Chapter 39
Back then, Lord Chushan first wanted Song Ye and asked him to train with him. However, Song Cheng took the opportunity instead.
Now it seems that everything Song Cheng did was to protect him.
He had been kept in the dark all these years, resenting and mocking Song Cheng. He couldn’t understand how Song Cheng managed to endure it. If it had been him, he would have broken down long ago.
At this moment, he finally understood why Song Cheng liked Si Lan so much.
Because Si Lan was Song Cheng’s salvation, whereas he himself was merely a burden to Song Cheng.
“Brother, I hate myself for not being strong enough. If I were as strong as the Lord, I could kill Lord Chushan, and you wouldn’t have to…”
“Song Ye, don’t blame yourself. This has nothing to do with you.”
Song Cheng’s voice also carried a hint of a sob. Song Ye was his only family in this world, and he had never blamed him.
“I’m such an idiot!”
After saying that, Song Ye’s branches and leaves wrapped around Song Cheng. Each leaf seemed to have a soul of its own, entwining Song Cheng in the moonlight, sticking tightly to him.
The night wind blew, making both of them rustle.
The barrier that had existed between them for so long disappeared at that moment. Song Ye finally felt the same closeness he had felt when he and Song Cheng trained together.
Their roots, their leaves, their hearts were so close.
Among the rustling leaves, Song Ye’s suppressed voice emerged.
“Brother, actually, I really like you.”
For some reason, Song Cheng didn’t answer. Song Ye’s leaves curled up restlessly, scratching at Song Cheng’s leaves.
Song Cheng had no choice but to speak, “You are just attached to me. You should find someone more suitable…” Deep down, he still felt unworthy of Song Ye. For so many years, he had avoided talking to Song Ye properly, punishing himself because he felt unworthy.
“Brother, you are the most suitable person for me.”
After saying this, Song Ye didn’t wait for Song Cheng to rebut and once again wrapped his leaves around Song Cheng, their roots inching towards him, tangling him up.
“Brother, it seems like you’re about to bloom.”
“Don’t talk nonsense!”
“Really, you smell fragrant.”
“Um, Song Ye…”
“Brother, you said you would always go along with me…”
—
Under the wisteria tree, Xie Li curiously peeked at the two intertwined wisterias and asked Qu Ze, “What are the two Protectors doing?”
Qu Ze kept a stern face and led Xie Li away, but Xie Li, full of curiosity, asked again.
Qu Ze had no choice but to reply, “They are brothers. This is a sign of closeness.”
“Oh, I understand.” Little Xie Li suddenly realized, then stood on tiptoe and threw himself into Qu Ze’s arms.
Qu Ze instinctively caught Xie Li, who wrapped his limbs tightly around him and said with a cheerful smile, “I also want to be close to Senior Brother.”
“…,” Qu Ze responded.
—
The next day, when Si Lan woke up, he found that Haowei was gone. He fluttered his wings and searched around Zhuyun Peak but couldn’t find Haowei. He realized that Haowei had returned to the Celestial Court.
He always left so quietly, without saying goodbye.
Never mind, Si Lan had to enter seclusion for training anyway.
He gathered a pile of Buddhist scriptures and texts in the cave. When he was in good spirits, he would read them. However, after reading through all the Buddhist texts, he still couldn’t find an explanation for the passage about the tiger eating the flesh of the Buddha in the Wuwang Sutra.
“The Buddha practiced in the forest and encountered a tiger. The tiger gazed at him intently. The Buddha fed it with his flesh. Day by day, the Buddha turned into white bones, and the tiger became a Buddha after eating his flesh.”
The literal meaning was easy to understand: evil people take the merits of good people and easily become Buddhas, while good people get no reward.
Was this person trying to convey something through this principle?
Si Lan thought he still needed to find someone to explain it to him.
Immediately, he thought of the fortune teller on Qiangjue Mountain, who knew the heavens above and the eighteen levels of hell below, with all phenomena contained in the tortoiseshell he held.
Perhaps the fortune teller would also know the story behind this Buddhist text.
Despite his injuries not yet healed, Si Lan couldn’t wait and flew towards Qiangjue Mountain.
The fortune teller still had his stall set up, with two tortoise shells in front of him. Beside the shells was a single burning incense stick, its smoke drifting lazily in the air.
A black bird was dozing on the fortune teller’s shoulder.
The fortune teller himself was also dozing, his white beard swaying in the breeze. He wore simple gray cloth clothes, which still gave off an aura of immortality and wisdom.
As soon as Si Lan landed, the fortune teller opened his eyes. Seeing a “wild pheasant,” he was about to shoo it away but then noticed the unique markings on its feathers, and his face showed surprise.
“Yu Jia.”
Si Lan was surprised that this fortune teller actually had some skill, recognizing his true form at a glance.
He pinched his voice, not wanting the fortune teller to recognize his identity, but then heard the fortune teller say, “My Lord, I never expected your identity to be so noble.”
“……”
After a moment of silence, Si Lan said, “Did the old gentleman predict I would come today?”
The fortune teller stroked his beard and said slowly, “Fortune-telling is either zero times or countless times. I knew that after you had your fortune told once, you would definitely seek me out again.” In fact, he had just done a divination and found that today’s business would be poor, with only one customer, an old one at that.
Seeing the demonic aura on this “wild pheasant,” which seemed familiar, and knowing it was his old customer, he naturally guessed that this “wild pheasant” was Si Lan.
“……”
After another brief silence, Si Lan got straight to the point, “Sir, I have a Buddhist text that I cannot interpret. Could you please explain it for me?”
The fortune teller looked at Si Lan in surprise, “My Lord, you are the first to come to me to interpret a Buddhist text.” After all, people usually came to him for children, marriage, or powerful medicine.
Si Lan smiled and handed over a millennium-old elixir to the fortune teller, who immediately beamed with joy and put it away. “My Lord, ask anything, and I will certainly tell you everything I know.”
Si Lan recited the Buddhist text about the tiger eating the flesh of the Buddha to the fortune teller.
After listening, the fortune teller fiddled with the two tortoise shells, chanting something under his breath.
A strange scripture enveloped the tortoise shells, with countless hieroglyphs forming a net-like pattern over them. After a moment, the two tortoise shells fell from the air and landed on the table, fitting together.
The fortune teller slowly opened the shells, and after seeing the signs inside, his face suddenly became serious. He looked up at Si Lan.
Seeing his expression, Si Lan couldn’t help but grow serious as well.
“What does it mean? What does the hexagram say?”
“My Lord, the hexagram indicates that you are facing imminent disaster.”
“……” After a pause, Si Lan asked, “Will it be life-threatening?”
“It could be severe or minor; it depends on your fortune.”
Si Lan felt that the fortune teller, as always, had said something without really saying anything. He felt a bit of heartache for that millennium-old elixir, feeling it was wasted on this old tortoise spirit.
Sensing a hint of dissatisfaction in Si Lan’s expression, the fortune teller added, “My Lord, the secrets of heaven must not be revealed. If I divulge them, not only will you and I suffer, but the course of fate might also change.”
Everyone’s destiny was predetermined, running according to the great plan of Heaven. If a piece moved wrongly, it would be corrected.
“Then let me ask directly. You just nod. The person behind showing me this Buddhist text, do they intend to overthrow the Six Realms?”
The fortune teller’s expression froze for a moment, then he shook his head.
“Besides you, is there anyone else who can explain this Buddhist text to me?”
“The Buddha Jiagang of the Thirty-Three Heavens.” After saying this, the fortune teller couldn’t help but chant “Amitabha” under his breath. “My Lord, please stop asking. Let me help you with something safer, like divining your future spouse.”
“……,” Si Lan responded.
“Did you follow my advice last time and wait for your destined one on Qianqiong Sand Island?”
“I did.” Si Lan’s face reddened slightly.
“Your destined one is highly skilled in magic, handsome, strong, and quite a heartthrob in the Six Realms.”
Hearing this, Si Lan’s face reddened even more, and he couldn’t help but think of Haowei’s face.
It seemed that Haowei did meet all these conditions.
“His mind is corrupted, with a demonic heart. If he does good, he will be a great benefactor. If he does evil, he will be a great menace.”
“A demonic heart? What does that mean?”
“The hexagram shows he has a demonic heart, indicating he is a serpent demon.”
Si Lan’s face turned a bit ugly, “Sir, are you sure?”
“I am sure. This divination method has never been wrong.”
Si Lan fell silent, lost in thought. He had indeed waited for Haowei on Qianqiong Sand Island.
He hadn’t seen anyone else around Qianqiong Sand Island at that time, so how could his destined one be a serpent demon?
Wait—
Si Lan suddenly recalled what the celestial soldiers had said on Zhuyun Peak.
“It’s a long story. A few days ago, the little prince was bitten by a fiery serpent and ended up in the Demon Realm…”
A fiery serpent, that fiery serpent… Could it be his destined one?!
But as far as he knew, the fiery serpent had long since died.
Could it be that Haowei killed the fiery serpent on Qianqiong Sand Island, and he mistakenly took Haowei back, thinking he was his destined one?
The more Si Lan thought about it, the more absurd it seemed, and his heart felt blocked, making it hard to breathe.
How could this be?
Wasn’t this just playing him for a fool?
With his face covered in feathers, the fortune teller couldn’t see Si Lan’s expression, but he could sense something was wrong from his aura. “My Lord, is there something wrong?”
Si Lan couldn’t help but ask again, “Sir, are you sure you didn’t make a mistake?”
“Of course, this method has never been wrong!”
Si Lan was left speechless. His wings drooped, and after a while, he mechanically lifted them and fluttered away from Qiangjue Mountain.
The fortune teller watched Si Lan leave, utterly baffled.
The divination showed that although Si Lan’s husband has a serpent’s gall, his fate is so noble that even the tortoiseshell couldn’t fully interpret it.
So why is Si Lan so dejected?
Si Lan had no feelings for that torch serpent he had never met. Knowing it was killed by Haowei, he didn’t feel sad.
He just hadn’t expected that Haowei, whom he always considered his fated person, actually wasn’t. So, all that happened between them was not destiny but mere coincidence.
Thinking about his behavior towards Haowei, Si Lan felt extremely embarrassed, wishing he could cover his face with his wings.
No wonder Haowei had always been cold and distant towards him. In Haowei’s eyes, he must have seemed like a pheasant wanting to eat a small white dragon.
Returning to Zhuyun Peak, the frustration and confusion in his heart had not dissipated. He went to the wine cellar and picked a pot of wine to drink.
He didn’t understand what mistake he had made, why every blooming peach flower was always cut off.
In the Six Realms, perhaps no one was more miserable than he was.
He lay drunkenly on the stone table, sighing intermittently.
“Why was I sent here in the first place?”
Qu Ze happened to hear Si Lan’s complaints as he walked over.
“Was it to make me lonely and undying?”
“……”
Qu Ze’s expression paused as he looked at Si Lan, his brows furrowing.
What happened?
Why is the Lord eager to marry again?
After sending Si Lan back to rest, Qu Ze went to find Song Cheng and Song Ye, who were still lingering together.
Years ago, the Demon Realm held a consort selection, but back then, the Lord’s reputation for being cursed to kill his wives was rampant. Upon hearing this, the women of the Demon Realm quickly got engaged, and even widows remarried…
Recently, the Lord’s reputation had improved somewhat. Most importantly, the one who had been spreading the rumor about the Lord’s curse was now preoccupied with romance and had no time for gossip.
Thinking of this, Qu Ze looked at the slightly taller wisteria. “Protector Song Ye, I want to reopen the consort selection for the Lord in the Demon Realm.”
Song Ye extended a vine, looking at Qu Ze. “Consort selection, are we selecting males or females?”
Qu Ze suddenly fell silent.
“Qu Ze, why do you suddenly want to select a consort for the Lord?” Song Cheng asked.
“Since returning from Qiangjue Mountain, the Lord seems to be in a bad mood.”
“Then let’s select, but in the Demon Realm, men and women are used to doing as they please. They may not be willing to participate in the consort selection.”
The Demon Realm was different from the Mortal Realm. For ordinary mortals, being selected into the palace as a consort was like a pheasant turning into a phoenix. But in the Demon Realm, people did not take marriage contracts seriously; they valued cultivation more.
Although the Lord had high cultivation, he did not practice dual cultivation techniques, and with his “bad reputation” outside, no male or female demon would hope to marry him.
“Then we’ll use both coercion and inducement, trick them into signing up,” Song Ye said calmly. After speaking, he looked at Song Cheng beside him. He had thought Song Cheng would react strongly to Si Lan’s consort selection, but surprisingly, he remained calm.
Song Cheng sensed Song Ye’s gaze but didn’t look at him. Instead, he continued to ask Qu Ze, “Wasn’t the man who stayed by the Lord’s side before his fated person?”
Qu Ze shook his head. “I don’t know what happened, but judging by the Lord’s current state, that person shouldn’t be his fated one.”
Song Cheng said no more, and Song Ye felt a sense of crisis.
Song Ye had known that Song Cheng liked Si Lan, and despite the heartache, he had tried to pair Song Cheng with Si Lan. Therefore, the spread of Si Lan’s “curse” reputation was partly due to Song Ye’s efforts. But now that he and Song Cheng had opened up to each other and explained everything;
“Then let’s hurry and select a consort for the Lord. We’ll choose males and females, young and old, fat and thin.”
“……” Qu Ze.
“……” Song Cheng.
Qu Ze rarely handled Demon Realm affairs and mainly took care of Si Lan’s daily matters, so the consort selection had to be left to the two protectors.
“Then I’ll trouble the two protectors.”
——
On the other side, after returning to the Heavenly Court, Haowei summoned Yu Wudao and Siming Xianzun.
Years ago, when he descended to the mortal realm to atone for his sins, only his mother knew about it, besides these two.
His fate and destiny were also determined by these two.
Yu Wudao, summoned in a hurry, did not know what had happened, but seeing Haowei’s serious expression, he thought it must be a significant issue.
Recently, Haowei had been staying in the Demon Realm. Could the issue be related to that Demon Lord?
“Your Majesty, are you sure you want to retrieve those memories?” Yu Wudao asked.
In that lifetime, Haowei bore the fate of the Lone Star, living a life of loneliness and suffering, unable to have what he desired, think what he wanted, or love whom he wished. In the end, he had nothing to live for, nothing to lose.
Such a miserable experience would only bring torment if retrieved.
“Yes.” Haowei only wanted to know the entanglement between him and Si Lan. “Wudao, Siming, do you know what the Great Void God was doing when I descended to the mortal realm?”
Siming played with the Ziwei Jade Disk, frowning. “The Great Void God should have been in deep sleep in the Great Void Mountain in the Mortal Realm at that time. Why does Your Majesty suddenly ask about the Great Void God?”
A thought flashed in Haowei’s mind. Perhaps the reason why the Great Void God mistook Si Lan for the “Little Prince’s” mother was that the Great Void God knew about his past with Si Lan.
However, this was just his speculation.
“I suspect I might have seen the Great Void God during my tribulation in the mortal realm. Siming, can you retrieve my memories from that time?”
Siming continued to play with the Ziwei Jade Disk. After adjusting the direction of the pointer, he replied, “Your Majesty, the Ziwei Jade Disk contains your memories. Are you sure you want to retrieve them?”
“Yes,” Haowei said firmly.
Hearing this, Siming placed the Ziwei Jade Disk before Haowei. Haowei looked down, and in the center of the disk, his birth date and eight characters appeared.
Those characters floated slowly, then merged together, bursting into a beam of golden light. In the next moment, all the hidden memories returned to Haowei’s mind.
He remembered many things.
In this life, he was born as the son of the illustrious General Chongming Wei of the Yu Dynasty. Just after his birth, the Chong family was falsely accused of rebellion and their household was ransacked. The men were all killed, and the women were sent to pleasure houses as servants.
He was secretly taken out of the residence by a groom who hid him in his belly, raising him anonymously in the mountains and forests.
When he was just learning to speak, the groom told him everything that had happened to the Chong family, instilling in him the idea of revenge at every moment.
When he was five years old, the groom fell gravely ill. On his deathbed, he entrusted Haowei to a childless couple in the village.
At six, the couple unexpectedly gave birth to a son, making him an unwanted burden. He was sold off for ten taels of silver to another household.
This next household was an old, crippled bachelor over fifty years old who bought him to work and care for him in his old age.
By seven, Haowei could already hunt rabbits and pheasants on the mountain, work in the fields, and cook meals. However, peace did not last long. War broke out, forcing the villagers to migrate north to escape.
The old man contracted the plague and died on the way, and Haowei also caught the plague, being thrown into a mass grave for the dead. Fortunately, he survived after two days and nights of high fever.
By eight, he could live independently, following the refugee group to the north and, after seven years of intermittent travel, returning to the capital where he was born.
He never forgot the groom’s words: the men of the Chong family were all dead, but thirty-seven women of the Chong family were still waiting for him to rescue them.
The grievances of the Chong family also awaited his redress.
Living alone at the foot of the mountain, his solitary and reserved nature soon made him an “oddball” among the villagers.
He met Si Lan in the twenty-fifth year of the Yu Dynasty, when he was seventeen.
While hunting on the mountain, he saw a black object fall straight from the sky into a lake, creating a whirlpool.
Curious, he approached the lake and retrieved a burnt black pheasant from the whirlpool.
The pheasant was barely breathing, covered in fresh blood, likely bitten by a wild animal.
Without much thought, he took the pheasant back, only to be stopped by Lanlan from the village on the way.
Lanlan frowned and righteously claimed it was her family’s chicken.
He glanced at the blackened pheasant in his hand, thinking he had never seen such a scorched chicken in the village. But since Lanlan said so, he didn’t want to argue with a girl and gave her the pheasant.
The incident passed just like that.
Until one day, while hunting on the mountain, he saw a man in green standing in a corner, pale and beautiful to the point of enchantment, curled up in the thorns halfway up the mountain. The man’s fragile expression was pitiful, like a spirit designed to captivate souls.
When the wind blew, the green figure flickered in and out of sight.
Haowei suddenly realized the green-robed man was not an ordinary person but a mountain spirit.
He recalled the ancient texts about spirits that seduce people, feeding on their essence to cultivate. He dared not look at the spirit again and hurried away.
The next day, however, he saw the same green figure in the same spot.
The man’s expression was blank, his eyes unfocused, his face even paler than before, seemingly unaware of everything around him.
How could there be such a stupid spirit? One that couldn’t even charm people.
Could it be a newcomer?
Haowei thought this to himself and hurried up the mountain.
Yet, while hunting, he couldn’t help but think of that green figure. He suspected the spirit had cast a spell on him.
So, on his way down the mountain, Haowei, with a stern face, coldly told the lingering spirit, “This mountain path is almost only used by me. You won’t deceive anyone by staying here.”
The spirit said nothing, still standing there woodenly.
Haowei frowned at him, and then the spirit’s eyes suddenly moved, looking at him.
His heart skipped a beat, and meeting those dark eyes, his heart raced.
He thought he was under a spell and hurriedly turned away, rushing down the mountain.
Don’t make eye contact with a spirit.
Especially not with such a dumb one.
He tried to convince himself of this, and as he passed the village entrance, he ran into a man dressed like a physician talking to Lanlan.
“I don’t think that young man is ill. He seems to have a soul separation disorder. He must have an injured soul, missing a piece of his essence.”
“Doctor, what should be done?”
“I’m afraid you’ll need to find a Taoist priest to help call back his soul.”
“Thank you, doctor,” Lanlan said.
T/N: Hey there! There is plenty more where that came from, so stay tuned! And stay healthy! Straighten your posture, so some stretches and drink some water before continuing hehe~
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If you like cats, check out Revenge of the Garfield
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What about the perfect, most non-toxic male lead ever? Laws of Love
How about MC nursing ML back to health? Forced into the Deep
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