The Little Peacock Raises a Snake (GL) Chapter 45

The battle between the devil realm and the heavenly realm on the bank of the River of Forgetfulness began quickly and ended quickly too.
In the end, the black flood dragon “lived up to expectations” and lost to the heavenly realm’s Black Tortoise Divine Lord. At last, she had no choice but to lead her people back the way they had come, returning to the devil realm.
Only, there was one point many people had not expected. Three hundred years ago, the black flood dragon had been utterly helpless before Black Tortoise Divine Lord. Three hundred years later, she had actually injured him badly.
That day, all the immortals, gods, demons, and devils present saw it with their own eyes. The black flood dragon truly had broken Black Tortoise Divine Lord’s protective spiritual power.
At that time, heaven and earth had suddenly brightened. It was as if a pure white flower had bloomed in an instant, then withered into the murky world. In that moment, the fight between the black flood dragon and Black Tortoise Divine Lord seemed to pause. Time seemed to freeze over them. Several seconds later, Black Tortoise Divine Lord’s originally unbreakable protective spiritual power had already been shattered.
No one knew what had happened in those few seconds. But a flood dragon demon who had cultivated for three thousand years had broken the protective spiritual power of the ten-thousand-year divine beast Black Tortoise. That alone was unbelievable. What was more, after that, the black flood dragon had pressed him move after move and beaten Black Tortoise Divine Lord into a rather sorry state.
For the black flood dragon, this battle was definitely an honorable defeat. At the very least, she had recovered some of the face she had lost three hundred years ago.
Only, no one knew that in Qu Linyan’s heart, whether she had won or lost this fight was not important.
What mattered was that in Zhiming’s memories, she had seen the little peacock who had haunted her soul and dreams for three hundred years.
Blue Luan Upper God Yun Su had once descended to the mortal world for a tribulation eight hundred years ago. Her age matched Fu Xiaoba’s exactly. Ridiculous. This was something she could have known with the slightest inquiry, yet she had never once connected the two.
Only because she had always believed that blood sacrifice had long since scattered Fu Xiaoba’s soul completely, leaving her unable to return to the heavenly realm. So she had stumbled along for more than three hundred years.
Qu Linyan said, “For Black Tortoise Divine Lord’s wedding, I want an invitation.”
Chu Yuebai rolled her eyes. “Qu Linyan, I suspect you are joking with me. You know perfectly well the heavenly realm would never send invitations to the demon or devil clans. How are you going to ask? Who are you going to ask?”
“I can be sure the turtle-snake’s fiancee is Xiaoba!” Qu Linyan frowned, her eyes full of fear and unwillingness. “I have to bring her back. I want to ask her why, for three hundred years, she never had anyone send me even half a message. Why she could put me down so easily and discuss marriage with another man…”
Chu Yuebai could not help falling silent. Several seconds later, she shook her head and said helplessly, “I truly have no way with you. If you look for Black Tortoise Divine Lord’s wedding invitation in the earth realm, you certainly will not find one. But many wandering immortals live in the human world. They have immortal registration but no official heavenly post. Generally speaking, if the heavenly realm has a happy occasion, whether they go or not, an invitation will be sent to them out of courtesy.”
Hearing this, Qu Linyan fell into thought.
*
When Zhiming returned, his injuries were not light.
While Yun Su treated his wounds, she discovered that his left shoulder blade was fractured. Half of the shoulder bone had been torn away, and his entire arm had lost the ability to move. She could not help feeling shocked.
Zhiming, however, clearly did not care much. It was not as if his arm had been cut off. With his cultivation, regenerating two pieces of shoulder bone would not take too many days at most.
Even so, when they spoke privately, Ciyin still felt wronged on Zhiming’s behalf.
“That black flood dragon is truly hateful! Three hundred years ago, if Divine Lord had wanted to kill her, it would have been as easy as turning over his hand, yet he spared her life. And now? It is bad enough that she shouted threats on the bank of the River of Forgetfulness. She even wounded Divine Lord so badly!”
Yun Su propped her chin in both hands and said, “That black flood dragon really is arrogant. I heard from the people who came back that she called Zhiming a turtle-snake, and called me… called me a silly bird.”
Ciyin clenched her little fists and angrily pounded the small stone table. “She truly has no one in her eyes! Luckily, Susu, you…” Halfway through, she remembered there were certain things she could not say. She froze, and for a long time no more words came.
“Mm?” Yun Su looked at Ciyin blankly and asked curiously, “Luckily I what?”
Ciyin blinked and said, “Luckily you stabbed her with a sword back then and vented your anger… in advance.”
Yun Su burst out laughing. “Can someone vent anger eight hundred years in advance?”
Ciyin only lifted her eyes toward the sea of clouds at the edge of the sky and said, “Before I knew it, three hundred years had passed. This is good. You and Divine Lord are finally about to marry.” That person should be coming at last, right…
Seeing that Ciyin seemed to have something on her mind, Yun Su could not help asking, “A-Yin, what are you thinking about?”
Ciyin came back to herself, shook her head, and laughingly changed the subject.
Without anyone quite noticing, half a month passed in a flash.
Zhiming’s injuries recovered very quickly. His left arm could already move a little. This was good news. At least on the day of the wedding, the groom would not look like a cripple.
The wedding day was approaching. Invitations had long since been sent to all the immortals and gods. As many wandering immortals from the human world arrived one after another, the heavenly realm became much livelier than usual. Even Northern Xuan Palace, which was normally terribly cold and quiet, had been decorated with exceptional festivity under Ciyin’s help.
Only, Yun Su did not know why, but the closer the wedding came, the deeper the anxiety in her heart became.
She faintly felt that the person who had appeared again and again in her dreams over the past three hundred years should be very important to her. So important that it was as if they had long since been carved into her bones and blood, fused into her three souls and seven spirits. Even if she forgot, she could not cut them away completely.
Who knew whose rule it was, but apparently the bride and groom should not meet during the three days before the wedding. Yun Su had wanted to go to Northern Xuan Palace to change Zhiming’s medicine, but the little immortal maids who had appeared there at some unknown time coaxed and herded her out. Helpless, she could only return alone.
But on the road back to Qingyu Cottage, she happened to see Ciyin leading someone joyfully toward Northern Xuan Palace.
That person wore red robes as if cut from sunset clouds. His features were clear and refined, his brows and eyes like a painting. His face was so beautiful that any woman who saw it would feel jealous. Yet he happened to be a demon.
“A-Yin!” Yun Su went forward to meet them. Seeing that the person kept looking at her, she felt a little uncomfortable. “How can a demon appear in the heavenly realm?”
“Susu, this is Fu Zhuochen, Brother Fu. He is your…” Ciyin instinctively lifted her eyes to glance at Fu Zhuochen. Seeing him calmly shift his gaze elsewhere and stop looking at Yun Su, she understood and quickly changed her words. “He is an old friend of your Divine Lord from the human world!”
Zhiming’s old friend? Why… did he feel so familiar?
As if… as if she had seen him in a dream.
Yun Su could not help looking this demon up and down. Seeing a jade pendant in the shape of the Black Tortoise tied at his waist, she spoke again. “I have heard that this jade pendant was carved from Frost-Heaven Jade. It was given by the previous Heavenly Emperor to the Four Symbols divine beasts. Azure Dragon Mengzhang, White Tiger Jianbing, Vermilion Bird Lingguang, and Black Tortoise Zhiming each held one. Since he could give this object to you, your friendship with him must not be shallow.”
Fu Zhuochen answered lightly, “Borrowed. I have to return it.”
Those words truly left a person unsure how to respond.
Yun Su was awkward for a moment, then suddenly lifted her eyes and asked, “Have we… met somewhere before?”
Fu Zhuochen said, “I am only a small mortal-dust demon. I have never met Upper God.”
Yun Su shook her head and stubbornly said, “But when I look at you, I always feel you are very familiar…”
Fu Zhuochen was silent for a moment, then said, “Does Upper God usually strike up conversations with people this way?”
Yun Su was struck speechless. She clenched her fists and held back for a long while before saying angrily, “Why is a demon like you so rude when you speak?”
With that, she brushed past the two of them and left without looking back.
Ciyin watched Yun Su’s back in a daze for several seconds. When she turned back, she bit her lip, wanting to say something comforting to Fu Zhuochen. But after thinking for a long time, she could not say a single word.
She knew Fu Zhuochen would definitely come for Yun Su and Zhiming’s wedding. But now that she had truly waited him here, she suddenly felt it would have been better if he had not come.
The Fu Xiaoba who had once made him care enough to protect her with his life no longer existed. Even if he came here to drink a cup of wedding wine, it would only add grief for nothing.
…
On the wedding day, Ciyin accompanied the bride in Qingyu Cottage and helped her dress.
For some reason, Yun Su knocked the wooden comb beside the table to the floor. Ciyin stared blankly for a long while before barely coming back to herself.
“So careless.” She curved her eyes and teased Yun Su. With a slight hook of her finger, she drew the wooden comb back into her hand. “Looking through the heavenly realm, only Divine Lord Zhiming is willing to indulge your careless nature.”
At that moment, she saw Yun Su frown. Her gaze drifted for a long time before she finally said, “A-Yin, I do not want to marry.”
“Why? Divine Lord Zhiming treats you so well! Besides him, who else could treat you this way?”
Suddenly, Ciyin saw tears in Yun Su’s eyes. Though her exquisite makeup was still bright, her gaze had somehow dimmed. Everything seemed to return to three hundred years ago, when her best friend had come back from her lower-realm tribulation alive, yet with her heart dead.
Ciyin’s eyes reddened along with Yun Su’s. She slowly stepped forward, opened her arms, and gently held her, unable to stop the ache in her heart.
But Yun Su and Zhiming had long had a marriage contract. Even if that contract had never received her consent, she still had to cover herself with the bridal veil and sit in the bridal sedan that had come to receive her.
Barefoot, Ciyin walked at the very front of the flower sedan, holding a ball of red spiritual light in her hands. Wherever her feet passed, azaleas bloomed for a hundred li, spreading like a sea and reflecting heaven and earth in red.
This was the only blessing she could give Yun Su. She only hoped that the person marrying Yun Su today would hold love in his heart as endless as these hundred li of azaleas, and would never fail her in this life.
…
“You cannot go in!”
“Are you blind? Can you not see the invitation? What is wrong with your heavenly realm? Black Tortoise Divine Lord personally stamped this invitation. If even this will not let me enter, is it waste paper?”
“You are from the demon clan. If you want to enter, fine, but you must wait for me to report first… Hey! You cannot just force your way in! You…”
Qu Linyan charged straight ahead, frightening who knew how many low-cultivation little immortals along the way.
A demon swaggering around without anyone guiding her would normally have alarmed the entire heavenly realm long ago.
But today, all immortals and gods with even a little cultivation had gone to Northern Xuan Palace. When some little immortals saw this demon holding an invitation, they naturally dared not say anything or ask anything. They only dared stare blankly after that astonishingly fast figure.
Following the sea of azaleas, Qu Linyan rushed toward the place in the heavenly realm where immortal energy was densest at that very moment. At last, the instant the flower sedan landed, she startled every immortal and god inside and outside Northern Xuan Palace.
How was there an uninvited demon here?
For a time, countless shocked gazes turned toward Qu Linyan, but Qu Linyan’s eyes were fixed on the bride whom Zhiming had just helped down from the flower sedan.
Nameless anger burned fiercely in the bottom of her heart in that instant.
She was clearly her wife. How could she put on wedding clothes for someone else?
Someone belatedly recognized her and cried out in shock, “The black flood dragon! She is the black flood dragon!”
Qu Linyan did not give the people of the heavenly realm any time to react. She rose into the air and formed seals with both hands. A wicked wind carrying cold, bone-deep chill swept through in revenge, blowing the red silk everywhere into disorder and overturning all the banquet tables.
“Audacious black flood dragon! How dare you run wild in the heavenly realm!”
“The cold air is poisoned!” someone warned in extreme vigilance, but in the end, the warning came a little too late.
No matter how deeply Tearstain poison could eat into the bones, it still needed spiritual power to control it. It was impossible for it to affect so many immortals and gods’ minds in an instant.
Qu Linyan did not dare be careless. She only borrowed the Dreamweaving Shuttle’s power to blur, for a brief moment, the awareness of everyone who touched the cold air.
A moment later, when the immortals and gods came back to themselves, they saw that the demon woman had already pulled Upper God Yun Su, who had fallen unconscious at some unknown time, into her arms. Then she shook herself into her original form and flew away.
The black flood dragon came and went in the blink of an eye. She did not injure anyone, but she stole the bride.
Yet while the bride had been kidnapped, the groom was not anxious in the slightest. From beginning to end, he watched indifferently from the side. He did not even move a finger. Anyone who did not know better would have thought the bride had nothing to do with him.
For a time, all the guests stared blankly at Zhiming.
In this situation, if they did not help chase, it felt a little wrong. But if they did help chase, it also felt a little like the emperor was not anxious but the eunuchs were.
“Divine Lord, Upper God Yun Su, she, she…” The Star Lord of Fate stammered at the side for a long while. Then he suddenly slapped his forehead as if waking from a dream and said, “Divine Lord truly calculates with divine precision. This minor immortal admires you, admires you!”
Zhiming looked at the Star Lord of Fate. “What do you admire?”
“The one who was kidnapped just now should be a fake Blue Luan Upper God, right?” As the Star Lord of Fate spoke, he shook his head and laughed. “Divine Lord is so calm. That must be it!”
“Oh!” As soon as the Star Lord of Fate said this, everyone suddenly understood. Each of them praised Divine Lord Zhiming for his divine foresight.
Zhiming quietly waited for the crowd to finish flattering him. Only then did he say, “Star Lord of Fate, you know how to joke.”
“This…” The Star Lord of Fate’s face twisted a little, and the expressions of all the immortals and gods turned awkward too.
Zhiming turned back and looked at the mess before him. After a long silence, he said lightly, “Forget it.”
As his words fell, he turned and changed back into black robes. With one sweep of his sleeve, the red silk around him was dyed black, and the azaleas withered.
A wedding had become a farce. After all the guests dispersed, Ciyin pulled Fu Zhuochen with her and went to find Zhiming, who was brewing tea in the back courtyard.
Ciyin stepped forward. “Divine Lord, I… I do not understand.”
Zhiming asked, “What do you not understand?”
Ciyin’s eyes suddenly reddened, and she did not know how to answer.
Fu Zhuochen was silent for a moment, then said, “She has already forgotten her past life. How can she still go back?”
Zhiming asked back, “Then did she forget everything completely?”
Ciyin and Fu Zhuochen looked at each other and found themselves speechless.
“If she had truly forgotten completely, when I helped her down from the flower sedan, her sleeves should not have been damp.” As Zhiming spoke, he closed his eyes and sighed softly. “For her, even if she truly cannot go back, staying here is also torment.”