The Little Peacock Raises a Snake (GL) Chapter 77

When the road reaches its end, there must be a farewell. No matter how much one slows one’s steps, people on different paths still have to go their separate ways.
After the four of them left the lower realm, Ciyin returned to heaven alone.
A spiritual flower was nourished by its true body. Unless the connection was forcefully cut with spiritual power, it would not wither.
“Zhiming is very easy to talk to. Maybe… he will allow A-Yin to keep this incarnation?” Holding a bit of hope, Yun Su pinned that white spiritual flower into her hair.
Fu Zhuochen only said lightly, “He is only easy to talk to with you.”
Yun Su shook her head. “How could that be? Zhiming has a gentle nature and is good to everyone. No matter what it is, as long as someone pleads with him, he will soften.”
Fu Zhuochen said, “You do not understand him.”
Qu Linyan deeply agreed. “You truly do not understand that tor… Divine Lord Zhiming. He is cold and fierce, and his whole body carries a chill that keeps people a thousand li away. He only looks proper and handsome with red lips and white teeth. If he had a more vicious face, one might feel he could eat people with a single glance.”
“Qu Linyan!” Yun Su frowned slightly.
“I should close my mouth.” Before Yun Su could act, Qu Linyan covered her own mouth first.
Yun Su huffed. “Little Black, Zhiming has helped us so much over the years. Why do you always hold so much hostility toward him?”
“Hey, now that wrongs me. A personal impression and holding hostility are not the same thing.” Qu Linyan defended herself. “I am only speaking of my personal impression of this Divine Lord you all talk about. You keep saying he is good to everyone, with a gentle nature and a soft heart. In any case, I cannot see it. Is Ciyin not also very afraid of him? Every day, it is the Divine Lord will not allow this and will not let that…”
Fu Zhuochen hit the nail on the head. “Every time Qu Linyan sees Zhiming, she gets injured. It is reasonable for her to hold this kind of prejudice toward him.”
Yun Su burst out laughing. “Thinking of it that way, it is true that he would not have left her with a good impression.”
Qu Linyan rolled her eyes. “Fu Zhuochen, I appreciate you less and less. At least I only speak ill of people behind their backs and never embarrass a familiar person to their face. You really do not know how to speak.”
Yun Su reached out and pinched Qu Linyan’s arm, asking with a smile that was not a smile, “Then, who exactly knows how to speak better?”
“I am the worst at speaking,” Qu Linyan answered with a crying face.
That little peacock from back then, who had understood nothing and could be coaxed into obedience with a few words, had still grown up. Now her elbow turned outward every day.
Ah, these days were truly too hard to live.
*
Sixty years passed. To immortals and demons, it was only an extremely small part of their long lives. It could be called fast, and it could be called slow.
During those years that were neither long nor short, Qu Linyan accompanied Yun Su to many, many places.
Together, they traveled to the ends of the world, saw countless wonders, and helped many people who needed help. At last, among the thousand-li stretch of mountains in Yizhou, they chose an unnamed peak. On a mountaintop wrapped in layers of cloud, they decided on a place to live.
As for why they chose such a place rarely visited by people, Qu Linyan’s explanation was that birds always liked high places, mountain forests, and clouds. The moment she saw this place, she knew Yun Su would surely like it.
The truth was exactly that.
Yun Su liked this mountain very much. It was the tallest peak in the whole mountain range.
The spiritual energy between heaven and earth in the mountain was very rich, nurturing many spirits that had opened their intelligence. It was far from the noise of the mortal world, yet it did not feel lonely at all.
This way, if they missed the bustle of the world, they could go down the mountain. If the bustle troubled their hearts, they could return to the mountain.
Unfortunately, although they had a home that belonged to them, the promise they had made together back then was not fulfilled.
Two hundred years ago, Ciyin returned to heaven first. Fu Zhuochen parted from them in Wuzhou. The spiritual flower pinned in Yun Su’s hair withered slowly in the end.
Later, while Yun Su and Qu Linyan traveled the human world, they rescued a small blue-green bird that had opened its mind. They took it as a spirit beast, named it Qingtuan, cared for it carefully for a while, and finally used it to carry messages.
Every winter, Yun Su would send a long letter to Wuyou Valley, telling Fu Zhuochen what she had seen and heard that year, where she had spent the new year, and where she and Qu Linyan planned to go next.
No matter what the letter said, by the end, it would always have the same two lines: “It has been a long time since we met. I wonder if Brother has been well lately? Has any news of A-Yin come from heaven?”
Every time Qingtuan returned, a reply would be tied to its leg.
The contents of those letters were also mostly similar.
“Ciyin still has not sent any news. Your brother has been well lately. No need to worry.”
Heaven did not allow immortals to descend to the mortal world at will. With Ciyin’s cultivation, it was truly not easy for her to secretly come down without being discovered.
If Zhiming was unwilling to help Ciyin, then Ciyin truly could not send even a bit of news to the lower realm.
When Yun Su and Qu Linyan chose a place to settle down back then, Fu Zhuochen had once gone to heaven to find Ciyin and Zhiming. But at that time, heaven and the devil realm happened to be negotiating peace, and the Heavenly Emperor had arranged a great banquet. As a demon, Fu Zhuochen could not even enter the Southern Heavenly Gate. In the end, nothing came of it.
Now, Yun Su could no longer return to heaven. Never mind meeting Ciyin, she had no way of knowing whether Ciyin had been well lately, or when she would undergo tribulation and ascend.
In the past, whatever flowers Yun Su liked, she would ask Ciyin to plant them for her at Qingyu Cottage.
Now that she could not contact Ciyin at all, she had to find seeds herself to plant the flowers inside and outside the courtyard. Only then did she slowly discover that lower-realm flowers were not easy to raise. Even if one cared for them with all one’s heart, they might not live.
On the high mountain peak where they lived, the weather was cold, and many flowers were unwilling to bloom.
In the past, when they traveled everywhere, it always felt as if time passed more slowly.
Now that the days were plain and calm, time seemed to pass very quickly instead.
Spring, summer, autumn, and winter turned again and again. In the blink of an eye, more than two hundred years had passed.
Yun Su’s memory had always been poor. If Qu Linyan had not had to face a Heavenly Dao lightning tribulation every hundred years, Yun Su would never have noticed that so much time had passed.
Speaking of it, every time a tribulation came, Qu Linyan would drive Yun Su down the mountain early, afraid that when she was undergoing tribulation, some annoying immortal might look this way and happen to discover Yun Su was still alive.
Every time the tribulation finished and Yun Su returned to the mountain, Qu Linyan would collapse weakly on her for two or three months.
Every hundred years, what Yun Su loved most was taking advantage of Qu Linyan’s weakness to bully her without the slightest guilt.
One had to know that although Qu Linyan usually followed Yun Su in everything, the dominance in her bones was very hard to change. From time to time, she would make Yun Su a little angry. Yun Su wanted to bully her back at night, yet every time, she would be smoothly pressed back down instead. This repeated for many years and never changed.
Because of that, Yun Su treated Qu Linyan’s tribulation years as her once-every-hundred-years chance to hold her head high.
When two people stayed together for a long time, each would be changed by the other a little.
For example, Qu Linyan had once had a nature that could not stay idle no matter what. Now, as if she had entered an old person’s life, she had begun to get used to sitting on the mountaintop like Yun Su, watching clouds roll and spread, the sun rise and the moon set.
Yun Su remembered one year when she complained in a letter to Fu Zhuochen: “I write so many words every time. Can Brother not reply with a few more?”
Several days later, when Qingtuan brought the letter back, the reply truly had a few more words.
“Ciyin still has not sent any news.”
The first half was fixed and unchanging for two hundred years.
“Last autumn, I endured a Heavenly Dao lightning tribulation. Now I have recovered seventy to eighty percent. My body is well. No need to worry.”
The second half made Yun Su feel distressed for a good while.
Qu Linyan returned from hunting outside, a small deer carried over her shoulder. The moment she came home and saw Yun Su holding the reply with a worried face, she thought something had happened. She quickly threw down the deer and strode forward anxiously. “Xiaoba, what does the letter say?”
“Brother was injured.” Yun Su raised her head and looked at Qu Linyan with tears in her eyes.
“What happened? Who did it? Is he all right?” Qu Linyan immediately rolled up her sleeves. She had recently been bored and itching for a fight. Someone dared hurt her brother-in-law? She would have to… have to…
Hm? What was this letter saying?
A Heavenly Dao lightning tribulation last autumn. Now he had recovered seventy to eighty percent…
“You, you…” Qu Linyan choked for a long time before finally saying, “That is it? This happened more than half a year ago. What are you so anxious about?”
Was this not wasting emotion?
“I…” Yun Su stammered for a long time but could not explain. She only knew that her heart felt uncomfortable.
“That old undying brother of yours has endured at least a dozen Heavenly Dao lightning tribulations. He should have gotten used to being struck long ago…” As Qu Linyan spoke, she sat beside Yun Su, her eyes sour as she looked at her. “I do not see you this nervous when the damned heavens strike me.”
“Was I not nervous enough back then in Fenglu City?” Yun Su frowned and refuted her. “Are you an ungrateful wolf?”
“You were only nervous that one time. This hundred years, and the last hundred years, not only were you not very nervous for me, you laughed at me and took the chance to bully me… You even made awful food for me.” Qu Linyan’s words were full of grievance.
Who would have thought Yun Su would become even more wronged after hearing this? She directly reached out and pushed Qu Linyan aside. “You could not move easily, so I made food for you. Now that becomes my fault?”
“No, no, I absolutely did not mean that!” Qu Linyan quickly raised both hands in surrender.
Yun Su turned her head to the side and refused to speak to Qu Linyan for a long time.
To coax Yun Su, Qu Linyan tugged at her sleeve one moment and pulled her little hand the next. She apologized over and over many times, and even suggested taking her back to Wuyou Valley.
Some people were born easy to coax. In truth, Yun Su had stopped being angry after Qu Linyan said only a few things. The reason she kept ignoring Qu Linyan was only that she wanted to hear how many apology lines Qu Linyan could still think of.
The more she listened, the more amused she felt. Finally, she could not hold back and laughed.
“Not angry anymore?” Qu Linyan tilted her head to look at Yun Su, her eyes full of doting.
Yun Su pouted. After thinking for several seconds, she said softly, “I seem to… suddenly understand why I care so much about Brother enduring Heavenly Dao lightning tribulations.”
“Why?”
“A-Yin said I was cool by nature and never cared about the people beside me. Now that I think of it, that is truly so…” As Yun Su spoke, she lowered her head. “Brother raised me for four hundred years. Even if we remove the years I forgot, I have known him for more than seven hundred years. Yet I never knew when he faced tribulations.”
“Now that I think back, every hundred years, he would leave the valley once. He left in autumn and returned in spring. He never let me see him injured. And I never once stayed by his side and cared for him when he was badly hurt.”
“Little Black, you are so strong, yet every time, you are still injured badly enough that you cannot get out of bed for ten days or half a month. I…”
“So that is it…” Qu Linyan thoughtfully touched her chin.
Yun Su came back from blaming herself, sniffed, and asked blankly, “What is it?”
“I mean, now I know why, when I was still badly injured back then, I could still fight him to a draw in Wuzhou.” Qu Linyan remembered the past and could not help sighing. “Looks like my luck was good. If the heavens had not struck him that year, maybe I really would have died under his hand.”
Yun Su: “…”
Qu Linyan was secretly delighted, but when she lowered her head and saw Yun Su’s expression was wrong, she hurriedly realized her focus was completely off.
Ah, the wife she had just coaxed had to be coaxed all over again…
*
In the blink of an eye, another two hundred years passed.
During these two hundred years, there was finally news of Ciyin, but it did not come from Fu Zhuochen’s letters.
Fu Zhuochen’s replies were still only a few short words, but Qingtuan had already grown up and was no longer the small blue-green bird that only knew how to deliver letters.
One winter, when it went to deliver a letter, it saw Ciyin in Wuyou Valley.
It turned out that four hundred years ago, Ciyin had stayed in the lower realm too long, and Zhiming had ultimately failed to hide it from the Flower God.
The punishment for immortals secretly descending to the mortal world was no small matter. To protect her daughter, the Flower God naturally did not dare blame Zhiming for anything. Both of them understood without saying it and completely hid the matter after Ciyin returned.
But from then on, the Flower God no longer allowed Ciyin and Zhiming to have any contact. She also slowly handed the duties of managing flowers to Ciyin.
Under the Flower God’s supervision, Ciyin’s cultivation improved a great deal, and she became much busier. She was no longer the little girl who had so much free time she could play all over heaven.
About sixty years earlier, Ciyin’s cultivation had reached a bottleneck where she needed to descend to the mortal world for a tribulation. She found a chance to meet Zhiming once and begged him to help her secretly go down to the mortal world.
She found Fu Zhuochen and said to him, “I am about to descend for my tribulation. Siming arranged for me the fate of a lone star of death. I will bring death to my parents, be hated and bullied by everyone around me, taste all the coldness of the world, and die of illness at nineteen.”
“I understand your feelings, and I know this is very hard for you… But I still want to ask. Can you accompany me for one lifetime?”
“Actually, actually it does not need to be one lifetime. A few years is enough… You do not need to do anything. You do not need to change my fate. Just come keep me company.”
“Let me fall in love with you.” As she spoke, she curved her brows and smiled faintly. “Let me love you in this life. That way… I can completely forget you on the Dustfall Platform.”
She said the Dustfall Platform cut off feelings from the tribulation. Feelings had to be born within the tribulation before they could fall away.
That day, Fu Zhuochen gave her no answer. Before leaving, she still told him where she would reincarnate.
Qingtuan brought this news back. Many years later, Yun Su and Qu Linyan went to the place Ciyin had mentioned.
They saw that little girl with a sallow face and a body thin as bone. They saw many children her age laugh at her as a broom star who had killed her parents and steal the herbs she had worked so hard to dig up.
“Are all you immortals’ tribulations this inhuman?” Pity appeared in Qu Linyan’s eyes.
Yun Su thought for a moment. “If I had not jumped into the wrong path of reincarnation and met Brother and you, my life would also have been very bitter.”
Before leaving, Yun Su could not help asking, “Do you think Brother will come?”
Qu Linyan shook her head. “With that fellow’s nature, who knows?”
Ciyin’s suffering life in the human world was very short. It could be said that she came and went in a hurry.
They heard Qingtuan say that Fu Zhuochen went in the end. He accompanied Ciyin for four years, until she was tormented by illness and never opened her eyes again.
How Ciyin was after returning to heaven was something people in the lower realm could no longer know.
They only knew that the year Ciyin returned to heaven after her tribulation, Wuyou Valley was filled with azaleas.
Every year after that, whenever spring came, red flowers bloomed all over the mountains.
Yun Su thought of it from time to time and could not help pulling Qu Linyan to ask, “Little Black, do you think A-Yin forgot?”
Qu Linyan shook her head. Her answer was always familiar. “With that girl’s nature, who knows?”
Yun Su could not help falling into thought.
Qu Linyan said, “Speaking of it, your heavenly realm’s Dustfall Platform may not be very useful, right? Did you not remember everything?”
Yun Su said, “The Dustfall Platform cuts the thread of feeling. One stroke forgets fate, two strokes forget the world, three strokes forget love. If the comb truly passes three times, it is like a reincarnated person drinking Meng Po soup. It would be impossible to remember again.”
“Then you…”
“It is strange. Back then, I clearly did not hesitate much for the first two strokes. But when it came to the third, no matter what, I could not bring myself to do it…” Yun Su said, “The greatest fortune of my life is that that year, I did not truly forget you.”
Qu Linyan listened and propped up her chin, thinking for a long time. Then she could not help smiling.
“Then the greatest fortune of my life is that I broke into heaven back then and was stabbed by a certain silly bird.”
She said that sword had truly hurt. She had held a grudge for many years.