Moonlight Mystique

Prologue

The universe is divided into three realms: the Divine Realm of Shang Gu, the Immortal and Yao Realm, and the Human Realm.

The Divine Realm of Shang Gu is where the gods reside, with the four True Gods—Shang Gu, Zhi Yang, Bai Jue, and Tian Qi—reigning supreme.

One hundred and thirty thousand years ago, the Hundun Calamity descended upon the Lower Realms. To prevent the Goddess of Hundun, Shang Gu, from sacrificing herself to save the world, the True God Tian Qi glimpsed the will of Heaven and laid down the Heaven-Defying Blood Array in the Abyssal Marsh, seeking to exchange the lives of the Three Realms for Shang Gu’s safety.

The Star-Moon Goddess Yue Mi, in an effort to save the Three Realms, led a host of high gods to the Lower Realm to stop Tian Qi’s blood array. However, she and the other gods mistakenly entered the array’s core, and the high gods perished within the Heaven-Defying Blood Array. From then on, their Divine Souls remained trapped in the Abyssal Marsh, turning into stone statues that stood in lonely vigil.

Later, when the Hundun Calamity arrived, Shang Gu sacrificed herself, and the Divine Realm of Shang Gu was sealed away. No one in the Three Realms remembered these events. Over sixty thousand years later, the Divine Realm of Shang Gu reopened, and the four True Gods returned to their thrones. Everything appeared as it once had, yet all traces of the Star-Moon Goddess were lost in the vast river of the Divine Realm’s history.

Before the stone statue of the Star-Moon Goddess in the Vault of Heaven turned into a river of stars, the last tear that fell from her eyes became the one regret Tian Qi could never overcome.

For sixty thousand years, the Immortals and Yaos waged war without pause. In the early millennia, the two realms clamored about their deep-seated hatred, their fervor making it seem as though not even the collapse of mountains or the merging of Heaven and Earth could stop them.

Yet this wretched conflict was miraculously resolved after the high god Bai Jue turned to ashes in the Abyssal Marsh. Before the Heavenly Emperor and the Yao King could even issue a formal ceasefire decree, the Immortal and Yao soldiers at the border silently retreated, vanishing without a trace.

In the decades that followed, even the most warlike Yao Lords holed up in their Immortal Caves within the Yao Realm, not daring to step a single foot beyond their borders. Bai Jue had sacrificed himself to save the Lower Realms—if they continued their life-and-death battles down there, the three ancient high gods in the Divine Realm of Shang Gu might just strike them down first.

Following the survival principle of "better to hide than provoke," the two races, once consumed by madness, finally ceased their strife.

And so, they rested—for fifty years.

Tian Qi left the Divine Realm of Shang Gu and spent those fifty years idling in his palace on Purple Moon Mountain.

Yaos, as creatures born from the evolution of Heaven and Earth, may have some that turned out rather unsightly in the process, but most were quite alluring in appearance.

In the hundreds of thousands of years since the era of Shang Gu, Tian Qi stood out as the most exceptional. Tsk tsk—as the gods of Shang Gu’s realm would say, his beauty was truly a masterpiece of creation, where adding or subtracting even a fraction would ruin its perfection.

If the female Immortal Lords who admired Bai Jue could form a line stretching beyond the Peach Abyss Forest, then those who fancied Tian Qi could encircle the entire Divine Realm of Shang Gu. Such grandeur might evoke the sentiment of "what more could one desire in life?" Of course, these were just nostalgic musings shared by senior deities and their disciples when reminiscing about the old days. Yet few disputed these claims—after all, at Bai Jue’s wedding in the Vault of Heaven, hundreds of Immortal and Yao eyes had witnessed Tian Qi’s Awakening. His beauty and his Heaven-Defying Yao God power left an indelible mark for millennia.

So even with Bai Jue’s heroic sacrifice as a towering legacy, the female Immortals and Yaos of the Three Realms still whispered most fervently about none other than the True God Tian Qi.It wasn’t that these female lords were ungrateful, but the True God Bai Jue and the one in the Chaosheng Palace already had a child together. This wall was too solid—no one dared to dig at it. Thus, in the decades following the Awakening of the gods in the Shang Gu Realm, Tian Qi indisputably became the most eligible bachelor across the Three Realms and all corners of the world.

Yet, in these fifty years, this bachelor had only done two things.

First, returning to the Star Picking Pavilion to see his old friend Shang Gu.

Second, scouring heaven and earth for Yue Mi’s soul.

As for the first matter, no one knew on which sunny day it was, but Tian Qi suddenly gave up when he saw Shang Gu lazily basking in the sun with a limp leg, waiting for Bai Jue.

The two exchanged a smile—old friends of tens of thousands of years, they shared an unspoken understanding.

He plucked a peach blossom from the Peach Abyss Forest in Yue Mi’s old residence, scooped a gourd of stream water beneath the peach tree, and left with his ancient robes fluttering freely.

Shang Gu watched his retreating figure from the Star Picking Pavilion and suddenly recalled Yue Mi’s smiling face from many years ago, leaning against the corridor, winking and raising a cup to her.

She closed her eyes and sighed softly. Those three carts of wine had been gathering dust in Tian Qi’s divine palace for sixty thousand years.

After that day, Tian Qi never returned to the Shang Gu Divine Realm.

Across the Three Realms, Tian Qi never found Yue Mi’s soul, but he refused to give up. Before tearing through space to search for her remnants in the void, he went to Daze Mountain to see A Qi once.

By then, the most noble yet unlucky little Divine Lord between heaven and earth had been raised by the Immortal Lords of Daze Mountain into a chubby child—Gu Xiao Pang. Content with his fate, Gu Xiao Pang reigned supreme in the forbidden valley of Daze Mountain, living carefree and dreaming only of breaking the Seal, finding the little Phoenix, and then kicking his way through the Three Realms, utterly unaware of the fate awaiting him.

After sizing him up, Tian Qi found nothing left to worry about. Entrusting the Purple Moon Mountain and the Nine Nether Purgatory to San Huo, he stepped into the spatial rift.

From then on, the Three Realms saw no more of Divine Lord Tian Qi.

Many more years passed—a hundred? A thousand? Perhaps an immeasurable stretch of time.

By the time Tian Qi returned to Purple Moon Mountain, exhausted and lonely, the tale of Yuan Qi turning to ashes to resist the Demon Race and save the Three Realms had long since faded. The Three Realms had changed beyond recognition—aside from a few long-lived old Immortal Lords and demon lords, most were people and events he had never even heard of.

He was a True God of the ancient Shang Gu Divine Realm. No matter how much the lower realms changed, it had nothing to do with him.

Only Yuan Qi’s dissipation made him frown, but even that eventually settled into silence in his weathered eyes.

Each had their own destiny. Born a god, how could Yuan Qi’s trials be any fewer than those of Shang Gu and Bai Jue back then?

Tian Qi glanced at the desolate Purple Moon Mountain and finally returned to the Shang Gu Divine Realm.

In the Star Picking Pavilion, the one waiting for him had grown from one to four.

Shang Gu, Bai Jue, Zhi Yang, and that Xuan Yi—who would rather grow old and die in the Nine Nether Purgatory than return to the Shang Gu Divine Realm.

Shang Gu and Bai Jue’s eyes held deeper silence, Zhi Yang remained as steady as Mount Tai, and Xuan Yi, leaning against the pavilion’s corridor with a wine jar, suddenly shot Tian Qi a fiery, passionate look from afar.

Tian Qi shuddered, bypassed the pavilion, and turned toward the Star Moon Residence instead.

Under the reproachful gazes of the other three gods, Xuan Yi shrugged, revealing a trace of mortal warmth."After all, we're acting on his turf. I just wanted to give him a heads-up in advance, so my grand affair can proceed smoothly."

After destroying the Three Realms several times over, what grand affair could possibly be beyond your reach?

The other three thought this but didn't voice it aloud.

Whatever Xuan Yi was planning this time couldn't be a bad thing. Whether it was right or wrong would only become clear after some years had passed.

Before long, Tian Qi's figure appeared in the Peach Abyss Grove behind the Star Moon Mansion.

He stood by the stream beneath the trees for a long while, then suddenly sat down leaning against an ancient tree stump. Apart from the gourd at his waist filled with water from the Peach Abyss stream, nothing had remained by his side for millennia.

Shang Gu glimpsed this scene from afar and felt a pang of sorrow—whether for him or for Yue Mi, who had once leaned against the Star Gazer's Pavilion, toasting her with distant instructions, she couldn't say.

She turned to Bai Jue and suddenly spoke: "One year on your birthday, I sent you three carts of fine wine. Do you remember?"

Bai Jue paused slightly, then nodded. "Of course."

"I spent ten years scouring the Three Realms to gather those three carts of rare wines for you. Why did you leave the Divine Realm the very next day after I delivered them?"

Zhi Yang and Xuan Yi nearby pricked up their ears, casting gossip-filled glances at Shang Gu and Bai Jue.

When had this ancient, trivial matter occurred?

A rare flicker of embarrassment crossed Bai Jue's usually composed face. He averted his gaze, speaking softly yet clearly enough for the three in the Star Gazer's Pavilion to hear:

"That same day, three carts of fine wine were also delivered to Tian Qi's divine hall."

Even sixty thousand years later, those words carried a distinctly jealous tone.

"Ohhh~" Xuan Yi drew out the syllable, peering toward the Peach Abyss with undisguised schadenfreude. "You youngsters certainly had your fun during my absence from the Divine Realm."

Zhi Yang shot Xuan Yi a warning look, signaling him not to add fuel to the fire. The Demon God snorted lightly, practically itching to trumpet these romantic entanglements of the four True Gods throughout the entire Divine Realm.

"It wasn't me who sent them." Shang Gu's expression showed the resignation of someone whose suspicions had been confirmed. "The fine wines in Tian Qi's hall—those weren't from me."

Bai Jue froze, then suddenly seemed to understand something as he looked toward the Peach Abyss Grove. But this time his gaze wasn't fixed on Tian Qi—it went beyond the grove to the Star Moon Mansion behind it.

He turned back to Shang Gu.

She nodded. "Back then, I didn't know Yue Mi had sent three carts of fine wine to Tian Qi's hall on your birthday either."

"Tian Qi..." Even Zhi Yang, who normally avoided prying into divine affairs, couldn't help asking when Bai Jue remained silent, "He didn't know?"

Shang Gu shook her head, speaking slowly: "To my knowledge, he didn't."

She lowered her eyes. "What followed was the Hundun Cataclysm."

At these words, silence fell over the Star Gazer's Pavilion.

After sixty thousand years, the most tragic and unspeakable loss of that cataclysm remained Yue Mi's death.

Otherwise, Tian Qi wouldn't have spent all these millennia obsessively searching for traces of her soul.

The four lost their appetite for scenery and wine. Shang Gu departed for the Pilgrim's Hall with Bai Jue, while Xuan Yi dragged Zhi Yang away, muttering about his "grand affair"—a far cry from the icy misanthropy he displayed in the Nine Nether Purgatory.

Only much later did Tian Qi finally open his eyes beneath the ancient tree in the Peach Abyss Grove. For a long while he watched the murmuring stream, its waters reflecting the cold desolation of the old Star Moon Mansion.

Suddenly he laughed—a long, bitter sound. "So that's how it was."

But the smile held inexpressible anguish and remorse.She had thought she only owed her dearest friend a life, but it turned out she also owed her a love from sixty thousand years ago.

Perhaps even longer. Yue Mi was gone. What she had done, whom she had loved, what she had sacrificed—no one knew.

Just like those three carts of fine wine gathering dust in his divine hall, untouched by him all these years.

Tian Qi stood up, no longer sparing a glance at the old Star-Moon Mansion, and walked out of the Peach Abyss Forest.

Above the Divine Realm, a dazzling star streaked across the sky, its Divine Power shaking the heavens.

The scattered gods across the realm looked up in shock, only to see the Divine Realm’s barrier torn open by a gap half a zhang wide, as a vast surge of demonic godly power flashed like a fleeting shadow.

Had the most sincere and elusive bachelor of the ancient Divine Realm returned? Before the goddesses could even rejoice, that demonic godly power had already vanished beyond the horizon, leaving not even a trace of Divine Power behind.

Gone again? How many years would it be this time? With sighs, the goddesses gave up any hope of marrying the wandering soul from Tian Qi’s divine hall.

At the Star-Gazing Pavilion, Shang Gu and Bai Jue watched as Tian Qi disappeared beyond the edge of the Divine Realm.

Bai Jue turned to Shang Gu.

“After sixty thousand years, why tell him now?”

“If Yue Mi ever has a chance to return to this world,” Shang Gu’s voice was distant, tinged with reminiscence,

“she would surely want the one who finds her to be Tian Qi.”