Chapter 4

Chapter 4

The perfectly good Coronation Ceremony was forced to come to a halt.

The god probably didn’t care, because after the youth brought me to the rear hall, I screamed for an entire night, and he never appeared.

When I saw the young man before me take off his black feathered robe and roll up both sleeves, I hurriedly stopped him.

“Wait! You’re a man. How can you deliver a baby?”

He let out a cold, humorless laugh. “I’m the only shaman physician in Diqiu. You think you have a choice?”

I gritted my teeth and said nothing.

Seeing me drenched in sweat and looking utterly wretched, he seemed to feel the slightest hint of compassion. His tone softened a little. “I am a Xuan Niao spirit, born in response to Heaven. I am both male and female, and can transform into all things. If you can’t accept this form, I can also take on a woman’s body.”

With that, white mist rose around him.

The mist quickly gathered, then dispersed. Appearing before me once more was a young and beautiful woman. Her bosom was high, her figure was full, and there was even a trace of compassion between her brows.

Especially that pair of all-embracing breasts. In an instant, they reminded me of my mother, and my eyes immediately grew wet. “Xuan Niao, this is my first time away from home, and I really miss my mother. Could I lean against your chest for a little while?”

“…Shut up.”

“Okay.”

As I watched him-her-bustle around preparing hot water and scissors, I still remembered to sigh with emotion between waves of contractions.

“No matter what, thank you for helping me.”

“…”

After a long silence, Xuan Niao spoke. “The Divine Lord likes you, but whether you can truly secure the position of Primary Consort will still depend on the child in your belly.”

Huh?

What did that mean?

But before I could carefully ponder the true meaning behind those words, another violent tearing pain struck me, and my vision went black.

From yesterday until now, because my belly had itched unbearably, I had already scratched bloody marks all over it. As something warm was squeezed out of my body, my belly, which had been as big as a watermelon, suddenly caved in.

The moment the child hit the ground, it let out an earth-shattering wail.

However, Xuan Niao stood before me with his head lowered, staring heavily between my legs-to be precise, staring at the thing that was currently making that piercing noise.

Seeing how awful his expression was, I ignored the weakness in my whole body and hurriedly craned my neck to look.

Shit. What the hell did I just give birth to?!

A lump of… black smoke?

From within the black smoke came the shrill cries of an infant.

As if to answer it, a sharp owl’s screech suddenly rang out from the surrounding wilderness, followed by a long string of mournful ghostly wails. The palace doors were clearly shut tight, yet from some unknown place, a sinister wind blew in, making every hair on one’s body stand on end.

Although the child had come too quickly, like a gust of wind, so there was no real attachment to speak of…

This was still way too terrifying, wasn’t it?!

Xuan Niao wrapped the child in swaddling clothes, pity showing in his expression. “Do you still remember how you became pregnant?”

“…I do.”

Although it had only happened the day before yesterday, the entire process had already become blurry.

All I remembered was that a footprint had suddenly appeared in the wilderness. And it was a gigantic, majestic footprint, one thousands upon tens of thousands of times larger than me…

Tell me, who could see such an astonishingly huge foot and resist putting their own tiny foot up against it to compare?

After hearing my account, Xuan Niao nodded faintly. “That’s right. That day, the Divine Lord was attacked by the evil energy within the Abyss, and he did indeed leave behind a chaotic, delirious footprint in the mortal realm.”

“As the saying goes, a child is born of the father’s essence and the mother’s blood. That footprint contained not only the Divine Lord’s divine power, but also the evil power of the Abyss.”

I was a little dazed. “So?”

“So this child will either inherit divinity and become a benevolent king like the Divine Lord, or be controlled by the Abyss and fall into a monster that knows only slaughter and devouring.”

Hearing the bloodshed lurking in his tone, I was left tongue-tied. “But, but…”

The faint trace of pity on Xuan Niao’s face had already vanished. White mist rose around him, and with a shake of his body, he became that cold, merciless young man again.

“From the looks of it, the outcome is already decided.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s nothing but a mass of evil energy. What good is there in keeping it?”

He was growing impatient. Holding the child, he strode straight outside. “This is the supreme Sanqing Heaven. If we toss it into some corner, the evil energy will soon dissipate.”

Perhaps because I had consumed that stalactite Jade Milk, I could still move even after having just given birth. Seeing him about to disappear from sight, I hurried after him, staggering as I went.

“Wait! Where are you taking him?!”

Sanqing Heaven had its four seasons as well. We passed through winding stone corridors, rippling water, and flowering branches. The surroundings shifted rapidly, and the temperature dropped with them, until even breath seemed ready to freeze into ice.

He walked very quickly, and before long, he arrived at a stretch of ice and casually tossed the swaddled bundle onto it.

The infant went still for a moment, then burst into an even more piercing wail.

As if mother and child were linked by the heart, I instantly felt a gouging pain in my chest. Tears streamed from my eyes.

“No, don’t!”

“You have no choice.”

Xuan Niao stood not far away, his eyes cold as he looked down at the trembling bundle on the ice. “As the Primary Consort of Di Ku, you should think more for the Divine Lord’s sake, not create more trouble for him.”

Stunned by the threat in his words, I stopped at once and did not dare go forward.

When I looked again, the black mist around the swaddling cloth had already dispersed. Inside was a fair, tender infant, who even seemed to be smiling at me.

“This is all a trick of the Abyss.”

Xuan Niao folded his arms, his tone indifferent. “Go back.”

“You are the Primary Consort of Di Ku. You will have other children sooner or later.”

I did not dare argue. I had just turned to leave when I heard a weak cry from the infant behind me.

“Go!”

Seeing me standing there without moving, Xuan Niao frowned. “Why aren’t you leaving?”

“Let me look at him one more time. Just once!”

Ignoring his attempt to stop me, I took a few steps onto the ice and picked up the swaddled bundle.

This child was nothing like the infants I had seen before, all dry and scrawny. Once the black mist had dispersed, his skin was fair and tender, his features tiny and delicate. As if sensing that I had lifted him into my arms, the corners of his pink lips turned up on both sides, forming two little dimples.

The more I looked at him, the more adorable he seemed. The more I looked, the more impossible he was not to love.

Xuan Niao began to panic. “Are you done looking?”

“No.”

“You…”

Facing his anger, I tightened my arms around the infant in my embrace.

“Can I not keep him?”

When Xuan Niao heard that, he was so furious he nearly jumped. “Jiang Yuan! You had better think this through!”

“I have thought it through… A child is born of the father’s essence and the mother’s blood. This child has half of my bloodline. Fine, perhaps he has no divinity, but that does not mean he has no humanity.”

As I spoke, I held the child and retreated step by step.

“So I am going to keep this child.”