I said helplessly: “What can we do, just stand here staring at each other?”
He wanted to laugh but held back, his face turning slightly red. I couldn’t help but laugh, and tears fell again: “The peony flower once said that treating us requires pure qi. In the three realms, there must be something to replace it. I’ll go search in the divine realm, you search in the ghost domain. If we can’t find it, I’ll move my home next to yours, and we can stare at each other every day, okay?”
Mu Chuan’s face twitched, and he responded: “Mm.”
I desperately wanted to walk to his front and hold him. I suppressed the surging impulse in my heart and tried to turn away, walking out of the pear garden.
“Shu Shu.”
I turned back, smiling: “What?”
A glimmer of moisture appeared in his eyes, and he said softly: “This time, don’t be gone too long.”
Tears burst forth again. I crouched down, covering the tears: “I don’t want to leave, can I not go? Even if I’m invaded by resentful spirits, even if I only have a few years, I don’t want to be separated again.”
His voice suddenly became urgent: “We’ve endured a thousand years, what’s a moment?”
I ignored him. I couldn’t even wait a few days, and who knew how long this separation would last.
“Hurry and go!”
I pressed down on the increasingly painful heart. The longer I stayed, the more difficult it became.
Even if I lived next door, or just outside this pear garden, it wouldn’t work for long.
Walking out with dragging steps, I was already choked with emotion. Passing through the gate of life and death, just as it was closing, hearing the iron gate’s creaking sound, I felt that this turn would separate us by a thousand mountains for ten thousand years. My legs went weak, and a floating cloud drifted out, supporting my body, sighing: “Return to the divine realm.”
I lay on it, motionless, letting it carry me back.
Seeing his serious expression, I narrowed my eyes: “Don’t tell me you passed by the big pancake shop and were sent by the Supreme God to be a spy.”
Caishen slightly raised an eyebrow: “How did you know?”
“Hehe.” I chuckled, thinking the Supreme God was likely asking about the mastermind. I patted his shoulder, “Let’s go visit the Supreme God together.”
Caishen waved his hand: “No! I have things to do! Goodbye!”
Before I could absorb more of his fortune energy, he ran away in a hurry.
Arriving at the big pancake shop at noon, round pancakes hung high, painfully bright to the eyes. Entering the inner hall, I indeed found the Supreme God fishing again. I walked over and squatted beside him, yawning, “Supreme God, you’ve been fishing for thousands of years. Even the dumbest fish won’t bite, right?”
“Indeed, so I change the fish every ten years.”
I smiled, seeing him motionless, seemingly unwilling to speak first.
I also remained silent, scooping up a fish scale and playing with the hook. After a while, he finally spoke: “I heard from Zhen Nü that when your soul was returning, someone mispronounced the spell and almost caused you to lose your soul.”
I laughed it off: “Seems so.”
“Do you know who disrupted your soul’s return?”
“No idea.”
“There were eleven people casting the spell. It must be among them.”
I paused: “Oh.”
The Supreme God half-closed his eyes: “That day of unsealing, I had already arranged everything so that no matter what tricks were played, you would remain safe.”
I frowned: “Was it that immortal pill?”
The Supreme God was truly a fox. What I hadn’t calculated, he had already planned. For every three steps I took, he could predict ten. He must have known long ago that someone would interfere with my soul. But if I didn’t speak and that person didn’t admit it, how would the Supreme God know? Now, there was only one conclusion: without my knowledge, he had already found the mastermind.
I swallowed: “Supreme God, if I don’t pursue this person’s responsibility, can you pretend not to know?”
The Supreme God closed his eyes: “Even if someone tried to harm you, you won’t pursue it?”
“Well,” I smiled, “it’s been so long, doesn’t matter. And I’m alive and well.”
The Supreme God shook his head and laughed, looking at the rippling water: “Have you ever thought about why immortals who have experienced countless tribulations still do so much for all living beings after becoming immortals?”
I scratched my head: “If immortals don’t find something to do, they might go crazy from boredom.”
The Supreme God laughed heartily, stroking his beard: “Indeed. Immortals are actually more susceptible to external temptations. Once becoming immortal, they lose the willpower that accompanied them through hundreds or thousands of years of cultivation, easily straying from the path. Therefore, many divine positions are established to give immortals something to do. But most importantly, immortals must continue cultivating through these tasks.”
I will translate the text into English, maintaining the original style and structure.
A Gong told me that Mu Chen was waiting for me in the forest. When I went there, I soon discovered many divine soldiers had ambushed me. Mu Chen questioned me, but I couldn’t tell him that my good friend had deceived me, because if I did, A Gong would surely die.
A Gong did not transform into someone else to tell me, probably calculating that if it were her, I would definitely not explain, because I cared for her deeply. Even if betrayed, I would not reveal to Mu Chen who had deceived me. So I could only silently endure that betrayal and let Mu Chen hate me for setting up the ambush.
I just couldn’t understand why she would do this. In my memory, I believed I had never done anything to wrong her.
A Gong looked desolately into the distance, no longer spirited: “You’re going to the Supreme God, surely to report my deception from a thousand years ago.” She suddenly laughed, incredibly bleak, “I should have found an opportunity to kill you long ago!”
“Then why didn’t you kill me?” I stared at her and asked, “You clearly had many opportunities to kill me without a trace. If I died, no one would know what you had done. Killing a companion has always been despised, and you thought about the day you might be exposed.”
A Gong stared back at me, speaking harshly: “So now I regret it!”
“Why didn’t you kill me earlier! Why did you do this to me? We were fellow immortals, always supporting each other. Why did you lure me to the forest and make Mu Chen and me become enemies for a thousand years! Do you know that because of your lies, Mu Chen and I were separated for a thousand years, and now might be separated for ten thousand years!” I could no longer suppress the frustration in my heart, almost about to overflow with blood.
Being betrayed by a close friend was more painful than being stabbed.
A Gong shouted: “Kong Kong and I lost our parents since childhood and were refined into immortals through countless trials, while you and Zhen Nü easily became immortals with heaven and earth’s spiritual energy. Without you, the Medicine Immortal should have been me. Apart from having a High Priest as a close friend supporting you, what are you better than me!”
I was stunned. Even a thousand years ago, we three were extremely close friends. But I never expected that in A Gong’s heart, I and Zhen Nü had pushed her outside. I felt desolate and laughed helplessly: “Thirty-eight thousand seven hundred and forty-eight years.”
“What?”
