Among the Clouds

The Celestial Court has everything, except it’s far too dull.

Here, the immortals live forever and each has a post to tend. The Matchmaker governs romantic ties, Meng Po brews her soup, the Star of Literature edits essays, and the Curtain-Raising General guards the palace gates. Kui Mulang races horses, Tanlang drinks wine, and Nü Tufu stands on the cloud terrace by the Southern Gate of Heaven, watching the evening glow blaze again and again. They have all eternity, yet not a soul to talk to.

It all began at the Peach Banquet. That day, Meng Po saw the man with his hair tied up in a red cord for the first time: the Matchmaker. She wrinkled her nose at him, and he remembered the look for an entire year. After that, someone pored over ancient texts just to find an excuse to visit the underworld on “official business”; someone saw a dancer miss half a beat by the Celestial River and thought it more beautiful than every flawless movement; someone waited ten million years beneath the osmanthus tree in the Moon Palace, only to see a forbidden rain; and someone took the blame for another and was banished to the Flowing Sands River, leaving behind only the words, “Your dance was beautiful.”