Demon General's Longing

4. Impressive Ignorance

There was golden dust suspended in the stagnant air, a lot of it. Bits and pieces of solidified spiritual energy drifted aimlessly, making the golden faraway palaces and ornamental lawns  shimmer like mirages.

A shadow flickered into substance on the paved (supposed to be, seeing as the stones were still cracked into spiderwebs) main road of the Heavenly Realm, and promptly stumbled. 

If it had been another time, no one would have noticed this ascendance unaccompanied by the usual thunder and flashy sky work. As luck would have it, the roads were under construction. A middle court official had just paused to take a breath when the air right beside him began to shimmer like desert heat. He jumped away in fright - and his eyes nearly bulged out as a dark-clothed apparition soundlessly formed before him. He immediately pointed in his direction and begin to open and close his mouth without any sound coming out. His companions, however, were not so polite. 

"Intruder! Intruder!"

"Raise the alarm!"

They shouted and immediately moved away a hundred paces. The stunned man shivered and moved away as well.

The 'apparition' caught himself just before falling face front and frowned, he... just had to appear before a couple of red-faced subordinates huffing away to work on the uprooted road foundations and their supervisor dozing at the side. 

"So fast." Mimi Shen heard the loud noise of a bugle sounding from somewhere and commented. He knew that some of them had already fled to report to the martial gods. Well, that saved him some trouble. He had to say, these young officials were such lovely people, despite how they were staring at him.

He folded in his sleeves and deigned not make a fuss.

"What's with all this shouting? Who woke Laozi up?!" The supervisor god had been rudely awakened by the loud cry. He was about to grit his teeth and scold his subordinates when he saw their wary gazes. "Who is it..." He turned his head and promptly came face to face with demurely dressed Mimi Shen, who had been curiously tilting his head towards him. Sitting up and clutching his sword like a lifeline, he immediately pointed the shaky edge in the newcomer's direction. "W-Who is it? You dare trespass?!"

Most of the officials had already hightailed it out of there in the direction of the Court. Mimi Shen sighed and pressed a palm onto his forehead, "Ling Wen, I thought no one was supposed to be here?"

He sighed again when no response came from the other side of the array.

" Y-Y-You're who's minion? Who sends you?" This crazy-haired heavenly official, barely awake but already scared out of his wits, scanned the mostly black attire and made a hasty guess, "Did Black Water Submerging Boats send you here to create discord?"

"Tch, so stereotypical." He shook his head. "Every person wearing black clothes isn't He Xuan's clone or lackey, provided he can afford those." He muttered the last part of the sentence to himself. "Don't your civil gods wear black too? Or do you ask this question to them as well?"

The official shifted nervously at his careless tone and changed his stance, "Then who are you? Sneaking into the Heavens like this - do you want to get executed?!"

"Good heavens, who said I'm sneaking in?"

"..."

"Can't I walk in? Especially with the kind of defenses you all have put up..."

"You-! You dare mock!"

"No, no of course not. Now put down that spiritual stone-imbued sword, maybe?"

The official roared and lunged at him instead of replying, aforementioned sword in hand. Mimi Shen just clicked his tongue at this show of impatience and chose to evade the attacks.