Jinghe awoke the next morning with a pounding headache, wondering what had just happened. She'd clearly been sitting at the table, drinking with Yanbo... drinking with Yanbo...

Jinghe swore to herself. That kid had phenomenal capacity for alcohol. But she...

She remembered everything that had happened last night, how clingy and sticky she'd been with Yanbo, how she'd muttered and asked for her to stay many times. Jinghe's face flushed red, and she wanted to knock herself out. She sat there for a while, feeling her rapid heartbeat, until it gradually slowed to a more reasonable pace. She buried her face in her hands. She would never drink alcohol in front of Yanbo ever again.

***

It didn't take long before the suppressed gossip reached Yanbo's ears. Although it traveled at a significantly slower pace now that Jinghe had made a point that she would not be accepting any gossip about Yanbo, it was still impossible to stop, anyways.

Yanbo quickly deduced that it was Jinghe that had been slowing the gossip down. Who else would do it for her? Who else could do it for her? She felt rather glad that Jinghe was doing such a thing for her, but she knew that ultimately, such an effort was futile.

It was inevitable for the gossip to reach higher-up ears, until finally, it made its way all the way to the Heavenly Emperor. At first, the Heavenly Emperor was angry at such pointless gossip and wanted to punish those who had started it, but the more he listened to it, the more he realized that they did have a point. And thus, Yanbo was summoned to a heavenly trial.

Yanbo was prideful, and so, when questioned, she didn't hesitate to confess everything. In a fit of anger, Yanbo was sentenced to be cast down to the mortal realm to suffer in an immortal body without any spiritual powers, to recultivate from the start, in order to see if she was truly worthy of being a goddess in the Heavenly Realm.

As Yanbo was given her final night to clean up and tie any loose ends in her work and delegate the rest, Jinghe barged in. Given that Yanbo had not been in the Heavenly Realm long enough to have any guards, only a servant or two, Yanbo was not surprised at the security breach.

"You came." Yanbo said calmly.

"You..." Jinghe said, her mind in a mess and her appearance clearly panicked. "You..."

Jinghe was unable to finish her sentences, but Yanbo had a mild idea of what Jinghe was trying to say, and what words were stuck in her throat.

"I already confessed it. Do you not believe it? I cultivated the demonic path, all the way up to godhood."

"But... what will you do now?"

"Be stripped of my spiritual powers and jump down to the mortal realm." Yanbo replied.

"But... how... how will you survive?" Jinghe stepped closer to her, as if a closer distance would help her reason better and get Yanbo to understand her reason. "The League of the Rising Sun. They're out to get you."

Yanbo shrugged. "I've survived all this time. I can survive a little longer."

Jinghe's breaths were scattered and shallow, and her gaze darted around nervously before she finally blurted out her offer. "I can help you. I can help protect you against the League. I can help you cultivate from the start."

Yanbo smiled shallowly. "Deities are not supposed to interfere in worldly matters, have you forgotten?"

"But... I... I... what about you, then?"

"I'll do what I'm told to do." Yanbo responded.

"But... I..." Jinghe's gaze darted around once more, circling everywhere and looking every but Yanbo. "I don't want you to go." The sentence dropped in volume towards the end, until it was the barest whisper. The collected expression on Yanbo's face seemed to drop a little, but it returned, without fault.

"And what status will you use to feel such a way?" Yanbo asked.

Jinghe didn't know what to say. "I'm your... I'm your friend!"

Yanbo's mouth twitched in bitter amusement. "Then, you mean you think that I'm right? That I'm right to cultivate the demonic path? That I'm in the good?"

Jinghe felt conflicted. She knew Yanbo. She understood her character. But yet, with this one characteristic, everything about her was characterized into a bad person. But was that right? Was she a bad person? But if she wasn't a bad person, was she a good person? Would a good person cultivate the demonic path?

Yanbo seemed to take Jinghe's silence as an answer. "Please leave, now. I have many things to finish, and have no time to entertain guests."

Jinghe was frozen and wasn't able to stop herself from being whisked away outside the palace and the doors slammed in her face.

So this was it, then.

Jinghe had a sudden urge to run, to run somewhere very far away, to escape all this, the swirling panic, the oppressive worry that stuffed her chest full and made it difficult to breathe. So, she jumped into the mortal realm and chose one of her older temples, where it seemed there weren't any people, and she barged in, shutting the doors behind her. The silence around her, the darkness of the night, and the emptiness of the temple made her feel alone and safer.

However, the silence didn't last long. Jinghe was just about to pick a spot to sit down when she heard soft noises, accompanied by dragging, heavy footsteps. From the footsteps, it sounded like the person was heavily wounded.

Jinghe immediately opened the temple doors and saw a young woman, who seemed about in her mid-twenties, hugging her arms to her chest and walking slowly, as if she'd been injured.

"Kid, are you injured?" Jinghe asked, walking up to the young woman. The young woman looked up at her, a bit of a dazed look on her face.

The young woman slowly shook her head. Jinghe suddenly realized that there were tears streaming down the young woman's face, and great sympathy overtook her.

"Come, sit down."

Jinghe started a fire with the wave of a hand. The young woman seemed to be too dazed to be able to register what Jinghe had done and numbly huddled towards the fire.

"Why are you crying?" Jinghe asked, slightly awkward.

The young woman was silent for so long that Jinghe thought she wasn't going to respond, but she finally did. "I don't understand... why he doesn't want me."

"Huh?"

"There's no reason. What is so bad about me? Yet he doesn't want me." The young woman clearly wasn't talking to Jinghe. She seemed to be murmuring to herself. "I've tried to catch his attention, but he always looks the other way." She sighed.

Jinghe was beginning to piece the pieces of the story together.

"I've tried multiple times to spend time with him, but he always finds excuses to leave." The young woman squatted down buried her chin her knees. "The person I love most on this world still turns his back on me."

Jinghe didn't know how to comfort the young woman. She tried, "how are you sure that the person you love most is this... young man? Perhaps, in the future, you will come across a person who you love more than him."

The young woman shook her head slowly and sadly. "It's him. I know it. Whenever I'm around him, I feel shy. Even though I feel shy and nervous, I want to always be around him. Whenever he's down or struggling, I want to help him. Whenever he refuses to tell me things, refuses to confide in me, I feel a piece of me here," she grabbed at her chest, "shatter. No matter what, I want to protect him. But, sometimes, it's nice when he cares for me. I like that, too. And I wish to stay by his side and protect him for eternity. Even though I know he's well-protected and lives under the radar, so no one will really hurt him, I want to help him nonetheless, help him be a little bit more protected, a little bit safer. And whenever people gossip about him, I want to shut them up immediately, tell them that they know nothing about him, and protect him from ever hearing such things."

Jinghe was frozen. Feeling shy around them... always wanting to stay by them... wanting to help them... wanting them to confide in you... wanting to protect them no matter how well-protected they already are... protecting them from gossip and any gossip from spreading... How did it sound so familiar? Who was she thinking about?

A face flashed before her eyes, slightly stiff and refined, cool and distant, but when that face was graced with a smile.

Jinghe stood suddenly. The young woman looked up at her almost tiredly. "Do you know how I feel?"

Jinghe was already out the door and flying back up to the heavens. The young woman seemed completely unfazed as she huddled closer to the fire.

"The Goddess of Justice and Equity and the Goddess of Karma and Revenge," she sighed to herself. "Truly a match made in heaven. The young ones today are truly in a world that is best to fall in love in." She shut her eyes, and faded away.

***

Jinghe returned to the heavens, out of breath, and dashed straight for the terrace, where Yanbo was being sentenced to jump off and be stripped of her powers to return to the mortal world in an immortal body.

"Yanbo!" Jinghe cried out. She had completely disregarded the fact that Yanbo had been sentenced by the Heavenly Emperor himself, that there was no going back against his order, the only thought in her mind to stop Yanbo from jumping off that terrace.

The crowd in front of the terrace parted for her, allowing her a straight path towards Yanbo, who was currently standing at the edge with her head held high.

"Yanbo." Jinghe said as she closed in on Yanbo. Jinghe was afraid to walk too close, afraid that if she walked too close, Yanbo would feel threatened and jump off before Jinghe could say anything. Therefore, Jinghe stayed a few feet away. She extended her hand to Yanbo.

"Come back." Jinghe said softly, a pleading tone in her voice.

Yanbo turned to face Jinghe, her face cold and flat as usual. But then, a smile shaped her face and warmed her voice, and she seemed almost as if she was chastising Jinghe in a loving way. "Why are you scared? You think I won't be able to come back?"

Jinghe wasn't able to say anything in response before Yanbo stepped backwards and fell off the terrace, closing her eyes. Jinghe cried out in alarm and went recklessly to jump in after Yanbo, but the crowd held her back, warning her against doing so.

As Yanbo's figure faded from view, Jinghe slowly stopped fighting. And then, with a tremor that shook the heavens, she fell to her knees.

They say, Jinghe knelt there for a whole year, with no one being able to move her. Every tremor of the wind, every rustle of the leaves, caused her to look around excitedly, calling out Yanbo's name, only for the spark to be extinguished and leave her more despaired than before. Spring came, spring went. Summer came, summer went. Fall came, fall went. Winter came, winter went. Jinghe knelt there without moving, unmoved by the beauty of spring and the warm wind, unmoved by the heat of summer and the laziness of the hot air, unmoved by the dying world and cool breeze of fall, unmoved by the endless snow and strong blizzards. Even the heavens had their seasons and weather, and Jinghe knelt there, unmoved, like a stone.

Finally, when spring came at the beginning of the second year, Jinghe slowly moved. After having knelt for so long, she couldn't stand properly, and she stumbled, crawling all the way back to her palace on her hands in knees. They say she had to rest and train for another month to be able to walk properly. Then, she finally resumed her duties as a goddess, but became dead and without life, existing and living not unlike a robot in the unfeeling and stiff way she did her work, day by day. Every deity in the heavens pitied her, and even the Heavenly Emperor heard of this matter. Feeling rather sympathetic himself, he summoned her to the Heavenly Palace and gave her a promotion, offered her gifts, all of which Jinghe refused. The Heavenly Emperor was rather offended by her refusal, and therefore refused anyone else to feel pity for her and made life deliberately harder for her.

But after a while, that hatred faded, too. Theysay it took ten years for Jinghe to smile once. They say it took fifty yearsfor Jinghe to laugh. And then, as hundreds of years passed, she graduallyreturned back to normal, with only a few bursts of that scary, robotic numbnesshere and there. Most people figured she'd forgotten, that she'd gotten over it.But Jinghe had never forgotten.