As Anzan stared into Ling’s gemlike eyes, he couldn’t help thinking that, despite being red mirrors of his own, they were somehow so much more expressive. Every flutter of lashes or slight shifting of the pupils contained a myriad of emotions. And in mere moments, he’d read fear, curiosity, confusion, and even slight hints of affection—all of which lay bare before him with childlike purity and openness. The idea of the owner of those eyes inducing the gut-wrenching terror he’d experienced only moments before felt like an absurd joke. So much so that he felt giddy and lightheaded and had an overwhelming urge to laugh. The only reason he didn’t fall to the ground in a fit of giggling right there were those eyes. They were so mesmerizing. Like red pools filled to bursting with all the world’s loveliness.

“What kind of pet are you?” Ling demanded.

Her words hit him like a basin’s worth of icy water. Anzan shook, the spell was broken, and suddenly the kindly red pools from before—so full of wonder and emotion—were gone. In their place was a spectral pair of predator’s eyes filled only with brattiness and arrogance.

“Uh, what?” he barely managed to garble out.

“You’re not very clever, are you?” Ling sighed, shaking her head. “Kitten, rude and stupid are a poor combination—you won’t impress many masters leading with those. Certainly not one of such discerning tastes as myself,” she said, placing one hand on her chest. She turned from him, staring off blankly, and brought her hand up to thumb her chin. “I really do hate to send one of father’s gifts back, but there’s just nothing for it with this one.” She gave him a curious glance. “Though I have to admit, the idea of a pet with a pet had potential.”

Anzan felt Pilgrim tunnel out of his mane to stand on his head, joining in his gawking.

“But then again—” Ling crossed her arms behind her back and glided to one side. “What does that say about me? What will my sisters think if they see me tossing away gifts like some kind of ingrate? That I can’t handle some rude cat? And the servants! They’ll talk; they always talk. Sure, you can flay one, but one always leads to a thousand more, and then things start to get out of hand.” Ling heaved a world-weary sigh and gazed up at the sky. “Is this what father meant by the struggles of leadership? Sacrifice?”

Anzan kept his eyes down, focusing intently on the hem of Ling’s gown, afraid that his thoughts might get weird if he caught her gaze. The strange ghost or evil spirit or whatever had somehow gotten even stranger. He felt his tail stick out and his fur puff up as he grew more and more uneasy. Even Pilgrim seemed unnerved, shifting from side to side on his head. Should he run for it? But where would he go? Was there a chance he could reason with this…thing?

“Excuse me,” he began, “er, look, I’m not—”

“Oh, alright!” Ling exclaimed, turning to him. “Kitten, after much serious and heartfelt deliberation, I’ve reluctantly decided to accept you.” She paused, nodding to him as though giving him a moment to celebrate. “Your manners are horrid, and I’ll have to be very strict with you, but I’m sure you’ll get better with time. As for your mental shortcomings, well—” Ling took a deep breath. “Sometimes stupid can be cute in its own way.” She relaxed her shoulders and looked at him with a small smile.

Up till now, Anzan had mostly ignored the specter’s ramblings, overwhelmed as he was by confusion and trepidation, but something about ‘horrid manners’ and ‘mental shortcomings’ rankled him the second time around.

“‘Cute in its own way,’ huh?” He snorted. “Well, that definitely doesn’t apply in your case.”

“Ah, now there you go—that rude tongue of yours!” Ling brought two fingers to her brow, grimacing. “Ugh, I just knew this would be terrible.”

Before she could go on another rant, Anzan cut in, “Wait! I’m sorry. Look, forget I said anything.” He took a breath and pushed down his frustrations. He didn’t have time for nonsense, and quibbling with the crazy specter wouldn’t get him anywhere. “Let’s start over. You’re clearly very confused; do you even know where you are?”

“Of course!” Ling snapped. “I know almost everything. Such a trivial detail would never escape my notice.” She smoothed her expression. “Kitten, you’d do well not to question me in the future, but since it’s such a happy day for you, I’ll forgive your impudence just this once. But in the future, if you want to ask a question—”

“I’m not a pet!” Anzan barked. “And if you’d just look around, you’d know that, you stupid spirit!”

Ling staggered as though struck. “Kitten!” she cried, her eyes darting all around. “This outburst, why…” As her eyes continued to roam, her face warped. “Why…where am I?” Her face went slack as she started observing her surroundings in earnest. “This place…and nothing works—why?” Ling seemed on the very edge of some mental crisis, but then life returned to her face as her mind seized upon something. “Wait, spirit?” She turned to Anzan. “Ha! Kitten, you’re being ridiculous! If there’s one thing that I am certainly not, it is a spirit,” she said, placing her arms akimbo and nodding confidently.

Anzan stared ahead dumbly as Ling started chuckling. She brought one long sleeve to her face, ‘politely’ covering her self-satisfied smile, but her eyes crescentlike eyes still smiled down at him. Something about that smile, coupled with the ridiculousness of the spirit’s assertion, broke him, and any lingering fear or hesitation vanished.

“Ling, listen to me!” Anzan said, advancing slowly. “I don’t know what bizarre delusions are bouncing around in your head, but let me make things clear: You’re a spirit of some kind, and I’m not what you think I am; we’re not where you think we are; and frankly, I don’t even know that you’re who you think you are.” Ling shrunk back, and her laughter died in her throat. “My name is Anzan, and this is The Great Monad Temple. I found you here after the temple’s seal broke.” He stopped just a few paces away from Ling and the pearl and frowned down at them. “Why are you here? What are you exactly? Are you some kind of…artifact spirit? Or—” he grimaced. “Did the Patriarch trap you here somehow?”

The idea of Ling being a prisoner or some malicious entity sent shivers down his spine. Anzan had been so surprised, not knowing what to make of Ling or her bizarre circumstances, that he hadn’t thought of it before. But now that the idea had taken root, he couldn’t help thinking back on the ominous aura from before. If she was dangerous enough for the Patriarch to bother with, he was certainly helpless, but then he had to do something. But what? And what did she have to do with his leash—the pearl?

As Anzan’s thoughts grew increasingly chaotic, Ling suddenly cried out, “Uuuuu…”

The strange specter had curled up on the ground, holding her head in both hands, digging her spectral fingernails into her scalp. Her lips were moving, but Anzan couldn’t tell what she was saying. He stepped closer.

“I don’t know…I don’t know…I don’t know…IdontknowIdontknowIdontknow—”

“Ling?” Anzan said.

“I don’t know!” Ling yelled and leaped up into the sky. For the briefest moment, there was a flare of the ominous aura from before. Anzan shuddered. Then, in a cloudy puff of mist, it disappeared, and so too did Ling—or so it appeared. As the mist dispersed, Anzan noticed a flash of movement. What looked like a very tiny version of the spectral Ling shot straight toward the ground. She swooped down and snatched the pearl right in front of him in one quick movement. It was almost as large as her whole body, so she had to hug it tight to her chest with both arms as she raced off toward the temple. Anzan looked down in horror as one thought went screaming through his mind: he needed that.

Anzan bounded down the steps after her with Pilgrim flapping in the wind as he clung to his mane. Ling was faster than him, but her flight was confused; the tiny specter would sail in an arc in one direction only to fall off and whip back to the other. Anzan kept as close as he could, and together they weaved through the tangled maze of the temple’s many gilded rooftops, squeezing through tiny alleys and barreling down wide walkways, darting under pavilions and crashing through workshops. Ling’s flight became erratic over time, turning into more of a staggered bobbing as she grew tired. Anzan had nearly caught up to her when the tiny specter stopped, hovering in front of a nine-storied pagoda. With a weighty ‘umph,’ she pushed herself higher into the air, seeming to strain the further she got from the ground. When she got high enough, she lurched toward the pagoda’s roof, landing with a clatter as the pearl made contact. Ling nested amid the glazed tiles as Anzan labored up to the pagoda.

“Ling!” he called out, panting and swaying as he came to a stop. “Wait! Come down, please.”

The tiny specter gave a halfhearted glance from her perch and turned her back. “Go away. I’m just a stupid spirit. And I don’t know anything.”

Anzan hesitated. He hadn’t considered what he would do if he ever caught up to Ling. He wasn’t even exactly sure what he wanted with the pearl. He only knew he needed it and that he wanted to find the Patriarch—to protect the temple. But the path toward accomplishing any of that was vague and indistinct. Anzan was out of his depth and clutching at straws, and he knew very little about the outside world. Ling was an anomaly, but looking at his position again, did it really matter what she was? She had the pearl firmly in her grasp, so he needed her acquiescence regardless. The only question, then, was whether to move forward or not. He could try deceiving her, but Anzan had little experience with lies or deception, and if he was going to deal with her—for the time being at least—it was better to start off honestly. So, he decided to tell her everything.

Anzan recounted his experiences over the past few days and tried to explain his need for the pearl. By the time he was nearly done, Ling’s melancholy had faded, and she’d shifted down the eaves of the pagoda, peering down at him from the edge of its lowest level.

“So, you see, I need to leave the temple, but I need my leash—or the pearl first,” he said, looking up at her anxiously.

“What an odd state of affairs,” Ling mused. She glanced down at the pearl in her arms and stroked it gently. “The pearl is—well, it’s a very important part of me.” She looked at Anzan. “And I can’t possibly imagine how you ended up with a connection to it. ‘Your leash,’ was what you called it?”

“Yes,” he said.

She hugged the pearl tightly and frowned while Anzan shuffled anxiously in place. Then, suddenly, she nodded sharply to herself and pushed off, drifting toward him from the roof. “If you want to leave this place, I’m willing to go along and bring the pearl with me—” Anzan’s face lit up. “—so long as you agree to a condition of mine…”

Anzan struggled to keep the grimace off his face. He still had some misgivings about the spirit’s unclear origins, but he supposed he should hear her out. “What’s that?” he asked.

“I want to search for my family. My sisters and my father. I don’t know how I became a spirit or why I’m here. Everything is very confusing for me right now; my memories and thoughts are all muddled.” She looked at him determinedly. “But if you help me find them, I’m sure they’ll be able to help me figure everything out.”

The request caught Anzan off guard, and he couldn’t help wondering how Ling’s family might react when they learned of her circumstances. “What about the temple?” he asked.

She wrinkled her nose. “What? Oh, you mean—” Ling’s eyes widened in comprehension, and she shook her head. “You needn’t worry about that—I don’t recognize anything about this place, and judging by the rustic exterior, there’s no way they could’ve had anything to do with…whatever happened to me.” Ling’s expression darkened momentarily but was smoothed over by confidence.

Her response did little to ease Anzan’s nerves, but seeing that she had already agreed to help him, he figured it was better not to press his luck. “Alright, I agree,” he said tentatively. Ling smiled back at him, and together they turned to regard the temple and plan the particulars of their coming journey.