:: Kunlun Mountains ::
Ali pushed the door open and peeked inside; much to his surprise no one was there, save for the lady owner of the room.
Small feet pittered and pattered across the room to the sleeping platform. The young boy lifted himself up, then proceeded to give the sleeping person a peck on her cheek, all the while careful not to crush the flowers held captive in his arm.
Young Ali studied his mother's figure. Tilting his head left and right, trying to discern any changes that might occur in his short absence. When he found nothing amiss or more accurately changed, he pouted slightly and climbed off the platform.
The Celestial prince looked around the room for a suitable vase to hold the flower branches. He found a decent-sized pearly white vase and messily dumped them all inside. Once free from his burden, Ali sat down at the low table and thought of the magic scrolls given to him earlier that day. He gleefully rubbed his hands together, impatient to try out some of the spells.
At first, Ali was hesitant to work on any of them here. What if he accidentally conjured them wrong and caused unduly disturbances among his respectful elders? Before he was sent here, his Father Prince impressed upon him many times the importance of being on his best behaviour when staying in Kunlun Mountains. It was until Uncle Chang Shan reassured him these were but simple spells and practically harmless, "There was no way you could make a fool of yourself, simply by reciting the incantation." The young boy's face visibly brightened once he heard that.
Ali reached into his pocket sleeve and drew out a scroll. He browsed the content quickly. This one was about summoning snowflakes. His brows wrinkled. Cold would be bad for a recovering patient, wouldn't it? With that in mind, he tossed the wooden scroll aside and fetched another one. Spreading it over the table, he skimmed and scanned the text quickly.
"A-ha." He exclaimed in triumph.
This one would do nicely. If mother cannot go out and watched the star-lit sky with him, Ali would bring the stars inside! It would add more ambiance to the currently bland room, he thought happily. He carefully recited the incantation and soon, small bulbs of light appeared in front of him. Ali pumped his fist, congratulating himself on being successful at his first try. He could not wait to show off his achievement to Nai Nai. She would be so proud of his progress.
The sound of the door opening then closing signaled the one he was waiting for arrived. Ali got up and rushed over to his personal maid. He tugged at her hand, beckoning her to follow him.
"Nai Nai, there you are, just in time." He grinned at her, excited.
The Celestial maid took in his giddy expression and sparkling eyes and wondered what could have made him to be so ecstatic. A quick glance over at her once lady's still form dashed her forlorn hope. Yet, for the sake of the child, she allowed a smile on her lips.
"In time for what, my prince?"
Ali shook his head, his dimples never faded. "Just you wait, I'm going to show you something truly wonderful," he promised. Then he turned around and ran back to the table.
"Come and sit with me, Nai Nai." He patted a vacant spot next to him. His eyebrows drew close as he poured his concentration into recreating his earlier performance.
"Oh my!" Nai Nai exclaimed in delight. She stared at the floating bulbs of light surrounding her. They were unmistakably conjured by the child. "How? This is so incredible, since when did you learn how to do this?"
The obvious awe and admiration in her tone made Ali puff up his chest in pride. "Just now. I am telling you, this is only my second attempt," he cannot help but boast a little.
"Do you think Mother will like them?" He asked hopefully. "I wish to show them to her. When she is awake, that is."
"Of course, she will. They are really captivating." Nai Nai gushed. "And if you could fill the whole room with them; it will be almost like a scene from the fairy realms. She will definitely love it."
Ali perked up at that. He had never been to any other foreign realms except Qing Qiu, Underwater World and Mortal Realms.
"I guess I have to practice harder." He eyed the floating objects. The numbers of the bulbs he created were still far too sparse for his liking. He wanted them more, a lot more.
The young prince muttered the incantation again; more light bulbs appeared from the thin air. There were almost a hundred of them by now. He quickly repeated the process again and rush the summoning, the last barely ended when the new one started. Somehow in his haste, he mispronounced what should be well-practiced words. The result was disconcertingly spontaneous.
"Ahhhhhhh!" Nai Nai screamed, frightened when so many light bulbs burst simultaneously. An unlucky paper screen divider suddenly caught fire and so did the cloths that laid over the wooden shelves.
She rushed pass the young boy and frantically tried to put down the flame before it spread all over. She did not hear him shouting there was another small one on the other side of the room.
Ali stared helplessly when another inflammable item - a white paper lantern that usually floated during the Lantern Festival - also caught fire. Seriously, who hung a lantern inside a bedroom? He tried to tell Nai Nai about it to no avail. She was busy swatting the cloths to the floor to extinguish the fire.
His mouth turned grim. He had to do something before the burning lantern set off the nearby shelves filled with scrolls. He would bet all his fortunes that those belonged to High God Mo Yuan. Ali winced thinking of the punishment he would get once this incident reached his Father Prince's ears.
"I need a spell to counteract it," he said to himself.
The boy absent-mindedly failed to see nobody corrected his questionable solution. "A strong wind will blow over the fire, right? Just like the Cloud Clearing fan blew everything away."
"Yes, that will definitely work." Ali nodded his head fervently. He recited another summoning spell. Much to his relief, it worked! A whirlpool of wind formed in the midst of the room and blew everything out, including the fire.
"Yessss," the boy cheered. Operation divert disaster was a success. Ali was dancing circles around himself until a loud, delayed sound of crash destroyed his temporary disillusion. "Oops."
He gazed incomprehensibly upon the broken shards of the once elegant lamp. A broken lamp was way better than putting the whole room on fire, wasn't it?
Ali had no time to ponder further upon the subject when white fog began to fill the room. What now! Was that smoke? But… but the fire was all put out. He shrieked mentally.
The smoke, fog, or whatever it was, cleared and morphed into moving pictures. There were so many of them. Ali gasped at the woman who looked just like his mother. She looked a bit different from now. There was a red mole in the center of her forehead. Ali cannot remember ever seeing it on her face. Then his Father Prince also showed up. The scenes were sporadic, jumping from one to another. Ali had a hard time understanding any of them.
A moment later, Nai Nai returned to the room with High God Mo Yuan's Second and Sixteenth disciple in tow. They found the boy standing there in stupor, gazing forlornly at the devastated room.
Sixteenth mistook the boy's silence for him fretting over his mistakes and took a pity on him. "It will be alright. Comparing to the unimaginable havoc your mother had wrecked through her years as a disciple; this is nothing to have a fit over."
He placed his hand on the smaller shoulders and squeeze them lightly. "It's a good thing that Master is visiting High God Zhe Yan. He won't be back until tomorrow. We have time to put everything back into its place, tidy up the room and fix whatever burned."
"Or damaged." He added belatedly when he took in the non-salvageable room divider. At least that was what he believed. Alas, some damages cannot be undone.
"Sixteenth, I don't think it will be that easy." Chang Shan bent over the pile of broken glasses. He picked up a shard and lift it up for his junior to see. His bafflement and apprehensive looks was very telling of how serious the situation just became. Even before he uttered the dreadful words, Zi Lan knew.
"It's the Soul Lamp."
Zi Lan sucked in his breath. "Please tell me this won't affect her recovery."
"I don't know, Zi Lan. I hope so." His senior's voice wavered.
"Master said, we only need to put it near her and waited for a few weeks. It has been months already. So, it should be fine, right?" Zi Lan's demeanor betrayed his desperation.
Kunlun's Second disciple remained grim. "Even so, what if it's still needed?"
"Should we send for Master now?" Zi Lan asked.
"No, he will be on his way back here soon. We will just miss him if we leave now. And someone should be here to watch over her in the meantime."
Zi Lan sighed deeply. He certainly did not want to be the one carrying the message over to his mentor.
Ali's turned his head back and forth, looking between two of them, while they talk. He tried to wait patiently but the anxiety won over his ingrained politeness.
"Uncles, does this mean I am really in trouble now?" Ali asked both of them in his smallest voice.
:: Dream Sequence ::
Bai Qian flipped the page of her newest novel she was currently reading. She hummed softly, contented with her new found peace. Everything was quiet, no disputes for her to intervene or settle. Mi Gu did not come in and demand her to do more boring chores. Her fourth brother did not drop by and urge her to get out more often. The old phoenix must be keeping him occupied again. Her mentor was sleeping as quietly as he did for the past seventy hundred thousand years. No strangers had ventured into her land to search for him either. All was fine and splendid in her opinion.
Or maybe she was too hasty to say that.
An abrupt change in the air around her heralded something that was approaching fast. Bai Qian looked up and saw an ominous, volatile wisp of cloud encroaching. It was just a hairbreadth away from where she stood. Honed by her years of training, she got into a defensive position right away. In less than a blink of an eye, the cloud completely surround and trapped her in its unyielding hold. She tried to fight it off but failed miserably.
The Goddess racked her brain for a counter spell. Despite her numerous attempts, nothing paid off. Her spiritual power had absolutely no effect on the formless assailant. Her brute attack passed through it as if it was nothing. Bai Qian began to think it was an illusion, created to deceive her, to make her see things that weren't there. To prove her theory and save her energy for later, she stopped her futile struggling and observed it warily instead. No sooner than she stopped fighting; the wisp of cloud seeped through her mind and overpowered her consciousness.
Let's just said Bai Qian had experienced a lot of strange, hard to explain things through her seemingly long lifetime but this situation she found herself in was definitely ranked higher than most on the scale of weirdness.
The Goddess found herself becoming a voyeur of a stranger's life; a mortal woman by the looks of it. There should be nothing wrong with the watching part - other than she was coerced into it - unless one counted on how that mortal looked freakishly just like her.
The first time the scenes played out, Bai Qian thought it was an elaborate hoax someone put together to confuse her for one reason or another, she had not figured that part out yet. All hypotheses she came up with did not pan out convincingly. So she decided to treat it like watching one of her favorite plays.
It was actually quite enjoyable in the beginning, watching how her splitting-image struggled to make a living. Bai Qian snickered when the woman almost burned her own hut down when she tried to cook rice. But the smile was wiped away from the Goddess's face as soon as a watered-down version of Ye Hua stepped into the picture.
Why would someone make her human replica playhouse with the Celestial Prince? Who was perverse enough to concoct something like this? She hope it was not one of Ye Hua's ploys to get her to fall in love with him. Confused yet intrigued at how the story will continue to unfold, the Goddess sat back and watch them carry on with their domestic life.
Heaven forbid. She yelled non-stop at her look-alike counterpart for putting up with the treatment Ye Hua's copy gave her. Her throat was so sore afterwards. Bai Qian silently scratched Ye Hua's name off the list of unknown culprit. Her corrupted perception of him - well, his look alike - would stall whatever progress he wished to make with her. Hence, this setup should not be his doing.
The Goddess truly pitied this poor imitation of her. Really. Were it her, she would never take him back after the first time he left. The man left her alone for a year then came back abruptly one day and she simply allowed him back in her heart … and her bed? What was wrong with that woman's head? Was she so weak-minded she can not endure the loneliness? Bai Qian scoffed. Against her outgoing nature and the needs to venture out; Bai Qian had entirely shut herself in Qing Qiu for seventy thousand of years for the sake of her mentor. Not quite alone but with much less contacts than her former-self would have liked. She persevered just fine.
Bai Qian rolled her eyes in exasperation. It was getting better and better after her look-alike got herself with child. She figured the Prince's copy cannot wait to leave her be, he hightailed on her soon after she became pregnant. The family she married into turned out to be one to those bad soap opera types. A dysfunctional family which consisted of the in-laws who barely tolerate her presence, a jealous and scheming second wife, a tyrant head of family and an absentee husband.
Bai Qian was glad she never married. Just witnessing selfish, narcissistic and self-centered man like Ye Hua's copy was enough to made her skin crawl. He reminded her of Li Jing. Amorous, attractive, silvered-tongue but never loyal, faithful or sincere. They were the epitome of reasons why remaining a single was the better and wise decision.
The Goddess despaired as the events progressed; the woman uselessly clung to the hope that her husband still loved and wanted her. Was the mortal too blind to see that he had another woman clinging to him like a leech? The shameless woman flaunted her superiority in their presence with every chance she got. His family did not even bother to hide how they favored the other woman over her poor self.
She was right, her doppelganger was really blind. Literally, now. The Queen of Qing Qiu sighed with regret; she had foreseen that coming up a long way back. Why can't the poor woman see it? Her so-called husband had all but abandoned her to her own fate since the beginning.
Her inevitable end saddened the Goddess. In her meager human years, the woman suffered so much hardship and humiliation. Despite her failures to move on from her loveless husband, Bai Qian had found a semblance of respect for her. For such a frail creature, she was quite resilient and put up quite a fight against her abusers. Bai Qian had to give it to her determination to pull through all that were hurdled against her.
By the tenth time the scenes played out, Bai Qian began to notice many things she failed to discern earlier. A disconcerting feeling swelled in her chest. What if this was not a hoax but a reality of the past?
By the twentieth time the scenes played out, Bai Qian was convinced that it was not a play. She had been subjected to watching the past of her estranged fiance. The poor mortal woman was indeed Ali's birth mother and Ye Hua's deceased wife. But why show all this to her, at all?
By the thirtieth time the scenes played out, Bai Qian began to questioning a lot of things. She knew there was a hole in her memories; those six hundred years she slept like the dead after sealing Qing Cang back into the Bell of Eastern Emperor. She certainly did not feel like she had been apathetic for that long. But everyone in her family insisted that was what happened. At the time, she simply took it at face value and never questioned it further. Her family would not mislead her, wouldn't they?
But if she was really hibernating as they said, how did the Jade Purity Fan of Kunlun fell into the hands of her look-alike? That fan only ever recognized her as its rightful owner. Save for her mentor, no one else can summon its power. Apparently, the mortal can. The fan rose to protect her from harm. How and why remained a mystery to her.
There was also the matter of her eyes that she found peculiar. Her fourth brother reasoned that it was a hidden illness showing itself because she was suffering from Qing Cang's attack and losing great amount of her cultivation. Then why the sickness never showed up when she was dying from the loss of heartblood back then? Her condition was way worse then. Unless that was also another lie.
If her eyes were indeed lost or in this case gouged out, Zhe Yan's uncomparable healing skills aside, the loss would still be evident. Unless her eyes' anomaly was explained by a very convincing explanation, then she would be none the wiser of the truth behind it. A sinking feeling weighed in the Goddess's bosom. And that was what happened, wasn't it?
By the fortieth time the scenes played out, Bai Qian reluctantly admitted the possibility that her look-alike might actually be her. It certainly explained the abnormalities and loopholes in her life. From that moment on, it was not watching someone else's life anymore. Not when that person's sufferings unknowingly became hers. Like an asunder pathway had been reconnected; a flood gate of memories of a forgotten lifetime opened once more. Joy, love, sadness, longing, disappointment, pain of betrayal; everything came back and hit her with its full force.
Her slender shoulders shook violently with sheer weight of the sudden onslaught. Tears brimmed then fell unbidden from her unseeing eyes. She had no desire for this so-called revelation, this unwanted truth. She did not want to remember being led on and fooled by love; a conceit love that was both meaningless and undeserving.
By the fiftieth time the scenes played out, Bai Qian was more than ready to storm the Ninth Heaven and demand her retribution. Never in her life, the Goddess was this furious; not even when Li Jing made a fool out of her. She wanted to crush the Sky Lord and trash that deceitful bitch of Consort. The consequences can be damned. She was confident the family would support her if it came down to that. She would make sure that lying, two-timing ex-husband of hers would pay for betraying her trust and her love. No, she corrected herself immediately. That was the mortal's husband, not hers. On the other hand, the boy that was her son, she would keep him. He was adorable and Bai Qian had always liked him.
By the hundredth time the scenes played out, Bai Qian had nothing left to say, or feel. The melancholy that filled her entire being, diminished. Her tears had long dried out. The burning need for her justice and slanted honor that boiled her blood cooled down. She was strangely … numb and apathetic.
The Goddess simply wished for the scenes to end.. She did not know how much longer she could endure this mind torturing with her sanity intact. She refused to be treated and subjected to her fate like that mortal. Bai Qian picked herself up again; a look of fierce determination in her eyes. She would break off this enchantment. It had to stop. Right here, right now.
:: End of Dream Sequence ::
Unknown to the sleeping dwellers of Kunlun Mountains, the air and the stillness that surrounded their beloved Seventeenth's form was disturbed. Dainty fingers began to move, sluggishly at first. Her small, lithe frame grew increasingly restless, rigid and taunted. An arm lift up and swat weakly at the air as if fighting off an invisible offender. The body then lurched forward and jolted abruptly into harsh wakefulness. Heavy breathing was the only sound permeated the quiet night air.
The Goddess's dilated pupil refocused and sharpened. Somehow, she was back in Mo Yuan's room. The recent events from her brush with death furiously rushed back to her. She winced once remembered how both Mo Yuan and Ye Hua had come to her rescue. She did not expect to survive the experience but she did. Out of instinct, Bai Qian probed her surrounding for Mo Yuan's energy. It came as a second nature to her now whenever they were apart. The need to reassure that he was nearby flabbergasted her at first; she got used to it eventually. Upon her search; she only found traces of his lingering aura resonated from the meditation cave. That meant he had left the perimeter only recently. She wondered where he went. It was unlike him to leave her side when she was incapacitated. How long had it been? Days? Weeks?
Bai Qian buried her face into her hands; she was both regretful and relieved at the same time for his absence. She would love to be able to bask in his soothing presence and lean on his quiet confidence. And yet she was not ready to confront him now; not after her almost suicide attempt when she tried to deal with the Bell of Eastern Emperor on her own. He was going to give her a lecture of a lifetime on how irresponsible and reckless she had behaved. She was quite certain of it.
More importantly, she did not know how to act around him; not after the dream. Bai Qian wanted to believe that it was a mere figment of her wild imagination; a nightmare at best. But she knew better, in her heart, it was true and real. The Goddess truly do not know what to think of it, or how to handle it.
The last time she pulled through death, the excruciating pain from being exterminated by the energy of Zhu Xian Terrace, the resurrection as an immortal being and the abrupt return of thousand millennial worth of memories on top of Su Su's powerful emotions had overwhelmed her. The just-ascended Bai Qian was in pain, physically and mentally too worn-out to sort out the mixed-up feelings between her and her previous incarnation. She merely wanted them all gone and picked the easiest way available to her, namely Zhe Yan's Amnesia Potion. Had she put any serious thoughts into her problem-solving plan, she would have realized it was undeniably a poorly thought-out solution. But who cared at that point?
But now? Everything became much more complicated and insanely entangled. Ye Hua turned out to be Mo Yuan's younger brother. And she and Mo Yuan became husband and wife in all, barring the official ceremony. What was she going to do about her recollection of past life? Should she follow her initial desire to seek out her justice and retribution? Would the cold truth shake the foundation of life she and Mo Yuan had created for themselves. Or perhaps she could carry on with their life as if nothing had changed. Would she really want to hide their past from Mo Yuan? Ironically, she knew she could not.
Bai Qian could feel the headache developing behind her eyelids; her temples throbbed dully. She was too confounded to think rationally. She was desperate for a drink. Surely, she had time to ponder how to deal with her new found revelation … and jumbled feelings. It was not like anyone else knew of her true past. Well, except from Ye Hua. The Goddess derailed when her thoughts fell upon the man that led her down this memory lane and made her life far more than a disturbing complication.
As such, upon the very moment she was thrust back into the world of living, Bai Qian did what she did best when faced with problems she had no desire to deal with. She emptied Kunlun's wine cellar, fled to her solitude and got herself stupidly drunk.
Note : A hundred thanks to my editor 'Noitratoxin' and 'loreinacadis0412' for reviewing this chapter for us and for giving lots of food for thought; it's very fruitful. To all of readers, I give you my very belated Happy New Year. May this year be another year filled with love & happiness for every one of you.