Let me just get something off my chest before I go on.

Fortune-telling is hard. Hard.

And I’m not saying this because a turtle-shell ricocheting against the wall into my face hurts like hell.

It is hard.

It wasn’t just difficult when I started out with next to no idea what to do with the shells except to bang two of them together to make funny noises. Years of experience have gone by since I was first introduced to it that day, with steadily accumulating progress, but it remains one of the most challenging sentient endeavours I have ever attempted.

I have improved a lot since then, but I still see no sign of approaching that fabled level of casually throwing the shells around and finding out what is going to be inside my next meal, so figuring out what was wrong with my body was a high hurdle, to say the very least.

…Mainly because I never really got to the throwing part.

It is just so insanely difficult to empty your mind and attune yourself to the cosmic energy or whatever you call it. I meditate for hours to clear myself of idle thoughts, only to have my efforts all frustrated by a sudden noise in the yard, or a sudden itch on my hair.

I didn’t even know hairs could itch!

…Sometimes I get it right though. Amid the millions of failed attempts. But it totally felt worth it.

But that’s a story from far later on.

What I'm trying to get across is that training in the fortune-telling arts was a very long and arduous process.

…And in those early days, it felt like I had bitten off on more than I could chew.

I was practicing by myself in the palace gardens, and naturally rolled myself over the snowy ground the moment exhaustion had gotten the better of me.

I held up the meagre pieces of equipment I had been familiarizing myself with.

They were turtle-shells whose brown scales had been thoroughly removed for other purposes by my sister, leaving nothing but the bony-white frameworks that had supported their masters in life.

…How was something so spare—so hollow—supposed to divine the fate of anything at all?

…I remembered being told once, that truth and answers were heavy. and powerful things. that couldn’t be irresponsibly given to just anybody who had sought them out.

—I didn’t specifically remember who it was that had said this to me, but since I couldn’t remember my sister rebuking it, she had probably agreed with it! Anyway, whoever it was had said that...

...Truth should only be given to those who were strong enough to handle them.

I looked at the white turtle-shells again. They didn’t look strong.

I was sure that a single strike from the Sixth-g Mallet would have easily flattened them. This I simulated in my head as a form of imaginary revenge for the tough time they had been giving me.

What was so magical about these empty things?

I wondered about this and a myriad other questions, as my free time ended without my notice and surreptitiously slipped into my scheduled work hours with Sister.

By the time I realized I had been dawdling...

I had already been punished for it.

‘Here’s your little deserter, Heng’e’, a strong, masculine voice declared as I felt a large hand yanking me upwards by the ears.

I squeaked painfully as I flailed my diminutive limbs about in the air.

‘Stop that!’ Sister called out from behind me. ‘You’re hurting her!’

‘She’s yours’, the masculine voice said, and I was suddenly flung across the garden, the Whites Above and Below switching places until I landed safely within my sister’s arms.

She gently squeezed my scalp as dizziness took over my skull, and I felt my spirit leaving my body.

There seemed to be three Sisters...

‘Why did you do that?!’ they said to the man—or men—before them in a reproachful tone.

‘...Merely to instill some discipline’, the men said as they approached, smiling darkly, as though it was something humorous.

Sisters’ brows knit together slightly. ‘Discipline is meant to induce productivity, not reduce it.’

The men stopped. A singular body of grim, pitch-black armor steadied into my view. A menacing violence filled the air surrounding it.

‘...She could stand to be toughened up with a little exercise’, the man said after a brief pause.

‘Regardless, it is still not your place to be disciplining my animal companion’, Sister said decisively.

‘I meant no disrespect, Heng’e.’

‘And please! Do not name me so freely. We are not in a state of war, Lord Yangjian.’

‘... As you wish, Milady.’ The man bowed, and his three eyes cast a quiet glance in my direction.

My eyes widened as I took in the man before me, staring into the eye on his forehead and wondering if I was still out of it. He was Lord Yangjian, a god of calamity and war. He was special even among all the other war gods, and along with his Invincible Spear, he was famed as the Warrior God Unparalleled, Ender of Positive Energies. He was also special among all gods in general, as one of the most direct princes to the Jade Emperor.

I suddenly remembered the person who had told me that only strong people could handle the truth.

Sister found me recovered enough, and let me down to make my obeisance to the god.

‘It is an honour to come before your divine presence’—

‘Dismissed’, he said brusquely, and turned back to my sister.

Not all gods were like Lord Houyi, I suppose.

This I thought, as I began recalling his gentle manner.

Lord Houyi wouldn’t have pulled me up by the ears, and he wouldn’t have dismissed me in such an abrupt manner. He would have even gone out of his way to have a cordial conversation with me…

I stopped myself as I felt lighter and lighter, wondering what was happening with me. I resolved myself to attend to the exchange taking place before me.

‘...So like I’ve explained, I will be the one to taking your shipments to Houyi on Earth for the indefinite future.’

‘But I don’t understand, what would warrant someone of your calibre to manage such a simple delivery line?’

‘It doesn’t hurt to be extra-cautious, Milady’, Lord Yangjian said as he straightened, and greedily took in the view before him with all eyes.

…At the very least, he was much more pleasant to talk with than this brutish, militant god.

It was obvious how he simply enjoyed being in the presence of my sister!

I’d learned about this! It was called abuse of authority!—nonfeasance!—a sinecure!

Suddenly, I shuddered to remember something horrible as I privately leered at the handsome but dubious god.

If Lord Yangjian was here…

‘Yu’er! Woof! Woof!’

…then so was his animal companion.

From out of nowhere, a gigantic black hound blocked the White Above as I turned around, his figure as large as a horse as it descended upon my poor little body.

I was squished.

‘O how I’ve missed you, Yu’er!’ the mutt barked.

‘Let—Go of me!’ I squeaked with all the panic and fury within my core.

You oversized pup! This I thought but dared not voice, as his humongous fanged mouth approached me, and watered me with its horrid juices.

Allow me a moment’s digression to introduce to you, my mortal nemesis, whom I regularly pictured underneath the Sixth-g Mallet…

…the Howling Heavenly Dog.

‘Xiaotianquan!’ I cried.

I could barely give him a piece of my mind before his long tongue appeared before my face and froze me into place.

Hold on a second! Your fangs have ripped apart countless enemies—not even the legendary stone monkey was supposed to be able to wriggle out of it!—and your tongue has tasted their foul, rancid blood!

—So what are you doing putting those nasty things so close to my face?!—what are you doing?!

—Sister save me!!!

This all I thought inside my head, as the great mutt happily slobbered his juices all over it.

‘Xiaotian has been looking for you ever since we arrived at the Lunar Realm, Yutu’, Lord Yangjian added in fond commentary. ‘How’s the bunny, Xiaotian?’

‘Amazing!’ he woofed.

Not… helping! I squirmed within my disgusting predicament.

In a split second, the hound relaxed his grip, and I managed to slip out of it.

Then I ran for dear life.

Soon enough, he had followed in behind me.

‘Wait up, Yu’er! I want to play too!’

His monstrous legs had little trouble catching up with me, and before long, he was pouncing upon me again.

‘Yu’er!’ my sister cried out.

That was when I was pulled into the air by a gentle hand.

By the nape of my neck.

And I could feel myself getting lighter and lighter.

‘Lord Houyi!’