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The Shouhushen Lo Pei-Yi. In the future, once I used them on official documentation, the stamps would be a symbol of my identity and authority. They would represent my word and my will.
This was a momentous occasion. You couldn’t do business in parts of Asia without a chop seal. In some way—actually, in a very large way—this was Guanyin telling me that I was finally real. I’d arrived.
The goddess peered at my signature with more effort and interest than I thought she would have spared for a test version. Maybe it was a little crooked. I could work on it.
I examined the seals themselves. Usually fancy chops were made from jade or chicken-blood stone, a red mineral that was pretty, if unfortunately named. But these were extremely heavy and dense, almost unnaturally so. The contrast between the black metal and the golden flecks—
“Wait a sec,” I said. “These aren’t—they’re not made out of . . . are they?”
Guanyin tucked the paper away before answering.
“They are,” she said, looking me in the eye. “They’re the same cosmic iron as the Ruyi Jingu Bang. You could say that, in a way, these chops don’t only represent you. They are you. I couldn’t think of a better material to make them out of. The most precious metal in the Universe, in my opinion.”
I was speechless. This was more than a gift.
I made a big show of carefully putting the seals back in their case. Once they were safe and secure, I threw my arms violently around Guanyin and hugged her with all my might.
“Genie!” she coughed in surprise. “You’re squishing me!”
Eh. As I knew from our previous fight, she was tough. She could take it.
16
It was uncomfortable to look at the apartment courtyard the next day and know it was a staging ground for the most important gathering that would take place in this epoch. The surrounding buildings blocked out the stained pink and orange hues of the morning sky, looming over me like gray monoliths. There were a lot more people than I had been expecting up and about. Mostly fitness buffs, running on the sidewalks in T-shirts and shorts. A couple of older folks, maybe faculty, taking unhurried strolls.
“Are you sure we won’t be seen?” I asked Guanyin.
The goddess stood next to me, surveying the area. “I’ve got concealment operating around us three layers thick, barriers impregnable to mundane means, and a web of silence that could muffle a shuttle launch. And if a human who isn’t you randomly wanders too close, they’ll feel the sudden urge to find the nearest bathroom.”
She winked. “That’s a unique little spell I cooked up myself.”
I smiled at her cleverness. “Where’s Quentin?”
“Here,” he said behind me. I turned to see him grumpily holding a large coffee toward me, a big scowl on his face.
That was incredibly sweet of him, especially since I hadn’t asked for it. It did my heart good to know that even though we were fighting, and we were still fighting, that my boyfriend was the least petty person I knew. He was all big heart and shouted emotions, with none of the silent, spiteful cruelty that I tended to—
I nearly spat my sip of coffee out. “There’s a ton of sugar and cream in this!”
Quentin shrugged. “They must have messed the order up. I wasn’t paying attention.”
Okay, so he was becoming petty. The student was learning from the master.
“Nothing for me?” the Great White Planet said, suddenly appearing to the side.
I’d been in this business long enough to stop caring when and how gods appeared on Earth. The Jade Emperor, the one time I saw him, needed to be announced with pomp and circumstance. Guanyin descended from the sky like the saint she was. And the Great White Planet got his jollies from popping in and out of nowhere; it was his prerogative. I couldn’t be surprised anymore.
“Boba shops don’t open this early,” I said. I chugged my erroneous caffeine to get rid of it faster and chucked the cup into a nearby trash bin. It left a disgusting film of sugar on my teeth.
“Just as well,” the Great White Planet said. “Bribing a judge during a Mandate Challenge is a crime punishable by dismemberment.”
He didn’t seem amused by his own joke. Perhaps he was still salty over what I pulled during the conference call. “You look upset,” I said, daring him to voice his disapproval of Guanyin to my face.
“I am,” he said. “An extremely serious problem has arisen. And the blame can be laid squarely at your feet.”
Quentin threw his hands in the air. “See?” he said to me, not waiting to hear what the issue was. “I knew this wouldn’t go down smoothly. When you screw with the process, bad things happen.”
As if to prove him right, a pair of bright red hands suddenly burst from the ground under Quentin’s feet, grabbed him by the ankles, and dragged him under the surface of the earth.
