The High God Insists on Marrying Me - Chapter 6

“Apologizing won’t help. Tell me how you intend to make amends.”

Lanjian’s voice interrupted my reminiscence.

I looked at him, suddenly recalling my plan to marry off all the elders.

Tentatively, I asked, “How about I give you our Grand Elder as compensation?”

Lanjian stared.

I immediately produced the moving speech I’d prepared all those years ago. “Admittedly, since he was wounded in the war, his health hasn’t been good. He’s a little weak…”

Lanjian cut me off. “Who’s weak—no, if he’s weak, what would I want with someone so useless?”

Furious now, he gave me three choices.

One: marry him. Two: enter a marriage alliance with him. Three: marry into Vermilion Bird Palace.

He said he wasn’t letting anyone sleep with him for nothing. If I’d done it, I had to take responsibility. As for feelings, we could marry first and fall in love later, developing them slowly. Or not develop any at all. He’d lived long enough to take things as they came.

Only his reputation was nonnegotiable.

He didn’t want the divine chronicles to devote an entire page to his romantic scandals after his passing. Youngsters already had enough history to memorize. He couldn’t burden them with another page.

How thoughtful of him.

“Is there any fundamental difference between those three options?” I asked.

His mouth twitched. “More choices make me look open-minded.”

I said nothing.

Like hell. He was trying to force me into a romance and calling himself open-minded.

I chose none of the above. “I’m a demon of principle. A marriage without love won’t be happy. We aren’t suited.”

He shut me down in one sentence. “You have principles? You slept with me for a few pills and gold mines.”

Well.

I’d walked into that.

“I’d been drinking. I wasn’t thinking clearly. Besides, setting the facts aside, aren’t you partly responsible? What respectable High God puts illusion grass in his wine?”

Illusion grass did exactly what its name suggested. It made you see the people and things you wanted to see.

“A particular hobby of elderly gods,” Lanjian explained. “A few goji berries in the wine. That day, we happened to be out of goji berries, so I put in some illusion grass instead.”

Halfway through his explanation, he frowned.

“So when a Demon Lord like you suddenly agreed to be underneath that night—and got so adventurous—who exactly did you think I was?”

I went quiet.

The image of a pale, exquisitely beautiful face rose in my mind.

“Doesn’t matter,” I said.

I tried reasoning with him. “High God Vermilion Bird, force a melon off its vine and it won’t be sweet.”

He smiled. “I’ve tasted this one. Very sweet.”

Then he settled the matter. “I’ll give you seven days to adjust. We marry in seven days. Don’t say a single word I don’t want to hear, or I’ll show you what truly forcing a romance looks like.”

“…That soon?”

I was rather troubled. “I’ll have to ask my Grand Elder first. If I run off with some blond delinquent without his permission, he might break my legs.”

I gave Lanjian a pointed look. “Red-haired, black-haired—doesn’t matter what color. Nobody.”

He said nothing.

Puzzled, he thought for a moment. “You’re that obedient? Are you in love with your Grand Elder?”

“…No. I just think of him as my father. He’s only half my master, but as the saying goes, a teacher for a day is a father for life.”

There was a simple reason he was only half my master. He taught me both my lessons and cultivation, but when I’d tried to become his formal disciple, he’d refused.

“No need to turn the proper order entirely upside down.”

After a pause, he’d explained, “You’re the Demon Lord. I’m only the Grand Elder. Our positions are too far apart. It wouldn’t be appropriate.”

Personally, I thought he feared I’d embarrass him.

Although I’d been born a demigod, I’d never been healthy, and cultivation was difficult for me.

Consequently, I was the weakest Demon Lord in our entire history. No contest.

But when I finished speaking, Lanjian’s mouth twitched. He looked even angrier than when I’d refused him.

In his fury, he truly did commit to the whole forced-romance business. He imprisoned me in his southern domain and laid a demon-slaying array inside Vermilion Bird Palace, as though he would strike me dead if I disobeyed.

I had one thought about this grand display: unnecessary. Dealing with me did not require all that.

Clearly, however, Lanjian rated me rather highly. To threaten me, he even demonstrated the array’s power.

Watching the red-lotus karmic fire flicker within it, I remembered my promise to the Grand Elder and could have wept.

“High God Vermilion Bird, I really can’t.”

He glanced at me. “That wasn’t what you said in my bed a hundred years ago.”

I had nothing to say.

There was no answering that.

I changed tack. “Gods and demons are different. I’m a man, too. Marrying me will sully your reputation.”

He didn’t even raise his eyelids. “This isn’t the primordial age anymore. Gods and demons can marry now, and people don’t mind men loving men nearly as much.”

That sounded awfully familiar.

Before I could argue further, he left.

I was numb.

I thought of asking the Grand Elder to save me—then remembered he was still in seclusion.