33 The Nine-tailed Fox gets drunk
Wu Yun sputters at Bai Xiaoli to wait for them outside, and she leaves the room cackling.
He gets out of the pool without a look back at Lan Tian, determined to put the odd mood of moments ago out of his mind. There's a bamboo chest in the corner of the room with several folded robes inside, that he doesn't remember seeing when he got in.
He rumages through the robes, and picks a set of emerald green ones, with long billowy sleeves, made of a thicker material, more appropriate for the cold altitude weather. He also wraps a matching cape with a white fur collar around his neck, to keep away the chill he still feels after getting into the cold pool.
Lan Tian only leaves the pool after Wu Yun is dressed and chooses much lighter blue robes, unperturbed by the cold as always.
Wu Yun ties is wet hair into a half-haphazard high tail, and leaves the room to meet Bai Xiaoli and her insufferable smirk.
During the whole walk she refuses to tell them who the guest is, and instead makes jokes about whether they're planning to give Wan Mi a little brother or sister.
"I think the glow of pregnancy would make Wu Yun much more agreeable don't you think?" she asks Lan Tian, who is sent into such a strong coughing fit Wu Yun is afraid he will pass out.
"That's not possible, Lu Jiao just told us, beasts are born out of things like snowflakes and dewdrops," Wu Yun says with a sigh, wondering if all gods are as childish as Bai Xiaoli.
For some reason his words only make her laugh harder.
---
Bai Xiaoli leads them to the courtyard behind the Phoenix's Perch pavilion, where individual wooden tables are set under the Wutung trees.
The low tables fit at most three people and they are all arranged in two lines facing each other. They follow Bai Xiaoli to a table next to where Lu Jiao sits with Wan Mi, and where a solitary figure sits alone, looking down at the tea and plum wine in front of him with a deeply uncomfortable expression.
His robes are dirty and ripped in places, and his skin and hair look like they're covered in soot and grime. It isn't until he can see his face that Wu Yun recognizes him.
"Lu Meng? What are you doing here?"
Lu Meng looks up at him, his eyes are sunken into his skull and rimmed with red, the skin surrounding them looks tender and bruised as if he hasn't been getting enough sleep. His cheekbones stand out in stark relief from all the weight he has lost.
Lan Tian sits down on the pillow next to his and asks, "What happened."
Lu Meng seems relieved to see them but the haunted look doesn't leave his eyes. "I've been looking for you for so long, I knew you were coming to the Kunlun mountains, but it's almost impossible to find them. Everyone I asked told me they should be around here, but I found nothing."
Wu Yun thinks of the jade token Wan Mi has and how the stairway only appeared to her once she rang it, and images Lu Meng running through the forest, increasingly more desperate and finding nothing.
There's only one reason why he would be so desperate to find them. "What happened to Jiang Tanmei?"
Lu Meng swallows around the lump in his throat, and his eyes fill up with unshed tears. "He woke up after 30 days, like you said, but he didn't come back right."
"What do you mean?" Lan Tian asks.
"His eyes opened, he ate and drank, but he didn't say anything. He looks as if there's nothing behind his eyes, he has no reaction to anything. I talked with him constantly but he doesn't even acknowledge I'm there, let alone recognize me."
The raw pain in Lu Meng's voice fills Wu Yun with guilt. He's becoming accustomed to feeling guilty. It seems that every time he tries to fix something he only ends up making things worse for the people he tried to help.
"Please, I don't know what else to do, no doctors or daoist priests have been able to help him," Lu Meng, clings to Lan Tian's robe with both hands, his voice is heavy with desperation.
Seeing someone who used to hold himself with grace and dignity reduced to the broken man clinging to Lan Tian's robes makes something inside Wu Yun tear painfully.
He did that.
Not even when Jiang Tanmei died did Lu Meng look this broken. Wu Yun gave him hope only for him to have to suffer the pain of losing Jiang Tanmei all over again.
"We'll try to help you, there must be a way to save Jiang Tanmei." Wu Yun leaves Lu Meng and Lan Tian and walks to next table over where Lu Jiao is attentively listening to the whole conversation.
An ashen faced Wan Mi watches him approach with a worried look.
"I told you I didn't know what would happen," she says, looking up at Wu Yun pleadingly.
"And yet, you gave a human one of your feathers, not being aware of the consequences!" Lu Jiao says, bringing down her hand hard on the tabletop.
"If you had payed more attention during lessons, you would know the reason why phoenix feathers don't work on humans as they do on Gods and Beats, is because human's hun souls leave the body right after death, and only their po souls remain. Beasts and Gods retain both hun and po souls in their body, until, in a Beast's case, they return to the ground from whence they were birthed, or in the Gods' case another god personally takes their soul to the Underworld to enter the cycle of reincarnation!"
Wan Mi lowers her head, "This disciple apologizes to Master for disappointing her."
"You should apologize to the human you brought back to life with only his po souls! Now the only thing he can do is go through the motions of life without any thought, reason, or feeling behind it. He can't talk, think, or understand anything being said to him! He doesn't even remember who he is."
Lu Jiao massages her temples as if she feels an headache coming.
"This is why no one is allowed out of the mountain until they are ready! You've always been too rash for your own good."
Wan Mi's head disappears further into her shoulders, and Lu Jiao turns to Wu Yun.
"Humans are not allowed into Kunlun, we opened an exception because he was asking for you specifically and what happened to his lover was the fault of one of our own."
"So you can help Jiang Tanmei?" Wu Yun asks. He's confused about the whole soul conversation, but he thinks he understood the gist of it. Jiang Tanmei came back from death, but not all of him came back with him.
Lu Jiao shakes her head. "I can't, no Beast can. We are unable to enter the underworld and retrieve his hun souls."
Wu Yun's shoulders slump. "Then, how..."
"You however, might be able to," she says, interrupting Wu Yun. "Whatever is blocking your Beast nature, also blocks your access to your Beast core, which is the source of our powers. I can see your true nature through your human shape, but it's hidden, cloaked behind an impenetrable barrier. It makes you weak, but it also protects you from the things that would naturally harm those of our kind."
"So how do I enter the Underworld?"
"I also don't have the answer to that."
Wu Yun sighs, this conversation is proving fruitless, all Lu Jiao seems to be able to do is list off all the things she, and everyone else, cannot do.
She narrows her red eyes at Wu Yun's frown. "Will you quit your sighing? You and Wan Mi share the same unpleasant penchant for impatience."
Wu Yun and Wan Mi share twin looks of contempt at being compared in any way.
"As I was saying, I don't know how to reach the Underworld, because no Beast has any reason to go there. However, Gods and immortal cultivators do. There's a cultivation sect nearby, we often trade with them, they might be able to help you." She pauses, and the corner of her plump lips ticks up in an amused smirk. "I'm sure a minor goddess like her has no idea how to reach it, either."
Bai Xiaoli notices Lu Jiao staring at her, and grins and waves from the table in front of theirs.
Lu Jiao scoffs and turns to Wu Yun once again. "You might tell the human that he can stay here tonight, but tomorrow he will have to leave. Someone will take you to the cultivation sect, if you wish to help him. I suppose you can talk with Master Cang when you return, unlocking your powers now would be of no use, in any case."
Wu Yun returns to his table unsure whether he should feel grateful that there is a way to fix his mistake and help Jiang Tanmei, or worried that it apparently involves going down to the Underworld to do it. He has an intrinsic knowledge of what the Underworld is, and what it entails, but he has no idea what to expect once he gets there.
Lan Tian sees his worried expression and fears the worst. "What did Lu Jiao say."
"Apparently, Jiang Tanmei's hun souls are in the Underworld, and we have to go back for them for him to return to normal." Wu Yun says, letting all his weight fall down on the pillow, and hiding his face in his hands with a groan.
"How are we supposed to make his souls return to his body once we get there?" Lan Tian asks, always focusing on the practical details Wu Yun ignores.
"Ah, I didn't ask," he admits sheepishly.
"I'm going with you, I love A-Tan. I want to bring him back."
Lu Meng looks dejected, which is only half a shade better than desperate, and Wu Yun doesn't have the heart to tell him no.
"We'll see if you can. Tomorrow we're going to see a cultivation sect that apparently knows the way to the Underworld."
Lu Meng nods and then looks up at Lan Tian and Wu Yun, some of the former sharpness seems to have returned to his eyes. "The two of you aren't humans. You are like them, aren't you?"
He motions towards the table in front of them, where a man with gleaming carp scales running up from the sides of his neck and all the way up to his temples is eating what looks like raw meat. He's chatting animatedly with a woman with antlers coming out of her head, and a necklace of white markings around her neck.
The man notices them looking and gives them a dirty look. "What are you looking at?"
"Not quite like that," Lan Tian says, frowning at the carp. "But yes, we aren't human."
Lu Meng nods. "It doesn't matter to me, I don't believe the old tales anyway, you've never hurt me or A-Tan. I consider you both friends."
Wu Yun is confused by the seriousness of his words. Why would it matter to him what they are? It doesn't matter to them that he's a human, and that's a far greater offence.
The three of them have a surprisingly delicious meal of steamed vegetables and soft bean curd, and several other dishes that keep being brought to every table.
Wu Yun can't help his curiosity and tries the plum wine, with suspicion at first, and then with enthusiasm.
Lu Meng looks at him in wide-eyed horror as he watches him down cup after cup, but other than whispering something to Lan Tian, he doesn't say anything to Wu Yun.
The fragrant sweetness makes Wu Yun's tongue prickle, and the wine warms up his body as the sun disappears further into the horizon and the day turns into night.
It isn't until everyone has finished eating and the tables are being cleared that he realizes that having so much wine might not have been the brightest idea.
"Get up, Lu Meng already went to his room, we should go too," Lan Tian says, extending Wu Yun a hand.
Wu Yun's thoughts feel slow and woozy, like he's trying to walk underwater.
He looks up at Lan Tian's hand proffered hand with red-rimmed eyes. "I can't. The ground won't stop moving."
Lan Tian sighs and leans down to try and pull him up, but he doesn't have enough strength to remain standing for long.
After three more failed attempts Lan Tian lets out a tired sigh and picks up Wu Yun under the knees.
Wu Yun has enough presence of mind to wrap his arms around Lan Tian's neck.
He looks up at Lan Tian's amber eyes and feels like there's something he should say but his mind is slow as honey and just as sweet, so he just giggles.
"If you can't walk, I'll carry you," Lan Tian says, and Wu Yun burrows in against his chest, made warm by the wine and Lan Tian's arms around him.
---
A.N.: According to daoist beliefs all humans have 10 souls. 3 hun souls, and 7 po souls. Hun souls are the ying, spiritual ethereal nature and they leave the body after death. Po souls are the yin component and they are more 'earthly' so to speak, they remain within the body after death. The hun souls gives a human their personality and 'mind', and the po souls are responsible for the body and all that entails.
