Ruan Ye looked back at Ma Qianle, either oblivious to his anger or simply uncaring.  "I killed her. She was killing you, and it was the most expedient way of stopping her.  Furthermore, as a supernatural being that had killed a mortal, she was destined for death regardless."

Ma Qianle stared at him blankly.  "Get off my couch."

Ruan Ye cocked an eyebrow and leaned back comfortably into the corner where the arm and back of the couch met, his casual bearing in stark contrast to his formal mode of speech.  It was clear he had no intention of getting up.

"I'm serious," Ma Qianle said. "That man she killed wronged her again and again.  If you can still say you were justified in killing her, then leave.  Get out of my apartment."  He pointed angrily towards the door.

"And so I should allow her to kill you as well?"  Ruan Ye said, his eyebrows creasing.  For the first time, his growing irritation was evident in his tone of voice.  "I cannot, will not do that."  He shook his head.  "I do not understand why you show more mercy to a woman who would have had you dead within minutes than to me.  I have no ill will towards you."

"That's not the same!"  Ma Qianle shouted.  "She was defending herself!  You on the other hand just dumped me in the lake without provocation!  She told me she didn't want to hurt me.  She apologized!"

"That is immaterial," Ruan Ye spat.  "She was already responsible for the death of one mortal, and was about to kill another.  The laws state that any supernatural being that kills a mortal is to be put to death and their clan sanctioned, for your kind's own protection. Perhaps she was wronged as you say, but I cannot allow history to repeat itself.  I would rather be strict and risk some having harsher punishment than they deserve than be lenient and risk allowing harm to innocent mortals."  His voice was stern and even, and he had crossed his arms across his chest.

"Are you serious?  Yes, she summoned a ghost to brutally slaughter her husband but that bastard deserved it for what he did to her.  You can't condemn her for retaliating against the one who hurt her! "  Ma Qianle was furious.  'How can a person be so unsympathetic?' he thought.  'I knew he was an asshole already but is he completely heartless?'

Ruan Ye was frustrated by Ma Qianle's refusal to back down.  'Why can he not understand that I am trying to help him?  I already failed my duty to the people of this city once. If I had not, she would not have felt so helpless that she had no option but to kill her husband.'  As much as his role was to protect humans from the supernatural community, it was equally his responsibility to protect supernaturals from humans.  Though countless folktales made demons and spirits out to be evil beings, things to be feared, the truth was that they were no more inclined towards evil than the average mortal, though their moral standards might differ.  While they might kill and worse between their own clans, just like with most humans, they only turned to killing mortals when severely pressed, and when they did, it was catastrophic.

He sighed and tried to keep his frustration out of his voice.  "You have not seen what can happen when a demon clan decides that mortals need to be done away with.  I have, and I will not have it happen again."  He was firm, unyielding in his conviction.

Ma Qianle opened his mouth to continue the argument, but it was at this point that Wei Yaling, once again forgotten in the heat of emotion, interrupted.  "All right you two, calm down.  Neither one of you is wrong, and we've still got work to do, so let's just agree to disagree for now."

Ma Qianle made a face, but eventually he grudgingly acquiesced.  "...fine.  But that doesn't mean this conversation is over."

Ruan Ye nodded, returning to the calm and steady tone he had been using earlier.  "Let us return to our previous discussion then.  When you awoke, we had been discussing the disposition of the woman's immortal soul."

Each being had two types of souls, the mortal soul and the immortal soul.  There was some debate among practitioners of metaphysics as to whether those souls were each subdivided into other, smaller souls, and if so, how many.  Regardless, the exact number was irrelevant to the affairs of the underworld, so Ma Qianle's education had glossed over that aspect.  The mortal soul was bound to the body, and stayed with it after death.  It was a meager thing, lasting only the length of a single lifetime.  The immortal soul was what most people thought of when they talked about souls.  It persisted after death, and was what traveled to the underworld to be reincarnated based on its karma or, if unlucky, lingered in the mortal realm and became a ghost. 

Ma Qianle, who had scooted as far from Ruan Ye on the couch as possible, frowned, not understanding.  "Why is that a matter for discussion?  She's dead, doesn't her immortal soul go to the afterlife for judgement and reincarnation?"

Wei Yaling glared at Ruan Ye.  "Typically that's the case, but Keeper Ruan here was insisting that she had to be remanded to him.  I only barely had the chance to seal her in the first place."  She tapped the top of one of the jars.

"The law is clear regarding the disposition of supernatural souls that harm the agents of the heavens or the hells."  Ruan Ye said with a frown.  "As I have already expressed."

"Well, the law is also clear regarding the souls of ghost practitioners that die in the process of capture," Wei Yaling retorted. "And this one is even more important.  If that pendant is what I think it is, we need more information, and she's our only lead.  We can't let the soul be dispersed."

"If you two were waiting on my opinion, I think it should be pretty clear who I'm gonna side with here," Ma Qianle said acidly, glaring at Ruan Ye as well.  "Especially if you're going to disperse her soul completely."  Dispersion was the worst of the punishments for a soul.  Though the punishments of hell were torturous, as were the less desirable of the reincarnation paths, dispersion was worse than any of them.  As long as the immortal soul remained, there was always hope of redemption and reincarnation into a better life, but dispersion destroyed the soul completely, removing it from the cycle of reincarnation for all time.

"I don't think this is a decision we can make on our own here, unfortunately,"  Wei Yaling said with a sigh. "We should lay out our cases before the Yama Kings, and let them make a decision.  Ma Qianle and I need to go down to the hells to make a report on this in any case."

Ruan Ye nodded, rising from the couch.  "If I am to accompany you to the hells, I have some preparations I need to make to allow for my absence from the city, and Ma Qianle still needs rest to recover from the fight before we go."  He looked at Ma Qianle, his expression unfathomable.  He rummaged in one of his long sleeves, then placed a round brown pill on the coffee table. "I understand you have a low opinion of me, but I ask you to accept this.  You are more resilient in the face of demonic energies than most, but you have still been badly taxed.  This will aid in your recovery.  I will return this evening."  He bowed slightly, one hand cupped in the other, and vanished, not even bothering to use the door.

Wei Yaling looked at where Ruan Ye had been standing, then back at Ma Qianle with a sigh.  "Keeper Ruan is right.  You're obviously in rough shape.  Get some sleep at the very least before we go.  I'll keep an eye on these for the time being," — here, she indicated the two soul jars — "...and come back tonight."  She patted Ma Qianle on the shoulder sympathetically, and then she, too, vanished, leaving him alone.

He stared at the pill that sat on the table.  He recognized it for the peace offering that it was, but he couldn't bring himself to forgive the other man.  The ghost that the woman had summoned told him and Wei Yaling that the man's injuries were a copy of those he had inflicted, and Ma Qianle had seen it with his own eyes to be true.  The burns on the man's arms matched the scars on the woman's.  Regardless of her choice of methods, the woman deserved justice.  

Ma Qianle had had it drilled into his head from a young age alongside all the other students that the law was the absolute good, above all human concerns, but he had never been able to accept that. The law was rigid, unbending, black and white, and people simply weren't like that.  They had reasons and justifications, messy personal things that laws couldn't account for.  In his eyes, the man's crime of abuse had been greater than her retaliation, and yet had they each lived and been tried and convicted she would be put to death for attempted murder whereas he would only have served a few years in jail and then be set free to assault some other poor woman.  It wasn't right.

He rested his elbows on his knees and buried his face in his hands.  He stayed like that for a moment and then, coming to a decision, grabbed the pill from the table and swallowed it.  He couldn't forgive Ruan Ye, but that wasn't a good enough reason to reject his courtesy out of hand.

After all, he really did feel like shit.

flying_paper_crane

Author's Small Theater:

Yaling: Watching the two men argue So, any idea when these two idiots are going to stop fighting and remember I'm here?

author: Hey, don't look at me, I just write it

~end~

thanks to valiantxvillainous and  M.L. Peregrine for editing and beta reading assistance