chapter 3
After the battle, I remained in the mortal realm to treat the wounded.
Apparently, my words had hurt Xixuan. His friend Mingling, young lord of the Qilin Clan, descended to find me on his behalf.
“So you’re Fairy Lingyun, the woman Xixuan has pined for these past three hundred years. You truly are as peerlessly graceful and beautiful as he said.”
“I came on his behalf. He has never been in love and does not know how to speak to female immortals. He was too forward, but please don’t hold it against him.”
“Nearly every goddess in the divine clans dreams of taking Xixuan as her immortal companion. Why did you reject him?”
He prattled on and on, praising Xixuan’s virtues.
“What do you think of Xixuan, Fairy Lingyun?”
The mortal realm had suffered a catastrophe, yet its future ruler had never once come to see it. Instead, he was absorbed in the tender aches of his first infatuation.
What was I supposed to think of him?
I was busy saving lives and ignored Mingling.
He did not mind. He simply followed me around with his clear, guileless eyes.
Most of the people who came for treatment were poor. Their loved ones were gravely injured, but they could not afford physicians. The moment word spread that someone was treating patients for free, they traveled from far and wide.
One family had lost its father. The elder daughter was disfigured, and the young son had lost a leg.
When they heard of a place offering free treatment, the mother and daughter laid the boy on a bed board and dragged him by rope for two days to reach me.
By the time they arrived, the rope had cut into their flesh. Their palms and shoulders were worn bloody and raw.
They seemed unable to feel their own pain. They fell to their knees and knocked their heads against the ground, begging everyone to let them move to the front.
“Please. My son is dying.”
But whose loved one in that line was not in mortal danger?
No matter how they bloodied their foreheads, no one surrendered a place.
Mingling was the cherished young lord of the Qilin Clan. He had been protected all his life and had never witnessed such suffering.
Unable to watch any longer, he offered to heal the mortals with magic.
“Using divine arts in the mortal realm violates celestial law,” I reminded him through a private transmission.
“They have done nothing to deserve this. My conscience will not let me stand by.”
“A single spell from an immortal could save them. Why do you think no one has dared cast one?”
He understood. He fell silent.
No mortal knew that a quarrel between immortals had unleashed the demons. In their eyes, the gods had slain the demons and saved them.
The gods believed the same story. To heal the victims with magic would look like an admission of guilt, and those lofty beings would never admit they were wrong.
They would not save these people, nor would they permit anyone else to do so.
After that, Mingling stayed and treated patients beside me.
His heart softened at their suffering, and he often slipped a little divine power into their medicine.
When I saw that he was kind, I gradually became willing to exchange a few words with him.
He still refused to stop extolling Xixuan. While praising the Crown Prince’s generosity, he mentioned that Xixuan had just given the Soul-Gathering Lamp, a supreme treasure of the Celestial Clan, to the Moon God.
The lamp could gather the scattered soul of the dead.
Ice filled my eyes.
“Whose soul does the Moon God intend to gather?”
“His disciple’s, of course.”
Mingling sighed regretfully. “Yu’er used to be a good girl. She was cheerful and amusing. I never imagined she would come to this. What a pity.”
The absurdity of his words chilled my voice.
“Why should anyone pity her? She fell into demonhood, led an army against the Celestial Realm, and slaughtered mortals. She committed every evil imaginable, yet in the end, she can be resurrected and rewarded with love.”
Mingling had not expected such a fierce reaction.
“She lost control after discovering the betrayal. When I visited her, she kept apologizing.”
“Xixuan is the Moon God’s friend, and he knew Yu’er as well. He couldn’t bear to—”
What touching compassion.
“Yet he could bear the devastation of the mortal realm? The deaths of countless celestial soldiers?”
“Most mortals are born poor. They labor all their lives, commit no evil, and ask only to survive. Why should they lose their lives for an immortal’s romance?”
“But you’re an immortal too.” My words shocked him.
“Xixuan has already sent an edict to the Netherworld. Those who died will be born into good families in their next lives.”
My expression grew colder.
“The dead may receive better rebirths, but what of those who lost loved ones and providers? What of those left maimed by this disaster? How will they survive this life?”
“Even if the dead are born into comfort, who can promise they will not suffer the same thing again?”
As long as immortals remained enslaved to passion, calamities in the mortal realm would never end.
Mingling understood what I meant.
“Guard your words, Fairy Lingyun,” he warned.
I knew I had said too much. I lowered my head and continued preparing medicine.
When I looked up again, Mingling was gone.