#investiture of the gods
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How to Kill Sun Wukong
Have you ever wondered what it would take to kill Sun Wukong? My new article describes a ritual borrowed from Investiture of the Gods (Fengshen yanyi, 封神演義, c. 1620) that would certainly kill our hero. It involves a secret, spiritual assault from a distance. That way, the villain doesn't have to worry about getting smashed into hamburger or ripped to shreds by an angry monkey immortal.
The ritual steals an immortal's spirit, tethers it to a straw effigy, and then kills the target by shooting the effigy in the eyes and heart with arrows.
#Sun Wukong#Monkey King#Journey to the West#JTTW#Immortal#Immortality#elixir of immortality#Chinese immortal#Taoist immortality#Investiture of the Gods#Creation of the Gods#how to kill an immortal#how to kill a god#Lego Monkie Kid#LMK#monkey
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Prodigal son terror
Li Jing in a fury grabbed his halberd, leapt on his horse and galloped out of the headquarters. He was astonished to see Nezha with his Wind-Fire Wheels and Fire-Tipped Spear. He swore loudly, "You damned beast! You caused us endless suffering before your death, and now that you've been reborn, you're troubling us again!"
"Li Jing! I've returned my flesh and bones to you, and there's no longer any relation between us. Why did you smash my golden idol with your whip and burn down my temple? Today I must take my revenge!"
since I'm on a Nezha streak, might as well do my design for him on the Expedition AU! given that i've chosen to give characters a closer likeness to their region, it's only fitting i do the same with import deities like Guanyin, Subodhi and Nezha.
he's a complicated figure to place in the timeline because he gained popularity as a deity much after, only really arriving in China by the time the Journey would have been set. FSYY was written closer to when JTTW was written down, and he was retroactively inserted on the Zhou Dynasty period.
so deciding what to even do with him is dicey. but then i said fuck it, mythological rules apply here, he was around for the events of FSYY, and it and JTTW are set in the same universe. and for the sake of having some fun, i decided to get funky with his concept.
Nezha had the likeness of his family when he was alive, as described in FSYY, but once he was reborn with a lotus body he gained Indian traits instead. this is to be a nod to his status as an import deity and his origin as Nalakubara, and as the centuries roll by he may present himself to mortals closer to the locals' appearance wise.
as for his looks, i drew inspiration from multiple sources. read more for my rambles <3
his armor is closer to reconstructions of Zhou dynasty-period armor, skipping over extra parts simply because his lotus body is so indestructible, there's no need for a full set;
there are two red Chinese knots with jade beads dangling from the armor ties. they are said to ward off evil spirits, which felt like a good fit for a guy known to banish demons. i picked a six-petal flower pattern, which represents reunion, unity and a bright future;
i included lotus petals and leaves on his outfit as they are common in Beijing Opera outfits for him, and his makeup is a call to it as well;
The pink from the cheeks and eyeshadow seeps into his ear shell, as to convey the way sometimes, you get so angry even your ears blush;
Another thing i referenced from Opera is the two red ribbons on his sidelocks, though I changed them to two bulbs of lotus roots;
Four petals drawn close to his urna as both to make it look like a lotus but also form five petals, which is an auspicious number;
His hair crown is a fancy princely [knot] with a lotus motif and a pearl in the center, as he was the Pearl Spirit before becoming Nezha;
I was going to go with elf-like ears but I thought I could do better, so I went for stretched earlobes instead. you can't see it that well but hopefully the very large golden earrings imply it well enough xvx;
His cheek dimples are common sight on religious images of him and it was a cute touch imo;
Younger Nezha wears a golden robe because of his title as General of the Central Altar in Daoist belief, and the center direction is connected to yellow or gold, and yellow robes are usually meant for emperors and their sons, which is a minor nod to his self-assureness and boldness;
The Cosmic Ring has spiralling grooves on it both to catch blades on it for defense but also as a callback to Opera props;
On his waist is the embroidered ball weapon he was attributed with in earlier myths, he was also meant to have the leopard skin bag Taiyi Zhenren gave him, bjt it was going to be obscured by the text so i omitted it;
A few depictions of him gave him a halo of fire, which was real cool so i added it as well.
#fengshen yanyi#investiture of the gods#fsyy#iotg#li nezha#nezha#third lotus prince#third prince nezha#expedition to the west au#bell dragon art
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First altar 🕯
#my art#nezha#third lotus prince#prince nezha#fengshen yanyi#FSYY#investiture of the gods#everytime I look at the second picture I somehow think of amethyst from su#illurstration
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Headcanon: Dragons of the Four Seas
(inspired by a recent discussion with @the-monkey-ruler)
-Although Chinese dragons are water deities, there are dragons who control stuff other than water: Cold Dragons under the Dragon King of the North can freeze stuff, and Bailong Ma used to be a Fire Dragon in pre-novel variants of JTTW.
"Wouldn't it be interesting if the four major lineage of dragons all have their unique side-power, apart from water and weather manipulation?"
-It starts off as this, then spins out of control and becomes one giant worldbuilding exercise.
East Sea:
-The eastern direction is traditionally associated with the Wood element. However, I feel like plant manipulation will be too obvious.
-So instead, they are the master of Thunder and Wind——the trigrams that represent these two things, Zhen and Xun, are both Wood-aligned.
-Their lightning has a notable azure hue, and have adapted the force of Thunder specifically for underwater usage, creating highly potent sonic blasts as well as what basically amount to a sonar spell.
-They kinda consider themselves the archetypal dragon, representative of their kind, and certainly have the attitude to match.
-Like, they claim to be descended from the Azure Dragon of the East, even though the idea that a Divine Beast of the Four Directions, stellar guardian of the entire eastern section of the sky, can reproduce is...dubious at best.
-Don't you mention the time Ao Guang got bullied by Wukong. Or Nezha. Or Huaguang. Or the Eight Immortals. They are very touchy about that. Violently touchy.
-They also have close relations with water-dwelling Yakshas, who act as a sort of elite mercenaries in their military campaigns against other seaborn demons and rogue flood dragons.
-Basically, the proud generals of dragonkind, with a vast weapon collection to match. The dragon king's family also name their kids after Celestial Stems and Earthly Branches, much like the ancient Shang dynasty rulers.
-The East Sea dragons are the only lineage who has an official representative of the Celestial Host stationed in their territory, who's only known by his title, the "Water-dividing General of the East Sea".
-He seems to be an older sort of god, the half-man, half-beast ones who look like they walk out of an illustration of the Book of Mountains and Seas.
-Most of the time, he takes the form of a seal, lounging around on rocks and watching sunrises, and has the personality of a sarcastic old man.
-Whether he's here to keep an eye on them, or they are supposed to keep an eye on him, no one can say. Ao Guang certainly treats him like an old acquaintance, though.
West Sea:
-They are a bit tricky. West is associated with Metal, and the two Metal-aligned trigrams, Qian and Dui, represent Heaven and Marsh...which don't neatly map onto weather and natural phenomena.
-Then I had an idea. What if they have a natural affinity for heavenly bodies? In ancient times, the movements of stars are believed to affect weather, after all, not to mention the sun and the moon.
-This affinity can be figurative——their lineage has a strong relationship with the stellar deities of the 28 Lunar Mansion and Dipper Mansion——or literal.
-Like a natural talent for divination and astrology, predicting the future from the patterns of stars. They are no governors of fate, unlike the actual Star Lords, they are just fate's weather forecast guy.
-This puts them in an awkward position, though: the stellar gods act according to the Jade Emperor's orders, some of which are very much secret and beyond their clearance levels, but the best scions of the West Sea can just infer it from the movement of stars alone.
-Which makes them obsessed with proving their loyalty, as well as enforcing a draconian standard of secrecy, just so they wouldn't get into trouble for knowing something they weren't supposed to know.
-Even more rarely, they can harness the power of astral light. Most of the time, such light is of lunar nature——Star Lord Taiyin also holds sway over the ocean's tides, though it is an easily forgotten power.
-But sometimes, that light comes from a fiery, lively, or ominous star, and the power that results is just as temperamental as their stellar origins.
-Enters Ao Lie, Third Prince of the West Sea, who has highly potent fire powers despite not being a South Sea dragon, and became the subject of some rather tasteless gossips about his parentage the moment it awakened.
-All dragons love their pearls: it's kinda like an ordinary yaoguai's "inner core", an orb of solidified Qi that can be spit out and store separately from the body, but much more powerful and culturally significant.
-Well, the West Sea dragons use their pearls in the same way a Feng Shui master uses their geomantic compass, or a Zhou Yi diviner, their turtle shell and copper coins. The ones left behind by venerable ancestors are especially treasured, believed to lead to clearer insights and more reliable readings.
-Through that lens, Ao Lie's burning of one such pearl is the equivalent of descrating the dead + destroying a priceless, irreplacable supercomputer.
-Intentional or not, to a lineage that is so serious about their discipline, taboos, and absolute loyalty to the Celestial Host, it is enough to warrant death.
-To no one's surprise, they are the diplomats, the inter-department coordinators when it comes to weatherly business. Not just between relevant celestial bureaus like the Thunder and Water Bureaus, but also between local dragon kings of rivers and lakes.
-As a result, the West Sea lineage is the most open to marrying non-oceanic dragons, even though these are often out of practical and political needs.
-That's my explanation for why, in JTTW, Ao Run's nine nephews either guard rivers or work for JE/the Buddha. The West Sea lineage has really turned nepotism into an art form.
North Sea:
-In JTTW, we know that they have Cold Dragons that can chill stuff. It is certainly not too much of a stretch to imagine them as the ice-and-snow specialists, the ones you summon when you are sick of the heat or need to insta-freeze something.
-Historically, the "North Sea" in Chinese texts refer to Lake Baikal. However, I think it is cooler if their palace is literally in the arctic zone, under the ice caps.
-Instead of garden-variety shrimp and crab soldiers, they have lots of cultivated marine mammals. And elite legions of belugas and narwhals and bowhead whales.
-The smallest and most isolationist lineage also carries the grimest duty, as border patrols and prison wardens. Not only is the North Sea a hotspot of rifts that lead to the Underworld, it also conceals the portal to the Evil-Vanquishing Mansion of the North Pole——realm of Emperor Zhenwu, Lord of the North.
-Kind of like the Lord Father of the East and Queen Mother of the West, he is the sovereign of the northern direction and the Water element, as well as the direct superior of Xuanwu, one of the Four Divine Beasts.
-And his job? Subduing demons. The Evil-Vanquishing Mansion is basically a fleet of giant, hollowed-out icebergs, packed to the brim with powerful demons, ghosts, and rogue immortals.
-Any prisoners that make an unlikely escape will emerge into the North Sea, where the vigilant army of the dragon king awaits. However, that is not their main duty; it is the Eye of the North Sea that they swear to eternally guard.
-And the prisoner of the Eye is none other than Shen Gongbao, the infamous traitor of the Chan Sect who was behind most major conflicts in the War of Investiture.
-It was said that, though his body was stuffed into the Eye of the North Sea as punishment, in the end, his soul still gets deified as a minor water god.
-However, if there is only a mindless body left in there, why the need for such heavy security? Only the most experienced elders and veterans are allowed to go into the Eye's vicinity to check on Yuanshi Tianzun's seals, and repeated visit by the same people is strictly prohibited.
-Perhaps, instead of a split of soul and body, deification has split the soul itself: one half is exorcised of all the undesirable qualities, the other left to stew and simmer in them until it mutates into something unrecognizable.
-Such is the rumor among the North Sea's younger scions. But folks will make up anything to pass the time in those long, cold arctic nights, and whatever the truth is, it doesn't matter, as long as the seal still holds.
South Sea:
-Their element, Fire, is directly opposite to the North Sea's; much like the Cold Dragons, the Fire Dragons of the South Sea are heat specialists, creators of droughts and wildfires as well as bringers of warm winds.
-And their fire is a peculiar variant of Earthly Fire. Unlike Heavenly Fires, which draw from the blaze of the Three-legged Sun Crow, or the True Fires immortals used in internal alchemy, Fire Dragons channel the power of earth's flaming veins: that is, undersea volcanos and thermal vents.
-Though they usually display their power in less flashy ways——steam clouds, a playful whiff of sulfur, a blast of warm wind on a winter night, a Fire Dragon fully on the offensive is just like a mini live volcano, unleashing streams of magma and scalding smoke clouds.
-When dragons are mentioned as one of the Eight Classes of Demigods in Buddhism, more often than not, they are from the South Sea lineage.
-Like, the most popular Bodhisattva in Asia, Guanyin, resides in the South Sea. It's all but granted that the local dragons would also be heavily influenced by Buddhist teachings, in the same way their northern kins are drawn to the entourage of Zhenwu.
-Fun fact: the imagery of dragons has appeared in Chinese art since the Neolithic period, but the specific worship of dragons as gods of the Four Seas is a result of Buddhist influence.
-Prior to that, the gods of the Four Seas in the Book of Mountains and Seas are all beasts with human faces, wearing snakes as earrings or standing on a snake.
-And in Sui-Tang era works, some variants merged the Four Seas gods with the Four Directions gods of ancient times, and said that the god of the South Sea was Zhurong.
-A.k.a. the fire god that defeated Gonggong (in the most well-known version of the tale), who, being the sore loser he is, went and knocked over the sky support pillar with his head. Thus, Nvwa's patching of the sky.
-Legends of the South Sea lineage claim that the Fire Dragons draw their power from Zhurong's embers, and their king is descended from the two dragon mounts of the primodial fire god.
-To the outrage of more traditionalist dragons, they often intermarry with Nagas, the serpentine water gods of the Western Lands. Guanyin's dragon girl attendant is born of one such union, between the Naga lord Sagara and a princess of the South Sea.
-Their palace is located inside an underwater volcano, said to be the remnant of Zhurong's great forge. Giant tube worm gardening is a popular hobby among the South Sea nobility; however peculiar it may appear to outsiders, these colorful creatures thrive in the union of Fire and Water, much like the lineage itself.
(Pictures of the Four Dragon Kings come from Nezha 1979.)
(The animated film makes the dragon king of the West a black dragon, and the North, a white one, a reversal of the colors traditionally associated with the two directions——West = White, North = Black.）
#journey to the west#investiture of the gods#chinese dragons#worldbuilding#chinese mythology#headcanon
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I just love drawing families of fictional characters, its interesting to think of how each sibling would look. I try to make them different from one another but at the same time maintain familial similarities.
Jinzha resembles their mom, Muzha their dad, and Nezha's a good mix of both.
Also get ready with some sibling dynamic rant, mostly relation HCs by me.
Enough with the parent child dynamic
I want sibling dynamic. Where these three come to terms on what happened between them. Specifically Muzha and Nezha's interaction is the one I want to see.
Tbh those two's fates in the myth reminded me of Hyakkimaru and Tahomaru in Dororo.
Like Nezha and Muzha had so much potential to gain solidarity with each other. Because Jinzha could never relate to them as the ignored or unwanted child. Muzha has that middle child stuggle fr.
Muzha is the one so eager to gain their fathers favor trying to meet Jinzha's level . Nezha wants nothing from his father so he makes himself worse.
Muzha's frustration with Nezha is that Nezha is rebellious, disrespectful of their dad
While Nezha's frustration to Muzha is that Muzha is so blinded and always struggling to achieve something so futile. Deep down he hates how Muzha is suffering this way but he wouldnt speak of it. This is why they always at odds.
They should make a movie focusin the Li brothers fr
Other than overusing the actual myths.
Fuck the ending from the original myth, they didnt even consider how the children felt from all the abuse. Not even mention of Muzha's death.
Enough Ao Bing, what about Muzha???
And the moral lesson is just about "respecting elders"?? The story still had so much to wrap up. How can you call this a family if there is some sort of hierarchal system. A family requires empathy to maintain that connection.
Tbh its kinda realistic
Families and siblings can still inflict trauma from each other .And a story based on reconcilation is a good way for this to be about family counselling.
I wanna see the "what ifs". It could be each brothers own story of self healing from the trauma caused on each other.
Maybe Im getting my hopes up too much, but it could be a development for them to forgive, start anew and an opportunity to connect and catch up on what they missed on each other.
Edit:
As for Jinzha he also has his own struggles as the eldest. Keeping up the station as the golden favored and perfect son. But its Asian family dynamics, which means hes in a lot of pressure. But he is mentally and emotionally strong. The brothers always busy on his studies ,future responsibilities and training to be able to spend time together. Their timetables seemed to be planned out to always not meet. Jinzha especially had less freetime. And if he ever came across any of his brothers, it was only one of them never both.
He doesnt mind being a buffer for the other two feuding but it does stress him out that it will never change. But he'll make sure to give time and attention to both of them as much as he can.
Other than keeping up his fathers expectations he also doesnt want to fail as a big brother to them🥺😭
Muzha and Nezha can see his efforts so they do not dare hold anything against him. Muzha still keeps his competitive attitude when Jinzha's around but accepts any offered kindness from Jinzha. While Nezha enjoys his company when he gets the chance.
Also because I tend to hold on to this little bit of bonding😭🥺🥺Jinzha trying to be the best big bro
Thinking of the contrast in the future where Jinzha was tasked to torture Nezha destroyed me😭😭😭What did Jinzha even feel while he had to do it??
Also here some Nezha with his hair down again
#li nezha#li muzha#li jinzha#nezha#nezha fanart#nezha lmk#character hc#sibling dynamics#li brothers#investiture of the gods
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Out of all the fucking divine weapons out there…
He chose a fucking brick
#nezha#li nezha#fensheng yanyi#fsyy#investiture of the gods#for the ones that you don’t know. yes. the brick is literally one of Nezha’s weapons. he actually used it to throw at Muzha lmao
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I just watched Yang Jian, soooo.... we're talking about that today.
More specifically these a-holes:
Buckle up.
Known as the 4 Heavenly kings, the 4 Diamond Kings of Heaven, or Fēng Tiáo Yǔ Shùn (風調雨順; lit. 'Good climate'), these guys play a pretty big part in the Buddhist religion. They are often depicted on doorways, two on each side, and like many other groups of 4 in Chinese myth are linked with the cardinal directions.
Mo Li Hung/Duōwén Tiānwáng/Vessavana/Bishamon-ten: Protector of the North and ruler of rain, as shown by his fancy umbrella, the Umbrella of Chaos. Opening it turns the skies pitch dark, and turning it upside down causes massive storms. (Fun fact: also one of the Japanese Shichi-fujin/7 Gods of Fortune)
Mo Li Ching/Zēngzhǎng Tiānwáng/Virūlhaka/Zōchō-ten: Protector of the South and a god of plant life and growth. He has a super special sword, Blue Cloud, that can cause massive black winds and turn into a bunch of spears that turn people to dust.
Mo Li Hai/Chíguó Tiānwáng/Dhatarattha/Jikoku-ten: Protector of the East and god of music. As a result, his main weapon is his sick guitar that can mess up nature and cause all sorts of weird crap to happen.
Mo Li Shou/Guăngmù Tiānwáng/Virūpakkha/Kōmoku-ten: Protector of the East and an all-seeing deity that watches over everything. His tools are a magic bag and the goodest little guy Hua-hu Tiao, a white mink. His shoulder-buddy can also be a snake or dragon, depending on the version, but I like the fluffer.
Now, these guys have important jobs and are well respected in their own rights and stuff, but their most famous Chinese myth seems to be that time they got their asses kicked by Erlang Shen.
Okay, I guess that isn't entirely accurate as he and Nezha were mainly helping some guy named Huang Tianhua, but still. (Also don't expect any info on that Tianhua guy, I got nothing)
Anyways, the story starts when some guys pray for help in battle and for some reason the 4 brothers decide it's totally worth it to go down to the mortal realm themselves along with 1,000 celestial soldiers to kick some ass. Mo-li Shou sends his little floofer to go around and eat the opposing army's soldiers while the big boys kicked butt, but unfortunately one of the soldiers Hua-hu Tiao ate was Erlang Shen, here called by his other name Yang Jian. Erlang doesn't like that very much, so he rips his way out of Hua-hu, killing it, then transforms himself to look like it and sneaks back to his 'master,' waiting for the moment to strike.
Back at the plot, Nezha manages to break the 4 kings' divine weapons, making an opening for Tianhua to kill 3 of them, leaving only Mo-li Shou. Turning to his trusty fur-buddy to bail him out, Shou tries to sic Hua-hu at them, but surprise! That's actually Erlang Shen who bites his hand clean off. The ensuing agony gives Tianhua the distraction he needs to un-alive the last brother and win the day.
And then I guess they got out of the underworld on good behavior or something, because they continued to be important gods in the pantheon for many centuries to come.
￣\( ´-｀)/￣
Sh*tpost Masterlist
#mythology sh*tposting#chinese mythology#investiture of the gods#journey to the west#chinese myth character inspo#new gods yang jian#yang erlang#yang jian#erlang#erlang shen#4 heavenly kings#new gods#new gods nezha reborn#nezha#lego monkie kid#lmk
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based on this :')
#fsyy#investiture of the gods#yang jian#nezha#erlang shen#usin the new gods desings heehoo#this is a fav right up there with the huang tianhua and nezha argue about getting their ass kicked by deng chanyu bit#把哪吒喜不自胜！！！😭#art tag
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Are there more stories about what demons Erlang has faced? Or more stories about him or where his character is included? I'm aware of Journey to the West, fsyy, the story with his mother and Lotus Lantern, but I was wondering if there were other stories where his character appears.
There are a lot of stories with him but they are more like legends than like narrative tales so to speak. Xiyouji, FSYY, and Lotus Lantern are novels and plays that allow full narratives that Erlang Shen features in but none really show the full extent of his character as he is more of a feature character than ever the protagonist.
Erlang's control of water is Erlang Shen's first and greatest achievement was water control and water control and made him a famous water god. With Erlang God's water control as the core, it radiates into legends such as killing dragons and slaying dragons.
Carrying mountains to catch the sun was from the Kaixi Period of the Song Dynasty, the "Inscription of the Induction of King Zhaohui Lingxian" describes the Erlang Shen as "the majesty of disturbing the mountain to take advantage of the sun, and the bravery of crossing the sea to capture the dragon.
The legend of Erlang Shen leading his divine soldiers and generals to search the mountains and succumb to demons can be found in the volume "Searching the Mountains", also known as the "Erlang Shen Searching the Mountains".
In the Five Dynasties, there is a legend about Erlang capturing an evil dragon. "Shu Shu": "The New Year's Banquet in June, "Guankou Divine Team" by Jiaofang Haiyu. The image of the two dragons fighting, the sky and the earth were dark for a moment, and there was heavy rain and hail. The Qing Dynasty's "Sichuan General Chronicle" locks the dragon: " It is said that Erlang locked the evil dragon in it. When frost falls and water falls, you may sometimes see it locked in the clouds."
In the Song Dynasty, there were a lot of themes of Erlang killing dragons. The Erlang who spent money usually rode an eagle and followed the dog. The entourage held a bow and stood a three-pointed two-edged sword beside him to subdue the dragon or the dragon transformed into a human body.
In the early days, Erlang Shen's divinity mainly came from Li Bing, who controlled floods. Guankou Erlang Shen controlled wind and rain, and Li Erlang's main deeds were also to capture dragons and control floods.
The "Stele Record of the Divine Blessing King" written by Zhou Hu of the Southern Song Dynasty (1170-1231) records that in 1206 AD, that is, the second year of Kaixi, Erlang Shen helped him fight against the Jin Dynasty and achieved a major turning point. Therefore, Emperor Ningzong of the Song Dynasty named Erlang Shen "Saint Martyr Zhaohui to protect the country".
As the belief in Erlang Shen spread widely, the priesthood of Erlang Shen also expanded as he was seen as a protector of the country's spirit. The "Nangong County Chronicle" of the Republic of China quoted Lu Zhongfu from Jin Zhangzong as saying: "In the autumn of the fifth year of Zhenglong (1160), the giant locusts covered the sky and ate all the acres. There were reports of hunger everywhere, the price of grain soared, and county people rushed to pray at the temple of Erlang Shen. The locusts dispersed and did not stay in the area. Fortunately, they were harmless at this time."
Erlang Shen is not only a god with vast supernatural powers and remarkable spiritual responses, but he was also regarded as the god of drama in the Ming Dynasty and was worshiped by Liyuan.
The Cuju industry also respects Erlang as the god of the industry and follows his character of playing games in the world.
Erlang God was revered as the "Lord of Sichuan" and became the god who protected the people of Sichuan from living and working in peace and contentment.
Song Zhang Tangying's " Sichuan Prayer " records: "(Qiande) in the second year of August, (Wang) Yan patrolled the north, and Prime Minister Wang Kai judged the guards of the six armies. The banners and flags were inexhaustible for hundreds of miles. Yan's military uniforms, Wearing golden armor, a beaded hat, and brocade sleeves, he holds a bow and carries an arrow. The people look at him and say he is like a 'guan-kou god'." Erlang Shen is equipped with a hound, an eagle, and a slingshot. It is a standard image of the hunting god, capable of restraining birds, beasts, mountain spirits, and wild monsters.
Because Erlang Shen carried a slingshot, he was attached to the function of delivering children by later generations. Because the slingshot is homophonic with "birth", it means birth. Almost every Erlang temple has people seeking children, which is the basic priesthood of Erlang Shen.
Tianqi was built in southern Fujian during the Chongzhen period of the Fengshan Ancestral Temple in the Ming Dynasty, the belief in Erlang Shen has formed a water god worship with strong local characteristics of southern Fujian in southern Fujian. There are now three statues in the Fengshan Ancestral Temple, which are called "Ambassador", "Second Ambassador" and "Third Ambassador", and "Ambassador" is the Erlang Shen in people's minds
I'm taking this all from his page so if you want a more detailed explanation I would suggest looking it into yourself because there is SO MUCH information about Erlang Shen being such a well-known figure and hero of legend that no way I can fit it all in one post but I hope this gives people an idea just how grand Erlang Shen's legend is and just how rich in both history and lore he is!
#jttw#journey to the west#xiyouji#ask#erlang shen#yang jian#sun wukong#lotus lantern#fengshen yanyi#fsyy#investiture of the gods#romance of the gods
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Li Jing: tries and fails to achieve immortality
His first 2 sons: achieved immortality basically immediately
Nezha: literally made to be a god
Li Jing, taking the biggest L’s since the Shang Dynasty
YOU SAY IT AS IT IS, ANON!👍
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I’ve been handling a few different life circumstances, but I’m alive! I’m here! Er’lang Shen broke my art block!!
#er’lang shen#erlang shen#journey to the west#jttw#investiture of the gods#canonization of the gods#yang jian#杨戬#二郎神#chinese mythology
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Bad FSYY English translation
The four-volume Library of Chinese Classics bilingual edition of Creation/Investiture of the Gods (Fengshen yanyi, c. 1620) published in 2000 is the only full-length translation of the story available in English. I've had a PDF of the entire set archived on my external blog since May of 2020. It is serviceable for the general reader, but it is not great for hobbyist researchers like myself.
I'd like to provide an example showing how it is not very accurate and/or comprehensive. Chapter 12 describes how young Nezha inadvertently causes havoc in the underwater realm when washing himself in a river with a powerful magic sash. This eventually leads to Li Gen (李艮), a yaksha water-spirit soldier, to attack him with an ax. Gu Zhizhong's (2000) translation reads:
Nezha, naked and empty-handed, dodged the vicious blow, raised his Universal Ring and struck Li Gen on the head. How could the Yaksha withstand the magic weapon from Fairy Primordial! His skull broke open and he fell dead on the river bank (Gu, 2000, vol. 1, p. 239).
However, the full Chinese reads:
Standing there naked, Nezha dodged the advancing warrior's attack and upraised the Universal Ring in his right hand. This treasure was originally bestowed by the Jade Emptiness Palace of Mt. Kunlun to the Perfected Man of the Grand Monad to secure the items of his Golden Light Cave. How could the yaksha withstand the magic weapon as it struck downward on his head? His brains exploded from the blow, and he fell dead on the shore.
哪吒正赤身站立，見夜叉來得勇猛，將身躲過，把右手套的乾坤圈望空中一舉。此寶原係崑崙山玉虛宮所賜太乙真人鎮金光洞之物，夜叉那裏經得起，那寶打將下來，正落在夜叉頭上，只打的腦漿迸流，即死於岸上。
(I don't consider myself a translator, so please forgive any errors.)
You can see that quite a bit of information was left out. This happens throughout the entire novel. This makes me angrier the more that I think about. Why even bother to translate something if you are only going to paraphrase or even skip over passages? It seems like a pointless enterprise.
Source:
Gu, Z. (2000). Creation of the Gods (Vols. 1-4). Beijing: New World Press.
#Creation of the Gods#Investiture of the Gods#Fengshen yanyi#FSYY#English translation#bilingual#Nezha#Third Prince#Lotus Prince
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Birth at four in the morning
"Sword in hand, Li Jing rushed into the bed chamber. There he found the chamber full of red light and fragance and saw a fleshy ball rolling to and fro near the bed. Shocked at the sight, he moved forward and struck the fleshy ball with his sharp sword. As it split in two, a baby boy jumped out amidst the red light. He had a white, beautiful face, wore a gold bracelet on his right wrist, and his belly was covered with a piece of red damask silk that shone with golden light."
we interrupt the scheduled JTTW content for a bit of FSYY, cus this portion of it haunts me, and i think we can always make things more gruesome and messy :D
in case anyone was wondering why this blog is +21, this is why <3
CW: BLOOD, GORE, BIRTH IMAGERY
#li nezha#third lotus prince#thrid prince nezha#fengshen yanyi#investiture of the gods#bell dragon art#cw blood#cw gore#cw birth imagery
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Not very lmk related but still
#my art#shitpost#nezha#lego monkie kid#lmk#lego#monkie kid#way to say good morning#meme#muzha#jinzha#it’s been a while since I last drew his brothers they’re silly#Fengshen Yanyi#investiture of the gods
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LMK Fanfic: The Wild Son
AO3 Mirror
Nezha-centric one-shot. Or, "how the Third Lotus Prince learns to stop worrying and enjoy the exploration of death."
CW for suicide and extensive discussions of it. Similar to my previous story, this is very FSYY-inspired, which is shorthand for "pretty fucked-up".
Y'know, with the novel's version of Nezha's suicide being the most graphic and all.
...
The Devaraja of the North has a wild son,
who bows not to his father, only the Buddha.
The Buddha knows of his stubborn unreason,
and sets upon his father's left hand, a pagoda.
——Su Zhe, "Nezha"
Over the years, he had really come to loathe That Look.
You know, when these brats (technically, all mortals are kids to him) learned of his suicide and just gaped at him in wide-eyed horror. Usually followed by an "I'm so sorry" or "It's not your fault" or the slightly less grating "Man, your father sucks."
Duh, Dragonhorse Girl. Duh. But anyone who talked shit about Li Jing was in his good books, and he could at least appreciate Mei's straightforward nature.
Still, whatever prior impressions he left, he knew he was now seven years old and hurting again in their eyes, and would never stop being so.
And it drove him nuts, because 1) it didn't even hurt all that much, and 2) why is offing yourself suddenly such a big deal? Apart from some ol' Confucian bores' rants about unfilial conduct, no participants in the War of Investiture had ever batted an eye at his death and resurrection; the problem was with what he did immediately afterward.
That said, death in the War of Investiture wasn't final, logical, or that big a deal either, until it suddenly was.
...
Unlike killing, death didn't get less confusing even after you've kicked the bucket once. Nor was spending your time as a spooky ghost and getting your godhood rudely interrupted helpful, when it came to understanding the boundary between gods and ghosts, and how some people could come back but not the others.
Well, according to The Patricidal 7-years-old's Guide to Death and Deification:
People die when they get killed.
At which point they turn into a ghost, and float around going "Woe is meeeeee!" for a while before moving on to their next lives.
Unless they don't want to move on. In that case, they just haunt the living out of spite, and to get free stuff.
But wait! If enough people treat the ghost like a god and give them offerings, they'll become one and...dunno, make a new body outta faith or something.
If someone's name is on The List, it's totally okay to kill them because they'll become gods after death.
Wait, isn't that dragon prince's name on The List too? Then why is his dad so angry when he killed him?
And sometimes, a Daoist master just pops a pill into the recently dead guy's mouth and they are alive again.
It took him a surprisingly long time to realize that The List was not all it's cracked up to be, and was basically the Poor Man's Godhood. Or that knowing someone would come back in the end didn't make their absence hurt any less. Or that they could come back, but would remain forever out of reach, shackled by the duties of godhood and the chains of causes and consequences.
And even when a quick resurrection was possible, every death scarred the soul, making it fray and tear at the seams. Seven was the maximum. After dying and coming back seven times like poor Senior Uncle Jiang Ziya, not even The List could take your soul without it exploding into a billion little ghostfires that had more in common with ambience Qi than any living spirits.
He wondered if his inability to understand this fuss around offing yourself had something to do with a scar, too.
But which one? Was it the first and most gruesome one, where returning your flesh and blood also meant ripping out the itty bitty pieces of souls that were embedded in them, clinging to your father and mother like muscle membranes on a bone? Was it the one that looked like an ugly crack on a gilded statue, widening, spreading, until it shattered altogether? Was it not a single scar, but a bunch of little holes in his essence, like wormbites on a leaf, or a pool of oozing sludge left by the Blood-melting Knife?
Assuming he still had a soul in the first place, of course. Maybe instead of a soul, there's only one huge patch of scar tissue where his three souls and seven spirits used to be, red and fibrous and angry.
Yeah, try pulling *that* out of his body with a spell, suckers.
...
A popular god gains new domains like new year gifts. Namely, you seldom receive the ones you want, are stuck with the ones you were tired of, and have no idea where that pile over there even came from.
Sun Wukong shared a domain with him as the protector of youth, a fact he was strangely okay with. He took the silly and mischievous ones, while Nezha dealt with the moody, rebellious ones. An amicable arrangement, as far as dispute between overlapping domains went; were they ever to switch places, the result would be a disaster.
This, however, was when a joint operation would be really helpful.
Alas, he had no such luck. So here he was, sitting in the Megapolis Children's Hospital's inpatient ward, next to a girl with owl-like eyes and tubes inside her nose, who asked him "Being dead, what does that even mean?"
...
Nothing, 'cause it's something that happens to other people. That was how he would have answered this question, back when he was still a real kid, and not an 18-foot-tall immortal plant construct who could choose to look like a kid.
He did wish people would recognize him as something other than "god of youth", though. Or realize his older forms existed too. Somehow, when Jinzha's master appeared as a little boy with five hair buns, people didn't stop worshipping Old Dude Wenshu or Graceful Bodhisattva Wenshu, but one too many adaptations later, Nezha was just THE Kid God, and not also the Three-headed Six-armed War God of Setting Things On Fire.
Bah.
But this was about Nezha the human (was he ever human, though, with the whole Spirit Pearl thing?) and Nezha the kid, not Nezha, Marshal of the Central Altar. Who didn't quite realize death was real, as in, a thing you should try to avoid for both yourself and others, and had been told that it was his destiny to dish out death to people in some epic upcoming war.
Master Taiyi, bless the old immortal, was a perfect case of someone who clearly cared so much, yet still managed to fuck up so badly.
For all his grudges against Jinzha's master (less about the whipping, and more about his damn cat killing the Jade Emperor), Wenshu made some good points: You did not tell a kid that you would protect him from all the consequences of his actions, then set him loose and expect him to not wreak havoc on unintended targets.
...
"What do you mean?"
He'd admit, this was not his finest hour. You weren't supposed to answer a question with a question, at least not in a way that didn't make you seem all mysterious and wise.
"I..." She trailed off. "I mean, I feel dead people all the time. Brushing past me, being all chilly and stuff. Since I'm gonna be joining you guys soon, I just wanna know...how it's like." The corner of her mouth twitched; either a grimace, or an attempt at smiling. "And you feel nicer than the others. Warmer, too."
He was no god of medicine, no matter how much he wished he could be one right now. Yet he could see the flames of her three souls, dimming with every passing second, as well as the blocks in her Qi flow, with one right behind her eyelids. Her sight was already gone, and in a week, these flames would go out entirely.
Sickness, he could heal, but not a passing ordained by the Book of Life and Death. As tempting as it was to pull a Sun Wukong, if he was to remove the name of one person, what was stopping him from removing another? And another? Before he knew, he'd be striking the name of every good person off it, and only chaos could result from that.
His gaze shifted to a small charm, fastened onto the bedframes with red strings. Made of peachwood, glowing gently in his vision, accompanied by the wisps of a prayer. Please watch over her, and take away her pain. Please don't let her face this alone.
Slowly, he extended a hand towards her, a tiny spark of pink flame dancing on his fingertip. If there were still ghosts in this room that hadn't fled when he first came in, they were definitely gone by now, as the darkness dispered in a surge of Yang-aligned Qi.
"...Wow." She visibly relaxed, with a sigh. "Thanks."
"No problem."
"Are you...also a kid, when you...you know? You sound like one."
"Yeah. But I've been dead for a long time. Long before this hospital was built." He let out a dry laugh. "I guess you could say I'm a professional at this whole 'death' thing."
"Huh. I thought after a while, people just...move on."
"They do, if they aren't trying to avoid the ghost cops. The Heibai Wuchang," he said. "Nowadays, they dress like cops too, but they show up for everyone, to take them to the Underworld. Not just bad ghosts that need to be arrested."
"What's the Underworld like?"
"Dunno. Never been down there." This was partially true. At the time of his death, the Underworld bureaucracy did not exist yet. Most of his knowledge of its workings came from chatting with Huang Tianhua, whose father was deified as the King of Mt.Tai, former head of the Ten Kings. "But you seem like a good egg, so they would send you straight to the Naihe Bridge, and onto your next life."
"That's...good to hear," she said. "I wanna know more about the, uh, ghost part, though. Does it stop hurting when you die? I've been...hurting for so long, I'm starting to forget what it's like, before...this."
"Yeah, the pain stops," he answered, "but so does everything else. You just stop feeling things altogether. Smell, touch, warm and cold and all that jazz." He paused. "Being a ghost is very, very boring."
"And you still don't wanna go with the ghost cops?"
"Well, I killed myself, and that gets you stuck in the City of Wrongful Death." He blurted out, before realizing that this was the worse moment to be honest, and braced himself for the awkwardness to come.
"Sounds like an awful place."
"Pretty much. They said it was just full of depressed ghosts, being depressing together," he chuckled. "Yeah, thanks, but no thanks. I think I'll pass."
"Glad I didn't...go through with it, then." She said, then quietly added, "I nearly did, when the pain got too much, and the cost just kept rising."
Well, that wasn't quite what he expected. But he wasn't too surprised, either.
...
They thought his suicide was an act of despair. It was insulting, honestly. Both to the strength of his will and spite, and his unconventional problem solving skills.
See, when people said that your body and skin and hair were given to you by your parents, the implicit message was So you can't do anything to them, and They own you, every bit of you, and above all, Obey.
You weren't supposed to give them back, not so flippantly. Yet it was the simplest, most obvious solution, in the same way beating up the dragon king who tried to sue you was. (Guess he really was Taiyi's student.)
At the heat of the moment, it was quite thrilling. Almost liberating. Like a snake shedding its skin, a baby bird breaking out of its eggshells. As the raging storm and roaring tides drowned out Fate and Destiny's ever-tolling bells, for a second, he really felt like this was the end.
No more Spirit Pearl, no more unruly child, woe of his mother, doom of his lineage. No more Li Jing, no more questionable advices from Taiyi, no stupid dragon kings, and none of that Vanguard of the Zhou Army crap. Just a kid sacrificing himself, laughing and laughing until he chocked on his own blood.
Just Nezha.
But obviously, things didn't end here. Death rarely was the true end, nor did it tie things up neatly, like cutting through a knot with a sword. It was more akin to what you got when you broke a lotus root in half, full of sticky, near-invisible threads, stretching on and on between the scattered pieces.
...
Believe it or not, this wasn't the first time he had to deal with suicide, kids, or suicidal kids. Especially after gaining one of his more recent domains. He is the protector of all young people, regardless of who they fancy or whether their bodies match their souls, it was just that those who didn't fit the common denominator tended to get a lot of shit for existing.
(As annoying as the "Third Princess" nickname was, he had no problem with people finding strength and comfort in his legends, in severing ties, defying norms, and blossoming inside a changed body. After all, that was what gods were; a mirror that reflected the worshippers' beliefs and needs back at them.)
A few decades ago, he was summoned by a teen, standing on the bank of a river, holding a stick of incense. Dunno where, just that it was a Hokkien-speaking area and one of his temples was nearby.
They gave him a hopeful look when he showed up, emerging out of the water like an actual lotus plant, yet remaining miraculously dry. As hopeful as someone in their circumstance could manage, at least.
"Is it okay if I ask you to curse my parents?"
"If that's what you want, you are praying to the wrong god," he replied. "And the kind of gods who accept such requests will make you pay a price you are never ready for."
"Damn. Guess I'll just have to come back and haunt them myself, then."
They knelt down to stick the incense into the mud, then started wading their way into the shallows. He sighed, and they were promptly dragged back by his red sash, struggling furiously.
"Let go of me!" They screamed, muddy water splashing beneath their sneakers. "W-Why? I don't get it! Why are YOU stopping me? You, of all gods! The child who hacked himself to pieces, and tried to kill his asshole dad——"
"And got a burning pagoda dropped on him for his troubles." He said flatly. "Need I remind you that it all took place a thousand years ago, and I'm no longer out for his blood?"
"Oh, so they'd beaten it out of you! Good for you, I guess." They snapped. "But not me. Why would you even care if a freak like me died or not?"
"gin-na, you just admit you are gonna become a vengeful spirit. And I literally have 'subduing demons and harmful spirits' in my job description. So maybe, maybe, I'm gonna have a problem with that?"
"Even if they totally have it coming?" They retorted. The first two buttons of their collars had come loose in the struggle, exposing the ugly patch of bruised purple around their neck, as well as implications of worse things. "I thought gods were all for karmic justice."
"Especially if they have it coming," he said. "Which is why I'm stopping you. It's not gonna work."
"What does that even mean?"
"Ugh. Look. Suppose I let you drown, without alerting any ghostly officials. Suppose that you come back, haunt your parents night and day, and don't get yourself exorcised. Suppose that you inflict on them the same torment you were subjected to, and drive them to madness or some other gruesome ends." He said. "Then what? What are you gonna do afterwards?"
"I'll just...move on, I guess."
"To do that, you 'll have to cross the Naihe Bridge. And the Underworld officials won't let you off the hook that easily, not after you've accumulated all this negative karma by haunting the living." He shook his head. "I heard they take 'Hell is other people' quite literally, and punish people who hated each other by throwing both parties into the same Minor Hell, giving them a pile of lethal weapons, and resurrecting whichever side that gets killed. Over and over again."
He leaned closer. "Is that what you really want? Getting stuck in the same pit with your parents for centuries to come? Mind you, even if you get tired of the violence, you are not allowed to quit until the Underworld officials let you."
Came to think of it, that was the War of the Investiture in a nutshell. No one was allowed to quit, not even in death.
"...No," they mumbled, after a long silence. "But it's still tempting. At least I'll get to do something to them."
"Well, here's a thing you can do to them."
"What?"
"Live."
"That's it? Seriously?" They stared at him in disbelief. "Because I own it to them? Because my very existence is a mistake or something?"
"No. Because you own it to yourself," he said, "and it is only a mistake if you believe so, and if they think you are a mistake, there's no better way to prove them wrong and rub it in their faces than keep existing. Think of it like this——you ain't gonna help them get rid of you, are you?"
"Well, if you put it that way..." they paused. "But I'll still be depriving them of their favorite punching bag, at least."
"Is that what you think you are?"
"It's what I have been for the past few years."
"Yeah, sorry, but hell no. You can be way, way more than that." He grinned. "Why be a punching bag, when you can be their worst nightmare instead?"
"I thought you don't want me to haunt my parents?"
"Oh, no. You are gonna drive them nuts in a whole different manner: by growing into a successful, well-adjusted adult they no longer have any power over," his grin widened, "And watch them age into bitter, miserable old farts who'll die alone and forgotten, knowing that the moment they die, they'll be dragged straight into one of the Hells in chains, suffer for untold eons, and probably spend their next life as ants."
"That is...satisfying, not gonna lie." They bit into their lips. "But until then, I'll still be stuck with them. Thanks for the reassurance, though."
"Does that mean if I let go of you now, you aren't gonna dash into the river?"
Upon receiving a nod, he whistled, and his sash loosened around the teen, floating back onto his shoulders. They staggered back; he prepared himself, watching out for tensed muscles and all the little tells of someone who was going to make a run for it. Thankfully, he spotted none, as they retreaded their steps back onto dry land, one muddy footprint at a time.
He wasn't entirely convinced that they wouldn't change their mind later, but it was a good start. And he had just the idea to make it an even better start.
His fingers started twisting in a mudra, weaving together threads of pink and golden light into the shape of his signature seal. No, he definitely didn't enjoy the kid's quiet gasp of wonder, as a lotus-patterned token fell out of thin air and right into his hands. It wasn't like he was a show-off or anything, unlike that ape.
"Here. Take this. Go to—" He paused and cursed himself. Dammit, he kept forgetting that mortals couldn't just sense temples and their giant beacons of faith. "Do you know there's a temple over there?" He pointed east, "Like, in that direction?"
"You mean Taizi Gong? Yeah." They nodded. "Grandma used to take me there."
"If you ever need a meal, or a place to stay the night, just show this token to the staff, and they'll help you out." He narrowed his eyes, and said the next sentence very slowly. "Also, if your life is ever in serious danger, like, no-time-to-call-the-cops danger, just hold it tight, say my name, and point it at whatever is threatening you. Do. Not. Use. It. Lightly. Understood?"
He intentionally let out a bit of his killer aura, as he uttered the last few words. Not hard to muster, considering the circumstances that first drove him to develop this token system. It was always awful when he was too late in his interventions, but he swore to the Three Pure Ones, if anyone ever triggered the spell with a prank call, when he arrived at the scene, they'd wish they got caught in the explosions instead.
They paled and nodded in quick succession, then started to turn away. Before remembering something, and coming to a halt mid-step.
"I...I don't even know how to thank you." They shook their head. "If it was too early for that. If 'Thanks' is even enough. But if you are right and I do find my way out of this mess, I'm building you a temple, Third Prince."
...
A temple. Build me a temple, mother. Build me a temple, mother, for I'm cold without a body, hungry without a stomach. He remembered himself crying out, once. Build me a temple so I can be back at your side again, isn't that what you want? What you said you would give up everything for, as you picked up my pieces and buried them in a shallow grave?
Build me a temple, or you'll never know peace again.
The most frustrating part wasn't how much he sounded like the sorts of ghosts he'd beat up later, a lot, as Marshal of the Central Altar. It was the lack of context. As in, there was no memory of the before and after. Just words echoing in a vaccum, with neither pain nor sensations attached.
It was the same whenever he helped a mortal. It was the feeling he got when, twenty years later, he stood in front of a temple gate, watching the person in a suit cut the red ribbons during its opening ceremony, and thought, I've done something like this before, long ago, inside my first temple.
But I can't remember what it was, or for whom.
He knew that was how ghosts became gods. Three souls attracted by the fragrance of incense, seven spirits nourished by the ashes of burnt offerings. Ten shades of a person, molded back together into something more than the sum of its parts, by countless mud-stained, callused hands, clasped together in prayer.
He'd watched it happen before, on the coasts of Fujian. Little Lin Mo Niang, disappearing beneath the waves, only to rise out of the tides later as Mazu, guiding fisherfolks and sailors to shore with her gentle red light, just like she did in life.
Or maybe he had more in common with Guan Yu. The fugitive, the warrior with the might of a thousand man, the loyal companion. Who, despite his promise in the peach garden, did not die on the same day as his sworn brothers. Specifically, how his vengeance and fury used to hang over Jingzhou like a plague, how his name was once whispered in fear, before it became the synonym of loyalty, brotherhood and martial virtue.
Perhaps ghosts became gods when mortals poured pieces of themselves into them, filling up the holes in their psyche. Making them more human than they ever were, and could be.
Thanks to Li Jing's destruction of his idol, he'd never know.
That——that was what sent him onto his roaring rampage of revenge, right after reviving in his lotus body. After everything else had been bled dry, rage was all he had. Like thick black tar, sticking to the bottom of a broken jar.
...
"What stopped you?" He asked, without really knowing why.
"My legs. Literally. They don't work anymore. And I'm...gonna die anyways, it's not really worth the effort..." Her breath hitched in her throat, yet she still managed to squeeze out the last few words, "Then my mom came back."
"I...I'm still a little mad that she left in the first place, like, long before this. But she had a nice singing voice, when she wasn't crying, and," she sighed, "didn't start arguing with dad again. She said I had a new little brother, and showed me the photos...and I was just like, hey, he looks like a raisin, and they laughed, and I haven't heard either of them laugh in a long, long time..."
She was starting to look dazed, stuck in that liminal space between dream and awakeness.
"And I, I wouldn't mind hurting a lil' longer, if it means I get to have more moments like that."
What if you don't? A part of him wanted to ask. What if those moments are no more than baits on a straight hook, carrots on a stick, making it so that you are willing to hurt longer and longer until it's not even fleeting happiness you seek, just the mere promise of release?
But that was the bitterest, crueler part, and it could fuck right off.
"I'm sure they are glad to have you, too." In the end, that was all he managed to say, in a whisper she might or might not have heard, and only got a small yawn in return.
"Well, you sound like you're about to doze off. So I won't keep you up any longer," he said. "Any last questions, before I go?"
"What do you...look like?"
"Huh?"
"When I die, I'll get to...see things again, right?" She asked. "And you can't be the only kid here. Just...wanna...go over and say hello, before the ghost cops come."
"Oh, I'm very recognizable. You don't see a lot of folks with twin hair buns nowadays." He laughed softly. "And I promise you, when the time comes, I'll be right here, inside this very room."
"Thanks," she nodded. "G-G'night, ghost friend."
"Farewell, and sleep tight."
...
When did you stop being fun? Sun Wukong asked him, once.
When you started being nothing but jokes, he wanted to scream back. When you shut yourself in your cave for five hundred years to take a depression nap, while I drain just as much power answering the prayers of mortals as I get from their worship, and my true body is stuck guarding the fire that burn away worlds. When Yang Jian had stopped giving a crap about everything that happened outside of his precious Sichuan, me included.
When I grow the fuck up, monkey. We all do, sooner or later, yet you never seem to.
But then he remembered the look on Sun Wukong's face, as the mountain came down. A look he had seen on the faces of so many souls, as they were called up the Terrace of the Investiture.
It was Ao Guang clutching onto his son's tendons with trembling, scaly hands. It was his mother kneeling in the dirt, begging for his life and unlife. It was him handing Huang Tianhua's head back to Huang Feihu. The eldest of Zhao Gongming's three sisters, muttering a quiet "Sorry, brother" before she was swept away by Lao Tzu's scroll. Guang Chengzi looking Yin Jiao in the eyes, as they dragged his plow up the hill.
It was a monk postponing his Buddhahood in favor of the path of the Bodhisattva, swearing a vow that, for every life, he should learn the meaning of compassion anew, and teach it to others.
A pig who was once a marshal, too weighed down by his desires to attain enlightenment, who nonetheless went on to live a good life, full of good food and few regrets.
A soldier made into a monster after one simple mistake, who decided he was better than that, and, with quiet determination, followed his brother and master into samsara as their guardian.
It was a white dragon, destined to set things aflame and be consumed by flames, yet burning brightly all the same, a goofy grin on his face.
So he just gritted his teeth and kept on fighting. It was what he was made for, what he always did.
And it wasn't enough.
...
But when was anything ever enough? When did Fate or Destiny ever pat anyone on the head, and tell them they did a good job, and they'd be free of suffering, just like that?
When were there ever easy answers, for mortals and gods alike?
Azure Lion thought there would be one, that the right person on the throne could magically make it all better, and he shattered trying to make himself into that person.
One step at a time. One answer at a time. A promise kept, a visit made. That was how you do it.
After all, the great lump of molten colors Nüwa used to seal the cracks in the sky——they were but little pebbles too, once upon a time.
...
"Told you I'll be here." That was the first thing he said, as he unsummoned his wheels and sat down in midair, cross-legged.
"Oh. Well. I," The translucent girl let out a small laugh. She tried to scratch her head, before realizing she couldn't anymore. "I certainly wasn't imagining this, when you said 'twin hair buns'."
"Do you have reasons to, though?" He asked. "People usually don't see the Third Lotus Prince on their deathbeds."
"No. But it's pretty obvious in hindsight, with the warmth and all these little hints." She shook her head. "Dangit. Now I just feel kinda dumb. Still, it's good to see you again, sir...Third Prince?"
"Nezha would do. I suppose I make much better company than the ghost cops, right?"
Behind the hospital screen, the man wearing a tall black hat grumbled something about people not appreciating their jobs, before being cut off by a "Ha! Checkmate, Lao Fan!"
"Yeah. It's a little distracting when you were dying, and two guys were just having a chess game five feet away," she said. "The cheerful one is a better player, though."
"Only because you keep giving him tips!" The man snarked back. "How does it feel like to cheat via a dying kid, Xiao Xie? I bet you feel real proud of yourself right now."
"How does it feel like to lose to a dying kid?" His colleague laughed, sticking his tongue out way further than any living humans were capable of, or comfortable with. "She gave you tips too, you just aren't good enough to use them well. And she's good. Real good. This one thinks she may just be a chess champion in her next life!"
"Thank you, Mister Xie. I learned it from my grandpa."
It was such a blessing that these two didn't exist yet, at the time of his death. As grim and thankless as their duties were, Xie Bi'an and Fan Wujiu were also the most annoying pair of ghosts he ever met, the former taking nothing seriously and the latter taking everything way too seriously.
"Hey. You two, shut up and show some respect." He snapped, before turning to the girl. "I'm sorry you have to endure their presence."
"That's right, Xiao Xie! Even the Third Lotus Prince tires of you and your constant jesting!"
"This one thinks if we pay our proper respect to everyone that has ever died, we'll have no time to actually do our job." Xie chuckled. "Besides, he is clearly talking about the one who is constantly yelling, and incapable of losing gracefully. But alright, this one shall do as you command."
"...Let's go talk somewhere else." He sighed. "These two clowns are giving me a headache."
She giggled a little, as the screen parted with a wave of his hand, revealing the two psychopomps sitting on the nearby bed. "Their hats do look like clown hats."
"The clowns can hear you, you know?" Fan snarked, before picking up his baton and making a gesture in their direction. "Whatever. Begone. And remember our deal: you have four hours. Not a second more, not a second less. Understood?"
"Did you just admit to being a clown too?" Xie grinned. "This one does think a red nose will suit you well."
"Sometimes I seriously wonder why I ever agreed to become your sworn brother, Xiao Xie."
He led the girl out of the room, just as medical personnels started coming in, carefully concealing his presence from the mortals' eyes. The girl made a face when her hand passed through the doorframe, but quickly recovered.
"Where are we going?"
"Anywhere you like." He replied. "Your home, your old school, that really cool arcade or amusement park you never get a chance to visit...and you don't have to choose one. Distance is not a factor at all," with a blaze of pink fire, his wheels were back under his boots again, "when I'm the god of speedy drivers. So take your time."
"Hmmm. I think," she said, after a long silence, "I wanna go see my mom, and my little brother first. Is that okay?"
"Yes," he nodded. "Let's be on our way, then."
"Alright. Leeeego!"
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"Ruthlessness" from Epic the Musical, but with Ao Guang as Posideon singing to Nezha after the child had permanently disabled/killed his son Ao Bing.
#chinese mythology#ao guang#nezha#ao bing#investiture of the gods#fengshen yanyi#journey the west#lego monkie kid#jttw#lmk
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