The Trial of Mortal Love - Chapter 2

I found a suitable place for him to rest and built a campfire.

Firelight played across his face. I frowned slightly.

He really was a mortal. Even so, looking at that face, I couldn’t resist using a little magic to heal his wounds and stop the bleeding.

When dawn came and the morning light fell over us, he opened his eyes.

“You’re awake?”

“You…” Surprise flickered through his eyes when he saw me, as though I were someone he hadn’t expected to meet.

But we’d never met before.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, frowning. “Do you know me?”

He shook his head gently. His pale lips curved. “I’m just surprised… that the person who saved me last night was a young woman.”

“Oh.” I got up to leave.

“Since you aren’t going to die, I can stop worrying.”

“Wait!” he called urgently. “Miss, I haven’t repaid you for saving my life!”

“I don’t save people for a reward.” I just wanted to get away.

He might be a mortal, but he had a face I liked very much.

Mother said that if I wanted something or liked it, I should try to win it. The one thing I couldn’t force was love.

A man and woman could be intimate only when the feeling was mutual and both were willing.

I had kissed Divine Lord Xuchen, but he hadn’t wanted it. That had been all one-sided on my part.

Intimacy that only one person wanted wasn’t love. It was taking liberties with someone. It was wrong.

I liked how this man looked. Just seeing him made me want to kiss him…

But I couldn’t do the same wrong thing again. Nor did I want to be the only one with feelings.

“My savior, I can give you a great deal of money.”

I kept walking.

“I can give you power and status too.”

I didn’t look back.

“I… I’ll give myself to you in marriage! I’ll repay your life-saving kindness with my hand. How about that?”

With one sentence, he managed to stop a woman who was practically a lecher!

I ran back to him in delight. “Do you mean it?”

“A man keeps his word, no matter what.”

I hurried to make sure. “Then I can kiss you whenever I want?”

Color rushed into his pale, refined cheeks.

“Hurry up and tell me. Can I? If not, I’m leaving…”

He nodded at once. “Yes, yes! If you want to kiss me, you can—”

The moment he nodded, I wiped his cheek with my sleeve.

Smack! Smack!

I planted two hearty kisses on his handsome face.

Now even the tips of his ears were red.

So this was what it meant for the feeling to be mutual?

He seemed even happier than I was to be kissed, so happy he didn’t know what to do with himself.

But looking like that, he reminded me even more of the divine lord I’d stunned with my kisses.

The divine lord was like a winter plum standing proud against the snow. This man was like a lush, splendid blossom in the mortal world.

I loved the divine lord’s cool refinement, but I also loved the warmth and elegance of the man before me.

Everyone said the Taotie were greedy. It seemed the rumors were true!

The man’s compound surname was Huangfu, and his given name was Taiyuan.

He asked how wounds so grave the previous day could have healed overnight.

I lied that I’d met a miracle healer as a child who had given me some wondrous medicine.

In fact, our clan’s sacred physician had made it. To a mortal, it could put flesh back on bare bones.

I’d also used a little magic, speeding his recovery further.

I had lived on this mountain before. There was a hot spring by a stream, a good place to recuperate.

With the immortal medicine as well, Taiyuan recovered quickly. Yet he seemed in no hurry to leave.

We hunted together, soaked in the spring, and made love.

After so many years among mortals, I wasn’t entirely ignorant of what happened between men and women. I simply hadn’t met anyone I wanted to share a bed with.

At last, I had found a young man who felt the same way I did.

He had given himself to me. I could kiss him as often as I pleased.

I kissed him a hundred times a day, give or take.

Whatever we were doing, whenever the mood struck me, I dragged him into a secluded corner or back to our love nest—the little thatched cottage.

He always cooperated. Sometimes he even took charge, and he never failed to leave me satisfied.

My handsome young man stood tall, with broad shoulders, a narrow waist, and eight defined abdominal muscles. He was strong and exceptionally gifted. Once I’d had a taste, I couldn’t get enough.

The power in his moving hips was enough to steal my soul!

My former fiancé, Immortal Lord Lingxiao, had said that a Taotie could never be satisfied and was unfit to be a wife.

Looking back, he was right.

Heh! He must have known his own limits. He was too feeble to handle me.

But our carefree, happy days ended when Taiyuan’s people found him.

They called him “Your Majesty.”

He was the emperor of the mortal realm.