The fish and the Sage had parted ways, but only one of them was satisfied.
Yun Jieshi had doubts about Bei Jun's story.
Yes, it must have been true that he was from another place. The little monkey didn't know if the Four Leaves the old sagely voice in his head spoke of was a place or some kind of organization, but that was where Bei Jun truly belonged. He wished he knew more than that.
Unfortunately, everything that Bei Jun told him wasn't guaranteed to be the truth. The little monkey didn't know the full scope of his powers, but the fish who was not a fish gave him an unsettling feeling.
His tale about this treasure he owned, which was supposedly stolen by the… Imp King was funny and had segments that he would really love to have fleshed out. For one thing, if Bei Jun really missed his stolen treasure, why was he so carefree? Even if he was confident that the Imp King couldn't use it, couldn't he do more to try and get it back? The bastard had been singing tunes happily while eating Mongues before? He looked like a content non-fish.
Be that as it may, though, Yun Jieshi was more willing to trust Bei Jun than the Imps. The Stench on them had already made Yun Jieshi their enemy more than their actions. He wasn't against beating them up along with their so-called king.
'I hope he will be easy to beat,' Yun Jieshi thought, and he pulled on the neck of the sack on his back. It was full of Shuang Fingers stripped from their shrubs.
After agreeing on the terms with Bei Jun, the fish had made a fuss about hurrying on back to the pond before the light returned. Nothing Yun Jieshi had said had convinced the fish to stay a little longer.
The little monkey had wanted to ask him many things, and he had already begun to devise a skillful way to do so without sounding suspiciously ignorant for a Sage.
He wanted to know where exactly this place – the Lower Southern Plateau – was.
He wanted to know why the Jade Imps had such a horrible smell – the Stench – and what it really meant.
He wanted to ask about that gargantuan bird that had swallowed up the world.
But Bei Jun had retreated to his pond quickly after claiming that a Sage didn't need luck for a quest as small as his.
When Yun Jieshi had asked again about what Bei Jun's treasure looked like, the fish repeated the line, "A Sage like you will have no trouble finding my treasure as long as you can find the cavern of the Imps."
It was yet another reason Yun Jieshi remained suspicious of the not-so-fish.
'I could just not do this,' he had thought to himself, but the prospect of acquiring Bei Jun's scales was just too good; it was even necessary when he thought about it.
While Yun Jieshi might have looked invincible to the Jade Imps, even without using his ruan, Bei Jun was more than a match for him in both speed and strength. The scales didn't just help Yun Jieshi grow in size. He wasn't yet sure if they improved his physical attributes, but the one scale he had eaten had helped him to get acquainted with his body some more. Suddenly, being a little monkey was more natural to him.
But all this didn't make Yun Jieshi confident about a confrontation with the North Star Tortoise, Bei Jun. He remembered that freakish, lightning-quick movement his magical eyes had failed to capture and the strange magic Bei Jun used to draw water around him.
The Imp King, was bound to be somewhere around the same league of power if he was able to survive an encounter with Bei Jun, and Yun Jieshi was supposed to face him.
'Yeah. It's not going to be easy.' Yun Jieshi sighed.
The little monkey needed more scales, for a start.
He needed to get bigger and feel more in tune with his new body quickly.
But as somber as everything seemed, Yun Jieshi had something to be glad about.
He had returned to the pond after his talk with Bei Jun. From the ice surrounding it, he had collected one of the sacks left behind by the Imps. He had stuffed his remaining Shuang Fingers in it and currently, he had just finished stocking more of them from the great pit after a long journey back to where he had started his journey.
Yun Jieshi threw a few Fingers into his mouth and chewed.
The cool wind from the pit, riddled with whispers, blasted his face, but it had no effect on him.
He looked around him.
'Pluck my life. That fish really thinks I can just do anything I want,' he thought, frustrated. 'I don't even know where those Imps live. I bet he assumes I'll just magically figure that out too. Should I wait for some of them to show up and then tail them?'
Yun Jieshi scratched his head. His fingers flexed and moved splendidly, and he could compel his tail – with some difficulty – to scratch his back. The effect of the one scale was indeed potent.
'Will they come this way again to fish at Bei Jun's pond?' he wondered. Now that he thought about it, did the Imps only fish at night? But that was when Bei Jun came out, and they were, in a way, afraid of him. Did they just hope he wasn't out eating the Mongues?
'Well, that's when the fishes come closer to the surface, I guess. The larger ones are just like Bei Jun himself – scared of the daylight.'
The world rumbled right then.
Snow was shuffled around; the trees swayed, some falling to the ground. Great boulders somewhere unseen fell with booms, and the wind suddenly became an enemy. Yun Jieshi was nearly swept up when it rushed against him in a fierce wave.
'Oh no!'
Yun Jieshi's heart skipped a beat.
He didn't need to be told.
The days are short, but the nights are even shorter.
The phrase rang in his head before he could gather his own thoughts.
The trembling grew more violent and meaningful, and then, it was as though this whole, snowy world was a ship that had bumped into a glacier. It shuddered so violently that Yun Jieshi was thrown up ten meters into the sky. His blood grew cold, and he froze.
The darkness started to recede. Orange light started to spew down from the sky, and the ugly texture that had been hidden in its darkness drew away.
Yun Jieshi fell back on the snowy ground, and he looked up in both awe and fear.
It took seeing it again to believe it completely.
A great beak, so large that the textures and scratches on it could almost be discerned drew back, becoming smaller and smaller with the distance. The malevolent eyes of the mythical bird it belonged to showed for an instant only when it was what might have been hundred thousand kilometers away.
…And then it was again hidden behind or perhaps within a black dot in the sky.
But the prongs of light next to this dot were radiant, flaring with light more brilliant than that Yun Jieshi had seen when he left the fog.
It was beautiful.
The light, with barely any heat accompanying it, made the world appear a lot more familiar and less sinister.
At this point, Yun Jieshi was filled with more awe than fear.
A small smile broke on his face.
'It's really not that bad, I guess.' Indeed. It was just a different order of things than he was familiar with. It gave the saying, 'The difference was like night and day,' a queer meaning.
Soon, Yun Jieshi was on his feet. The bright surroundings were encouraging. Everything was still, relaxed. So was he.
He drew a breath.
'I think this is the best opportunity for me to decide where I want to go. I should scout out the layout of the land a bit more,' he thought. A second later, he laid his ruan against a thick tree, its head pointed to the sky and commanded it to enlarge. He climbed onto it as it did.
The tree it was resting against creaked. Yun Jieshi hoped it wouldn't break, as the weight of the ruan – accompanying its size – registered to other entities that weren't the little monkey.
Soon, he was at a high altitude, and the world spread out in front of him… again.
Something caught his eye immediately. It was a familiar sight of glinting specks of golden light far into the distance.
They might have been calling to him, desperately seeking out the Discount Sage.