Ye sat down heavily.

The Emperor had lied.

He’d lied.

Ye couldn’t believe it.

Spirits can’t lie nor can they be deceitful. Fairies can’t lie, but they can deceive. Only humans could lie and deceive. This was as factual as the mountains being high. No one even thought to question it.

Ye stared at Jin the Emperor in wide eyed astonishment.

Was it the human body? Was that why?

He could think of no other reason.

Ye looked closely at Jin, something he’d not done in a while. When the Emperor had first taken over Bai Ju Yi, he’d shaped his spirit as a human to fit into the body. Even so, it’d been a poor match. A spirit as powerful and large as the Emperor was not meant to squeeze into a human shell.

The little leaf fairy had first thought it funny. The Emperor looked like an overweight man wearing a robe several times too small. He might burst through the seams at any point if he moved the wrong way. But now…

The Emperor “fit” into Bai Ju Yi. It was just barely, with the Emperor’s spirit sometimes casting a strange spiritual shadow on the body, but it was far less noticeable than it had been before. It was as if the Emperor had lost weight and condensed himself until that small robe just barely fit.

Could it be that as the Emperor integrated into the body of Bai Ju Yi, he actually became a little bit ‘human’? Exactly how strong was the human body, Ye thought in amazement, that it could somehow override an eons old mountain spirit’s nature?

He remembered an off-handed comment his beloved Xuiying had once made about humanity:

“Humans are really amazing, Ye. I know Brother dislikes their capacity for evil, but the ability to chose is what makes their potential limitless. You and I, we can’t do that. The animals can’t do it either. Our natures are set. We can learn, but who we are remains the same. But humans can change. They aren’t set on a single path. Isn’t it marvelous? I wonder what allows them to do that. Ah… I’m jealous, Ye… I wish I could be like them…”

At the time, Ye had thought Xuiying was being silly. Who’d want to be like a human when they could be the most powerful being on the mountain? Wasn’t that a downgrade?

But now he was reconsidering.

The Emperor had never once considered himself in the wrong for what had happened with Xuiying. Rather, he felt justified, even all these years later, and was waiting for his Sister to come back and admit her faults. It never even occurred to him she wasn’t coming back. If there was any regret, it was being lonely. He wasn’t used to being by himself, truly by himself, and the feeling unsettled him.

His anger for humans had long since cooled off, leaving nothing but his original feelings of ambivalence. The people who disappeared in the mountains had nothing to do with him, they simply hadn’t been strong or clever enough to survive. If they couldn’t outsmart his fairies, the wolves, the mountain lions, that was on their heads. He ignored the humans, and the humans ignored him.

But Mei Hua had spoken to the Emperor directly, which had made him take notice for the first time in a long time. And in that little girl, the Emperor caught a glimpse of his sister. They were similar somehow, though he didn’t understand how exactly. So he thought to keep her for a while, if she could survive, to ease his loneliness.

This had infuriated Ye.

His beloved Xuiying had been forced off the mountain to slowly waste away, yet her Brother was so thick headed he didn’t even have the brains to feel real regret. And not only that, he’d tricked a little girl into staying on the mountain.

There was no way a child could survive by themselves on the mountain, and the Emperor wasn’t going to lift a finger to help. If Ye hadn’t been nearby, Mei Hua would have died a few days after arrival. And the Emperor wouldn’t have cared, only thinking lightly that she was too weak to survive.

The Emperor’s favor was a passing, fickle affection. Mei Hua had been right to want to keep her distance. Without feeling a hint of repentance for his past sins, it meant he was likely to repeat them. And that made him dangerous.

It’s why Ye never felt an ounce of respect or admiration for the Emperor, much less his fairies. Even when the Emperor healed his MeiMei, his heart had not been moved. Just surprised. Until the Emperor admitted what he’d done was wrong, until he recognized his own sins, he could not be trusted.

Yet, here, today, the Emperor now known as Jin had wailed in remorse. He’d been so broken hearted he’d caused an earth quake and turned himself ugly from crying. And he had lied because…

…because he was ashamed and afraid. He didn’t want MeiMei to hate him.

Ye began blinking rapidly.

It couldn’t… The Emperor didn’t actually…

Did Jin actually love MeiMei?

This thought struck Ye like a thunderbolt, his whole body going rigid.

As a fairy, the human concept of love was foreign in many ways to Ye. The only reason he had any grasp on the concept was because Xuiying loved to play match maker and would often drag him along for the fun. He’d seen humans fall in love many times over, so he had a general idea of how the process went. He understood the technical aspects well enough, but the human heart would always be a bit of a mystery.

He’d never thought to associate human love with Jin. Both Xuiying and the Emperor had never loved as humans love, just as they couldn’t lie or deceive. Ye had thought that the Emperor might get confused by his new body’s urges and do something stupid, at the very worst. But if he could lie….

If the Emperor could lie, what was stopping him from loving as humans love?

There was nothing stopping him at all.

Ye got excited. The task Xuiying had entrusted to him all those years ago, he could finally begin doing it. No matter how Ye resented the Emperor for what he had done, he valued his beloved Xuiying’s words more than anything. And she had requested that Ye be there for her Brother, should he ever repent of his actions. But it had been impossible for Ye to do, because that stupid thick headed knuckle brained Emperor never thought he was in the wrong.

A light shone in Ye’s eyes as he stared at the ugly faced Jin.

If being human is what would make the Emperor bow his head and say he was sorry, than Ye was going to do everything in his power to humanize him. And then, Ye was going to figure out a way to make the reformed Emperor famous, so famous people all over the world know of him.

And perhaps, just perhaps, his beloved Xuiying would hear about it. And if she did, she might come back.

Even though it was a small hope, Ye clung to it.

It was better than what he had before, which was no hope at all.