The Nine-tailed Fox is not a welcome guest

Xue Zhuan leads them through Youdu's serpentine streets like there's fire biting at his heels. In their short acquaintance, at least in his current incarnation, Wu Yun has never seen him so angry.

"What's a permit?" he asks Lan Tian, while struggling to keep up with both his and Xue Zhuan's long strides.

"Something Xue Zhuan takes very seriously, by the looks of it," he says, with an amused smirk.

Xue Zhuan finally comes to a stop in a road perpendicular to the large stone walls surrounding the entire city of Youdu. 

A small squat building, leaning sideways on a short wooden platform, with a worn down plaque where it can be read "Old Mao's Fine Dining" sits besides a sprawling complex of pavilions stacked on top of each other like an unlikely game of mahjong. A tall oak tree sprouts from the third level, surrounded by two other pavilions.

"This is exactly the kind of atrocity the permits are supposed to avoid," Xue Zhuan says, pointing towards the palace with exasperation.

"All of Youdu looks like this," Wu Yun says. They've walked past hundreds of other towering constructions just like this one. 

He notes the Prince of Qi's particular brand of authority in the severe geometry of the palace. Most other buildings in Youdu look more haphazard, and in Wu Yun's opinion, more charming.

 "And it's much better than it used to be!" Xue Zhuan says. "I'm trying to get all low buildings to be built next to other low buildings, and the tall ones next to other tall buildings! I don't want Youdu to be an eyesore." 

"I think it looks fine, it has character." Wu Yun says, not understanding, what's got Xue Zhuan so worked up.

"Youdu is a great city, and I want it to look as great as it is." A fleeting emotion crosses his face, making him look somber. "We won't be the laughingstock of the Heavens. Youdu will be greater than the Jade City, some day."

"Why would the Heavens care what the Underworld looks like?" Lan Tian asks.

"That's exactly it, they don't. Mos of the Underworld is inhospitable. Outside city gates everything is overrun with hungry ghosts, and violent demons, no one can live in peace out there. We've asked the Heavens for help hundreds of times, but we always get the same answer."

Xue Zhuan twists his lips in a mocking sneer, affecting someone else's voice, "Our business is with the living, you worry yourself with the dead."

If Ling Yan was running from the Heavens, Wu Yun understands why he thought Xue Zhuan could be trusted. Maybe, Wu Yun can trust him too.

"How do you become a King of the Underworld?" Wu Yun asks, eyeing Xue Zhuan's regal profile. 

"You know how mortal humans can ascend to godhood? Well, we can descend too." His smirk takes on a depreciating edge. "Officially, it's a great honor, but all of us down here have vexed the Heavens in some way."

"What did you do?" Lan Tian asks. 

"I was a Prince, when I was a human. The land of our province was really poor, some years the crops barely yielded enough to keep us all fed. I devised a water pumping and fertilization system that nourished the soil. I made it available to every farmer in our province. I lowered taxes for the regular people, and increased them for all the nobles."

Remembering the past makes his eyes red with unshed tears. He shakes them away like dust in the wind.

"In the span of five years, our province was no longer destitute, and the people were thriving. That meant fewer prayers. What do happy people have to pray for?"

Wu Yun realizes then, the twisted game they must have played with him.

"They sent you here, for your good deeds," Wu Yun asks, knowing from the curve of Xue Zhuan's neck, that he's right.

"For my service to the people of my land, I was sent here, so I could sentence them to be punished for all of eternity."

Xue Zhuan lets out a small laugh, filled with bitterness. "It isn't so bad now, that I'm in charge of the tenth court, but for the longest time, I was the one being punished every time I sentenced someone to years of torture."

Lan Tian places his hand on Xue Zhuan's shoulder, and squeezes gently. "I'm sorry, that it happened to you, but I think the people of Youdu are very grateful for all you've done. This is a confusing and odd place, but I can tell from the faces we've seen that for many of them, happiness only came after death."

His soft words and comforting touch surprise Xue Zhuan, but not Wu Yun, who knows by now that Lan Tian is unable to see a burden he doesn't want to make lighter. 

Xue Zhuan shakes his head, and sheds his melancholy like a cloak. The smile returns to his face, like the sun peeking through an overcast sky. 

"Well, some people clearly deserved to be punished, like the dog who built this monstrosity without a permit."

Wu Yun doesn't fully believe his sudden change of humour, but he knows to leave a sore spot well enough alone.

"How do we get in?" he asks.

The heavy gates don't look like they will open for them easily.

Xue Zhuan smirks and takes a heavy brass key from his waist sash. "There's no such think as a locked door for a King of the Underworld."

He approaches the gates, and shoves the key straight through the wood. Even though there's no lock in sight, the gates swing open with the loud metal noise of turning gears.

The inside of the palace is just as austere as the outside, dark wood from floor to ceiling, and scant light being filtered in through the opaque paper windows.

"How do ghosts even manage to build palaces like these?" Wu Yun asks, running his fingers through the smooth wood on the walls.

Xue Zhuan walks ahead, inspecting the empty hall, and looking behind the wall hangings for secret mechanisms. "They don't. Someone above burnt a paper palace for him. It becomes part of a ghost's possessions, and they can set up the plant anywhere, and a full building will spring up completely finished. That's why the permits are important."

Wu Yun turns to Lan Tian and rolls his eyes. If he hears the word 'permit' one more time, his eyes might just get stuck facing backwards.

Lan Tian opens a door to his right, and two blank faced women wearing simple maid robes come hovering out.

They seem to float a few cun above the floor, and from the shadow of their trailing robes, no feet are visible.

"Master doesn't want to see any guests," one of them says, her blank expression unchanging.

"Master is a very busy man," the other one echoes.

Wu Yun looks at them with raised eyebrows. Their eyes look vitreous and unfocused. He waves his hand in front of their faces, but they don't give any sign of having noticed the movement.

"Don't bother, they're paper servants," Xue Zhuan says, flicking his finger against the shoulder of the one on the right and making her swing back and forth like a paper doll. "They've never been alive, they're just constructs the ghost they were burned for can task with simple chores."

Wu Yun isn't surprised that someone like Min Guifen would be surrounded by servants even in death, but maybe his indolence is something they can use to their advantage.

"Your Master asked you to take me to him," he says, squaring his shoulders and trying to make himself sound as authoritative as Min Guifen would be.

Xue Zhuan snorts, and leans against a wall, like he's making himself comfortable to watch an amusing show. "That's not going to work."

"Master doesn't want to see any guests," the servant who Wu Yun is beginning to think of as Big Eyes says.

"Let me try." Lan Tian steps forward. "Your Master is looking for someone, take us to him so we may tell him where to find him."

That makes Small Mouth, the other paper servant, consider for a moment, but she ends up parroting Big Eyes words, "Master doesn't want to see any guests."

So at least they understand them, if Small Mouth's moment of indecision is any indication.

Wu Yun won't be discouraged by their blank faces. "I'm not a guest, I'm a friend, your Master is expecting me."

Big Eyes reels back a few cun, hovering in distress, but ultimately says, "Master has no friends."

Her blunt words make Lan Tian bite down on a snort, and whisper beneath his breath, "I bet he doesn't."

For something that was never alive to begin with, the two girls are annoyingly stubborn. Wu Yun has half a mind to try and see if he can crumple them into a ball, like the paper that created them.

"This is fun, I want to try too," Xue Zhuan says, walking towards the servants with his hands behind his back. "Let's see...I'm one of the Kings of the Underworld, and I demand an audience with your Master."

Small Mouth's answer is automatic, "Master is a Prince."

"A King's authority outranks a Prince's," Xue Zhuan says, affronted by their dismissal. 

Wu Yun is beginning to question if they can find Lu Meng and Min Fengyi in here, they might have been able to get through the door, but how would they get past these two nuisances.

He decides to put this to the test. He takes a step forward, beyond Small Mouth's line of sight, and continues walking.

She swivels on the spot, and says, "Please leave, the Master doesn't want to see any guests."

Wu Yun ignores her and continues walking through the long corridor, he opens a door and looks inside, for good measure. "I don't think I will."

Lan Tian and Xue Zhuan follow his lead and walk towards them, ignoring the paper servants complaints.

"Master will be displeased."

"Not as much as I am that he built this monstrosity without a permit," Xue Zhuan says, moving a flower arrangement out of its place, just to see what reaction that will get.

At the word 'permit' Lan Tian's eyes meet Wu Yun's and the two share a private smile. Secretly, Lan Tian enjoys it every time Xue Zhuan says it, because nothing that makes Wu Yun smile will ever bother him.

The two servants follow after them, but seem incapable of doing anything besides telling them to stop. 

They drone on the same variation of "Master doesn't want to see any guests", endlessly as the three of them poke their heads in every room, looking for any sign of Lu Meng, or Jiang Tanmei's souls.

Suddenly, Big Eyes changes her tune. "If you intrude on Master's house, Master will send you to the dungeon with the other unwelcome guest."

That makes Wu Yun freeze. He turns to both blank faced servants, and measures his next words very carefully. "I want to see the other guest."

Big Eyes replies, "Master doesn't want to see any guests."

Lan Tian catches on to Wu Yun's intention and presses on. "He doesn't want to see your Master, he wants to see the other guest."

Small Mouth and Big Eyes exchange twin looks of blank befuddlement. They lean towards each other, and then away, as if they might tip backwards at any moment.

Finally Small Mouth says, "I will call Master."

Wu Yun stops her with a hand on her robes. "He doesn't want to see any guests, remember? Seeing us would just annoy him, we don't want to disturb him, just take us to see the other guest and then we'll leave."

Small Mouth seems conflicted, turning from Wu Yun to Big Eyes as if searching for an answer.

Finally she makes her decision.

"I will take you to the other guest, and then you'll leave." She pauses. "Master doesn't want to see any guests."

"We got that already," Xue Zhuan says, with a huff. "I hate it when people repeat themselves."