I felt old. Older than everyone around me, even though that wasn’t true. They came in different flavors of twenty-something. Unless they’d been trucked in from far away, they were uniformly well-to-do. Only people with large salaries could afford the rent nearby. Most of the accents I heard wafting on the breeze weren’t local.
This, if I had to be honest, was exactly what I’d been fighting for. I was after a good school and a good job, wasn’t I? Well, these people went to good schools and had good jobs. Chilling here on a sunny Saturday was what people who went to good schools and had good jobs did in these parts. Somewhere on one of these blankets was my spot. My eternal reward.
“None of you have ever fought what I’ve fought,” I said out loud. “You can’t see what I see.”
I could have said the word demons. No one was listening, and even if they were, it didn’t matter a lick.
My eye caught on a tall, starkly handsome man picking his way toward me through the crowd. He was wearing an athletic top and sandals like half the people lying on the grass, but he was in much better shape than all of them. When he got close enough he lowered his shades.
“I thought it was you,” Erlang Shen said.
The last person I was expecting. “What are you doing here?”
He produced a can wrapped in a brown bag and wiggled it. “I’m getting drunk.”
The last thing I was expecting him to say. He must have seen the confusion on my face because he laughed as he sat down next to me.
“There’s a Peach Banquet going on in Heaven,” he said. “Lots of wine flowing freely. But I can’t stand celebrations, and I don’t like indulging in front of the other gods. So in times like these I find various watering holes on Earth and drink human drinks. I was at a bar down the street but I felt your presence nearby.”
“Do you need three hundred and sixty-five human cocktails to match one Heaven serving?”
“Actually the exchange rate for alcohol is a binary logarithm, so it’s one thousand twenty-eight,” he said. “Right now I’m on six hundred thirteen.”
I snorted. He was as big of a dork as I was.
“By the way,” he said, waving the can. “I have completely failed on every promise I gave you before.”
“There was just the one promise. Your uncle won’t let you help round up the remaining demons?”
“Nope. He refused to entertain the subject during the celebration and told me that bringing it up further would be a sign of disrespect. That I would be displaying to the other gods a lack of filial piety.”
Erlang Shen raised his drink in a toast.
“Here’s to the delicate sensibilities of our elders,” he said. “The most important and fragile treasures in the universe. May we break our backs protecting them.”
“Hear, hear.”
We watched the newly minted adults frolic on the green. Most of them probably only called their parents once a month on average.
“I didn’t ask what you were doing here,” he said. “You don’t live in this city. And when I first saw you, your face looked like death itself.”
“Gee, thanks,” I answered. “I was gazing into my future.”
“What did you see?”
“That the only way to keep my loved ones safe forever is to self-immolate,” I said. “I have it all planned out. I’m going to sit on top of Half Dome and send a golden light into the sky like I did when I was still in Ao Guang’s treasure hoard. It’ll be a beacon for every yaoguai to come and get it. A dinner bell.”
“I’ll fight them all in one big battle,” I went on. “King-of-the-hill style. If I can’t defeat them all, I’ll take down as many as I can.”
“It’s not a bad plan. Do you know how to glow with Heavenly light?”
“Nope. I’ll have to figure that out first. And I notice you’re not trying to talk me out of it.”
“There’s nothing wrong with grand gestures sometimes. I will say this, though, if you’re planning to go down in flames . . .”
He leaned back on his elbows. “I, as an immortal with infinite eternities to enjoy, advise you, a pathetic insect whose life span is but a candle flicker, to at least have some fun before you die.”
I could only laugh at his brutal honesty.
“That’s partly why I chose the nearest national park,” I said. “I’ve never been.”
“What else do you want to do?”
“It’d be cool to stop a crime in progress. Like a superhero. It’d have to be a regular, human crime. I don’t know why, but yaoguai wouldn’t count.”
“Of course not. You’d need the change of pace. Anything else?”
“I want to destroy something.”
He was taken aback at how quickly I said it. And perhaps at how much I meant it.
“I want to lose control and utterly wreck something,” I said. “I don’t know what. Probably not anything anyone cares about, like a building. But maybe a boulder. Although some people would be angry if certain landmark boulders were destroyed, so I can’t do it in the park. I’d have to go to a quarry.”
“You’ve . . . given this some thought, haven’t you?”
“Yeah, that’s not a Ruyi Jingu Bang desire. That one’s pure Genie.”
“You know where you could really go nuts with your powers?” he pitched. “Heaven.”
“I’m sure that would go over well with the other gods, seeing as how I wrecked the place the last time I was there.”
“I’m serious,” he said. “There are so many holy mountains that no one uses. The place is infinitely big; it won’t matter if one tiny part gets leveled.”
He sat up and faced me.
“Tell you what. Why don’t you come with me to Heaven for a bit? As my guest? We can check out the Peach Banquet together. With you there, it might be tolerable. And if you don’t like it, we can go break stuff. It’ll be fun.”
“Isn’t there that time difference thing? If I’m in Heaven for a day, I’m gone for a year on Earth.”
“So?” said Erlang Shen. “Maybe you deserve a vacation. A semester abroad. What people never tell you is that a day in Heaven is worth more than a hundred years on Earth. Earth sucks.”
It was awfully tempting, I had to admit. Earth did often suck. Walking away from everything might have been just what I needed.
I sighed. But still.
“Not happening,” I said. “My mother would—”
“To hell with your mother,” Erlang Shen snapped.
It was an uncharacteristic flash of temper. When I looked at him, he withdrew immediately and shrugged.
“Thanks for the offer,” I said. “But I think I’ll pass.”
I got up to leave. It was a long train ride back, and I was already late. Mom would be furious. “I’m gonna do a quick yaoguai check here before going home.”
“Wait, wait,” he said, suddenly alarmed. “You’re just using true sight randomly now? Without Guanyin’s warning?”
“It’s my new paranoia in action,” I said as I pressed my temple.
The park was all clear. Maybe demons preferred to sunbathe in less-trendy spots. I glanced at Erlang Shen, who seemed a little embarrassed at being laid out in all his godly glory.
He needn’t have been. The pulsing waves of energy radiating off him would have knocked me to the ground, but I was used to the effect from Quentin. I gave him a reassuring smile.
“That reminds me,” I said. “Quentin told me it’d be dangerous if I went to Heaven. Did you have a spell or something that would protect me?”