The Little Peacock Raises a Snake (GL) Chapter 28

Fu Xiaoba tightly gripped the dagger in her hand. Her reddened eyes were full of firm resolve and no regret.
Fu Zhuochen only took one step forward, and she used the sharp blade to cut her own skin. A thread of blood seeped out along the wound.
But to Fu Zhuochen, this kind of threat was like a clumsy wooden sword in a child’s hand. It was only a tiny joke.
Looking across the whole three realms, there had never been much he feared. How could this little dagger stop his steps?
“Xiaoba, put the knife down.”
“I will not…”
“Am I asking for your opinion?” Fu Zhuochen’s expression darkened, as if telling Fu Xiaoba that his patience was limited and he had no mood to waste words with her.
“I…”
Before Fu Xiaoba could react, Fu Zhuochen’s figure flashed. In an instant, he came before her like a ghost. He raised his hand and clasped her wrist backward. A burst of pain at her wrist instantly made the short dagger fall from her hand.
The next second, the little black snake in her sleeve had already fallen into Fu Zhuochen’s hand. It hung weakly between his pale, slender fingers, as if he could easily snap it.
“Brother!”
“I will give you one more chance. Come back with me.” Fu Zhuochen’s tone was especially cold, as if there was no room to discuss it. “Or she dies here today.”
Fu Xiaoba clenched her fists and hesitated for a long time. Finally, she made her decision. “If you kill her, I will die!”
“You…” This threat made Fu Zhuochen lose the last of his patience. For a moment, he was so furious he could hardly control his emotions. He said angrily, “Then go die!”
Fine. That was fine too.
“Dying for love can also count as finishing this tribulation. If it does not count, then I will remember our bond in this life and protect your next life so you can pass your tribulation smoothly.”
As he spoke, spiritual power slowly gathered in the hand holding the little black snake. As long as he used a little force, the weak life in his hand would scatter like smoke. After this, whether Fu Xiaoba passed her tribulation and ascended or entered reincarnation again, she would no longer have any connection to this demon.
In this way, he would have fulfilled Zhiming’s request and protected her peace for one lifetime.
Fu Xiaoba reached out and tightly grabbed Fu Zhuochen’s wrist. With reddened eyes, she gritted her teeth and said, “I will destroy my own inner core. My soul will scatter. After that, I will not be a demon, and I will not need to be an immortal either.”
“Fu Xiaoba! Do you think you can kill yourself under my eyes?”
“Brother can watch me for a moment, but can you watch me for a lifetime?” Fu Xiaoba raised her head and looked straight into Fu Zhuochen’s eyes. “Brother has already reached the age of heavenly tribulation. When your hundred-year heavenly tribulation comes, will you still have energy left to stop me?”
Fu Zhuochen was shocked. He opened his mouth, but for a long time, he could not say anything. After a moment of hesitation, he finally slowly scattered the life-taking spiritual power in his hand.
He looked at Fu Xiaoba. Compared with before, his tone softened a little, and even trembled faintly. “Xiaoba, are you mad?”
“Then Brother can treat me as mad!” As Fu Xiaoba spoke, she raised a tearful smile.
Since she had already promised Qu Linyan a whole lifetime, she could not retreat from this step, and she absolutely would not retreat.
Fu Xiaoba was unwilling and did not dare to hurt the brother who had raised her with his own hands. But she also could not return with him like this. She could only use her own life as a threat.
She had never imagined that one day, she would use such an attitude to say these words to Fu Zhuochen. She knew this would surely hurt his heart, but at this moment, there was no other way.
“Brother, I am sorry…”
After a moment of silent stalemate, Fu Zhuochen closed his eyes and let out a heavy breath. When he opened them again, his tone and gaze were much gentler. “Xiaoba, how long have you known her? You are still young. You do not understand many things. You cannot wager everything because of one moment of being moved. That includes your immortal fate and immortal roots…”
Fu Xiaoba sniffed and looked at Fu Zhuochen. She shook her head and said softly, “But Brother, you said being an immortal is not very good, and being a demon is much freer and happier… You said the heavenly realm has so many rules. You are so amazing, but do you not also disdain cultivating into an immortal?”
“That is different.” Fu Zhuochen could not help furrowing his handsome brows and said in a low voice, “Among demons, the weak have always been prey to the strong. Not every place is as peaceful as Wuyou Valley. The peace and freedom from worry you have had for five hundred years, do you think anyone can give that to you? Do you know that a sacrifice pushed onto an altar to trade lives will have her soul scattered after death?”
Fu Xiaoba bit her lip, then said firmly, “She will not do that to me.”
“Even if she will not do that to you, does that mean you can be together?” Fu Zhuochen advised bitterly. “Xiaoba, you are not a demon. What flows in you is the rare bloodline of the phoenix clan. That cannot be changed by jumping into reincarnation once. You have heard so many stories. Have any of them ever written about an immortal being together with a demon?”
“Then I will be the first!” As Fu Xiaoba spoke, she suddenly took an extremely firm step forward and took that tiny black snake back from Fu Zhuochen’s hand into her arms.
Fu Zhuochen did not dare stop her. He only stepped back half a step, his eyes slightly red, and quietly watched the younger sister before him, whose gaze was determined.
Fu Xiaoba said, “I know I am easy to fool. From childhood until now, I believed whatever you said. Many times, you were only teasing me, and afterward you always laughed at me for being silly and trusting people too easily… Actually, I do not trust just anyone… I only feel that if it is someone I care about, why must I guard against them at every turn? Brother is like that. Little Black is also like that.”
She was not stupid. She was only used to everything being simple, while deep down, her heart had always been clear.
“Maybe in your eyes, she is that arrogant, lawless black flood dragon. But in my eyes, she is only the little black snake I saved, a little black snake who would risk her life to protect me in order to repay kindness.” Fu Xiaoba’s fingers gently rubbed the snake’s head, and she smiled without noticing. “I have seen her most childish side. I have heard the pain hidden deepest in her heart. I have seen her helplessness and weakness.”
Her tone was completely firm. “When she woke from serious injury, she told me she was so tired, but she also could not let go of me… I promised her that in this life, I would live and die with her… When I say one lifetime, I mean one lifetime. Even if I have to trade all future lifetimes for this one, I am willing…”
“In the heavenly realm, you have a marriage agreement. On the day you ascend as an upper god, you can fulfill that bond with him… That person was afraid something would happen to you in the human world and especially asked me to protect you. You…”
“I do not remember.” Fu Xiaoba pressed her lips together and raised her eyes. “The person you are talking about is not me. I do not know any heavenly realm, and I do not know any marriage agreement. I only know that my name is Fu Xiaoba, and I am a peacock with low cultivation… In this world, I only care about two people. One is you, Brother, and the other is her.”
Fu Zhuochen fell silent.
“What about Brother? Do you see me as your younger sister, or only as an ordinary passerby an old friend asked you to care for, so once this life passes, our fate is finished?” Fu Xiaoba quietly looked at Fu Zhuochen. There was an indescribable stubbornness in her eyes.
When Fu Zhuochen heard this, his heart could not help aching.
People were not plants. After more than four hundred years together day and night, how could he bear to treat her as an ordinary passerby?
“If you ascend as an upper god, I am only a demon and naturally would not be worthy of calling myself your brother…” As Fu Zhuochen spoke, he saw hurt flash through Fu Xiaoba’s eyes and could not help softening enough to explain. “But today, I did not come because of that request. I am afraid you will step onto a crooked path. I…”
“That is enough.” Fu Xiaoba interrupted him, her brows happily curving. “At least in Brother’s eyes, I am Fu Xiaoba, not some immortal high above the nine heavens, right?”
“I promised you that on the day you cultivated a human form, I would give you a name…”
For most ordinary little demons, names were given by the closest and most trusted person on the day they cultivated human form.
“I missed the day you became an adult. Is it still in time now?”
“No need. I like the name I have now.” Fu Xiaoba wiped away her tears and raised her brows. “It sounds very nice when she says it.”
Whether Qu Linyan angrily called her full name, happily shouted it aloud, or gently called it on ordinary days, every sound was stamped into her heart.
She did not need another name. In this life, she was Little Black’s Xiaoba.
Fu Zhuochen was silent for a long time. Bitterly, he said, “In your heart, she still matters more than everything?”
Fu Xiaoba deliberately did not answer directly. “Brother, do you still remember that you hurt her in Wuzhou?”
Fu Zhuochen said nothing.
Fu Xiaoba did not wait for him to respond. She only lowered her head to look at the little snake in her arms and said softly, “You hurt her, but she did not want to tell me. In the end, I had to force her to admit she had met you… That day, I had not even had time to worry about her wound before she hurried to promise me that she absolutely had not hurt you at all.”
As Fu Xiaoba spoke, tears had already blurred her vision. “She was so afraid I would be angry. She knew that what I least wanted to see was the two of you hurting each other.”
“If she wanted to bring me back to the flood dragon clan, she did not need my permission at all. If she wanted to sacrifice my life, she did not need to consider my feelings at all, did she?” Fu Xiaoba raised her tear-blurred eyes and smiled at Fu Zhuochen. “But she never forced me. Even at the end, she told me everything. I believe her. Brother, can you also believe me and trust that I did not judge the wrong person?”
“What use is it whether I believe or not?” Fu Zhuochen smiled at himself. At this moment, his tightly clenched fist loosened weakly.
Fu Xiaoba bit her lower lip hard and forced down the deep guilt in her heart.
After a long silence, Fu Zhuochen finally said, “I will do my best to hide this from the heavenly realm for you, but paper cannot wrap fire forever.”
“I understand. I am not afraid…”
Fu Zhuochen took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and nodded. He raised his hand, formed a red tail feather at his fingertip, and placed it in Fu Xiaoba’s palm.
“This…” Fu Xiaoba raised her eyes and looked back in confusion.
“If Qu Linyan betrays you one day, burn it completely. At that time, no matter where you are, I will be able to sense it.” Fu Zhuochen’s tone was very serious. “As long as you need me, even if you are in a mountain of knives, a sea of fire, a dragon’s pool, or a tiger’s den, I will come save you.”
Fu Xiaoba had just wiped clean the tears at the corners of her eyes, but in an instant, her vision blurred again.
She raised her eyes and wanted to say something, but Fu Zhuochen had already brushed past her. Without looking back, he walked alone down the path she had come from.
His red robes were like fire, yet lonely as smoke.
Brother’s temper had always been bad. In four hundred years, he had truly not said many kind words to her.
She still remembered a day more than four hundred years ago. The person she had watched from afar in the valley for dozens of years had suddenly caught her and brought her back to that small bamboo courtyard. He threw her into a wooden basin full of water and pressed her head down, washing her entire body.
At the time, she had stiffened her pair of fat little wings and struggled in panic and discomfort inside the basin, splashing dirty water all over him. It made his expression extremely unpleasant. From then on, he only prepared a basin of water ahead of time, pointed to it from far away, and signaled for her to roll in and deal with it herself.
Usually, aside from chatting with her a little during three meals a day and after-meal rest, he spent all his time urging her to cultivate.
Do not look at how he mostly closed his eyes and rested. If she was even a little lazy, she might be hit in the back of the head by a tiny stone.
She had known very early that Brother was good to her only because someone had asked him to be. He had not truly treated her as his younger sister. But even so, she still liked clinging to him.
After all, he was the only person in the entire valley who could speak with her.
She really was that heartless. Whoever could care for her, whoever could keep her company, she would depend on with her whole heart.
So after Qu Linyan appeared, she had left Wuyou Valley without hesitation and left that brother who probably had not truly cared for her. Even though she was very reluctant, she had not wanted to show it at all.
Only today did she learn that Fu Zhuochen was not as cold to her as he seemed, and she was not as heartless as she had imagined.
No one had ever told her that walking from the human realm to the earth realm was not only turning her back on the light.
She could only quietly watch that familiar back until, at last, it vanished at the end of her sight.
Only a red feather remained, silently tucked close to her heart.