novelraw Chapter 48 : Do You Like Your Fiancée?
Chapter 48 : Do You Like Your Fiancée?
Chapter 48: Do You Like Your Fiancée?
“Young Master, there’s no one inside the room.”
Xia Lianxue had already reached the door without him noticing, and very naturally pushed it open.
The wooden door creaked like it had aged through countless years.
The room was swept clean.
Beside a wooden desk stood two common farmer’s benches.
Not far from the benches was an enormous rosewood chest.
Xia Lianxue unconsciously walked forward and opened it. Inside was a bright red wedding garment.
Her heart trembled.
With practiced hands, she slid open the hidden compartment within the chest. Inside were some gold and silver ornaments, as well as a few pieces of fine cloth.
This was a woman’s dowry and wedding dress.
By her ear, it seemed as if a woman’s soft singing could be heard:
“One day apart, two lands apart,
they say it is but three or four months,
yet who would know it has been five or six years?”
Listening carefully, it was her own voice.
Xia Lianxue wiped away the tears that had unknowingly welled up at the corners of her eyes, and called toward the door, “Young Master, come and take a look inside.”
Lu Changyuan left the grave and stepped into the thatched hut as well.
“What painting? Where has this Palace Mistress Jade gone…”
Before the words were finished, Lu Changyuan caught sight of the painting.
At the head of the bed, hanging perfectly square, was a painting.
Xia Lianxue was staring at it, her delicate shoulders trembling slightly, lost in thought.
Lu Changyuan also walked up to the painting.
In the painting was a young man in white robes, smiling warmly, about twenty years old.
At the prime of spring in youth, able to stir the hearts of countless lovestruck maidens.
What was most peculiar was that the young man looked exactly the same as Lu Changyuan.
Xia Lianxue’s expression was something Lu Changyuan could not quite read. Her voice carried no emotion as she asked: “Young Master, my Palace Mistress… is she your fiancée?”
Lu Changyuan had always found it strange—why he could not remember his fiancée’s face or name.
Now he understood.
His fiancée had already ascended to the Seven Realms, and in order to break through beyond them, she had used the power of Jade Radiance to erase him from time itself.
That was why he could not remember her name.
That was also why even the people of Jade Palace could not remember their Palace Mistress’s name or appearance.
This was something the power of Jade Radiance was capable of.
“It seems that’s how it is. My fiancée did not die. She became the Palace Mistress of the Jade Palace. But I do not know where she has gone now.”
Xia Lianxue’s tone was soft: “Then, Young Master, do you like that fiancée of yours?”
Lu Changyuan fixed his gaze upon Xia Lianxue, only to find that this usually obedient and gentle little immortal fairy seemed suddenly unreadable. “Why ask this all of a sudden?”
He reached out to grasp her delicate hand, circulating the Supreme Pure-Spirit Forget-Immortal Technique.
He gained nothing.
Her spirit platform was stable, no Desire Demon arose.
Xia Lianxue’s state of mind was as calm as still water.
She reached out and wrapped her arms around Lu Changyuan’s waist, rubbing her delicate face against his chest. “Young Master still hasn’t answered me. Do you like that fiancée of yours?”
Lu Changyuan did not give up probing her body, yet still replied: “I don’t remember. I’ve forgotten many things about her.”
The crown of her head pressed beneath his chin, her quiet maidenly fragrance drifting into his nose.
“Young Master must be lying to me. Of all things, surely whether you liked your fiancée is something you should remember clearly.”
Lu Changyuan felt his chest dampened by her tears.
He was at a loss.
Daoist Chang’an, who could suppress a thousand years of peace beneath heaven, was utterly helpless before the weeping fairy in his arms.
“What are you crying for, you—”
Lu Changyuan paused.
It was as if something within his mind was gently peeled open.
His fiancée’s visage—an incomparably beautiful face—slowly emerged, finally overlapping inch by inch with Xia Lianxue’s.
The first time Lu Changyuan had seen Xia Lianxue’s face, he had thought it familiar, like a younger sister from the household next door.
Never did he expect… she really was the girl next door.
The past that had been erased by time gradually resurfaced.
Lu Changyuan seemed to hear a voice:
“Brother Lu, wait for me three years. Master said in three years I can return to marry you.”
Xia Lianxue’s voice was as soft as the breeze and moonlight: “Then let me tell Young Master a story.”
The fairy’s steps were light, her tone tender: “A long, long time ago, there was a little girl. Her father was a merchant, fairly wealthy in his town. But the merchant had a dilemma. His daughter was very beautiful, and she had come of age. It was time to find her a husband.”
Lu Changyuan made a sound of acknowledgment, trying to pull his hand free. Yet the fairy’s grip was unbelievably strong.
The Jade Palace’s fairy dares to bully me in my old age!
“The merchant’s daughter had a soft temperament. If she married into a great household, she would be just a merchant’s daughter, sure to be neglected. He feared she would suffer grievances. But if he married her to a poor scholar, who could know if once the scholar passed the imperial exams, he might cast aside his wife?”
Lu Changyuan laughed, picking up the thread: “So who did the merchant finally decide to marry his daughter to?”
Xia Lianxue stretched out a slender hand, tracing his cheek with tender affection. “What a coincidence. Right beside the merchant’s home was a little doctor. For three generations his family had been physicians. His parents had died, and he had come as a refugee child at eight years old. Now he had his own pharmacy, and at twenty, it was time for him to wed as well.”
“Surely the merchant would not marry his daughter to some poor physician with nothing to his name?”
Xia Lianxue frowned: “Why not?! The merchant’s daughter liked that little doctor very much. She wished she could run to his pharmacy every day.”
“Hearing you say this, it sounds like a fine match.”
Lu Changyuan’s expression was complicated, yet he still continued her story.
“Yes, it should have been a fine marriage. But the girl knew—the little doctor did not like her…”
“How could he not? They grew up together, childhood sweethearts. You must have remembered it wrong.”
Old emotions slowly stirred in his heart.
The fairy lowered her gaze, sorrow in her eyes. “It wasn’t that he didn’t like her. Just… not in that way. Not the love between man and woman. He only saw the girl as his younger sister. Yet still, the little doctor agreed to the marriage. That year, he had no one he liked, and he didn’t want to see the girl heartbroken.”
That was the year Daoist Chang’an first entered the world of cultivation.
Back then, he still did not understand how precious emotions were.
From there, the Supreme Forgetting of Affection gradually took root.
“In this world, mutual love is rare. For the little doctor to wed the merchant’s daughter was not so bad. After all, how many mortal couples truly live with deep affection? In the end, most marriages become kinship and habit. In my eyes, the little doctor and the merchant’s daughter simply skipped the fiery passion and went straight to peaceful daily life.”
Xia Lianxue pressed a hand to her heart. “Yes… so the little girl was already content. But a few days before the wedding, people from the Immortal Palace came. They saw that the little girl had extraordinary talent, and wished to take her away for cultivation.”
The little doctor, believing that if one person ascended to immortality, all would benefit, persuaded her to go cultivate as an immortal.
The little girl was unwilling at first, but then she heard the little doctor say: “If you become an immortal, I can cling to your thigh.”