Before the autumn imperial exam results were announced, Liu Dongyan was extremely nervous.
Her future—whether she would marry Bai Ziqian or the wealthy Li Yuanwai—hinged on this moment. She hadn’t even considered whether Bai Ziqian would be willing, because the customs of Changle Town were suffocating. Once rumors spread far enough, Bai Ziqian would have no choice but to comply or risk being ostracized.
But before the exam results arrived, news of Bai Ziqian’s severe injury reached her.
A close friend nudged her. “Dongyan, I heard Bai Ziqian was bitten on the arm by a tiger while hunting. He’s bedridden now. Aren’t you going to see him?”
“What?!” Liu Dongyan was shocked. How could someone as skilled as Bai Ziqian suffer such an injury? She and Mother Liu rushed to the Bai residence, only to see a doctor storming out in frustration.
Liu Dongyan stepped forward. “Doctor, how is Brother Ziqian?”
The doctor scowled. “His right arm is severely injured, beyond saving. What bad luck—he can’t even afford the consultation fee. Why bother calling a doctor?”
“How could he have no money?” Mother Liu latched onto those words. A few coins were nothing—she knew Bai Ziqian had savings.
Whispers spread among the onlookers.
“All of Bai Ziqian’s money was swindled away by that beautiful woman staying at his house. Now he’s pitiful—with his right arm injured, he can’t shoot arrows or write. Forget becoming an official, he can’t even support himself now.”
Liu Dongyan’s expression shifted several times, but in the end, she didn’t step into the house.
Mother Liu’s face was equally grim. She had always threatened to break off the engagement, but only to intimidate Bai Ziqian and squeeze benefits from him.
Li Yuanwai was already over fifty. If Liu Dongyan actively broke off the engagement to become his second wife, the gossip would fall on them instead.
Bai Ziqian’s sudden misfortune had caught them off guard.
“Mother, I want to break off the engagement.”
“Dongyan… but our family will be talked about.”
“In your heart, is your daughter’s happiness worth less than a few harsh words?” Liu Dongyan declared, “I want to break it off!”
Within two days, the Liu family received a letter written on Bai Ziqian’s behalf, expressing his willingness to marry Liu Dongyan. Terrified, Liu Dongyan steeled her heart and was carried in a small sedan to Li Yuanwai’s house that very night.
The day Liu Dongyan returned to her parents’ home was also the day the exam results were announced.
Sitting in the sedan, she overheard the lively discussions about the new top scholar.
“Young Master Bai’s literary talent is outstanding, and his looks are extraordinary.”
“What are you talking about?!” Liu Dongyan couldn’t help but step out of the sedan, grabbing one of the speakers. “Wasn’t he crippled?”
The person gave her a strange look. “What nonsense are you spouting, cursing someone like that?”
Liu Dongyan forced herself to stay composed. “I heard it myself—he was bitten on the arm by a tiger!”
“How can you believe rumors? Top Scholar Bai’s arm is fine.”
Liu Dongyan lost all interest in visiting her parents. Upon further inquiry, she fainted on the spot. Not only was Bai Ziqian unharmed, his savings were intact, and now he had achieved the highest rank in the exams. Yet she had avoided him, refusing to visit him in his time of need, and had hastily married Li Yuanwai instead.
In the Bai family’s small courtyard, Bai Ziqian looked at the enormous monster by the bed, pursing his lips, unsure how to explain to Su Su.
“It doesn’t harm people.”
The monster resembled a tiger but had a ghastly face with fangs and a lion’s tail. Since his birth, this creature had visited him annually, transforming into a tiger to descend the mountain.
Bai Ziqian knew his constitution was unusual, but he had never thought much of it—until Su Su happened to witness it.
The monster was clearly no celestial beast but something even more terrifying than a demon. Once, he had even seen it devour a wandering soul.
Bai Ziqian lowered his eyes, emotions churning within. He didn’t know if playing the victim would work in this situation.
The corners of his eyes reddened as he prepared to speak, but the monster suddenly rolled onto the ground, shrinking into a kitten-sized cub. It timidly approached Su Su, lowering its head and hesitantly mewling, “Meow~”
Su Su crouched down, watching it.
“Mrow~ Meow~” The tiger demon trembled, begging for its life.
The divine aura around Su Su was utterly incompatible with its existence. Over the years, it hadn’t grown any smarter. Just as it considered abandoning Bai Ziqian and fleeing, Su Su restrained her aura and gently patted its head.
The tiger demon’s legs gave out, nearly collapsing.
The last Goddess in the world… wasn’t going to kill it or its unlucky Demon God master?
Su Su pressed a finger to its forehead. After a long moment, she withdrew her hand and murmured, “Thank you, tiger demon.”
Huh? Huh? The tiger demon’s eyes widened. Bai Ziqian shot it a look that clearly said, Get lost.
It fled with its tail between its legs.
Bai Ziqian asked Su Su, his expression odd, “Aren’t you afraid?”
Su Su smiled at him, countering with a question of her own. “You know there’s something unusual about me. Are you afraid of me? Do you still dare to marry me?”
“As long as you don’t regret it.”
Days later, Bai Ziqian learned that Liu Dongyan had decisively broken off the engagement and hastily married Li Yuanwai.
Amused by the rumors outside, he asked, “You made them think I was bitten?”
Su Su nodded candidly. “If she had come inside and stood by you unwaveringly, she would’ve realized it was all a lie.”
But Mother Liu and Liu Dongyan were cold-hearted. They had tried to pressure Bai Ziqian, only to suffer the backlash—being gossiped about for breaking the engagement first and mocked for their lack of discernment.
“What about you?” Bai Ziqian asked lightly, though the slight droop of his eyes betrayed his inner turmoil. “If my right arm were truly crippled, would you leave me?”
Su Su hadn’t expected this question. Meeting his dark gaze, she said, “See for yourself.”
She took his hand and placed it on her forehead, closing her eyes.
A white divine seal glowed on her forehead, and a scene unfolded before Bai Ziqian.
A thousand years ago, in a jungle village, a youth in black robes lay dying on the ground, his left eye gouged out, as children threw stones at him.
A young girl leading a horse walked by, picked him up, and helped him onto the horse’s back.
She bickered with him but gently wiped the blood from his right eye.
Inside the tree demon’s body, she gouged out her own eye and gave it to him. Her kiss on his lips was feather-light, dispelling the darkness of his entire world.
Su Su opened her eyes. “I won’t leave you.”
Not in the past, and not in the future. She revered his strength when he sacrificed himself for the six realms and pitied his loneliness that no one else understood.
Bai Ziqian withdrew his hand, fighting back tears as he smiled. “Mm.”
They married in October, by mortal reckoning.
Su Su didn’t use any magic, quietly learning embroidery from a seamstress to make her own wedding veil.
Many guests attended as she left the small tavern for her wedding. Along the way, the villagers’ warm congratulations filled the air. Peeking through the veil’s gap, she saw the smile never leaving his eyes.
Dressed in red with dark hair, he was clean and humble.
She lowered her hand. This moment—one Tantai Jin had waited for so long—was something she, too, had awaited across endless time.
They married as two ordinary people. He was no longer a demon born with evil and slaughter in his bones, and she was no longer a Goddess burdened with a mission.
In your next life, may you be an ordinary person, experiencing joy and sorrow, living a peaceful and happy life.
Back then, her words had etched themselves into the obsession of his lingering soul, remembered even after his body perished.
Bai Ziqian had always felt this day was unreal. But when he lifted the bride’s veil and saw Su Su’s smiling eyes, his heart finally settled, and his lips curved upward.
The wedding matron showered them with blessings as they drank the ceremonial wine. Beaming, she said, “The bride shall bind their hair.”
Su Su had long learned the customs of Changle Town. With a silver scissors, she cut a small lock of her and Tantai Jin’s hair, binding them together with red thread as she recited:
“Bound as husband and wife, in love without doubt. May we be branches entwined, never parting till life runs out.”
The two locks of hair were placed together in a red wooden box.
Bai Ziqian watched as the box closed. He had never imagined this day would truly come.
The wedding matron withdrew.
Under the flickering candlelight, Su Su’s features shed the aloofness of a Goddess, softened by the warmth of mortal life.
Her makeup radiant, she gently touched his handsome face. “Can you tell me who my husband is at this moment?”
He replied, “Bai Ziqian.”
Su Su didn’t argue, taking his hand and slipping a bracelet of red thread and glass beads onto his wrist.
“I’ve been to the imperial tomb. I found the beads and finished the sword tassel you never completed. I’ve walked every path you once took.”
He lowered his eyes, struggling to contain his emotions.
What came next were the gentlest words he had ever heard—
“The Epiphyllum in the Demon Palace has bloomed year after year. Su Su and A Mi have waited year after year. Husband, when will you come home with me?”
His voice was hoarse. “When did you know?”
That he had never forgotten the memories of Tantai Jin.
Su Su cupped his face, her tender gaze meeting his eyes. “Tantai Jin wasn’t the type to fall in love at first sight.”
He was a madman who clung to obsession unto death, the world’s most foolish fool.
Tantai Jin had no retort. His throat bobbed. “I’m sorry.”
He had left a path of retreat for every being in the six realms—even the tiger demon that had followed him for over five hundred years. He had let it devour the ancient Taotie’s soul fragment from the Marrow Cleansing Seal, aiding its transformation.
The Taotie left on the seal was nothing but a hollow shell of greed.
He had never imagined he could return. He thought her ascension as a Goddess and his own soul’s dissipation would be the best ending for her.
But without his love thread, he had been cold and merciless, failing to release the tiger demon in time. The Taotie devoured everything, and when the tiger demon was swept into the Path of Shared Sorrow, it unwittingly swallowed the remnants of his soul that had scattered there. A thousand years later, his demonic soul reformed, reincarnating into the mortal world.
He had planned to live an ordinary life, never seeking her out, never inquiring about her. Until the day he saw A Mi and found himself unable to walk away.
A resemblance of just thirty percent to her was enough to draw out all the kindness left in him, compelling him to take A Mi home.
He had missed her so much.
The present was a scene he had never dared envision. He had even pretended to be Bai Ziqian, afraid to shatter this fragile happiness.
Tantai Jin asked haltingly, “Have I… disappointed you?”
Su Su had never known her heart could ache so much for someone. After all these years, he had been too afraid to return to the Demon Realm, hiding in obscurity. Even now, his greatest fear was letting her down.
He had once believed that his very existence would disappoint her.
She shook her head, gently embracing him as tears welled in her eyes. “You don’t know how grateful I am that you’ve returned to me.”
“Tantai Jin, there’s much I want to confess. A Mi is your daughter.”
“I know,” he said softly. If he hadn’t understood at first, he certainly did later. A Mi resembled her—and him. The joy he had felt then was beyond words.
“The Third Miss of General Ye’s household once loved the young emperor who embroidered a wedding veil for her. The Li Susu in the dream once loved the Cang Jiufeng who mended her soul.” She paused, her voice barely audible. Tantai Jin heard the Goddess’s voice, gentle as a spring breeze: “Just as I now love the you who forgot to come home.”
The candlelight cast his silhouette on the wall as his eyes suddenly brimmed with tears.
He had waited in the desolate River of Wailing Ghosts, enduring centuries of his flesh being devoured and regrown. He had traversed Wang Land beneath a lonely moon. He had spent a thousand years in the Path of Shared Sorrow, resisting the tempest to slowly gather his scattered soul.
Even the Heavenly Dao sighed for him.
To love someone—how could it be so bitter?
He had thought that no matter how long he waited, he would always remain the boy trapped in the nightmare demon’s illusion, swallowing shards of glass, forever waiting for a Goddess who would never descend.
But unbeknownst to him, his Goddess had turned back, and her eyes finally held his reflection.
When the Demon Realm’s blue-violet Epiphyllum flowers blanketed the hillsides, every demon in the realm knew—their Demon Lord was returning!
That day, Jingmie groomed himself meticulously, and all the great demons gathered at the boundary stele to welcome him.
Tantai Jin had imagined many scenarios for his return to the Demon Realm.
But he had never envisioned this—the moment he stepped into the realm, all the demons greeted him with reverence and joy. Jingmie and the others at the forefront even had tears in their eyes.
The young, innocent faces of newly born demons peeked out from behind their parents, gazing at him with the awe reserved for a sovereign.
In his youth, he had endured scorn and abuse. As an emperor, he had grown accustomed to fearful, disgusted stares. Later, as the Demon God, he had walked alone beneath the contemptuous gazes of the six realms.
He had thought his life would end forever on that snowy winter day in the mortal world.
But Tantai Jin hadn’t known then that time and the Heavenly Dao could be generous and kind. The sacrifices he had made, the hardships he had endured alone—all were repaid in this life in another form.
His little A Mi lifted her head proudly, honored to call him her father.
Jingmie hugged A Mi, nearly crying. “Thank goodness the Princess is safe! How could I have faced the Demon Lord otherwise?”
A Mi, guilty, comforted him in her childish voice. “Sorry for worrying you, Uncle Jingmie.”
Su Su took Tantai Jin’s hand, leading him through the Demon Realm’s blooming flowers.
Under the sapphire blossoms, fireflies danced, and mushrooms sprouted beneath the trees.
Tantai Jin’s dark eyes reflected the sight before him—the surging demonic veins, the majestic mountains and rivers.
He had once been homeless, adrift for half his life with nowhere to belong.
But Tantai Jin knew, in this moment, he had come home.
—【END】
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