail that sticks out gets hammered down. Why do you think I’m not in the Top Echelon?”

My mouth fell open.

“You are right. He tried to expel you, but luckily for you, I still have the final say in the enrollment list, and I shall bend the rules for my biggest fan.” She winked.

I didn’t know what to say.

“Of course, I’ll have to break it to him that I refuse to expel you.” She gave so great a shudder that one would think Yuanshi Tianzun a demon.

“A fairy could pass along the message for you,” I suggested.

“No, no, no,” the Goddess of Propriety said immediately. “That shall be my burden, my pain, and my torment alone.”

Her eyes shone so that I could only assume that this “animosity” with Yuanshi Tianzun brought her a lot of excitement.