Huai Falls for an Old Friend - Chapter 9

“Ah-Jing, are you truly going to marry him?”

“Yes. I am. I’m marrying him.”

Even if Yun Chen was not tired of asking, I was tired of hearing it. He returned every few days with the same question.

By now, he knew everything that had happened in the mortal realm. After offering a sincere apology, he had looked at me hopefully and asked whether we still had a chance.

Yun Chen claimed we had already married once.

I told him a wedding without parents, family, or friends had been nothing but a farce—a farce staged to help him pass his mortal trial.

“Yun Jing, don’t force me.”

I looked him straight in the eye. What could I force him to do? And what could he do to me?

He was merely stalling.

“Your Majesty, the God of War obeys military dispatches, not summons to court. Do not forget that.”

As long as Yun Chen did not want to turn openly hostile, he could not stop this wedding.

“Your Majesty should conduct yourself with dignity.”

Xie Huai stepped in front of me and bore the weight of Yun Chen’s oppressive aura.

Enunciating every word, Yun Chen said, “Yun Jing, our marriage was ordained by the Heavenly Dao.”

Why else did you think I followed you for so long in my past life?

That bond had trapped me.

“It’s gone now. Can’t you feel it?”

I rolled my eyes inwardly. “You knew about it all along, didn’t you?”

Yun Chen’s gaze slid away.

He had not treated me badly in our past life, but he had made it clear in countless ways that he felt no romantic love for me.

Sometimes he disliked my clothes and ornaments. Sometimes he complained that Mount Xinyi was full of men. Sometimes he asked why I could not imitate other immortal maidens.

I had thought the red thread burdened him, too. So I spent years searching for a way to untie it.

Looking back, he had probably believed I was destined to be his forever—and therefore felt free to act however he pleased.

“I…”

I cut off his defense.

“You simply thought I could never leave you, didn’t you?”

“No.”

Yun Chen’s temper flared.

“What ordained marriage? You have never truly seen me. You say all beings are equal. In your heart, I am no different from any ordinary mortal.”

“But aside from you, I never considered marrying anyone else.”

When I first learned Yun Chen and I were destined for each other, I had hesitated only briefly. I did not yet understand love and thought that if a bond existed, we might as well marry.

It would not interfere with my duty to protect the world.

Xie Huai caught my wrist and shook it, reminding me of his presence.

I patted the back of his hand reassuringly.

I hadn’t met you yet, little dragon.

Yun Chen’s voice lost some of its confidence. “I had no memories during my mortal trial.”

“But you never investigated whether your martial uncle’s claim about slaying your wife to prove the Dao was complete nonsense,” Xie Huai said.

Yun Chen and I both turned toward him.

Xie Huai came to stand beside me. “Surely Your Majesty knew? You were outstanding even in the mortal realm. Your sect prepared several possible routes for your ascension. This one merely happened to succeed.”

Judging by Yun Chen’s face, he truly had not known.

“So Your Majesty never verified any of it. You simply used our Qingqing to prove your Dao?”

That day, Yun Chen fled Mount Xinyi in disgrace.

And Xie Huai and I were finally going to marry.

On the auspicious day Xie Huai had selected with painstaking care, he grinned like a fool as he carried me home to the Southern Sea beneath the murderous stares of Mount Xinyi’s soldiers.

Inside the palace he had decorated so carefully, he murmured, “Qingqing, I’m so happy.”

The guests had plied him with wine until he was dizzy. He nuzzled and sniffed at my hair.

At last, the enormous shell bed closed around us.

Darkness fell.

Only the night pearl overhead cast a faint glow.

…

The higher one’s cultivation, the harder it was to conceive.

That rule did not appear to apply to dragons.

When Xie Huai learned that I was pregnant, he turned into a stunned goose—especially after sensing two distinct currents of spiritual power in my womb.

He was unbearably pleased with himself. He was convinced we would have a fox daughter and a black dragon son.

“Daddy’s precious babies, behave inside your mother. If you get bored, little fox girl, you can use the dragon egg beside you as a ball. Be gentle, though. Don’t hurt your mother.”

Every day, he stroked my belly and repeated some version of this speech.

I laughed at him. “What if it’s a fox son using your daughter as a ball?”

Xie Huai choked. “No matter what, that rotten boy is not allowed to bully my daughter.”

The magnolias bloomed across Mount Xinyi, covering every slope.

Xie Huai gently painted my brows, his eyes brimming with love.

“Qingqing, I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

Xie Huai, a god may love all living beings, but you alone hold my heart.