The crowd of women smiled as the guards seized my arms. I screamed out and tried to get away, but their hands seemed to be made of iron. They dragged me out of the red building and through a silver door adorned with pearls. The door opened up to a long corridor whose walls were painted with pictures. I recognized some as stories of the gods – accounts of their heroism, narrative of their good deeds. As we headed down the seemingly endless corridor, I wondered who the women were and why they lied. Most importantly, I wondered where I was being taken.

The corridor continued in a straight line. After a while, the passage began to rise. A light appeared in the distance. As we drew closer, I realized that it was an opening to the outside. Then, without warning, the guards released my arms.

“Where am I?” I called to their backs as I massaged my bottom. They ignored me.

“Will properly saying goodbye kill these gods,” I muttered darkly. I got up slowly and began walking towards the opening.

The light blinded me. When I could see again, I found myself on a cliff. In front of me was a bottomless canyon. Clouds drifted by, giving the appearance that the cliff was the end of the world.

A few people stood on the side of the cliff, waiting for something. I walked up to a girl my age.

“Hey, where are we?” I asked. She was a tall, skinny girl with nervous eyes.

“A cliff,” she replied but quickly resumed muttering to herself.

“I can see that. I mean, what am I doing here?” I said.

“How would I know what you are doing here?” The girl snapped.

I frowned. The girl seemed to realize her rudeness as well.

“I’m here for the Celestial trials. We are about to undergo a series of tests which if we pass, will take us to Shenjie,” she explained quickly. “Now if you will excuse me.”

She moved to the other side of the cliff, leaving me in a state of shock.

“I can’t believe it,” I muttered to myself, “I can’t believe it.”

I made it! The shadowy figure had let me through! Yesterday, I was mixing manure. Now, I was on my way to the world of gods, a world I had not known existed! I was going to Shenjie to save my people… Shenjie, where that god lived. The thought of him set off a strange sensation inside me.

“They are here!” Someone shouted, pointing towards the sky.

Something… or many things were flying through the clouds. As they neared the cliff, I saw they were cranes. Giant, majestic, wings flapping powerfully, they lowered themselves. But they did not land. Instead, they circled around the cliff at high speeds.

“What do we do?” I asked, but no one answered. They had already swarmed to the front. One person jumped into the canyon. As he fell, he took out a giant leaf and stood on it. Immediately, he slowed and was able to surf the clouds until he jumped on a crane. I watched with wide eyes as the crane flew away with him.

Another person stabbed his sword into the side of the cliff. It became lodged in between stones and he was able to use it as a step to reach a crane. One girl forewent catching a crane at all. She took out a lotus from her sleeve and blew on it until it grew to the size of a boat. Leisurely, she stepped on and floated towards the direction the cranes had gone. One by one, they all left. Even the girl who I spoke to earlier used some sort of incense to lure a crane over.

“Everyone has their own way of getting through this task,” she said as her crane hovered above me. With a sympathetic look, she too, flew away.

I stared at the sole remaining crane. There was a reason this crane had been left. It dodged and swerved as it flew, resisted attempts to catch it, jump on it, and lure it. Panic crept into my mind.

I had no tools, no preparation, no knowledge, no— I forced myself to shut my eyes and think about the girl’s advice. How could I use my strengths? Muscles. I could get a crane by force.

I took off my dress and grabbed the furthest corners, stretching the garment across my back. I waited until the crane flew the closest to me. Then with arms extended, I dove.

The wind tore at me. My dress billowed violently. I struggled to hold on. The crane swerved to avoid me, but I hooked my foot onto the crook of its wing and pulled myself onto its back.

I lay flat on top of the crane, trying to catch my breath. The crane circled the cliff a few times before flying in the direction of other cranes. Cold wind whipped me in the face. I struggled to put my dress back on while trying not to fall off.

That was when I noticed a girl hanging by a tree branch on the side of a cliff. I pushed the crane’s head in that direction. With a powerful flap of the wings, it descended. As we got nearer, I realized that it was the girl whom I spoke to earlier. She looked at me with a tear-stained face.

“What happened to your crane?” I called.

“The Shen took it,” she sobbed.

“Who?”

“The Shen.”

“Huh?”

“The Shen.”

I still didn’t understand, but it was too awkward to ask again.

“Together then?” I held out my hand.

The girl looked up in surprise.

“But… I think only one per person,” she hesitated.

“That’s not written anywhere. Come on,” I urged.

She looked between the crane and me. Finally, she grabbed my hand and swung herself onto the back of the crane. The crane turned its neck and looked at us, as if unhappy about the extra weight. I ignored its eyes.

After a few cries, the crane accepted its fate. It spread its wings, and with one powerful thrust, we left the ground.

“My name is Ziyan,” I introduced. “It means purple smoke, like what comes out of a chimney.”

“My name is Shangtian,” the girl said softly. “It means ‘to the skies’. It was my master’s dream to go to Shenjie, and it is my duty to fulfill his wish.”

Apparently, Shangtian came from a place where it was quite common for people to send their children to deification masters for a chance at becoming gods. By how widespread she made it sound, I kept wondering if there was anyone left to farm.

“Quite a load to put on your shoulders,” I said.

Shangtian sighed.

“My master was like a father to me, and becoming a god was his ultimate goal. He prepared himself for deification his entire life, but he failed. I need to pass this, for myself and for him.”

It fell silent for a bit, and then she said, “Thank you for sharing your crane with me. I’m sorry for being short earlier. I… I thought you tricked your way into getting to the Celestial Trials. But I was wrong about your character, and those ladies were right.”

“Those women!” I remembered. “What the hell was wrong with them?”

I heard Shangtian giggle.

“They belong to the Association for the Rehabilitation of Fallen Females.”

“Fallen females?” I repeated dumbly, turning to look at her.

“Yes, Yodu is full of female souls who were wronged by men and discarded by society. Without guidance, they turn into malicious ghosts that wander the mortal world. So the ARFF tries to rescue these souls and give them a chance.” She stole a glance at me and continued, “by all means necessary.”

“Oh,” I said, astonished by my luck. “They must have seen my performance with Horseface and thought I needed help.”

Shangtian laughed.

“Where did you come from?” She asked.

I told her about how I got here. I glossed over the subject of the god. The memory of him felt like my secret property, reserved just for me. I also forewent the 18th level of Yodu part; that seemed like it would scare Shangtian.

“You came just in time to attend this year’s Celestial Trials. If you had come one day later, you would’ve had to wait a full year to save your villagers. Poor them…”

“So who stole your crane?” I changed the subject because I didn’t want to picture the villagers in oil vats again. “Doesn’t everyone have pure souls at this point?”

Shangtian shook her head with a smile.

“You are too naïve. Many people train years for this opportunity. They pass because they’ve been prepped with how to talk, how to act, what is to come—”

“Hell, I’m at a disadvantage! I shouldn’t feel guilty.” I mumbled.

“—The Shen who took my crane was clearly not a pure soul,” Shangtian continued testily. “The Shen, by the way, are the children of gods. They cannot become fully ordained gods until they go through all the trials like we do. That one conjured up a flying lotus flower but stole my crane as soon as she could. I will report her when I get to Shenjie!”

“That bitch!” I nodded so fervently that we both laughed.

It felt like a long time since I laughed like this. I took a deep breath of the fresh air. The valley we had been flying over now became a lake. Sunlight shone on the sparkling water. Clouds brushed our faces. Wind rustled our hair. Was this real? Was I really soaring through the sky on a crane?

Almost too soon, the crane began to descend. At the base of what appeared to be an island, the crane landed. We climbed off hesitantly. The crane took off at once.

“Wait! What do we do next?” I yelled at the disappearing dot in the sky.

“I doubt it’s coming back, it seemed angry with us,” Shangtian said shakily.

“What happens next?” I asked her.

“My master failed the first test, so he couldn’t tell me what comes after the cranes,” Shangtian replied gloomily.

Dumbly, we stood on the sandy shore, awaiting some sort of sign. In the distance, trees grew to great heights, crowded and uncontrolled. The air was humid. Soon sweat oozed from my forehead and stung my eyes. As I wiped my face with the back of my hand, a shrill cry pierced the air. We froze.