Across Different Lifetimes and Different Realms to Find You

Only Friend In Heavens

Months had passed with tranquillity, the Gold Peach fairies sang and danced while they were doing their tasks, such as picking fruits and nuts then making pastries together, weaving lustrous fabric, mixing pearls and other oils and whipping them to make creams. It was all very beautiful, like a dream scene and LiHua had at first drawn paintings of the fairies, capturing their daily activities, and her uncles loved them and kept them, as it was a novelty, then LiHua moved to do other things once she felt she drew more than enough.

After being bored doing the female arts, LiHua asked if she could see what the clansmen do, disappearing then turning back in the mountains again sporadically. The men upon return would take their wives away then returned smiling after a few days, and enjoy sitting and appreciating their wives doing their own things. Sometimes, helping out the females.

Compared to other other big households in the Nine Heavens, Gold Peach Clan had no attendants, only some animal sprites that they brought over from their old mountain home. There were many magical objects ZhiYe, designed and made to make their immortal lives comfortable without using their inner strength or magic, so they all could just relax and do other things, without bothering about these small things. There were many different kinds of magical boxes, a magic box that could clean dishes and clothes, then dry them up.

A box that you could throw old food into it, then it would produce soil like items that you return to earth to thank what had been given to them. Then there were magic food boxes to store food and another that had various heating temperatures to heat up food or to bake their pastries and food.
Her uncle was truly ingenious and this was only reasons they did not require domestic help and their attendants once achieving human forms, were also let go with many treasures to keep. The Gold Peach Clan loved their privacy and kept it so. LiHua praised ZhiYe and she was stunned when her uncle took out a smaller box.

It was the magic box that could store the fairies' songs, and that spiraled LiHua into action. She wanted to store stories from the human realm storytelling and plays and asked her male elders to allow it. Seeing this little fairy glowing with excitement after days of moping around, HuoRi agreed and went down to human realm himself to record the plays, he went around in different cities to acquire more to keep LiHua entertained.

LiHua jumped with joy when she saw HuoRi returned. She took the box with her grabby hands and ran to her aunts, grand aunts and grandmother, playing the record box. Days passed with LiHua memorizing some lines and playacted in some plays, amusing her elders. As a perfectionist, LiHua again ran up to her uncle and requested for drawings from the play costumes, so she could draw out the scenes to improve her shows. HuoRi relented and came back with paintings of the actor's makeup, costumes, even blueprints of the theatre.

When HuoRi returned and showed LiHua his haul, LiHua squealed and looked at HuoRi like he had slaughtered some monster, but in fact, her uncle merely stolen some paintings from some poor theatre master. She gave HuoRi a tight hug before running back to her room, gave him her thumbs up, and claimed he's the best Uncle and ran off.

Her elders just shook their heads, last time ZhiYe was the best Uncle, now it's HuoRi. This got LiHua busy and not coming it of her room for days.

When the youngest fairy of their clan came out, the ladies were shocked to see her, days without cleaning up, hair messy, black smudges around her face and clothes. They quickly put her into a large box, big enough to fit a person, and inside the box came water like it was raining, washing LiHua off her dirt, later on, the box would dry her out and LiHua would step out clean and dry. 

HuiSan nodded towards LiHua, standing by a simple wooden vanity table, and LiHua would meekly walk towards and sat on the vanity chair. She pleaded with her grandmother to do a very simple and fast one because she could not wait to show everyone what she did. HuiSan just smiled and continued her pampering her cute great granddaughter with braiding her hair, weaving flowers into her lustrous hair and coiling them the sides of her head. Looking at her pretty great granddaughter with her hairdo and face glowing after applying a soft layer of cold pearl cream, HuiSan herself glowed with satisfaction.

Seeing her great grandmother happy also made LiHua happy. LiHua asked sweetly if she could go now and her great grandmother said yes, she grabbed her thick stack of papers and rushed to find her favorite Uncle ZhiYe. She described what she wanted, which was a moving image roll, if she drew enough, it would show a short depiction of her story. It took some weeks, with LiHua inside the Alchemist room, quietly watching her uncle, knowing if she made sounds when he was concentrating, she would be escorted out.

Great grandfather Lim HeQi had been jealous not spending time with his great granddaughter and asked his Wife to help draw martial art stance moves. This later would be known as the Heavenly Maiden Hundred Flower Sword Strike Manual, which would be found and treasured in the human realm, which of course, would be explained later. Right now, this manual was only something to entice a little girl out of the Alchemist room to accompany her neglected Grandfather.

The unfilial great granddaughter accompanied her great grandparents, showing them her martial moves, which was better than the other fairies, who had no flair. LiHua did her martial arts fluidly like a deadly dance, making Lim HeQi very proud of her. But once ZhiYe came out with a new magic object, LiHua ran bouncing like a ball of energy, making her great grandfather glare at ZhiYe, to whom just smiled apologetically at his elder.

The magic box ZhiYe made was different than the others, it was an exquisite brass round spinner. ZhiYe tried to explain to LiHua what she could do and the limitations of the spinner. She had to draw smaller pictures in action moving from one sequence into another, then spin it.
The latest novelty item kept LiHua busy with drawing and showing to elders to entertain them until one day, the inevitable day came.

Gold Peach Clan elders had expected LiHua to ask them to take them to the different realms and they could not bear to see what will happen to this curious fairy. What if she saw the cruelty, the greed of power and desires of the humans, demons, and celestials? They could not agree to her request.

Dejectedly, LiHua moped around but soon regained her enthusiasm in her interests, martial arts, motion picture paintings, and listening to plays before she playacted to her family. Things seemed to went back to normal and the elders thought they managed to delay the inevitable.

To keep the energetic fairy within their protection, HuiSan even asked if LiHua wanted to attend banquets or even visit her only friend in Heavens, He FeiQuan. LiHua only brightened up at He FeiQuan as she knew she would only be veiled and speculated if she were to attend banquets.
LiHua asked for permission to make a new metal round painting spinner to give her Friend. For a few days, LiHua occupied her days to make her own spinner from grand uncle drawings and she had drawn He FeiQuan as a crane to become a man holding a fan. She knew that vain bird would be happy with her gift.

Before she left to the Celestial Crane Clan, she asked her family to give her the trust and she did not need protection and supervision. It was best, to be honest with her family that she wanted to do things without their spying. Her grandparents looked at each other and agreed, giving her the Magical Emergency Bell.

Their granddaughter could be mischievous and energetic but she was also understanding and practical, growing up on the island by herself for a while. Moreover, they had seen He FeiQuan, and the boy looked down to earth and had good manners. And if they had trusted for LiHua to be friends with He FeiQuan, they should be earnest and not secretly observing them.

Since it was LiHua first outing into Heavens, HuoRi took LiHua and explained how they could freely enter and exit their mountain and how they travel. Not all immortals could fly freely in the sky and swim freely in the water, each immortal had their traits and attributes. Gold Peach Fairies could fly but their husbands could not, being a previous human and instant immortal by eating the fruit, meant that they did not have many skills and had to rely on the magical objects and by cultivating. The first-generation clan elders could achieve traveling in the air already.

Even though the clan members were serving the celestial court as they lived in Heavens, they still had to let the Heavenly gate guardians know if they were to leave on official matters. There were many protocols in the Heavens and it was a good thing that elder Qiu MarKe has the foresight of not letting the celestials know that the clansmen could hide their tracks by turning invisible and undetected.

In deduction, LiHua might have the skill to fly by herself, but it did not mean she knows where each direction went where. And since she could not travel into the mortal realm by herself, she knew her only friend was very useful at the moment. After HuoRi saw her into the manor and He FeiQuan came out and greeted them, LiHua asked her to pick her up before the sunset and said her goodbye.