The Little Peacock Raises a Snake (GL) Chapter 76

Ciyin did not immediately return to heaven. She said that since she had already stayed in the lower realm this long, a few more days made no difference.
She wanted to see everyone off for the last part of the journey. At the very least, they should leave the lower realm together.
Ciyin wanted to leave a little later, and Yun Su was only happy about that. Naturally, she would not urge her. So the two sisters stuck together every day, putting food into each other’s bowls during meals and whispering together after meals, completely ignoring Qu Linyan eating vinegar from the side.
As if to let Ciyin stay in the lower realm longer, Qu Linyan deliberately slowed their pace on the road back. She even took a detour back to Soul-Wounding Valley.
The current Soul-Wounding Valley no longer had any trace of the flood dragon clan. Even the entrance to the underwater cave had been completely destroyed back then by the furious Azure Dragon Mengzhang.
Qu Linyan spent great effort clearing the entrance sealed by fallen rocks. The cave where the flood dragon clan no longer lived had lost its spiritual energy. It was dark and no longer looked like before.
Yun Su followed beside Qu Linyan and copied her, releasing spiritual power from both hands.
Weak lights scattered in every corner once again lit this underwater cave. The empty cave, the damp and cold stone walls, the stalactites of different lengths, all looked like something from a distant dream.
Only this place had far more cold bones than that dream.
“So this is where the flood dragon clan used to live…” Ciyin’s fingers brushed the wall.
“Yes.” Qu Linyan said, “I never thought that after leaving once, when I returned, there would be nothing left here… I wronged my sister, and I wronged my people.”
Fu Zhuochen comforted her. “In truth, some flood dragons did flee to the human world. The demons of the human world do not hold much prejudice against the flood dragon clan. As long as they live honestly and do no evil, they should be accepted.”
Ciyin nodded. “Maybe after your surviving clansmen learn that the lower realm is no longer dangerous, they will come back.”
“No matter what, I am not worthy, and I do not want to be everyone’s chief anymore.” Qu Linyan gave a bitter smile. “What has passed has passed. The shackles from before should have been removed long ago.”
She had always been a selfish person. The more she lost, the more selfish she became.
It was precisely because human strength was limited that one hoped to use all one’s strength to protect the person one most wanted to protect.
If she could not protect that person, then all responsibility and righteousness had no meaning to her.
“Little Black.” Yun Su softly called Qu Linyan from the side, afraid she would be hurt by the memories.
Qu Linyan only shook her head. “I am fine. I only wanted to come back and look. Now the entrance has been cleared. If any clansmen return one day, they will not be blocked outside by a pile of fallen rocks, unable to go home.”
After leaving the underwater cave, Qu Linyan mysteriously said to Ciyin and Fu Zhuochen, “I will take you to see a good place.”
“What place? Why are you being so mysterious?” Ciyin asked.
“You will know when we get there.” Qu Linyan led the way.
Yun Su thought for a moment and always felt something was not quite right. For a long time, she did not dare speak.
Qu Linyan led everyone west into the deep forest. Before long, they found the bamboo forest she had planted.
Earlier, Yun Su had joked that this place might have been burned by the devils. Qu Linyan had truly worried for a while. Now that she had come back and seen it had not been damaged, the stone in her heart finally settled.
The four of them walked all the way into the depths of the bamboo forest.
“Big Brother Fu!” Ciyin saw the small bamboo courtyard from far away and ran over in surprise. After looking around, she turned back to Fu Zhuochen with a shocked face. “This place is exactly the same as yours!”
Although they had not returned for half a year and everything inside and out was covered in dust, it was still not hard to see that this place had been copied from the bamboo courtyard in Wuyou Valley. Even the furnishings inside were seventy percent similar.
Qu Linyan stepped forward proudly. She looked at the bamboo courtyard she had “copied” from memory and sent Ciyin a look asking for praise.
“How is it? Does it look alike? I built this for Xiaoba from memory. In the past, Xiaoba always said she liked Wuyou Valley, liked that bamboo forest and that bamboo courtyard, and wanted to go back and see it if she had time. So I built an identical one here.”
“At the time, Chu Yuebai also helped me place a large barrier here. It can block all auras. No matter how high the cultivation of outsiders is, as long as they cannot find the correct entrance, they can never discover the people hidden inside.”
“This is the home I gave Xiaoba. A home that belongs only to me and her.”
The more Qu Linyan spoke, the prouder she became. Then she noticed that Yun Su kept tugging her sleeve from behind, and she sensed something was wrong.
As expected, when she turned around, Yun Su was shaking her head nonstop and silently mouthing to her: “Say less.”
Qu Linyan froze for a moment and turned to look at Fu Zhuochen. Her heart immediately tightened.
At some point, that man’s gaze had become very unfriendly.
“Hey, what is that look? It is a little scary.” Qu Linyan instinctively took two steps back and waved both hands. “We can talk properly… You are not angry, are you?”
Fu Zhuochen stared at Qu Linyan with complicated feelings for a long time. In the end, he took a deep breath and turned away without saying a word.
The corner of Qu Linyan’s eye twitched. She turned to ask Ciyin, “Is it that serious?”
“‘The home I gave Xiaoba,’ ‘a home that belongs only to me and her.’ I think you are taking someone else’s child, treating her as your own, and thinking the other person should praise you for it.” After speaking, Ciyin huffed and glared at Qu Linyan, then turned and chased after him.
“I thought this counted as imitation…” Qu Linyan pouted and turned to Yun Su. “No, why is he angry?”
Yun Su put herself in Fu Zhuochen’s place and guessed, “That place is Brother’s home. He built the house by hand according to his own tastes and lived there for more than two thousand years. But without him knowing anything, you moved the whole thing here, copied it exactly, and even said in front of him that this is something you gave me, the home of us two… If it were you, would your mood not feel strange?”
Qu Linyan looked confused. “Should it feel strange?”
Qu Linyan thought from another point of view, but she could not quite understand it.
If someone could build an underwater cave exactly like Soul-Wounding Valley under some other stretch of water, she would probably be so shocked that she would raise both hands and both feet to praise that person.
When Yun Su saw Qu Linyan’s confused expression, she knew Qu Linyan had definitely not understood why Fu Zhuochen was angry.
“Little Black, a ‘home’ is very special to most people,” Yun Su said seriously. “There is a place in heaven called Qingyu Cottage. At first, it only had a thousand-year-old wutong tree. I liked that wutong tree, so I built Qingyu Cottage around it little by little.”
“To me, Qingyu Cottage is not only a place to live. I put a lot of thought into it. If someone praised it, I would feel proud of myself. Even if no one praised it, I would feel comfortable living there.”
“So the place you liked most was Qingyu Cottage. But I only went there once, and you stabbed me unconscious. I really cannot remember what it looked like…” Qu Linyan suddenly began considering the possibility of building Yun Su a Qingyu Cottage in the human world.
Yun Su jumped up and heavily patted Qu Linyan on the forehead, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. “I am not asking you to build it for me! I mean, if someone secretly built an identical Qingyu Cottage somewhere else behind my back, then came back and proudly told me that place would be her home from now on, I would definitely be furious!”
“Then what should I do?” Qu Linyan bit her lip, her eyes full of helplessness after doing something wrong.
Yun Su thought for a moment. “Why not tear it down?”
“How can that work? I built this for you. From the start, it was for you.” Qu Linyan frowned. “You like Wuyou Valley. You treated that place as home. But I do not want you to go back. After all, that is Fu Zhuochen’s place…”
Qu Linyan paused slightly.
With Fu Zhuochen’s feelings for Yun Su, she absolutely could not knowingly pretend not to know and drag Yun Su to someone else’s home to live a small life as a family of three.
She thought for a moment and continued, “But I also want you to be happy. Wherever you like, I hope I can go there with you… I thought that as long as this place is still here, no matter where we go in the future, if you miss home, we can come back and see it…”
“Little Black, I am especially happy that you are willing to do so much for me! But I liked Wuyou Valley never because of a bamboo forest or a bamboo courtyard, but because Brother lived there.” Yun Su softly advised, “There will only be one Wuyou Valley in this world. It is not here… The bamboo forest there does not belong to us. The bamboo courtyard does not belong to us either. You should understand that place only carried our memories. It is not our home.”
“It is like…” Yun Su thought, then held Qu Linyan’s wrist. “It is like now. If you asked me to move back there, I would not be willing.”
“Did you not like that place most?” Qu Linyan was a little confused. “I want to find everything you like and give it to you.”
“Little Black, why do you still not understand?” Yun Su shook her head, hooked both arms around the back of Qu Linyan’s neck, lifted her head, and pressed a kiss to Qu Linyan’s lips. Then she said seriously, “The one I like is you. As long as I am with you, anywhere is fine!”
Qu Linyan froze.
Yun Su said, “Did you not say you would take me across every corner of the world, and then we would choose a place we liked most and live out the rest of our lives in peace?”
Qu Linyan nodded. “I said that.”
“Then that is right!” Yun Su opened her arms and hugged Qu Linyan, squeezing her hard. She looked up at Qu Linyan’s confused face and smiled with her head tilted. “We will have a home, a home that truly belongs to us. Not the little courtyard in Wuyou Valley, and not the flood dragon clan’s underwater cave!”
Yun Su said that the small bamboo courtyard in Wuyou Valley was a place where Fu Zhuochen lived alone. It had only been big enough to house one peacock that had not yet cultivated human form. But the two of them were two people. Their home definitely had to be bigger, at least no smaller than Qingyu Cottage in heaven, right?
When the time came, they would build it themselves. Everything would follow their own tastes.
As for the place, it might be on a mountain peak, by the sea, or in some quiet and beautiful corner…
Yun Su also said that after their home was built, they must invite Ciyin over to help plant many beautiful flowers and trees in the courtyard.
And they had to plant flowers for all four seasons, so no matter whether it was spring, summer, autumn, or winter, there would be flowers blooming at home.
…
That night, Qu Linyan made a rich dinner to please her wife’s older brother.
When Fu Zhuochen was persuaded back by Ciyin, he saw that the bamboo courtyard in the depths of the bamboo forest had been torn down until only ruins remained, along with a half-open-air kitchen and a circle of bamboo fence, which now enclosed all this broken mess.
Qu Linyan had cleared a clean open space in the ruins, placed a table and stools there, set out food, and brought up wine from the cellar. When she saw Fu Zhuochen come back with Ciyin, she stood and waved, greeting them from far away.
“You…” Fu Zhuochen’s eyes were full of shock.
Qu Linyan stepped forward and invited him all the way to the table. Smiling, she poured two full bowls of wine. “I am apologizing to you.”
After saying that, she lifted one bowl herself, tilted her head back, and drank it dry. Then she set the bowl down. “Will you give me face?”
“What face do you want?” Fu Zhuochen raised his eyes and asked back.
Qu Linyan said, “I already tore down the house. Calm down?”
Fu Zhuochen said, “I did not ask you to tear it down.”
Qu Linyan admitted it. “Yes, yes. I tore it down myself.”
Fu Zhuochen asked, “Now that it is torn down, where will everyone sleep tonight?”
“Ah, it is not as if we have only slept under wind and dew for one or two days.” Qu Linyan sat back in her seat, filled the empty bowls on the table with rice one by one, and gave Ciyin a look, asking for help.
Ciyin blinked and raised the corners of her mouth. In a strange tone, she said, “Qu Linyan, was this not something you gave Susu? Such an important place, and you tore it down just like that?”
Fu Zhuochen coldly added, “Is my sister not worthy?”
Yun Su could not help laughing. Since Fu Zhuochen could joke, he probably had thought it through and was no longer angry.
Qu Linyan also let out a breath of relief. “No. I thought it over. No matter how similar this place is to yours, it still lacks something.”
“If something is missing, add it,” Fu Zhuochen said, lifting his bowl and drinking a sip of wine.
“It lacks you!” Qu Linyan quickly began flattering him. “When Xiaoba wants to return to Wuyou Valley, it is never because she is used to living there. It is because you are there, such a handsome, graceful, tall, mighty, gentle, kind, thoughtful, steady, reliable, beloved-by-people-and-flowers…”
Fu Zhuochen choked so hard he coughed heavily.
Ciyin hurried forward to pat his back and help him breathe.
Qu Linyan froze for a moment but still felt she had to keep praising even if it was awkward. “…a good brother whom flowers bloom for.”
Yun Su reached out and pulled Qu Linyan. “Brother, Little Black and I already talked. In the future, if I miss you, I will return to Wuyou Valley to see you. This place does not have you, so there is no need to keep it.”
After speaking, she raised her eyes and exchanged a smile with Qu Linyan. “We also said we will find a very beautiful place and build a home that belongs to us. When the time comes, we will ask A-Yin to fill the courtyard with flowers, and Brother must also come see it, all right?”
Ciyin quickly nodded. “Yes, I will definitely make your courtyard beautifully decorated!”
Yun Su asked again, “Brother?”
Fu Zhuochen nodded and answered, “All right.”
Yun Su thought for a moment. “Can we invite Zhiming too?”
“Hm…” Ciyin thought for a moment, then shook her head. “That is hard to say. With the Divine Lord’s nature, I may not be able to persuade him.”
“I will persuade him,” Fu Zhuochen said.
Qu Linyan pouted. “You really are not afraid that I will fight that turtle snake.”
As soon as she spoke, the three people at the table all cast contemptuous looks at her.
“Little Black!”
“Divine Lord Black Tortoise helped Xiaoba and me so much. He is my great benefactor. If we invite people, we must invite him!”
Some people’s faces changed as quickly as flipping a book.
Yun Su curved her brows, picked up the wine jar, and filled everyone’s bowl. Then she set the jar down, lifted her bowl, and said loudly, “Then it is settled. No one is allowed to break their word!”
The four of them lifted their wine bowls one after another and drank them dry.
That night, Qu Linyan and Ciyin both drank until they were tipsy.
Beneath the dim moonlight, the two of them were like children who had never grown up. They squatted before the ruins and used magic to fix the broken bamboo strips into all kinds of strange things.
“Little Flower, look at what I made… a peacock.” Qu Linyan pointed at her newest work.
It had three bamboo leaves on its head for foolish hair, a sharpened bamboo beak, a plump bamboo body, two small bamboo wings, and a bamboo tail like a folded little fan slanting downward. A circle of green cloth was tied around its neck.
Ciyin rolled her eyes in dislike. “That mountain chicken of yours is not a peacock! How could a peacock look like that? Peacocks are… peacocks are beautiful.”
As she spoke, the spiritual light at her fingertip touched the “peacock.”
The next second, the “peacock’s” wings grew a little bigger, and several bamboo branches appeared behind it, spreading like a small fan.
Ciyin tilted her head and looked. Feeling it still did not look right, she made many red flowers bloom on the bamboo branches.
Then she tore off the green cloth around its neck, looked up at Qu Linyan, and said, “This is a peacock!”
Qu Linyan said, “Yours does not look like one at all!”
Ciyin said, “At least it looks more like one than yours. Yours is too ugly!”
“Where is it ugly? It is so cute.” Qu Linyan rolled her eyes. “Your knowledge is shallow. I will not argue with a little flower like you.”
Ciyin said, “I am too lazy to talk to an old black snake like you!”
Qu Linyan was shocked. “You actually called me old?”
Ciyin narrowed her eyes. “What? Are you not old?”
Qu Linyan thought about it. “Old is old. In any case, someone here is older than me.”
“You!” Ciyin choked for a moment.
Qu Linyan made a face and stuck her tongue out at Ciyin.
Their argument ended as suddenly as it began. Before long, they were sharing their great works with each other again.
Yun Su watched from not far away for a while. Unable to resist, she joined them too.
Together, they made a small home, each placing their own house and little courtyard. During this, Qu Linyan and Ciyin argued several more times because they disagreed. Both had drunk too much, and both had great tempers. When they quarreled, they were both puffed up with anger, and neither could persuade the other.
Yun Su could only work hard at playing peacemaker from the side.
Insect cries beneath the moon and the warm wind in the forest all accompanied this noisy summer night.
The bonfire burned brightly. Fu Zhuochen sat aside and quietly listened to the three childish people arguing or laughing. His heart, which had been troubled for several hundred years, unexpectedly settled into a rare peace.