The Little Peacock Raises a Snake (GL) Chapter 64

Yun Su agreed to go with Qu Linyan to Fenglu to watch the New Year’s Eve fireworks.
Qu Linyan said that after coming to the human world, she suddenly wanted very much to visit the quiet riverbank in Fenglu City from back then.
Back then, on the liveliest day of the year, they had chosen the quietest place. They had sat shoulder to shoulder, hummed little songs, and chatted.
In the end, while watching the brilliant fireworks bloom across the sky, they had gathered their courage and confirmed their feelings for each other.
“At that time, you said we were family…” Qu Linyan looked back at Yun Su, who was staring blankly at the snow filling the sky, and said softly, “Right here.”
Yun Su was silent for a long time. “I cannot remember.”
For a moment, Qu Linyan had nothing to say.
They spent three days reaching Fenglu. Before the human New Year’s Eve arrived, the snow did not stop.
That year, the innkeeper who had warmly called over the workers who also could not go home, made New Year cakes and dumplings, and invited them to a New Year’s Eve meal was long gone. Even that inn had been torn down at some unknown time.
Not only that, the street where they had once built a snowman had also changed.
Thinking about it, that was natural. Three hundred years was enough for ordinary humans to go through several reincarnations.
Qu Linyan could plant a bamboo forest and build a bamboo courtyard exactly like the one in Wuyou Valley. She could change back into a little black snake and borrow the unchanging color of snow to pretend everything was still as it had once been.
But some things could not be copied after all.
Qu Linyan could clearly feel that Yun Su had no expectation for anything she spoke of, but she still could not help wanting to try.
After all, every beautiful memory between her and Fu Xiaoba had either happened in dreams or in the human world.
Other than those, only helplessness remained.
Because of this, she was so stubborn.
Even if there was only one part in millions that was similar, as long as it helped Yun Su remember something, that would be enough.
Yet she insisted on pulling Yun Su along until New Year’s Eve that year, and they did not wait for fireworks above the city tower. They waited only for a bitterly cold downpour.
On New Year’s Eve, every household was still lively and bright with lamps. But on the streets, only rain poured down. No pedestrians could be seen.
Two people with no home to return to sat by the guest room window watching the rain. All that liveliness had nothing to do with them.
The storm came very suddenly. Clearly, the sky had been clear during the day, but by night, fierce winds rose and thunder rolled. It rained for two days and two nights, sometimes heavy and sometimes light, as if heaven itself had decided it.
If heaven would not cooperate, why force it?
“Let’s go. The New Year has passed, and there was nothing.” Yun Su turned to look at Qu Linyan.
Qu Linyan hid the disappointment in her eyes and smiled faintly. “Let’s go.”
Human towns and villages all had local earth immortals guarding them, so gathering spiritual energy and casting spells was inconvenient.
Qu Linyan had long promised Yun Su that after they watched the fireworks, she would find a mountain forest to properly heal and stop dragging things out.
The next evening, seeing that the rain still would not stop, the two no longer waited. After dinner, they left money for the room, put on straw rain capes, went out of the city through the rain that night, and entered the deep mountains.
Deep in the forest, inside a cave, the two sat beside a fire and watched the rain outside refuse to stop.
The flames before them flickered lightly. Outside, the thunder and rain sounded unusually loud.
Yun Su said softly, “This rain is strange. It came so suddenly and will not leave… This is not the human world’s rainy season either.”
Although she had no official duty in the heavenly realm, she still knew something of the seasonal laws of the four directions. By all logic, in the place where Fenglu City sat, at the turn of winter and spring there should be at most a little rain. Why would the heavenly realm send down such heavy rain?
Yun Su stood and walked to the mouth of the cave for a while. Though she was several meters from the outside, she could still feel wind blowing rain onto her body.
“This rain feels as if it was summoned by a spell.” Yun Su turned to look at Qu Linyan. “Could there be a demon nearby causing trouble and drawing a heavenly tribulation?”
“If demons or devils were causing trouble, how could there be no demonic aura at all?” After Qu Linyan spoke, she shook her head, propped up her chin, and sighed faintly. “The hateful heavens just have a grudge against me. My luck is always so bad. Whatever I want, I just cannot have.”
Yun Su pressed her lips together and comforted her clumsily, “Do not think that way. It is only human fireworks. You wanted me to see them, but I was not interested. If we did not see them, then forget it… You, you are already so old. Stop being so childish.”
“Yes. Already so old…” Qu Linyan closed her eyes and laughed at herself.
In the next second, she suddenly remembered something. She slowly opened her eyes, looked up at Yun Su, and said, “I… I do not feel well.”
Yun Su asked, “Why do you suddenly not feel well?”
“I suddenly do not feel well. I do not know why.” As Qu Linyan spoke, she clenched her right hand, hugged her knees, and curled up with a pained expression.
“Enough of that. Were you not fine just now?” Yun Su folded her arms and stood nearby, looking at Qu Linyan in confusion.
The flickering firelight brightened and dimmed over Qu Linyan’s deathly pale face. Curled beside the fire, she could not stop trembling.
Yun Su watched for a while and saw that something truly seemed wrong. She quickly stepped forward and touched Qu Linyan’s forehead.
Her forehead was a little hot, but her fingers were very cold.
Yun Su frowned, crouched down, and pressed a finger between Qu Linyan’s brows. Closing her eyes, she used spiritual power to examine Qu Linyan’s condition.
This examination frightened Yun Su badly. The spiritual flow inside Qu Linyan had suddenly become extremely chaotic, a state Yun Su had never seen before.
“What is happening?”
“Maybe I am sick.” Qu Linyan spoke weakly. “I got a little wet just now and caught cold. It is nothing.”
Qu Linyan said it was nothing, but Yun Su instantly grew anxious.
“You… Your cultivation is not low. How can you be unable to handle a little rain just because you are injured?” She stood and paced around beside the fire for a long time. “I will go find medicine for you!”
“There is no need. It is too much trouble, and it is raining outside…” Qu Linyan said.
Yun Su frowned. “I am not as delicate as you. Wait here obediently. I will go to Fenglu City and buy medicine. I will be back soon!”
After speaking, Yun Su changed into a small blue-green bird and flew from the cave, rushing toward Fenglu City at full speed.
After Yun Su had gone far, Qu Linyan opened her clenched right hand. A cloud of blood mist scattered from her palm, leaving only a scorched black wound.
She stood, her expression normal, and walked out of the cave where they had sheltered from the rain.
Yun Su was right. This rain was not normal. It was like something had summoned it.
But there were no strange spiritual power waves nearby. If anything could have summoned this thunderstorm, it was only her.
Just now, if Yun Su had not called her childish, she would almost have forgotten that she had already reached the age for her heavenly tribulation.
This tribulation fell because of the laws of the Heavenly Dao. It was not controlled by the immortals and gods of the heavenly realm. No matter where the one facing the tribulation fled, they could not avoid it.
The heavenly tribulation had long since arrived, but Yun Su’s divine power had disturbed it, preventing it from locking onto the one who should face it. That was why it had still not fallen.
When the Heavenly Dao sent down a tribulation, strange signs appeared within a hundred li. It would surely be watched by the immortals and gods of the heavenly realm.
If Qu Linyan faced the tribulation, Yun Su would definitely help.
That day, Yun Su had refined the Black Tortoise shell to remain in the lower realm, going against heaven and deceiving it. If her identity was exposed, disaster would follow.
Qu Linyan gritted her teeth, turned, and ran deeper into the forest.
…
Yun Su rushed to the city, only to discover that every medicine shop had closed early.
Her heart was anxious, and she no longer cared about rules. Spiritual power gathered at her fingertip. She cut the door bolt and forced her way inside. After grabbing medicine, she did not know the price, so she simply left all the silver she carried on the table, then turned and hurried away.
Thunder in the distance grew louder and louder, even gradually forming a huge thunderstorm vortex. From far away, it looked especially shocking.
Had something truly summoned it?
Thinking this, Yun Su could not help growing uneasy.
She rushed all the way back to the cave where she and Qu Linyan had sheltered from the rain. But while the fire had not yet gone out, the person was gone.
Yun Su’s heart tightened. She stared blankly at the dying fire and suddenly understood. The packet of medicine fell from her hand at once.
Qu Linyan was an aquatic demon. How could she fear rain?
The strange sign in the mountains was clearly a Heavenly Dao lightning tribulation, the hundred-year heavenly tribulation that demons could not avoid after reaching three thousand years of age.
Qu Linyan had deliberately sent her away because she feared Yun Su would be discovered by the heavenly realm.
But the power of the Heavenly Dao was feared even by immortals and gods, let alone demons.
Even a demon at full strength would lose vital energy after enduring a heavenly tribulation, if they survived at all. Qu Linyan had only recovered twenty percent of her strength. If she endured it by force, she might die.
“Liar. You are nothing but a mouth full of lies!” Yun Su’s eyes reddened at once.
She turned and rushed out of the cave, looked up at the vortex not far away, and formed seals with both hands to probe with spiritual power. Faintly, she could sense Qu Linyan’s weak spiritual aura.
…
Heavenly lightning fell one bolt after another. Qu Linyan gathered all her spiritual power into both palms and gritted her teeth to endure.
The weak spiritual light in her palms looked so insignificant before the heavenly tribulation.
After several bolts of lightning fell, every wound on her body split open from the shock. Her internal injuries also worsened again. Her awareness blurred for an instant, only for the next bolt of lightning to strike her awake.
This pain, with nowhere to hide, seemed about to tear her body apart and grind her soul to pieces inch by inch.
She had indeed underestimated this hundred-year heavenly tribulation.
She had thought she was no longer who she had once been and could still try if she used all her strength. In the end, she discovered she could not.
Thinking carefully, she had spent her life overestimating herself. Not one of the things she wanted had been achieved. None of the people and love she wished to keep had stayed.
The heavens seemed to have chosen her alone to oppose. In this life, apart from letting her meet that little peacock, they had not given her even the slightest kindness.
Would it end like this? How unwilling…
The moment her spiritual power ran dry and she could no longer support herself arrived.
She closed her eyes, but the expected pain did not come.
“Qu Linyan! You liar!”
Through the rolling thunder, Qu Linyan heard Yun Su cursing in extreme anger.
“You lie all the time and even dare make random vows. If you do not die from heavenly lightning, it is because heaven has no eyes!” Yun Su’s words were especially harsh, but she used all her strength to open a spiritual shield, blocking the lightning outside.
“If you do this, the heavenly realm will discover you. They will…”
“Shut up!” Yun Su gritted her teeth. “I stayed in the lower realm for you. If you die here, then all the trouble I made was for nothing!”
After speaking, Yun Su saw the spiritual shield crack inch by inch and knew she could not hold much longer either. She quickly turned, helped Qu Linyan up, and tried to take her away.
Qu Linyan shook her head. “We cannot hide. I have to withstand all of it…”
Hearing this, Yun Su gritted her teeth, curled around Qu Linyan, and held her tightly in her arms. Blue-green wings glowing with spiritual light spread from behind her like a cocoon, wrapping Qu Linyan layer upon layer.
Heavenly lightning fell again and again.
Something seemed to shatter inch by inch inside Yun Su’s three souls and seven spirits.
It was the seal planted in her soul on Dustfall Platform.
The past rushed like a broken flood into the lost place deep in her heart, the place she had not been able to touch for three hundred years.
So that was how it was…
They had promised each other companionship through every plain day and night. They had held and kissed beneath dying fireworks. They had risked their lives for each other inside a deadly killing array.
Qu Linyan had lied to her, but to save her, she had also been willing to destroy her own inner core. On the edge of death, she told Yun Su the truth, trying to make her give up and leave.
Qu Linyan had never sent her onto the altar with her own hands.
When everyone wanted her dead, only Qu Linyan stood before her and protected her with her life.
For those promises to old friends, Qu Linyan had already done everything she could.
It was Yun Su… Yun Su who had not waited long enough. Yun Su who had not dared face it. Yun Su who had finally been timid and chosen to run away.
That year, Qu Muqing had not lived.
Qu Linyan had used all her strength and still lost everything.
Even when three thousand black hairs turned white, Qu Linyan had still kept that tenderness in her heart for Yun Su, unchanged across lives.
But Yun Su had forgotten everything and wanted to spend the rest of her life peacefully.
She had even… resented her so much…
Yun Su held the person in her arms tighter and tighter. A tear slid from the corner of her eye.
Her face grew uglier and uglier. Blood spilled from the corner of her mouth, but she gritted her teeth and refused to let go.
Curled in Yun Su’s arms, Qu Linyan’s heart ached until she could barely speak through the choking in her throat, yet she could not stop her awareness from slowly blurring.
She reached out and brushed the tear mark at the corner of Yun Su’s eye, softly calling that name.
“Xiaoba…”
“I… I am here.”
…
“Xiaoba, not everyone is so lucky that every person they meet is willing to hold them in the palm of their hand and protect them. In this world, there are more people like me, who have to rely on themselves for everything.”
“Then I will protect you.”
“How will you protect me? You follow behind me, and even if I enter a dragon’s pool or tiger’s den, I still have to worry about your safety.”
“I do not have the ability now, but when I have the ability later, I will protect you.”
At that time, she had been a great liar.
Her whole heart had been set on bringing that little fool back to her clan to exchange for her elder sister’s life.
The little fool had not known. She had only foolishly said to her:
“Once I finish my tribulation, I will be an upper god. Then I will back you up!”
Truly foolish beyond measure.
What would she do if Qu Linyan had been a liar through and through?