I turned the device over in my palm. There had to be something, anything hinting at how I could use it. I found nothing. Not even an inscription or a scratch.
Maybe Ye Ye had been wrong. Maybe this compass wasn’t special after all.
“What is that?” asked Jordan.
I shoved it back into my pocket. “It’s nothing. Just … something my grandfather gave me.”
“Your grandfather? Where is he?”
“He’s, uh … actually sort of … dead now. Well, not exactly dead,” I said quickly, as soon as the all-too-familiar look of apologetic sorrow crossed Jordan’s face. “He was deified.”
Why was I telling him about Ye Ye? I hadn’t talked to anyone about Ye Ye, except Ren maybe once.
“That’s so cool,” Jordan said wistfully. “Your grandfather’s a deity. You must get the best New Year’s presents.”
I thought back to the Lunar New Year. Over the course of the holiday, Ye Ye and Moli died, my brother betrayed me, and the gods declared war on all of humanity.
“Um,” I said. “Yeah. The best.”
Jordan stared at me as though seeing me in a whole new light. Feeling uncomfortable, I tried to divert his attention.
“Hey, why are you the one who gets to drive the chariot?” I asked Ashley. “Xiong gave me the remote.”
“Right. So you do the navigating. I’ll do the driving. You just sit back and let me handle the real work,” Ashley added, raising her voice over the volume of the wind. “I’ll fight all the demons and save the world way before the end of the Hungry Ghost Festival.”
I gritted my teeth. “Excuse me? Get off your high horse, Ashley.”
“This is a chariot. I am on a chariot.”
“Please stop fighting,” Jordan yelled. He grabbed a handful of snacks and waved them in the air. “We have Choco Pies and Pocky! Why are you both still angry?”
Ashley opened her mouth to retort, but Jordan stuffed an unwrapped Choco Pie into her mouth. “Mrrrph!”
Now I understood why Ashley was on this quest. She was our secret weapon. Put her in front of a demon for two minutes, and she’d annoy the poor thing to death.
“As much as I’m enjoying all this arguing,” Jordan interrupted, “can we talk about the quest for a moment? Do we even know where we’re going? Has anyone figured out Erlang Shen’s riddle?”
“Figured out the riddle?” Ashley swallowed her last bite of the Choco Pie. “Of course I’ve figured out the riddle.”
Jordan and I exchanged stunned looks. “What? You have?” we burst out in unison.
“It’s obvious. I honestly don’t know how Erlang Shen could have made his shī any clearer. Remember the first couple of lines? ‘To seek the weapon of greatest power, five warriors must search the highest heights and lowest depths.’ Where in the world can you find a place that has both the ‘highest heights and lowest depths’?”
Jordan popped open a box of green-tea Pocky. He looked stumped as he chewed on a stick.
“Highest heights and lowest depths … sounds like a roller coaster,” I tried. “Or Vegas.”
Ashley snorted. “A roller coaster? And Vegas? Is that honestly the best you could come up with?”
“What do you think it is, if you’re so smart?” I snapped.
“That riddle clearly refers to a natural place. It’s the Grand Canyon.”
“Oh.” Jordan chewed on his Pocky thoughtfully. “Yeah. That does make sense.”
“Why would the gods want us to go to the Grand Canyon?” I asked. “There’s nothing there but a bunch of rocks and nature.” I doubted we’d find my ancestors or memory-restoring elixirs there.
“And annoying tourists,” added Jordan.
“Plus, there’s the matter of the ‘weapon of greatest power,’ ” I pointed out. A nagging voice in the back of my head—which sounded strangely similar to Alex’s—told me that I should know exactly what that meant. My brother had definitely talked my ear off before about the most powerful weapon in Chinese mythology. What was it called again?
“Haven’t you guys learned anything from the Elders?” Ashley huffed. “The Grand Canyon is the home of Xuanwu, the god of the north and patron god of martial artists. In the legends, Xuanwu is a powerful warrior god who used his strength to subdue a demonic snake and demonic turtle into serving him. Remember the rest of Erlang Shen’s poem?”
“ ‘And when darkness reaches its greatest hour, an old ally will return from the brink of death,’ ” Jordan recited.
“Right,” said Ashley. “Xuanwu was definitely an ‘old ally’ to Erlang Shen and the other deities hundreds of years ago. He’s been in hiding for a long time. But in the darkest hour, he’ll rise to the occasion.”
I guess Ashley’s theory did make more sense than anything Jordan and I could come up with. I had to trust that finding Xuanwu would also lead me to finding my relatives and the memory-restoring elixir. Ye Ye’s compass would show us the way. Right?
We rode through blue skies with the stone lions pulling us along at a rapid pace. Normally I’d have trouble falling asleep thousands of feet in the air, zipping along at breakneck speed, but I was exhausted by the events of the past twenty-four hours. It didn’t take long before I closed my eyes, and the world faded away.
I stood in a great throne room. The man sitting on the throne was the Jade Emperor himself. He wore a golden hat with dangling beads that hung to his shoulders, a sweeping gold and red robe, and a stern expression on his face.
Guards stood at every pillar, holding spears in their hands. Something serious was happening. My gaze fell upon a warrior surrounded by two guards and kneeling in front of the throne. They’d crossed their spears in front of the warrior, as though blocking any escape. The warrior’s face pointed toward the ground, hidden from my sight, but I’d be able to recognize the
