The hurricane arrived wearing a tutu and brandishing a restraining order. Ling spotted it pirouetting on the horizon, its rainbands swirling into perfect legal cursive that spelled Temporary Injunction Against Meteorological Norms.
"Should we tell it we're closed?" Chu Feng asked, casually deflecting a flying subpoena coconut with the moon plow. The tool had developed a worrying habit of humming show tunes during litigation.
"Tried that," Ling muttered, ducking as a deposition banana exploded against the barn. "It claims we violated its right to asymmetrical precipitation patterns in 2004."
Arbiter skidded into view wearing snorkel gear and dragging a chest full of maritime law textbooks. "I can fix this! Just need to prove it's a personally aggrieved weather system under Article 4, Section—"
A waterspout lifted him into the stratosphere. His final words echoed down: "...jurisdictional waffles!"
The hurricane's eye settled over the farm like a disgruntled wedding cake topper. Its rain wore tiny powdered wigs.
"Ling versus Atmospheric Decency," thundered the storm in a voice that smelled of wet subpoenas. "Count One: Knowingly maintaining a farmstead in a provocative shade of pastoral charm."
Chu Feng nailed a motion to dismiss to a flying mahi-mahi. "That's not even a real statute!"
"Count Two," continued the hurricane, producing a lightning bolt gavel, "Conspiracy to induce climate anxiety through…" It squinted at a waterlogged scroll. "...excessive use of rustic metaphors in subsection… Oh forget it." The storm hurled a thunderclap at Ling's boots. "You know what you did!"
Ling retaliated with the only weapon at hand—a novelty snow globe from their aborted trip to the 2015 Climate Accords. The tiny plastic delegates inside began singing union hymns.
The legal battle escalated quickly:
Exhibit A: A tornado dressed as a process server spun through the cornfield, leaving deposition notices carved into every third stalk.
Exhibit B: The scarecrow judge was bribed with a promotion to Supreme Court of Squash.
Exhibit C: Arbiter fell from the sky wearing a conch shell helmet and insisting maritime law applied because "everything's technically 60% water."
"Objection!" Ling shouted as the hurricane entered a hailstorm of precedent. "This precipitation lacks proper discovery seasoning!"
The storm responded by flash-flooding the farm with discovery requests written in kelp. Chu Feng attempted to mediate using a ukulele and liability waivers folded into origami peace cranes.
During recess, they found Arbiter teaching the chickens to file class-action suits against worms. "It's not entrapment if the earthworms signed consent forms!" he argued, waving parchments nibbled by invertebrate mandibles.
Ling confiscated his seaweed gavel. "Focus. That storm's about to upgrade from misdemeanor gusts to felony wind shear."
"Fine." Arbiter blew a conch shell jury summons. "But you'll regret stifling my groundbreaking Avian vs. Annelid precedent!"
The summoned jury proved problematic—twelve lobsters in tiny judicial robes who kept demanding climatological asylum.
The hurricane, now bored of legal protocol, decided to settle matters through interpretive dance. Its closing argument involved:
A tropical depression ballet
Lightning bolt jazz hands
A showstopping finale where it rained live courtroom sketches
Chu Feng countered with an agricultural aria that made the scarecrow judge weep organic fertilizer. "You've heard of voir dire? This is soil choir."
Ling played her trump card—Jiang Yue's old music box, now retrofitted to play the 1812 Overture using tiny cannon-shaped objections. The resulting sonic boom:
Dissolved the hurricane's LLC status
Forced the lobsters into plea bargains
Accidentally trademarked cumulonimbus formations
In the storm's dissipating sigh, they found Arbiter building a sandcastle International Court of Justice…in the hurricane's abandoned eye.
"Look!" He pointed to barn swallows drafting a new constitution in midair. "They're using worm-sign language for the preamble!"
Chu Feng stirred a cocktail of rainwater and shredded tort reforms. "Think we won?"
Ling watched the last subpoena coconut fall. "We survived. That's the rural version of winning."
The moon plow began humming New York, New York.
Somewhere offshore, a disgraced hurricane regrouped as a tropical depression with daddy issues. The audits would continue.
The balance swayed.
But here—between the rogue poultry attorneys and the ukulele-shaped peace treaties—they let the music box play its off-key victory.