After Death, I Became My Shijie’s Palm-Sized Birdie – Chapter 72
by Little PandaLongevity
Did she just snap at her shijie? Surely not?
“Qiwu, do you have any plans today? I know Jiaoyue City fairly well — I could show you both around!” Gao Fu had assumed she’d have to see the Dragon Gate Grand Ceremony through to its end before she could go looking for Wen Qiwu. Who knew the Old Ancestor’s emergence from seclusion would prove such an unexpected delight.
It was just… the way Qiwu’s shijie looked at her was cold enough to seep into one’s bones. Gao Fu shivered without meaning to.
She’d never met this woman before, had she? Gao Fu searched her memory and confirmed she had not — which ruled out any chance she’d given offense in the past. Reassured, she let the matter settle: perhaps this was simply how cold beauties were.
Having persuaded herself, Gao Fu tucked the small misgiving away. This frosty beauty might look terrifying, but she was Qiwu’s shijie, and that meant proper hospitality. Best leave a good impression.
Her gaze was a touch too ardent — which made things hard on Wen Qiwu, who had to soothe her shijie by whatever means she could. She gave her shijie’s palm a gentle squeeze.
The hand stiffened for the briefest instant. All Wen Qiwu wanted was for her shijie not to be so fierce toward the other woman — yet the glance her shijie stole at her brimmed with wounded feelings, as though she were the one being snapped at.
The glacial stare did leave Gao Fu alone after that; she simply looked away. A stranger might only notice the chill had eased, but Wen Qiwu, who knew her shijie better than anyone, detected an entirely different emotion in her — the wounded sulk of a poor little creature.
Wen Qiwu caught herself reflecting on whether she had, in fact, just snapped at her shijie. After turning it over at length, she could only lay the blame at Gao Fu’s door. Shijie… had she really gone and hugged the vinegar jar1 for a drink? Amusement stirred in Wen Qiwu’s chest, but that aggrieved look made her heart soften — and so, without her quite noticing, her heart had long since tilted beyond all bounds.
She brushed her fingertip lightly across her shijie’s palm, then spoke by transmission: 【Shijie, how about I feed you your medicine tonight?】
Yun Heng was briefly taken aback. Soothed so unexpectedly, the tips of her ears flushed faintly pink.
Only once her shijie was finally placated did Wen Qiwu turn to Gao Fu with a touch of apology. “Shijie and I mean to make carp lanterns. Neither of us has ever touched the things, so I’m afraid today will be spent entirely here.”
“Not a problem, not a problem! Ah — my fault, I forgot to mention the carp lanterns to you.” Gao Fu smacked her own forehead. The clan’s affairs had addled her these past weeks; to think she’d let such an important blessing ritual slip her mind entirely.
“Let me teach you — I haven’t made mine yet either!” Gao Fu had been crafting her own carp lanterns ever since the first Dragon Gate Grand Ceremony she attended as a child. All these years, practice had made perfect, and she fancied her handiwork rather good — otherwise she’d never have dared to show her humble skill2 in front of Wen Qiwu.
Wen Qiwu glanced at her shijie first, and only upon seeing that, though her gaze had darkened a shade, there was no resistance in it did she agree.
“Then I’ll go buy some materials!”
“No need. I bought plenty this morning — enough for a great many lanterns.” Frost laced every syllable Yun Heng spoke.
Gao Fu fought down the urge to rub her own arms. Qiwu’s shijie must be an ice spiritual root immortal too, mustn’t she? Truly lived up to the name.
“Eh? And this child is…” Gao Fu watched Wen Qiwu lift the little one beside her into her arms — and only then did she notice something badly wrong. The quiet child’s eyes were vacant, and she gave no reaction at all to the world around her.
“She’s a child we rescued from two demon cultivators,” Yun Heng said abruptly.
Wen Qiwu, who had been about to explain, quietly swallowed the words back down.
“Rescued?”
Yun Heng recounted how the child had been saved, dwelling at length on her tragic circumstances and the state of her body. Gao Fu was no heartless sort; hearing what the child had endured, pity softened her voice. “The poor little thing. What’s to become of her?”
“The innkeeper here has said she’ll keep her. Under this inn’s protection, she can at least grow up safe. It’s only…” Yun Heng let the sentence hang.
“Only what?” Gao Fu pressed.
“Only the Dragon Gate Grand Ceremony is nearly upon us, and the city is flooded with people. The staff who look after her are run off their feet. The one who promised to make her a carp lantern and pray on her behalf — who knows whether she can find the time now.” Yun Heng’s eyes flicked to Gao Fu as she finished.
“It’s only a lantern, isn’t it? Simple enough — I’ll make it for her. Praying for her safety and health, yes? Then I’ll do a Longevity Carp, and release it for her when the time comes.” Gao Fu waved a hand: such a trifle was as good as settled.
The corner of Yun Heng’s mouth seemed to curve upward a fraction — but the trace vanished too quickly for anyone to catch.
“Do the lanterns come in different kinds?” Wen Qiwu asked. The moment she heard that the safety-and-health sort was a Longevity Carp, she’d guessed there must be many varieties.
“Of course. Carp lanterns come in all shapes and sizes, but they fall into five kinds in all. The one praying for peace and health is the Longevity Carp; the one praying for marriage is the Marriage Carp. The five differ in their lantern patterns, and the carp’s form varies slightly as well…” Gao Fu ran through the broad distinctions among the five.
“I’d like to make a Longevity Carp too. Ah Fu, you start on the child’s — I’ll watch and learn,” Wen Qiwu said.
“All right!” Gao Fu agreed with total confidence. She made a Longevity Carp for the child, then a Marriage Carp for herself.
Her craftsmanship truly was excellent — the lanterns came out so exquisite one almost couldn’t bear to release them into the sky.
Gao Fu was just preparing to guide Wen Qiwu through it hands-on when the frosty beauty beside them announced she had already learned it.
Lantern-making wasn’t especially difficult, granted — but did people truly exist who could learn it from a single viewing? Gao Fu had half disbelieved it, right up until Yun Heng produced an actual Marriage Carp lantern. Then she had no choice but to marvel that some people were simply born gifted, quick at anything they turned their hands to.
Although… a Marriage Carp?
Was Qiwu’s shijie praying for marriage too?
Gao Fu’s eyes met Yun Heng’s, and she felt herself very nearly frozen into a single solid lump. She simply could not reconcile such an immortal with a Marriage Carp.
While Gao Fu drifted, Yun Heng was teaching Wen Qiwu how to make a Longevity Carp — and by the time Gao Fu surfaced, she found she could no longer squeeze in beside Qiwu at all.
Ice spiritual root immortals, it turned out, were not the perpetually frozen figures of legend. At least this one went utterly soft before her shimei — not only her voice, but her very gaze, which rippled like a lake in spring.
And deep in Qiwu’s eyes lurked a wholehearted devotion. Gao Fu couldn’t be sure she wasn’t imagining it. True, she’d once overheard Qiwu say her shijie had raised her from childhood, so deep feelings were only natural, but…
There was something different about these two. A flicker of bewilderment crossed Gao Fu’s eyes. She’d never seen a shijie and shimei cling to each other quite like this.
A faint, wistful strangeness stirred in her heart — as though some “sprout” she’d never even noticed had been pinched off before it could grow.
Knock knock knock. Someone rapped on their door.
“Come in,” Gao Fu answered by reflex — then remembered she wasn’t the mistress of this room. But the person outside had already pushed the door open at her voice.
“Immortal Venerable… and you two immortals, Seniors — it’s noon already. A whole crowd of guests just came in, and I truly can’t manage it all.” Xiao Tong was a cultivator herself, yet this single noon had her sweating from every pore.
Seeing the child in Gao Fu’s arms, Xiao Tong addressed her directly. “May I ask a favor of you? Her lunch is ready, but in her condition she needs someone to feed her, so…”
“Leave it to me. I’ll feed her.” The child was pitiable enough as it was; feeding her a meal was no great burden. Remembering the misery Yun Heng had described, Gao Fu’s heart had gone soft, and she agreed — though she had yet to learn that this one promise would mark the true beginning of her child-rearing life.
“Hold a moment.” Yun Heng stopped Gao Fu as she moved to carry the child off, and drew from her sleeve a white braided-cord bracelet hung with a small crescent-shaped jade pendant no larger than half a fingernail.
Something seemed to flow faintly within the jade — plainly no common object. Only, the cord carried a faint whiff of fresh blood.
“A defensive artifact. This child’s circumstances are unusual — even in danger, she cannot cry out for help. She’s safer wearing one,” Yun Heng said.
“You’re right.” Gao Fu came over with the child in her arms — and felt the little one begin to tremble against her chest.
“Why is she—” Before Gao Fu could finish, Yun Heng took the child’s wrist without hesitation. The little one shook, but did not struggle.
Yun Heng fastened the bracelet — several sizes too large — onto the child’s wrist. The moment it sensed her, it shed a faint glow and adjusted itself to fit.
The child’s eyes widened slightly. It was the first time Wen Qiwu had ever seen surprise on that small face.
Yun Heng, in a rare gesture, reached out and gently rubbed the child’s head — though her tone carried none of the softness she reserved for Wen Qiwu. “You be good and listen well. Don’t make trouble for her.”
“She’s ever so good — she won’t be any trouble!” Gao Fu had never met a child so quiet and obedient. Next to the little monsters back home who’d tear the tiles off the roof3 if they went three days without a hiding, this child was good enough to break your heart.
The child’s vacant eyes “met” Yun Heng’s for an instant — then her hands clutched Gao Fu’s clothing tight, as if she’d been given a fright.
“There, there, don’t be afraid. This immortal jiejie just put something on you that will keep you safe, so you needn’t fear bad people or bad demons ever again.” Murmuring all the while, Gao Fu carried the child out to her meal.
“Shijie, when did you refine that artifact? I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you make anything so small.” As Wen Qiwu recalled, she’d never seen her shijie craft such a dainty little thing.
“I didn’t refine it. I bought it.” Yun Heng withdrew her gaze from the doorway.
“Bought?” Wen Qiwu was puzzled. Her shijie was one of the foremost artifact refiners in all the Cangwang Realm; ordinarily she would never buy an outside artifact. As her shijie once put it, most artifacts — even immortal artifacts — were crude, slapdash junk in her eyes. So whatever had moved her to buy… could it be some rare treasure?
Yet Wen Qiwu had sensed no particularly powerful fluctuation from it.
“Mm… not precisely bought, either. You could call it an ownerless thing.” Yun Heng patted her shimei’s head. She had intended to buy, truly — but the thief claimed the thing as their own and refused the transaction. Well, then. She had simply seen to it that the artifact became ownerless.
Footnotes
- 醋缸 | cu gang | Literally 'vinegar jar.' In Chinese slang, 'eating vinegar' (chi cu) means romantic jealousy, from a Tang dynasty anecdote in which an official's wife chose to drink what she believed was poison rather than accept concubines for her husband — the 'poison' was vinegar. A 'vinegar jar' is a person brimming with jealousy.
- 献丑 | xianchou | Literally 'to display one's ugliness' — a self-deprecating formula of humility spoken before showing one's skill or performance to an audience. The speaker pre-emptively lowers expectations by framing even competent work as crude; a conventional courtesy in Chinese social, artistic, and scholarly settings.
- 上房揭瓦 | shang fang jie wa | Literally 'climbing onto the roof and pulling off the tiles.' From the proverb 'three days without a beating and they'll tear the tiles off the roof,' a stock description of children so mischievous that only regular discipline keeps them from wanton destruction of the family home.
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