The Blue Button Inn

A fiery sun blazed down upon a wooden sign hung on short chains from a pole connected to the side of a narrow red clay building on the third tier of the ziggurat village. Painted in azure on the sign were a pair of blue toggles and even they seemed to sweat in the arid heat, not to mention the people inside these red clay kilns, which made up the majority of the ziggurats exterior buildings.

Passersby were startled by a furious roar from within the building, but paid such a disturbance little mind.

"What do you mean you're a girl?!" Shudun barked.

Shen Ling sat at a wooden table in the temporarily closed and empty Blue Button Inn. Across from her sat a pair of concerned parents with looks of shock, skepticism and concern.

Wu Jia slapped the back of Shen Shudun's head. "Is that any way to address our only daughter whom we've waited all this time for? Are you a frog trapped in a well?"

"I'm sorry," said Shen Ling. Perhaps in the eyes of the man who'd saved her life, she was a disappointment. But it was also true that had if she had declared herself a girl from the beginning, then this misunderstanding might have been avoided, and in turn might haved saved face for her parents. She truly felt regret over these difficult circumstances, and part of the blame she was eager to accept.

"En, it was as much my fault. Though I must confess Ling'er, you look to me more a boy than a girl." Shen Shudun was not an overly prideful man. Years of surviving in this harsh Demonic Netherworld made him infinitely more adaptable. Although he wasn't considered a weakling in the village, he was also not amongst the truly powerful. As such, he had learned to quickly embrace his own faults and be magnanimous.

"Do I really?" Shen Ling asked. In her last life she'd been this way as well.

"Ling'er, except for your horns, your physical body will be the same as it was in your previous life," said Wu Jia. "The body you have now, is the same one you had as a child in the lower plane."

"Oh," Shen Ling nodded, looking over herself. The orange robe was rather baggy, and she couldn't remember if this was what she looked like when she was younger, though without a mirror she couldn't discount the premise either.

"That is your birth robe. Everyone materializes wearing one when they are reborn," said Shen Shudun.

"Reborn . . . Does that mean that this is really the afterlife?" asked Shen Ling.

"Umm . . . it might be better for you to think of this life as your second life," said Shen Shudun.

Shen Ling thought that there were likely a lot of important things she needed to know, but she'd never been very capable when it came to complicated situations, often choosing to simply avoid them entirely. So she decided to just accept what her father told her without discussion.

Wu Jia obviously wasn't satisfied with Shudun's explanation, nor her daughter's willingness to spinelessly go along with it either. "When you died in your previous life, you became a spirit in the afterlife and the heavens judged you in accordance with the Samsara. As a spirit with negative karma you were sent into the chaotic vortex and stayed there, until the heavens accepted our sacrifice and sent you to us. Although we are not your original parents, our souls are bound by karmic destiny," explained Wu Jia.

"Oh, so that's how it works," said Shen Shudun, rubbing his bearded chin.

"How could you not know that much!?!" yelled Wu Jia.

Shen Ling rubbed the back of her head offering a weak placating smile. It seemed like her parents were both the types not afraid of familial argument. Wu Jia, the woman who seemed to be a silent icy beauty in public, was actually a boiling fearsome tiger at home.

'It's not like we are all born with your background,' is what Shen Shudun wanted to say, but he instead chose to show mercy to the back of his head. "Wu Jia, should we not show more face to our new daughter? There's still so much to teach her . . ."

"Hmph."

". . . For instance, Shen Ling's already discovered the heaven's bangle. Shen Ling, by touching an object and pressing upon it with your willpower, you can collect it into your inventory, and even use your skills to inspect the item and find its secret properties. The skill to do this is called Divination."

Judging by the smug look on Shen Shudun's face, Shen Ling could tell that her father was rather proud of this explanation, where contrarily Wu Jia seemed to be shaking her head dismissively.

"Shen Ling, has your father explained to you about 'Status' yet?" As Shen Ling shook her head in reply, Wu Jia snorted at Shudun, "Don't you think we might want to start with 'Status'?"

Shen Shudun exhaled a gust of irritated wind. There really was no victory nor retreat for a husband with a tiger in his bed. "I'll leave the tutoring to you then . . ."

"Wu Jia-"

"Please call me mother," interrupted Wu Jia.

". . . Mother . . . don't you think you're being a bit too hard on father?" Shen Ling proffered.

Shen Shudun's demeanor changed entirely. At first he was quite disappointed by the revelation of losing a son for a daughter, but now he saw in his daughter a companion of familial spirit. A partner with which to defy the household heavenly tigress.

Disgusting tears of joy sprinkled down an overly masculine face riddled with pathetic paternal pride. Shen Ling had no idea what to make of this. Yet a part of her felt blessed to have these two new people in her life. For although it was difficult to see them as the parents she never had, at least she knew them as friends. Even if they were horned devils.

Wu Jia carried on as if she never heard the comment. "Status, like Inventory, is a common technique that all people under heaven and earth are able to utilize. All you have to do is close your eyes and empower your inner voice with willpower and think the command mantra, 'Status.'"

After following said instructions, Shen Ling felt a little awkward, and after a moment she hazarded a squinting one eyed peek.

"Did you succeed?" asked Shen Shudun.

Shen ling shook her head, pursing her lips.

"Then concentrate. You have to visualize the character of 'Status' and push against it with your willpower," encouraged Wu Jia.

"En, it's working." Why couldn't Wu Jia have explained it better from the beginning? Now that Shen Ling knew the trick of it, a window opened in her consciousness that reminded her of an app on her mobile phone, except it appeared on the back of her eyelids.

_____________

[STATUS]

Shen Ling

Beginner Level 1

Parameters

Strength: 3

Agility: 3

Body: 3

Speed: 3

Intelligence: 5

Spirit: 10

Love: 2

Hate: 0

Karmic Verdict

Absolute Zero

Dao (Skills)

???

_____________

It was official, the afterlife was a video game. Shen Ling carefully read through the data, swallowing a bitter spark of revulsion. "It's a video game . . ." she mumbled.

"A game?"

"Ling'er, does status remind you of something from the lower planes?" asked Wu Jia.

"It's just like a video game."

"What is that, a sort of game?"

"You know like a game you play on your computer . . . or console . . . or phone . . ." Her parents stared back at her with blank expressions.

A light dawned on Wu Jia's face. "Ling'er, could it be that the lower plane you're from follows the Dao of Machines?"

"I . . . don't know." This Netherworld was so much different than Shen Ling's little blue planet Earth.

Their conversation carried on through the night, as Shen Shudun and Wu Jia explained much of the basic principles of the world. They were exceptionally surprised by Shen Ling's declaration of the lack of qi, or spiritual energy on her previous plane. To them it was completely foreign, almost as if an entire world was disconnected from the heavens entirely.

A small room on the second floor was prepared for Shen Ling, and she slept through the remainder of the night and half of the next day, her pillow moist with the soft tears of past remorse and the unknowable future.

Meanwhile, a pair of new parents stood in the Blue Button Inn's tiny kitchen.

"What did we do wrong?" asked Shen Shudun with earnest worry.

Wu Jia shook her head. "Our offerings were pure yang given at the peak of the sun after a night with no moon . . ."

"Is it possible . . . should I go upstairs and . . . peek? Ouch! Stop, stop."

"Perhaps, this is a blessing in disguise. I always wanted a daughter."

"You're wrong, Jia. You don't understand what it means to grow up in the nether basin. Girls here are treated . . . sometimes they are . . . this place-" Shen Shudun was not a naive pup. Compared to the Nine Hells Mountain nations, the entire nether basin was a tribal wilderness inhabited by the weak and ruled by the fierce. There were no great clans or sects to create stability, nor great walls to block the sin hordes. "This is a much crueler place than your homeland."

An icy cold aura surrounded Wu Jia, her face a mask of frozen severity. "Shen Ling is my daughter. The Redwall tribe won't risk offending me. I won't let any barbarians harm a hair on her head."

"You underestimate the Lao clan. They won't mistreat Shen Ling, just the opposite. They'll marry her." Shen Shudun let the weight of his words sink into Wu Jia's skin. Although he had to admit that in most respects Wu Jia was far superior to himself, but when it came to the depraved nether basin of violence and despair, only a child of this type of suffering could understand the depth of its malicious nature.

"I won't allow it."

"And how would you stop it!" he yelled. Shen Shudun very rarely raised his voice in anger toward his beloved wife. "They treat you like a goddess now, because you cook their meat and fatten their experience levels. And they know that at any time you could refuse. If they threaten you, you could leave, or at the worst, take your own life . . .

"But what happens when it is not your life on the line, but Shen Ling'ers. When they have her way up in the fifth tier wrapped in blood silk and gorging on sin. Could you refuse them then? Could you leave then?"

What kind of mother did he think she was? Of course, Wu Jia would give everything for her child. There was no pregnancy in the Netherworld. The bonds forged here were decreed by the heavens, created by the soul, and bound by blood. Every life was supported by an unforeseeable destiny.

"In that case I . . . I would be their scullion." Her husband was right, she truly had eyes but could not see. "We should leave. We could find another tribe. I could hide my abilities. Be your simple little one-tier wife."

Shen Shudun wrapped Wu Jia in his arms, pressing her head against his chest. His fingers brushed against the short spikes protruding from his wife's forehead, so thick at their base and yet barely one tier high.

"They look so shameful."

"I think they're beautiful."

"I'm powerless now, just a trash."

"If you're a trash Jia then what does that make me?"

"Trash's trash," she replied, the corners of her mouth rising slightly.

"To forever be your trash is all I ever want in this life."

"You sap. Do you want me to rejuvenate your leg?"

After the final close encounter with the dire rat, Shen Shudun had mixed his elemental qi with mud and applied an earth style healing technique, but his earth qi wasn't as suited to healing as Wu Jia's water qi. Except, only a water practitioner beyond the four seasons stage could regrow limbs!

Shen Shudun never inquired as to his wife's past, although she'd revealed small parts over the years. But even he was shocked by her latest offer. It meant that his wife had once been a planar realm practitioner! A god-like figure!

It should be known that in the Demonic Netherworld, practitioners cultivate martial strength into levels and stages. The stages start first with beginner and then immediately move into the four seasons phase: spring, summer, autumn and winter stages. Beyond the four seasons phase is the planar phase which has four more stages: the earthly realm, the profound realm, the perfect realm, and lastly the immortal realm. In the entire vast nether basin, which surrounds the great Nine Hells Mountain and makes up most of the land of the Netherworld continent, a practitioner beyond the four seasons phase is almost a mythical being. In perspective, of all the practitioners in the Redwall tribe, despite being located near the foot of the Nine Hells Mountain, the most powerful was only in the late yang of the autumn stage.

"You can't regrow my leg!"

"Yes I can!" Wu Jia blurted in response. "Though it might take a few days, maybe a week to gather enough qi." She looked almost hurt by the admittance of her weakness.

"Wu Jia, if you did that then everyone would know your background wasn't simple. You must absolutely not reveal that kind of history to the Lao clan. It could turn the whole village upside down." The world's first planar innkeeper!

Wu Jia rubbed her cheek against her husband's broad muscular chest. "What should we do about Ling'er? She has such small horns."

"Eh . . . girls are truly much more troublesome than boys." A sudden pain struck his ribcage. "Erf. I meant, I wish we had a boy. Erf. That's not what I- Erf."

Sometimes silence is the best medicine.

Wait. An epiphany coalesced. Could that actually work?