Aylin Moon, formerly Lan Yue, Celestial Saint and vanquisher of cosmic horrors, stood in the cavernous, marble-floored lounge of her new corporate domain, holding a strange, black rod.
As she had swept out of her office, intent on beginning her search for Xue Lian, she had been intercepted by the building's impeccably dressed concierge.
"Director Moon, you forgot this," the man had said with a polite, deferential smile. "It's pouring out there."
She had accepted the object with a regal nod, though she had no idea what it was. A scepter of corporate authority? A strangely designed ritual weapon? Before her confusion could show, the Author's voice had chimed in her mind, as dry and clinical as a software manual.
[Item Identified: Umbrella. Function: Personal, portable rain deflection device. To deploy, press the indicated button.] A small, glowing arrow, visible only to her, helpfully pointed to a small button on the handle. [Note: Failure to utilize this device in inclement weather may result in 'getting wet,' a state the local populace finds highly undesirable.]
Aylin stared at the "umbrella." A device to ward off… water falling from the sky. The mortals of this realm were more fragile than she could have ever imagined.
She reached the massive glass entrance of the skyscraper. It was, as the System had noted, "pouring." A torrential, driving rain lashed against the glass, turning the glittering city into a blurry, weeping watercolor. And standing just inside the doors, hesitating, was the terrified number-scribe from the earlier, Iuno Li. She was hugging a thick binder to her chest as if it were a shield, her expression one of grim determination as she clearly psyched herself up for a desperate, soaking sprint into the deluge.
Aylin watched her, her mind trying to process the behavior through a cultivator's lens. Is she attempting to temper her body by willingly subjecting it to the elements? A foolish and highly inefficient method. Her vitality is already unstable.
Recalling a vague, implanted memory about a director's "duty of care" for their employees, she decided to intervene. She approached the jittery accountant, holding out the strange black rod.
"You can use this?" she asked, her phrasing a genuine question about the object's utility rather than the polite offer she intended.
Iuno jumped, spinning around with a startled squeak. "Oh! No, no, Director Moon, I couldn't possibly!" she stammered, holding up her hands as if Aylin had offered her a live viper. "It's yours! I'll be fine! I'll just… run for it!"
Aylin, who had no concept of the social dance of polite refusal, simply heard this as an illogical rejection of a superior's solution. Her expression became sterner. "Take it," she said, her voice flat and devoid of warmth. "I do not require it." A little rain was an insignificant trifle. She pressed the umbrella into Iuno's unresisting hands.
It was in this moment of awkward, power-imbalanced silence that Aylin's new, mortal body chose to betray her in the most humiliating way possible.
A loud, long, and deeply embarrassing GRRRROWL erupted from her midsection, an unmistakable roar of pure, undiluted hunger.
The sound echoed in the cavernous, marble-floored entrance. Iuno froze. Aylin froze. A faint, horrified, and utterly un-celestial blush spread across Director Moon's face. She, who had faced down gods and demons, had been brought low by a rebellious digestive system.
Iuno stared. Her terrifying, ice-cold, seemingly omnipotent boss… got hungry? The sound was so shockingly normal, so profoundly human, that it shattered the wall of fear she had built around her. She looked at the umbrella in her hands, then at her boss's faintly blushing face, and an impulse of pure, reciprocating kindness took over.
"Uh… Director," she stammered, pointing a wavering finger across the rain-swept street. "There's… there's a ramen shop. Just over there. They make really good tonkotsu ramen. It's… it's really nice to eat when it's raining. Since, you know… it's hot."
Aylin, still reeling from the mortal indignity of her own stomach and unfamiliar with the concept of "ramen," could only give a stiff, curt nod. Acquiring sustenance was a logical solution to the problem.
Iuno, emboldened, found the button on the umbrella. With a loud fwoomp, a huge black dome of fabric sprang open above them, startling them both. Awkwardly, she held it over both of their heads as they stepped out into the rain, standing at the edge of the street and waiting for the glowing red hand on the traffic pole to change.
Then, the universe, with its sick and twisted sense of humor, decided to send a reminder.
There was a sudden, terrifying screech of tires on wet asphalt. A HIJET MODEL 2020, WHITE van came hydroplaning around the corner, its brakes clearly having failed, a familiar specter of death hurtling directly towards them.
Time, for Aylin, slowed to a crawl. The world became a flow of vectors and probabilities. Her ancient, celestial reflexes, buried deep in the soul of this mortal shell, took over.
She didn't have time for an elegant, divine technique. She just acted.
With a speed that defied mortal physics, she grabbed the back of Iuno's collar with one hand, yanking her backward with impossible force. With her other hand, she shoved them both sideways, a powerful, explosive push that sent them tumbling onto the wet, hard pavement of the sidewalk.
The white van flashed past the exact spot where they had been standing, a blur of white metal and rain, before crashing into a row of mailboxes with a sickening crunch of metal.
They landed in a heap on the ground. Iuno was breathless, soaked, and in a state of pure, adrenaline-fueled shock, the now-mangled umbrella lying a few feet away. Aylin was lying half on top of her, having shielded her from the brunt of the fall. She pushed herself up, feeling a sharp, stinging sensation in her knee. She looked down. Her sleek, expensive trousers were torn, and she had a bloody scrape on her knee. The first injury she had sustained in over a hundred years, and it was from a patch of concrete. The indignity was immense.
Of course, she thought, her silent message a venomous hiss directed at the cosmic Author who was clearly enjoying this far too much. Of course it was a white Hijet. You have a sick sense of humor.
Iuno, her heart still hammering against her ribs, stared up at her boss. The speed of the shove, the impossible force of the push… it wasn't normal. "Director Moon…" she breathed, her eyes wide with a new kind of awe that was replacing her fear. "You… you saved my life. You moved so fast…"
Aylin looked down at her terrified, grateful number-scribe, then at her own bleeding knee, and then at the steaming wreck of the van that had started this whole, ridiculous mess in another life. Her first day on her quest, and she had already been nearly killed by the same model of vehicle. This was going to be much, much harder than she thought.