Chapter 3
Chapter 3
Mortals are always begging me for something.
Some kowtow until their heads nearly hit the ground like pounding garlic. “Bodhisattva, please, I beg you. As long as Yunniang loves me, I’ll do anything. Please, let me have Yunniang!”
Some pray with perfect sincerity. “This faithful woman vows to eat vegetarian food all her life, to do good deeds and accumulate virtue. I beg the Old Man Under the Moon to find me a husband after my own heart, that we may live happily together, loving and never doubting each other.”
Some look half mad. “Why doesn’t he love me? My Duanlang, how can he marry another woman? I won’t allow it. I absolutely won’t allow it!”
Some come back sweetly to give thanks. “Bodhisattva, thank you. My husband treats me so well. He paints my brows for me every day. Today, he even told me he wants a child.”
I can grant every one of their wishes.
But my wish… whom am I supposed to beg?
I govern the marriages of others, yet I alone cannot govern the marriages of immortals.
I have witnessed countless mortal springs and autumn moons. The part that belonged to me was nothing more than a dream of Nanke.
How ironic.
On the high platform, Li Lan and Zirou stood with their fingers tightly interlaced. Their bright red wedding robes layered upon each other, their hems tangled together on the ground, merged into one so completely it was impossible to tell whose was whose.
No one knew Li Lan and I had once had a love between us. Not even Laojun knew.
That day, when I ran into Li Lan, he was alone without any attendants at his side. Only the golden crown shaped like a dragon’s head upon his hair revealed his identity. He reached out, caught me by the back of my collar, and lifted me aside. His mouth said, “How bold,” but his eyes held a smile he plainly did not mean seriously. When his fingertips brushed my skin, they carried a refreshing chill.
By the time Laojun came chasing after me, Li Lan had withdrawn that smile and become a proper, solemn crown prince. Then, the instant Laojun turned his head, he winked at me.
That night, when I received his message, I was so excited I smashed a dent into the side of my bed.
We met in the Purple Bamboo Forest, in a very secluded place. Because he stood there in a silver robe, clear and radiant as wind and moonlight, not to mention the purple bamboo, even the moss beneath his feet seemed draped in a brilliant sheen of starlight. It was unspeakably moving.
He asked, “Little girl, your name is Yuehong, is it? I heard you say you wanted to jump from Zhuxian Terrace. Quite courageous, aren’t you?”
Back then, my first stirrings of love had only just begun. How could I let the person I liked think I was some rebellious deviant? I immediately said nervously, “I’m not. I didn’t. I’m perfectly fine being an immortal…”
He lifted his head to look at the sky and feigned disappointment. “Is that so? And here I thought I’d finally found someone interesting.”
I grew even more nervous and stammered, “I misspoke just now. Actually, I do want to jump.”
Li Lan took in my entire flustered performance, and in the end he said, “The moment I saw you today, I knew you were different from those rigid immortals. I like that very much.”
The words “I like” struck me so hard I nearly lost my senses. My head went dizzy, and I barely heard as he said many more things.
Most of it was about how stifling it was to be the crown prince, how he was not allowed to take even half a wrong step. He asked whether I would be willing to come often to this Purple Bamboo Forest and be a flower that understood him.
In the end, he took my hand. His silver robe refracted a dazzling, lucid glow beneath the moonlight, bright enough to make my eyes blur. Together, we used red thread to tie a little rabbit. He said that little red-skinned rabbit looked very much like the one that had barreled straight into his heart during the day.
He said, “Your cultivation is still shallow, and your foundation is not yet stable. If we make our relationship public, you will have to endure a great deal of unnecessary criticism. Ah Yue, I can’t bear to hear them say even half a word against you.”
The one I loved was so considerate.
He held me from behind and buried his head against my neck, his long lashes tickling my skin.
He said, “What is there to tell others for? Ah Yue is so beautiful and gentle. I only want to hide you away, lock you up, keep you in a room, so day and night you see only me.
“I can hardly bear to keep you hidden enough. How could I bear to set you before the eyes of the world?
“When you are a little older and have inherited the position of Yue Lao, I will come marry you. When that time comes, I will write our wedding couplets with my own hand. I will choose the thickest brush and write them in huge characters, then hang them at the gates of Yuze Palace to announce it to the Three Realms, so everyone sees them at a single glance.”
I did not tell Laojun that the Little Stone he scolded every day had quietly fallen in love. With all my heart, I planned that when the day came for Li Lan to ask for my hand, I would give that old man a proper fright and let him see that Little Stone was quite capable after all.
Back then, I could never sleep at night. Alone, I would bury my head under the covers, smiling foolishly in shy delight, my cheeks burning, my heart filled with boundless joy. There was actually such a wonderful man in this world, and I had actually met him.
He said he wanted to hide me away.
Day and night, I would face only him.
He said he could not bear to let anyone else look upon me.
I belonged to him alone.
Unfortunately, in the end, I never did wait until the day I could give Laojun that fright.
Thinking of it now, we were together for one hundred and fifty years, and this immortal lord spent another fifty years thinking of him. Two hundred years flowed by like water, and it was not even as long as one of his secluded cultivation sessions.
Li Lan, in his long life counted by the tens of thousands of years, had merely acted on a passing whim and cast one startled, fleeting glance my way.