AMHA - Chapter 2

Chapter 2 - If You Didn't Save Me, I Would Have Died

Several elders breathed a visible sigh of relief.

Now that Daojun Tianshu's attitude is clear, they don't have to wring their hands any more.

"What Daojun said is true, love is just a fleeting thing. What happened between you two is just a trick of fate. Once it’s broken, it should be cut off."

"Miss Xie, you think the reward is not enough? That’s fine. Miss Xie, just speak up and say what you want. Kunwu Immortal Land indeed owes you and should give you something in return."

"But Miss Xie, please leave Kunwu as soon as possible after accepting the thank you gift. It’s not that we don't want to welcome the girl as a guest, it's just that this place of cultivation is really not a place where mortals should come. If you become entangled with too many things here, it won’t be a blessing for the girl either.”

Zhaozhao only stared at the wooden box in a daze, showing no reaction to anything around her.

The elders in Kunwu are all old men who are accustomed to giving orders and are not good at comforting others.

Seeing that Zhaozhao still didn't reply after they said a lot of nice things, they became a little impatient.

Lord Tianji stepped forward, took the wooden box from Lord Yaoguang's hand, gave it to Zhaozhao condescendingly and said coldly:

"Miss Xie, are you trying to pretend to be deaf and mute to delay time? With all due respect, emotions and desires are too incompatible to those who practice Daoism. Don’t even talk about pretending to be deaf and mute, even if the girl blinds herself crying here today, it will not lead to empathy from others…”

The words have not yet finished.

Lord Tianji, who completely had no defenses against mortals, never imagined that the weak girl who was just a few feet away from him and who was crying pitifully would suddenly fly towards him and punch him in the left eye.

That punch filled with all the strength in her body was fast, heavy, and caught him off guard.

No one could have imagined that a mortal woman would dare to punch an elder in Kunwu Immortal Land.

All the disciples on duty at Zhaoyingtian suddenly opened their eyes wide.

"Does it hurt? Do you know how it feels now?"

She shouted this sentence almost to the point of breaking her voice.

Lord Tianji staggered back half a step, his face full of disbelief.

Her hands were still trembling from excitement and fear, but she still forced herself to calm down and said to the stunned Lord Yaoguang:

"Tell Xie Lanshu to come and see me."

"I want him to tell me these words with his own mouth."

Even if it was poison that corrodes the intestines, she wanted him to serve it to her himself.

...How ignorant and fearless of heaven and the earth.

Even Lord Yaoguang, who has always been bohemian, couldn't help but click his tongue.

Daojun Tianshu's little wife was much more interesting than him.

Lord Tianji, who came back to his senses, was furious.

Ever since the girl came, he had actually never actually bothered to take a close look at her appearance. Now after receiving this punch, the blurry shadow in his gaze took on a nose and eyes, and entered his eyes.

"Miss Xie! Kunwu Immortal Land is being respectful to you out of politeness, but don’t push us too far!”

Except for Lord Yaoguang, the expressions of several other elders also changed.

The elders had lived for thousands of years so how could they not see that her punching someone was only serving a secondary purpose. Her main purpose was to cause a commotion and attract the attention of Daojun Tianshu. 

Lord Tianxuan said leisurely:

"It seems that Miss Xie is not planning to meet and then part amicably."

Before Zhaozhao could appreciate the deeper meaning of his words, the flow speed of the air suddenly changed.

After a moment of stasis, a pressure that almost suffocated her came over like a mountain and swept over like a wave. In the face of this force, any thought of resistance was in vain.

Zhaozhao fell to her knees almost instantly. Her knees hitting the stone with a dull sound.

It hurts.

Zhaozhao had never suffered such physical pain and she burst into tears almost instantly.

What was even more unbearable for her was that the pain in her knees was unbearable but everyone present did not even take a step forward.

"Lord Tianxuan—"

Lord Yaoguang narrowed his eyes.

"Are you going a bit overboard?"

"I just want Miss Xie to understand that it's not us who are standing in her way. She and Tianshu are not destined to be together in this life. In fact, their statuses are very different. A little pressure can force her to her knees. How can she stand beside Daoist Tianshu? Does she want to be his ornament? His pet?”

Zhaozhao tried to struggle to get up but she was like a puppet being manipulated on another’s whim. She had no control over whether to kneel or stand.

This is the difference in their status.

This is...

The chasm between cultivators and mortals.

Lord Yaoguang sighed. He seemed to agree that the other party was right and did not refute their words.

Only–

He glanced sideways at Zhaozhao and, with just that one glance, Zhaozhao felt the pressure on her  disappear like a tide.

She can stand up.

"The Daojun is in the Thirty-third Palace, at the very top."

Lord Yaoguang smiled.

"Miss Xie, if you insist on hearing the judgment yourself, then run.”

With this girl's stubbornness, if she is not allowed to see Tianshu today, she may not be willing to leave even if she dies.

"—Lord Yaoguang!"

All the elders showed angry faces. Zhaozhao knew that the opportunity was fleeting and did not dare to pause for a moment. She did not even have time to say thank you. She endured the pain in her knees, turned around and rushed out the door, heading straight to the highest point of Kunwu Immortal Land.

It was just in time for dawn.

The clouds are gone and the rain is falling. The sky is filled with glow.

Kunwu's disciples who had morning classes headed towards the academy in twos and threes, only to see a mortal girl covered in mud and water rush out from Zhaoyingtian and leap up the long steps leading to Lihentian three steps at a time.

"Am I seeing things? Why is there a mortal here?"

"Where is she going?"

"Looking in that direction, she’s going to Lihentian?"

"Does she not want to live? Why hasn’t anyone stopped her?"

The disciples were talking a lot and some wanted to stop her from trespassing into the Daojun's forbidden area but they were prevented by an invisible force.

A barrier has been set up!

It’s Daojun Tianshu!

No one knows who this woman was or what was going on.

Zhaozhao herself didn't even know that she was already within a barrier. She didn't know that no one except her could step foot on the ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine long steps to Lihentian at this moment.

The wind was howling and all she could see was the endless long steps.

She didn’t know how long she climbed.

Zhaozhao stumbled on the 37,543 step.

She actually still had a little strength left but she didn't get up because she didn't know what to think.

"Xie Lanshu..."

She didn't cry when she crossed thousands of rivers and mountains alone, nor did she cry when she was bullied by Kunwu's elders.

But when she was only a few steps away from him, Zhaozhao's tears fell heavily on the way to see him.

"Xie Lanshu..."

She was crying and crawling on the steps, as if talking to herself.

"I can't walk anymore. Xie Lanshu, can you also try your best to come see me? I really... really can't walk..."

The embroidered shoes on her feet have long been worn out by the road.

Zhaozhao looked at the patterns on the shoes and could still remember the young man wearing a coat and sitting by the window making shoes for her.

The hand that held the sword and the pen was a little clumsy when it picked up the embroidery needle,  and he embroidered crookedly for several days. The always gentle and calm young man showed a rare expression of distress. 

—It turns out that Lanshu also has something he’s not good at. 

The girl giggled and threw herself into his arms. The young man carefully put away the needle and thread.

—It doesn’t matter if you don’t do it well. If it’s shoes made by you, I definitely wouldn’t bear to wear it. Just you wanting to do something like that for me, is enough.

The young man just smiled and shook his head.

—No.

—Madam, don’t you want to travel around? I want my wife to wear the shoes I made and travel all over the world.

In the thirty-three heavens, Lihentian is the highest.

Among the four hundred and four diseases, lovesickness is the most painful.

And the person who caused her innumerable lovesickness, the person who sits at the highest place that is difficult for mortals to reach—

"Xie Lanshu, have you, all this time, been looking at me?"

No matter how much Zhaozhao wanted to deceive herself, she really couldn’t anymore.

The elders did not chase her and the disciples who were watching at the foot of the stairs did not step forward to stop her. At this point, she actually knew better than anyone else.

—It's him who doesn't want to see her again. He's waiting for her to give up.

Feeling a bone-chilling pain in her joints, Zhaozhao stood up unsteadily, raised her head and looked at the unreachable golden-domed fairy palace deep in the clouds and mist.

The emotions surging in her chest is not exactly love or hate but more accurately can be described as an unwillingness.

She was unwilling to give in.

Behind the clouds and mist, the gold-domed palace towered like a mountain, quietly overlooking all living beings.

What can a mortal do to intimidate a superior Daoist Master?

Zhaozhao thought that the only weapon she had left was her life.

"If I were to die, would you come and see me?"

The eighteen-year-old girl was still too naive. No one told her how foolish it was to put her life and death into the hands of another.

Zhaozhao glanced at the abyss-like long steps behind her.

"Xie Lanshu, if I fall from here, I will die if you don't save me."

The voice was slightly choked and soft, with a slight tremor at the end.

No one responded and only the cold mountain wind blew back.

She left no room for herself.

Like a reckless, desperate gambler, she fell on her back towards the 37,543 steps she had just walked over.

The mountain wind stagnated and everything went silent.

The next second, on the thirty-third level, Lihentian's golden bell rang and the motionless palace was opened by a surge of spiritual power.

The moment when her skull was about to be dashed to pieces on the steps-

A hand with knuckles like jade bamboo gently grasped her wrist bone.

"This is the last time."

A very soft and cold sigh melted into the depths of her sleeping consciousness-

*

Zhaozhao felt that her body was very light.

It was like being soaked in a warm pool and the mud on her skin was slowly peeling off. The heat soaked into her body from her pores and flowed along her limbs, soothing her exhaustion from the difficult journey.

—Zhaozhao.

The slow voice was like the mist coming in from the incense burner.

In the sleepy afternoons, Zhaozhao liked to bury herself within the sleeves of Xie Lanshu's robe and take a nap while smelling the scent of bergamot mixed with the incense on his body.

—Look, I can write your name.

The rice paper was stacked like snow on the desk and the words "Xie Tanzhao" were written on each page. They were clearly written on the paper one stroke at a time but they slowly spread across Zhaozhao's heart.

Her face was so hot that she asked him in a low voice why he had to write it so many times.

The young man lowered his eyes, dipped his pen in ink and made flying dots over and over again, as if he wanted to carve them into his body.

—I want to remember it more firmly.

—This way, I won’t forget it.

Snap.

There was a crisp sound, like the sound of chess pieces falling on the chessboard.

"Miss Xie, it's time for you to wake up."

A voice like jade clashing against each other rang in Zhaozhao's ears. In an instant, the spiritual stage became clear and the entangled memories in her mind were swept away.

Zhaozhao opened her eyes and looked at the ceiling for a long time before she remembered what night it was.

The tip of her nose smelled the familiar scent of bergamot mixed with the fragrance of agarwood. Zhaozhao's eyes turned red almost instantly. She stood up and looked at the figure outside the paper door——

"Lanshu..."

The rest of the words suddenly got stuck in her throat.

On the edge of the cliff, a young man in white clothes with silver hair sat alone in front of the chessboard. The hand stretched out from the wide sleeves was wearing a half-finger glove and the white chess piece was still in the air.

His eyes were focused on the chessboard, not even giving a glance at the girl who had risked her life to see him.

After thinking for a long time, the chess piece finally fell and the young man raised his head.

"Mortal life is like a candle in the wind. It will be blown out if you are not careful. Miss Xie, you should not risk your life."

Those lacquered eyes seemed to reflect the mountains, rivers, lakes and seas. Even when they are still, they revealed a kind of holy divinity that was free from the world. When he looked down with lowered eyes, he looked like a jade statue of the Bodhisattva of Mercy, filled with compassion, making people feel like they were in a trance in a vast emptiness, forgetting the petty things of the world.

But the gentler he spoke, the more inhumanly cruel and ruthless he was.

Zhaozhao asked blankly: "You...don't you remember me?"

These words were like a pebble falling into a pond. Zhaozhao saw some ripples in his expression and a very faint smile appeared between his brows.

Her heart was also affected and she couldn't help but have some hope.

"I haven't lost my memory. Of course I remember you, Miss Xie."

As if she missed her mark, her whole heart fell into an unknown abyss. Zhaozhao stared at him blankly, his complete sentences turning into incomprehensible words in her mind.

...Since he remembered everything, why was he calling her Miss Xie?

...Why was he looking at her with that indifferent look?

It was as if she was just an irrelevant acquaintance. 

"I left without saying goodbye, in order to completely cut off the ill-fated relationship between us, but I didn't expect that you would be so persistent... Miss Xie, you are not a fool. From the letter that I left and my  words conveyed to you via Lord Yaoguang, I know you can understand. Why do you insist on coming to see me?"

It felt like there was cotton stuffed in her throat. Zhaozhao was so congested that she almost couldn't breathe.

They have been a loving couple for two years but it turned out that,  in his eyes, it was just an ill-fated  relationship.

She choked back sobs and replied miserably:

"I'm just...unwilling to accept it."

Tianshu Daojun watched her tears fall on the cold ground quietly and his fingertips moved for some unknown reason. {Author sometimes writes Daojun Tianshu, sometimes Tianshu Daojun. Daojun is his title as I already mentioned, meaning Daoist Master or Daoist Lord. I just follow whichever way the author has written it.}

He suddenly remembered that as long as she shed a tear in the past, then he, as Xie Lanshu, would lose his mind. He was not very good at comforting people, so he had to carefully take her into his arms, wipe her tears and kiss her wet eyes.

But the memories of those two years have been diluted by thousands of other years, and felt as if they were from a lifetime ago.

What a ridiculous dream.

He put his fingertips together, as if everything was normal and said calmly:

"After taking that celestial pill, you will have a longer life than ordinary people. You can go to see the jade rain in Yingzhou, enjoy the lotus picking and watch the red maples turn red over and over again. You can enjoy all the delicacies in the world. You can taste it all.”

"Do you think Mayflies are also unwilling to give up? In the face of time, any unwillingness you have will all be healed."

His voice was as gentle as the fine snow falling on an umbrella in winter.

However, Zhaozhao felt that her chest was being cut open with a knife. Her flesh and blood were being gently cut away.

"I don’t want it!"

She stood up suddenly and blinked her misty eyes hard.

"It was you who promised to travel with me. It was you who said you would embroider my shoes with your own hands. It was you who wrote my name over and over again so that you wouldn’t forget.  I asked you if you would like to be with me for the rest of your life. You clearly…”

He sat there, watching her burst into tears for him, his eyes still so gentle and calm.

But he remained indifferent.

"I'm sorry." After a long time, he spoke softly. "I can't fulfill the promise made by Xie Lanshu."

Zhaozhao's face turned pale little by little.

"But...you remember everything. You are the same person."

Her tone was innocent, she was really pondering this question.

Tianshu Daojun smiled slightly, as if he was explaining to an ignorant child:

"From my birth until now, it has already been thousands of years. To me, Xie Lanshu's two years are but a drop of water in an ocean. Even if it does not disappear, can you still find traces of this drop of water?"

Zhaozhao never thought that a sentence could make her fall into hell.

"I see."

The corner of Zhaozhao’s lips twitched and tears appeared in her eyes. 

Her husband will not come back. He will no longer have any affection for her now or in the future.

"...Then it’s fine if I want to share the rest of my life with another?"

Far away from the sky, the mountain wind was rushing.

Tianshu suddenly felt that his heart seemed to clench tightly for a moment.

It was as if the part of flesh and blood in the body that belonged to Xie Lanshu was emitting some kind of mournful cry.

It's a pity that such emotion has been filtered by thousands of years. What can still be felt is only a little residual warmth, like a snowflake falling on the palm of your hand, melting your fingertips.

He heard himself reply warmly:

"Of course."

At this moment, Zhaozhao vaguely heard the sound of layers of ice freezing her entire fiery heart.

She thought:

No matter how tragic Xie Lanshu's death would be in the future, it was now impossible for her to reveal the slightest bit of her dreams to him.

*

The author has something to say:

Future Xie Lanshu: Of course... you can’t! (Go crazy and kill)

-Thank you to the little angels who voted for me or irrigated the nutrient solution between 2023-07-08 10:00:36~2023-07-13 10:00:00~

Thanks to the little angel who irrigates the nutrient solution: 10 bottles of Yingshan; 1 bottle of A Fei, Wei Xing, Osmanthus Luo Qiu Yu;

Thank you very much for your support, I will continue to work hard!

*

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