Chapter 52 - 49: A Girl’s Story
「Great Wei, Huangqi Town.」
This small mortal town was unusually bustling today. It was said that an Immortal from an Immortal Mountain had come, seeking to take on a talented disciple.
A daughter of the Xia Family was blessed with this immortal fate.
In a small courtyard, beneath a verdant Arhat Pine, the white-robed Immortal looked at the young girl before her and sighed. "Mortals are born, age, sicken, and die, while Immortals live for eternity. With your innate talent, stepping onto the Immortal Path is the right choice."
The young girl was eighteen this year, just the age for marriage. She had been engaged a short while ago and was preparing for her wedding. Who would have thought that an Immortal Master would pass through, notice her excellent innate talent, and want to take her to the palace to practice cultivation.
This Immortal was from the Yuyue Immortal Palace, an Immortal among Immortals. If an ordinary person had received such an immortal opportunity, they would have been wild with joy, but the young girl had no desire to cultivate.
To her, eternal life was not as important as being with the one she loved.
But the Palace Master had given a strict order: this treasure of a girl had to be brought back and nurtured well.
This girl had a great destiny with the Immortal Palace.
The Immortal had been agonizing over how to persuade the young girl to cultivate, so she was overjoyed when the girl suddenly changed her mind today. Although the girl was a bit old to start, her talent was simply too good. As long as she was nurtured properly, she still had a chance to reach the summit in the future.
The young girl walked up to the Immortal. "Immortal Master, if my cultivation is successful, can I bring my family to cultivate with me?"
The Immortal readily agreed. "Of course, you can."
"And after I cultivate, can I still get married?"
"Of course you can. With your talent, you could marry several people and it wouldn’t matter."
The young girl shook her head. "I already have a fiancé, and I will only ever marry him. He wants me to go with you to cultivate. I’ll listen to him, so I’ll go."
The young girl asked again, "Can’t I bring him with me to cultivate?"
The Immortal gave a wry smile. "Our Yuyue Immortal Palace only accepts women. If you bring a man along..."
She suddenly thought of another tactic. "You haven’t yet entered the Immortal Dao. What if your fiancé is dazzled by the other disciples?"
’If a man were to suddenly appear in a kingdom of women, what would become of him?’
’That makes sense,’ the young girl thought. She didn’t mind her fiancé taking concubines; in fact, she had already considered it. Taking a few could be a form of compensation for him, but they would have to be under her control, serving her tea.
’So, I’ll wait until my cultivation is successful before bringing my fiancé to the Immortal Sect. That way, even if he falls for someone else, he won’t be able to abandon me.’
The Immortal didn’t take the young girl’s words to heart. ’So many people end up Severing Dusty Fate. Most, upon witnessing the splendor of the Immortal Path, forget all about the Mortal World.’
The gap between Immortals and mortals was an insurmountable one.
’Once the girl leaves for the Immortal Palace, I’ll find seven or eight beautiful mortal women and sneak them into her fiancé’s room at night.’
’Then, I’ll guarantee her fiancé a lifetime of wealth and luxury. Before long, gradually corrupted by a life of debauchery, he’ll forget all about the young girl too.’
’The Yuyue Immortal Palace has done this sort of thing many times. It’s always so simple and easy.’
The Immortal never expected that this time, both of them would be stubborn mules.
Unbelievably stubborn!
The women sent to the fiancé’s room—some plump, some slender, all as beautiful as flowers—were all punched out the door by the young man, one by one.
That night, the group of women knelt before the Immortal, crying and complaining while holding their bruised faces.
The Immortal had quite a headache over this.
’It’s truly baffling,’ she thought. ’I’m starting to think he doesn’t even like women.’
’Even if you won’t marry them, you could at least have a taste! I’ve never seen anyone like this. And when he looks at me, his eyes are as serene as the moon on a lake—he seems more like an Immortal than I do!’
The young girl was even more outrageous.
After the young girl entered the palace, a grand discipleship ceremony was held for her, and she became the Palace Master’s personal disciple.
The personal disciple of a Seventh Realm Yao Guang master! This was an immortal fortune that countless people could only dream of.
The Palace Master, Feng Xianlong, personally led the young girl onto the Immortal Path, then locked her in a cavern residence, declaring that if she did not succeed in Entering the Dao and reaching the Fifth Realm within three years, she would not be allowed out.
As it turned out, the young girl really did reach the Fifth Realm in three years.
’What kind of monster is she?’
A few days before the young girl was about to break through to the Fifth Realm, Palace Master Feng Xianlong summoned the Immortal who had first brought her to the palace to the main hall.
Inside the great hall of white jade, Feng Xianlong sat high above, as if enthroned in the ninth heaven. She said, "We absolutely cannot let Tang’Er see that fiancé of hers."
The Immortal was confused and asked why.
’Although the Immortal Palace severs mortal ties, it’s not an absolute rule. What loyalty would a disciple cultivated in such a way have for the palace? So, if a disciple whose mortal ties were severed insisted on renewing them, the Immortal Palace naturally wouldn’t stand in their way. And when this small, insistent group of disciples saw their mortal husbands had taken new wives, most of them would give up on their past connections as well. The later Hanyi Master, for example, came to hate Han Shui Master precisely because her husband took a new wife. Only a rare few, a minority within a minority—disciples like this girl who don’t mind their husbands having concubines, or whose partners, like this young man, steadfastly reject a new wife—are able to rekindle their past relationships.’
’Two such stubborn people appearing at once... This is a first for me.’
The Immortal had thought the young girl was about to bring her fiancé back to the palace, but unexpectedly, the Palace Master herself stepped in to stop it.
"Tang’Er has the Red Simurgh Tribulation Body. It is not suitable for her to be in contact with men. Furthermore, that young man... is extremely strange."
It was the first time the Immortal had seen such a look in the Palace Master’s eyes, as if she were seeing far into the future. She heard the Palace Master say, "That young man is far too ruthless."
"Palace Master, what should we do then?"
"Han Lian’s Illusion Technique is quite good. Have her use it to weave a future for Tang’Er. Also, bring Tang’Er’s father here. He will agree."
"But if we do this, won’t she hate us?"
The Immortal was speaking of the young girl.
Her voice drifted through the great hall: "She has inherited the Dao of Ancestor Red Simurgh. This is her destiny."
When the young girl finally emerged from her seclusion.
What she heard was: "You mean him? He fell ill and died a few months ago. His grave? It can’t be found."
~~~~~~~~~
"The Young Physician said he would wait three years for the little girl, and they would marry after those three years."
The Fairy buried herself in Lu Changyuan’s arms. "But for the first three years after entering the palace, the little girl was locked in a cavern residence. If she didn’t break through to the Fifth Realm, she wasn’t allowed out. To keep her promise to the Young Physician, the little girl cultivated day and night until she finally succeeded. But when she returned to her hometown, she found only a mound of yellow earth. Someone told her the Young Physician had died of illness."
Three years, to the Fifth Realm.
How much suffering she must have endured.
To endure all that hardship, only to find the goal of her efforts had vanished—what kind of feeling must that have been?
Lu Changyuan watched Xia Lianxue in silence.
After a long moment, Lu Changyuan said, "The Immortal Palace lied to her."
Xia Lianxue said sorrowfully, "Yes. The Immortal Palace rebuilt an identical town, all to deceive the little girl into thinking her Young Physician was dead."
When the Miao Yu Palace Master returned to her hometown at the Fifth Realm, the small apothecary shop was gone. Her own father told her that the Young Physician had died of illness.
Lu Changyuan asked softly, "And then?"
"Thirty years later, the Immortal Palace told her that her father had passed away. The little girl finally learned the truth and returned to her real hometown. But by then, the Young Physician was truly dead."
But that wasn’t all there was to the story.
The little girl wanted to save her fiancé, so she used her Red Simurgh Tribulation Body to forcefully comprehend the Time Path. For thirty years, she endured the agony of Breaking Dao every day, and only then did she enter the Time Dao.
But on the day she succeeded, she discovered her Enlightenment was all for naught. She had been deceived.
She rushed back to her hometown, wanting to see her fiancé, only to find that everything had changed.
Her father was dead, and her fiancé was dead too.
The Chang’an Daoist waited for thirty years, then finally built himself a cenotaph and left his hometown.
She returned to her hometown after thirty-three years.
But she had just missed him.