To continue guarding Taiping in Xie Zhuo’s place…
Xi Wang Mu had given me expectations that were too high. I felt that I might be unable to accomplish this goal.
After returning from Xi Wang Mu’s secret palace, I fell ill.
During my illness, my mind remained foggy and confused, as if I were in a dream.
All the scenes of Xie Zhuo and me together in this courtyard appeared and disappeared before my eyes like images in a revolving lantern, over and over again.
I barely took proper care of myself while sick. Sometimes I would fall asleep beneath a tree, sometimes I would wake up on the rooftop.
But more often, I would sit at the courtyard entrance, as I had done many times before, resting my chin in my hands, watching the road outside, waiting for a familiar figure to return home.
In my illness, hallucinations sometimes let me see Xie Zhuo coming back, but these visions quickly vanished.
I think it was these occasional hallucinations that made me, almost subconsciously, reluctant to recover from my illness.
But eventually I did recover. After the icy lake water had been infused into my bloodstream, my spiritual power increased by several levels. Even with my careless self-treatment, I got better.
The power of the icy lake remaining in my bloodstream seemed like Xie Zhuo’s last trace in this world, still supporting me, just as he had when he was here, telling me—
“The ground is cold, don’t catch a chill.”
“Take proper care of yourself.”
“Don’t give up.”
So, in the tug-of-war between my conscious mind and my physical awareness, I slowly and reluctantly recovered.
But even though my body had healed, I felt complete aversion to the outside world. I couldn’t be bothered to go out.
Meng Meng and my other friends came to see me many times, but I avoided them all. They wanted to comfort me, so they came up with a method.
They wrote down news from outside or drew pictures, folded them into paper cranes, and then used magic to make the cranes fly into my room, where they would land on the floor.
When I got out of bed, my feet would accidentally touch a paper crane, and it would unfold.
I saw them saying that now the world was free of malevolent energy. So, although the Pangu Fu had disappeared along with Xie Zhuo, Kunlun no longer needed a barrier.
Kunlun was now completely open, and people from inside and outside could freely come and go.
Now Kunlun was full of vitality, and the East and West markets were more bustling than ever before.
They also said that people returning from the Northern Wilderness had told them about a place in this world called the City of Immortals, and what secret the people there had been guarding.
All the confused people in the world finally knew how they had been deceived, and also how they had been protected.
Then people began to argue. Some said they should have known the truth about the world;
Some said the main deities had been wrong; others said the mountain deities had been extremely cruel to imprison in the City of Immortals those who accidentally learned the truth…
So, outside, the debate about whether the main deities should atone for the past City of Immortals was becoming increasingly heated.
Xi Wang Mu and the mountain deities all maintained silence.
Many people participated in these discussions.
But the one thing nobody disputed was that Xie Zhuo, who had eliminated the malevolent energy, was a hero.
They wanted to erect monuments for Xie Zhuo, write his biography, and some even suggested to Xi Wang Mu that I should receive some honor…
Because I was Xie Zhuo’s… widow…
My friends urged me to go out and see, saying that although people wouldn’t stop talking now, the world was still beautiful.
I still didn’t go out.
I burned all the paper cranes.
My friends wanted to comfort me. I knew they were good people, sincere and kind.
Kunlun was now more peaceful than before.
Even my body was healthier than before.
I knew these were all good things.
But whenever I thought about how all this goodness had been bought with Xie Zhuo’s life, I found it difficult to open my eyes to see the beauty of this world.
Until… one clear morning, a man stood beside my bed.
“All of Kunlun is saying that Xie Zhuo is dead, and Fu Jiuxia is so heartbroken she might follow him soon. I didn’t believe it at first, but it seems it’s true.”
Qin Shuyan, the old fox, had come.
I lay in bed, glanced at him, then turned over, pretending not to see him, and continued to rest with my eyes closed.
“Tsk, tsk.” Lao Qin sighed. “Look at yourself. If Xie Zhuo saw you like this, wouldn’t he pull you up and scold you thoroughly, inside and out?”
“He can’t see me anymore.”
I replied in a muffled voice from under the covers.
Lao Qin fell silent.
In this world I had returned to, the past that Xie Zhuo and I shared evolved from the past of Xiaxia and Xie Xuanqing, and although the result was the same, the process was quite different.
Here, Xiaxia and Xie Xuanqing were connected through Lao Qin’s introduction. They…