Across Different Lifetimes and Different Realms to Find You

Heavens 天堂

Happiness Is Like Sunbeam, Which Is the Least Shadow Intercepts, While Adversity Is Often as The Rain of Spring
-     Chinese proverbs

"I know you may have a misconception of Heaven, the things that you have heard was only a fragment of truth. Heavens is not just one Heavenly Palace surrounded by beautiful gardens. There are 9 levels  of Heavenly realm, the highest is the abode of Jade Emperor, and the rest of the Ancient and High Gods and Goddesses.

The lowest is for the immortals who work for the higher up in higher levels, or the celestial army families. Even though here are many residents in the Heavenly realm, but all are recorded and entry in Heavens is very strictly controlled and those with low cultivation level will be detected and banished below, which will be somewhere around your island realm." He FeiQuan raised his brows to indicate TaoHua and her predicament with her cultivation level.

Before TaoHua could say anything, the gentlemanly immortal continued pointing his tapered finger, "you may not be able to gain entry or even permit, but you should be grateful that I am powerful enough to bring you in." That finger went close to top of the peach sprite, to tap her forehead, "you just have to listen to you elder and follow instructions well."

TaoHua grimaced from that tap to her forehead, massaging the spot and ruefully bobbed, showing her docile agreement. She did not want to ask the obvious question of which level He FeiQuan belonged, lest she ruffled his feathers and the whole trip to Heavens would be cancelled.

The two friends planned their Heaven trip without letting the others know, with the exception of DaShu, as he was family and she rather got scolded, than lie to her loved ones. She had integrity. DaShu understood that she wanted to see Heavens, all of them do! And she was lucky to have the opportunity to with a celestial immortal to take her. He nagged at her to not cause trouble to He Gongzi, not to glow too much in case she caught attention and would be banished as she did not belong there.

After assuring DaShu, promising her best behavior, getting his permission to leave for days and to bring back a souvenir, she told him cheekily to cultivate harder so next time he could smuggle her. DaShu could only dotingly pat her head.

Off the white crane flew high up, passing several layers of clouds to reach the Heavenly Realm, with the dirty peach tied to his leg. They argued before about the position for TaoHua to be on, which the options were – back, wings, and legs. Wings were out of the question because he needed to flap to fly, then TaoHua asked why could not she be on his back, and He FeiQuan just retorted that it was not cool to have someone not stronger than him to be on his back. He was no one steed! He had pride and dignity to uphold, and so he rather tied her on his legs like a deadweight than having her on his back.

TaoHua retorted that why could he not do what Yuan LeiFeng did, stomp his foot and shoot up, or like the other pre-immortals to slowly ascent up. She felt so wronged but she perked up thinking of her special pass into Heavens and tied herself using silk cloth to He FeiQuan.

"Do not for any reason pass any wind! I'm right behind you!"

"Don't worry, when I do, I will fly slower, so you get the honor of this prince's wind", retorted He FeiQuan used to her shamelessness and refused to lose to her.

TaoHua just rolled her eyes and kept quiet, feeling quite a nausea from the flying motion on his feet. She closed her eyes and tried to pretend she was like the wind, lips thinned and soon she fell asleep from the ride.

He FeiQuan wondering why the chatterbox was uncharacteristically quiet, looked back at his deadweight passenger, saw her sleeping and smirked. This gal truly was non-appreciative, her first visit to Heavens, and on celestial crane prince, and there she was sleeping it off.

He shook his legs to wake TaoHua when he approached the Heavenly realm. She poked out her head and peeked out, not making any sounds. She truly wants to pinch the crane as the signal, the shake was a little harder than expected. Even though He FeiQuan had given her some lame descriptions about the Heavenly realm, he clearly did not capture the scenery well or explained any better.

When they arrived and He FeiQuan touched down on the cloudy ground, to which TaoHua saw was polished white stone, and a layer of misty cloud covering the surface. Before she could have better look ahead of her, He FeiQuan turned to human form and pretended to adjust his boots, to which, he was untying the silk cloth, and swiftly bundled the cloth with TaoHua in it and put them inside the right side of his wide sleeves.

TaoHua tumbled between the sleeves and cloth, trying to find her balance and stayed at the edge of his sleeve, so she could have a better view at the entrance of Heaven.

He FeiQuan waited for other fairies to walk forward and went together towards the gates, and greeted the stern Divine Guardians, Shensu and Yulu. Both Guardians wore elaborate armor, more ceremonial than practical, but together with their fearsome faces, they gave off an imposing aura, which TaoHua timidly ducked in and almost rolled to the bottom of the sleeves.

The celestial Divine Guardians were able to amount of people going in and scanned their identity and weapons accordingly to records with a glance. However, they always find newly minted immortals with their first time to Heavens to be annoying. Newcomers always had many questions and mixed with the traits of typical eagerness, nervousness, the Guardians had to do extra work, which was to double check their identities and weapons to make sure they registered them before the gates. 6 out of 10 of these newcomers, always had to be sent back to register at the Registration Pavilion before coming forward.

They had already put out the papers with clear instructions by the gate, to what the new first entries had to follow. They even made the wordings bigger so no one would miss seeing and made excuses about it. And plus, they even had the Registration Pavilion near the gates this century!

Some newcomers tried to skip protocol with various reasons, they claim to know who and who, stomach ache and need to use the lavatory, registration supposedly confirmed but didn't know why didn't show up, but best of all and classic one that never failed to make both Shensu and Yulu laugh at the hilarity, was the line, "Do you know who I am?!"

Who do they think they were? They had emperors, strongest warriors, priestesses and those masters of whatever sects, they themselves were kings before, so who were these puny ex-human or ex sprite? Pssshhh.

Thus, when Shensu and Yulu saw the group of what looked like typical newcomers, they groaned inwardly while projecting stern images. And this was how He FeiQuan smuggled TaoHua in, knowing that the guardians' annoyance could oversee a little immortal and a fruit that was, during the interrogation of the newcomers. He greeted the Divine Guardians, seeing their aggravated look without any reply back to the royal immortal, he just nodded and strode in, while saying good luck to the newcomers, swaying his sleeves.

After the passing the security, He FeiQuan shook his right sleeve, giving a signal that they cleared it, and peach replied by bouncing around his sleeves excitedly.