Thud. A muffled sound arrived at my ears.

It was my body, crashing heavily onto hard ground.

I forced my eyes wide open. As I lay sprawled on the ground, I struggled to raise my head. Just as I was about to prop my arms up and stand, my body was pressed back down by a heavy weight on my back.

Enduring the true pain on my chin, I turned my head — and was startled to discover that stretched across my back was an arm, wrapped in an ink-purple sleeve. At its end, fingers slightly curled, it was pinning weakly against my right shoulder.

My astonished gaze followed this arm to its owner — a person sprawled on the ground, face obscured, ink-black hair loose and disheveled.

No breathing, no movement — as still as death.

The jet-black hair gleaming with a deep purple radiance, the ink-purple robe, the hand pinning me down… After staring blankly for a good while, my mind — not yet fully knocked into confusion — suddenly superimposed the person beside me with that detestable ugly creature.

Could it be… this fellow had transformed into human form?!

I blinked. Whatever — I knitted my brow, thinking: never mind all that. Taking advantage of his current condition, escaping quickly was the right course of action.

Carefully flipping my body over, I exerted all my strength and pushed several times, finally shifting away the long arm pressing me down. I let out a breath, sat up, and only then noticed that I was in a wide and spacious cave, with the cave entrance directly ahead.

I scrambled to my feet and, limping, was about to rush toward the cave entrance. I had to leave this place — I had to return immediately to Zi Miao’s side.

But the moment I took my very first step, a strong hand gripped my ankle tightly.

“You are not permitted to leave…” A measured, unhurried voice came from the body of that person on the ground — somewhat languid, yet carrying an overbearing authority that could not be defied.

I drew in a sharp breath. The hand grasping me was ice-cold, touching only the smallest area, yet sufficient to freeze the entire body.

He… had regained consciousness?!

That fellow slowly clambered upright, walked to stand before me, and his tall, imposing figure overbearingly blocked the cave entrance.

In all these years, I had never seen anyone with a complexion as dark and tanned as wheat. Every line of his angular face seemed as if it had been carved by a knife, bearing a penetrating keenness at every point. Yet those eyes that should have been wide open were lazily half-lidded, and a long, slender lock of tangled hair hanging loosely before them could not conceal the sharp and keen radiance that shone from within.

“You… who are you…” I instinctively retreated a step, alert and frightened, while asking the most foolish question imaginable.

“You were calling ‘ugly creature’ quite fluently just now — does it not roll off the tongue?” He looked down at me from above, his tone containing no discernible emotion.

My guess had indeed come true.

“Weren’t you quite sharp-tongued just a moment ago?!” His large hand seized my chin without restraint. “What — struck dumb now?”

It hurt! In all the time I had existed, I had never been subjected to treatment this rough. In my memory there was only one man’s gentle face, and tender affection like water.

“Speak!” His iron-grip five fingers added another measure of force.

The person before me clearly wanted me to submit. Clearly wanted to see me beg for mercy.

But I refused to beg for mercy. However bone-piercingly it ached, I would not let him have his way.

Fury was sufficient to drive away all fear.

I stared directly at him, no longer avoiding his gaze. Two people’s eyes — one violent, one defiant — intersected in the air between them, nearly enough to strike sparks.

After a long standoff, he suddenly released his hand.

“An interesting woman — oh, no. An interesting demon.” He looked me up and down. “Killing you right now would be rather a waste. We have all the time in the world — there is no hurry.”

“He will come to rescue me!” Suddenly I raised my head. I had to remind this arrogant creature who had already forgotten the pain from his healed wounds — there still existed in this world a person who stood above him. In both character and ability, he was nothing but a bedraggled, defeated opponent.

“Him?” Uncontrollable fury swept the languor from his eyes in an instant. Instinctively he reached a hand behind himself, then opened it before his eyes — dark red blood staining an entire palm.

His wound was still dripping blood? Zi Miao’s arrow giving me one more shred of contempt for this creature.

“The debt of gouging out my scales — I will make him repay it twofold!” In his words, beyond the kill-or-be-killed murderous intent, there was also the hatred and resentment of defeat.

“You are not his match — you never will be! He will come to rescue me very soon. The smart thing to do would be to flee for your life at once!”

I smiled — triumphantly. The more furious he became, the happier I was.

Two razor-sharp gazes like blades suddenly landed upon my face.

“With a beauty in his arms, he will not come.” His smile was full of mockery.

The beauty — she had already become a hidden wound in my heart, one that ached at the slightest touch. Everything that had happened at Dongting Lake — obvious and subtle — surged tumbling into my mind.

“Such a beautiful woman — any man would be moved by her. Compared to her, you fall truly far short.” He shook his head, putting on an expression of regret and pity. “If not for wanting to take advantage of the confusion to make my escape, I might even have been willing to take a longer look at her! Give it up — you are no longer the first in his heart. Before long he will have forgotten you completely!”

“Stop it, stop it!” I covered my ears and roared furiously at him. “You are talking nonsense! What do you know? He will come to rescue me — he will definitely come!”

His reckless babbling had struck at exactly what I feared most — accurately and viciously.

From that summer night thirty years ago, I had grown accustomed to his care, accustomed to his cherishing, accustomed to regarding him as my entire world.

If in the very first second he forgot me, then in the second second my world would be utterly destroyed.

At this moment, how I wished I were a demon with a dull and inaccurate sense of feeling — that all of this was simply a foolish conjecture that had burst forth from my fear and helplessness. How could Zi Miao possibly forget me? Thirty years of sunrise and sunset, thirty years of mornings and evenings spent together — I was the only one at his side. The only one!

Yes — I was being too foolish. So foolish as to actually harbor doubts about Zi Miao. He would come, he would definitely come! What “beauty in his arms” — only those vulgar ordinary mortals would be bewitched by beauty. He was an immortal. How could he sink to the level of those commoners? He would rescue that woman first, perhaps only because she was a mortal of flesh and blood. Compared to me, a demon, she was truly far more fragile. Helping her before me — this was also entirely reasonable.

I silently sought reasons to convince myself, firming up my own conviction, telling all other wayward thoughts to go to perdition. Trust him — I had always trusted him. No person and no thing could shake my trust in him.

He looked at me in silence, believing his blow had taken effect. A trace of satisfaction crossed his brow. He said: “Scream all you like. Screaming until you become dust will not change the facts. Even if you wait until your body dissolves to nothing, he will never come. However, if you beg me, then perhaps I will agree to bring his remains back to you in future — to give you a last look. Consider it a final wish fulfilled.”

This time I was no longer angry, no longer frantic. I raised my head to look at him and gave him the most radiant smile I could produce: “I trust him.”

“You…” His brow furrowed.

My sudden tranquility had perhaps disappointed this creature again.

I turned my head. The cave entrance, where light still shone, entered my field of vision once more. That speck of brightness tempted me, and the thought of escape rose in me again.

If I had a choice, I would rather escape back to his side on my own than sit here waiting for him to rescue me.

Seizing the moment when the other party was staring at me in a daze, I brought forth the fastest speed of my entire life and ran toward the cave entrance like the wind.

He actually did not chase me.

My heart was about to leap out of my throat. I thought success was right before my eyes.

Bang! I was sent flying a great distance, and when I hit the ground the sharp pain nearly made me cry out.

The completely unobstructed cave entrance had a solid barrier sealing it.

My wounded and battered arm was suddenly yanked. He roughly pulled me up from the ground, one large hand gripping my chin hard: “Didn’t you say you trusted him to come rescue you? Then why are you trying to escape? You are nothing but a liar who cannot even deceive herself!”

What detestable words! I used my other hand to claw at his wrist with all my might, tore open his grip, and with the momentum bit hard into his palm.

Crack! A sharp sound rang out, and a heavy slap landed on my face.

Staggering, my weakened body toppled to the ground.

At the corner of my lips, blood seeped out. At his fingers, blood beaded. A scene of mutual injury.

Enduring the pain, I struggled to stand up, walked before him without a shred of timidity, and raised my arm.

Crack!

The slap I returned to him was equally loud and crisp.

“You disgust me!”

I shot him a cold glance, turned around, and walked with a limp toward the other side of the cave.

What expression he wore at this moment, I did not see — and did not want to see. Whatever revenge he was going to exact upon me next, I also did not care. Right now, I only wanted to find a place to quietly wait.

Zi Miao, Zi Miao…

I sat down, leaning against a corner of the cave, closed my eyes, and silently murmured his name, waiting for hope in the midst of inexplicable despair…

In the increasingly darkening light, two complex gazes had never, I felt, left me.

One, two, three… thirty… forty-six… fifty… sixty… ninety… I held a small stone and stared blankly at the three rows of fine tally marks on the cave-entrance wall, counting them.

Same as on Fulong Mountain, they were my exclusive record of time. The difference was that here, each mark represented only a single day.

I had been sealed in the cave for a full ninety days.

He had not come.

Yet I was still waiting. I had no way to convince myself to give up.

Ninety days — every day I sat at the cave entrance, hoping for that tall figure in white. The longer I watched, the more my eyes ached. Even the occasional passing birds and butterflies I took for his embodiment, unable to help feeling happy. But I only needed to blink and reality would immediately remind me it was merely an illusion.

More than ten days earlier, rain had started outside. I was so excited I nearly leapt to my feet. Rain — water — that was his mark. He must surely be nearby. He must have found me!

Yet that rain had stopped very quickly, and the puddles left on the ground were dried up to the last drop by the blazing early summer sun in no time at all.

Now it was already June, and my body was growing weaker and weaker.

I licked my already cracked lips, my gaze falling upon a jar of clear water and a bundle of wild fruit not far from my side. These had been left there by that fellow — every day he would prepare fresh drinking water and food for me.

I would not accept his kindness. For ninety days, I had not touched a drop of water nor a single grain. I only recalled that early autumn evening — those beautiful and delicious foods. Eight-treasure porridge, hundred-flower pastry… I would rather subsist on “nourishment” for the spirit than take anything he gave me.

During these days, I refused any form of conversation with that creature, and it seemed he did not pay much attention to me either. In the beginning, aside from going out to find food, he spent most of his time sitting cross-legged in a corner of the cave in meditation to heal his wounds. We two treated each other as if the other did not exist. However, once the wound on his back had healed, he began going out early and coming back late.

Where he went and when he would return — these were naturally not things I concerned myself with. What I cared about was only the vicious words he had spoken earlier. I was afraid this contemptible creature would truly go looking to make trouble for Zi Miao. However, it seemed he had not turned his murderous, bloodthirsty resentment into reality, because each time he returned, apart from the pungent smell of alcohol on his body, there was not the faintest scent of blood.

Perhaps he was simply going out to drink like the humans, looking for amusement!

I let out a sigh and stared blankly at the sky outside the cave entrance, watching it go from drifting white clouds to flickering stars and moon.

Drowsy and half-asleep, the sound of footsteps behind me jarred me awake.

He had come back. It was always like this — he never came through the cave entrance, always appearing like a phantom suddenly in a corner of the cave. After a long time, I had grown accustomed to it.

My head tilting against the stone wall, I continued to enjoy the limited night view, paying no attention whatsoever to the person behind me.

“How much longer do you think you can hold out?” His voice carried anger he could not conceal.

I had no intention of responding to him at all — I did not even bother to move my body.

My shoulder was suddenly seized, forcing me to turn around.

In the deep purple eyes, my cold face was reflected.

He reached for the water jar, tilted his head back and drank a large mouthful, then threw the jar aside. He gripped my face, tilted it toward him, and forcefully pressed his lips to mine.

Mouth to mouth — he poured the water into me without giving me any say.

This… this madman!

I struck and kicked with all my might, desperately trying to push him away. But his strength was far greater than mine. Unless he was willing to release me, I could only submit to being handled as he wished.

I was a demon — although I needed food and water too, three months of neither eating nor drinking would not have weakened me to this degree. The “Colorless” flower was about to bloom, and my vital energy had been gradually consumed. If I did not return to my true body on Fulong Mountain before the flower bloomed, the consequences were imaginable.

But this madman believed that feeding me a few mouthfuls of water would restore my physical strength.

I stopped struggling, allowing the slightly warm and sweet clear water to flow slowly into my long-parched body. I would naturally not tell him the true reason for my weakness.

My mind was long since made up — before the “Colorless” flower bloomed, if Zi Miao still did not appear, I would rather be reduced to ash and smoke.

Having poured in the last drop, his scorching lips finally left me.

I wiped my mouth vigorously, greatly unwilling for his flavor to remain on my body.

And he — actually like a child who had successfully stolen food — smiled with satisfaction and complacency.

This ten-thousand-fold evil vicious dragon!

“Look at that — my words were not wrong, were they? Today is already the ninetieth day, and your ‘him’ still has not come.” He sat down across from me, taking malicious pleasure in my misfortune. Remarkably, he also clearly remembered that this was the ninetieth day of our time together in this cave. He had been secretly counting the days just as I had?

“He will come.” My tone remained firm, yet I lowered my head. For an instant I dared not meet his gaze.

“Stop deceiving yourself.” He hooked up my chin, forcing me to look at him. “Your Zi Miao — the heavenly realm’s water god — will never come to find you, for all eternity.”

His words were like thunder crashing upon my head.

“You know Zi Miao?! Know he is the water god?! Have you seen him? What have you done to him?!” I lost all composure, babbling incoherently as I seized his hand.

“The dragon clan by birth has a standing equal to the gods. Although I am no longer a member of the East Sea Dragon Clan, getting word of heavenly realm affairs is quite easy enough.” His brow furrowed slightly, seeming displeased by my overly excited reaction.

“Have you seen him?! What did you do to him?!” I shook his arm — uncaring whether he was dragon clan or deity. I was concerned only about the one person who consumed my every thought.

“I did nothing to him.” He smiled strangely. “No need for me to act — those old fellows in the heavenly realm will sooner or later settle accounts with him.”

“What exactly have you done to him?! You scoundrel! Tell me!”

I lunged at him in a frenzy, grabbing his lapels. Fire was nearly spitting from my eyes.

“I did nothing to him!” He firmly restrained my two hands and roared. “Do you know that it is a capital offense for an immortal to carry on intimately with a mortal?!”

I was instantly rigid.

Immortal. Mortal. Carry on intimately.

I was never foolish by nature — connecting these three terms into one complete thing was far too simple.

For a very long time, neither of us spoke again.

Finally my weakened body leaned helplessly back against the stone wall.

“He… is truly with that beauty…”

“Yes.” His answer was unequivocal as a nail driven in. “They are not merely together — they have already conceived a child.”

If what he said before was thunder that knocked out my soul, then this word — “child” — was a long knife, stabbing viciously into my heart, then twisting with full force. A pain that drew no blood.

Ninety days — a mere ninety days. How could things have reached this point?!

After a moment of silence, I seized his hand and said decisively: “I want to see him! Let me go to see him!”

“Very well.” He did not hesitate for even half a moment.

I had imagined many times the scene of Zi Miao rescuing me from this fire pit. I had also imagined making my own escape from the cave by my own abilities. But I had never imagined that when I was truly liberated, the one who delivered me would be the very person who had imprisoned me.

In the moonlight, he held me horizontally in his arms, his feet treading a purple cloud, flying swiftly through the air.

I had no strength to object to his behavior — because I truly did not even have the strength to stand.

Below, aside from rolling mountain ranges, was also a sea rising with thin wisps of mist, its blue waves rough and jagged.

“What place is this…”

“The Sea of Hopelessness.” He said. “A desolate space only the dragon clan can open. This barren wasteland — outsiders cannot enter; other dragon clan will not come. An extremely fine hiding place.”

“Even Zi Miao cannot enter?” I fixed my gaze on him, hoping to find in his answer the true reason Zi Miao had not come to find me.

“Correct.” His answer was curt.

Had I not known what came later, I would certainly have cursed him for his brazen shamelessness. But now I understood — whether one was confined somewhere, and whether it was within the scope of Zi Miao’s abilities to reach, was not the crux of the matter.

I closed my eyes. I spoke no further, leaning on his shoulder, allowing him to carry me — to go see that man I longed so desperately to see, yet now so greatly feared to see…

When the sky showed the first faint light of dawn, he carried me and landed steadily in a dense grove.

“There — where they live.” Parting several branches and leaves that blocked the view, he pointed at a certain place ahead.

I steadied myself, summoned all my courage, and only then looked toward where he was pointing.

A small wooden house, surrounded by fresh green picket fencing, simple and secluded — so very much his style.

By chance, the door of the wooden house was opened from within.

My heartbeat, when the person inside came out, stopped.

Jet-black long hair, a white robe, floating gently in the morning breeze — just as always.

Zi Miao… Zi Miao…

Silently I called his name. In my eyes, apart from his figure, there was nothing else.

My mind went completely blank, with only one thought — run! Stop thinking about anything and run back to his side!

But the appearance of another person cut off my impulse like a sharp blade.

A white-clad woman, graceful as a lotus in motion, walked out from the house and leaned smiling to his side. She lightly tugged at his sleeve, stood on tiptoe, and whispered something sweetly in his ear.

He smiled, gently stroking the woman’s face.

A wave of dizziness swept over me. If there had not been an arm at my side steadying me in time, I would likely have immediately collapsed to the ground and never woken again.

“Hey, are you alright?” He slapped my face with his rough, uncaring hand, as if afraid of not hitting hard enough.

The pain from my face temporarily drove away the lethal dizziness. I opened my eyes and said to him: “From now on, do not concern yourself with me — let me do what I want to do!”

He was silent for half a moment, his thick brows arching once, and he nodded: “As you wish.”

I drew a deep breath, stepped forward out of the grove.

Only today did I know that even walking requires courage.

From the grove to the wooden house — such a short distance. I walked for what felt like a hundred years.

When I reached the picket fence, that man and woman were just about to return indoors.

Before that door closed, I had to call out to him. Otherwise I feared I would never again have the chance to call out his name.

“Zi Miao!” I had thought the voice I summoned all my strength to produce would be very loud. Yet it emerged and I knew it was so feeble and powerless.

But. He heard it.

He turned back, and I witnessed with my own eyes that face I knew so intimately — going from serenity to joyful surprise.

In moments, he had stepped quickly out and was holding my ice-cold hands tightly.

The long-absent warmth, tender and glowing. Only, it was slightly less familiar.

“Shaluo, you’ve come back?” He was genuinely overjoyed — not in the slightest feigned. “I searched for you for a long time, yet could never find any trace of you. Are you hurt? Are you well?”

“Did you… truly search for me?”

In the smiles he had shown that woman, I could not see even a trace of the frantic worry of someone who had been unable to find another person. In their eyes gazing tenderly at each other, was there any room left for my existence?

I had never so distrusted him.

“Of course. Not only I — Jiu Jue was also searching for you!” He habitually stroked my head, smiling with relief. “Why do you ask this?”

I tilted my head to the side, deliberately avoiding his palm.

He was taken aback.

“Zi Miao — this young lady is…”

A clear and pleasant female voice, like a mountain spring, rose behind us.

My hands suddenly clenched into fists.

“Ah… this is Shaluo — the one I have mentioned to you before…” He turned around, smiling as he introduced me to his woman.

Now she was mistress, and I the guest. The reversal in position seemed so entirely reasonable — leaving me no grounds for even a single word of objection.

“So this is Miss Shaluo.” She looked over my bedraggled state with kindness, then turned to reproach him gently: “The morning dew is heavy — quickly take Miss Shaluo inside to sit down. What are you doing still standing outside?”

“I am not going in.” I flatly refused her goodwill, gazing straight at her beautiful face without a shred of courtesy, saying: “I do not wish to speak with you. Nor do I wish to see you.”

Likely neither of them had expected me to be so unguarded with my words — they were both suddenly thrown into extreme awkwardness.

What I said was not a rash outburst. It was the truth.

“You go in first.” He smiled and said to her.

She nodded, her gentle expression unchanged throughout, turned and went back into the wooden house, closing the door behind her.

“Shaluo.” He twirled the tangled strands of my hair between his fingers. “I know you carry grievances in your heart — grievances that I watched the vicious dragon take you away before my eyes, that I did not rescue you in time, that…”

“Say no more.” For the first time in my life, I interrupted him.

Had that woman not appeared, I would have told him earnestly — from beginning to end, what I harbored toward him was only trust, never resentment. Only expectation, never disappointment. But now, I no longer had any standing to say such words.

“Does she carry your child?” I asked without evasion — even in a tone of interrogation.

An expression of surprise crossed his brow and eyes: “How did you know?”

“You are an immortal, she is a mortal — do you know what kind of result awaits you?” I did not believe he did not know. I simply did not understand — knowing full well how grave the matter was, why did he still insist on heading down this path to ruin?

“Shaluo…” He took my hand. “You know I never deceive you. Since it has come to this, there is no harm in telling you the truth.”

“In the heavenly realm grows a divine tree — named Shaluo — tended by a snow-robed female immortal, an embodiment of the orchid flower. By the rules of the heavenly realm, the female immortal who tends the tree is forbidden for all eternity from having relations with any man. However, Xue Chang ultimately fell into love’s web. This was discovered by the Heavenly Empress, who demanded she reveal the identity of the man she loved. She refused unto death to comply. The Heavenly Empress flew into rage, stripped her of her immortal status, and sent her down to the mortal world, forever barred from returning to the heavenly realm.” He narrated slowly, as if speaking of someone else’s story. “On the day of Xue Chang’s calamity, the man she loved happened to be away from the heavenly court. By the time he learned of it, he and Xue Chang were already separated as between heaven and man. And so, heartbroken and devastated, he began to search year after year — in the vast mortal world, among thousands upon thousands of faces — searching for Xue Chang reborn as human.”

I was stunned. I, who had never known how to conceal my emotions, wore my shock plainly on my face.

“Xue Chang is her. And the man who loved Xue Chang… is you?!” I easily deduced who the figures in his “story” corresponded to.

He nodded.

“Xue Chang and I once made a vow beneath the Shaluo tree — that no matter what tribulations we faced in future, no matter where we each were or what form we had become, we would return to each other’s side, and with a single glance, recover all the memories of a thousand years.” Recalling the past, a familiar light finally appeared in the depths of his eyes. “Yet for several thousand years, I could not find Xue Chang who had fallen into the mortal world. That night, passing by Fulong Mountain by chance, I was exhausted beyond measure and encountered you. Recalling Xue Chang’s appearance, I granted you human form, only hoping…”

“Wait!” I suddenly cried out, flinging away his hand as if bitten by the most venomous snake in the world.

He was taken aback by my reaction.

“My appearance…” I retreated a large step, pressing with force upon my own face — as if it were not a part of my body at all, but simply a mask that would feel no pain. “My appearance — it was modeled on that woman… your Xue Chang, the snow-robed female immortal?”

The resemblance between my features and hers — it was not coincidence at all. It had always been a… selfish deliberateness.

Even my name — those strange two syllables, “Shaluo” — were a mark he had imposed upon me. A remembrance belonging entirely to him and another woman. And I had taken such delight in it for so long, believing that everything he gave me was good.

Yes — I had been so firmly convinced he was good to me…

At this very moment, I was at last suddenly enlightened —

The woman who spent her days with him on Fulong Mountain had never been me.

“Shaluo…” He stepped forward, forcefully took down my hands that were madly ravaging my own face, pulled me into his embrace, and gently patted my back — as if soothing an unruly child. “As for other women, I cannot remember any of their faces. Only her… so when helping you attain human form…”

The warmth of his hands — from this moment on, it was forever sealed off from outside my body.

“Say no more!” I interrupted him again.

Every word he spoke was an invisible stab into my heart — pain riddled with a thousand wounds that I could not bear.

I raised my head and gazed quietly at those clear, limpid eyes, smiling. The hysteria of just a moment ago was hidden entirely from sight.

“The vicious dragon locked me in the Sea of Hopelessness. He said it was a place you could not enter.” I straightened my body, forcing myself to leave the arms I had once depended upon so deeply. Forcing myself to maintain a bystander’s calm smile. “It was natural that you could not find me. However, I have just now understood something… Even if I had not been trapped in the Sea of Hopelessness, you could never have found me. Because you have never known me. Shaluo — she is merely a shadow living at your side. A substitute without even the right to possess a face of her own!”

He opened his mouth slightly, and for a long moment could not say a single word. It could well be imagined that my expression and words at this moment were also something he had never experienced in these thirty years.

Time froze between us. I looked at him; he looked at me.

For the first time I had the feeling of standing on equal footing with him. A demon’s reverence toward an immortal, a handmaid’s subservient gaze toward a master, a woman’s reliance upon a man — from this moment forward, all of these were completely swept away.

He owed me. I stubbornly believed this.

“It is nearly the seventh month now…”

After a long silence, his murmur broke the stalemate. Yet the subject was pulled to a place a thousand li away.

“The Colorless flower is almost in bloom. You should return to Fulong Mountain.” He brushed aside the disheveled hair covering my eyes, utterly disregarding the words I had just said to him, and in a casual, understated tone issued his order for me to leave.

He was not even willing to give me a single word of explanation? Or did he believe there was no need to spend any more time on me — a substitute who had already outlived her usefulness?

“Is this all?” My smile was about to crumble.

“Perhaps it is Heaven’s design — you and I, it is fitting that our bond ends here.” His smile, as always, needed no deliberate adornment. “Go back. Someone has been waiting for you a long time.”

He did not want me anymore!

Beyond this point, I could hear nothing else.

Thirty years of time — to an immortal, only a snap of the fingers. To a demon, a lifetime.

He could sever the bond clean and decisive. I could not leave with carefree ease.

When parting stands before one, the party who has given more is always the loser — losing the heart, losing the future.

I had no more surplus strength to say anything more to him. Only one sentence —

“Everything that is Shaluo was given by you. I want none of it.”

The Colorless flower blooming — so what? I would not return to Fulong Mountain, nor would I return to my true body. This body he had bestowed, along with my soul riddled with wounds, should fall like the petals of the Colorless flower — wither and perish.

I turned around, and with great difficulty moved my steps, walking toward the depths of the forest.

He could see my retreating figure, yet could not see my heart that was dripping blood.

I walked slowly. The trees all around — one after another — changed from lush, jade-green vitality to withered yellow and fallen decay.

The tears in the tree spirit’s heart turned midsummer into the deep of winter. Every lifeless falling leaf was a memory drifting far away.

Perhaps he was still standing there, his gaze profound and deep, watching the sky full of yellow leaves. But he would never again come after me. Between us, that one step’s distance — under his stopping and my walking forward — had gradually become a ravine that could never be crossed in life after life, generation after generation.

In truth, from the very beginning I should have understood — one step’s distance, thought to be so very close, so very close. And yet in reality… he could not cross over to me, and I could not step over to him.

It is a pity that only many years later did I grasp this truth.

Several fallen leaves struck my head — the most infinitesimal of forces, yet they scattered all my pretended strength.

My body was like a rootless piece of willow catkin — floating lightly downward to the ground.

In the instant before consciousness vanished, a figure descended before me. Overbearing yet tender, it gathered me into its arms…

I ultimately still returned to Fulong Mountain. I ultimately, on the day the Colorless flower bloomed, returned to my true body at the mountain’s peak.

Of course, none of this was my own choice.

It was that fellow — when I had no strength to resist — who, on his own presumption, made the choice between life and death on my behalf.

On the second day after Colorless bloomed, I awoke in the vicious dragon’s arms. All my wounds — old and new — had vanished without trace in what was, for me, yet another rebirth.

The tree spirit was renewed — except for a heart that could not be mended.

Having recovered my strength, without asking for any explanation, I delivered another slap, heavy and solid, across his face.

I slapped him — because he had forced me to go on living, and the consequence of going on living was that I had to face myself at every moment. A body born to console another person’s longing. A shell I had gone from treasuring to despising.

If I could choose once more, I would without a moment’s hesitation continue my isolated yet peaceful existence. Unable to walk was fine — unable to run was also fine.

For my venting slap, his towering rage could well be imagined. But remarkably, he did not return it.

“Do you hate him?” He asked the question abruptly.

Hate? Did I hate him? Had the relationship between him and me already sunk so low that it needed a single word of hatred to sustain it?

I wanted to hate him. When I thought of how his warm, tender gaze had always been seeking the shadow of another person in my face, I wanted to burn with hatred. But I could not bring myself to hate…

Under the silence of this inner entanglement, he misread my silence as silent assent.

“If you want him to suffer ten thousand calamities with no hope of escape, I can help you.” He raised his head and looked at the blazing, brilliant sun. “Those above should still not know of his scandalous affairs. As long as what he has done…”

“No!” I cut him off with tense and decisive finality. This creature and his thoughts — I knew them perfectly.

“He hurt you this much — you will not seek revenge?” His code of conduct probably had “a debt must be repaid” as its very first article.

Had he wronged me? Standing in his position, or standing in any third party’s position, he had never been in the wrong toward me — not once, not ever. Thinking it through carefully, from him I could not find even a single accusation worth making. This entire matter from beginning to end, in an outsider’s eyes, should be nothing more than the willful tantrum of a tree spirit who did not know when she had enough. What crime had he committed?

Only the one who has suffered knows their own pain.

“He and I no longer have any ties.” I gritted my teeth and severed it cleanly.

He raised his brow, trying to fathom my thoughts.

“Please…” In a lifetime, I had never used the word “please” toward him before, yet now I was doing so. “Please also not go to disturb him.”

“You give up all thought of dying, and I will leave him alone.” He struck a bargain with me.

Whether alive or dead — to me both had lost all meaning from the moment he abandoned me. What was called “life” — nothing more than a joke played by fate.

I nodded my head gently.

He smiled with satisfaction.

The blazing sun of high summer scorched every inch of earth, and even the small rivers throughout Fulong Mountain had begun to show signs of drying up.

Originally I had wanted to leave, but apart from Fulong Mountain — where else could I go?

Life became just as it had been before. I spent each day sitting at the cliff’s edge, watching sunrise and sunset, wind rising and falling still.

The rocky cave where another person and I had dwelt for many years — I never set foot within it again. I only took a sharp small stone and cleared away entirely the thirty tally marks at the cave entrance. From that point forward, the length of time had nothing to do with me.

The vicious dragon remained at my side. Even when he left, he was sure to return before sunset.

The adversarial relationship between us faded imperceptibly. Yet the conversations between us remained few and far between. Many times I would stare blankly at the crescent moon on the horizon, while he listlessly counted pebbles not far away, tossing glances of displeasure at me from time to time.

He was a dragon — soaring through the clouds, regarding all beneath him with contempt, doing only what pleased himself. Perhaps this creature himself had never imagined that one day he would be stopped in his tracks by a small Fulong Mountain.

After scorching temperatures persisting for many days, they gradually receded. A cool mountain wind wrapped in the scent of autumn.

Yet the dried-up waterways on Fulong Mountain showed no signs of recovery — and overnight they turned into cracked, parched earth. The plants large and small that should have been bearing fruit and thick with leaves were also showing signs of withering — despondent and listless, they drooped in the flying yellow dust, struggling on the verge of death.

Since the day of my birth, Fulong Mountain had never presented such a scene.

A bad premonition spread within my heart.

That fellow returned from outside the mountain and said that a great drought had struck the world. Rivers, lakes, and seas — overnight, not a single drop of water remained. In a few days, the mortal world would become a living hell.

I was greatly alarmed. He was such a capable water god — how could he allow such a disaster to occur?

Something must have happened to him. He must be in trouble.

“Take me to find him!” I seized his arm, my voice nearly cracking. “Something has happened to him — something has definitely happened to him!” The calm I had worked so hard to construct crumbled and collapsed in that instant.

He stood in place, looking at the desolate scene below the mountain, and said only two words: “Heaven’s punishment.”

“What Heaven’s punishment or earth’s punishment! Take me to find him!” I was anxious enough to go mad.

“Have you never heard the saying — when immortals fight, it is the mortals who suffer?” He paid no heed to my urgency, speaking to himself. “When an immortal makes a mistake, mortals suffer just the same.”

“You…” I suddenly caught something in his words. “Does this mean… could Zi Miao’s affairs have been discovered by the heavenly realm?!”

“Intimacy between immortal and mortal — those above would of course not let it pass. They were even going to implicate the entire mortal world in suffering as punishment alongside them. So-called Heaven’s punishment — it is this grave.” He wore an entirely detached, unhurried expression.

“Why…” I seized him with both hands and roared: “Was it you?! Was it you who revealed it? You promised me you would not go and disturb him!”

“What nonsense are you talking?!” He caught my wrists, fire blazing in his purple eyes. “I detest people who go back on their word. Having agreed to you, I naturally would not make any move against that fellow. This matter has nothing to do with me!”

Nothing to do with him? Then with whom did it have to do?

I was at a complete loss.

Just then, a sandstorm mixed with yellow dust swept ferociously toward the mountain’s peak, sweeping up rocks of all sizes along the way — powerful and dangerous.

He yanked me up and dodged into the cave behind us.

The howling wind sound came through the cave entrance, reverberating eerily in the vast space.

“Let go of me — I have to find Zi Miao!”

I broke free of his restraint and made a desperate dash toward the outside.

“You are not going!” He roared and seized me around the waist, lifting me off the ground entirely, allowing my feet to kick wildly in the air. “In weather like this, never mind you — a little demon who can barely cast a single spell — even I would not dare venture out recklessly. If you want to find him, you will have to wait for this sandstorm to pass first!”

I stopped struggling and turned back to look at him: “When the storm passes… will you take me to find him?”

Despite his face being written over entirely with unwillingness, he still nodded.

Three days — this sandstorm persisted for a full three days. When the pattering sound of rain arose outside the cave, I rushed out without a moment’s hesitation.

It was raining — such heavy rain!

Cool, fine rain fell upon my feverish face, flowing with a strange sensation — like a pair of familiar hands, stroking me gently.

Passing through the rain curtain, I discovered in joyful surprise that Fulong Mountain — ravaged by drought and left in a scene of desolation and devastation — had actually recovered its former appearance. Every plant was reviving in this timely rain. The lotus pond in the mountains once again reflected the ripple of light long absent, and I could even hear the long-lost murmur of flowing water.

Was he nearby?! I looked anxiously around in the rain.

Sure enough — before a large bluish-gray stone behind me stood a tall figure.

“Shaluo…” The one calling my name called my former name.

Yet it was not his voice.

I turned around, wiping away the rain condensed on my eyelashes. A stretch of bright lake-blue filled my vision.

It was Jiu Jue!

I stared blankly at this man I had not seen for many days. Why had he suddenly appeared on Fulong Mountain at precisely this moment?

“Long time no see, little tree spirit.”

He walked toward me. His bantering tone was the same as ever, yet his face could not conceal an exhaustion that was impossible to hide.

“Who are you?” Before I could respond, the fellow who had followed me out had already pulled me behind him.

“Ha, you must be that vicious dragon who has been stirring up trouble everywhere.” He paused and smiled, looking at this unfriendly fellow. “Rest assured — I am not here to make trouble for you.”

I pushed him aside, ran before Jiu Jue, and asked urgently: “Where is Zi Miao? Is he not with you?”

Jiu Jue shook his head. Rainwater had soaked through his lake-blue hair, and large and small mud spots clung to his blue robe. The always immaculate and elegant Jiu Jue — there was something of a rare, uncommon bedraggled look about him.

“Then where is he?” My small hope was shattered in an instant. I gripped his sleeve in pursuit of the answer.

He had never looked at me with such grave and solemn eyes before. Today was an exception.

“Zi Miao… is he not right before you now?”

“Jiu Jue, you…” I was so distressed I could barely breathe, wanting to throw him off Fulong Mountain.

“I am serious.” Knowing the reason for my anger, he smiled bitterly, extended one palm, and watched the small rainflowers splashing in his hand. “This rain — it is Zi Miao’s primal essence.”

My three souls and seven spirits scattered.

Even that fellow was standing there stupefied.

“Zi Miao’s affairs were known by the heavenly realm. The Heavenly Emperor was furious and decreed a five-year great drought upon the mortal world as punishment for the water god and the mortal woman. Unable to bear the thought of innocent people suffering this calamity, Zi Miao used his own vital energy, transforming it into life-giving sweet rain to nourish the world, keeping the mortal world from drought for a hundred years. This also served as an accounting to the heavenly realm.”

I did not know how much piercing, skin-flaying pain of losing his closest friend Jiu Jue had hidden beneath the calm tone in which he spoke these words. I only knew that when I heard them, I no longer knew what pain meant.

“Before Zi Miao departed, he entrusted me to come find you and relay a few words on his behalf.” Jiu Jue finally revealed the true purpose of his coming to Fulong Mountain.

I told myself — do not fall. Whatever you do, do not fall. Even if you die, first listen to what he wants to say to me.

I had sworn to have “no more ties” with him — but my oath was this easily shattered. I could not deceive myself further. I longed with such desperate yearning to hear what he had to say to me. Even a single word.

“The only two people I cannot put down are — one is her, and the other… is you.” Jiu Jue, speaking directly as if in his own voice, narrated slowly. “Shaluo, you are not the person I love most. But you are truly the person I hold most dear. Perhaps imposing her appearance on you was indeed a mistake. But believe me — at the very least, on that early autumn day, the hand I held was yours — not hers… Fortunately, someone has at last come to take my place in caring for you. With him at your side, I am completely at ease…”

Jiu Jue’s voice gradually faded away. Jiu Jue’s face also suddenly transformed into his appearance…

The rain still fell. I could no longer sustain myself and fell to my knees in the muddy ground.

The vicious dragon came running to support me.

I turned my face and asked faintly: “The person he spoke of… is it you?”

“When the Colorless flower blooms, it takes external force to send you back to your true body on the mountain’s peak — these methods were taught to me by him.” The vicious dragon said. “As long as I agreed to watch over you for a lifetime, he would, as an exception, act once as an unworthy immortal. His former account with me — written off in full.”

I shed tears.

I had always thought demons had no tears. They did — they only existed in the heart.

Tears, rainwater, my heartbreak, his departure without a farewell — all intertwining beneath the ash-gray sky.

Zi Miao, tree spirit, Fulong Mountain. Thirty years of accumulated past, drop by drop — should they come to their final period today?

I learned from Jiu Jue’s example, extending my gently trembling hand, catching the falling raindrops.

The water gathered into a small river on my palm, and very quickly flowed out from between my fingers.

In another form, he held my hand for the last time.

In a trance, in my ears I heard his voice once more…

“Do you have a name?”

“You shall be called Shaluo from now on.”

Epilogue

The urgent ringtone of a mobile phone jolted the sleeping person awake.

I opened my eyes, startled to find that tears had, once again, soaked the pillow.

For several hundred years now, I had lost count of how many times I had cried the pillow wet in dreams.

Thinking I had long since grown adept at facing those memories — ones ordinary people could never understand — yet the uncooperative tears toppled my “thinking” time and time again.

Sitting up, wiping my eyes with one hand while picking up the phone with the other.

“Hello?”

“I might be running late!” From the receiver came a flustered, thunderously loud voice. “The police are making trouble for me again — insisting I ran a red light! You wait for me — I will get there as fast as I can!”

After hanging up, I could not help laughing mutely.

How many times this fellow had been caught by the police — my ten fingers could certainly not count them all.

This creature’s temperament — unchanged even now.

Yes — for hundreds of years he had stayed at my side, accompanying me to watch this world step from ancient times into the modern age, one step at a time.

When it comes to it, it is somewhat laughable: having known him for so long, it was only more than a hundred years ago that I finally learned his name was Ao Chi. And the East Sea Dragon King whom he called “that old fellow” at every turn was his own paternal grandfather.

The two of us — two people who never learned to conceal love and hate, joy and anger within our hearts — in the mutual companionship of year upon year, came to know each other more and more.

His nature was not bad. He was simply too contemptuous of everyone else, doing things only for his own amusement, and so in his early years had stirred up not a few disasters — which led to his grandfather confining him in the ice prison to reflect on his conduct. That time at Broken Lake, he had simply been moved on a whim, using Broken Lake as a natural large bathtub. He never imagined that from this bout of fun, the small city of Daizhou would be destroyed and its people scattered.

Thinking of this, I shook my head and smiled ruefully.

I had once asked him why he had abducted me from Dongting Lake. He said no one had ever dared scold him before, and calling him an ugly creature at that — I was the first. Without teaching me a lesson, he could not swallow that grievance. I asked him again why he was willing to stay at my side year after year for hundreds of years. He said no one had ever dared slap him before, and I was the first — he wanted me to spend the rest of my life paying the price for that slap.

Heaven knows how much of what this reckless creature said was worth believing.

Honestly speaking, to this day I still cannot define what the relationship between him and me is — friends? Lovers? Companions? It seems to be all of them, and yet also none of them. Clearly a pair who depend on each other for survival — yet why does a faint, indefinable barrier seem to stand between us?

After thinking privately for a long time, I finally caught hold of a thread of understanding, finding the crux of the matter in every tear I had secretly shed —

The shadow of another person had never left my heart.

I have sometimes greatly wondered whether my being with Ao Chi is only because I am greedy for that sweet feeling of being cared for and protected. The happiness Zi Miao once gave me — am I trying to find it again from Ao Chi?

What a ridiculous thought.

Every time I thought this way, I felt I was somehow being unfair to that fellow.

I had once so deeply resisted being used as a substitute for another person. How then could I be this selfish, letting an innocent person retrace those same footsteps?

If just a little more time were given to me, would the situation be different?

Lifting the thin bedcovers, I stretched with a languid yawn and climbed out of bed.

Passing the wall, my gaze fell half-intentionally, half-unintentionally upon a flower basket placed on the cabinet — not large, an old but exquisite thing.

Within the basket, not a single stem of flower. What it held was only a large collection of small boxes of various colors and styles — no fewer than forty in number.

Within the boxes were rings.

I do not know from how many years ago that fellow began, learning from the humans, to send me a ring every fourteenth day of the second month each year. He said the dragon clan possessed a standing equal to that of the gods yet had no need to heed the ridiculous rules immortals had to observe. He was set in his purpose — he would marry me, this demon, as his wife, and not even the Heavenly King could stop him.

It was not that I was unmoved.

But I had never put on any single one of them.

He did not mind. He sent them year after year, saying he would send them until I was willing to put one on of my own accord.

I stopped before the basket, picked up a delicate round box with a velvet face, studied it for a moment, smiled, and set it back untouched.

Walking to the wardrobe, I pulled open the cabinet door. My fingers wandered over the clothes in all their varied abundance. The styles were each distinctly different, yet the color was, for the most part, only one — green.

Today was Ao Chi’s birthday. He had said so himself: he was born on the first day of the eighth month, Leo — and together with the Sagittarius born in winter, a heaven-made, earth-matched pair.

Star signs? Ha — that was something only children believed in.

I smiled. What needed to be done right now was to pick a suitable gown for the birthday dinner.

Looking for a long time, I reached in and took out two.

Left hand — a long, pale green gauze dress. Right hand — a purple backless evening gown.

The color of the left hand was exactly like that piece of green from long ago, descending from the sky, gently enveloping my body.

The color of the right hand made me inevitably think of a pair of long and slender eyes — the domineering, irresistible purple eyes.

I had always been unable to change my habit of wearing green. Tonight — could I change it?

A try could not hurt.

Hugging the purple evening gown, I closed the cabinet door.

On the pillow, the MP3 player had never been turned off. It had been playing songs all night and was still singing:

The last photograph of her in this world, I was startled — a face so like mine. Only then did I realize The curve of her ring finger, as faithful as yours.

How many decades can one love hold? Thank you for every day you made me happy. Standing at your side, Living within her shadow…

…

Your longing for her Becomes the tenderness you give to me. I pity what we are. Say goodbye. Never meet again. Separation in life holds you in longing; Death’s parting steals away your thoughts. Say goodbye. Never meet again. Life is a pastime. Those who have been happy need not apologize.