GWID Chapter 40

The wish from back then?

Little Phoenix hesitated slightly.

A hundred years had passed like a white horse flashing past a crack in the wall, and he himself had forgotten what wish he had once made. It was just like after his love tribulation, when he faced his second ascension tribulation — after a bolt of heavenly thunder had washed away his five senses and six perceptions, he had nearly forgotten even Xingyi’s face.

He only remembered that there had been someone who had once loved him deeply and passionately, who had given him a home and sheltered him for half a lifetime. Little Phoenix had desperately told himself he must not forget, must not forget, and so had learned to hold a brush in his beak and write, recording everything from beginning to end. He would happily flip through it whenever he had nothing to do, and every night he would reaffirm in his heart his resolve to find his husband.

Little Phoenix had just opened his mouth to speak when his wrist was suddenly seized by Xingyi, gripped with such force that his hand ached faintly. Xingyi held his wrist and pulled him behind himself, then said to Little Phoenix in a measured tone. “Go back first.”

Little Phoenix was a little puzzled. “Why, Weijian? You promised to bring me here to play.”

Xingyi’s face was expressionless. “Another day I’ll bring you to play. Not today — go back first.”

Little Phoenix’s eyes went wide. “Weijian, why does it have to be another day? I don’t want another day. I want to play here today. I already promised the fairy sister I’d bring her night-glow red water-grass from the bottom of the Wangchuan, and I still need to bring fruits for the Golden-Winged Bird and Little Coal Ball too…” As he went on, his voice grew smaller and smaller. When Xingyi turned around so that he could see his face, Little Phoenix fell completely silent.

Xingyi’s gaze carried a deep and heavy severity and pressure, and somewhere buried in its depths, hidden from the world, a flicker of madness — the same look he had worn that day when he had casually refined a demon’s corpse into a sword and swept mountains, rivers, lakes, and seas into ash in a single stroke, even the depths of his eyes faintly tinged with a trace of concealed red.

But his voice was still as gentle as it could possibly be, as tender as he could make it. “Another day, alright?”

Little Phoenix lowered his head and tugged at his hand. It wouldn’t come free. He felt a little sad. “I don’t want another day. You always say another day, and then it never happens. You’re always so busy, and I never have time to play with you — I can only pester you a little when you wake up and sing you songs. But you don’t even get up on time, and you have nightmares in your sleep, trapped by them… You always make me so worried, Weijian.”

Xingyi paused, momentarily stunned.

Little Phoenix fought hard to hold back his tears, feeling deeply wronged. “Today I don’t want to be your little bird anymore. I want to play at Wangchuan. And don’t come looking for me to talk either — I’m genuinely angry now.”

Xingyi moved his fingers, wanting to pull him back and say something more, but he watched as the phoenix abandoned the soft peach-colored robe he had carefully chosen for him that morning, abandoned his trailing deep-crimson hair ribbon, and with a “poof” transformed into a fluffy, round little ball. Those wings, light as cicada wings, slipped away from his fingertips in an instant.

The little chubby bird waddled along in sorrow, shuffling a few steps, not knowing where to go, and so turned in circles on the spot.

The fat rabbit perched on Po Jun’s body saw this, gave a kick of its hind legs and bounded down, crouched on the ground, and used its fluffy paws to pat the little ball on the head, then stayed there nuzzling against Little Phoenix’s belly. Little Phoenix was still sad and didn’t move. The Jade Rabbit stood up again, using its tiny paws to carefully cradle the little ball against its chest, then bounded a few steps with it over to Po Jun’s feet, lay down on its back with all four paws in the air, and let Little Phoenix roll about and settle into the soft, tender nest of its belly.

Little Phoenix turned over, spread his small wings, buried himself in the Jade Rabbit’s fur, and stuck his little bird bottom up in the sun.

Xingyi came back to his senses and strode forward to retrieve Little Phoenix, but was blocked by Phoenix Mingzun. “Emperor, please calm yourself before you speak.”

Qisha and Tanlang also said, “Emperor, the purpose of coming today is to restore the Jade Rabbit’s memories. It would be best to complete the main matter first.”

“Let us make a trade, master of the Star Disc.” Po Jun looked at Xingyi with frank composure. “Until now I have never gone to Fuli Palace to see you, nor gathered with the other star officials, causing the Three Stars of Sha, Po, and Lang alignment to be perpetually incomplete. As the immortals have rumored, it is true that I did not go because I bore you ill will. In matters of personal feeling, I harbor resentment toward you — that is my affair. In matters of principle, you act for the sake of all living beings across the Six Realms — that is your affair. I know that Little Phoenix is now the little bird you are raising, and perhaps he will become your future Empress. I wish to ask you once more about his matter.”

“You help my little rabbit recover its memories, and I will help your Little Phoenix fulfill his wish. What do you say?” Po Jun smiled. “Are you willing?”

Xingyi glanced at the chubby bird sprawled on the Jade Rabbit’s belly. “His wish…”

“His wish lies in the mortal world, Emperor.” Po Jun maintained that unruffled smile and said to him: “Do we have a deal?”

****

Do we have a deal? Even if, in the wish he made in the mortal world, there may be no place for you?

Before the reincarnation path where the death qi of Wangchuan ran strongest, Xingyi sat cross-legged on the ground, with Qisha, Tanlang, and Phoenix Mingzun arranged on either side of him, forming a triangle. The Jade Rabbit scurried about on Qisha’s knee, darting back and forth, until Phoenix Mingzun caught it up, tapped it once on its fluffy rabbit head, and sent it into a deep sleep.

Xingyi closed his eyes and activated the formation array. His thoughts drifted for the briefest moment, and the array fluctuated — which was immediately sensed by those guarding it.

Qisha and Tanlang exchanged glances. Phoenix Mingzun asked softly, “Emperor?”

Xingyi shook his head. “It’s nothing. Continue.”

In the end he had agreed to Po Jun’s proposed trade, even though he had originally intended to personally retrieve the Jade Rabbit’s memories himself.

Po Jun had not come this time either. He had sealed and transferred his power, entrusting it to Phoenix Mingzun. At this moment, Po Jun was inside the hall speaking with Yue Lao and Little Phoenix, and no one knew what they were saying.

What could they be talking about?

His thoughts flashed and turned — the formation fluctuated again. This time Phoenix Mingzun did not open his eyes to look at him, only said, “Emperor, when I have finished guarding the formation for you, I have some things I would like to say to you.”

Xingyi also kept his eyes closed and gave no reply.

A few feet away, Po Jun had set up a sound-isolating barrier with an air of mystery, and brought out seven or eight fruit trays piled high with an assortment of rare and exotic fresh fruits, shelled nuts, fresh and pickled flowers — everything, with nothing lacking.

Little Phoenix sat hunched at the edge of the table, listless and without appetite. “I’m sorry — I apologize on Weijian’s behalf. He’s not usually like this. He probably just didn’t sleep well last night, so he’s in a bad mood.”

Po Jun smiled. “It’s alright. Eat something first — the Jade Rabbit picked all of this for you. Wait just a moment while I look up your wish from back then.”

Little Phoenix looked puzzled. “Didn’t you say you remembered it?”

Po Jun flipped through a yellowed booklet as he patiently explained. “I remember you, yes — but your wish I’ve forgotten. Let me see… Ah, here it is. The first wish was ‘to share a blossoming marriage with my husband,’ the second was ‘to be with my husband for a long, long time,’ and the third was ‘to never be parted from my husband’… Cough, you really—”

Yue Lao was the first to laugh aloud. “Little Yuan Yuan, aren’t these three wishes of yours all just one wish?”

Little Phoenix said nothing, silently picking up a piece of fruit and chewing on it.

Po Jun smiled and said, “When I saw the two of you kneeling before my idol back then, I saw through your true form but could not see through the Emperor’s — his cultivation far surpassed mine. Today, meeting him at last, I can confirm it — he is indeed the same person from all those years ago. Little Phoenix, to reunite after wandering apart for a hundred years — that is no small thing to call fate.”

Little Phoenix grew sadder the more he thought about it. “It was all forced by me. Weijian never used to keep birds — I had to coax and pressure him before he agreed to keep me. And look, he’s still quarreling with me now. He doesn’t like me at all, not even a little bit.”

“How do you know he doesn’t like you?” Po Jun smiled. “Then — would you like to hear the wish he made back then?”

Little Phoenix raised his head and fluttered his small wings, his little bead-like eyes fixed on Po Jun.

“Let me find your husband’s wish — look, here it is, right alongside yours. This is what I wrote down: he said, he wished to spend every morning and every evening with Fenghuang, and never to be parted, even into white-haired old age.”

****

Half an incense stick of time later, Qisha and Tanlang came out through the doors, exhausted to the bone, and only Xingyi and Phoenix Mingzun remained in the hall.

The Jade Rabbit had still not woken. Yet after the Star Disc had turned and then fallen silent, some small, shattered fragments appeared on the ground, crystalline and translucent as glazed roof tiles. Phoenix Mingzun, with his dexterous hands, picked them up and slowly fitted them together. Daylight filtered in from outside, casting a quiet and composed silhouette on the ground.

As he pieced them together, he spoke slowly. “Once there was a little phoenix with white feathers, drifting from place to place, working wherever he could, wanting only to fill his belly and have a little food to eat. Later he found work and began to cultivate, and soon reached a hundred years of age — the time for his first heavenly tribulation.”

“What no one had expected was that it would be a love tribulation.”

“This little white phoenix met his beloved in the mortal world. He was very fond of him, and his beloved was very fond of him in return. Though the two of them had not necessarily come together out of love at the beginning, in the end it became true and earnest love. It was the first time this little phoenix had found a home, found someone he cherished. They were together, and very happy.”

Xingyi moved his fingers, his brow furrowing slightly.

He did not particularly want to hear this, yet he made no outward reaction — only sat there with his eyes closed, still wearing the same expression of detachment and emotionlessness he had maintained for ten thousand years. Anyone who saw him would have assumed he was simply in meditation.

“Later, his beloved was suspected and fell out of favor with the emperor. On the road back to the capital, he was ambushed, and died alone in battle. At the time, he and Little Phoenix had been married for just over a year.”

“By the time Little Phoenix rushed to him… it was already too late. He too perished among the chaos of the soldiers, watching his beloved draw his last breath before his very eyes.”

Xingyi’s brow grew more deeply furrowed.

“When his mortal form dissolved into nothing, he remembered that he had originally been a phoenix. Among the Six Realms, only the mortal world takes life and death so gravely, but so long as one is not of the mortal world, there are always other ways. So this little phoenix began to search for his beloved’s reincarnation — but to no avail. Only later did he learn that his beloved, too, was no ordinary mortal, but an immortal. In the second lifetime, his beloved was reborn as a sword cultivator on an immortal mountain — a place cut off from the world. Both of them remembered each other and were striving to meet. That sword cultivator cultivated with all his might, hoping that after his ascension he could leave the immortal mountain and go find his Little Phoenix.”

At this point, Phoenix Mingzun paused for a long time — long enough that Xingyi hoarsely opened his mouth and asked, “And then?”

Shouldn’t they then have been reunited in happiness, from that point forward in blossoming joy?

He couldn’t quite name what this feeling was. He knew the ending of this story, because Little Phoenix had eventually come to find him alone; and yet he couldn’t explain why he hadn’t simply seized Little Phoenix and brought him straight back, why instead he was here listening to his little bird’s love and longing for another man.

That was clearly his Little Phoenix.

“What happened after?” Phoenix Mingzun smiled. “A love tribulation is still a tribulation in the end, isn’t it? At that time I had not yet ascended to become Mingzun — I was merely a dharma protector at that immortal mountain. That place has stood beyond heaven and earth since ancient times. Even to send a message, they could only wait for the azure bird that came once a year. One time I transformed into my true form, and the sword cultivator mistook me for the azure bird and handed me his letters. From then on, I carried messages between them every three days — I nearly ran my legs off.”

“Whatever that sword cultivator could not fit into his letters, he would say to me, hoping I could pass it on to that Little Phoenix. That is how I came to know the story of their past lives and present fate. Even I, at that time, thought this pair would surely make it through at last — but to my surprise, the very day the sword cultivator ascended… he vanished. From then on, no one ever saw him again.”

“The Northern Heaven was shaken. The Fuli Divine Palace, which existed only in legend, suddenly appeared above the clouds and was discovered by the world. And you, Emperor — it was only from that day onward that those in the Heavenly Court learned that you were still alive, and had become the master of the Star Disc.”

Xingyi’s eyes snapped open. In a low voice he asked, “…What did you say?”

Phoenix Mingzun fitted the last crystalline fragment into place, set it into the Jade Rabbit’s embrace, murmured an incantation, and dissolved it into the Jade Rabbit’s consciousness. Then he rose to his feet, cradling the sleeping fat rabbit, his tone still unhurried and composed. “I said — the very day the sword cultivator ascended, he disappeared without a trace, and you appeared before the eyes of the world from that day forth. Little Phoenix searched every one of the three thousand immortal mountains and could not find him. He turned the entire Heavenly Court upside down and could not find his beloved — until I had someone tell him, by a roundabout path, that the one he had been waiting for was in Fuli Palace. Only then did he settle down, and, with every ounce of strength he had, strove to take human form and come find you — so foolish he didn’t care at all whether or not you remembered him.”

“Do you know, Emperor, how the two of you died in the first lifetime? Had that evil dragon young emperor not happened to be fated with Tanlang — the star of greed and violence — at his life’s core, you would never have been suspected so gravely simply for being a prince. You were the one who placed the Evil Dragon Star into the Sha-Po-Lang configuration with your own hand, and yet the repercussions reached you yourself — even sweeping Little Phoenix into ruin alongside you. Whether what lies between you is fate or tribulation, who can truly say?”

Phoenix Mingzun said, “This is the third time, Emperor. Treasure it well.”