4
" Quentin took a deep breath.
“My true name,” he said, “ . . . is SUN WUKONG.”
A cold wind passed through the open window, rustling my loose papers like tumbleweed.
“I have no idea who that is,” I said.
Quentin was still trying to cement his “look at me being serious” face. It took him a few seconds to realize I wasn’t flipping out over whoever he was.
“The Sun Wukong,” he said, scooping the air with his fingers. “Sun Wukong the Monkey King.”
“I said, I don’t know who that is.”
His jaw dropped. Thankfully his teeth were still normal-size.
“You’re Chinese and you don’t know me?” he sputtered. “That’s like an American child not knowing Batman!”
“You’re Chinese Batman?”
“No! I’m stronger than Batman, and more important, like—like. Tian na, how do you not know who I am!?”
I didn’t know why he expected me to recognize him. He couldn’t have been a big-time actor or singer from overseas. I never followed mainland pop culture, but a lot of the other people at school did; word would have gotten around if we had a celebrity in our midst.
Plus that was a weird stage name. Monkey King? Was that what passed for sexy among the kids these days? "
― F.C. Yee , The Epic Crush of Genie Lo (The Epic Crush of Genie Lo, #1)
7
" Because it wasn’t enough to be accompanied by the beast who scared the crap out of every god in Heaven, Xuanzang was assigned a few more traveling companions. The gluttonous pig-man Zhu Baijie. Sha Wujing, the repentant sand demon. And the Dragon Prince of the West Sea, who took the form of a horse for Xuanzang to ride. The five adventurers, thusly gathered, set off on their—
“Holy ballsacks!” I yelped. I dropped the book like I’d been bitten.
“How far did you get?” Quentin said.
He was leaning against the end of the nearest shelf, as casually as if he’d been there the whole time, waiting for this moment.
I ignored that he’d snuck up on me again, just this once. There was a bigger issue at play.
In the book was an illustration of the group done up in bold lines and bright colors. There was Sun Wukong at the front, dressed in a beggar’s cassock, holding his Ruyi Jingu Bang in one hand and the reins of the Dragon Horse in the other. A scary-looking pig-faced man and a wide-eyed demon monk followed, carrying the luggage. And perched on top of the horse was . . . me.
The artist had tried to give Xuanzang delicate, beatific features and ended up with a rather girly face. By whatever coincidence, the drawing of Sun Wukong’s old master could have been a rough caricature of sixteen-year-old Eugenia Lo from Santa Firenza, California.
“That’s who you think I am?” I said to Quentin.
“That’s who I know you are,” he answered. “My dearest friend. My boon companion. You’ve reincarnated into such a different form, but I’d recognize you anywhere. Your spiritual energies are unmistakable.”
“Are you sure? If you’re from a long time ago, maybe your memory’s a little fuzzy.”
“The realms beyond Earth exist on a different time scale,” Quentin said. “Only one day among the gods passes for every human year. To me, you haven’t been gone long. Months, not centuries.”
“This is just . . . I don’t know.” I took a moment to assemble my words. “You can’t walk up to me and expect me to believe right away that I’m the reincarnation of some legendary monk from a folk tale.”
“Wait, what?” Quentin squinted at me in confusion.
“I said you can’t expect me to go, ‘okay, I’m Xuanzang,’ just because you tell me so.”
Quentin’s mouth opened slowly like the dawning of the sun. His face went from confusion to understanding to horror and then finally to laughter.
“mmmmphhhhghAHAHAHAHA!” he roared. He nearly toppled over, trying to hold his sides in. “HAHAHAHA!”
“What the hell is so funny?”
“You,” Quentin said through his giggles. “You’re not Xuanzang. Xuanzang was meek and mild. A friend to all living things. You think that sounds like you?”
It did not. But then again I wasn’t the one trying to make a case here.
“Xuanzang was delicate like a chrysanthemum.” Quentin was getting a kick out of this. “You are so tough you snapped the battleaxe of the Mighty Miracle God like a twig. Xuanzang cried over squashing a mosquito. You, on the other hand, have killed more demons than the Catholic Church.”
I was starting to get annoyed. “Okay, then who the hell am I supposed to be?” If he thought I was the pig, then this whole deal was off.
“You’re my weapon,” he said. “You’re the Ruyi Jingu Bang.”
I punched Quentin as hard as I could in the face. "
― F.C. Yee , The Epic Crush of Genie Lo (The Epic Crush of Genie Lo, #1)
10
" I was ready when Quentin approached me after school the following day.
“Genie,” he said. “Please. Let me expl—moomph!”
“Stay away,” I said, mashing the bulb of garlic into his face as hard as I could. I didn’t have any crosses or holy water at home. I had to work with what was available.
Quentin slowly picked the cloves out of my hand before popping them into his mouth.
“That’s white vampires,” he said, chewing and swallowing the raw garlic like a bite of fruit. “If I was a jiangshi you should have brought a mirror.”
I wrinkled my nose. “You’re going to stink now.”
“What, like a Chinese?” He pursed his lips and blew a kiss at me.
Instead of being pungent, his breath was sweet with plum blossoms and coconut. Like his body magically refused to be anything but intensely appealing to me, even on a molecular level.
I tried to swat away his scent before it made me drunk. "
― F.C. Yee , The Epic Crush of Genie Lo (The Epic Crush of Genie Lo, #1)
11
" I let the divine being leave first and gave him a few minutes to do whatever it was he needed to do to get back to Heaven. It seemed polite, though I’d only made that rule up in my head.
When I stepped out of the shack, Quentin was there by the roadside, waiting for me.
“Have a nice chat?”
I knew his peevish tone was his usual allergic reaction to Erlang Shen, but for some reason I didn’t field it well today.
“Yeah, we really connected on an emotional level,” I snapped. “I promised to turn into a stick for him.”
That was perhaps the weirdest, most hyper-targeted dig I’d ever leveled at someone, but boy did it work. Quentin looked like I’d broken him in half and left him on the curb for pickup. He was completely silent the entire trip back to civilization.
He didn’t call or text me that night either "
― F.C. Yee , The Epic Crush of Genie Lo (The Epic Crush of Genie Lo, #1)
14
" I squeezed my eyes shut so I wouldn’t have to look at my arm trailing away like the streamer on a bike handle.
“I can’t be stuck like this!” I wailed. Visions of having to gnaw it off like a jackal in a trap flooded my brain.
Quentin knelt before me and put his hands on my trembling shoulders.
“You’re not going to be stuck,” he said, his voice low and reassuring in my ears. “You are the most powerful thing on Earth short of a god. You can do absolutely anything. So believe me when I say you can certainly change your arm back to normal.”
He held me firmly, the way you’d brace someone trying to pop a dislocated joint back into place. “Just relax and breathe,” he said. “It’ll happen as you will it.”
I took his advice and focused on calming down. Focused on nothing. Focused on him.
I couldn’t really feel my arm retracting. And I certainly didn’t want to look at it happening. I just . . . remembered how I was supposed to be. I kept quiet, kept at it for what must have been a good ten minutes, until I could feel both of my hands firmly on Quentin’s broad back.
“There you go,” he said.
I opened my eyes. My arm was normal again. I was aware that we were sort of hugging.
I buried my face in his chest and blew my nose on his shirt. “I’m a human being,” I muttered.
“I never said you weren’t.”
I raised my head. Quentin looked at me with a smile that was free of any smugness. He didn’t even mind my snot on his lapel.
“Reincarnation as a human is practically the highest goal any spirit can achieve,” he said. “It’s considered the next best thing to enlightenment. If anything, I’m proud of you for what you’ve accomplished.”
I’m not sure why, but the rage that had been so palpable before seemed to float away at his words. Like I could have been angry with him forever had he said anything different.
I was mildly relieved. It was a hell of a one-eighty on my part, but right now I didn’t think I wanted to hate Quentin until the end of time.
“Genie Lo, you are unquestionably, undeniably human,” he said. “You just . . . have a whole bunch of other stuff going on as well.”
“Tell me about it. "
― F.C. Yee , The Epic Crush of Genie Lo (The Epic Crush of Genie Lo, #1)
