The Iron Will of Genie Lo (The Epic Crush of Genie Lo 2)

By the time I’d heard most of the yaoguai out, you could have watered the grass with my brain. The simple act of listening for hours had drained more energy from me than any fight in recent memory. If the demons couldn’t take me down with a direct challenge, they were going to whine me to death.

The field was nearly empty. No demon cared to stick around once they got what they needed. At the end of these sessions they vanished back into the woods without a trace. Today was an exception, as a large trail of broken shrubs marked where Yellow-Toothed Elephant’s friends dragged his slumbering carcass away.

I plastered my hands to my eyes as I called for the last one to step up. One away from going home. Depending on how low on patience I was, this last yaoguai might either get nothing or way more than it asked for.

Only it wasn’t a yaoguai who appeared when I took my hands off my face. It was an old man.

He was dressed in an embroidered robe that might have once been bleached and elegant but was now frayed down to dingy gray patchwork. The ends of his bushy white mustache swept back around his head in a perfect horizontal arc. He carried a wooden staff riddled with knots and knobs that widened to the size of a fist on top.

Before I could say anything, Quentin whooped out loud and leaped onto the old man’s back like a panther on a gazelle.

My first instinct was to scream at him to stop, but then again, maybe he detected a threat. It wasn’t out of the question for a yaoguai to have a really good human disguise. If anything, the better camouflaged ones were more dangerous.

The old man took the attack in stride, flipping Quentin over his shoulder. In the same smooth motion he twirled his staff with both hands and locked it around Quentin’s neck in a chokehold. I would have stopped him from strangling my boyfriend right there, except the two of them were laughing and having a grand time of it. Quentin was obviously not using his full strength.

“I take it you two know each other?” I called out.

Quentin relented first and snaked out of the old man’s grasp. “Genie,” he said, proud to make the introduction. “This is the Great White Planet. Herald of the gods, and maybe the only one who’s not an ass.”

If I remembered the story of Sun Wukong correctly, the Great White Planet was the embodiment of Venus. And he was the first being to recognize that the Monkey King was not a mere beast but a special, uncategorizable being. He’d recommended that Sun Wukong be given a role in the celestial pantheon, like a real god.

That explained the friendly terms he and Quentin were on. While Sun Wukong’s entry-level foray in Heavenly duties had been a disaster, at least the Great White Planet had tried. It didn’t matter what culture or plane of existence you were talking about. Anyone who got you a job, who tried to get you your money, was as good as gold.

Dude’s name still sounds like an online forum that needs to be monitored by the FBI, I thought to myself.

Guanyin, who Quentin had forgotten was also not an ass, stepped forward and smiled. “It’s good to see you again, Grandfather.”

She was calling him by an honorific. True family relations between gods, like the one between the Jade Emperor and his nephew Erlang Shen, were somewhat rare. The Great White Planet took her hand and bowed. “My lady, you are as radiant as ever,” he said in a warm, raspy voice. Then he turned to me.

“The Shouhushen.” He made the title sound grander and a lot less sarcastic than the Jade Emperor or anyone else had. He gave me the kindest, crinkliest smile, his gentle eyes positively dancing with wisdom and understanding.

Then he bashed me in the face with his staff.

His attack moved me as much as Yellow-Toothed Elephant’s did, which is to say not at all. The head of the shillelagh shattered along the grain, splitting the body down to where he gripped it. The sudden cracks in the wood must have pinched the Great White Planet’s skin, because he yipped and put the web of his thumb into his mouth.

“You were supposed to dodge that,” he said, looking disappointed. “I suppose reflexes aren’t your strong suit.” He planted his ruined staff into the ground, pulled out a faded yellow booklet from his sleeve, and began scratching in it with a surprisingly modern ballpoint.

A lot had happened in the past three seconds, and my senses, dulled from yaoguai complaints and introversion fatigue, were only now beginning to catch up. The first thought that went through my head was that I, unlike Quentin, didn’t owe this guy a damn thing, and second, I was perfectly willing to commit eldercide right here and now.

I cracked my knuckles loud enough to make the Great White Planet look up.

Quentin put his hand on my elbow. “He was testing you. That’s part of his job. Besides carrying messages, he’s also like the inspector of Heaven.”

“That is correct,” the Great White Planet said in a distracted cadence, scribbling all the while. “I’m here to evaluate the performance of the Shouhushen in her Earthly duties on behalf of the Jade Emperor, whose mandate she is blessed by.”

Quentin and Guanyin seemed to be blind to how

infuriating that was. “I’m being judged on a job that I was forced into and don’t even want?” I said incredulously.

The Great White Planet glanced at me over the top of his notes. “I see motivation could be improved as well.” He went back to his scrawling, this time at double speed.

I knew what points being deducted sounded like. The Great White Planet was making blatant use of negative reinforcement. And it was working. The instinct to simultaneously grovel for a better grade and try harder at whatever I was lacking rose to the forefront. Motivation? I’ll show you motivation, you wrinkly old windbag. Also, please kind sir, don’t fail me, I beg you.

I cleared my throat. I wasn’t Little Miss Perfectionist anymore. I’d grown. I could call his bluff.

“I don’t have to put up with this nonsense,” I said as casually as I could. “This is horse crap.”

The Great White Planet gave me a mournful look before shaking his head and tsking with his teeth. He put his pen away and brought out a bigger, redder one. The tip of it glistened with ink like a snake’s fang, wet with crimson venom.