Little Alpaca – Chapter 97

Volume 2: Fuzhu Huodou

I don’t love this mortal world, I only love you.

This was not the first time Yi Qiu had entered the painted realm of Xun Chi, so she naturally knew that nothing here could harm her in the slightest.

“This is a painted realm drawn by Xun Chi. Everything in here is just a memory, so we won’t be harmed in any way,” Yi Qiu said, pressing down on the sword in Jiang Yuyao’s hand. “He has something he wants to tell us. Why don’t we watch before we say anything else?”

Jiang Yuyao hesitated for a moment, then put away the spirit sword¹ in his hand and looked around.

Within the painting, the Dipper turns and the stars shift² in the blink of an eye. As the distorted, blurry scene gradually came into focus, everything around them changed dramatically.

This was a completely unfamiliar place.

There were no mountains or forests to be seen, only a sea of crimson fire that scorched the cracked earth.

A small black puppy staggered through this hellish world, the light of the flames behind it passing right through its body.

It turned out that its fur, flesh, and bones had long been burned away by the heavenly fire, and it didn’t know where they had fallen or where the wind had blown them. All that remained now was a wisp of a departed soul.

A meteorite, a heavenly fire—living creatures are smeared with charcoal³ in but an instant.

The Six Paths of Reincarnation⁴ never guided it, so it gritted its teeth, holding back tears, not knowing where it could possibly belong.

It died in calamity, and in calamity, it was reborn.

Countless ashes coalesced into its bones, and raging flames became its fur, flesh, and blood. And that meteorite, the one that had destroyed everything, ultimately became its heart.

A stone heart entered its soul, and for thousands upon thousands of years, it could not change one bit.

From the day it was reborn in fire, it was destined to be a child who would never grow up. Whatever age it died at was the age it would live as forever.

But a child who never grows up can no longer find their family of the past.

Back when chaos first opened⁵, the world was clearly overrun with demon beasts, yet every one of them feared it, avoiding it like the plague.

It didn’t know what it had done wrong, but it could faintly sense that no matter what it did, it was wrong in the eyes of those demon beasts.

In the vast mortal world, it searched everywhere and finally found “kin” who looked just like it.

It happily ran forward, wanting to make a friend, or perhaps to have a home.

But it killed them.

It turned out there truly were beings in this world born to bring disaster upon it.

No matter where it went, it was destined to be all alone by oneself; no matter who it met, it saw only fear and loathing.

No one liked it. For thousands upon thousands of years, no one ever had.

It had once walked alone through this dusty mortal world, hiding itself away, afraid of being discovered, but in the end, it still couldn’t escape the title of vicious beast bestowed upon it by the heavenly gods.

The mortal realm wouldn’t tolerate it, and the Heavenly Realm wouldn’t keep it.

To survive, it used that terrifying power to fight back against everything for the first time.

And from that moment on, all sin became inextricably linked to it.

It began to hide desperately, but because it couldn’t control the power within its body, it eventually exposed itself, with nowhere left to run.

For a moment, Yi Qiu couldn’t help but recall something You Yan had once said.

——If the Huodou were truly some vicious beast of ten evils that cannot be pardoned⁶, then how has it lived for over ten thousand years without burning this mortal realm to a fiery hell?

Yi Qiu subconsciously tightened her grip on You Yan’s cold left hand, as if by doing so she could feel it as if it happened to her own body⁷, but she knew she couldn’t accompany her through that cruel past.

Had the You Yan of the past, like the Huodou, also been forced to a dead end, bit by bit, in loneliness and helplessness?

The memories in the painted realm continued to flash by at the speed of light in countless blurry or clear fragments.

Then one day, a celestial from the Heavenly Realm came with the white deer Fuzhu—who had once been a vicious beast just like it. It fled and fled, but there was no escaping its own destiny.

It thought its life would end just like that, but it never imagined that it would survive.

The heavenly god it so despised sealed the terrifying power within its body.

It thought that celestial mountain was a prison meant to trap it, never imagining that it would become the first place in over ten thousand years that could be called “home.”

——What’s so great about this place? I don’t like celestials, and I don’t like people. They’re all bad…

——They stole the places where we demon beasts originally lived, and now they have to pretend to be kind by taking us in. What’s with the act…

The little black puppy mumbled quietly, looking at the woman before it who was also a vicious beast.

But its words no longer held their former resentment.

The tone was as if it were just quietly bad-mouthing others with the person closest to it.

Yi Qiu couldn’t help but notice something.

This memory still took place on Mount Ao’an, but the Mount Ao’an in the memory was not quite the same as the one she had seen when she first entered this painted realm with Fuzhu and Xun Chi.

This was the Huodou’s memory.

In the Huodou’s memory, the landscape of Mount Ao’an was blurry, dim, and dull, just like the mortal realm in all its past memories—as if covered in dust. Aside from firelight and ashes, there was no color, and it wasn’t the least bit clean.

Yi Qiu had originally thought the Huodou’s memories would be like this, oppressively bleak from beginning to end.

But gradually, color appeared in its memories, as did places that looked truly and properly clean.

At first, the only difference was the woman named Jian Li.

Later, there was the “detestable” Xun Chi, the firefly-like spiritual lights in the mountains, the flowers, grass, and trees, and the moonlight and stars in the night sky.

Its world, with Jian Li at the center, began to brighten bit by bit.

At that moment, the stone heart that hadn’t beaten in ten thousand years finally, inch by inch, grew the flesh and blood that a normal living being ought to have, all under Jian Li’s gentle companionship.

——Huodou, you’ll grow to like it here… Perhaps, you’ll also come to like… a human form?

It took those words to heart.

It guessed that Jian Li must like human forms.

So from that moment on, it tried very hard to take on that form, tried very hard to fit itself into a human shell, all just to get closer to the first ray of light in this world that was willing to shine upon it.

But in the end, it was still left far behind by that ray of light.

Its life soul⁸ had left its body, but its physical form remained. It was clearly still alive, yet it was muddled as if in a deep sleep.

Two thousand years of being sealed had crushed all its hopes for this world in endless darkness. It was resentful, it was hateful, but in the end, it was still like a child, coaxed into being obedient and gentle with just three words and two phrases by the Jian Li who had once hurt it.

In the mountains and forests of the mortal realm, it laid down layer after layer of barriers and carefully swallowed every flame it accidentally ignited.

It sealed Jian Li’s power, took on a human form to stay by her side day and night, and cared for her just as she had cared for it back then—clumsily, yet earnestly.

If only fate had not toyed with it…

Perhaps it truly would have come to love this cruel world that had wronged it for thousands upon thousands of years.

No wonder. No wonder Xun Chi said it was a child.

It had only just grown a heart of flesh and blood and hadn’t had time to grow up. It really… hadn’t had time to grow up yet.

“You don’t like me hurting people, so I won’t hurt people anymore. I don’t want the Yi bird’s promise anymore… The Heavenly Realm won’t let me go, so we probably can’t stay here for long. But that’s okay. If you like the mountains and forests, I’ll take you to find other ones. The mortal realm is so big, we can just keep running and running…” the girl in black said, turning to look at Jian Li behind her. “You’ve never had a good look at this mortal realm either, have you? We can look as we run. I’m stronger than I was before. I won’t get caught…”

“Okay,” Jian Li replied, the corners of her lips lifting slightly as she smiled at the girl. But within her tear-filled gaze, a hint of hesitation seemed to flicker.

Yi Qiu had never been able to understand why Jian Li refused to tell the truth, insisting on her one-sided wishful thinking⁹ for the Huodou’s sake. But today, she suddenly understood a little.

How could such a gentle person bear to speak such a cruel truth to a child like this?

Because she was afraid. More than being afraid the Huodou would resent her, she was afraid that if the Huodou learned the truth, it would rather die than leave her side.

“The more the Huodou acts like this, the less she dares to tell the truth…” Yi Qiu’s brow furrowed, tears already welling in her eyes.

“How long can she hide it? No one’s a fool,” You Yan replied coolly, an inscrutable look in her eyes.

Yi Qiu subconsciously looked up at You Yan and couldn’t help but start to think wild and random thoughts¹⁰.

She wondered, was You Yan mocking Fuzhu for how ridiculous her concealment from the Huodou was, or was she implying that paper can’t wrap up fire¹¹—that if there were truly lies between them, even a child as dense as the Huodou would one day see through them? And if so, how long could a little alpaca like her hide things from the big bad bird?

Come to think of it, her thoughts on the secret she was hiding were quite similar to Jian Li’s, but on closer reflection, they weren’t quite the same.

Without Fuzhu, it was as if the Huodou had lost its entire world.

But if the great villain lost the little alpaca, he’d at least still have a pot of stewed sheep’s trotters…

“The white deer can’t hold on much longer!” Jiang Yuyao said, a trace of pity rising in his eyes.

In the painted realm, the woman in white was gone, leaving only a white deer that could no longer even maintain its human form.

Its once-large antlers were withering away like dead branches. The white deer lay quietly by the stream, its eyes shut tight, its breathing heavy.

The little black puppy that had reverted to its original form along with the deer circled it anxiously, its crimson eyes filled with tears.

The Huodou had finally found the answer it had been desperately seeking for over two thousand years.

This time, it didn’t resent the white deer for hiding things from it. After calming down, it just asked in a low voice, “If we don’t want to be separated, then one of us is destined to die, right?”

It was a question that needed no answer.

The white deer’s silence said it all.

The vicious beast Huodou was destined never to become the gentlest, most harmless light in the world, as Xun Chi had hoped.

Willing or not, its entire life was spent constantly hurting others—the innocent and its loved ones alike.

The little black puppy gently burrowed into the white deer’s embrace and said obediently, “Jian Li, wait for me. I’m going to find Xun Chi.”

It said it didn’t want to live alone anymore—not for a year, a month, a day, a shichen¹², not even for a minute or a second.

It said it would go find Xun Chi and have its power sealed again. As long as it was the weaker one, there would be nothing left to fear.

It said that if one had to die between Fuzhu and the Huodou, then let it be the one.

Finally, it curled up a little tighter, looked up at the white deer, and whispered its last words.

“You don’t have to be sad for me…

After all, I don’t love this mortal world. I only love you.”

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