They sealed Bixian within Li Jing’s Heavenly Pagoda, shrunk down and sealed within the tower that sat on his hand. She was stripped of her clothes and adornments, forced to wear the coarse white cloth of a prisoner. The room to which she was confined had few amenities: a stone table, and a stone chair. There was neither a bed nor a toilet; luckily she had already transcended such mortal needs.
The worst part was the lack of light. She was not enshrouded in darkness—rather, the room glowed gold, matching the pagoda’s exterior. She was trapped in this endless twilight, without any hint of the searing sun or weeping moon to help separate day from night.
At first she counted the seconds of her imprisonment, standing in her crane form with one of her legs tucked against her belly. Within her mind she envisioned an abacus, and soon began to invent new ways to keep tally: tracking by tens, twelfths, hundreds, then thousands. It became somewhat of a game, counting in ways such that she never repeated the same number twice. But no matter how convoluted her methods, eventually a pattern would emerge, and she was once more thrust into boredom.
She eventually had to change out of her crane form, as she had begun to pick out her feathers in fits of anxiety. She gathered the down feathers she had amassed, cupping them within her hands to make a makeshift pillow. They could have been used to make something, should she have the supplies. Give her some thread and cloth, and she could turn her feathers into filling for a doll, perhaps, or a pincushion. The confines of the pagoda, however, nullified her magic and prevented her from turning her feathers into anything useful.
Jailors visited frequently at first, young gods pompous in their immortality and their supposed authority. They peacocked around and made shows of their power, but it was easy to bite her tongue and refuse to talk.
As their visits grew more infrequent, two other surprising visitors replaced their ranks.
The first was Nezha, the Lotus Prince himself, the god responsible for her capture. He entered the tower with trepidation, lingering at the bars to her confinement where other gods would jeer and thrust their weapons through the spaces.
“No matter which interrogator they send, I still will not speak,” Bixian sighed, sitting at the stone table with her hands folded neatly in her lap. It was the position that infuriated her captors the most, she found. Pleading gave them an inflated ego, while ignoring them gave them reason to torture her further. Her cordial noncooperation gave them no excuse to inflict their cruelties onto her.
She watched coolly while Nezha fiddled with his adornments: the Universe Ring around his neck and tucked beneath his right arm, the Red Armillary Sash floating around his waist like a pleasant wind, the lotus petals adorning his armor and his spear strapped to his back. It took Bixian a minute to realize he was fidgeting the same way Qiping did, restless fingers reflecting a restless mind.
Despite their respective situations, Bixian said to him what she would say to Qiping when she was so inclined: “If you have something to say, then say it.”
Nezha flustered, the ends of his sash billowing erratically to reflect his surprise. “I’m sorry, I—” he then caught himself and stood tall. “I should be the one giving commands, prisoner.”
Feeling herself treading familiar ground, Bixian rose from her seat and walked towards the bars slowly. “I don’t have the feeling you are here to question me like the others,” she observed.
Nezha angrily puffed out his chest. “You don’t know anything about me!”
“No, I suppose not,” she mused. “But I am used to dealing with children.”
Even standing atop his flaming wheels, the boy had to look up to speak to Bixian. A brief moment of convection later, he rose up to meet her eye level. Even though they were at the same height, Nezha still felt small, a child compensating for their lack of natural height.
“You do have children then,” he said, his eyes wide. His tone was utterly innocent, almost tinged with excitement.
So that’s why he was here. To him, Bixian was a mystery, and like any child with questions, he desired answers.
“One child,” she corrected him. “I won’t speak more on the subject.”
“Are you doing this for them?” he asked with a genuine innocence that startled her. No judgment or scorn in his tone, only curiosity with a tinge of longing.
Bixian thought on the question. She had stolen the Knife at Liuying’s request, because over the years she was fond of the snake demon and wished her well on her endeavors. Given her circumstances, however, Bixian would not be vilified if she sold her friend out in exchange for her own life. What kept her from doing so? Despite their connection, Lady Liuying was after all just a demon.
Qiping. It was Qiping that kept Bixian from revealing it all and saving her own skin. She could already envision her daughter’s disappointment, the way her face would darken and she would withdraw into herself, not allowing anyone to come near. Qiping had found a home among the Qiao, and with one word Bixian could destroy it. So she kept silent.
The silence clearly disturbed the child-god, who bobbed up and down on his flaming wheels, head tilted down to look at his feet. Bixian had the feeling that if he were standing flat on the ground, he would be looking for a pebble to kick.
“Did I hurt you?” he asked suddenly. “When I captured you…”
“I can say it wasn’t fun.”
The boy—for despite all his godhood, he was still just a boy—chewed the inside of his cheek. “I know it’s not easy in here. I can’t do much, but is there anything you would like? Within reason,” he added hastily.
Bixian considered the question. She obviously could not ask for a weapon; even sharp tools like embroidery needles or an ink brush were out of the question. There was little sense bargaining for her escape, especially with Nezha; he was the Heavenly Pagoda’s first prisoner, after all. Yet she felt as if she had to tell the child something, as he was desperate to assuage his guilt. Thinking on something small and easy to find, her mind wandered back to the nights she spent in the middle of the lake, before she became a mother to Qiping, and then to the day spent at the beach, actions a young Qiping did in her fits of rage.
“I’d like a bamboo flute.”
-
Bixian’s second visitor was from a different station entirely.
The Weaver floated in, dressed in layers of silk and damask, illuminated by fine embroidery on every surface. Bixian was alerted to her presence by the rustling of her fabrics, and the scent of rose and warm silk that engulfed the prison in softness long forgotten.
“You are the crane?” she asked hesitantly, standing with her back against the opposite wall, as far away from the bars of Bixian’s cell as possible. As if Bixian were some dangerous beast that could lash out from the bars at any instant.
Bixian raised her head from where she was resting it in her arms and looked at the goddess reproachfully.
“I don’t suppose there are other prisoners within the Heavenly Pagoda,” she retorted.
The Weaver flinched, a sleeve reflexively brought up to shield her face. How foreign she seemed, an artisan standing within a structure of war. There was a time when Bixian would look to goddesses like her with envy; the easy way they carried their humanity—no, transcended it—when Bixian’s lot had to labor for decades and centuries to achieve a pale facsimile.
She had started her cultivation alongside the Qilin Sage. It was a while until she realized her jealousy. In the beginning she had her advantages, the foremost being her flight. But while she had remained her master’s primary form of transport, he was able to summon clouds to ride on as easily as any other sage or god. She was just more convenient.
How quickly the Qilin Sage was able to surpass her—well within his mortal lifetime. Energy not wasted on developing a human form went instead to the pursuit of immortality, which Heaven bestowed much more freely to humans than the likes of her. Despite her divinity, she was still an animal first, closer to demons than to the gods.
“I am not here to hurt you,” the Weaver said, dabbing her eyes with the edge of her sleeve. She was crying, Bixian realized. With steps that barely touched the floor, she approached the bars and held out her hands. “I am here to help.”
As she regarded the Weaver, Bixian realized how frail the goddess was. It was surprising to think this woman lived for years as a cowherd’s wife, at the whims of blustering gales and the scorching sun. How did this goddess find mortal life, with its daily trials and tribulations? Did her soft hands callous with each day’s work?
“Why do you want to help me?”
The goddess’ face turned scarlet. “How could you ask that? You know who I am—know what I have been through! I had to stand at the banks and watch as my husband and children tried to empty an endless river. I know the cruel judgment of Heaven and its unwavering laws.”“But for you they wavered. For you they bent.”
“They may for you as well—”
“I am simply a crane,” Bixian snapped. “If the Jade Emperor didn’t believe in my master’s wild conspiracy, I would have simply been culled, my feathers used to furbish one of the Queen Mother’s fine cloaks.”
“But you are here instead,” the Weaver countered. “And you will remain here until you speak, or until Heaven takes further action. You don’t even know if they already have. Perhaps your brethren have already been captured, and it is only a matter of time before one of them betrays the rest.”
Bixian stepped forward and held the bars of her prison, a hair’s breadth away from the Weaver’s hands. “How do you think you can help me?” she asked.
The Weaver unexpectedly took her hands. “Give in,” she begged. “Heaven is frustrated—they may still hear a deal if you offer. If it’s the difference between one child and the many, you may be able to save them. Grant them a long blessed life, even.”
“No.” Bixian clenched her hands and withdrew from the Weaver’s grasp. “Heaven took you from your family. They would kill mine.”
“Not all, not if you bargain. And if some demons die…”
“There are no demons,” Bixian lied.
“Humans, then. You can resist and cry from the opposite shore between Heaven and Earth, or you could agree and find at least some happiness, some reward.”
“You would go willingly now.”
The Weaver’s robes billowed angrily, and the goddess rose up, releasing a fraction of her power into the hallway. Bixian was reminded that to be Weaver was to handle many things. Clothes and fibers, yes, but destiny and fate as well.
“My husband and children are long dead. Their children and grandchildren barely remember me. Every autumn, I meet strangers across the sea of stars. So yes, Crane, I know your predicament well. And I tell you, there is little left of Heaven’s mercy. There’s so little power you have left. There is no shame in begging.”
A harsh laugh escaped Bixian’s lips. “Goddess, I have more in common with the magpies that make your bridge. Perhaps you’ll tread lightly next time you cross it.”
The Weaver recoiled as if struck. “I will speak to the Jade Emperor of our conversation,” she said as she took slow steps back away from Bixian’s cell. When Bixian did not reply, the goddess turned and took her leave, light steps quickly disappearing within the halls of the Heavenly Pagoda.
It's always been interesting how the Weaver doesn't have a lot of revisionist stories about her even though she's the ur-archetype of "goddess falling in love with a mortal." So here I am trying to do her justice, I suppose.