Pure white walls. Two white heads snuggled on a hospital bed. And two withered hands clasped together.
Jing An closed her eyes in pain and a single tear slid down her aged face. Her lover has departed, leaving her alone in this world.
Although she had known long ago that this day would come, she was still unwilling.
"Xiao An." A gentle voice sounded in the depths of her mind. "He's already gone. It's time to let go."
As soon as those words were spoken, the old woman lying on the hospital bed lost her vitality and in the distant Ninth Heaven, the Heavenly Emperor's youngest daughter successfully completed her Love Tribulation and awakened from her slumber.
_ _ _ _ _ _
"How is my daughter?"
"Answering your Majesty. Her Royal Highness is still the same as when she came back from the lower realms."
Heavenly Emperor Jing Wen cast a complicated gaze at his daughter's closed doors and sighed. It's already been a few days since his daughter returned, yet she was still unable to walk out from the shadows of that tribulation life.
It seems that she had truly given away her heart. But unfortunately, the person she fell in love with was a mortal.
Love between gods and mortals had always been an unspoken taboo. Not because of divinity or status but simply because a mortal's lifespan is way too short. If a god ends up becoming obsessed with his/her mortal lover, when said mortal dies, then there is a huge possibility of that certain god to self-destruct or fall into eternal slumber due to excessive longing and overwhelming grief.
"What a sin." He sighed.
Taking a deep breath, Emperor Jing Wen knocked on the door.
Silence.
"Xiao An, it's dad."
The door opened. Emperor Jing Wen glanced inside and saw his beloved daughter sprawled on the bed while staring lifelessly at the ceiling.
"Dad, allow me to go into eternal slumber."
Emperor Jing Wen felt helpless. "There's no need to go that far, right?"
"But it hurts too much. Every morning when I wake up without him by my side, I always feel so empty. Dad, I miss him so much, I can't bear this any longer."
Emperor Jing Wen "..." Dear, is it really okay to talk of another man so fondly in front of your old father?
His daughter who was once a flower of gaoling* became a lovesick woman. The change was so big that he couldn't help but suspect that that human brat gave his daughter a whole pot of ecstasy soup. However, no matter how angry and reluctant he was, he couldn't let his baby girl go on like this.
"Cough! That... if you want too see him again, it's not entirely impossible."
"Ah?"
Emperor Jing Wen thought for a moment and then averted his gaze while confessing his guilt. "... Remember that time when your... husband, suddenly fainted for no reason and became a vegetable for more than a year?"
Jing An's lifeless expression changed in an instant and swiftly got out of bed, grabbing her father's collar in fury. "What have you done to him?"
Emperor Jing Wen felt chills running down his spine as he looked at his baby girl's arctic gaze and he shook off her hands in fright , teleporting himself a few meters away in an instant. "Xiao Anan, be calm for a moment and listen to my explan—"
CRASSHHH!!!
BANNNGGGGG!!!!!
BOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!!
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!"
____________
"Talk." Jing An rubbed her swollen fist and looked at her badly beaten up father with a frigid gaze. She remembered that incident he was talking about. It happened during her wedding night. At that time, they were in the middle of doing THAT for the first time when her newlywed husband suddenly lost consciousness and became bedridden for a long time. Even when he woke up more than a year later, he had been extremely weak and stayed that way for at least a decade before he slowly recovered. Thinking about those years she spent worrying that she might end up becoming a widow overnight, Jing An's eyes lit up with anger and her fist crackled and burned up in flames.
She was beyond furious! Daring to touch her beloved man, if she didn't teach him a lesson today, then she will take on his surname!
Emperor Jing Wen winced. "That wasn't entirely my fault. It was that boy, ah! At that time, I only wanted to test him a little to see if he was worth becoming your lifetime companion."
"And then?"
"Well he passed and I asked for a fragment of his soul as a guarantee so I could use it to threaten him if he ever dared to hurt you."
"A single fragment wouldn't have caused that much weakness." Jing An narrowed her eyes in suspicion, clearly not believing him.
Emperor Jing Wen sighed. "Darling, stop looking at me like that, okay? I'm really not deceiving you. It's just that... when I asked for a fragment, he directly offered up three."
Jing An "..." So generous? Why didn't she remember her Aye* having such a virtue?
Sure enough, Emperor Jing Wen gritted his teeth in the next moment. "That cunning guy! All along, I thought he was just being sincere, who knew he actually expected me to use those fragments to track down his reincarnation after you return to the heavens and inevitably end up missing him?!"
Jing An's lips curled up. Clearly amused.
Three fragments. One to use to track down his next incarnation. The second to use as a spare. And the last one as a spare for the spare. If all three fragments were combined, the chances of finding him would be bigger.
Jing An sighed.
Aye is indeed Aye. When striking a deal with someone, he would never put himself at a disadvantage.
____________
Flower of gaoling - can be understood as flower situated at the top of the mountain. Cold and aloof. An unreachable existence.
Aye - "A" is similar to "Xiao" and "er" which is a form of endearment added to the name of a person with a close relationship.