Chapter 24

Di Xiang stared blankly at Zhuang Yi, as if she had not clearly heard what Zhuang Yi had just said.

“My lord?” Zhuang Yi reached out and waved her hand in front of Di Xiang’s eyes.

Di Xiang came back to herself and looked in the direction Zhuang Yi had pointed earlier. “So that place is Moon City?”

“You really never pay attention to these things.” Zhuang Yi leaned against the city wall. The evening wind scattered the hair by her temples, and the smile on her face could not be hidden no matter what. “That is the first city you built, and also… the place where we first met.”

Zhuang Yi laughed softly. “Thinking back on it now, it feels like a dream. You actually agreed to stay. No matter when I think of it, I feel incomparably fortunate.”

Di Xiang gave a light snort. “You were the one who grabbed my sleeve and refused to let me leave.”

Heh, dead tsundere. Xu Yizhuo rolled her eyes.

“Mm.” Zhuang Yi smiled brightly, praise slipping naturally from her lips. “That was because my lord is kindhearted.”

Di Xiang looked very pleased by this. Judging from her current personality, Xu Yizhuo guessed that Di Xiang was probably sincerely agreeing with Zhuang Yi’s praise.

Zhuang Yi was glad that Di Xiang had stayed, and Xu Yizhuo was also very surprised. Di Xiang might not be a hardhearted person, but Xu Yizhuo knew she was a powerful cultivator, and her age was unknown, likely far beyond that of ordinary mortals. In a cultivator’s long life, who knew how many people and events they would experience? Di Xiang had seen every kind of human life, countless pitiful people, and countless regrets. So why had she stayed here?

She had established Guque here, and in the end, she had also slept here forever.

Di Xiang leaned against the city wall and asked softly, “You stolen contentsaid ten years have already passed?”

“Yes.” Zhuang Yi nodded. “Ten years and three months.”

Di Xiang lowered her eyelashes. “Time passes so easily. I hardly noticed at all.”

To her, ten years might only be the length of a single closed-door cultivation session. In the end, it was nothing more than the blink of an eye. But that was before. Now, every day that passed meant one fewer day remaining to her.

She had stayed here, yet her soul seemed to still be drifting in the past.

While Di Xiang had noticed nothing, time had hurriedly flowed away just like that.

Di Xiang looked at Zhuang Yi and discovered that the girl who had once clutched her sleeve and refused to let go had already grown up. Ten years was enough for a mortal to change into another appearance. At some unknown point, Zhuang Yi had already become taller than her and grown into a graceful woman. Every frown and smile made Di Xiang think of the lotus flowers that could be seen everywhere in Guque, elegant and gentle beyond words.

Only a faint shadow remained of the girl who had once been so disheveled in the wind and sand.

Ten years. Amid the tugging between the present and the past, she had muddled through ten years just like that.

Di Xiang saw the faint weariness between Zhuang Yi’s brows and pressed a finger against her forehead. Under Zhuang Yi’s stunned gaze, she said lightly, “How long has it been since you rested?”

Zhuang Yi froze for a moment, then smiled as if it did not matter. “Lotus City has only just been completed, and there are many affairs in the city. Once this busy period passes, I’ll be able to rest properly.”

She added, “I’m not that tired either.”

“You say this is my country, but the five cities were clearly [unauthorized copy]built under your leadership…” Di Xiang’s voice was very low, as if the evening wind could scatter it away.

“Hm?” Zhuang Yi had not heard the whole sentence.

Di Xiang turned her face away. “Nothing.”

Zhuang Yi pressed her lips together and smiled. She squeezed Di Xiang’s hand and said, “Without you, my lord, there would be no Guque. It was you who stopped the frequent sandstorms, allowed the desert people to no longer be harmed by wind and sand, no longer worry that their homes would be destroyed overnight, and no longer fear a tomorrow of wandering and displacement.”

Zhuang Yi said softly, “At most, I could bring my people a place to settle, but only you, my lord, could bring us lotuses.”

Xu Yizhuo simply wanted to applaud Zhuang Yi.

Di Xiang lowered her head, her expression unclear. Xu Yizhuo did not know whether she had also been moved. After waiting quietly for a long time just like Zhuang Yi, Di Xiang raised her head.

If Di Xiang’s eyes before had been like a dried-up ancient well, then now, living water had surged up inside that well. In Di Xiang’s eyes was a radiance Zhuang Yi had never seen before. Di Xiang held her hand and said each word solemnly, “This is not only my Guque. From now on, it will be your Guque.”

Her tone was indescribably solemn, but Zhuang Yi at that time had not understood the deeper meaning in those words.

Until another ten years passed.

“It’s snowing.” Xu Yizhuo raised her hand and caught a falling snowflake. The snow quickly melted in her palm, leaving only a chill behind.

By the second scene change, Xu Yizhuo had already gotten used to it. This time, she did not appear in midair. Instead, she was on a bridge.

She was still in the Yangshu Desert, yet snow was falling from the sky. An unusual celestial ​unauthorized copy​phenomenon like this made Xu Yizhuo feel uneasy.

Snowflakes fell silently, melting into the lake when they landed in the water, and merging with the white lotus petals when they fell onto them.

All was silent.

Hurried footsteps broke the quiet.

Xu Yizhuo turned around and saw Zhuang Yi, who had aged much more, hastily climb onto the bridge. She looked almost forty now. Fine lines that powder could not hide could be seen at the corners of her eyes. She was already a dignified middle-aged woman.

Yet for an instant, Xu Yizhuo thought she saw the Zhuang Yi of the past.

Too similar. Zhuang Yi’s current panic looked exactly like the young Zhuang Yi Xu Yizhuo had seen that night after learning that her little sister had gone missing.

Xu Yizhuo had a guess in her heart.

She followed behind Zhuang Yi and ran into the royal palace. The palace interior had a complicated maze of paths. Following Zhuang Yi, Xu Yizhuo passed through countless corridors and arrived at a bedchamber.

The bedchamber was empty and spacious. Only white gauze hung from the palace ceiling more than ten meters high, layer upon layer like lotus petals wrapping around the flower’s heart. Deep within the white gauze was a large bed. Di Xiang sat at the edge of the bed. After Zhuang Yi lifted the final layer of white gauze and came before her, Di Xiang raised her head and smiled at her.

Xu Yizhuo frowned. Di Xiang’s current state did not look very good. Although her expression was relaxed, her face was so pale that almost no trace of blood could be found, only her lips still carrying a faint red.

Zhuang Yi had run all the way here, but the moment she saw Di Xiang, she stopped.

Di Xiang called her name with a smile. Zhuang Yi walked to Di Xiang’s side, then suddenly knelt down and lay against her knees.

Xu Yizhuo heard low sobbing.

A trace of pity rose in her heart. At this moment, Zhuang Yi looked so sorrowful that it seemed she was about to die.

Di Xiang’s expression was incomparably calm. She gently combed through Zhuang Yi’s disheveled hair with her hand and said, “All people die.”

Zhuang Yi choked out, “Aren’t you an immortal…”

“Putting aside whether anyone knows if the immortals of the Upper Realm truly have endless lifespans, as for me, I have not ascended yet.” Di Xiang said.

Zhuang Yi shook her head and raised her face to look at her. “I don’t understand those things.”

She looked at Di Xiang with red, swollen eyes full of pleading, as if begging her not to die.

Di Xiang was silent for a while, then suddenly said, “I knew long ago that this day would come. Long before I met you, I already knew I would die within a few decades.”

“I had no attachments, and I did not know where I should go. I only walked east numbly. I crossed the Lidan River and passed through Dayan. I originally thought I would walk to the end of this continent and die alone in some deserted place. But I never expected that after drifting for half my life, there would actually be a place that accepted me.”

Di Xiang gently stroked Zhuang Yi’s long hair. “It was not that I stayed behind. It was all of you who accepted me.”

Zhuang Yi clutched her hand and said stubbornly, “How can I save you? As long as you live, I can do anything!”

“It’s useless.” Di Xiang said softly, “My life reached its end long unauthorized copyago. This is karma I cannot defy. Relying on my cultivation, I have already lived several decades longer. Now, it truly has to end.”

Zhuang Yi’s heart hurt as if twisted by a knife. To her, Di Xiang had long since become more than merely the immortal who saved her. She was an inseparable existence who had accompanied her for most of her life.

Di Xiang was willful, indifferent to everything. Zhuang Yi knew that whenever she looked at Di Xiang, her gaze would unconsciously carry tolerance. But she had never imagined that one day, Di Xiang would look at her with such a gentle and tolerant gaze too.

Zhuang Yi held her hand tightly, afraid that the moment she let go, Di Xiang would disappear before her eyes.

Di Xiang said helplessly, “It hurts a little.”

Zhuang Yi hurriedly let go.

“Zhuang Yi, sit here.” Di Xiang patted the bed beside her.

Zhuang Yi obediently sat down, but her frightened, uneasy gaze still did not leave Di Xiang for even a moment.

Di Xiang cut open her own index finger, moving so quickly that Zhuang Yi did not react at all. Blood quickly seeped from the wound. Di Xiang’s fingertip touched Zhuang Yi’s forehead, and she said softly, “Don’t move.”

Zhuang Yi immediately did not dare move at all.

Stroke by stroke, Di Xiang seriously drew a rune on Zhuang Yi’s forehead. With her mastery of runes, she could have completed it in one breath, but Di Xiang had never drawn so carefully before. There was not a trace of contempt, not the slightest carelessness.

Once the rune was completed, it briefly gave off a golden glimmer. The light vanished in the blink of an eye, and the rune disappeared right after it. Di Xiang’s blood seemed to seep into Zhuang Yi’s body.

“I will leave the black lotus in Guque, and I will give my blood to you.” Di Xiang looked intently into Zhuang Yi’s eyes. “From now on, the black lotus will only be used by you and your descendants. As long as your bloodline remains in Guque for a single day, Guque will not be disturbed by wind and sand.”

Di Xiang said softly, “This is your Guque.”

She had said long ago that this place would become Zhuang Yi’s Guque.

After drawing that rune, Di Xiang could no longer hide the exhaustion on her face. It was as if she had used up most of her strength all at once. Even sitting felt tiring. She slowly leaned against Zhuang Yi.

“Back then, you grabbed my sleeve, and somehow, I stayed.” Di Xiang murmured, “So in the end, there was a place where my footsteps would stop.”

Zhuang Yi did not know Di Xiang’s past. She only knew that her tears were flowing uncontrollably.

“This place had always been waiting for you to arrive.”

Xu Yizhuo felt a burst of dizziness.

Was the scene changing again? Where had she ended up this time?

Just as Xu Yizhuo thought this, she heard someone say impatiently by her ear, “Hey. Hey.”

Xu Yizhuo opened her eyes. Her vision gradually recovered, and Di Xiang’s face appeared in her field of view.

“You’re not dead?” Xu Yizhuo blurted out.

Di Xiang’s expression stiffened for a moment.

“Uh…” Xu Yizhuo’s throat was suddenly grabbed.

The translucent Di Xiang was fiercely strangling her throat, yet her face still held a gentle smile. “What did you see?”

Author’s Note: Thinking of tomorrow’s class schedule makes everything go black before my eyes.

I’ll hurry and finish the first update first.