Chapter 20: The Hurt of Honey (Part 4 of 4)
My twenty longings became a flash, twenty flashes became a snap of the finger, twenty snaps of a finger became an instant, twenty instants became a moment, one day and one night had three thousand moments.
In ten years, there were one million and ninety five hundred thousand moments... I drew ten thousand parchments and managed to endure.
I was always by the side of the River of Forgetfulness, looking aimlessly and endlessly in the empty waters, every look became half a day. The old grandfather who steered the boat nodded at me, cleared his throat and said casually, "Recently besides my lady, I often see someone else in the night. Besides coming here once twelve years ago, this person has been taking the boat over the River of Forgetfulness to the Demon Realms every night."
I lightly answered in affirmation, I have always been uninterested in my surroundings. However, since I did not want to waste the old grandfather"s kind intentions in talking to me, I asked casually, "Who is this person?"
"I am just someone who steers the boat and do not recognise many people. However, this person"s garments were special and left an impression," He added slowly, "Her outer coat was made up of the grand feathers of hundred birds, her skirt looked expensive and exceptional, her status must not be low."
Sui He?
I did not answer, I lowered my head deep in thought. I could not figure out why would Princess Sui He of the Bird Tribes come so frequently to the Demon Realms.
At night, Night was too busy with state affairs to have time to monitor me while I sleep. I tossed and turned and could not fall asleep. I decided to use a Drowsy Worm to try and cause the guardingLi Zhu to fall asleep, then I used Li Zhu"s sweet dreams to seduce the hungry Nightmare Beast to go eat. After finally escaping from these two guardians, I flew to the River of Forgetfulness. I paid quite a bit of toll fees to cross the river and the old grandfather steadily brought me to the entrance of the Demon Realms.
After losing sixty percent of my divine strength, my essence had dissipated quite a bit. Since my divine origins belonged to water, once I immersed myself in the atmosphere of the deep and dark night, it was almost impossible to discern my presence. Furthermore, I cloaked myself with invisibility and after following Sui He for half the journey, she still did not realise my presence.
I observed that she purposely avoided places where the ghosts, ghouls and sprites will frequently travel and intentionally picked narrow and hidden small routes to walk. When she walked, her whole aura was cautious and alert, and she would often turned to the right, left, back and front to check. Seeing her like this, I guessed that Sui He must be doing some sneaky - either to steal something or to steal emotions (the connotation is to have an affair, but plays on the word steal in chinese), ether way it could not escape from the word "steal".
Finally, I saw her stop in front of a tree stump. After checking that no one was following her, she lifted her right hand and used the tip of her index finger to dab the morning dew on the gas and then lightly drew on the ring arcs of the tree. In a moment, the tree stump suddenly broke open in the middle and there was a fiery red pa.s.sage. Sui He immediately entered and the pa.s.sage appeared to be closing.
Quickly, I rushed forward to keep the pa.s.sage open, but I was a step late and saw it close without a trace before me. As I was about to copy what Sui He had did earlier, I heard voices from inside. So, I p.r.i.c.ked up my ear and used my divine powers to lean onto the tree stump and listened.
There were two voices! A male and a female!
The female must be Sui He, the male... the voice was old, thick and foreign, my excited heart sunk and drowned in the deep marshes.
"Lao Jun has a divine pill... but it"s not appropriate for me to ask for it. The Heavenly Emperor is sharp and watching carefully, if I ask Lao Jun for the divine pill, he will find out within half a day. This will all be revealed at once... this is the divine lingzhi from the Flower Realms... in the past, the Head Flower Leader of the Flower Realms had wrongly accused the Bird Tribe for a hundred years so she could not refuse me when I asked for this... but, she only has three left and all these were made from the previous Flower G.o.ddess, the only person who is able to plant this now... besides.... there is no one else... but this person was willing to murder... so what good is it?"
"We can only use the divine lingzhi now to hold on... there is no other way... it must be hard on Sui He to search so hard and far devotedly..."
Even when I used my powers, I could not listen to the entire conversation properly. There were often gaps and breaks.
"Sui He must thank the Sixth King instead, if not for your Highness acting fast, how would we be able to keep..."
"No, it was lucky... Sui He did you garner any attention for coming here so frequently?"
"I"ve been carefully, but I do not know why I felt a sense of unease today. So I shall leave earlier... there is no boundary outside the secret pa.s.sage outside... will that be wise?"
"You don"t understand. If we create a boundary, it"s like planting a signboard in the ground to say "There is no gold buried here", it will hint to people that there is something here......"
In a moment, the gap in the tree stump opened. Luckily, I managed to get away fast and became a morning dew on the surrounding gra.s.s. However, as Sui He stepped outside of the secret pa.s.sage, she sharply looked around and her glance finally landed on my "dew" body in the gra.s.s patch. She seemed to suspiciously look closer but she couldn"t find anything and so she finally turned and left.
When she finally left far away, I loosened up and let out a long breath of air. In a moment, the gap in the tree stump opened again and a male came out.
I realised that he was one of the Ten Kings of h.e.l.l - the one that was number six. He turned around to check the tree stump once and then waved his hand to move the surrounding gra.s.s to camouflage it. Unless you looked carefully, you would think that this was just a broken tree stump, you won"t even think that there was a secret pa.s.sage in it.
As the Sixth King disappeared, until his thin and tall body vanished in the dark redness of the Demon Realms, I finally transformed back from the water dew.
I pressed my body down onto the top of the tree stump to listen but I could not hear anything. I tried to reach out my hand to take a dew of water to follow Sui He"s actions previously, but my fingers would not listen to my command. The tips of my fingers were involuntarily shivering, I forcefully suppressed the deep surging desire that has been growing inside me for twelve years, used my left hand to hold tightly onto my right wrist and managed to stabilise the shivering, and I followed the ring arcs of the tree one by one......
The tree stump naturally opened and the flame lit up. As I entered, the gap behind me closed. I nervously and gingerly walked forward. I tripped over my robes at one corner and my whole body fell down into the dry soil ground.
The bits in the soil lightly p.r.i.c.ked me and forced me to lift up my head. Just one glance and I fell back onto the ground. Something was leaking out of the ends of my eyes, it was so long ago that I thought I would not be able to produce them again as bead by bead they fell down my face and landed on the dry soil. I did not dare to lift up my head to look a second time, I did not know if the illusion would disappear if I looked again.
I laid down for a very long time and my throat was choked. Until the hades fire burned onto my body and caused me pain, did I finally uncontrollably lifted up my head.
He silently laid down in the middle of the blue hades fire. His expression was exactly like that moment twelve years ago. His long eyes were downcast, his lips were pale, he was asleep like an obedient child that did not move. It caused one to want to reach out one"s hand to pinch his cheeks and cause him to wake up. To tell him, you don"t have to sleep so obediently, you can also flip your body by the side......
Three pieces of divine lingzhi was burning by his side producing a light divine aura that slowly dissolved into him.
The Great Phoenix Feather Treasure was glowing brightly on the top of his head. The feather that I thought had vanished with him.
In my heart burned a strong desire, I wanted to touch him again, see him again, just because of this simple desire, my whole soul and body felt like it was erupting in pain. I knew it was the voodoo spell that was controlling me again. This voodoo spell that he cast on me twelve years ago! Is it... is it if I revived him again, I will recover? I could escape from this voodoo spell?
Supporting my body, I stood up. I quickly ran towards him, not caring about the flames that burned around him, stepping over the tooth claws that protected his soul and pierced into my body, I ran towards him. I reached out my hand to touch his cheek, but I didn"t think that I would not be able to touch anything, my fingers pa.s.sed into nothingness.
I was shocked, it turns out... he only left a thin piece of his soul......
But... I touched the Jiu Zhuan Jin pill in my chest, and placed the pill it in my mouth. In a moment, a cloak of gold smoke was dispersed and I looked at his empty and almost invisible face, I leaned down and pressed on his lips that had no touch...
I did not want to revive the person who murdered my father, I only wanted to save him so he could cure me of the voodoo spell... yes, I only wanted to save myself! After convincing myself, I determinedly closed my eyes and forced the essence of the golden pill slowly into his mouth.
Slowly, my lips had a soft and warm feeling. Slowly, my tips touched someone"s sharp nose tip, slowly, my hands were no longer touching emptiness, there was the slow breathing of a chest under my hands, not fast not slow....
Finally, after using all my divine strength, I fell to the side... his long black lashes suddenly fluttered and I became immovable from the voodoo spell, and could only dazedly watched on. Until, there was the sound of movement from outside that I alarmingly rose and hid behind the burning divine lingzhi.
"Who?!" It turns out that Sui He had returned. She looked at the hades fire that had dissipated and her footsteps suddenly stopped. Her expression was immediately one of shock.
My heart skipped.
At the same time, Phoenix"s eyelids moved and he burst open both of his eyes.
A pair of long eyes... dark like ink.... with no ends to its depths...
"Phoenix!" Sui He rushed forward and grabbed his hand, "You are awake? You finally woke up!"
Phoenix slowly rose up, he looked at both of his hands which were tightly held, lightly, slowly, he opened his mouth, "Sui He?"
"It"s me!" Sui He tightly clutched both of his hands. She was so forceful that her knuckles turned white.
.......
So it turns out that Sui He came here not to steal something or to steal emotions.... I suddenly remembered a phrase I read in one of those romance books that I was not able to understand --- to steal a heart (偷心).
Comments: Was the "reunion" satisfying for you? My heart totally skipped when Jin Mi finally saw Phoenix again - it was very emotionally satisfying until Sui He came back. That darn bird!