Chapter 7

Chapter 7

A thin, spare figure sat in the vast, empty hall, his pitch-black hair spilling across the floor. His entire body seemed gilded in a faint veil of light and shadow.

Without the crown covering his face, his brows were vivid green and slender, fading into his temples like wisps of smoke. The moment those eyes, like fragments of jade and pearls, turned on me, all the anger in my heart went out at once.

“Divine Lord…”

“You may call me Ji Jun, or Ji Kui.”

Di Ku was only his imperial title, but I was not bold enough to address him by his personal name. Seeing me standing there in restrained silence, he pointed to the spot beside him.

“Sit.”

After I sat down, I saw him toying with a strangely shaped piece of pottery and couldn’t help my curiosity. “What is that?”

“A musical instrument I just made. A xun.”

“Oh?”

Di Ku brought the little instrument to his lips. With only the lightest breath, a clear, distant melody burst from within it.

It was the first time I had ever heard a complete piece of music.

I saw ten thousand rays of rosy light before me, and heaven and earth being born from chaos.

I saw the rising sun bloom and the new moon ascend. I saw Nüwa shaping clay, and the multitudes of mankind multiplying.

I saw bustling crowds and the laughter of fleeting lives. I also saw war and calamity, partings in life and separations by death.

And I stood like a stubborn stone atop the clouds, silently watching it all unfold until the seas ran dry and rocks crumbled, until oceans turned to mulberry fields. The splendor of the mortal world flowed past in a flash, and in the end, everything returned once more to the silence before chaos.

The only thing unchanged was that pitch-black, eternal night, cycling without end.

When the song ended, neither of us spoke. Di Ku set down the xun and gazed intently at the layers of cloud sea outside the hall, overflowing with rosy light.

Perhaps there was one thing gods and humans had in common.

Loneliness that needed no words.

After a long while, he spoke, his tone carrying a subtle trace of expectation.

“Did you understand it?”

“Jiang Yuan is only a mortal. How could she possibly understand the heart of a god?”

“…”

I took in his displeasure and forced the corners of my mouth up. “There is, however, one thing I would risk my life today to have answered.”

“Divine Lord, if you look down on my child, you could have called him Furball, Dogscrap, Iron Pillar-anything. Why give him the name Qi?”

“Because I cannot answer your plea.”

“But… you have not even seen him. Isn’t that a little arbitrary?”

The man before me looked serene, but his tone was cruel. “He will not live to adulthood. He will be tempted by the Abyss and fall completely into evil.

“That is the curse that has accompanied him since birth.”

“Is that so? A curse?”

At those words, the anger I had barely managed to suppress exploded. My vision instantly went bloodred. “Then may I ask…”

“You were born a god destined for eternal loneliness. Is that a curse?”

“I was born a mortal, no more than an ant. Is that a curse?”

“All living beings have souls, yet suffer birth, aging, illness, and death. Is that a curse?”

I almost hoped he would punish me for such insubordination, or simply drive me away. But Di Ku only looked at me in silence. Faced with my trembling interrogation, he did not even try to defend himself.

My heart gradually went cold. “Since you look down on us mother and son, then letting us leave would be for the best.”

At that, his expression finally shifted slightly.

“Jiang Yuan, you truly are as recklessly brave as the rumors say.”

Was it bravery? He meant foolishness, didn’t he?

“If I want nothing, then naturally I fear nothing.”

Leaving those words behind, I removed the crown from my head, turned, and walked out of the great hall.