After Xie Zhuo and I had a massive fight on Mount Buzhou that tilted the mountain three more degrees, Xi Wang Mu finally agreed to our divorce.
“I absolutely cannot fucking take it anymore!”
When my good friend Meng Meng asked why things had become so unbearable between Xie Zhuo and me, I finally burst out:
“That dish—I had to add spice to it!”
Meng Meng looked at me in confusion, furrowing her brows and parting her lips slightly. She appeared dumbfounded, as if what she had heard had stupefied her.
“Huh?” She eventually managed two words. “Just that?”
“Just that!?” I was beyond furious. “What do you mean ‘just that’!? For five hundred years, had he ever let me eat anything spicy whenever I was under his watchful eye? He doesn’t eat spice, so have I ever had a bite of spice? He doesn’t drink alcohol, so have I ever sipped wine?
Every single day, the food in our residence is so bland it would be better to eat shit! Five hundred years! I’ve endured for five hundred years! I just wanted to eat something spicy in front of him. Is that too much to ask!?”
Meng Meng gave me a complicated look: “You’re an immortal now, how can you still care so much about food pleasures… Besides, if you craved it, couldn’t you have eaten it secretly?”
I cast a cold glance at Meng Meng: “Have you forgotten who Xie Zhuo, Xie Xuanqing are?”
Meng Meng fell silent.
To be precise, this man, surnamed Xie, named Zhuo, styled Xuanqing, is neither human nor immortal—he’s a demon.
A legendary great demon from beyond the Northern Sea.
Even after five hundred years of marriage, I still haven’t figured out his true form. But what I do know is that when I wanted to marry him back then, all the immortals at Kunlun Xu visibly disapproved.
Everyone who saw me would ask one question: “Do you know who he is?”
I didn’t know. No one in Kunlun Xu knew, but everyone knew he was dangerous. His demonic power and mysterious nature made even Xi Wang Mu somewhat wary.
But now I know!
“He’s a jailer! A nightmare! A puppet master!”
“And I’m his prisoner! His puppet!” My anger and complaints surged forth: “All these years, even if I secretly sipped alcohol while he was away, he could smell it the moment he walked through the door three to five days later when he returned!
His nose is keener than the Howling Celestial Hound! Every time he caught me, I couldn’t escape his lectures and scolding. I’m a respected immortal, too—don’t I deserve some dignity?”
Meng Meng didn’t dare speak, just staring at me helplessly.
“And it’s not just about food. Whenever he’s at home, what I wear, where I go, who I meet—everything requires his approval. I endured it for the first hundred or two hundred years of marriage, but it’s been five hundred years! Still the same! Am I supposed to live like this for thousands and tens of thousands of years to come!?”
Meng Meng agreed: “That’s unreasonable…”
“The worst was when I went to inspect the troops. He would check on me every few days. Just last month, I was training with the recruits—just a few moves, literally just a few moves!
He saw it and nearly knocked that recruit’s teeth out, claiming he was helping me train the troops… Now in the barracks, I’m mocked by the veteran soldiers and avoided by the recruits. How am I supposed to work?”
The more I thought about it, the angrier I became: “He’s just a control freak! I must divorce him! Absolutely must!”
Just as I finished speaking, Meng Meng, who had been eating fruit, suddenly stared behind me, her mouth half-open, letting the plum in her hand drop to the ground.
Following her gaze, I looked back.
Xie Zhuo, the protagonist of my complaints, stood right behind me, still wearing his unchanging black clothes, piercing me with that cold, intimidating gaze like knives.
“Fu Jiuxia,” he called me by my full name.
I maintained my composure, returning his coldness with an overwhelming coldness of my own.
“Yes?”
“Go to Yue Lao’s Temple,” he said, these words very slowly. “Divorce…”
Nothing could please me more!
We walked to Yue Lao’s temple without exchanging a single word. Yue Lao was nowhere to be seen, sending only a small attendant who trembled like a quail.
The boy held a tray with a pair of green scissors on it.
“This… this green scissors cuts marriage ties. Once cut, they can never be rejoined. My lords… perhaps… reconsider?”
I stepped forward to the boy and picked up the green scissors.
The moment I took the scissors, the red marriage thread tied around our wrists slowly became visible.
I turned to look at Xie Zhuo. He was also looking at me, his pitch-black eyes calm and waveless, yet somehow darker than usual. The reflection of me in the depths of his eyes seemed to tremble slightly.
The towering wishing tree rustled in the wind, and the red thread between our wrists swayed with it.
Five hundred years ago, also here, we pricked our palms, interlocked our fingers, pressed our palms together, merged our blood to form the marriage thread that wound around our wrists, signifying that from this life onward, we would stay together forever, never to part…
But now…
I looked up at Xie Zhuo, my lips moved slightly, and finally uttered:
“That dish, I absolutely must add spice to it.”
“If you add spice, you’re not allowed to eat it,” he responded quickly.
I pressed my lips together, suppressing the familiar anger rising within me.
“You can’t control me anymore.”
With a “snip,” I used the green scissors to effortlessly cut the red thread between our wrists.
The wind blew, and the red thread that had wrapped around our wrists for five hundred years disappeared without a trace.