Li Susu opened her eyes. The sound of birds chirping happily was the first thing she heard. Groggily, she rose from the bed and looked at her surroundings.
What she saw confused her. She blinked twice.
The doors slid open. "Third Miss! You're awake!" A cheerful voice snapped Li Susu out of her thoughts, which scrambled even more as she saw who it was that spoke.
Chuntao held a basin full of water in her hands, with a towel draped on one arm. "Finally!" she said, carefully closing the door while balancing the basin on her hands. "General Ye and Madam have been waiting for you to wake so they could eat with you, so we'd better clean you up first before going out for breakfast."
Li Susu went through the motions of cleaning and dressing up while her thoughts were still in disarray. "Chuntao?" she finally said.
"Yes Third Miss?" Chuntao replied as she pinned up Li Susu's hair.
"Why are you here?" Li Susu hesitantly said, as a vague feeling about her presence here being all wrong silently crept up her mind.
"I'm here to help you prepare for breakfast, Third Miss," Chuntao replied. Before Li Susu could say anything else, Chuntao pinned the last hairpin on her head and beckoned her to look at the mirror. "Did I do a good job, Third Miss?"
Li Susu finally raised her eyes to the mirror.
Ye Xiwu's face looked out at her.
What kind of trick is this?
Seeing Li Susu's shocked expression, Chuntao misunderstood and knelt down beside her, bowing repeatedly so much that her forehead hit the floor. "I'm sorry, Third Miss! I'll do better!"
Li Susu quickly raised Chuntao from the ground. "It's okay, Chuntao, you did well," she said reassuringly, giving the servant more soothing assurances to make her at ease. Chuntao accepted the reassurances gratefully. As a recovered Chuntao draped a winter cloak around her shoulders, Li Susu looked in the mirror once again.
The Demon God looked towards Li Susu as they stood on the dragon float soaring in the skies.
"Now that we're here, let me show you something."
Li Susu gasped at the projection the Devil God showed. "The Ye Mansion…"
"That's right," the Devil God concurred. "It's been 500 years, and this mansion has ceased to exist since long ago. You can take it as my Bo're Life dream. A place that doesn't exist, that stands against the flow of time."
Li Susu looked up at the Devil God suddenly. In the dim light of the projection, she seemed to see a little bit of humanity in his eyes, a glimmer of… sentiment? "Tantai Jin," she said haltingly, both wanting to see more of that sentiment, and at the same time fearing that one word from her will chase away that sentiment from his eyes, "if you truly don't hold anything dear anymore, then why—"
"I just think it's interesting," the Devil God quickly said, his tone harsher than before, the look in his eyes completely turning cold. "If others become you and me in this Bo're Life dream, how would they feel?"
Li Susu turned towards the projection, finally conceding and lamenting the fact that the humanity she thought she saw in the Devil God was only in her imagination. "For Ye Xiwu and Tantai Jin 500 years ago," she said, looking at the servants in the Ye Mansion going about their chores, then sadly realizing that these people have been gone a long time ago, "the Devil God and Li Susu have become the others you speak of."
"Is that right," the Devil God said thoughtfully. He turned to her and extended his hand to her. "Shall we see?"
Ye Xiwu's face in the mirror contorted in pain, reflecting Li Susu's inner turmoil. This is the Devil God's Bo're Life dream, she realized as she let Chuntao lead her towards the breakfast hall.
This is a cruel dream, Devil God.
"Sister, sister!" Li Susu turned to her right, and felt a stab of pain in her heart as she saw her elder brother Ye Zeyu, a bow and a quiver of arrows slung on his shoulder and a sneaky look on his face.
"Brother…" Li Susu couldn't help but be teary at the sight of him.
Ye Zeyu put a conspiratorial finger against his lips. "Don't tell Father I'm skipping class," he said, taking her hand and holding it tightly. "Luo and Chu from the other mansion are going rabbit hunting in the mountains today, and I'm going with them. Rabbit fur is the softest this season, and I'll make sure to get some to make gloves for you and grandma." His eyes lit up with excitement. "So if Father asks, just tell him I've gone to school, okay?" He kissed her fingers. "I owe you one, dear sister!" He let go of her and tiptoed away, stopping to give a last wave at her.
Chuntao shook her head in disapproval. "Sir Ye will get angry at him when he learns about that," she said, and slightly pulled at Li Susu's sleeve to lead her forward.
They reached the courtyard, where another stab of pain struck her heart. Ye Qingyu and her father were sparring together, spears clashing loudly against each other. A loud grunt finally ended the clashing as her father hit Ye Qingyu in the stomach.
"Are you all right, General Ye?" her father patted Ye Qingyu on the shoulder.
"That was a great move, father," Ye Qingyu said, recovering from the hit.
The older Ye puffed up his chest at the praise. "Of course," he said. "You young ones have much to learn still, no matter how high up in rank you are." He turned and saw Li Susu. "Buttercup!" he exclaimed, throwing the spear at Ye Qingyu, who deftly caught it and called a servant to take them away. "It's so good you're here," he said. "Your grandmother won't eat unless you're here, you know. Do you even know how many times we've reheated the dishes? Nobody's words work on her, only yours."
Li Susu smiled at her father with tears in her eyes. "Father… Brother…" she said, haltingly, turning from one beloved face to another.
"Grandma is just inside, let me just—" Ye Qingyu started, but they all turned towards the warm caring voice of Grandmother Ye coming to meet them at the hall.
"Buttercup," Grandmother Ye walked towards Li Susu, whose heart burst out in undisguised pain and gladness. "What's wrong?" she said solicitously as she immediately embraced Li Susu and wiped her tears away. "Who's made my Buttercup cry this early in the morning?"
"Did you do anything, son-in-law?" Li Susu heard her father say, and through her tears, she turned in time to see Tantai Jin walk towards them.
Tantai Jin, the mortal, the one who doesn't have an evil bone and is not the devil fetus. Li Susu's heart twisted in pain.
"Please forgive me, father," Tantai Jin said, chuckling. "I'm sure Ye Xiwu had simply missed her grandmother so much."
Grandmother Ye smiled at Tantai Jin. "You've kept her away from me so long, I've missed my Buttercup too." She patted Tantai Jin's arm fondly. "But really, grandson-in-law, you shouldn't let Xiwu have her own way too much. Because of her urging, you two have always been out exploring the kingdom, leaving no time for her poor grandmother to see her."
Tantai Jin smiled. "I shall keep that in mind, Grandmother," he said, looking at Li Susu warmly. "I'll definitely take care of Ye Xiwu."
"You'd better," General Ye said, flexing his arm muscles. Ye Qingyu was similarly imposing. "You know what happens if you don't—" He barely avoided Grandmother Ye's admonishing slap.
"You're always bullying grandson-in-law here," Grandmother said.
"I'm just teasing," General Ye said, abandoning the dignity of being the most respected General in the Sheng Kingdom under the stern glance of his mother.
"Come on," Grandmother said. "Let's all come in and have breakfast together. You're growing skinny too, grandson-in-law, and I'm sure our Xiwu has something to do with that."
The Ye family all walked over to the dining hall, where even the concubines were waiting in the dining table. Ye Xiwu and Tantai Jin sat side by side, smiling and chatting happily with each other, and all the members of the Ye family. It was a cheerful sight.
"Tantai Jin. This is a cruel joke." Li Susu, now separate from the dream's Ye Xiwu, turned to Tantai Jin, dressed similarly as the dream one, in the green robes that Ye Xiwu had first bought for him. "What exactly are you up to?" she said, gritting her teeth against the tears that heated her eyes.
The Devil God Tantai Jin looked impassively at the scene inside the dining hall. "In this Ye Mansion, there is no evil bone, nor is there a Devil God." He turned to her. "Here, I'm just your husband. How do you like it?"
Li Susu followed his gaze at the dining hall. Ye Xiwu took a slice of beef from a plate and placed it on Tantai Jin's bowl of rice, then looked at him with smiling eyes as he ate it gratefully.
This is a cruel joke.
Li Susu turned to Tantai Jin beside her. "This is the Bo're Life dream in your mind?" she sneered, trying to inflict on him the same pain that she was suffering. "As the Devil God, why would you like this mundane mortal life?"
Tantai Jin's eyes turned hard and cold. "You are not me," he said harshly. "How do you know what kind of life the Devil God likes?" He took a last glance at the happy family dining inside the hall, and waved his hand.
The scene changed. It became nighttime, but the night sky was lit up with dazzling fireworks amidst the snow that fell all around them.
Li Susu's throat tightened at the sight.
"Are you always this happy during New Year's Eve?" Tantai Jin asked her, a curious note in his tone.
"This year is a bit different," Ye Xiwu admitted. "But I'm still happy." She smiled widely at him. "Don't worry, with me by your side, nobody's going to bully you again. We can be happy every New Year's Eve like this."
The poorly made firecrackers lit up on the stone in the courtyard.
This is a cruel joke, Tantai Jin.
"Unlike the Sketch charm you have so condescendingly taught me," Tantai Jin's voice broke into the anguish that Li Susu found herself in, "I can now easily conjure up such scenery with a wave of my fingers." In demonstration, he waved his hand, and the images in the sky changed according to his will.
Li Susu's eyes, on the other hand, looked down at firecrackers on the stone. True to form, it was burning down. "I made a wish on these firecrackers that New Year's Eve," she said, kneeling down to watch the firecrackers' light die down. "I wished that you weren't the Devil God, that you didn't have the evil bone that I had to destroy," she said. She hugged her knees close to her chest. "I didn't want to regret my feelings… I didn't want to regret wasting that Sketch charm." She looked up at the fireworks in the sky. "I actually thought a stone-like person like you could grow a heart." Her tone broke. "I was naïve."
She heard the crunch of snow under Tantai Jin's boots coming near her. "There is no need to waste your emotions over a Sketch charm, Goddess Yuling," she heard Tantai Jin say. "Speaking of naivety, it was clearly me who was being fooled. In teaching me the Sketch charm, you knew clearly, didn't you?"
A tear fell down Li Susu's face.
"You knew that I would never be able to draw it, no matter what I did," Tantai Jin's cold voice made the regret in her heart stab deeper.
While pretending to be asleep, Ye Xiwu opened an eye to look at Tantai Jin's earnest face as he wrote the charm on the talisman, occasionally looking at Ye Xiwu's original charm to see if he got the strokes right.
She bit her lips. I'm sorry, Little Devil God, she thought.
"You would only be able to activate the charm if you were free of evil intentions," Li Susu agreed quietly. "I knew this would be difficult for you, but I wished…"
Regrets bubbling up the surface of her thoughts choked her, stopping her from continuing further, but as she looked at the images in the sky, she couldn't help but whisper her regrets now, "…I wished that you'd be able to make it."
The fireworks overhead illuminated the faces of the two people in the courtyard, with two different emotions playing on their faces. The bursting of the fireworks were the only sound that broke the silence between them, until Li Susu stood up and faced Tantai Jin.
"When the wedding is over," Li Susu said, fighting to keep her tone level, from all the turmoil in her mind and heart, "…will you kill me?"
The question hung heavily in the air. Tantai Jin had his face hidden away from her, but she let him.
Will you really kill me now, Tantai Jin? And end this entanglement between us?
As if answering her thoughts, Tantai Jin turned to her with cold eyes and a sneer on his lips. "If it suits my mood," he said sardonically.
"Is there really no turning back anymore?" Li Susu asked, fighting against the tears that sprung up her eyes.
Will you never come back to me again, Tantai Jin?
The light in Tantai Jin's eyes turned even colder. "I've already come this far," he said, no longer hiding the anger in his tone. "How am I supposed to go back?"
Li Susu didn't realize she had been holding her breath.
Are you Tantai Jin… or the Devil God?
Once, I asked that of you, and you chose to be Tantai Jin, over and over again.
My Tantai Jin.
"Then, there's only one thing left to do," Li Susu said.
Now, I give you my answer.
Tantai Jin stared hard at her.
"Tonight, I shall bid you farewell."
Tantai Jin's eyes widened, and his lips opened slightly as he immediately understood what Li Susu planned to do.
She crossed the distance between them in a few steps, and pressed her lips to his in a kiss.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx