"You were cursed to be young?", Xing was surprised. Isn"t immortality considered a blessing? Why is he being cursed with that?Then she realised that he was cursed to see the deaths of his nine generations and so after his ninth generation of descendant dies, he"d die too.
What a weird curse!
"So which generation am I?", Xing asked clenching her fists. She cannot go through another death of a loved one right now.
"Tenth", he replied calmly and Xing was perplexed.
"Apparently after my ninth generation that is your mother died, I"ve started to age like normal. Till then I didn"t die even after I pushed a sword through my heart. I tried hard to die but didn"t! ", he smiled and showed her the various markings in his chest made with sword, " Bet I can die now if I want... ", he chuckled.
Xing"s heart skipped a beat seeing those scars. He had really tried to kill himself several times but he didn"t die!
Xing could understand why immortality is a curse. Everyone he knew would die, everything around him will change and he"ll be the only one standing alone. The thrill of the human life is the uncertainty, not knowing when your life would end and still trying to achieve what you want to achieve before that time comes.
She now realised the one who was crying in her dream bitterly in that cave must be him.
For someone like him who had lost his love and who wants to just follow her to the underworld, living alone is the biggest punishment there is!
" Why? Why were you punished? You were great, so why?", Xing asked. Her heart felt really heavy as she had similar although not comparable to the Tians.h.i.+ Emperor level sorrow but... Almost similar sorrow when she knew she has to leave Chenglie for sometime because she has to.
" Because I fell in love with someone who was about to die soon... And I couldn"t let her go", the Tians.h.i.+ Emperor was looking away from her at a distance and Xing could say he is crying and he is desperately trying to hide that from her because... Men don"t cry.
Stupid ancestor and his ridiculous ideologies!
Xing bit her lips to stop herself from saying something rude to him and let him compose himself. Let this old man have his pride!
"MeiLi... She was the first one who saw the human in me when everyone thought of me as a beast", he spoke after composing himself. "With each new day I found myself falling deeper for her and before I knew it I was already in a place where she had become the air I breathe and my only happiness"
Xing was surprised that this oldschooled guy is "talking his feelings" but kept her mouth shut as she realised he is like these old people who would love to tell stories of their youth to their younger generations to educate them or simply to entertain them or to reminisce the good times of their youth.
"But suddenly she started to pull away from me and after some investigation I found out that it was the G.o.d of Wind who had warned her to stay away from me. And so I confronted him and he told me not to fall for someone with only limited time left...that he is doing this for my own good and to protect my heart", he took a deep breath.
"Fei Lian really loved you, huh? Aren"t G.o.ds not supposed to reveal such details?", Xing asked.
G.o.ds won"t reveal the fates of humans at all!
"I see you address the G.o.d of Wind by his name..", the Tians.h.i.+ Emperor looked at her with his eyebrows raised.
"Yes, he asked me to. I know him for long after all... But you were close to him too, right?", she asked. Isn"t Fei Lian nice to me because he always knew I"m the descendant of the Tians.h.i.+ Emperor?
"Not that close, it seems... To just address him by his name...", he looked up in deep thoughts.
"Yes, he doesn"t mind... Also I called the Heavenly Emperor "Bleached peac.o.c.k" and he didn"t mind too. It"s all probably because they need me", she was nonchalant.
The Tians.h.i.+ Emperor looked at her for sometime and shrugged, "I don"t think that is not all there is to it". Surely no one would be allowed to belittle the heavenly Emperor in any form. And this girl... She is too powerful to even break his spells. There is more to her than meets the eye, definitely!
" May be it"s because I"m cute!", Xing blinked her eyes several times and her long lashes fluttered like the wings of a b.u.t.terfly, "Even you didn"t mind me punching you... That aside, what happened with Empress Shu?", Xing redirected to the main topic.
The Tians.h.i.+ Emperor popped his fingers with his lips pursed with a solemn expression.
This is where he did wrong! Xing realised and then she remembered in Empress Shu"s journal, he decided to change the capital city and put various spells around Empress Shu to protect her from the G.o.ds only after Fei Lian talked to her.
"You hid her from the G.o.d of death! She was supposed to die but you hid her! No wonder the G.o.ds were angry at you!", Xing shouted pointing at him.
What a stupid thing to do! Nothing provokes the G.o.ds more than getting smart with them!
"But where is Old Rong in all these?", Xing asked further.
The Tians.h.i.+ Emperor sighed, " By the time I returned from the war, the entire court was in disarray, the treasury was empty and the people were in great suffering with the inflation.
Usually in such situations, the Huangs were the ones who had helped the Empire through out the history of our Empire... So I directly asked the head of the Huang family to send their son who is said to be an extraordinary genius to court. But that impertinent Huang head refused me quoting Huang TengFei. But the situation only got worse and whatever plans I thought of wasn"t enough",he clenched his fists and Xing didn"t feel good when he called the Huang family, impertinent. But she let it pa.s.s for now.
" And I learned that the woman I love won"t have long to live and that"s when I stumbled upon him, that Old Rong in that cave that I trained you. He was sealed by many spells and it took me a lot to release him and he thanked me and asked me to name anything I want as a reward. I didn"t think much of it and asked him to stay with me for the time being until I think of a reward. At that time, I didn"t know how much of a cunning fox he is and how a.s.sociating with him would affect everything..."
"You didn"t find it weird seeing him trapped in spells..? That he is the previous G.o.d of fire who shouldn"t be bothered with?", Xing asked.
"Ah, yes", the Tians.h.i.+ Emperor scratched the back of his head, " When the G.o.d of Wind told me about Shu Meili, I begged him to change her future and let me have a long life with her. But he refused saying fate must not be changed and he told me to change my heart which would be beneficial for everyone and much easier. But when I pestered him, he proposed to go through the love trials if I am that adament on marrying only her. But I knew Love trials have zero success rate.
So I, the pampered brat I was, refused to accept his advise and tried to find underhanded means. And I was angry at all the G.o.ds and felt like I was being oppressed by them unnecessarily. So when I met another poor being whom I thought was under the same oppression as I was, I decided to help him! Stupid, aren"t I? ", the Tians.h.i.+ Emperor laughed dryly a s Xing didn"t know how to reply.
You really were stupid!
" Old Rong is smart... Really smart... While he was with me, he advised me on various things and only with his advise did the situation in the court and with the citizens changed. So I started to stay away from the G.o.ds I knew of and began to trust Old Rong explicitly.
He was the one who advised me to change the capital city to where it is now and he advised me to put spells on Meili and hide her from the G.o.d of death and that would prolong her life for as much as I wanted", he paused and rubbed his face with both of his hands. Xing could feel he was embarra.s.sed.
So all this time people thinking that the Tians.h.i.+ Emperor proposed all those reforms that changes the kingdom, it was all Old Rong? She was depressed. Why do I have to learn everything now? I"d prefer not to know all this. Is this why they say never meet your hero?
But... He was desperate and that"s why he didn"t think straight.
"Desperation makes even the smart ones a fool!", Xing said. If he wasn"t too desperate to find the solutions to his problems he wouldn"t have been played.
"Yes, I was played like a fiddle by Old Rong and I didn"t even realise that. Everything was fine, the Treasury started to fill up, people"s life got better, I got praised as the smartest Emperor... And Meili got pregnant with my child.. I thought everything was perfect "