Across Different Lifetimes and Different Realms to Find You

Discovery

  He FeiQuan had to praise himself for his ingenuity for thinking of small details as even though some gold peeked out from his sleeves, he had purposely worn his intricately gold embroidered overcoat, which helped to camouflage TaoHua shininess due to her excitement.

Then, he also prepared sandalwood sachets to mask the peach scent, putting them in both sleeves, around his chest area and one more behind his back. Some who stood near him and had sensitive noses would sneeze and politely stepping back. 'TaoHua, I am marking this down in the books! I will get back to you from all these losses of face!' He FeiQuan thought inwardly, while shook his left sleeve out of irritation.

  'What did I do?' TaoHua felt wronged.

New titles were given to the newcomers, to elevate their prestige as residents of Heavens. With so many new fairies and immortals, TaoHua wondered, there were titles such as fairy of what flower, white immortals, snake immortal, then the combination of color and flower fairy, or even element and place immortal, really, how did they come up with the naming system? was there a scribe that filed and recorded and then came out with new categories when they used up all the names for colors and combinations for instance?

TaoHua had once asked He FeiQuan for the chart to jot down the power structure, so she would know and befriend one high enough so if she attained immortality and start as a novice fairy with no titles, she would know who to seek for since He FeiQuan could be unreliable. Of course, she did not voice out him being unreliable, she just tactfully said when he was unavailable.

He FeiQuan with his selective hearing had ignored her and distracted her with another subject at that time. She reminded herself to question him again.

Eyes wide open to burn the image into her head so she could paint the grand hall for her friends, TaoHua took down the surrounding by heart and mind, so she would not miss any details. Seated on the gilded gold and jade throne, high up and many grand steps made of black polished stone inlaid with gold, was Jade Emperor, whom every immortal addressed as Yu Huang ShangDi.

The Jade emperor gold thread embroidered ceremonial robes, a crown with thirteen pearl-strung tassels and held a ceremonial tablet made of jade, his all-wise eyes and Long yet neatly trimmed beard, had a strong imposing air. Beside Jade Emperor, was LingQuan, standing straight with red armor and holding onto his heavy staff on his left hand, scanning the crowd, and behind the gold throne were the royal rulers were 4 ladies in waiting using fans larger sized than them, so slowly and gracefully moving them to create some wind movement. On the Jade Emperor and Empress sides were court attendants with half bowed back to show their utmost respect.

Having done looking at the people and their clothing and mannerisms, she moved on to see the Hall if Ordainment. The entire hall flooring was covered with fragrant wooden planks from trees only found from the Cherry Blossom realm. The grand tall pillars carved with dragons were gilded with gold leaves, eyes of the dragons, the biggest rubies TaoHua had seen, she had never seen a ruby until today but she was certain that was really big, as big as He FeiQuan palm.

While admiring the grand scene in front of here, the big bell hung on the floor was rung by an attendant and him and declared to start the process. And then the attendant closest to him in the middle of the court would then past the message to the attendant by the door, whom in turn, repeated and guided the first new immortal to step into the hall.

Why could they not just have a long horn to voice out what they want to convey, it could be a just a  one-person job. Or might it be that there were too many beings in Heavens who needed things to do? TaoHua thought to herself.

After each title was bequeathed, the Jade Emperor's ceremonial jade sword, tapped the immortals on the shoulders and the small ceremonial bell by the pillar below his throne would chime three times, and a court attendant would them announced the process as finished, followed with another court attendant by the door to call out for the next immortal to come forth.

All looked very orderly, and when TaoHua saw a familiar face walking in, she beamed and pinched He FeiQuan wrist to indicate she wanted to have a better look.

Not understanding what the pinch meant, He FeiQuan who was appreciating the curves of the fairy that just left the hall, ignored TaoHua, and she, in turn, did not wait for him anymore as she did not want to miss anything. This fairy was from her island!

TaoHua did not remember her name but she remembered the butterfly fairy jiejie was one of the quiet ones that did not curiously look at TaoHua when she first arrived and kept to herself and she achieved immortality, as quiet as she was, she quietly also ascended up to Heavens when TaoHua was still the new fruit in the island.
Now this butterfly fairy was walking slowly towards her spot and the court attendant had gestures for her to kneel for the title to be bestowed.

Big important news! She needed to witness everything closer so she could share with everyone when she returned. TaoHua moved within He FeiQuan fold of sleeves, He FeiQuan was tickled close to his underarms when he was shocked him to see that TaoHua had moved from his sleeve up to his chest. It looked like he grew a peach on his manly chest.

He FeiQuan coughed and tried to palm his chest to lower TaoHua, but who knew at that moment, when he coughed and hand palming, instead of lowering TaoHua, she fell out instead.

Plink.

The peach fell and rolled towards the black stone steps.

  "Ow! My back! My head!" TaoHua cried eyes shut closed, wincing from the pain. Why was the ground extra hard?

Silence.

He FeiQuan with his eye almost popping out of his sockets from the surprise, could not find his breath, not that immortals required to breathe but he was shocked still looking like heroic statues outside the hall. Even if he could not sweat, he was sure there were cold droplets on his forehead, back and not to mention his underarms. Thank Buddha for his foresight, he had those sachets around those areas too.

For all that they had planned, they had plan B in case she was spotted by someone of what she should do, but he did not plan on anything if she was to be discovered in front of Jade Emperor. Of all the celestial beings, she just had to appear in front of the hall with so many eyes looking at her.

At this moment, TaoHua dirty skin was almost cleaned off from all the rolling around In He FeiQuan sleeves, and in fact, she was polished and was a bit more shiny than usual from all the rubbing and polishing.

  "You! Wha...." TaoHua finally opened her eyes, mouth gaping, and looked around her, from the Jade Emperor robe hems as her angle was quite limited from craning her poor short neck to the surprised immortals. She paled few shades of gold, saw that unreliable person, and her only friend in Heavens, eyes, and mouth agape like a fish. Her rusty headgears started to work hard from the lack of use on how to escape the dungeon if she was to be punished to go to.
There were some gasps now on recognition of what just fell and rolled.

  "Gold peach fairy!", some exclaimed.

  "TaoHua ?", the fairy from the island exclaimed.

"I brought her back!" He FeiQuan exclaimed next.