The two clashed like celestial orbs, the impact they expelled upon hammering into each other, causing the world to quake. If the trees had legs, they would have sprinted away before the resounding shockwaves split their trunks, and if the rocks could fly, they would have soared before they shattered to bits.
Hot and cold blasted out each second, freezing and melting the grasses and portions of the bold rocks nearby.
The heat gushed from the ball of throbbing reddish-gold spinning flames; it was like a newborn sun as big as a football.
The cold swirled around its counterpart, a ball of pristine white light only as large as an adult human's fist. Harsh winds revolved around it rapidly. They met a perfect standard of clockwise rotation.
Even with his inexplicable resistance to the extreme temperatures, Yun Jieshi felt the danger. The heat was especially treacherous. It was easily more overbearing than the cold, and it was the only reason why he didn't dare approach the two entities.
Aside from wondering what manner of creatures these were, Yun Jieshi was greatly disturbed by their cries; they were driving him insane, and their movements were too erratic. It seemed impossible to move on without interacting with them.
Even if he opted to use the ruan to leap over them, Yun Jieshi wasn't too confident in his ruan being capable of resisting the scorch from the gushing reddish-gold mass of heat. Using the ruan would not go unnoticed anyway, and would force an interaction between the two entities and him; only goodness knew whether that interaction would be pleasant or otherwise.
After all…
"GET OUT OF MY WAY! I DIDN'T BOTHER YOU TODAY!" the fist-sized orb of cold cried.
"WHY SHOULD THAT MATTER? WHY WOULD I RESIST THE CHANCE TO FINISH YOU OFF ONCE AND FOR ALL?" The red ball of heat sounded as elated as it was furious.
"CHEAP! EVEN IF YOU EXTINGUISH ME, IT WILL ONLY BE BECAUSE THE LIGHT IS OUT! IF IT WERE ZI KUN'S TURN, YOU WOULDN'T BE THIS ARROGANT!"
"AND WHY SHOULD THAT MATTER? AS LONG AS I GET RID OF YOU, I WILL BE VICTORIOUS! WHO CARES ABOUT THE MEANS?"
The two entities crashed against each other dozens of times in the next few moments. The loud blasts of noise they made were an affront to the ears of all things. Yun Jieshi gritted his teeth. He felt them rattle with coarse vibrations. He couldn't take it anymore.
'I have to stop this somehow!' he thought.
The monkey did fear what might happen if the two creatures suddenly ganged up on him, but if he was forced to endure this any longer, he was probably going to lose his mind.
"STOP!" he shouted at the top of his lungs.
His voice carried a lot more intensity than he had imagined. It whipped outward and smacked away the noise from the raging explosions expelled when the two opposing entities clashed. Yun Jieshi himself reeled.
When did his voice become so powerful?
Was it always like this?
Who knew?
There was a lull right.
The two battling entities turned their attention to Yun Jieshi.
The little monkey gulped and readied to flee if there was a need.
"Who is that?" the gushing reddish-gold entity said. The ignorant, confused tone in its voice was unmistakable.
"Ah! I cannot believe it!" the fist-sized entity of wind and cold exclaimed. "It's a Sage!"
Before Yun Jieshi knew it, the entity rushed towards him. It moved much slower than Bei Jun, but faster than the Jade Imps; he could see it move quite a bit slower than in reality. At first, the little monkey was alarmed, but when he saw where the entity was aiming, he relaxed a little. The pristine ball rushed towards his free hand, and once it was close enough…
"Oh, Sage please let me nest in your hand! I beg of you! I beg of you! I will be eternally grateful!" it pleaded.
The ferocious cold from it blasted against Yun Jieshi, creating chips of ice at the fringes of his fur, but he hardly suffered from it. The only thing he lamented mildly was that once again, he was mistaken for something he wasn't.
'They are calling me a Sage too. Great.'
When the ball of cold started bouncing up and down desperately, Yun Jieshi hesitantly opened his hand. If the cold from the strange, cold entity wasn't capable of harming him, why should he be too hesitant to indulge its plea?
The cold entity nestled in his palm at once. It shifted and pushed itself deeper into his hand, forcing him to grasp it (as best as he could with his little hand).
As for why this odd entity wanted to nest in his hand…
'The Bonding Touch!' Yun Jieshi exclaimed inwardly.
And as if to affirm his thoughts, he felt great waves of cold get pulled from his palm and impart into the white entity in his grip. Visible swirls of cold wind and delicate flakes of ice surged around it and it began to grow, its pristine purity emboldened to the point of becoming hard to gaze at.
"Hua Dongmei, a young fairy from the Reed Lake," the old sagely voice informed.
'A what?' Yun Jieshi gaped.
As if to prove the truth in the voice's words, the glaring glow from the ball of cold diminished and crafted an intricate outline – a humanoid one.
Soon, a young, feminine body formed, extricating itself from Yun Jieshi's proximity. It was only about half the little monkey's height, but twice as human-looking. A delicate little girl appeared, pale of skin, with mischievous little eyes and thick brows on her heart-shaped face. She had short pot-black hair that glistened with gems of ice fashioned in little flower designs.
She was adorned in a hanfu of peach and sky blue. It hid her entire body except for her delicate little hands and feet.
"Ah~" the fairy expelled an unseemly moan of satisfaction. She floated high with her cute hanfu dancing in the wisps of cold wind she conjured.
Yun Jieshi watched, impressed.
The gushing ball of reddish-gold, on the other hand, was greatly displeased. The heat from it intensified and caused a few trees to combust at once.
"What are you doing? That's… that's cheating!" it cried. If it possessed a hand, it would have been pointing accusingly at the fairy.
The fairy looked the fiery ball's way and donned a devious smile.
"Haaaa~. Why should it matter?" she elatedly declared. "As long as I get rid of you, why does the means I use matter?"
The reddish ball audibly growled in fury.
Yun Jieshi placed a hand on his temple.
He had been growing increasingly less afraid of these two as the seconds passed. Their feud was as childish as it sounded.
As he did with Bei Jun, Yun Jieshi decided to use his false authority as a 'Sage' to get some answers from the two.
"What's going on here? Explain yourselves!" he commanded with a semi-perfect impression of Chu Wanning, a Divine being he had taken a liking to in one of the many Eastern fantasy shows he had watched recently.
It was the gushing ball of heat that spoke first.
"We were having a duel fair and square and when she saw that she was losing, this cheating wench appealed to you for help. You've given her an unfair advantage!"
"He's lying, Sage!" the fairy hurried to defend herself, flying rapidly over Yun Jieshi. "I was going about my business at early light and this idiot rushed to block my path. He is always trying to attack and extinguish me. He never even formally challenges me to a duel!"
Yun Jieshi… was puzzled, but not because he couldn't follow the story here.
'Ha. Doesn't this seem eerily similar to that folktale about the battle between fire and water gods which caused great destruction to the world?' he thought, his mind trailing off.
In any case, Yun Jieshi didn't know if he should take a side in this matter. A part of him was already sympathizing with the cold entity, the fairy, Hua Dongmei, but in the end, he decided to be a fair moderator. Sages were supposed to be wise, right?
Turning to the spinning ball of heat, he asked, "Why did you attack her?"
"I was…" the entity began passionately, but the words seemed to fail it. "…I only wanted to fight. I needed… No, I was…" All reasons fled from the entity's mind until it admitted. "I… I don't remember."
Both Yun Jieshi and the fairy were dumbfounded. It showed in how the latter almost collapsed to the snowy ground, and how Yun Jieshi slapped his own face.
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DON'T KNOW, YOU FLAMING IDIOT? YOU HAVE BEEN TRYING TO GET RID OF ME FOR AGES!" the fairy cried, incensed. She thought it was another attempt to insult her by the hot fool.
"W…What does it matter that I have forgotten why? I still have to get rid of you!" the fiery entity retorted, but its resolve was severely weakened now.
Yun Jieshi sighed.
"Do you remember your name at least?" he asked.
"Of course! My name is Honghuo."
Yun Jieshi frowned.
'Well, I guess he is a bit redder than he is gold. It fits,' he thought. 'It doesn't appear as though he is a fairy too, from the name alone. Now that I think about it, these two have a different feel to them. One is like—'
But Yun Jieshi was disrupted by the fairy's sneer.
"Is that a name you gave yourself? Hmph! You don't even have a form other than your chaotic flames, do you?" She cackled with her tiny hand over her lips.
"Be quiet, Hua Dongmei," Yun Jieshi boldly commanded her.
The fairy's eyes went round and she whimpered. She bowed her head as deeply as she could.
"Pardon me, Sage!" she cried.
Yun Jieshi wore a grin in his heart but outwardly he maintained a stern façade. A Sage's authority was… incredible.
He had greatly bewildered the little fairy by speaking her name even though they had just met.
'I hope she doesn't ask why I asked the other's name if I already knew hers,' he thought.
The Discount Sage puffed out his chest, nodded at Hua Dongmei's apologetic stance, and turned to Honghuo – the entity of flame and heat.
"If you can't remember why you are fighting her, what do you remember? Think back and think hard," he said.
Evidently, Honghuo wasn't as intimidated by Yun Jieshi as Hua Dongmei, but he was forced to take Yun Jieshi seriously because of how the fairy was acting. He didn't seem to have any inclination to call him a Sage and perhaps he didn't know what that even was given his… memory loss.
The entity cleared its hypothetical throat after doing a lot of thinking as Yun Jieshi had instructed.
"I can't remember much, but… there is a memory that lingers after I have wondered about where I'm from. I remember something was stolen from me – something very precious. I get the feeling that if I find it, I'll be able to go back where I come from," the entity said.
Yun Jieshi frowned.
'Stolen?'
Hua Dongmei raised her head and donned a puzzled expression. She had never heard Honghuo speak of this. Her immediate thought was that the great entity of heat was targeting her because of this so-called stolen item.
"Do you have any clue as to what was stolen from you and who stole it?" Yun Jieshi asked.
"Well, I don't have any idea about what this item could be, but I think I could have an idea about who stole it. Oh! I definitely know who stole it!" Honghuo said, suddenly growing excited. "The King! The uh… the Imp King! Yes! It was the Imp King!"