After Death, I Became My Shijie’s Palm-Sized Birdie – Chapter 16
by Little PandaEvents of the Past, Part 15
Shijie, I Love You
In the Cangwang Realm, those who admired the Immortal Venerable were not few, but those who dared say so to her face were extremely rare—let alone a young woman.
The entire banquet fell silent at once. Even the Qianyue Sword Sect Master’s wine cup slipped from his hand in shock. Only the Qingluan Clan’s side did not overreact; their princess even approved of her new friend’s courage—after all, the Monster Race did not have as many moral constraints as the human race.
“How much did she drink!” The Qianyue Sword Sect Master saw the empty wine pot in front of his daughter, then glanced at the pot in front of himself—which she had somehow taken from him at some point—and understood at once.
This was the Divine Immortal Brew, potent enough to intoxicate even Earth Immortal Realm cultivators! She hadn’t even reached the Earth Immortal Realm, yet she had drunk an entire pot and a half!
“Nonsense!”
After the shock passed, someone instinctively glanced at the other party in question. The Immortal Venerable sat at the head seat, her expression not wavering in the slightest at the girl’s words. Then again, for the Immortal Venerable closest to the God Realm, such a matter was likely not worth her attention at all.
Someone sighed softly. Recently, similar rumors about the Qianyue Sword Sect seemed to be particularly numerous. Whispers stirred around them. Yun Heng’s True Immortal Realm cultivation allowed her to catch every sound. Those present, mindful of the Qianyue Sword Sect Master being there, didn’t say anything too harsh, but most could not hide the strangeness in their eyes.
Yun Heng exchanged a glance with Lu Qiaoyi, who immediately understood her intent. Just as Lu Qiaoyi was about to find a topic to divert the conversation, the Qianyue Sword Sect Master had already grabbed his daughter and dragged her back.
“Immortal Venerable, please forgive her. She can’t hold her liquor, and she downed a pot and a half of Divine Immortal Brew in one go, so she started talking nonsense.” The Qianyue Sword Sect Master apologized.
“No matter,” said Yun Heng.
“I wasn’t talking non—mmph, mmph…” The drunken girl still tried to protest, but someone was faster, clapping a hand over her mouth.
Can’t you see the Immortal Venerable’s gaze? This foolish child was truly drunk out of her wits. She was acting on a moment’s courage now, but she’d regret it when she sobered up in a few days!
Wen Qiwu held her wine cup with lowered head, saying nothing. Only when the focus of everyone’s attention was half-carried away did she glance in that direction.
To her, even the ability to summon a moment’s courage was something to envy. Wen Qiwu silently drank the Drunken Phoenix wine in her cup. The Qingluan King had called it a fine brew, but somehow she tasted sourness and bitterness in it—just like her current state of mind.
It did not taste good.
Wen Qiwu sighed softly, her voice nearly inaudible. The wine burned as it slid down her throat. An inexplicable heat rose from her stomach, searing through her consciousness. In her daze, she heard voices she had suppressed for a long time.
[Are you content to hide your feelings in the dark until you die?]
She was not content.
Wen Qiwu’s expression grew increasingly dazed. The alcohol catalyzed the desire in her heart, and her inner defenses, already precarious, crumbled.
Her head was spinning… Wen Qiwu frowned slightly. She had never drunk wine this potent before.
Didn’t Shijie1 say this wine wouldn’t intoxicate? Then why did she feel otherwise? Had Shijie deceived her again? No, no… someone had deceived Shijie. The Qingluan King was a liar!
Yun Heng, who had heard Wen Qiwu’s sigh, quietly glanced toward her shimei2‘s seat. For some reason, she felt restless.
This banquet was truly tedious, but the elders were exceedingly talkative, pulling the Qingluan King into conversation about old friendships dating back to the Demon Emperor’s era. The Qingluan King had intended to investigate Wen Qiwu’s situation after the banquet ended, but when it concluded, she was enthusiastically swept away by the only Wenshen Sect elder with Monster Race bloodline and couldn’t get away.
When the banquet dispersed, Wen Qiwu did not leave immediately. Yun Heng stayed with her, waiting until everyone else had departed. The servants cleaned the area with a dust-purification technique, then quietly withdrew and closed the doors.
Now, in the quiet, only Wen Qiwu and Yun Heng remained.
“Qiwu, aren’t you going back yet?”
Gradually, Yun Heng noticed that something seemed wrong with Wen Qiwu. She quickly walked to her shimei’s seat and called softly.
Wen Qiwu’s reaction seemed sluggish. She lifted her head, her expression carrying a trace of bewilderment. Those eyes, seemingly brimming with moisture, looked innocent and pitiful. A wave of tenderness rose in Yun Heng’s heart.
Yun Heng touched her face—indeed, it was burning hot.
“Did you drink the Divine Immortal Brew?” Yun Heng considered this, then thought it impossible. Her shimei had barely eaten anything. She was certain Qiwu had only had one cup of Drunken Phoenix wine.
But hadn’t the Qingluan King said that wine wouldn’t intoxicate?
“Shijie~” Wen Qiwu spoke, her gaze fixed unblinkingly on Yun Heng.
“Let’s go back…” Yun Heng was about to pick Wen Qiwu up, but her shimei suddenly pulled her in her direction.
Though Wen Qiwu appeared delicate, years of medicinal baths and body-forging techniques had tempered her physical strength to a level exceeding that of typical Dao Integration cultivators.
Yun Heng hadn’t been on guard, so in the blink of an eye, her shimei had pinned her into the chair. When her shimei leaned close, she could have pushed her away immediately—but whether from shock or something else, she couldn’t react in time.
And so she tasted a warmth and softness carrying the fragrance of fruit wine.
Wen Qiwu’s kiss was innocent and unpracticed, even reckless with drunkenness, yet so sweet that Yun Heng’s expression went blank for a moment.
It wasn’t until Wen Qiwu lightly bit her lip that Yun Heng seemed to snap awake. She frantically pushed Wen Qiwu away. No one saw her ears turn a deep, vivid red.
Wen Qiwu couldn’t keep her footing and fell to the ground. It was a hard fall. A flash of heartache crossed Yun Heng’s eyes.
She told herself: her shimei was just drunk.
Cold immortal power poured down over her. Sitting on the ground, Wen Qiwu shivered, and the intoxication mostly cleared in an instant.
Wen Qiwu still remembered what she had just done. She stared blankly at the ground, her body trembling slightly, as though plunged into an ice cavern.
She had just kissed her shijie without her consent.
Her shijie’s shocked and bewildered expression lingered in her mind. Wen Qiwu didn’t dare analyze whether there was disgust in it, but her shijie surely couldn’t accept it—so she had pushed her away.
“Qiwu, you’re drunk.” Yun Heng drew a deep breath. Her tone sounded relatively calm, and she used the excuse of “you’re drunk” to cover up everything that had just happened.
As long as Wen Qiwu nodded, Yun Heng would treat tonight’s events as a mere accident, and they would retreat back to their proper, decorous positions as shijie and shimei.
“I…” Wen Qiwu’s voice trembled.
But could they really go back to where they had been, pretending nothing had happened?
Wen Qiwu understood: there was no going back—neither to an ordinary shijie-shimei relationship, nor to the feelings she had hidden for so many years.
As though throwing caution to the wind, she said softly, “Shijie, I love you.”
“…Absurd.” After a long moment, Wen Qiwu heard her shijie’s disappointed voice.
Her tears fell uncontrollably. Her lower lip, bitten down on, began to bleed.
The author has something to say:
That dense shijie won’t stay stubborn for long either—after all, her shimei is about to “disappear” soon.
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