Kylie Chan - Earth to Hell

‘So it’s not an issue?’ I said.

‘Of course not,’ the Emperor said. ‘There are plenty of gay Immortals, there always have been. The minute you stick a label on something it loses its true nature and you move further away from the Tao, which is nameless.’

‘But he’s black ,’ Bai Hu said.

‘I have the sudden urge to rap you sharply across the nose, cat,’ the Emperor said.

‘He’s not Eastern , I meant,’ Bai Hu said. ‘It’s not the colour, it’s the location . I mean, we’ve had Westerners gain Immortality here before …’ His voice trailed off. He raised his hands in defeat. ‘Okay. I just made my own point. Shutting up now.’

‘You aren’t just a sexist pig, you’re a racist one as well,’ I said with wonder.

‘The hell I am,’ the Tiger said. ‘He doesn’t belong to this Corner of the World. He should be Raised to Immortality in the United States, his home. He should reside on his own Celestial Plane.’

‘What about me?’ I said.

‘You too. If you were to gain Immortality, you should do it in the South, where you belong, and live in the Southern Celestial Plane.’

‘What about me?’ Simone said.

The Tiger opened his mouth and closed it again.

‘Oh, very well,’ the Emperor said. ‘But this is strictly for your ears only, you are not to share it with anyone. The Elder of the Southern Shen and I have been in contact for about ten years. We’re arranging a conference in a neutral territory, probably Antarctica. As soon as we contact the Western, African and North and South American Shen we’ll start making arrangements. We’ll probably do it when Ah Wu’s back and he can do the security in conjunction with each group’s people. We’ll thrash out a reciprocal agreement.’

‘Not North, South, East and West Shen?’ I said.

‘No, the Eastern and Western thing is just for convenience,’ the Jade Emperor said. ‘Actually, each continent has its own Shen, divided by the ocean or desert. So there aren’t actually any Northern Shen, unless you count Ah Wu who is the essence of the North itself.’ He shrugged. ‘Hardly anybody lives up there anyway — people there fit into their own region. So basically it will be a meeting of Shen from the six continents, and when we get together we’ll probably start formal naming and reciprocal diplomatic arrangements.’

‘What, Shen UN?’ I said.

The Jade Emperor made a soft sound of amusement. ‘Yes. Now that travelling between the Corners is becoming common, we need to deal with the matter of mortals attaining Immortality in a Centre outside their own. If they choose to reside in a different Celestial Plane, the option to do so should be open to them. Leo is a classic example of this; he is in the first hundred or so black people who have been through our Hell, and the first to gain Immortality in our Centre. Until now, we have had very little contact with other Celestials. The time has come that we should make an arrangement for free movement between the Planes.’

‘The demons are moving as well,’ I said. ‘Look at these stone things.’

‘ Precisely ,’ the Emperor said with feeling. ‘Mixing Western mystical stones with Eastern demons. And the biotech that One Two Two was experimenting with …’ He glared at the Tiger. ‘Absolutely not acceptable.’

‘I don’t do anything like that,’ the Tiger said. ‘My kids are just studying them. Just having a look. Working out what makes them tick.’

‘As long as that’s all it is,’ the Jade Emperor said. ‘Supervise your scientists closely. Interfere with the demons’ true nature and Er Lang will land on you so hard you’ll think your nose is your tail.’

Bai Hu saluted. ‘Celestial Majesty. I agree with you anyway.’

‘Jade and Gold,’ I said.

‘Ah.’ The Emperor leaned back. ‘Do you know why they are bound into servitude?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘They’re both obviously embarrassed about it, and I haven’t pushed the point.’

‘They deserved it,’ the Tiger said. ‘They should have spent the time in Hell.’

‘I didn’t see you charging out of the West to defend the honour of the Qing,’ the Emperor said.

‘You issued the goddamn edict telling us not to interfere yourself, Ah Ting,’ the Tiger said.

The Jade Emperor thumped his hand on the table. ‘That is the third time you have called me that, Bai Hu. Call me Ah Ting again and I will have you executed! I gained this appointment through cultivation and merit and that story is a lie ! You are walking a very fine line!’

The Tiger grinned and saluted.

The Jade Emperor turned back to us, serene again. ‘In 1843, a young man by the name of Robert Fortune sneaked into China. He wanted to free our nation from the scourge of the opium trade. You know about that?’

Both Simone and I nodded.

The Jade Emperor continued. ‘The opium trade was purely because of the tea. Young Robert thought that if he could grow tea in a territory of the British Empire, then the traders would no longer need to sell the opium in China to pay for the tea.’

‘He stole the tea,’ I said. ‘There was a show on the History Channel a while ago.’

‘I saw that too, it was very good,’ the Jade Emperor said. ‘Anyway, he travelled the tea plantations looking for owners who would be patriotic enough to help end this destructive trade. He was aided by a young woman who was both powerful and naïve.’

‘Not Jade ,’ Simone said.

‘Yes. Jade took the young man to a plantation owned by a Shen. You might say the Shen had inherited the plantation when his demon master was destroyed. The Shen, being just as naïve as the young lady, provided Mr Fortune with seeds, plants and tame demons to cultivate them in the British Imperial Territory of India.’

‘Demon master?’ Simone said. ‘Gold was bound to a demon ?’

‘He lost a bet and was bound into the demon’s servitude,’ the Emperor said. ‘The demon was destroyed, Gold was freed and he escaped with the deeds to a tea plantation the demon owned. He gave Robert Fortune the tea — directly in defiance of an edict issued by me that no Celestial was to interfere in human affairs during that time of conflict.’

‘The economy collapsed when the tea trade dried up,’ I said. ‘And opium addicts with no supply filled the streets. It caused the Boxer Rebellion.’ I inhaled sharply as I understood. ‘The Boxers worshipped John . They believed that Xuan Wu made them invincible. Gold helped cause the Rebellion. The civil war afterwards brought down the freaking Qing dynasty.’

‘And led to a century of turmoil that our nation could barely afford,’ the Jade Emperor said. ‘If we had retained control of the tea trade, it is possible we could have salvaged minor economic independence. As it was, we were at the mercy of the rest of the world. The West and Japan both moved in and carved us up. When they left, there was civil war again. You know the story.’

‘ Gold did this,’ Simone said. ‘He gave Robert Fortune the tea.’

‘And Jade helped him,’ the Emperor said. ‘I knew what I was doing when I issued that order. They should have known better than to defy me; I work only for the best interests of my human subjects.’

I straightened. ‘Right. I understand now. They’ve been in servitude, what? Nearly a hundred years?’

‘Not nearly long enough,’ the Tiger said.

‘Ah Bai’s right,’ I said. ‘Leave them in my service until they have completely atoned.’

The Jade Emperor gazed at me with wonder. I glanced at Simone, she had the same look on her face.

‘What?’

‘You are so much like Ah Wu sometimes, it’s uncanny. Are you sure you’re not his Serpent?’ the Emperor said.