TIP: translations in Author's Notes at the end
If the snake in the weeds hadn't turned its gleaming golden eyes on her, Lan Fan wouldn't have noticed it at all.
At least, until it starts talking to her.
"Hey. Hey! Miss!"
Lan Fan whirls around, eyes blazing. There is no one there, nothing but the tall grass and an empty road. Behind her, the lights of the city tower above the golden, cloudy sunset.
One hand grips the baton hooked into her belt.
"Miss! Down here!"
The voice comes dry and clear from her left, in the weeds off the path, and that is where Lan Fan looks. And stares.
"Hello!" says the snake, the yellow diamond pattern on its back still bright in the last rays of the sun. "I don't mean to scare you, but could you help me? My tail is bleeding rather a lot, and I don't have enough p—energy to take care of it myself." It—he? It sounds like a he—inches closer. "Are you alright, miss?"
All the breath rushes out of her body, and Lan Fan doesn't know she's drawn her baton until the snake recoils from the tip. "Whoa, whoa! Lady, calm down! I'm not trying to hurt you!"
"I have a name!" Lan Fan snaps, before she remembers she's talking to a snake.
Said snake makes a noise that sounds awfully like a laugh. "Okay. Just please, put the baton away. I don't bite."
Lan Fan scoffs, but her arm falls numbly to her side. She is dreaming. She has to be. It wouldn't be the first time she's fallen asleep on the subway. Perhaps the exhaustion's got to her, and she is hallucinating. Tucking her baton away, she closes her eyes and pinches her thigh, hard.
When she opens them again, the snake tilts its head and asks, "So what is your name, then?"
Definitely hallucinating. "Lan Fan Sheng."
"So, Lan Fan Sheng, about the tail." The snake slithers out from the weeds, and she can finally see the red gash in his side, fresh and oozing blood. Despite her shock, some lingering, phantom feeling in her shoulder aches at the sight.
"The subway line here just closed, and all the animal clinics are in the city." Lan Fan shakes her head. "I'm no veterinarian. I can't help you."
"I don't need a clinic. Just some bandages." The snake eyes her bound hands, raw from rope and endless scrubbing. "And I'm willing to bet you have some of those, miss Lan Fan."
Lan Fan looks around. The settling twilight casts a muted, plum glow over the skyline. The road to the village is dark, a phantom breeze brushing through the grass. Sounds are strange: a car honk, the chirp of a cricket, a bird call that is distant and long and eerie in the cloudless evening. There isn't a person in sight, in this hazy, dream-world she's entered. Just her, and the polite, bleeding snake that's staring at her with eyes like the sun.
"All right." She adjusts the strap of her bag and leans down, easing her hands beneath the snake's thick body and lifting him up. He is oddly warm in her arms. "I'll help you."
The snake sleeps for a week.
She wakes up one morning to an ache in her back and her serpent tenant's head inches away from her face. "Good morning!"
She screams, but the sound comes out more like a loud croak.
"What? Forgot I could talk?" He shifts in his seat on the rickety table, the equivalent of a grin on his scaly face. "You look exhausted."
"Do I?" Shaking off her surprise, Lan Fan stands and stretches, lifting her left arm up and rotating it gently in the socket. "You should be well rested, at least. You were dead to the world for almost eight days."
"Not true. I woke up every day, and you were gone. Sometimes I was awake when you came back, and you never noticed because you were dead on your feet." The snake follows her with his yellow eyes as she moves to the small bathroom. "How long do you work?"
"Long enough to keep this place from falling apart." She washes her face and brushes her teeth, pulling her hair up into a loose bun as she walks back out towards him. "So let's make this quick. Show me your wound."
"Don't change the subject." He looks up at Lan Fan with his glaring eyes. "You don't look old enough to be out of college, let alone working a full-time job. What do you do all day? Bus tables?"
"That's none of your business." She's starting to get annoyed. "The deal was I bring you home and bandage you up. I don't have to let you stay here and question my life choices."
"Whoa, okay. My bad." The snake tenses when she begins to unwrap the bindings. "Do you have family? Someone that stays with you?"
Some of the fight has left her, and she feels herself deflate at his question. "No."
"Oh." He is quiet, and a part of Lan Fan wants to laugh at the idea that this talking, impossible snake might pity her. She doesn't. She can't bring herself to care about it like she used to. She's dealt with enough pity from strangers before.
The bandages fall away, and she gapes at the cut that is now half as small and looking more like an old scar than a new wound. The snake twists his head back, and sighs. "That's good. I was a little worried those old bandages you had might make it worse, but it's healing rather well."
"Healing? It is healed." Lan Fan doesn't know why she's surprised; a snake that can talk might as well have accelerated healing, too. "Did you even need bandages?"
"Well, yeah. They do help, you know." The snake yawns, his tiny fangs shining. "Thank you for them, by the way. If you work minimum wage, and considering you look around my age I'm assuming you do, you must be working multiple shifts a day, and it probably isn't just waitressing."
She's too stunned to argue. "Retail, maintenance, anything that pays. What do you mean I'm around your age? How old are you?"
"Oh, a lot older than I look." He uncoils himself and slips down to the floor. "Well then, miss Lan Fan, seeing as I'm basically healed if you would kindly open the door I'll get out of your way."
Lan Fan says, "That could still get infected, if you're not careful," and blinks, wondering why the hell she even still cared.
The snake looks pleased. "Oh, don't you worry about me. Besides, if I'm going to repay you for saving me, I'd better start now. There's a lot of work to do."
Unbidden, her door swings open, and the snake slithers out, dry leaves cracking beneath his tail. There's a pressing urgency in the back of Lan Fan's mind, pulling and nagging that something's missing, that she's forgotten something. Like yesterday, the air is strange and still, and she feels numb as she steps outside. The sky is a rosy gray, and petrichor fills her nose. Across the yard, beneath a dying sapling, is the snake, his eyes glinting flecks of gold through the space between them, as though he is waiting for her.
She exhales. "What's yours, then?"
"My what?"
"I told you my name when you asked, that day." The silence stretches. "What's yours?"
In between one blink and the next, the snake is gone, and the air is filled suddenly with sound and fire and gold. Lan Fan shields her eyes and bows her head, her hair whipping free of the elastic, and it seems like a long time before she can begin to think.
The wind dies, and the roaring fades, and she straightens, opens her eyes. A great, serpentine face stares back at her, a thick mane of black hair and two long whiskers swaying in an unknown breeze. In the small yard, the dragon's body bends and twists, graceful and awkward all at once. Its feet are tucked near its body, but the long, sharp claws still graze the cobblestone. The golden scales of its face continue down the length of its body, and glittering night-black scales cut diamond patterns in the gleaming yellow. A pair of ivory horns protrude from its head, and Lan Fan can see a red glow emanating from its mouth, the source of the heat. Large, blinding gold eyes stare into hers. She has never been so frightened.
"So you're just a typical, fire-breathing dragon, then." In the invisible current, she hears something like a laugh. The dragon shifts, and she sees the long, pink wound stretched across the lower part of its body. Some of the tension leaves her. "What is your name?"
A gust of warm breath wraps around her, and high in the air the wind brings her an echoing reply. Ling Yao.
The dragon turns its head up and shoots into the sky, a blur of gold and black and then empty space. Lan Fan pushes her wind-blown hair out of her face and watches it ripple farther and farther away until it disappears into the lightening dusk.
She calls in sick and stays in bed for the rest of the day.
"Hey! Miss!"
Lan Fan turns around, hand on her baton and glaring daggers, and the young man in what looks like early Chinese imperial robes behind her yelps. "Whoa, okay! Sorry! Don't hit me with your baton!"
She's more confused than annoyed now, because he knew she had a baton and he called her 'miss' and she's heard that voice before. "Who are you?"
"If you have to ask, don't you already know?" When Lan Fan scowls and pulls out her baton, the man relents. "Okay, okay. I'm Ling."
Her heartbeat falters, for a second. "Do I know you?"
"Come on." He sighs. "Yellow diamond pattern, gold eyes, devilishly handsome face, talking snake. Any of this you remember?" He gestures at his back. "You stopped me from bleeding out on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere?"
Talking snake. She snaps her baton back into her belt. The light is green, and her fingers curl. She doesn't wait for him as she strides across the street, narrowly avoiding a turning taxi. The street is packed in the middle of the day, and she needs to think. After the dragon had left, she'd used various excuses to explain the noise and the charred bushes to her landlady, who'd accepted it with much more ease than Lan Fan had expected. It helped that she lived in the outskirts of a small village, and there was no one awake that day to see what had happened. She still can't really believe it had happened; a snake had talked to her, and lived with her, and turned into a dragon in her yard.
And now, more than a month later, this man, this boy really—he looks only a few years older than her, tells her in broad daylight with countless ears listening that he is that snake she saved. And dressed as he is. If Grandfather could see it… She shakes her head. It is a scene right out of his stories. When Lan Fan glances back over her shoulder there is no sign of the boy. But she feels it now as she did then: those golden eyes that watched her and waited in the grass. And when she finally stops in a side road, away from the crowd, he's there still, leaning against the stone.
"You remember me. I can see it."
"Because you know me so well?"
He cocks his head. "I mean, it would be hard to forget a talking snake."
"Talking snake. That's funny, all I can remember is a giant dragon in my front yard."
The boy—Ling—has the decency to look sheepish. "Okay, I'll admit. That was a bit much. I didn't know what I was supposed to do."
She throws her hands up. "Some warning would've been nice! You just went and turned into a huge serpent without saying anything!"
"I didn't think you would believe me."
"You're right. A snake that can talk tells me it's a dragon and that's what I can't believe."
He smiles and something otherworldly flickers in his thin eyes. "Actually, I'm a god."
Lan Fan presses her lips together. "Of course you are."
"No, really." Ling lifts his arms and indicates the rich fabric draping off of him. "Do you think I'd claim to be a talking snake and dress like this if I wasn't one?"
"If you were clinically insane and afflicted with delusions of grandeur, you would."
"Yes, but how many clinically insane people know for a fact that you've healed a talking snake with gorgeous golden eyes and who turned out to be a fire-breathing dragon?"
"So you're a good guesser."
Ling grins wider, and for a second a small part of Lan Fan wants to smile back. "You're right. I don't know you, but I can see it in your eyes. Everything I've said, it makes sense to you. Whether you want to or not, you believe me." He leans closer to her, and she can see flecks of those gold snake eyes in the dark brown of his. "Besides, you're the one talking to snakes and seeing dragons in your yard. So really, which of us is the crazy one?"
They stand there, in a small road off that is utterly, oddly deserted despite the noon city bustle. A girl and a god. And Lan Fan may later prove to be totally insane, but right now... She believes him.
"So. You're healed. Why did you come back?"
He shrugs. "You saved me. I told you I'd repay you, didn't I? And speaking of, busing tables and cleaning windows is one thing, I didn't know you sang at weddings, too!"
She doesn't even bother asking how he found out. "It's easy money. And it's a lot better than waitressing, but wedding jobs are thin on the ground. It's too little to live on."
"Well. You're my savior. I can't have you struggling to make ends meet." Ling blocks the sun with his hand and squints into the distance. "Right on time."
Lan Fan turns to see where he's looking. A few buildings down, a woman in a long, sleeveless white top is walking away from them, hefting at least a dozen grocery bags in both arms. From what Lan Fan can tell, the woman's skin is tan, tanner even than her grandfather's had been, and her hair is in box braids. A foreigner, then.
Ling juts his chin out in the woman's direction, and Lan Fan glowers. "I'm not going to just follow some random woman."
"Just look." At his urging, Lan Fan turns back around. From an alley between two buildings, two heavyset men eye each other and begin trailing the woman. One man reaches for something in his pocket, and even from here Lan Fan can see the glint of a blade. Instinctively, she reaches for her baton, but her fingers meet only leather and fabric. When she whips her head around, Ling is already gone.
Cursing him in her head, she turns back to see one of the men lunge for the woman. Quicker than Lan Fan can process, the woman whirls and smacks him in the face with a shopping bag, her face tight and controlled. Before the man can recover, she crouches and sweeps his legs out from under him, letting his head slam onto the pavement below.
The second man has been hanging back, watching and calculating the woman's moves. Her back is to him when he finally lifts out a gun from his pocket and points it at her. "Don't move, bitch, or I'll shoot."
That's all he gets out before Lan Fan leaps and kicks the gun out of his hand. It clatters to the floor, and she kicks it out of reach of his recovering companion even as the woman restrains him. The second man is faster than the first, and in her distraction Lan Fan narrowly dodges a fist to her temple. When the second punch comes at her, she blocks it with her arm, grabs his wrist, and pulls as she twists it inwards. With the lingering momentum, she pushes her back into his chest and flips him over her good shoulder, sending him crashing down onto the road. Twisting him onto his front, she bends his arm in towards his back and puts her body weight on his legs.
The man cries out in pain, and she snaps, "Shut up, or I'll knock you out."
"Do it anyway." The woman says in fluent Chinese as she stands up, her victim already out cold. "They can rot here until the police find them."
Lan Fan shrugs, and strikes the back of his neck. The man goes slack in her grip. Standing up, she wipes her hands on her shirt and picks up a discarded grocery bag. "I saw them following you and came to help, but you were doing pretty well on your own. Here."
"I appreciate it." The woman takes the bag from her and studies her for a moment. Her gaze is sharp and intimidating, and Lan Fan starts to feel a bit like she's being dissected. "What's your name? How did you learn how to fight like that?"
"Lan Fan. My grandfather taught me since I was a kid."
"Do you know any other martial arts? Jiu-jitsu or tàijíquán?"
"Yes, and shàolín kung fu, taekwondo, bāguàzhǎng, xíngyìquán, judo. Some aikido." Lan Fan rubs her neck, uncomfortable. "My grandfather used to train soldiers."
"Perfect." The woman grinned. "I'm Izumi Curtis. I run a self-defense studio just down the street. It pays more than waitressing, and I could use another teacher there, if you're interested."
Lan Fan doesn't think she's ever agreed to anything so fast in her life.
As it turns out, her new boss is half Chinese, and she and her husband Sig had moved to China to open a martial arts studio and start a family. While she runs her studio, Sig owns a meat shop beneath their apartment, and sometimes during Lan Fan's lunch break he cooks the juiciest pieces of pork neck for her. Lan Fan likes them far more than she ever thought she would.
One day, Izumi shows her a picture of her students in Germany, where she used to live. Two boys grin at the camera, yellow-haired and fair-skinned and obviously siblings. But what catches Lan Fan's attention are their eyes; a light, burnished amber that is so very nearly gold.
"Edward must be around your age, now." Izumi points at the shorter, angrier looking one. "His younger brother's name is Alphonse. They were so impatient when they first came to me. Too much energy and no outlet." She laughs. "You'd have given the both of them a run for their money."
Lan Fan smiles, but the gold lingers in her mind. When she'd gone home that day, with her new job and a new feeling of contentment in her stomach, she found her baton on her doorstep with a note. The writing on it was a loopy, careless scrawl that read: Don't say I never gave you anything. I'll be back.
She had been exasperated, mostly. He was a god, and she'd saved him, and he'd repaid her by helping her get that job. So why would he come back? She isn't interesting, can't possibly be of any interest or use to a deity that can transform into anything, or go anywhere he wants. But it's been almost two months now, and there is no sign of the young immortal she brought home with her, and she's sure he's forgotten her.
She doesn't mind. He'd meddled in her life far more than she needed, and she's glad. But there's a hollowness in her chest that she can't shake, and she knows it, had felt it for years after her grandfather had died. But Lan Fan had lived with Fu her whole life, and she is used to being alone. She doesn't know why this god's sudden intrusion and absence from her life makes her feel that loneliness so potently.
"Ha! I finally got you!" Paninya grins above her, her arms pinning Lan Fan's own down. "I didn't think it'd take such little time!"
Paninya, too, is someone Lan Fan didn't think she'd like as much as she does. A Nigerian exchange student, she'd stumbled into the studio one day and Izumi had given her to Lan Fan almost immediately. Paninya was funny, cheerful, and had proven herself horrible at Lan Fan's native tongue, so she and Lan Fan talked in a mix of English and Chinese. She was not nearly as bad at jiu-jitsu, despite both of her prosthetic legs, and takes all of Lan Fan's firm criticism of her spontaneity in stride. It's that impulsivity that had helped her overpower Lan Fan, but just a bit. Lan Fan's mind had been elsewhere, and she tells Paninya as much.
"Okay, sure. If that makes you feel better."
Lan Fan refocuses. In two moves, Paninya is tumbling to the ground and yielding. "Agh! Okay! I knew it couldn't have been that easy. You were distracted."
"It won't happen again." Pulling her up, Lan Fan salutes and bows. "Your time's up. You know how to get back to your dorm, right? Don't take the wrong line again."
"It was one time. You can stop bringing it up." Grabbing her bag, Paninya nudges her as she bends down to change her shoes. "Come on. You promised to get boba with me."
Lan Fan grimaces. "Sorry. I'm late on rent, and my landlady leaves at five. Rain check?"
"Fine. Only because you kind of let me beat you today." With a last wave, Paninya shouts a goodbye to Izumi before slipping out the door.
After Lan Fan has changed and slipped on her shoes, Izumi makes her way over. "Lan Fan. Sig and I will be out of town the rest of the month. I'm closing the studio while we're gone, so you don't have to come in. You'll get this week's pay, and paychecks for the weeks we're not here."
Lan Fan is speechless. "Izumi, if I'm not working you don't have to—"
"You're a good instructor, and you work hard." Izumi smiles and walks away, yelling over her shoulder, "Relax for a few days. You deserve a vacation."
Lan Fan is still reeling over Izumi's generosity when she turns a corner and runs right into someone's arms. "Oh, I'm sorry."
"I know I've been gone a few weeks but still. There's no need to run at me like that, Lan Fan."
The ache in her chest eases. Lan Fan steps away and stares as Ling grins back at her. He is still in the ridiculous, glistening robes he'd worn last time. His hair isn't tucked into a tasseled cap like it had been, but is half up in a knot adorned with silver ornaments. The rest flows down his back like a black cape. Somehow, Lan Fan thinks he looks younger.
"I could throttle you for stealing my baton." Her voice is breathy, despite the threat.
"But in return you got a wonderful job that you actually enjoy, no?" Ling appraises her. "And from the way you took down that huge man, do you really even need it?"
"Yes." Lan Fan gestures at her limp left arm. "I can't exactly flip people over my shoulder all the time."
Ling clicks his tongue as he takes her arm into his hands, and Lan Fan is suddenly very aware of everywhere he touches. "I noticed you favored your left side. How did this happen?"
"Again with the twenty questions." Looking around, she tugs her arm out of his grasp and starts down the street. The sun is setting, and the air is as still and strange as it had been the night they met. But now she knows why. "There was an accident when I was younger. I haven't been able to use my left arm fully since." Passerby stare at the boy next to her, and she looks at him. "I think I preferred you as a snake. Why do you always wear clothes that look straight out of a period drama?"
Ling laughs. It's a deep, bellowing noise, and, like his smile, Lan Fan has to stop herself from joining in. "I know it's extravagant. It's also magical, so I can't just snap my fingers and change into something less conspicuous. And I don't think you'll ever want to talk to me again if I just started stripping in the street."
"I don't want to talk to you dressed like this, either."
"Lies. You always want to talk to me." Ling turns her down a small path into a small park. At rush hour, the park is near empty, and the small paths wind behind outcroppings and bushes. The dying light casts the trees in shadow, and in the dimness Lan Fan can just barely make out his face. "And you must have a lot of questions."
Lan Fan opens and closes her mouth. He's not wrong. Too many times she'd gone home and sprawled on her bed and thought about what she would ask him, if he came back, and too many times she'd wondered why she wanted to know. "I don't know. You might be offended."
Ling laughs that bellowing laugh again. "Trust me, if I was going to smite you for insolence I would've done it when you pointed that baton at me. And good thing I didn't, or else I would've bled out and died a horrible death in the mortal realm without ever seeing you smile." He grins as warmth floods her face. "I still have yet to see it."
Lan Fan ignores him. "You said you're a god. Of the Chinese folk gods? You don't seem like you're anywhere close to reaching Nirvana."
He rubs his ears. "Old timey traditional folk, thank goodness. Have you seen the earlobes on those Buddha statues?"
"So your king—"
"Which one?" Ling smiles. "There are so many."
She rolls her eyes. "The main one. The final boss. The head honcho."
"The head honcho—?"
"Tiāndì," snaps Lan Fan. "You know what I mean."
"Okay, okay." Ling straightens his expression. "Continue. What about el jefe?"
"The king of the Heavens. He's God, then? Or is it blasphemous to even compare him to the whole Christian trinity doctrine?" She squints at him. "Should I even be talking to you about other religions?"
Ling laughs again. She is starting to get used to the deep bellow of it. "No, it's alright. We're more or less the Greek pantheon meets Hinduism, if that had a few thousand more deities with far less children. A lot of us don't have set names, and a lot more don't even have set identities." He scratches his chin. "In some legends, my aunt and my grandmother are the same entity."
Lan Fan raises her eyebrows. "My heart bleeds."
The god sticks out his tongue at her. "We may be a pantheistic mess, but we keep to ourselves, mostly. We don't care about offerings or temples. We just exist."
"How considerate of you." She bites her lip. "So…who are you, then? You can't be too important if you spend all your time hanging around us poor mortals."
Ling doesn't say anything, but the look in his eyes gives Lan Fan the impression that he dearly wants to laugh. That's good. She needs to watch her tone, from now on. "Important depends. I'm not, really, but they will come looking if I don't return when I'm supposed to."
"And when do you have to?" Seeing his glee, Lan Fan adds, "I need to plan ahead, if you're just going to show up and start dragging me around the city. I don't have the bus fare to indulge you."
"Who said anything about taking the bus? What about old-fashioned walking?" The god pushes up the sleeves of his robes. "I could even fly you places."
She eyes his trailing hem, the sparkling pins, and thinks of the dragon. "I'll pass."
Ling shrugs. "As for who I am, you can pick and choose. Most people call me huángdì, or huángshén. Xuānyuán huángdì is a bit much, honestly, but. There you go."
Lan Fan thinks she might hit him. "'Not really important'? You're wǔfāng tiānshén and you're 'not really important'? Who is important then? Nǚwā?"
"No. Well, yes. She is, and frankly she never shuts up about it, but." Ling—the damn Yellow Emperor God—raises his hands. "Look, I told you because I didn't even think you actually knew who he—I was."
She curls her fingers into fists. It won't do her any good to hit a god. It will do her even worse to hit a god like him. "My grandfather didn't practice, but he told me a lot about the traditional gods. He told me huángdì was basically the ancestor of all Han Chinese, and you have the audacity to say you aren't important."
"Okay, yes, he is rather important, but the thing is, I'm not him." He rubs his head. "Names like huángdì, and nǚwā, they're just names. Titles, to be passed down once the next one is born. So huángdì, the one in all the stories, the one your grandfather told you about, he's not me." Ling cracks a smile. "I'm like his understudy. An intern, if you will."
Lan Fan runs her hand down her face. The lights in the park turn on, all at once, and suddenly they're bathed in a warm, golden light. When she looks at Ling, there is a soft sort of wonder in his gaze. She clears her throat. "So, what? Is there a tiāndì-in-training somewhere as well?"
"No." He chuckles. "That's actually determined the old-fashioned way. Royal blood is thicker than holy water."
"You know the saying actually means the opposite of what you're trying to say."
Ling waves his hand. "The problem is, old tiāndì had a lot of children. And the competition was brutal. Some were lucky to survive past a few centuries, and even then they were constantly in danger." He looks darkly at the sky, and even with the coming nightfall Lan Fan can see that something in his face has changed. "Most dropped out of the running altogether. In fact, there's only one prince left now."
"How do you drop out of the running? If your dad is the king of the Heavens, don't you have to stay a prince or princess?"
He looks back at Lan Fan, and the light is back in his eyes. "Nah, it doesn't work quite like that. When gods are born, they're born a certain deity. It doesn't matter if your parents are wind gods; if you're born a fox god you are a fox god. Usually, the children don't have a choice who they become, which shoes they fill. But if you're the child of tiāndì, you can either vie for the throne or choose to accept the godly title that is yours by birthright." He smirks. "The rising nǚwā is a princess of the Heavens."
In the beat of silence, Lan Fan fights for something to say. "Why are you telling me all this?"
Somewhere in the distance, there is a rumble of thunder. Immediately, Ling's head whips up, and he stares intently at the flashes of lightning above the trade center tower. Before she can think anything of it, he gestures at her wrist. "What time is it? I heard you had to get back before five?"
Puzzled, she pulls out her phone. It's an old, cracked thing, a Nokia flip phone her grandfather had used. The time tells her she has ten minutes before the last train to her station leaves, and she starts. How long has she been standing here, in a dark, deserted park, talking to a god about pantheons and bloodlines?
"I have to go." She glances at the roiling thunder, and she thinks she knows why suddenly this god in front of her, xuānyuán huángdì, looks so frightened. "They're calling you."
"Don't worry about it." Ling smiles, but his own worry doesn't leave his eyes. "Here, I'll give you a head start on your deadline."
He snaps his fingers, and the sound echoes in her head. Lan Fan blinks. She's standing in front of the subway station, her phone in her hand and her stomach tumbling into her throat. Next to her, a man on his phone gapes at her as she grabs the side of the wall and tries not to throw up. She thinks she would prefer flying to this.
Thunder rumbles again, this time overhead, and she looks up at the clouds and tastes metal in her throat. As the first drop of rain hits her face, her left shoulder begins to ache.
A/N: This was exactly what it sounded like.
TRANSLATIONS:
Tàijíquán = Tai chi, a popular Chinese martial art
Shàolín = Shaolin (kung fu style)
Bāguàzhǎng = Eight Trigam Palms, a popular Chinese martial art
Xíngyìquán = Shape-Will Fist, a popular Chinese martial art
Tiāndì = God/Emperor/Ruler of Heaven
Huángdì/Huángshén/Xuānyuán huángdì = Yellow Emperor/Deity, one of the Five Heavenly Deities and represents earth. Is considered to be the progenitor of all Han Chinese people
Wǔfāng tiānshén = Five Deities/Heavenly Deities, the five manifestations of Heaven
Nǚwā = Mother Goddess, associated with the creation of mankind and mending the world order
This story uses my own personal interpretation of the traditional Chinese gods. While the names of the gods and their specific roles listed above are actual Chinese gods, this work is in no way factual in its depictions of Chinese "Heaven" and its inner workings. As this AU was slightly based off of the Chinese novel 三生三世十里桃花 (To The Sky Kingdom) by Tang Qi (and yes I am aware of the scandal behind that story, let me enjoy my trash), I brought elements from the Nine Heavens depicted in that story and mixed it with my own ideas.
This wasn't meant to be a three-part story* (whoops), but there were too many things I wanted to add to the plot and too little time to finish it by today. So here we are.
Also on AO3 (my name there is wild_and_free). Part Two will be up soon.
*Looks like it's three parts now. Yikes™