The Great King Ordered Me to Marry – Chapter 70
by Little PandaSpeaking of the Fox Scheming to Heal the Tiger
The demonic qi that had run rampant through Emperor Tianji’s lingtai burst loose as his body detonated and his soul crumbled.
It surged out in a pitch-black mass with the momentum to charge straight into the clouds — a pity this was the Pillow of Red Dust, and no matter how it rammed, it would never see the light of day.
Red filled the eye wherever one looked. Tianji’s blood and flesh had splattered everywhere, and the demon immortals were still bleeding out, their bodies like water pouches split at the seam.
The demon immortals sat down where they stood, folding their legs to steady their breathing, shoring up lingtai on the verge of toppling.
Longming alone did not meditate. Her power was nearly spent; she could barely hold herself upright — and still she reached out both arms, trying to catch the heavenly fox tumbling from the sky.
Zhuoxue’s face was smeared with flying gore. All she could see was crimson, and for a moment she stood utterly at a loss.
The claws that had shot out several cun shrank back to normal. She lowered her eyes to her hands — they looked as if they’d just come out of a dye vat, red through and through.
In truth, she hadn’t known what to do. She’d simply counted on having eight tails to spare and hurled herself headlong at Tianji.
The others were down to half a life apiece, and who knew whether half would be enough. She had eight left — surely that had to do.
Once she’d lunged in, she’d plunged her hand into Tianji’s chest and stirred it around twice — and understanding came. Spiritual power should sever Tianji’s blood vessels, then push into his lingtai and grind that demonized core to nothing.
The Mourning Spirit Dove soared up to meet the sky, circling the black mass without once descending, hemming it in so it could not go straying, leaving it no choice but to linger in place and slowly dissipate.
Zhuoxue drifted down lightly. Before her eyes flickered the inverted Huangliang Dream Market, then the homeless mortals of her past life, then battlefields carpeted in white bones.
In the end, she had saved the mortal world. Across two lifetimes, through a hundred turns and a thousand bends, the roads had differed — the destination was the same.
And she had saved herself. A century’s worth of ache and grievance vanished into thin air in this moment.
Zhuoxue’s eyes shone bright. Just before she hit bottom, she transformed into her heavenly fox body and landed squarely before Longming, eight fox tails whipping about with the gusto of foxtail grass in the wind, immensely pleased with herself.
Longming blinked — the corner of her mouth had barely curved before she toppled sideways.
That tall, graceful figure lay where it fell, become a frail willow by the riverbank, unable to weather wind or rain.
Zhuoxue scrambled to her in a panic. Twice now she had watched Longming fall, and twice her heart had seized; her throat had only just unclenched, and it tightened all over again.
She pressed her damp nose to Longming’s neck, thought her pulse gone, and nearly breathed for her in her beast form.
Thankfully, breath and pulse both remained — merely faint.
And the lingtai?
Zhuoxue turned instead to examining Longming’s lingtai. It gleamed like a moon disc — but through it rampaged a single wisp of ink-black demonic qi.
She ate that wisp without a second’s thought, wanting to leave Longming a clean slate.
Only after swallowing it did she learn how tyrannical Tianji’s demonic qi truly was. No wonder so many demon immortals had been ruined down to the root, left clinging to a single breath.
All around, the demon immortals sat motionless, legs folded, their various powers weaving together — repelling none, devouring none — more resplendent than the auspicious radiance of heaven itself.
Liangmeng was drenched in cold sweat, eyes shut tight. “The demonic qi is ramming loose. The Pillow of Red Dust can barely hold.”
Kunyu pressed her palm to Liangmeng’s back, sending spiritual power through to ease her, and snapped: “Never mind it. Steady your own lingtai first.”
Glancing this way and that, Zhuoxue picked the great demon up in her jaws, meaning to find somewhere to treat her wounds.
She had barely lifted Longming when heaven and earth began to shudder without end. The inverted Huangliang Dream Market looked exactly like Yaojing with its earth veins collapsed — already at the brink of falling.
One thunderous crash.
The view in her eyes splintered into a thousand fragments, and the entire Pillow of Red Dust fell apart.
Heaven rocked and earth swayed; the cosmos inverted once more.
The Pillow of Red Dust came rumbling down — while Yaojing above, its earth veins utterly destroyed, hung steady at the sky’s edge, held aloft by the spirit turtle.
The heavenly stones stopped falling toward the mortal world. The thick clouds scattered, the violet lightning vanished, and the sky over the Mortal Realm broke abruptly clear.
Thousands upon thousands of heavenly stones lay strewn across the land. Some cities had been destroyed at a stroke; others still half stood, but stood empty, not a soul left inside.
The mortals had fled at the sound — but bodies of flesh could not, in the end, outrun falling stones, and were crushed alive into mangled bone and pulp.
When the catastrophe passed, the survivors poked their heads out, hearts hammering, and watched the sky a long while before daring to believe the disaster truly over.
Someone flipped trembling through book pages amid the ruins, voice shaking: “The last time the mortal world met a calamity of this scale was a century ago — the nameless plague, which no one knew how it began, nor how it ended.”
A chronicler hastily dug the four treasures of the study — brush, ink, paper, and inkstone — from the broken walls and set the strange account down in careful strokes.
“Heavenly stones fell like shooting stars — some as large as a commandery, some no bigger than a fist, past all counting. Houses collapsed, mountains split open, corpses lay strewn across the land. The dead and wounded… how many dead and wounded?”
“More than can be counted,” someone answered nearby.
“Too many. Roughly as many as a century ago.” The chronicler shook his head.
Far away in the Demon Realm, Liangmeng spent the last of her strength to send the demon immortals out of the Pillow of Red Dust, trapping Tianji’s demonic qi in that realm beyond the world.
The scene before the demon immortals changed in an instant; in the blink of an eye they were back outside Wugou Stream, and by the time they came to their senses, no trace of Zhuoxue or Longming remained.
Saving the tiger’s life brooked no delay. The heavenly fox scooped Longming up in her jaws and ran, straight into Wugou Stream.
The Mourning Spirit Dove followed, unrelenting. She had no time for it; her eight tails flailed wildly and drove the dove off into the distance.
Baffled, the dove tilted its head, squawked a few times, and went off to find itself an eave to perch under.
Who knew which corner of Wugou Stream was secluded enough? Zhuoxue was burning with urgency; spotting a palace in the distance, she darted straight through its gates.
Only once inside did it occur to her that every brick and tile of Wugou Stream must shift with its master’s will.
The pavilions and towers now differed from Yan Wuni’s day and had taken on something of Lingkong Mountain — though the waters bore no grass, no trees, far short of Lingkong Mountain’s lush life.
The hall’s furnishings were identical to the bedchamber on the mountain — the same bird-and-flower outlines on the screen, the canopy over the couch the very same color.
The heavenly fox laid Longming on the couch, turned back into human form, lifted her up, and began feeding her spiritual power, slow and steady.
Longming’s wounds were too grave. Her five viscera and six bowels1 had all been corroded beyond recognition. If they waited for the body to mend itself, who knew what year that would be.
Zhuoxue didn’t know what to do. Cold sweat broke out on her palms; after an age of pouring power in, she had managed to restore a single patch of Longming’s skin.
Such a small patch — smaller than a hair’s breadth2.
Her heart ached to gather Longming into her arms, but Longming was wounded head to toe; there was nowhere to lay her hands.
She couldn’t touch her — and couldn’t even cry out.
Her tight throat allowed no shouting. She could only bring her lips to Longming’s ear and shape the words: Wugou Stream has only just accepted its master. If you don’t wake soon, this river that rolls its eyes at you will toss you out of the house again.
And that was, truly, exactly the sort of thing Wugou Stream would do.
Longming did not stir.
Zhuoxue mouthed on, soundless: Good thing there’s still Lingkong Mountain. If Wugou Stream turns its face and disowns its tiger, we won’t be left without somewhere to go.
At the thought, she abruptly froze. What if Wugou Stream truly believed Longming dead? What if that droplet of blood at the sea’s heart had already dissolved?
Bad as this place was, Longming had fought tooth and nail to win it back. How could it be handed to someone else?
Zhuoxue could neither sit nor stand still. The great demon before her looked haggard enough to crumble, and the sight cut her heart like a knife. She stroked Longming’s silver hair and mouthed: I’m going to go and check. Sleep a while here — and don’t be scared!
The words done, the fox ran for the sea’s heart, looking back at every step, and plunged headfirst into the water.
The sea’s heart lay silent, its surface calm as a bright mirror — until the fox smashed it into ring after ring of ripples.
Her pelt soaked through, her body as if pressed beneath a thousand jun3, she bore it — she who hated water more than anything bore it now.
In the depths of the Yexu Waters hung a droplet of blood, on the very edge of dispersing. Its rim had blurred past reading, but within it still burned fresh and brilliant — just like Longming in this moment.
Any droplet of blood that fell into the water now could rival it.
Unless the newcomer merged with it, became one with it — blended like milk and water, inseparable, a single integrated whole.
Just as, after bodies tangled in love, one could smell the change in each other’s scent — yet it never stole the host’s place, never let one be mistaken for the other.
The fox’s heart pounded. She shot to the surface, didn’t even shake the water from her fur, and bolted back to the bedchamber in a fluster.
She dropped down at Longming’s side, turned into her slim human shape, leaned in close, and breathed in Longming’s scent — the roots of her ears so hot they nearly boiled the water beads off her skin.
Rouge flooded her jade-white face; her eyes became lakes of shimmering light, and her lashes quivered once, like a butterfly playing on the water.
She knew the method would work. But she could not speak, and Longming could not open her eyes — how was she to win Longming’s consent?
Then again — would Longming even refuse?
Zhuoxue covered her face with both palms, parted one finger the slightest bit, and peeked through at Longming’s pitiful state, swallowing again and again in her shame.
Refuse? Longming would only ever eat her…
Clean to the last crumb.
Utterly wicked!
And in that very blink, Longming’s finger twitched.
Zhuoxue went still, staring fixedly at that slender finger. Her heart gave a jolt, and the jolt scattered her embarrassment to the winds.
Scattered — and with it gone, she wanted it all the more. She couldn’t wait to see Longming open her eyes, couldn’t wait to scold her in the harshest voice — strike first, seize the initiative.
Wasn’t she always so imposing, this one? And in the end she’d put Zhuoxue through fright after fright, left her sick with worry!
She pressed her lips together, gathered her courage, and mouthed, soundless: I am going to dual cultivate with you. Either you agree, or you have no choice but to agree. If our hearts speak as one4, blink once.
Thank goodness no sound came out. Had she been made to enunciate every word in a clear, round voice, she would sooner have blown that blood droplet at the sea’s heart to nothing.
Longming seemed, truly, to have heard her heart. An eyelid stirred, so faintly it could barely be seen.
Zhuoxue abruptly wished to take the words back. Her heart leapt straight for her throat; by now it wasn’t just her ears — her whole body burned.
But how did one dual cultivate? Longming had never taught her.
Never mind. She would fumble her way through; surely she’d find some thread of the method.
A hazy mist barrier rose through the bedchamber, sealing it away from the world — no bird could fly in, no sound could slip out.
Zhuoxue lay down beside Longming with her clothes on, eyes lowered, fingers laced through Longming’s fingers.
It was only hand-holding, yet the corners of her eyes and her ears were dyed through with the colors of spring — she had become the tip of a peach branch, wreathed in blossom.
Dual cultivation meant accord of the lingtai, a return to origin and root. Surely, if she simply regarded Longming as her own body, let Longming’s spiritual meridians link and flow with hers, nothing could go wrong.
Within the mist, fox and white tiger were as a single body. Through their pressed-together palms, the fox pushed her spiritual power out, slow and slow.
Bit by bit, never rushed — haste makes waste.
Zhuoxue sweated like rain. She found with ease the meridians of Longming — cracked open in eight blooms and nine fissures — but somehow her mind had gone hazy, as if it had flown out of her body and followed her power down into Longming’s channels.
Inexplicably, she felt she was flowing through Longming. She could sense the course of Longming’s meridians with perfect clarity, could trace every bend within, every fork.
What she poured into Longming was no single wisp but the whole of her — she had, in effect, lodged herself inside Longming, very like possession and body-seizing, and yet not.
Possession means commandeering another’s body. She could commandeer nothing. She was steeped through and through in Longming’s icy aura, tipsy as a wine-lover on her favorite cup, and growing dazed.
And because of her infusion, Longming’s meridians were dyed through with her scent. This time it was true — marinated to the bone.
Inside and out, pickled through completely.
Then the hand laced with hers twitched, without the least warning.
She was wholly absorbed, her power on the very point of piercing into Longming’s lingtai — the most sensitive instant of all — and with that twitch, not only her power but her very body shook like a sieve.
“What are you doing?”
A low voice, like one just waking, edged with languor.
Zhuoxue’s power still pressed at the outer edge of Longming’s lingtai. At the sound, it stalled.
The speaker was not her. Her own chest vibrated of its own accord, as if voicing the words at the very same time.
Longming saw what surrounded her and knew she was back in Wugou Stream. She breathed out softly, felt the extra share of spiritual power within her, and pinched up Zhuoxue’s palm: “Aren’t you afraid I’ll spirit you away?”
One light pinch, and endless tingling followed.
Zhuoxue blinked. Her lips opened and closed twice; no sound came. She truly looked dead-drunk — gaze misty, cheeks burning.
There was no Mourning Spirit Dove beside her now to carry her voice. If Longming meant to read her meaning, she would have to guess.
“Why can’t you speak?” Longming had wanted to ask from the first; only now could she ask it.
Zhuoxue glared, aggrieved. All your fault, she thought — yours, you great white tiger with red eyes and black markings.
“Good thing you’re formidable. Tianji perished by your hand — you saved the three realms.” Longming’s head felt fit to split; she could only speak slow and low.
Zhuoxue’s chest tingled and trembled; even Longming’s every breath reached her in full, unmistakable detail. This was not what she wanted to talk about.
Longming must already know why she had poured her power in — and was evading the issue5. Utterly wicked! Another mark in the ledger!
Watching Zhuoxue flush one moment and glower the next, Longming gave a soft laugh, and all at once pressed her soft lips to the corner of Zhuoxue’s eye, savoring with relish the flow and stall of spiritual power inside her.
Even so light a touch Zhuoxue could barely endure. If she were snow, she would by now have been kneaded into meltwater.
Formidable? What did she count as? This didn’t even qualify as dual cultivation yet. Dual cultivation must be… truly formidable.
Longming explained softly: “Because our meridians are linked, and because you poured the whole of your power into me, every change in my body — without one exception — flows into your five senses. Amplified, even.”
Zhuoxue froze. She wanted badly to bite Longming’s neck — but there wasn’t one patch of whole skin on the neck before her, and she had to hold herself back.
“They say dual cultivation is addictive. Do you truly want to try?” Longming asked, in earnest.
Zhuoxue panted, eyes rimmed red. That, she did not fear. She was only a little shy — and afraid the white tiger would sleep on and never rise.
“Answer me?” Longming breathed, weak as a guttering flame, and teasing on purpose.
Zhuoxue rose up in a huff and bit at Longming’s upper lip, then swung her gaze cleanly away, fingers tightening in secret.
Could her meaning be any less obvious?
She was this close to writing it on her face — “willing” on the left cheek, “dual cultivation” on the right.
Only a thought, of course. She would never really write that on her own face. On Longming’s face, perhaps — and if anyone was going to be embarrassed, it ought to be Longming.
The bite was not deep — a shallow nibble, like a dragonfly skimming water.
Some reproach in it, yes — but more like flirtation.
Longming sat up at her own unhurried pace and drew their interlocked hand before her eyes: Zhuoxue’s five fingers were clamped tight, the very tips gone white.
Zhuoxue rose with her, eyes still fixed elsewhere — but the power stalled at the edge of Longming’s lingtai did not retreat.
Her intent was plain to see, clear as crystal, pure and unmixed.
“Now you.” Longming said, “Through my lingtai, wander back to your own meridians. Then I’ll pour power into you. Round and round, until…”
Until what?
Zhuoxue’s eyes flicked over, one puzzled sidelong glance.
Longming left the second half unsaid. “From beginning to end, keep your intent anchored in the dantian. As for what comes after — I’ll tell you slowly.”
Footnotes
- 五脏六腑 | wuzang liufu | The 'five viscera and six bowels' of traditional Chinese medicine: heart, liver, spleen, lungs, and kidneys, plus six hollow organs such as the stomach and intestines; a classical formula for every organ inside the body.
- 毫厘 | hao li | Hao and li, the two smallest traditional Chinese length measures — one li roughly a third of a millimeter, one hao a thirtieth of a millimeter; together they denote the tiniest measurable increment.
- 千钧 | qian jun | One jun equals thirty catties, roughly fifteen kilograms; 'a thousand jun' is classical hyperbole for a crushing, immovable weight no mortal frame could bear.
- 心有灵犀 | xin you lingxi | Literally 'hearts joined by the lingxi,' the legendary sensory line said to run through a rhino horn from tip to base; from Tang poet Li Shangyin, describing lovers who understand each other without a single word.
- 顾左右而言他 | gu zuo you er yan ta | From Mencius: cornered by an unanswerable question, King Xuan of Qi looked left and right and changed the subject; now a byword for dodging a sensitive topic by talking about anything else.
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