The Little Peacock Raises a Snake (GL) Chapter 52

She wanted to remember the past. For three hundred years, she had always wanted to.
After meeting Qu Linyan, this thought became even stronger. Even though heavenly rules and all those unknown things had once made her deeply afraid, they still could not overcome the longing in her heart.
Yun Su lifted her eyes and quietly looked at Qu Linyan. Her brows and eyes were gentle as water, no longer dodging and hiding as they had before.
Because she finally understood what she had wanted for these three hundred years.
When she looked at the snow in the human world, it had nothing to do with the color white. She had only been missing that stretch of heaven and earth where she had first met Qu Linyan.
When she liked black like ink, it also had nothing to do with Zhiming. She had only been unable to put down the Qu Linyan in her dreams, whose face she could not make out.
“You said that if I was willing, you would tell me.”
Qu Linyan’s eyes reddened without her realizing it. The tip of her nose ached, and thousands of words seemed to block her throat at that moment.
She held Yun Su’s slender fingers, which were touching the silver hair by her temple, and gently placed them over her heart. Curving her eyes, she smiled and said, “There is no rush. We once spent ordinary days together, and we once held hands through life and death. As long as you want to hear it, I will slowly tell you.”
That day, Qu Linyan and Yun Su sat leaning against each other on the roof of the bamboo courtyard. In that snowy night lit bright as day by the full moon, Qu Linyan carefully spoke of past events from a previous life that had long been left behind.
Three hundred years had already blurred too many memories. Even Qu Linyan, who had never stepped onto Dustfall Platform, could no longer remember many details of the past clearly.
She said whatever she remembered. Even if it was broken and scattered, Yun Su listened very seriously.
Some of the things Qu Linyan spoke of, Yun Su had already remembered in dreams. Some, however, she had no impression of at all.
“At that time, my injuries had not healed. I thought that since I had to recover somewhere anyway, I might as well stay in Wuyou Valley and keep you company,” Qu Linyan said. “I called it repaying kindness, but in truth, I simply could not bear to leave. For all these years, I never told you. Even though you were only a little peacock who looked like a mountain pheasant back then, I always felt that every day with you was especially unreal. Peaceful, beautiful, as if everything had been stolen from time itself and might vanish without a trace at any moment… I truly wanted to stay there forever and ever, for you.”
Yun Su asked softly, “What happened later? Why did you leave?”
“You often told me you had an older brother, but you never told me his identity. Only on the day he returned did I learn that the brother you spoke of was actually the person who had helped the fox and bird clans wound me on Qixia Mountain.” As Qu Linyan spoke, the Dreamweaving Shuttle appeared in her palm. She toyed with it between her fingers. “At that time, my injuries were still heavy, and I did not want to clash with him, so I used this Dreamweaving Shuttle to enter your dream.”
Yun Su blinked and said curiously, “What you just mentioned is something I have been very confused about too… In my dreams, I always remembered that I had a brother, but I never saw him, and I could not remember his appearance or name.”
Hearing this, Qu Linyan could not help showing off. “Does that mean… I was much more important in your heart than he was?”
“Stop it!” Yun Su lightly pushed Qu Linyan and lowered her eyes in thought. “Even in the dream, I always thought of him. I suppose he must have been the person closest to me in the mortal world… Then who exactly is he? Is he still alive now?”
Qu Linyan thought about it and said, “His name is Fu Zhuochen. He is a red peacock who has cultivated for more than three thousand years. Although he has no blood relation to you, he raised you for more than four hundred years.”
“Fu Zhuochen…” Yun Su could not help frowning.
Susu, this is Fu Zhuochen, Brother Fu. He is your… He is an old friend of your Divine Lord from the human world!
Yun Su clenched her right hand and knocked it against her left palm. Suddenly understanding, she said, “I remember now!”
Qu Linyan could not help looking surprised. A trace of jealousy flashed over her face. “You remembered just like that?”
Was this a joke? She had brought Yun Su back from the heavenly realm, fed and housed her, and stayed with her every day, yet Yun Su had never said she remembered her. But now she turned around and remembered that fire bird because of one name?
Frustrating. Qu Linyan felt extremely frustrated.
“On the eve of the wedding, I saw A-Yin bring a demon to the heavenly realm. That person was called Fu Zhuochen.” Yun Su said seriously, “No wonder… I felt he looked so familiar then, as if I had seen him somewhere…”
“He did not acknowledge you?” Qu Linyan asked.
“No.” Yun Su shook her head, somewhat disappointed. “He was very cold to me…”
Yun Su did not know why she had no impression at all of the brother often mentioned in her dreams. If Qu Linyan had not told her, she would not even be able to remember his name or appearance. But even so, when she thought of that chance meeting in the heavenly realm that day, of the strangeness and indifference in his eyes, she could not stop feeling sad.
It felt as if something she had once possessed had been lost without her noticing, yet she did not even know when she had lost it and had no right to recover it…
Qu Linyan had never found Fu Zhuochen very pleasing to the eye. She had wanted to take the chance to kick him while he was down, but when she saw that familiar sense of loss in Yun Su’s eyes, she suddenly could not bear it. The words at her lips changed flavor when she spoke. “Maybe he was afraid you would remember again and only add to your troubles.”
“Really?”
“He always cared about you. Back then, when I took you away from Wuyou Valley, he decided I had evil intentions toward you and chased me all the way to the Nai River Spiritual Territory, only to bring you back.” As Qu Linyan spoke, she touched Yun Su’s cheek. Seeing Yun Su not dodge, she let her fingertips slowly slide down to the side of Yun Su’s neck. “At that time, I was heavily injured and unconscious. You threatened him with death and insisted on being with me. Only then did he leave in anger. When I woke, I saw a blood mark here and was heartbroken.”
“When you and I married, he did not come. You were sad for a long time, thinking he truly no longer wanted you. Only later, in Hundred Flowers Valley, he took you to eat and drink, and at the little princess’s birthday banquet, he blocked a palm strike from the Fox King for you…” After Qu Linyan finished speaking, she did not know whether to laugh or cry.
Three hundred years had passed, and she had never imagined there would be a day when she spoke up for that person.
Hearing Qu Linyan say this, Yun Su felt much better. “I have no impression of these things at all, but since you said them, I believe them.”
As Yun Su spoke, she reached out and took the Dreamweaving Shuttle from Qu Linyan’s fingers. The next second, she froze slightly, as if she had not expected Qu Linyan to hand over the magic artifact in her hand so easily. A thread of warmth rose in her heart. She lowered her head and casually looked it over twice. “Before, you used this to interfere with my dreams?”
Qu Linyan turned her head and pouted. “I only went to make you a meal…”
Yun Su smiled. “More than that, right? Even when you were a snake, you were dishonest. You wrapped around me and would not let go… That day’s little black snake was you, wasn’t it?”
“That… that was an accident.” Qu Linyan hurriedly brought the topic back. “At that time, I only wanted to enter your dream to hide for a while. But the Dreamweaving Shuttle was not my magic artifact to begin with. When I used it, something went wrong, and I brought you into a dream already woven inside the Dreamweaving Shuttle.”
Yun Su asked curiously, “What kind of dream?”
Qu Linyan fell silent.
After a long while, a faint smile lifted the corner of her mouth. In her eyes appeared a longing that could never quite be touched, and sorrow beneath it.
She said it was the most beautiful dream of her life, but all the beauty in that dream had also been drowned forever inside the dream.
That night, Qu Linyan told Yun Su about the plain, ordinary fifty years inside the spiritual cave in that dream.
The story of the dream was not finished, but the night was already deep. Qu Linyan jumped down from the roof, waved to Yun Su, turned, and left.
Yun Su thought over every word Qu Linyan had said again and again. It was as if ten thousand thoughts were disturbing her heartstrings. But when she reached out, she could not touch even a single thread.
Only when everything tangled into a messy ball in her mind, impossible to sort out, did she slowly fall into a dream.
…
The little peacock stood at the edge of the broken cliff in Soul-Wounding Valley. With both legs trembling, she looked down at the rushing river beneath the steep stone cliff, and fear rose in her heart.
Am I dead? Little Black seems to have eaten me…
The little peacock murmured, “These days, does the underworld not even have someone to guide the road? Do I have to find the way myself?”
A soft, sticky voice came from behind her. “What underworld? This is Soul-Wounding Valley in the demon realm. It is flood dragon clan territory.”
The tone was distant and indifferent, but the voice was childish and milky.
“Little Black? Hurry and let me look!” The little peacock turned and circled the little girl fully three times. “How did you become so small? Hahahaha, so cute!”
Little Qu Linyan’s face suddenly could not quite hold its expression. She turned away her faintly red little face. “Even small, I am bigger than you!”
After speaking, she reached out and tried to stir spiritual power, but only managed to form a thin black flame seedling. There was not even half a spark.
When the little peacock saw this, she instantly had the confidence to show off. She patted her little belly with both wings, opened her sharp little beak, and worked very hard to spit out a ball of green spiritual light, just a little bigger than the flame seedling on Qu Linyan’s fingertip.
Then she tilted her head and chirped smugly, “I seem to be stronger than you, Little Black.”
…
In the flood dragon clan’s spiritual cave, a woman called A-Qing gently took care of them day and night.
Taking advantage of Qu Linyan’s small size, the little peacock bullied her whenever she had nothing to do.
For a long while, the little girl was always angrily chasing the little peacock all around the spiritual cave. The two little things who would not grow up passed one day after another under A-Qing’s care, bickering and playing.
They ate together, slept together, bathed together, and lived without worries.
Until one day, the little peacock cultivated a human form.
Something seemed to change with it, quietly and without a sound.
The bed that had once been fairly spacious now became crowded for them.
On the first night, they squeezed tightly together on one small stone bed.
Little Qu Linyan lay stiff and straight. Her pair of little hands rested unusually obediently on her belly, and her eyes were shut tight.
“Little Black, are you asleep?”
“Not yet.”
“Can you… give me a name?”
The little peacock did not understand much, but she knew that a demon’s name should be given by the person closest to them after they cultivated a human form.
Little Qu Linyan turned her head and gazed at the little peacock for several seconds. She bit the inside of her lip. After thinking for a moment, she nodded.
Then she was silent for a long, long time. The hand she had lifted finally slowly fell again.
“What is it?” the little peacock asked.
Little Qu Linyan’s eyes suddenly reddened. She said, “Xiaoba, how I wish you could forever be only Xiaoba.”
“Little Black, you…” The little peacock froze.
A faint ache stirred in her heart.
…
Yun Su opened her reddened eyes and saw Qu Linyan sitting by the bed, tightly holding both her hands.
“Why…” Yun Su asked. “Why did you enter my dream again?”
Qu Linyan said, “I was afraid.”
“Afraid of what?”
“Can you promise me that no matter what you remember first, you will believe me… I never hurt you.”