In a different lake along the same winding river, a crane watched the full moon’s reflection rise within the still water. Reflected where the crane stood was a woman in white, carving a reed flute with a knife. The wind stirred, and once the ripples settled the crane was inside the reflection and the woman was standing on the water, her feet gently touching the surface as if it were tile. Despite the cold, the lake was not frozen. She tested a note on the reed flute, then grimaced and proceeded to carve a few more slivers off of one end. She tried again, and this time the flute gave a sonorous, mournful cry. Satisfied, she began to play a melody to the night, a tune she caught from fishermen while flying overhead.

Another gust of wind disturbed the stillness, sending a flurry of snow from the snow banks on the shore and scattering the music into the trees. A crane stood on the lake once more, and a fine-featured man stood before her with a scroll in one hand and his customary flywhisk of white horsehair in the other. With a flick of his flywhisk he beckoned her over, and the crane obediently lowered her neck for him to mount.

“Come, Bixian, we must go to Tianping Temple at once. I have just been informed that calamity has struck.”

The Qilin Sage rode atop his crane till morning, where he reached the temple situated on a snowy mountaintop. He dismounted, and Bixian, his crane, took on her usual human form. They walked together up the final steps to the temple doors, which were blown open with large pieces strewn about the ground. As they stepped past the threshold, it was clear that the rest of the temple did not fare much better: everything that could burn was smoldering, and everything that could be toppled had already become rubble.

“We appear to be too late,” Bixian observed.

The Qilin Sage sighed and made a sweeping motion with his flywhisk, clearing away some debris blocking their path. “I did say that calamity has struck Tianping Temple, not that it will strike. We are not here to prevent tragedy, we are simply here to witness it.”

Bixian walked a few steps and rested her hand on the base of a broken pillar. “I remember when we visited this place. It was thriving, filled with cultivars of divinity and their disciples. How could a place such as this fall so quickly?”

“Close your eyes and focus. Can’t you sense the traces of demon magic in the air.”

Bixian followed the sage’s instructions and breathed in deeply. True enough, there was the stink of demons mixing with the smell of incense and smoke. Another breath, however, brought in a sharp hint of celestial intervention.

“This is what happens when one is not careful and consorts with demons.”

“Truly,” Bixian whispered, though whether he meant the danger was in the demons themselves or in Heaven’s wrath, she could not tell.

The two of them wandered through the ruined temple, the Qilin Sage occasionally stopping to take note of the destruction or examine the scattered human remains. Most of the bodies had been immolated with barely any traces left; carrion birds had gathered overhead, but none of them dared to scavenge the bodies. Perhaps the temple’s wards still stood, a miasma either demonic or divine.

A single charred body stood at the center of Tianping Temple’s main halls. The entirety of their flesh had been burned off, but they still maintained an air of dignity from their poise. Their hands were clasped around a jade statuette of a tiger, charred fingers intertwined like the remains of a gnarled tree. Even in death, the Baihu Sage stood tall as befit their station. Unlike all the others in the temple, they died standing.

The Qilin Sage took the scroll in his hand and unfurled it in a single smooth arc. It stayed suspended in the air, and as he chanted a sutra the scroll began to glow with writing. At the same time, the body of the Baihu Sage began to dissipate, carried upwards by wind that disturbed nothing else. Bixian glanced to the side and saw other streams of dust rising as well. The bodies could not be interred, but rites could still be performed, spirits laid to rest. Ash mixing with the winter snow.

As she joined her hands in solemn meditation, she felt a sharp tug beneath her throat, like a choker tightening around her neck. It was a familiar feeling, the desperate wanting from a soul desperate to change their fate. The exact wish that would call the Qilin Sage’s crane down from the heavens, where she would appear and take them to a new life of study and cultivation. She felt it nearby, a wish desperate and alive.

Someone was still alive.

Bixian quietly took her leave and began walking in a large circumference, changing her direction when the tugging became stronger. Eventually she came across a black box, nearly completely sealed save for some horizontal slits near the top, just below finely engraved molding of clouds and tigers. Were it not for a latch on one side, she would have guessed that the box was hermetically sealed.

She placed a hand on the top of the box, which was nearly at the height of her eyes, and felt the cool lacquered surface. The box seemed to be made of cedar, and barely had a scratch on its surface despite the destruction around it. The character 禅 was engraved on the front of the door, which led Bixian to assume it was a form of meditation chamber. Though the Qilin Sage did not employ them, she had seen ones similar to this one in other temples. It was mostly used as a form of punishment for unruly disciples, a quiet place for them to contemplate their actions and cool their heads.

The latch opened easily. Bixian peered inside the meditation chamber and found a child of either nine or ten huddled in the corner, arms raised to shield her face from the bright morning light. Her hair was tied up in two neat buns, and she wore light blue neophyte’s robes that Bixian remembered seeing on other young disciples on previous visits to the temple.

Nonplussed, Bixian called for her master, whose annoyance with her wandering dissipated when he saw what was inside the chamber.

“Someone is still alive,” he said in disbelief, crouching down near the door and reaching a hand towards the child. “The last disciple of the Baihu Sage.” The child drew back from his hand, pressing her body against the opposite wall as if she could disappear if she made herself as small as possible.

The Qilin Sage retracted his hand and looked at Bixian. With a nod, she ducked her head inside and slowly offered her hand towards the child. “Don’t be afraid child,” she whispered. “Whatever happened is over. You are safe.” The child hesitated, but eventually took her hand and stumbled to her feet.

As they exited the meditation chamber, the box began to fold in on itself until it was a cube small enough to fit on a person’s palm. The child could barely stand and had to hold onto Bixian’s robes for support. The Qilin Sage took the cube and handed it to the child, who recoiled. After the second attempt was similarly unsuccessful, he handed the object to Bixian.

“What is your name, child?” The Qilin Sage asked. “Do you know what happened here?”

The child opened her mouth but did not make a sound. With a sigh, the Qilin Sage knelt down in front of the child and placed a hand on her forehead. After a few moments, he withdrew his hand. “A bastard daughter from a wealthy family left here to avoid scandal. How very mundane.” He stood up and touched the child’s shoulder with his flywhisk. Her robes shimmered and turned from blue to mauve, and she stumbled backwards, surprised. Bixian reached out to steady the child.

“I will take you on as a disciple,” the Qilin Sage continued. “From this day on you will be known as Qi Ping. Come, let us leave this sorry place behind us.”

He extended his hand to her for the third time. At last she took it, though she held on so lightly he was eventually forced to grab her wrist.

-

Qi Ping either could not or refused to speak. It had been ten days since they brought her from Tianping Temple to the Qilin Sage’s own Dichang Temple. He, unlike the late Baihu Sage, only had a small number of disciples, and they lived comfortably inside the small estate. The other apprentices approached Qi Ping warily at first, and after she showed no interest in socializing, they left her mostly alone.

The Qilin Sage set her to basic studies, and soon it became clear why she was found in the meditation chamber. The girl’s handwriting was abominable, and despite her continued silence she somehow disrupted multiple quiet meditation sessions. Art was an important aspect of the Qilin Sage’s cultivation, but Qi Ping could not play any instruments, held calligraphy brushes with the clenched fist of a child, and had no sense of movement or bodily control. The Qilin Sage did not dare give her a chisel or a needle in fear of her injuring herself or someone around her.

Bixian tried to give her the miniaturized meditation chamber multiple times, but Qi Ping continued to refuse it, going so far as hiding when Bixian approached. The crane felt pity for the girl but gave her distance as it was clear she did not welcome the crane’s presence.

She had trouble sleeping the past few nights. Something continued to tug at her throat, the same tug she felt when a new disciple was calling to her. Someone was unhappy and praying for escape.

She found Qi Ping at the edge of the lake. The girl was barefoot despite the cold, standing on top of a parapet that overlooked deep water. The ache in the crane’s throat grew stronger, and it all became clear to her.

Of course Qi Ping was unhappy here. The girl did not speak of what horror she witnessed at Tianping Temple, but the root of her dissatisfaction was deeper than the tragedy of the past few days. The girl did not wish to be a disciple, did not see the appeal of immortality or divinity. The rigors of training and cultivation were nothing more than punishments, with no future reward in sight.

“Do you wish to jump?” Bixian called out, knowing full well her voice would startle the child. As predicted, Qi Ping yelped and lost her balance. Bixian caught her by the wrist before she could fall into the water below.

The girl looked at Bixian with large, imploring eyes. Through the contact of bare skin the crane could feel the dim flow of history her master must have seen: a babe swaddled in expensive but unwanted cloth taken to the doorsteps of the temple. Tears of shame, rage, and regret falling onto the child’s face, long before its eyes could comprehend what they saw. Growing up without a childhood, tutelage by older peers instead of play.

Bixian came to those wishing for a change in their fate. She brought struggling scholars and unhappy brides to the Qilin Sage, who would take them under his fold, cut their strings of fate with his golden knife, and offer them a route to divine cultivation and artistic expression. What could she offer a child who was still unhappy in this place?

All she could do was apologize. “You are no happier here than you were in that box,” she said. “When I brought you here, your fate remained unchanged. I have failed my purpose. I can let go if you want.” She relaxed her grip on the girl’s wrist, giving her the option to fall.

To her surprise, Qi Ping grabbed onto her wrist as she was falling and held on tight. Her shaky legs bent until the girl could touch her bottom to the bridge, after which she sat with her legs dangling, one foot over water and one foot over stone.

“So you still have it in you to live,” Bixian noted. Qi Ping nodded. “But you are not happy here.” Another nod, more vehement. Qi Ping took several deep breaths through her mouth, loudly exhaling until something akin to a word escaped her lips.

“Leave.”

“I know you want to,” Bixian said, “but I don’t know where to take you.”

Qi Ping pointed upwards, and as Bixian followed her finger she realized that the girl was pointing at the evening star. By the position of the moon, it was bound to disappear soon, as the darkest part of night settled in and the constellations marched to morning.

Bixian saw no harm in humoring her. “Why don’t we follow the river downstream, then,” she said. “And if we hit the coast and find nothing, then I am bringing you back here. But if we find a home to your liking, you may stay there instead of remaining here. And we tell the sage none of this.”

She spread her arms and transformed into a crane, lowering her neck to allow Qi Ping onto her back. The girl was light and taking off into the air was much easier than it was with the Qilin Sage.

“Please don’t strangle me,” she said while they were midair, as Qi Ping had both hands clasped around her neck and squeezing tight. “I promise I won’t drop you.” After that, the girl’s grip relaxed, and through the rush of the wind Bixian could have sworn she heard a “Sorry.”

Together they watched the sunrise on the southern coast. Qi Ping took off her shoes and walked out towards the waves, the ocean still warm enough to wade at this latitude. Bixian took her shoes and winter jacket and rolled up the child’s trousers so she could go further, up until the water hit the middle of her thighs. The crane held onto the child’s shoes and kept a watch for dragons, though Nezha’s rebellion had quelled the Dragon Courts’ taste for human meat for quite some time. Still, there was no question what kinds of monsters lurked beneath the surface, ready to eat up a tiny morsel of a human girl. As she watched the sun separate into two entities, the real one in the sky and its reflection upon the waves, she was compelled to take out her reed flute and play a tune to accompany the rustling of the wind.

The melody caused Qi Ping to turn around, head tilted slightly in curiosity. Bixian chuckled to herself and walked to where the girl stood, the edge of her skirt billowing in the waves as she entered the water. “Do you want to try?” She held out the flute towards Qi Ping.

The girl took the instrument with uncertain hands and held it up to her mouth, mimicking Bixian’s own actions. She gave an experimental blow into the mouthpiece, and frowned when the flute barely emitted a whistle. Qi Ping frowned and tried again, taking a deeper breath. A shrill note blasted through the air, harsh and atonal, and she let out an angry whine and threw the flute into the ocean.

“Don’t do that,” scolded Bixian, watching as the flute arced through the air and landed in the water a few paces down. Qi Ping angrily folded her arms around herself and stomped her feet, splashing water all around her. Bits of spray scattered near Bixian’s robes but stopped in midair, suspended like teardrops before falling to the sand like rain.

The crane waited as the child’s tantrum subsided, then placed a hand on her shoulder. “Do you know what I am?” Qi Ping looked at her and shrugged. Bixian took her hand off the girl’s shoulder and, in one sweeping motion, transformed it into a large crane’s wing. “I was once just a crane. But through centuries of cultivation I was able to achieve human form and serve the Qilin Sage. It took me thirty years to master human speech; a decade more to learn how to play a reed flute. Did you think you could easily play it with a single try?”

Qi Ping pouted and turned away, her eyes fixed on the sun reflected in the ocean waves even though the scintillating light was blinding. After some time her shoulders relaxed and she looked back at Bixian, a hand reaching up to tug at her sleeve.

“What, you want to try again?” Bixian asked, and Qi Ping nodded. “Well, you’ll have to find the flute yourself. You threw it, after all. There are consequences to your actions.” The girl continued to stare at her with pleading eyes, but the crane remained unmoved. “I believe it fell somewhere that way,” she pointed, “though the currents may have moved it.”

The girl set out in that direction with a huff, taking high steps in the water with her back bent low. The tide was receding, and denizens of the sand began to emerge from their hiding places. Something touched Bixian’s foot, and she looked down to see a small hermit crab climbing its way up her ankle. She grabbed onto its shell and tossed it back into the waves. A flock of seagulls flew by, their raucous call punctuating the lolling conversation between wind and waves. As they disappeared into the horizon, she could still hear a high-pitched echo continue nearby. She turned and saw Qi Ping running through the waves, laughing as water lapped at her shins. She held the reed flute triumphantly up in the air, gesturing with it like a wand directing the ebb and flow of the tide.

Bixian let her run a bit longer, until she seemed tired and returned to the shore with an uneven jog. As Qi Ping put her shoes back on, Bixian noticed some streaks of blood on her soles and demanded to inspect the girl’s feet. Rivulets of blood leaked from several gashes, likely from sharp shells and rocks that went unseen in the sand.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Bixian accused. Embarrassed, Qi Ping retracted her feet and hid them beneath herself. After the crane gestured angrily, the child slowly untucked her feet and showed her injured soles again.

Bixian ripped off pieces of her skirt and tied them into bandages for Qi Ping. “When we get back, I’ll find some ointment to put on them in case they get infected,” she said, giving the wrappings a final tug. The way Qi Ping hid her injuries, hid her sorrows, and hid her needs, reminded Bixian a little too much of how her instincts used to guide her, back when she was more bird than human. An existence governed by fear and hunger. The first time she overruled those instincts and let a human approach her, even as her entire body told her to fly away, that was when her life changed completely.

“Next time you’re hurt, come to me and I’ll help you. You do not have to live in pain.”

Once Qi Ping had her shoes back on, with an extra layer of bandages over her feet, as well as her winter jacket, Bixian helped her stand up so they could fly back to the Qilin Sage. She was reluctant to get on Bixian’s back.

“One year,” Bixian promised. “If you are still unhappy, we can try and find you a new home.”