But why hasn’t the recollection ended yet?
This kind of torment—when will it finally cease?
She lay at the bottom of the cliff for an entire night. Just as her blood was nearly drained and her consciousness fading away, when she was mere moments from reuniting with her parents…
A cool hand touched her.
It was a physician who lived nearby, out gathering herbs on the mountain. The grass at the cliff’s base was too thick and dense; she lay utterly still, on the verge of death. He stumbled, accidentally stepping on her, and jumped in fright.
Parting the undergrowth, he gasped in shock, muttering “Amitabha Buddha” in haste. He dropped his herb basket, knelt down, and reached out with both hands to check her breathing and wounds.
“Poor soul.”
He murmured pityingly.
With utmost care, he tended her injuries, fashioned a grass mat, and step by trembling step, dragged her back to his home.
When she first awoke, she was like a corpse.
Her rage had burned itself out, leaving only cold ashes.
She wouldn’t speak, wouldn’t smile, wouldn’t even blink. She stared woodenly at the rafters overhead, letting the man change her dressings without reaction.
The man chattered on endlessly, fussing like an old woman. With every wound he treated, he’d suck in a breath and chant “Amitabha Buddha.”
Her heart, already cold as ash and seeking only death, was disturbed by his incessant muttering. Unable to bear it any longer…
One day, summoning all her strength, she finally bellowed, “Shut up!”
“Aiyo!” The man startled, spilling half the bottles and jars from his arms.
Moments later, his face lit up with shock and joy. He leaned in close, his clear eyes shimmering with emotion: “You’re awake! You can speak! Amitabha Buddha, thank heavens!”
Liu Qiao’e’s temple throbbed with a vein, furious enough to send him straight to his Buddha, though her fingers could only twitch feebly.
He was a scholarly-looking youth with deer-like eyes, handsome enough but not strikingly so—not the sort to linger in memory.
Compared to Mu Daoying’s elegant features, he seemed utterly ordinary.
The youth said his name was Meng Ci, and he was a physician.
–
At first, Liu Qiao’e utterly despised Meng Ci.
She hated him for saving her, for keeping her from reuniting with her parents, little brother, and little sister.
She hated his mother-hen nagging, buzzing around her like a fly, chanting “Amitabha Buddha” this and that.
Her hatred for him was hatred for the whole world, for everything in it.
She hated the heavens’ injustice, wishing everyone could suffer as she had.
She’d only feel satisfaction if the world were emptied of people, clapping in grim delight.
But she hated herself most of all—for her self-righteousness, her arrogance, for turning herself into a clown on the village stage.
She refused even a drop of medicine, clamping her lips shut, silent, waiting woodenly for death.
Meng Ci said her resentment was too deep. After each dressing change, he’d drag her to sit before him and chant sutras at her.
She wanted to scream! To pound the bed, to kill him!
But her body wouldn’t obey, forcing her to endure his droning until her ears grew calluses.
From initial fury, to impotent rage, to utter despair—her heart turned to dead ashes. Wrapped like a rice dumpling, only her lifeless eyes peered out.
He, however, was overjoyed, believing he’d purified her malice, chanting all the more fervently.
Later, when she could speak and get out of bed, she’d lash him with the sharpest barbs.
He’d just shake his head: “You mustn’t say such things,” and start chanting again.
She snarled viciously, “You chant your Buddha all day—why not shave your head and become a monk?”
He touched his jet-black hair, chuckling foolishly. “Monks shave their heads, but I couldn’t bear to.”
“Go die!” she yelled in fury.
–
She’d never met anyone as self-satisfied as Meng Ci!
Once she could walk a little, she demanded to leave.
Meng Ci refused, saying she wasn’t fully healed and leaving now would leave her with chronic ailments.
She snapped, “None of your business.”
He countered that he’d saved her life, so it was his now—she owed it to him as her physician.
As he spoke, the deer-eyed youth grew solemn, blocking the door without his usual jesting, exuding a physician’s authority.
Fine, fine—she had nowhere to go anyway.
Swallowing her anger, she stayed in his thatched hut.
Over time, he discovered she was illiterate and, fearing boredom, eagerly offered to teach her.
That day, he rummaged through chests, books spilling everywhere.
He started with medical texts, pointing at characters to teach her to read while identifying herbs.
“That way, if you get hurt again, you can gather your own medicine.”
Later, he brought the Book of Songs, grinning as he taught her “Guan Ju.”
The very first poem in the Classic of Poetry—no one could skip it.
“Guan guan cry the ospreys, on the river isle. Graceful is the girl, a fine match for the gentleman.”
She grumbled hugely: “What’s all that gibberish? I don’t understand!”
The youth, oblivious, recited with pauses, as if entranced. She broke out in goosebumps from his cheesiness.
When he finished, he closed the book with a smile: “It’s a love song about courtship. I’ll recite a line, you repeat after me, alright?”
Spring must’ve come; even reading poetry turned him flirtatious, his voice soft as melting honey. She shuddered.
Though she’d been Song Qian’s cauldron and later joined Joyous Union Palace, she was still a girl who’d never known youthful romance.
Meng Ci gazed at her expectantly with his smiling, dewy, deer-like eyes.
Her face flushed awkwardly.
Unable to resist his gaze, she snatched the book, gruffly declaring, “I can read it myself!”
The youth burst out laughing.
After reading, naturally came writing.
Her characters were huge, crooked, and feeble.
“No, no.” Meng Ci shook his head, taking her hand to guide her.
“Guan guan cry the ospreys, on the river isle. Graceful is the girl, a fine match for the gentleman.”
She jolted, dropping the brush. For some reason, her held hand warmed, the heat spreading to her face.
He acted as if it were nothing. He’d grown used to tending her—dressing her, feeding her, even bathing her, all without reserve.
He taught her qin too.
They played “Phoenix Seeks Phoenix.”
Poetry, chess, calligraphy, painting—elegant pursuits straight out of a play about talented scholars and beauties.
For the first time tasting a lady’s life, she asked, “Aren’t you a physician? How do you also write poetry and play the qin?”
He claimed he was actually a prince fallen among commoners, weary of wealth and glory, who’d become a rural doctor.
She cursed him shameless, raving in broad daylight.
Deep down, she thought: Don’t end up like me, dreaming so deeply you lose touch with reality. The thought of that jade-like youth at Yaoguang Gate still ached faintly.
He just smiled silently.
Besides that, he’d occasionally take her to temples to worship Buddha or to nearby villages to dispense medicine.
He charged little or nothing for his remedies; villagers greeted them like living bodhisattvas.
Her arms would be stuffed with radishes, purple eggplants.
At the mountain temple lived a monk named Ku Rong, his closest friend. Idle times, he’d drag her there for tea-brewing chats.
When they sparred over Buddha and demons with witty banter, she’d wander off to chase butterflies in the flowers.
Meng Ci disapproved of her idleness, pinning her to a cushion to chant and meditate with him.
He said her resentment was too heavy; falling to the demonic path would be the end.
She scoffed: “You know about demonic cultivation?”
Meng Ci said solemnly, “Actually, I’m a cultivator too. I know plenty.”
In any case, her hardened, icy heart softened bit by bit—under his endless “Amitabha Buddhas” and the villagers’ simple, fervent care.
One night, gazing at the moon, her heart grew calm.
She no longer yearned for the moon in the sky.
Life here was plain but secure.
She wouldn’t return to Joyous Union Palace or cultivate immortality. Her ambitions ground flat, she even thought of staying as his assistant, farming, raising chickens—a lifetime wouldn’t be bad.
Days passed like this.
But how could the cultivation world truly have a hidden paradise?
Soon, demonic beasts invaded the villages below.
Fortunately, this one was freshly spawned from demonic qi—weak.
And she now had the power to fight back, no longer the helpless village girl from Liu Village.
Though weak herself, she could protect the even weaker mortals.
It was then she realized Meng Ci hadn’t lied.
He truly was a cultivator, versed in spells.
Villagers said demonic qi had grown rampant, birthing such beasts that ruined crops, devoured people—endless torment.
She didn’t notice Meng Ci’s uncharacteristic silence amid the chatter, the undisguised melancholy in his eyes.
That night, she pondered deeply. Come dawn, she went to the town smithy to forge a sword.
She took up the sword again.
But this time, for the villagers—for those she wanted to protect—she’d cultivate anew.
Meng Ci asked, “Didn’t you swear off cultivation?”
She replied, “Not for immortality, but to survive, protect myself and others.”
Meng Ci paused, steeling some resolve. “Good.”
He said, “I’ll go with you.”
From then on, the pair became famed as wandering heroes in the nearby villages.
Be it demonic beasts, wolves, boars, or local thugs—any threat, any plea, they’d draw swords and charge, great or small.
In time, they earned an oddball nickname: “Fairy-Seeking Duo.”
Nothing compared to the renowned Jade Sword True Heart, Mu Daoying. But in the fields, they were legends, revered by people and dogs alike.
Liu Qiao’e never corrected the “heroic couple” rumors; Meng Ci played dumb knowingly.
He grew bolder in teasing her.
Gradually, she realized his feelings.
He seemed to like her.
She said she already liked someone else—don’t delude yourself.
He smiled: “Who is he? I must meet him. For a celestial fairy like you to fancy him, he must be a god. The Jade Emperor?”
She: “I’m a fairy? Have you seen many like me? Blind? And don’t think I missed you mocking him. Jade Emperor, my foot.”
He laughed: “No mockery. Seriously. The first time I saw you, you fell from the sky—like a celestial fairy. You still haven’t said who he is.”
She: “I don’t like him anymore.”
He: “Strange—you just said you had someone, now you don’t?”
She snapped: “I say no, it’s no!”
He bowed apologetically, soothing her: “Then how about considering me?”
Her heart fluttered; his smiling gaze infuriated her into yelling, “I… I…”
She couldn’t bear to refuse outright.
Blustering, “Depends on your performance!”
Love grew with time; they came together naturally.
Life together wasn’t much different.
Just more intimate in daily routines, without former restraints.
Her hair black and glossy; mornings combing it, he’d smile and recite, “Lazily abed with Daoist books unread, watching her comb by the crystal curtain.”
His presence truly healed her wounds, showing even thieving heaven wasn’t all bad.
Though deep down, she couldn’t let go of Mu Daoying—hate or love, she still harbored resentment. His name made her pause, breath aching.
Meng Ci didn’t care. He said it was her obsession, and letting go of an obsession always took time. It was fine if she still liked him, as long as she liked him too.
She really had almost believed that her suffering was finally over and happiness had arrived, that she would travel the world righting wrongs with Meng Ci and grow old together.
Until that day, when she returned from gathering herbs and saw Meng Ci collapsed on the ground, gasping in pain.
Demonic qi flowed endlessly out of his body. Half his face was stained with black demonic patterns, and his body constantly mutated with horns, bone spurs, and even fleshy tumors.
She jumped in fright and hurriedly went over to support him. She was truly terrified, afraid of losing him.
But Meng Ci pushed her away and curled up alone on the ground, resisting the corrosion of the demonic qi.
After an unknown amount of time, he finally weakly apologized to her.
He told her.
He truly was a prince, the prince of the Demon Domain, the last remaining bloodline of Demon Ancestor Jiang Chongming in the world.