The Little Peacock Raises a Snake (GL) Chapter 72

The devil clan had always looked down on the demon clan. Because of that, very few demons were willing to live in the devil realm.
Over the past half month, batch after batch of demon men had been sent into the crown prince’s residence, but most were crude and ordinary. To Chi Heng, who had “seen” countless people, even using them only to vent fire felt boring.
But today, Chi Heng heard Langya say that while the guards patrolled the city yesterday, they had caught a bird-clan demon from outside the city. The report said His Highness the Crown Prince would definitely like him. Langya had gone to see him in person, and his looks were truly rare in the world, worthy of being called top quality.
Langya had followed Chi Heng for more than a thousand years and had seen many beauties around this highness. The words “top quality” were not something he said lightly.
The moment Chi Heng heard it, his interest came. He immediately grew impatient and rose to go.
With Langya following him, he walked all the way to a side courtyard in his residence. Across a long stone path, he saw from far away the guard team that usually escorted demon men here.
The wrists of the demon men being escorted were tied together with a thick rope. The guards pushed them forward roughly, and every one of them was so afraid they did not dare raise their head.
Even so, Chi Heng saw that demon man at first glance. He was tall, slender, and thin, his side profile delicate beyond compare. The thick hemp rope had rubbed red marks onto his pale wrists, making them especially striking.
The drooping crabapple trees in the courtyard had just begun to bloom. A bird happened to perch on a branch and sing in a sweet, turning voice. The demon’s steps paused beneath the crabapple tree, and he raised his eyes to follow the sound. But the bird on the treetop had already turned and flown away. Only he remained standing beneath the purple flowering tree, a shallow tenderness rising in eyes filled with worry and fear.
He was not clean. Perhaps he had struggled before being caught. His white clothes were stained with mud and torn in several places.
He truly made one feel pity.
“You like birds?” Chi Heng walked forward quickly.
“Crown Prince!” Ten guards bowed one after another. After Chi Heng made a gesture to excuse them, they straightened again and stepped aside with their swords in hand.
The little demons were so frightened they did not dare speak. They all lowered their heads and instinctively hid behind others.
No one wanted to be chosen by the crown prince. It was said that anyone he chose could not live past two days.
For a moment, the little demon the crown prince had questioned was pushed to the very front. He was so frightened he pressed his head and face extremely low, his thin body trembling nonstop.
“The crown prince is asking you a question!” Langya urged from the side.
The little demon jolted in fear and spoke timidly. “Only because we come from the same root and source. Seeing it made me feel a little at ease…”
Chi Heng smiled. This little demon’s aura did indeed come from the bird clan. Usually, only the bird clan was born this thin and weak, and his voice was soft and fragile too.
“Do not be afraid. I will not kill you.” Chi Heng reached out and lifted the little demon’s chin. Feeling him tremble even harder from fear, he asked in his gentlest tone, “What is your name? How old are you? Where did you come from?”
“Zichu… Fu Zichu.” As the little demon spoke, he swallowed nervously without realizing it. His Adam’s apple moved, and he continued in a low voice, “I am… already over a thousand years old. My home is Changxia Mountain in the demon realm. I came here recently to look for family…”
“What family?” Chi Heng asked.
“Before Mother died, she said I had an older cousin here and told me to come seek shelter with Cousin…”
Chi Heng smiled and interrupted him. “From now on, follow me. Your days will surely be better than if you followed your cousin.”
The little demon was so frightened he quickly knelt. “Crown Prince! Please spare me! I beg you…”
His voice choked, and tears fell from the corners of his eyes.
When Chi Heng saw the little demon’s tearful, rain-on-pear-blossoms look, his interest grew even stronger. He pulled the sword from a guard’s waist, cut the hemp rope on the little demon’s hands, bent down to help the shaken little demon up, took out a silk handkerchief, and gently wiped away the tears at the corners of his eyes.
“Do not be afraid. I absolutely will not hurt you. As long as you are obedient, I can give you glory, wealth, and rank.”
As Chi Heng spoke, his fingers stroked the little demon’s smooth face as if touching a treasure. Then he laughed in a very good mood and said loudly, “Langya, clean him up and send him to my room. I want him tonight.”
“Yes!” Langya answered. He reached out to grab the little demon and said fiercely, “Come with me!”
The little demon instinctively dodged in fear. Chi Heng saw it and quickly said, “Be gentle. Do not hurt Zichu.”
“Yes!” Langya answered, then carefully reached out again and spoke to the little demon in a soft voice. “Young Master Fu, please come with me.”
His face changed so quickly it was like a magic trick. Even the little demon froze. After thinking for a while, he finally lowered his head and followed Langya away.
“Crown Prince, what about the rest?” a guard asked.
Chi Heng still had to go refine Chu Yuebai’s blood gu. He was too lazy to look at those ordinary goods again. He had wanted to say to kill them all, but when he thought of that delicate little demon who had not yet gone far, he softened his temper and said, “Let them go. No need to catch more.”
He had played with so many men, but he had never seen one with such looks.
This was truly a generous gift from heaven before he reached the peak of power.
*
The Dream-Weaving Shuttle could go to every corner of a person’s dream: the past, the present, or even a future imagined in the heart.
Qu Linyan had never mentioned it aloud, but deep in her heart, she had always cared about one thing.
Three hundred years ago, why had Yun Su chosen to forget her?
Was it because she did not dare disobey her engagement to Zhiming, or because she had truly treated everything as a dream from the past, with fate scattered once the dream ended?
Qu Linyan and Ciyin walked through a stretch of chaos. Outside that chaos were thousands upon thousands of long-forgotten dream fragments.
During the long wait, Qu Linyan looked at the countless dream fragments and finally could not help asking, “Little Flower God, three hundred years ago, were you by Xiaoba’s side?”
Ciyin answered, “Of course I was with her.”
Qu Linyan asked, “Can you let me go back to that year and see?”
Ciyin froze. After a long silence, she finally nodded.
With the dream owner’s permission, Qu Linyan closed her eyes and urged the Dream-Weaving Shuttle in her hand. A clean white spiritual light slowly spiraled up from beneath their feet, inch by inch, wrapping them gently.
When the light scattered, Qu Linyan opened her eyes and found herself already above the nine heavens.
She followed tightly behind Ciyin and saw with her own eyes everything Ciyin had witnessed back then.
It turned out that aside from that dream, everything she and Fu Xiaoba had experienced in the human world had been seen by Zhiming through the Wheel of Reincarnation Mirror.
The Wheel of Reincarnation Mirror was a treasure Siming used to supervise immortals undergoing tribulations in the lower realm. If the heavens learned that an immortal had formed a bond with a demon during a tribulation, the consequences would be hard to imagine.
To hide the truth, Fu Zhuochen and Zhiming worked together. Using the Qingchen Sword as a frame, they made a fake Blue Luan reincarnation in an attempt to deceive the Wheel of Reincarnation Mirror. After the matter was exposed, the Heavenly Emperor angrily punished Zhiming and used it to force him to lead troops to the lower realm, personally bring back the Blue Luan fairy, and make up for his crime.
Ciyin said, “Big Brother Fu once gave Fu Xiaoba a tail feather and promised that no matter where he was, as long as Fu Xiaoba needed him, he would definitely go help her. But when Fu Xiaoba needed him, he had been locked beneath the Demon-Suppressing Pillar. To fulfill his old promise, he did not hesitate to damage his inner core and force his three souls and seven spirits to leave his body. If I had not arrived in time, he would no longer exist in this world.”
“Divine Lord Zhiming knew Susu cared about you more than her own life, so whether three hundred years ago in Soul-Wounding Valley or one year ago by the Nether River, he showed mercy to you again and again… If not for that, you would already have died under his hand.”
“When you were unconscious in Wuyou Valley, Susu once told me she forgot you not because she could let you go, but because… Divine Lord Zhiming had once told her that if the devil army had not arrived at Soul-Wounding Valley back then, he would definitely have killed you and taken you back to answer for it.” Ciyin spoke softly. “At that moment, she truly thought that in this world, aside from you, no one cared about Fu Xiaoba anymore. And you had nearly died because of her… She thought that since you had found your older sister, you could slowly forget her in the future. As long as she no longer entangled with you, you could live the rest of your life in peace…”
Qu Linyan had never known any of this.
It turned out Yun Su had never been heartless to her. Choosing to forget love had also only been because she loved too deeply.
She saw how heartbroken Yun Su had been when she woke. She saw Yun Su trapped by that misunderstanding in her heart, washing her face with tears day after day.
In the end, under Zhiming and Ciyin’s persuasion, Yun Su walked onto the Dustfall Platform.
“We all thought that if she forgot everything, she would no longer suffer.” After Ciyin spoke, she lowered her head and gave a bitter smile. “But none of us knew why she still could not let go of the past when she had clearly forgotten everything.”
Qu Linyan followed Ciyin and walked through the long river of three hundred years.
In the past, Yun Su had not liked black and had not been very willing to approach Zhiming.
But ever since she returned from her tribulation, she had unconsciously begun to grow close to Zhiming, only because that black robe made her feel so familiar.
In the past, Yun Su had not liked snow and had not loved human scenery.
But ever since she returned from her tribulation, during every winter of the three hundred years, she would sit beneath the phoenix tree she had once urged Ciyin to plant for her, and through the water mirror in the spirit pool, quietly watch the wind and snow in the human world.
Black was the color she loved wearing most.
Winter was the season when they had met.
Yun Su forgot her, yet she had never forgotten her.
She had always been there, always in Yun Su’s three souls and seven spirits, never once cut away.
Unfortunately, the previous life had been too short.
In that little peacock’s life, aside from a robe of black, a touch of red, and a hurriedly melting winter snow, there had been no other beauty worth remembering.
But to Fu Xiaoba, the things she had never truly let go of, even after forgetting, were exactly those brief beauties that could be seen to their end with a single glance.
“Thank you, Ciyin,” Qu Linyan said softly.
“Thank me for what?” Ciyin asked back.
“I once blamed her heartlessness. I once resented her choice. I even once felt that all the suffering of those three hundred years had been borne by me alone…” As Qu Linyan spoke, she smiled bitterly and with endless emotion. “I thought that a person who forgot everything could live freely and gracefully. I never knew that forgetting the past had never truly freed her. In heaven and in the human world, she should have been without worry. It was I… who delayed her.”
Ciyin hopped a few steps and sat on the edge of the Dustfall Platform. She turned to look at Qu Linyan, who stood dazed beneath the immortal platform. “When you demons like someone, do you all have to reflect on whether you hurt the other person?”
Qu Linyan raised her eyes in surprise and stared at Ciyin.
Ciyin swung her slender legs. “The Divine Lord once said that you and Susu are both tribulation and fate to each other. Separation and reunion, gathering and parting, all lie in a single thought.”
“Has the heavenly realm not always forbidden you immortals from falling in love with demons?” Qu Linyan asked. “Do you truly believe immortals and demons can also share fate?”
“Eight hundred years ago, you broke into the heavenly realm to save the white flood dragon, wanting to take her life, yet you were heavily injured by her. That was the beginning of fate. If she had not heavily wounded you, who were covered in sins, with Susu’s lazy nature, she might not have gathered enough merit to undergo tribulation and ascend even after another thousand years.”
“Hidden heaven’s will made Susu jump into the wrong path of reincarnation. It made you suffer heavy injury from the bird clan just as she was about to cultivate a human form, and flee all the way to her side. That was your destined reunion.”
“If you had chosen the white flood dragon then, you would have been Susu’s eternal tribulation. But you chose her. So even if one life had no result, you could still trade countless hardships for fate in another life.”
As Ciyin spoke, her gaze drifted a little. “In the past, I did not understand why the Divine Lord said that. I even thought Susu was truly foolish. The word love made people suffer so much, yet she insisted on clinging to it… But now, I seem to understand a little.”
The word love was the thing that most made people unable to control themselves.
But even if they could not control themselves, some people were still willing to use all their strength to chase that tiny glimmer of light.
That persistence was the hardest fate in the world to untie.