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The next time Pei Ming saw her, they were at the Banyue Pass, and he was about to get run over by a stampede of demonic wildebeests.
The patrol hadn't started out this way. It was supposed to be a routine reconnaissance mission to ease Pei Ming back into the swing of things after a few months of convalescence in the heavens. As if I need easing, he'd thought as he descended from the Immortal City with two junior officials hot on his heels, buzzing incessantly about accompanying the great General Pei on godly business. Things had taken a swift nosedive shortly after their arrival in the valley; Pei Ming couldn't make either of them out now in the dark rush beneath his dangling feet. He did feel a little twinge of regret about that.
A low, guttural chorus rose from the wildebeests, and they began circling around even faster. A bead of sweat trickled down the side of Pei Ming's face. He gritted his teeth against the sharp twinge in his right arm and clung even tighter to the tree branch that was supporting him. He was stubborn, but he wasn't an idiot. Though the burns from the fires of Mount Tonglu had healed fairly quickly, he could acknowledge now that perhaps his arm hadn't mended quite as well as he'd wanted after Rong Guang had dispersed. He'd been putting off replacing Ming Guang with a spiritual sword less resentful, too; clearly a poor decision, even if his final handful of spiritual energy might not be enough to summon anything with which to fly back up to the heavens.
Fucking hell. If he died here, Pei Ming thought grumpily, it wouldn't even be a cool death.
He was considering setting his pride aside and opening a communication array with Ling Wen to call for reinforcements when the gray clouds overhead parted, and a beam of shimmering light filled his field of vision. Pei Ming nearly fell off the tree as he shielded his eyes, but then he felt a light touch at his bad elbow, and a stream of spiritual energy flowed through his body.
There was a sound of loud, hot, wet trumpeting right next to Pei Ming's ear, and for a moment, he thought one of the wildebeests had managed to climb all the way up to where they were hanging. When he whipped his head around, though, he recognized the golden nose ring and the angry snout of a familiar black ox. Distantly, he became aware that the frenzy below was beginning to calm down.
"Bovids really don't like you, do they?" a raspy voice commented, as slow and serene as ever. Pei Ming looked up. The Rain Master's gauzy veil brushed against his cheek. She was staring down at the animals, spiritual energy crackling around her like lightning.
"What are bovids?" Pei Ming asked inanely, because he couldn't think of anything else to say through the pulsing heat of embarrassment.
"Never mind," the Rain Master replied. She helped Pei Ming let go of the tree, all three of them floating up and away from the stampede. A moment later, she deposited him on a nearby ridge next to dusty but otherwise fine Junior Officials Ying and Chua, who seemed delighted to see them. "Do try to take care of yourself, General Pei."
"She's so cool," said Junior Official Ying as the Rain Master descended into the valley once more to deal with the wildebeests.
"I want to be her when I grow up," said Junior Official Chua, sighing dreamily.
"God damn it," said Pei Ming with feeling.
It kept happening, was the thing. A month later, while Pei Ming was attending to a few prayers in the north, Yushi Huang had to bail him out when a lesser Robe Immortal tried to suck his soul out of his body. Then there was the cursed boulder he stumbled upon that nearly buried him in a rockslide outside Jinan, as he was making his way through western hill country. If Pei Ming didn't know any better, he'd think she had some sort of tracking array honed onto him, and every time he was about to make a fool of himself she'd be around to catch him in the act.
"Did you perhaps attract a spirit of misfortune?" Ling Wen asked after the fifth time, which actually landed him a trip to the celestial recovery ward. It was high summer by then, and Pei Ming had been visiting Pei Su to monitor the progress of his cultivation, which was coming along much slower than he would have hoped. The Rain Master happened to be passing by on her way to bless the crops in Fu Gu. She'd had to fish both of them out of the huge sinkhole that had opened up beneath them without warning. Everything would have been fine if Pei Ming hadn't also brushed his right arm against a cluster of highly poisonous wood ear during the rescue. The Immortal City had a few suitable antidotes, and they were applied in a timely manner, but Pei Ming was still waiting for the fever to subside.
He squinted at the ceiling, mulling the question over. It wasn't completely outside the realm of possibility. "Maybe His Highness the Crown Prince rubbed off on me," he said thoughtfully. "Or Rong Guang's resentful energy hasn't totally dispersed."
"Don't think too hard," Ling Wen told him, signing off on a stack of missions and handing them over to a nearby junior official for delivery. "You might break something." She cast him an assessing look. "Something else, that is."
In the aftermath of the battle at Mount Tonglu, not much had materially changed, and yet everything felt different. By all rights, having defeated Jun Wu, Xie Lian should have ascended to the position of Heavenly Emperor, but he had never been the type to care about such things. Though the Immortal City had been rebuilt, the Crown Prince still spent most of his time in the mortal realm, at Puji Shrine, waiting for Crimson Rain Sought Flower's return. Ling Wen's punishment had been the entire backlog of bureaucratic and administrative desk work that had amassed in her absence, but it also meant she was effectively running the heavens.
As old friends and incidental partners-in-crime, Pei Ming knew full well what Ling Wen was capable of, so it shouldn't have surprised him when she gathered the rest of her paperwork, stood up, and said, "Since your paths seem to keep intersecting anyway, I've assigned you to the harvest circuit with the Rain Master." Still, Pei Ming couldn't believe his ears. "I can't keep wasting merits cleaning up your messes," Ling Wen continued. "She has graciously agreed to look after you. Perhaps assisting with her duties will be able to minimize the impact of your bad luck."
"What!" Pei Ming shouted, color rising in his face. He tried to push himself up from the bed and flopped back when his head swam.
"Take your pick. It's this or forced rehabilitation while under house arrest," she said, unbothered. "Either way, your deputy generals can handle your prayers."
"I can handle my prayers myself. I don't need a babysitter. Ling Wen!"
"That's Head Civil God to you, General Pei," she said snootily. Pei Ming's mouth dropped open. She tucked her brush behind her ear and swept out of the ward before he could get another word in edgewise.
It took most of the night for Pei Ming's fever to break; he spent the entire eight hours stewing in his grievances. The morning after, when the junior medical officials pronounced him poison-free, he left the ward to find the Rain Master and her black ox waiting patiently at the entrance to his heavenly palace. Well — the Rain Master looked patient, at least. Her ox pawed at the ground, kicking up a big cloud of dust, and sent Pei Ming a look that could only be described as disdainful.
Pei Ming hurried down the path toward them, the hair on the back of his neck prickling, and bowed. "Lord Rain Master," he said stiffly. "I've been instructed to accompany you on your travels."
"Yes," she agreed simply. Her eyes dropped down to Pei Ming's sash, the conspicuously empty place at his left hip. "You still haven't started using your spiritual sword?"
Pei Ming blinked at her, nonplussed. He wasn't aware that she had even been keeping track of that, though given how many times they had seen each other over the past several months, she'd had plenty of opportunities to notice the change. "Ming Guang is… volatile," he said at last, falling into step beside her as they left the Immortal City. "It's sealed away in my palace for now. I haven't found a more suitable replacement yet."
He remembered how she had offered Yulong for him to use in Mount Tonglu, praising his skills as a martial god. The gesture had left him uneasy, the history between their countries weighing heavily on his mind. That sense of guilt had only grown more acute as time passed. He hoped she wouldn't do it again.
Fortunately, she only nodded. They fell into a silence that wasn't uncomfortable but made Pei Ming feel awkward all the same. Every so often, the ox glanced around its master and glared at him. By the time they arrived at the edges of the heavens, near the foothills that led up into the celestial mountains, the sun was high up in the sky, and a fine sheen of sweat had gathered at Pei Ming's brow.
"Behave," the Rain Master told her ox sternly, swinging onto its back. She looked over her shoulder, through the shrouded veil around her bamboo hat, and smiled faintly. "Hop on, General Pei."
"It's not going to kick me off a dozen times, is it?" Pei Ming said, eyeing the broad backside of the ox's body with consternation. He had been able to withstand getting bucked onto the side of the road the last time he was in this position, on the path toward the center of Mount Tonglu, but it would be foolish to take the same chance now, when his body was in such a state. He didn't even know what was wrong with him.
"Not if you hold onto me," the Rain Master replied, placid as ever.
Pei Ming's eye twitched at the idea, but there was really no other choice. In his head, he cursed every decision that had brought him here. "Alright then," he managed to say. Then he climbed on behind her, legs pressed against the ox's glossy coat, and gingerly slid his arms around her waist. Beneath them, the ox let out an ominous rumble, but Pei Ming wasn't jostled in the slightest as it leapt into the sky, so that was something.
"Take us to Zhejiang, Hei Niu*," the Rain Master said, voice scratching across Pei Ming's ears like rough grains of sand, and they were off.
Pei Ming quickly learned that being a god of agriculture involved a very different set of duties than what he was generally used to. There was much less fighting, for one — no fighting at all, really — which meant that it didn't matter that Pei Ming didn't have a spiritual sword on him. Instead, the Rain Master spent their first few days together clearing choked underbrush that had grown through a portion of the extensive woods near Hang Zhou.
As the Martial God of the North, Pei Ming didn't have much occasion to travel this far south. The native vegetation was mostly foreign to him, but even he could feel that there was something off about the shrubbery that the Rain Master was methodically dispatching while he tried to meditate. On the third morning, Pei Ming had finally had enough of watching her work so diligently. During a lull in the activity, he slid in front of her wandering scythe and sent a blast of spiritual energy through the dense web instead.
When the dust settled, there was a neat, smoking hole about the width of three incense sticks in the underbrush ahead of them.
"Very impressive," the Rain Master said blandly.
Pei Ming let out a short breath. "It isn't, really," he said, frustrated. "At full strength, I should have been able to burn through all of this shrubbery with zero issues." I should've been able to burn this entire forest down, he didn't say. It felt like such a sentiment would not be welcome right now.
"Well, it's not exactly your fault," the Rain Master replied. She moved past him, and together they watched the shrubbery grow back into the hole that Pei Ming's blast had left. "These are special plants. Something with strong resentful energy caused all of this to grow, and the foragers who usually enter these woods to gather food have not been able to do so in some time. The only way to cut through is by hand."
"I see," Pei Ming said, feeling a bit admonished.
"Would you like to help?" the Rain Master asked. She held out her scythe. "I can use my sword."
"Alright," Pei Ming replied, tying his hair up and out of the way. If he had to be here, he might as well do something useful.
It was tiring work, but mindless in a way that reminded Pei Ming of sword training at the temples in Xu Li when he was still a disciple, jabbing at the same straw man over and over. The sun beat against his neck, and sweat had soaked through most of the layers of his robes by early afternoon. They had cleared almost one square li of the woods and gotten to a small creek by then.
The Rain Master suggested they pause for a water break, and Pei Ming readily agreed. At the banks of the creek, he started stripping out of his robes. The black ox, who had been working alongside them all morning, made a loud noise of alarm as Pei Ming's hands dropped to the fastening for his pants, and belatedly he remembered the present company. "Uh, sorry," he said without looking over, feeling himself flush as he knelt down and dipped his hands into the cool water. It was incomprehensible; he'd been in this position plenty of times before and never felt self-conscious for an instant.
As the creek rushed past, he drank his fill and wiped his mouth. Then he splashed a bit of the water against his chest and turned to try to spell the moisture out of his robes. For a dizzying moment, he couldn't access his spiritual energy at all, and then he felt a small, warm hand at the crook of his right elbow again. "General Pei," came Yushi Huang's measured voice, sounding as if it was muffled through several layers of thick fabric. Slowly, the layers peeled back as she let her spiritual energy stream into him. "When did this start?"
When Pei Ming's head stopped swimming, he tugged his arm out of the Rain Master's grasp and sat down at the edge of the creek, bare feet dangling into the water. "I'm not sure," he said, because that was the truth. "It must have been gradual."
"That's troubling," she said. "Surely you have no shortage of devotees, so that can't be it." Beside her, the ox was huffing up a storm. "Did anything strange happen to you in Mount Tonglu?"
Pei Ming thought about, among other things, Xuan Ji and Rong Guang, the Demon King's enormous statue of His Highness the Crown Prince, and the corpse-eating rats scurrying everywhere underfoot. "You'll have to be a little more specific than that, Lord Rain Master," he said, grimacing, and when she caught the expression on his face, she brought her sleeve to her mouth beneath the veil and laughed.
It occurred to Pei Ming that he had never heard her laugh before. The dry, husky sound of it sank into his ears, and not for the first time, he wondered why she had kept this form all these centuries since her ascension. As one of the powerful elemental gods, the Rain Master could easily choose to hide the scar on her neck if she wanted. It would take nothing more than one breath for a heavenly official of her stature to pick a different body, smooth out her voice, get rid of any blemish that marred her skin.
In Pei Ming's early years as a martial god, he'd assumed, on the exceedingly rare occasions that they saw each other, that she wore the form in which she had died to remind him of his past sins, to rub the fact of her godhood in his face, but he wasn't so sure now. The Rain Master didn't seem like that type of person. She wasn't like him.
"Keep thinking about it," she advised, picking her sword up off the ground again. Yulong's blade flashed in the sunlight. "Are you alright to continue?"
"Of course," Pei Ming said, hastily shrugging his robes back on, and followed after.
Loath as Pei Ming was to admit it out loud, Ling Wen may have been onto something when she had forcibly paired them together. By the end of the week, they had cleared out the rest of the fiendish underbrush and the Rain Master had eradicated the source of resentful energy, a particularly strong earth spirit that had rooted itself into the virulent shrubbery when its part of the woods had burned down half a year prior.
In subsequent weeks, as the summer wore on, they visited three other countries to attend to the prayers of the Rain Master's devotees, took down a nasty river troll that was flooding the wheat fields nearby, and planted more blessings than Pei Ming could keep track of. Before this, he hadn't fully appreciated the implications of being the sole god of agriculture. It meant the Rain Master had to shoulder the burden of the entire harvest each year on her own. At least martial gods had plenty of junior officials at their beck and call. The Rain Master only had her trusty ox.
Most importantly, over a month into moonlighting as the Rain Master's assistant, no further debacles had befallen Pei Ming. He still didn't have the amount of spiritual energy that he should, and he was beginning to feel restless after spending so much time in the countryside, away from the cities that he was accustomed to, but it was good to not have to worry about getting buried underneath a freak landslide or being attacked by ghosts everywhere he went. Even with depleted capacity, he could still help bless the harvest and put minor demonic spirits to rest. There was something meditative about communing with the crops in the fields and watching the farmers hard at work. He'd never stopped fighting for long enough to consider it.
After the river troll incident, during which Pei Ming had recklessly charged into its lair beneath the bridge and nearly gotten his head knocked off with a rock, the Rain Master had told him, "You should try to take better care of yourself," while applying a thick coat of ointment to the bleeding cut on his face. For once, it hadn't feel derisive or sarcastic. Pei Ming was starting to realize that, quite possibly, she had never meant for it to.
By the seventh month of the year, the oppressive summer heat had eased off into the first blush of fall, and the farmers were beginning to reap the rewards of their labor. The Rain Master's duties transitioned with the cooler breeze, moving from planting and nurturing to assisting with the harvest. In the absence of a sword, Pei Ming had become quite skilled with the scythe and sickle, if he could say so himself. Even the Rain Master's black ox seemed to have become less belligerent toward him, allowing Pei Ming the intermittent pet of its dark brown snout as they worked to bring in the wheat and the rice, the corn and the cotton.
They were passing through a small town in the east just off the coast when Pei Ming smelled it. Or, rather, he smelled food as they walked through the night market and felt a pang of hunger low in his gut for the first time in too long to remember. A trickle of dread slid down his spine as the sensation spread. Immortals didn't have to eat or sleep unless they wanted to; any indication otherwise presented a significant problem.
"Lord Rain Master," he said, stopping in front of a stall that was selling meat on a stick and other assorted hot snacks. He smiled when she paused and glanced at him, eyebrows raised in a question. "Shall we get something to eat? My treat."
If she was at all surprised, she didn't show it. The Rain Master's black ox made a disapproving noise as Pei Ming exchanged a handful of copper coins for several beef skewers, but it was what his stomach was rumbling for, so it couldn't be helped. The Rain Master purchased a few chive pockets for herself, and then they sat down at a low table next to the stall to wait for their food. She set out a big handful of hay for the ox to chew on.
Coastal towns always smelled briny like the sea, and this one was no exception. From their seats, they could see the edges of the harbor as the fishermen brought in their daily haul. Pei Ming idly watched as regular people bustled by, pausing at different stalls to buy groceries and pick up food for their families. The setting sun painted everything in orange hues. Across the street, a few young women exited a roadside bookstore and started giggling when they caught sight of him.
Pei Ming sat up reflexively, smoothing his hair back and propping his chin on one hand. He plastered a pleasant smile on his face. Even without spiritual powers, he knew what he looked like. He had parlayed the goodwill afforded to a beautiful face many a time, both as a mortal and as a god. He wondered if he could extract the location of the closest apothecary out of one of them.
He was contemplating the merits of waving them over when the black ox chewing next to him spat a mouthful of hay directly on his boot. "Hey!" Pei Ming yelped, shaking the slimy cud off his shoe. "What was that for?"
The ox harrumphed and went back to his food. When Pei Ming looked up again, the young women were gone. He didn't have time to be disappointed about it, though, because a moment later, their food came.
The chive pockets smelled delicious; the Rain Master picked one up and pulled it beneath her veil to nibble at. Pei Ming's beef was a little tough but well-flavored, cumin packing a punch that would probably linger on his robes for hours after they left. He inspected his second skewer as he chewed on the first, eyes narrow. "You can never trust meat sold on the side of the road, you know," he said conversationally, trying to lift himself into a better mood. "In Xu Li, we would always joke that they were serving us… rat…"
The Rain Master looked up when his voice trailed off. "General Pei?" she prodded after a moment. "What's wrong?"
"Rat," Pei Ming said, blood rushing through his ears. "The corpse-eating rats. The ones in Mount Tonglu."
The black ox raised its head and huffed, hooves stomping in the dirt, as if remembering the way they had scurried around its feet. "What about them?" the Rain Master asked cautiously.
"My junior official and I were the only ones there who ate them," Pei Ming said. The one bite he'd eaten at the time was gristly and unappetizing, but it was the only thing they'd had on hand to feed mortals. That had to be it.
"Your junior official," the Rain Master repeated, frowning. "Pei Su?"
"He returned to a human body after he was banished from the heavens," Pei Ming said, setting his skewers down, appetite shriveling. "We were in the mountain for a long time, and he hadn't eaten or slept in days. Plus, Xie Lian had tried feeding him some monstrous concoction of his own devising, so Pei Su was already weak. He collapsed."
"That makes sense." There was a brief pause as they both contemplated the issue. "Why did you eat anything, though?"
"I just had a bite to make sure nothing was wrong," Pei Ming said numbly. "I had to make sure that the rats were okay for Little Pei to eat before I gave anything to him, didn't I?"
There was another pause, longer this time. When Pei Ming met the Rain Master's eyes, she looked — Pei Ming didn't know how she looked. It was difficult to read the expression on her face. "You really care about him, don't you?" she said after a moment.
"What?"
"Little Pei. You care about him."
"I," Pei Ming said, still so dazed by the rats that he didn't know how to finish the sentence. "It took effort to bring him up to the heavens to begin with, so of course I care. My investments are important to me."
"Naturally," said the Rain Master.
Pei Ming shook his head. "No wonder his cultivation wasn't going anywhere. If the flesh of those rats somehow block your spiritual energy…" He stood, nearly flipping his wooden chair over in his haste. The black ox took a startled step back and sprayed loose hay everywhere. "We have to find him."
They were already in the east, so traveling up the coast toward Fu Gu was quick and convenient. Pei Ming squinted against the wind whipping past them as the Rain Master's ox flew toward the Temple of Ming Guang in which Pei Su had last been cultivating. "I've already communicated with the Head Civil God," the Rain Master said when they landed. "She's having several of her deputies go through the literature on qi-blocking poisons transmitted through the flesh of animals."
"She's literally never going to let me hear the end of this," Pei Ming lamented, shaking his head. He felt a twinge of sheepish regret when the Rain Master frowned. "But thank you." He cleared his throat and slid off the back of the ox. "That was the right thing to do."
She looked like she wanted to say more, but at that moment, Pei Su walked out of the temple and froze when he saw them. "General Pei?" he said, eyes round. "Lord Rain Master?"
"Little Pei," Pei Ming said grimly. "We have some bad news."
It turned out that the antidote for mortals was simple enough: Pei Su only had to drink a hearty medicinal brew that required a few rare herbs that the heavens possessed. The vast majority of the cures for celestial beings, though, involved the painful, protracted process of growing a completely untainted body and transplanting one's cleansed spirit into it. This could take anywhere from between six months to several years, and even then, they weren't a hundred percent effective all the time. Because eating didn't come naturally to heavenly officials, it wasn't as simple as expelling the qi-disrupting flesh. Pei Ming's spirit had to be sanitized too. Ling Wen prattled on for another moment about integration of demonic energy into the very fabric of a deity's essence before she pinned Pei Ming with a sharp look and said, "That'll teach you to think twice before putting something in your mouth."
Pei Ming choked. Pei Su coughed delicately into his hand. The Rain Master seemed puzzled but determined, which Pei Ming tried not to think too hard about. "I think we really ought to revisit the hypothesis that I was somehow cursed with misfortune," he muttered.
Ling Wen rolled her eyes. "You've already taken up enough of my time," she said, gathering her robes and rising from the cushion Pei Su had given her when she arrived at the temple. "Little Pei, we'll get you an antidote in a few days. Lord Rain Master, I'll leave Pei Ming with you. Let me know what he's decided when he's stopped throwing a fit."
"I'm not throwing a fit!" Pei Ming yelled, outraged, but Ling Wen had already disappeared.
Pei Su eased away to go make a pot of tea. Pei Ming buried his face in his hands. For a moment, all he could hear was the late summer breeze blowing outside and the quiet snuffling of the black ox, layered over his own harsh breathing. Then, the Rain Master said, voice as level as it always was, "There was one other way."
Behind Pei Ming's hands, his face grew hot. He was no stranger to carnal desires, the many forms of coupling that existed between humans, nor the benefits of dual cultivation; he himself had bedded countless beauties over the centuries, some of whom had wanted him to do things to them that could never be spoken of in polite company. He shouldn't feel this flustered. And yet.
One of the manuscripts that Ling Wen had brought with her outlined a ritual that could be used to drive negative qi from a divine body. It involved, among other things, another celestial being that, at the very least, matched the first in spiritual power, as well as a jade phallus made to particular specifications. The rest of the passage left very little to the imagination.
"Who exactly is going to help me perform that ritual?" Pei Ming asked dully.
"I would," said the Rain Master.
When Pei Ming lowered his hands again, the Rain Master was gazing at him evenly, no trace of artifice in her expression. She wasn't joking. Pei Ming couldn't tell if he wanted to laugh or cry or roar or stomp his feet or all of the above, but something twisted violently inside of his chest, and he blurted out, before he could stop himself, "Why are you being so nice to me?"
The Rain Master kept staring at him. "General Pei?"
"I don't understand you, Lord Rain Master," Pei Ming said, as if now that the thundercloud had broken, he couldn't stop the deluge of words from pouring forth. "I'm not a good person. I was cruel to you when we were both mortals." His brow furrowed, and he planted both of his hands against the low table between them to keep them from shaking. "I'm the reason you died."
"I didn't die," the Rain Master pointed out. "I ascended."
"You know what I mean," Pei Ming snapped. He rubbed his face again, weariness making his shoulders sag, and tried to gather his errant thoughts together. "When you said you'd lend me your sword in Mount Tonglu, you were being serious, weren't you?"
"I'm always being serious," the Rain Master replied.
Pei Ming chuckled, dry and painful. "I'm beginning to understand that."
The Rain Master regarded him for another long moment, eyes unreadable behind the veil. "You don't remember, do you?" she murmured, smiling when Pei Ming sent her a baffled look. "That's alright. I didn't expect you to; how could you? You were a general and I was sixteenth in line to the throne." She tilted her head, hands folding into her lap. "You were the first person who ever did something kind for me, and I never forgot that. You didn't care who I was. You still thought I was worth saving."
"When did I save you?" Pei Ming asked, voice cracking.
"I was stuck on a rooftop while reshingling it and the other nobles had pulled my ladder away," the Rain Master said, and as she described it the scene came back to him in pieces: the quiet snickering in the courtyard, the young girl peering over the edge, the distant rain clouds drawing ever nearer. She had been dressed in cream-colored robes that denoted her as a cultivation disciple, and Pei Ming hadn't gotten a good look at her; he'd just been passing by on his way to the Main Hall, anyway, already late to the king's reception.
"That was you?"
"That was me," she affirmed, pulling her veil back so that Pei Ming could see her clearly, and oh, for fuck's sake. She wasn't the most stunning beauty that Pei Ming had ever seen, but she was lovely in her own way, and he had always been a sucker for a pretty face. "For the record, General Pei," she said, with such quiet, steady conviction that he almost believed her, "I think you're worth saving too."
"You barely even know me," Pei Ming said, heart beating hard in his chest. He hated this feeling, like he was dangling over the edge of a precipice and half a step away from dropping.
"I know enough," the Rain Master said. She tapped the open manuscript between them. "And you need me." She smiled again, head cocked. "So will you let me help you one more time?"
By the time Pei Su came back with tea, Pei Ming had calmed down enough to ruthlessly run through the logistics of the ritual with the Rain Master: the where, the when, the how. It all still seemed surreal, frankly. He couldn't believe he was going to do this, but he did want his spiritual energy back as soon as possible, and if the Rain Master was willing…
He couldn't think about it too hard without having second and third and fourth thoughts, without the shame of selfishness threatening to overtake him, so he stopped thinking about it. He had always been very good at that.
That evening, while Pei Su and Pei Ming both slept in separate chambers behind the temple's main hall, exhausted by the day's events, the Rain Master returned to the heavens to source a piece of smooth jade suitable for their purposes. She was back the next afternoon with all the proper materials, unflappable and poised, as if nothing at all out of the ordinary had happened. "It's a good thing we're at one of your temples, General Pei," she commented, gazing up at the statue of him that watched as they made the final preparations on the raised dais beneath it. "The ritual should be more effective."
"Right," Pei Ming said, trying not to feel like his own voyeur.
Pei Su had been given the antidote from Ling Wen and told to make himself scarce. The Rain Master's black ox had been hard-pressed to separate from its master, but it too was now out grazing in the fields before sundown. The rest of the temple was warded off from intruders, lest they accidentally disturb the ceremony. On the dais, there were small lanterns set up to illuminate the soft bedding that had been laid out at its center, and several jars of oil were set up on a low table next to the pillows.
In another life, Pei Ming might've called this romantic. Here and now, he was full of nerves, tense beyond belief. He tried to empty his mind, do some breathing exercises, focus his meditative energy, but even the hot bath that he was required to take beforehand didn't help much.
As he emerged from the tub and dried himself off, long hair dripping down his back, he stared at his reflection in the soapy water. It was strange to think he'd looked the same for centuries when he felt so old all of a sudden. Perhaps it was just the lack of spiritual energy talking again.
He let his hair hang damp and loose and wrapped a flimsy inner robe around himself; there was no use for anything else when it was all going to be taken off anyway. He shivered as he stepped back out into the cavernous Main Hall, goose pimples rising on his skin. The Rain Master had not yet arrived, so he climbed into the bedding first, running his palm across the soft fabric. He was staring at the different jars of oil when a floorboard creaked.
Pei Ming twisted around, hair slipping over his shoulder, and his voice died in the back of his throat. The Rain Master was only clothed in a thin inner robe as well, a crooked sash tied loosely around her waist. It was by far the least dressed Pei Ming — and possibly anyone else — had ever seen her. "General Pei," she said, inclining her head as she stepped onto the dais. Her hair was hanging loose around her shoulders, too, the customary bamboo hat and veil nowhere to be found. In this light, the scar on her neck stood out in even starker relief.
"Lord Rain Master," Pei Ming said, clearing his throat. "Yushi Huang."
The Rain Master favored him with a small smile, and Pei Ming felt himself relax just a little. "Shall we begin?"
"Yes," he said, tongue thick in his mouth.
She stepped onto the blankets and knelt next to him, hands moving slowly to undo the sash around her waist. When she shrugged the inner robe off and set it aside, Pei Ming sucked in a quick breath. Beneath it, the Rain Master was wearing nothing but a simple harness that held the jade phallus to the apex between her strong thighs. Her skin was smooth and tan from being in the sun, and her hands were callussed from years of hard work. Her breasts would probably fit in his palms. Instinctually, he yearned to reach out and touch, to flick his thumb against each perky nipple, but then he remembered that that wasn't what they were here for. They were here because he'd fucked up, and she was helping him. This was just an obligation for her. That was all.
Still, her rough hands were gentle when she slid his robe off and folded it neatly to the side. He went easily when she pushed him back against the pillows, swallowing when she rearranged his legs and pulled a cushion out for his lower back. For a while, she just looked at him, the seconds stretching out between them. He wondered if she was having second, third, fourth thoughts. He nearly choked on his own tongue when she spread a generous portion of oil against her palm and then reached down to touch his cock.
"I read that this was supposed to make it easier," she said, flushing pink when Pei Ming hissed and bucked up into her warm touch. God help him, she'd read about this.
"You're right," he managed to say. She moved her hand maddeningly slow, and Pei Ming tried to hold himself still as he hardened. He was used to being in total control during sex, was used to being the one who set the pace, and this was setting fire to all of his previous experiences. He tilted his head back against the pillows and let his eyes slide shut through the steady rhythm, stomach fluttering.
His eyes flew open again when he felt her other hand, also dripping with oil, starting to probe at his entrance. Their gazes met. "Is this okay?" she asked, uncertain. Pei Ming let out a shaky breath, ears hot, and nodded. The hand on his cock squeezed, and he gasped as the tip of her index finger slid past the rim of his asshole. It stung at first as she nudged it further inside him, but there must have been something in the oils, because his body adjusted to the intrusion quickly. The rhythm was a little sloppier with both hands in play, but Pei Ming could feel himself beginning to warm up, sweat beading at his hairline, breath coming out in short bursts.
Pei Ming groaned when she added a second finger, though he didn't even really know why. She paused, but he bit out, "Keep going, please," shuddering as she plunged both fingers deeper.
He was actively panting by the time she fit three fingers inside him, stoking the heat in his belly. The hand on his cock kept pulling clumsily, and he jerked when her thumb brushed against the tip, smearing the bit of fluid there. "General Pei," she murmured, and he tried to focus on her through the wave of desire crashing over him. "Pei Ming. Are you ready?"
"Yes," he said, reaching out to touch her bare waist. She exhaled, eyes bright, and nodded. The next moment, she pulled both of her hands away, and Pei Ming swallowed around the bereft noise he made. He watched her slick the jade phallus until it was dripping too, warming it up between her palms, and then she pushed his legs apart, fingers slipping against his knees, and lined herself up at his entrance.
The first push was nearly unbearable, the phallus much thicker and more unyielding than the Rain Master's fingers had been. Pei Ming inhaled harshly through his nose and tried to keep still, relax, let it all pass through him. "I know," he heard her say, voice cool and soothing. "I know. Just a little bit more."
He stared at the ceiling as she kept pushing, filling him inexorably. It was impossible to cast his mind anywhere but toward the burn. He caught a glimpse of his own face far above them, carved into stone, and wondered faintly if this would really work. They would have to make it count.
And then, somehow, the phallus was fully seated inside of him, and the Rain Master's body was curled over his like a willow tree, the ends of her long hair tickling his chest. She leaned down, face hovering over his with a naked look of trepidation scrawled across her features, and — there were a lot of things that Pei Ming didn't know, so many things that he had never bothered to learn, but he knew now that he hated it when the Rain Master looked unsure. He tilted his face up the rest of the way, neck straining, and pressed their mouths together.
It was all the permission she needed to start moving in earnest, slim hips slapping against the backs of Pei Ming's thighs, her mouth hot and delicate against his. One of her hands snaked down between them to pull at his flagging cock. Pei Ming's spine felt like it was melting when the phallus rubbed against a place deep inside him. A moment later, her spiritual energy began to flow through him the same way water rushed through a riverbank in its haste to reach the sea.
After that, it was difficult to register anything but impressions of things: the sweet taste of the Rain Master's tongue, the crisp ache in his legs, the way his arms wrapped around her to hold her close, every little sigh and gasp that fell between them. At one point, he mindlessly craned his head to kiss the vivid red scar on her neck and felt her shiver, her thrusts stuttering a little before the rhythm resumed, urgent and overwhelming. All of that raw power, all of her light, was concentrated on him for just one extended moment. His body was nothing more than a conduit for purification. Perhaps this was what people meant when they called their gods holy, when they prayed for just a spark of deliverance. For a single, shining second before Pei Ming came, balanced at the edge of the precipice before the fall, he felt truly and indubitably invincible.
Then the Rain Master thrust forward one more time, the jade phallus rubbing inside him as her hand twisted around his cock, pleasure and heat building tight in his throat, rolling up the entire length of his body, and all of Pei Ming's thoughts faded out into an ocean of white.
When Pei Ming came to, every muscle he possessed was throbbing, and his head was so foggy that it took several long moments to reorient himself. He cracked an eye open against the sunlight and realized that he'd been moved into one of the back rooms of the temple, folded into clean robes, no evidence of the ritual left on his skin. That was a strange thing to be disappointed about, but he was disappointed all the same.
The first face he saw was Pei Su's; he was kneeling next to the bed, pouring medicinal tea into a cup. "General Pei!" he said, face brightening when he saw that Pei Ming was awake.
"Little Pei," Pei Ming croaked, voice raspy from disuse. "What day is it?"
"It's been three mornings since the ritual," Pei Su said carefully. "After making sure you were alright, Lord Rain Master had to go attend to some business in Yushi. She said to wish you a quick recovery."
"I see," Pei Ming said. He sat up, stretched out his arm, and sent a blast of spiritual energy through the wall across the room. It was tremendously satisfying to see the wood splinter with ease, to feel the full strength and vitality of godhood at his fingertips again. It was like a heavy anvil had been lifted off his chest, and he could finally breathe again.
"General Pei!" Pei Su said, gazing at the destroyed wall in dismay.
"Sorry, sorry," Pei Ming said, swinging his knees off the bed. "I had to see if it worked. I'll help you fix it."
Pei Su blinked at him. "You will?"
"Is that really so surprising?" Pei Ming grumbled. He didn't wait for an answer before dressing in a whirlwind and sweeping out of the temple to locate some wood.
By all rights, that should have been the end of it. Pei Ming had gotten what he wanted, the full glory of the splendor of the Palace of Ming Guang restored, and he was an expert at sleeping with women and forgetting about them. Why would this be any different?
The problem was that every single thing Pei Ming did now seemed to remind him of the Rain Master. Pei Ming's first order of business when he returned to his palace in the Immortal City was to unseal Ming Guang; it was high time that he began wearing a sword again, even if it resented him for breaking it before he ascended. Ming Guang was quiet, though, when Pei Ming held it for the first time since Mount Tonglu. It thrummed in his hands as directed, as if Rong Guang had taken all of its resentful energy with him when he dispersed. Pei Ming's sword looked nothing like Yulong, but as he cautiously slid Ming Guang back into its scabbard, his thoughts inevitably wandered toward the Rain Master's weapon, the guileless look on her face when she had offered it to him. He still couldn't tell if he believed that grudges could be overcome so easily, that real forgiveness and absolution could be achieved, but maybe that was a personal issue. Maybe it only said too much about him.
Unfortunately, even the usual parade of his duties as a martial god weren't enough of a distraction. Over the next few weeks, Pei Ming tried to get back into the groove of his normal routine, tried to resume the cycle of answering prayers and monitoring demonic activity in the north, tried even to drum up the urge to chase after mortal beauties like he usually did. Nothing worked. Every time he cut down a ghost or stumbled across negative energy, he couldn't help thinking about the hot summer months, riding on the back of a black ox with his arms clamped around the Rain Master's waist.
A week into the eighth month of the year, Pei Ming trudged into the celestial library to file a report about his latest sweep of the northwest corridor. "Why are you so gloomy?" Ling Wen inquired after he finished, wrinkling her nose. "You got your title and your powers back. There's no reason you should be stinking up the feng shui of this place anymore."
"I'm not stinking up anything," Pei Ming protested, arguing just to argue, but there was no real bite to it. "I feel fine. Everything's great."
Ling Wen's eyebrows rose. "Hm," she said mysteriously. Pei Ming didn't like it one bit. That was the tone Ling Wen took whenever she thought she knew more than he did, which, to be fair, was true most of the time.
"I'm leaving," Pei Ming said, irate.
"Hm," Ling Wen repeated, more meaningful, and laughed when he threw her a rude gesture over his shoulder.
In short order, the Mid-Autumn Festival rolled around again. Pei Ming briefly considered skipping the banquet, but this was to be the celestial court's first major celebration since Jun Wu was deposed, and Ling Wen made it clear that there would be hell to pay if he didn't put in an appearance. And so, the fifteenth of the month found him sitting in the rebuilt Great Martial Hall along with the rest of the heavenly officials.
There were plenty of familiar faces in the crowd — even Xie Lian had shown up, smiling wanly as various people stepped up to greet him — but the Thunder Master was the only elemental god present at the festivities. The Rain Master never attended these events, which Pei Ming tried not to take to heart. The Water Master and the Wind Master's place settings were both empty, and the Earth Master had been a fraud from the beginning. The spaces they left behind were a stark reminder of what had happened in the past year, and Pei Ming's mood plummeted as he ate, thinking of lost friends and old pain.
Without Shi Qingxuan's idle chatter to fill in the spaces between each decadent course, Pei Ming could hear snatches of the other conversations drifting around him. Ling Wen was holding court amongst the civil gods, and Quan Yizhen kept trying to fight people as usual. Near the end of the evening — after the blessing lantern competition, in which Pei Ming had placed an impressive fourth despite his struggles during the better part of the year — he perked up despite himself when he heard Yushi Huang's name float across the room.
"This is technically her festival, but she still only had one lantern from that black ox," one of the lesser martial gods was scoffing.
"Isn't it rather disrespectful that she never shows up to celebrate?" another said, shaking his head. The first replied, "She must think she's too good for us," and before Pei Ming could even register what he was doing, he was standing and striding toward them, so angry that he could barely think.
The first martial god's face went slack when he saw Pei Ming approaching. "General Ming Guang," he said, startled.
"Keep the Rain Master's name out of your mouth," Pei Ming said coldly. The second martial god gaped. He couldn't even remember their names, which was probably for the best. "She is too good for you. She does more work than you ever will. Where do you think she is right now?" There was no answer; they were too stunned to respond. Good, he thought, savage. "Unlike you, growing fat off the product of her harvest, the Rain Master is down in the mortal realm ensuring that there's food on the plates of all your devotees."
"General Pei," someone said from his left, reverberating oddly in his ears. When he turned in the resounding silence that followed his little speech, Ling Wen was hovering next to him, gaze knowing. "Pei Ming." Pei Ming jumped, thinking of the last time someone had called him by name, the rasp of the Rain Master's voice as she'd touched him. Color rose high on his face, and something hot pushed up his throat. Maybe it was embarrassment; maybe it was something else, gradually being whittled down and defined, the truth in its most unadorned form.
"Fuck this, Ling Wen," Pei Ming said, cheeks burning, and swept out of the Great Martial Hall.
No one came after him. Pei Ming stormed down the street, past his palace, and out of the gates of the Immortal City. He wasn't even sure where he was going until he hopped off of Ming Guang and landed in the dirt outside the Rain Master's main temple in Yushi.
The last time Pei Ming was in this country, he had been leading an occupying force as the King of Xu Li's most trusted general. In the intervening centuries, he'd tried his best to avoid coming here. Very little had changed since then; the rolling hills were still lush, and the leaves on the trees were beginning to shift, the canopy painted in the colors of the setting sun.
Walking inside the temple brought back memories of watching Yushi's cultivators carry their queen into the hallowed hall, her body laid to rest at the foot of their god to bleed out. It was true that she hadn't died, but the moment had burned itself indelibly into his mind. Now, he stared up at the Rain Master's statue, modified all these years later to cleave closer to her likeness, and felt himself relax as he breathed. He could never have guessed he'd ever feel this way in the presence of someone that he had caused so much suffering. It was strange but also exhilarating.
Even though it was the Harvest Festival, no one else was here, but that was because the Rain Master encouraged her devotees to save their money and work the fields instead. The lone blessing lantern that had been offered up by her black ox shined brightly at the foot of the statue.
He wasn't sure why he had come here, wasn't sure if he had anything to say, but he sat down cross-legged on the cold floor and opened his mouth. "I don't know if you can hear this, since it's not really a prayer," he murmured, stilted and halting, searching for the right words, "but I wanted to thank you. For saving me, over and over again. You didn't have to."
He palmed the back of his neck, thoughts muddled. "The truth is that you're much braver than I am — you're impossibly brave for so many things. I'm sure you already know, you don't need to hear it from me, but I wanted to say it anyway. You don't care what the other gods think of you. You work so hard." He swallowed, throat clenching, and pushed through every part of his brain that was screeching at him to stop talking. "You saved me, even though I was ungrateful and angry because I didn't know how else to feel. You were kind, even though I kept messing it up."
Pei Ming looked up at the Rain Master's stone face again, the scar on her neck apparent for all to see. "I've always wondered why you kept that scar after you ascended, but I was too afraid to ask," he said. "I hate admitting that I am afraid." He remembered how soft the old wound had felt when he had brushed his mouth against it, remembered how his chest had seized up when she'd groaned so sweetly.
He sighed, circling the last secret that he'd tried to push away, tried to bury deep in the dark where no one could find them. His ears burned as he turned the thought over. "Before all this," he continued, rambling now without end, "I felt that love was a burdensome responsibility, that it wasn't worth the risk or the hassle. I still don't know how it's supposed to feel, but I think I was wrong." The blessing lantern flickered. "The truth is," he continued, staring down at his hands, "I think I might be in love with you, and that's scary for me. It's never happened before."
The words hung in the air for a moment after he said them, the room hushed. Pei Ming closed his eyes and just sat with it for a moment. Then: "I know," came a familiar, scratchy voice from behind him, well-worn and beloved.
Pei Ming's breath caught as he turned around and saw the Rain Master alight from her black ox. She was always a step ahead of him. That used to be an endless source of frustration; now all Pei Ming could feel was relief, spreading through his shoulders.
She floated onto the dais, hands clasped behind her back, gaze dropping toward his hip. "I see you're wearing your sword again."
"Yes," Pei Ming said, stupidly frozen in place, drinking her in like a man who'd spent weeks in the desert without water. If he was being honest with himself, over the past month of not seeing her, every day had felt like a year. She knelt down next to him and stared up at her statue, eyes wide and bright.
"You asked why I've kept this form after so long," she said eventually. Pei Ming nodded, mouth as dry as the Banyue Pass. "Even simple day laborers have their pride, you know. I was proud to die for my country."
"Even after how they treated you," said Pei Ming.
"Yes," agreed the Rain Master. "Even then."
"I'm sorry," Pei Ming said, because he was, for too many things. For forgetting her. For causing her sacrifice. For being so careless and resentful over the centuries, avoiding anything that made him uncomfortable. No wonder her black ox hated him. He didn't blame it. Pei Ming ran a hand over his face, exhaling slowly, and murmured, "You deserve someone worthy of you. I didn't even remember you."
"Love isn't about deserving, General Pei," the Rain Master said. "It just is." She reached out, slow and deliberate, and tucked one of her slim hands in his. "I spent so long thinking it wasn't for me, that I had more important and essential things to think about, that I was content with my life as it was. And that was true — I was content." Pei Ming's throat was so dry that it clicked when he swallowed, watching her lips move. "But I think I am glad to have found love where I wasn't expecting it."
Pei Ming squeezed her fingers, staring down at their conjoined hands with something akin to wonder. "But you're too good for me."
"You keep saying that, General Pei," she replied, faintly unimpressed, and shook her head. "I don't understand why you always refuse to acknowledge that you also have the capacity to be a good person. Your methods may be a little… misguided from time to time, but you try to do good things."
Pei Ming huffed and said, "Perhaps it's my way of trying to atone."
"Perhaps," the Rain Master echoed, and then she turned fully toward him and leaned in close, flipping her veil up and over her bamboo hat. "But I can think of better ways."
Warmth burst in Pei Ming's chest. His heart leapt like a rainbow trout as he caught the curve of her mouth, the twinkle in her eye. "Is that so?" he said. "I have a lot to make up for, it seems."
"You do," she replied, smiling like the sunrise, and it wasn't an indictment but a promise, willingly given and willingly received. When they kissed each other, sitting on the hard stone floor of the temple with their hands tangled together, it didn't feel like an onerous burden or an unwanted duty. It felt, for once, like being set free.
The next time Pei Ming saw Ling Wen was near the end of the ninth month of the year, after successfully completing a ghost-binding mission in the northeast with a handful of junior officials. He swept into the celestial library that evening to file a perfunctory after-action report. Ling Wen glanced up from the stacks of paperwork on her desk, took one look at him, and said, "Hm," again, in that same curious tone of voice.
"What?" Pei Ming demanded, throwing himself onto a cushion across from her and letting his sword clatter on top of the table. "If you say something about feng shui, I swear to all the gods and buddhas that I'm going to leave."
"I'm just happy you're happy," Ling Wen said primly, which was somehow more infuriating even if it was true. "It's a nice change."
Pei Ming thought about last week, in between patrols, visiting the small hut near the outer ring of the heavenly realm, and the week before when he had run into the Rain Master while on business in Hebei. She had smiled when he'd invited her into his room at the inn, had smiled when he'd systematically removed her robes and kissed his way down the lithe length of her body. The quiet, raspy noises she'd made — Pei Ming's face flushed despite himself. If this was what love felt like all the time, it would probably be the death of him. It still felt strange to welcome it. He didn't know if he would ever get used to talking about it, but maybe, in time… "Whatever," he said, scowling at Ling Wen when the word came out too soft. She grinned with teeth, too entertained by half. "Do you want my report or not?" He had places to be after this — one place in particular, on the other side of the heavenly realm, in the foothills of a mountain that extended up past the clouds.
"Yeah, okay," Ling Wen said, rolling her eyes, and picked up her brush.