CH 157

All in Vain

When an emperor falls, a ceremony is held in the Heavenly Realm and white silks are hung everywhere for three whole days.

When a god falls, not even his bones are left behind, unlike mortals, so there is no need for a cumbersome funeral process, such as small funeral, an obituary, mourning, parking the coffin before the burial, guarding the coffin, moving the dead to a large coffin, funeral and burial, burning for seven days, observing the mourning, and so on.

During the funeral, the body of a mortal is placed in a coffin in front of friends and relatives, while Yan Yuan, as the Emperor of the Heavenly Realm, only had a four-sided box as a coffin, which was filled with his favourite objects from his lifetime and placed in the funeral hall for the gods to come and pay their respects.

Yan Yuan's most treasured possession was an exquisite wooden figure. He had a box of similar wooden figures, which he had found in the palace when he went to the mortal world to collect Xuan Long's soul. Each one resembled Yan Yuan, but the carving varied from rough to fine, with only one being completely and exquisitely coloured.

This was Xuan Long's heart.

Ye Ling Shenjun had heard Yan Yuan mention it when he was alive. At that time, Yan Yuan had not yet drunk 'Start Over', but his health was already very bad. After waking up from a long coma, he grabbed the wooden figure and looked at it, laughing tearfully, saying that Xuan Long was so clumsy that he couldn't even carve a wooden figure properly, causing his hands to be covered in bruises. Even after he had finished carving it, the recipient of the gift did not appreciate it and thought his gift was cheap.

But Yan Yuan cherished the wooden figure so much that he would hold it close to his heart when he slept, afraid that if he didn't hold it tightly enough, he would lose it. Anyone who wanted to steal it from him would have to kill him.

Therefore, on the day of the funeral, Ye Ling Shenjun put this wooden figure into Yan Yuan's coffin with his own hands.

Three days later, under the watchful eyes of the gods, Yan Yuan's memorial tablet was carried into the shrine by A'Zhi with both hands, and the square casket was placed in a hidden compartment beneath the tablet, where it would rest forever alongside the gods who had fallen in the past.

From that day on, Xuan Long knelt before the statue of the Heaven Way day after day, chanting scriptures for tens of thousands of years.

It was pointless for him to do so. The dead could be redeemed, but the gods who fell into ashes had lost their souls, so there was no need to do so.

It was all in vain.

Soon after Yan Yuan's departure, rumours spread throughout the First and even the Ninth Heaven of the Heavenly Realm that the Emperor had been killed by Xuan Long's Lonely Heavenly Star. A'Zhi heard the rumours and came to Xuan Long with red eyes to ask him if this was true.

Facing the little man, Xuan Long could not say anything. The rumour was not a rumour, it was true. If Yan Yuan had not met him and fallen in love with him, he would be happy right now, and would be the emperor, married to a heavenly empress who matched his destiny, holding his son's hand, growing old with his son, and enjoying a family full of children and grandchildren.

When A'Zhi saw Xuan Long's acquiescence, he cried out and threw himself on him, asking him why he had killed his father.

Xuan Long was silent and let him vent his frustration. After he finished crying, A'Zhi ran out of Dongji Hall, and after that day, he refused to see him again. Even when they meet, he pretended not to know him and refused to call him his mother.

Xuan Long thought it was good, for he was born inauspicious and had killed his lover, so the child should not get too close to him, to avoid being tainted with bad luck.

Ten thousand years later, Xuan Long went to the mortal world alone and built a small courtyard of bamboo buildings deep in a bamboo forest near the East China Sea. The entrance to the courtyard was surrounded by a bamboo fence of uneven lengths and about half a man high, with stone paths of different colours running across the courtyard, dividing it in two. On the left there were round tables and benches carved from stone, and on the right, the muddy ground was reclaimed and Xuan Long planted the iris seeds he had brought from the divine world with his own hands.

He once thought that if he had not been Xuan Long and Yan Yuan had not been the Heavenly Emperor, they would have been an ordinary pair of mortals in love, and their names would have been linked by a red thread in Yue Lao's marriage book.

They would have been married and had a child, and lived in a small courtyard where no one would disturb them, with no need for wealth or glory, just simple food and drink.

Irises would be planted in the courtyard and would bloom in the spring of the following year, with an elegant fragrance. When the weather was good, the family would eat around the stone table in the courtyard, or in the house if the weather was bad. In short, as long as they could be together, it would be good.

As long as they could keep each other company, no matter what, it would be good.

Unfortunately, what he wanted... was far more complicated than glory and wealth. Even if his lifetime was exhausted, his tao scattered and his life sacrificed, it would still be in vain.

Xuan Long spent the whole afternoon planting irises. In the air, an insignificant wisp of dust drifted down and merged with an unburied iris seed in the muddy ground, flashing with a light that the naked eye could barely catch...