SU TANG (素醣)

  Day 1, 5th Month of the Lunar Calendar, 6000th Year of the Yun Dynasty, Taishan Province, Tian’an Sect

  “Tang Tang!? Tang Tang? Hey!”

  I woke to the glamorous experience of being slapped repeatedly by the nation’s most beautiful physician. Qi Qi, in all her peach blossom perfection, was blinking down at me, clearly contemplating another round.

  My cheek throbbed with an elegant sting. I lifted a hand to assess the damage, then yelped, because said hand had a gash running clean across the palm. A courtesy of my dear friend.

  “You weren't waking up,” she said.

  “Right." She was, by all means, right. In a deep meditation ritual, sometimes the soul forgets how to return to the body. Physical violence the body is sometimes necessary. But that didn't mean it didn't hurt.

  I made a vague attempt to resurrect myself from the soggy corpse I currently inhabited. My limbs felt like they’d been stuffed with wet cotton and bad decisions. Freezing water and grey pebbles lined my skin, unwilling to let go. I was still half-submerged in the glassy surface of Shuǐjìng, whose depths shimmered faintly beneath the pale light. Every breath I drew came out sharp and thin, as though the air itself resented being disturbed.

  Shuǐjìng had the kind of coldness that crawled into the bones and refused to leave. The kind that made your heartbeat sound foreign in your own chest. They said the lake had formed from condensed spiritual energy, trapped for centuries within Yǒnghéng Táomù, the Eternal Peach Blossom Wood, until it solidified into water. The result was something that looked serene but carried the temperament of a vengeful spirit.

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  Petals drifted lazily across the surface, bright against the blue-grey water. The blossoms above never seemed to wilt here, even in winter. Their roots drank from immortal soil, and their scent hung thick in the air. That honeyed, intoxicating fragrance that could disguise any frost.

  I squinted at the faint fog that hovered above the lake’s mirror-like face. My own reflection wavered, pale and uncertain. For a moment, I wondered if the lake was mocking me.

  Qi Qi had wrapped a robe or something around me at some point, in an elegant attempt to keep me warm. It was mostly useless; the fabric clung to my soaked skin, heavy and clammy. Still, I pulled myself into a crouch, ignoring the ache in my spine. The air here was strangely warm compared to the water.

  My palm buzzed, though faintly, masked by the cold.

  “I'll bandage it,” she offered, still kneeling beside me. But she didn’t move.

  Peach blossom petals continued to fall around us.

  I finally looked up. “What?”

  She tilted her head; eyes slightly narrowed in that way doctors do when they’re running silent diagnostics.

  “You look like you've seen a ghost.”

  I rubbed at the now-glimmering cut on my palm, watching as the magic knotted the skin back together without any ceremony. A nasty, welting gash. A solid, pink line. Then nothing. Not even a scar. Typical. Recently, my body had become a little too good at pretending it hadn’t been hurt. At least for superficial wounds like this.

  “I might as well have,” I said.

  Qi Qi studied me a second longer, then gently patted my hand like she wasn’t entirely convinced I was joking, or sane, and stood up without a word.

  I smiled faintly. It's not that I felt happy. But at that moment, it seemed inappropriate to do otherwise. Even then, I only held the pretence until my facial muscles twitched, then I let the smile fall, and slipped back into the quiet shadows of my mind.

  Where the ghost still waited.

  Two seals broken.

  One to go.