On the mountaintop, five figures.

Only Wong Tang was standing. Her robes shimmered pale gold.

Gaam Yuk Ying, swords by his sides, and Chan Bik sat cross-legged, facing each other. Their respective Masters sat behind them, and hand on their backs.

"Ascension is unlike the enlightments you have received so far," Wong Tang said. "To shed your physical form, to become a being of thought and spirituality, nothing can compare to it.

"We will do our best to help you, and you may do your best to help each other. But in the end, you alone must take the final step. Life into power, power into divinity. Take your divinity, and let it go into nothing. Good luck, children."

Further north, at the edge of Tsaam Lam, Yuen Muk sat in a pine tree, Tsaam Lei perched beside him. They couldn't stay too close to the Ascension site, it was too dangerous. Yuen Muk could only watch from afar.

"I think old Leoi Wo's overreacting." Tsaam Lei idly scratched his ear with a hind foot. "Of course divine intervention will cause some stuff to happen, but it can't be that bad."

"Have you told her that?"

"... No. I think some part of me knows she's right." Tsaam Lei sniffed the pine -laden air. "It's like... It's like when a human comes along and cuts down a tree. Once the tree is gone, what then? A space opens in the canopy, sunlight pours in, new plants fight to grow as fast as they can in that new space.

And was that supposed to happen? Is the human an intervening force?

"The way I see it, no, it's natural. Humans are part of this world, whether they admit it or not. But a god? An Immortal? When an existence that isn't truly of this world begins to interfere...

"Immortals Ascend from their humanity and become something inhuman. The Ng Dzeung came to the Mortal Realm from the Heavens in the first place to fill it with things, but now their job is done. I think, in the end, Old Leoi's right."

"Why did you say you disagreed with her, before?"

Tsaam Lei's ears drooped. "Because I don't want all my friends to leave."

"I'm still here. And Lady Gong, and Queen Gong Ming Dzue."

The little fox shook himself. "I just feel like things will change. I can't explain it... but I can... I can almost smell it."

On the mountaintop, Wong Tang asked, "Are you ready?"

In the pines, Tsaam Lei said, "I'm scared."

On the mountaintop, two humans breathed deeply of the cold air.

In the pines, Yuen Muk closed his eyes.

One heartbeat. Two.

A howling gale struck the mountaintop.

Yuen Muk's eyes snapped open, and he half-rose, almost toppling from his precarious position in the pine tree.

Wong Tang was still upright, just. Fists and teeth clenched, Gaam Yuk Ying and Chan Bik braced themselves against the howling wind.

Yuen Muk felt himself gritting his teeth along with them. How was anyone supposed to let go of anything under such circumstances?

Chan Bik's hair was torn loose of its bindings. The pink azaleas whipped away into the sky, scattering petals. She screamed in pain, the wind lacerating her clothes and skin. Ling Gwong was growing frantic.

"She's... She's not going to..." Yuen Muk leaned out of the tree, knuckles white. "Mui-mui!"

"Mui-mui," Gaam Yuk Ying said. A little trickle of blood ran from his lip where he had bitten it, and the cuts on his face where the wind had slashed the skin. "Do you remember what your Goh-goh taught you?"

Eyes closed, she shook her head violently. Her hair whipped into her face.

"Breathe deep."

"I... I can't."

"As deep as you can.”

She gasped and tried again, coughed, and tried again, and again.

“Circulate your hei."

"W... Where? Through which acupoint?"

"... I don't remember. It doesn't matter."

Chan Bik laughed in surprise, and for a moment, the howling wind seemed to lift, and she felt the warmth of Ling Gwong's spiritual energy.

Far below, palms pressed together, Yuen Muk screwed his eyes shut, desperately wishing he could be up on the mountain with them. Stay calm... You can get through this... 

"We'll get through this," Gaam Yuk Ying muttered. "Otherwise we'll embarrass Yuen Muk."

"So many people brought us here," Chan Bik murmured. "My family, our Masters..."

"... Tsaam Lei Si-hing..."

"Gong Lau Yan."

"Yuen Muk."

"B... Baak-hap. My Sing Sing." Chan Bik's voice broke, and she wailed in pain again. At the sound, Gaam Yuk Ying wavered. Gaam Bing, palms pressed against his disciple's back, frowned. 

"Yuk Ying. My boy, don't give up now."

A silver light flooded Gaam Yuk Ying's body. 

"I know it hurts, little flame," Ling Gwong cried. "But it's only your mortal body. You don't need it any more."

"Don't pretend the pain isn't there." Wong Tang's voice filled their heads. "Don't pretend the fear and anxiety aren't there. You're afraid, you're in pain. Don't repress it. Don't fight it. Don't run. Accept the pain and fear. Face it with all the courage you have. Rise with it."

Gaam Yuk Ying's eyes were silver light. Chan Bik glowed red and pink, like the five-coloured lights sometimes seen in the far northern skies of Wong.

The irises of Chan Bik's eyes were a shimmering pink. She let out a sigh, as if she had finally collapsed into bed after a long, long journey.

The world seemed to fall dark, with only the two of them bathed in their own lights.

And then the sky opened.

Ling Gwong took Chan Bik's hand, and stepped upwards.

From where he sat, Yuen Muk saw the tiny figure of the young man turn towards him. He clutched his chest, unaware that he had been holding his breath, that he was now panting. Yuk Ying looked a little different, he thought, and his form was changed, somehow. Were his shoulders broader? What was it?

Gaam Bing and Gaam Yuk Ying stepped up into the sky, and it closed.

Alone on the mountaintop, Wong Tang exhaled slowly, before turning her steps downwards.

---

"What do you think?"

Yuen Muk examined the space. Such a large cavern surely hadn't existed below the Dzak Hau range before. And yet, here it was, an enormous cave that could possibly fit the entirety of Mau-daan-si inside.

"This is where your old Master will be resting awhile. Isn't it nice?"

As he turned, a crystalline glitter followed him, running along the walls and roof. Otherwise, it was empty.

"Do you need anything else, Master?"

"Child, you understand what this place is, don't you? Don't try to pretend otherwise."

At last, Yuen Muk looked directly at his Master. She smiled, her fingers twitching as if she were fiddling with her pipe. "This is the first time you've properly looked at me for a while."

There was nothing he could say.

"You can still leave, if you want."

"And hand the responsibility of finding the disciples to Lady Gong? No offence, Master, but she'll probably get sidetracked by some adventure and forget about everything for a century. Or get bored waiting."

"She's a good girl, but she does have a tendency to allow herself to get distracted. Especially if she's trying to avoid something."

Wong Tang shook herself. Her lanky form elongated even further, growing, and for the first time, Yuen Muk found himself looking at the full form of his master.

She lowered her head, her thick whiskers curling and unfurling. Yuen Muk was as tall as one of her golden eyes was long. Filling the space, she laid her yellow-scaled form on the bare earthen ground, breathing gently so that she didn't send her disciple flying.

"Thank you for seeing me off, Little Gou."

"Shouldn't your granddaughters be here?"

"We have already spoken. And our understanding of life and death is different from yours. You'll understand, one day, when you join Gaam Yuk Ying and Chan Bik. I'm simply going to sleep. I'm still here, in the earth, in the rocks, in the mountain. This is not a final goodbye."

She blinked slowly, and he felt the weight of her age in that blink.

"I am very tired, child. I am glad that I had a disciple like you before I needed to sleep."

Yuen Muk bowed, all the words he wanted to say too large to squeeze through his throat. Wong Tang shuffled her ancient head a little closer, and he rested a hand on her shining scales.

"It's time to go. Good night, Yuen Muk. Close the door on your way out."

"Good night, Master."

They had entered the cave through a small opening in the rock. Yuen Muk exited, and with a single swift clenching of his hand, the rock crumbled, the opening vanishing beneath the rubble.

He bowed deeply to the rocks, threw his head back, and said aloud, "Well that's done. What now?"

---

He went back to Mount Faa.

Cheng Baak Gat had taken on his elder sister’s work with sincerity. When Yuen Muk saw him bent over Cheng Baak-hap’s journals, transliterating the characters from Dzue to Xiǎng, he wanted to sit down at the other end of the table and tease the boy as he had with his Junior Sister. But he wasn’t her, and when he would lift his head to quietly greet Yuen Muk, with a face that was so similar to hers, but eyes wider than her narrow, cheeky ones, Yuen Muk could only greet him back, and leave him to his work.

In the end, Yuen Muk thought that perhaps he needed to go somewhere different.

He travelled through Sek’seun first, now officially renamed Shísuàn. There were one or two demons about, trading materials, ostentatiously watched by Mou Dang disciples in their black and white robes. They bowed respectfully to Yuen Muk as he passed. He recognised the red-skinned demon, Huǒ Tú, avidly watching a small flame flicker in a stone lantern by the quayside at Yuk-hoi, now Yùhǎi.

People poured into the major cities, walking the streets with pictures of loved ones, pouncing on travellers, begging them to say they had seen the missing family members, lovers, friends.

"Please," the woman pleaded, clutching Yuen Muk's robes. She had an open, honest face, although her eyes were a little too large, and weather-beaten farmer's hands. "We haven't seen our little girl in years. We're afraid she'll never come home now, after all this. She's our only child!"

Yuen Muk looked at the man beside her, his head bowed and tears unceasingly seeping from his eyes, then at the paper they had pushed into his hands.

The picture of their girl stared back at him, her huge eyes out of proportion with her pretty nose and mouth.

He pressed the page back onto the woman and backed away with a polite smile. “I'm sorry. I've never seen her.”

Cheon, renamed Chūn, was much the same, although the marriage of the only Royal Daughter to the Regent of Dzue had given them some relief. The female children of the Shísuàn Royal Family were all already married, and Dzue Dziu Ming hadn’t shown any interest in other genders, so it seemed they were out of the running.

And that was how the years passed. Yuen Muk wandered across the Five Kingdoms, learning about medicinal herbs and techniques as he went, never staying in one place for too long. He visited Tsaam Lei, in the pine woods, and Mest’at, in what was now Zhàng, Naksatar had gone roaming south for a while, disappearing for several years. Wong, or Huáng, was quiet, with many of the phoenix having chosen to depart for the Heavenly Realm too.

And then Dzue fell.

Yuen Muk was on the south-westernmost fringes of the Five Kingdoms when he heard the news, following a local herbalist through the humid woods, as she pointed out a ginger that was good for treating fevers, and another for coughs, and this one to be avoided otherwise the spirit of the plant would curse the harvester.

Something about the colour of her skin reminded him of Gaam Yuk Ying, but then, so many things reminded him of his lover, these days.

It was worst at night, when the world was quiet.

The village was busy with chatter when they returned. The herbalist relayed the news to Yuen Muk in her limited Dzue.

“The pearl kingdom. It’s gone.”

“‘Gone’? How?”

She shrugged, unable to explain.

It took him a week to run back to the border of Dzue, without a single pause to rest.