Flower, Yet Not a Flower (Part 10)

When Immortal Lord Xianzhen saw Chi Lian again, he covered half his face with a fan, like a jade-faced fox whose cunning plan had succeeded, and asked with a grin, "Was Third Brother's Yuxiao Wine any good?"

Chi Lian shot him a miserable look. "You're the one who tattled to the Emperor, aren't you?"

"His Majesty the Emperor is sagacious and sees everything with perfect clarity; how would he need me to tattle?" Xianzhen said meaningfully. "His heart is with you. Without anyone needing to say much, he would naturally go to find you."

Of course, Xianzhen wouldn't go before the Emperor and openly say, 'Chi Lian went to Bitai Palace and came out wanting to drown his sorrows in wine.' After all, that was a matter between Immortal Venerable Qingyang and the Emperor, not something a mere Immortal Lord like him should meddle in. He had only, while reporting on official business to the Emperor, casually asked if Chi Lian had been sent out on a mission. Because he had glimpsed a figure outside Bitai Palace that looked very much like Chi Lian, he thought he had gone out with the Emperor and descended to the Mortal Realm after receiving an assignment.

The Emperor never let Chi Lian get involved in matters concerning Bitai Palace. Since he had said that much, how could the Emperor not sense that something was amiss?

Of course, the innocent Immortal Lord Xianzhen never mentioned the most crucial pot of Yuxiao Wine, perfectly pretending to be just a kind-hearted passerby.

Recalling that day's events, a chill still ran down Chi Lian's spine. He felt deeply that he was no match for these people with their eight hundred schemes, and cupped his hands listlessly. "Third Brother is right. It wasn't tattling, it was a reminder... Thank you for your reminder."

Xianzhen put away his fan and tapped him lightly on the head. "This is also a reminder for you. Don't always think of hiding away by yourself when you run into trouble. If we can't solve it, there's still the Emperor. Even if you poke a hole in the sky, he can patch it up for you. There's no need to torture yourself, you understand?"

Chi Lian sometimes felt that Xianzhen was the one who had truly inherited the Emperor's ways. No matter what he did, he handled it with ease, secrecy, and thoroughness. The only difference was that Immortal Lord Xianzhen would often offer a word or two of guidance afterward, while the Emperor, whether for good or ill, would not say an extra word if he felt it was unnecessary.

This incident wasn't major. Chi Lian had drunk the wine and had his outburst, but not a single word of that conversation regarding 'Chi Lian' had been leaked. Even if the Emperor knew the cause lay with Bitai Palace, Immortal Venerable Qingyang wouldn't be foolish enough to confess everything to him. This chapter would naturally be turned over gently, as if nothing had ever happened—or so Chi Lian thought.

However, not long after, Bitai Palace was reprimanded by the Heavenly Emperor for an error in refining a spiritual treasure. Although it was not Immortal Venerable Qingyang who made the mistake, as the master of the immortal palace, he naturally could not escape responsibility and had to close his palace for one hundred years to reflect.

Immortals also make mistakes, which was not uncommon in the Heavenly Court. Other Immortal Venerables had suffered similar unforeseen disasters in the past, so Immortal Venerable Qingyang could only count himself unlucky this time. The only thing worth pondering was the slightly delicate timing of the event. But looking at the whole affair from beginning to end, it had no connection to anyone in Jiangxiao Palace. If one had to find a forced reason, one could only blame Emperor Cangze for not having said a single word in his defense from start to finish.

Although it was slightly different from what Chi Lian had imagined, the matter was finally put to rest with Immortal Venerable Qingyang's seclusion—only, it wasn't "gently," but "silently and without a trace."

After passing his one hundredth year, Chi Lian finally crossed the threshold of "initiation," and his cultivation gradually entered a smoother phase. When one is focused, time passes quickly. Although immortals have endless lifespans, a single session of seclusion could easily last two or three hundred years. A millennium was but the snap of a finger, gone in a flash.

By now, it had been over a thousand years since Chi Lian entered Jiangxiao Palace. He felt that under the protection of the Emperor's wing, his path had been quite smooth. Though there were occasional bumps, he had successfully overcome them all in the end. But the Emperor and his other senior brothers didn't seem to think so. Whenever he went out, they wished he would report his safety three times a day, as if he weren't an immortal of a thousand or eight hundred years, but a small wildflower that even a roadside caterpillar could bully.

The cause was an incident when Chi Lian was not yet five hundred years old. It coincided with an internal conflict within the West Sea Dragon Race. During a great battle, a giant dragon rammed its head into Snow Wave Mountain, the boundary between Jian Continent and Heng Continent, breaking it. The sound of the impact reached the White Jade Capital, alarming numerous Heavenly Emperors and immortals.

The event was sudden. To quell the chaos as quickly as possible, the Emperor descended to the mortal world with Beichen, Mingshu, and Xianzhen, leaving the younger ones to watch over their home. But right at this critical juncture, the eldest son of the Ying Continent Lord of the East Sea was to be married, and the bride was the daughter of Immortal Venerable Dongyun of Lanyin Palace. This was considered a grand event in the Heavenly Court, one that hadn't been seen in thousands of years. The Heavenly Emperor not only bestowed many rare treasures to add to the bride's dowry but also specially dispatched the Third Prince, Immortal Lord Chengqi, to escort the bride and offer congratulations on behalf of the Heavenly Court.

This matter originally had nothing to do with Chi Lian. But for some unknown reason, just before the departure, the Heavenly Emperor suddenly issued a decree, stating that since Jiangxiao Palace was in charge of vanquishing evil and exterminating wickedness, for safety's sake, it was to dispatch someone to accompany and protect Immortal Lord Chengqi. Although he knew full well that the Heavenly Emperor was purely making trouble for no reason—if the Emperor were presiding over the Heavenly Court, this decree wouldn't even have made it past the gates of Jiangxiao Palace—the Emperor was currently away at war. To avoid distracting him with such trivial matters, Chi Lian, with the mentality that one less problem is better than one more, proactively accepted the assignment.

Throughout the journey, he remained silent, keeping a low profile and not standing out, honestly and dutifully acting as an attendant for several days. He was on guard against a thousand possibilities, but in the end, he couldn't prevent Immortal Lord Chengqi from courting his own death. This Third Prince of noble birth, having a rare chance to descend to the mortal world, naturally wanted to try some thrills unavailable in the Heavenly Court. He followed a group of profligates he had met in Ying Continent to the city's market district for amusement. As a result of bullying others with his authority, he got into a conflict with the young master of the Ye Family of Li Continent. The three continents of the North Sea were places with fierce customs, and the Ye Family of Li Continent was a clan that even kept mythical beasts like the Ran Dragon as spiritual pets. They would fight first and talk later, even if the Jade Emperor himself showed up. When the two sides came to blows, they blew up more than half of the market district, and the Ye Family's young master beat Immortal Lord Chengqi until he had only a single breath left.

If Chi Lian hadn't arrived in time to stop it, Immortal Lord Chengqi would have died on the spot. A joyous occasion turned into a farce. Both Li Continent and Ying Continent scrambled to apologize to the Heavenly Court, but the matter had already escalated. This fight directly wiped out several thousand years of Immortal Lord Chengqi's cultivation, rendering him more or less a cripple thereafter.

Enraged, the Heavenly Emperor threw the entire retinue of Immortal Lord guards into the Heavenly Prison, and Chi Lian was no exception. Gui Heng and Yingling hadn't expected such an act of "killing the donkey after it's done grinding" and were on the verge of storming the Heavenly Palace. Chi Lian left in a hurry; after holding them back, he had no time to say much, only repeatedly instructing them not to be rash and, most importantly, not to distract the Emperor at this critical moment. He feared that this matter had been deliberately arranged by someone. It didn't matter if he suffered a little, but the Emperor's side was a battlefield fraught with peril. One wrong step would lead to eternal damnation. The more this was so, the less room there was for any mistakes.

Once inside the Heavenly Prison, no matter how slow-witted Chi Lian was, he could see that someone was deliberately trying to frame him. The Heavenly Prison was layered with heavy restrictive spells. Regardless of an immortal's rank, upon entering a cell and being fitted with the Immortal-Restraining Locks, their entire spiritual power would be sealed. His treatment, however, was even more special; he was intentionally placed in the Snow Prison on the lowest level.

The prison was extremely cold; a single breath would condense into frost. It was the most hostile environment for a Flower Immortal. But the advantage was that once inside, one would be frozen stiff immediately, saving a lot of time for wild thoughts and scaring oneself. Moreover, the fact that it was so obviously targeted meant the person behind the scenes was not aiming for the Emperor, but for him.

This way, he could relax a little and quietly fall into hibernation.

Chi Lian didn't remember much of what happened next, nor did he know how long he had slept. When he was jolted awake by a loud bang, all he saw were deep blue robes surging like waves and shattered ice scattering everywhere like an avalanche, yet none of it was as dazzlingly cold as that silvery glint of a sword.

That was Emperor Cangze's personal sword, "Wanxiang."

The last time he drew his sword, two Immortal Venerables in the Heavenly Court lost their heads. The time before that, the East Sea's Zangzhou Continent changed hands, its killing intent obscuring the sun and its blood flowing like rivers. The time before that... Before Chi Lian could finish his thought, his body, suddenly freed from its restraints, lost its balance and fell stiffly into the Emperor's arms.

This embrace was as warm as it had been for thousands of years, yet something seemed different from the past.

It was a craving incompatible with reliance and admiration, a fervent emotion that even the ice and snow had failed to freeze, which, once exposed to the wind, grew wildly like endless weeds. Chi Lian tried to attribute it to a hallucination born from a narrow escape from death, but when the Emperor bent down and whispered in his ear, "Don't be afraid, I'll take you home now," it shattered into a thousand butterfly shadows.

The Emperor carried him horizontally, stepping over a floor of shattered ice and the countless eyeballs of immortals, and walked majestically out of the Heavenly Prison. Chi Lian found it embarrassing and didn't want to be seen being picked up by a guardian like a small child, so he closed his eyes, kicked his legs, and played dead. The Emperor saw through it but didn't expose him, and it was even less likely he'd let Chi Lian have his way. After returning to Jiangxiao Palace, he placed him on a warm bed, wrapped him tightly in a blanket until he was airtight, and then touched his icily cold cheek. "With this much cleverness, what were you doing earlier?"

The moment Chi Lian opened his mouth, a large pill was gently yet irresistibly stuffed into it by Immortal Lord Mingshu.

Chi Lian: "Mmph, mmph, mmph..."

Immortal Lord Xianzhen watched from the side, a rare absence of a smile on his face. He suddenly said, "I feel... isn't Chi Lian's path a bit too fraught with hardship? Why does he always run into things like this?"

Hearing this, the Emperor turned to look at him, and the two exchanged a quick glance.

Chi Lian, half-lying down, didn't see them exchange glances. He struggled to chew the pill and mumbled, "Not really, wasn't this time just a coincidence?"

Xianzhen grew anxious looking at his carefree appearance. "You're used to great storms, but this isn't how an ordinary immortal's first five hundred years are spent. If you don't believe me, ask Gui Heng and Yingling. Which of them has faced so many life-threatening situations like you?"

In truth, his words were too euphemistic. Only the Emperor and the others could understand his unstated meaning: the dangers Chi Lian encountered were not just perilous situations, but also predicaments that could easily breed Heart Demons. If it were any other immortal, they might have gone astray with a single wrong thought and fallen into demonic cultivation. Yet, Chi Lian, facing a series of traps, had managed to walk steadily to this day. While his own temperament was certainly indestructible, the source of the extra hardships he had endured compared to others should also be made clear.

As the victim, Chi Lian didn't seem to mind. "Then maybe I'm just naturally a bit unluckier than others—"

Before he could finish, the Emperor lightly tapped his forehead. "Don't speak nonsense."

Chi Lian immediately fell silent, shrinking half his face into the blanket. "Oh."

The Emperor, afraid of tiring him and not wanting to discuss the aftermath of the incident in front of him, gestured for Xianzhen and the others to withdraw. Once everyone was gone, Chi Lian quietly poked his head out from under the covers. "Emperor."

The Emperor returned to the bedside, looked down at him, and asked faintly, "What were you thinking?"

Chi Lian's mind was still a bit slow to catch up. "Huh?"

The Emperor said, "If only you had sent someone to give me a message, to let me know, you wouldn't have had to suffer so much."

'So that's what he's bothered by,' Chi Lian thought. He slowly defended himself, "It was just for a few days of confinement, it's not like they would have really killed me. The Emperor's side was more important. I can still tell what's more important. Besides, what if this was their scheme, deliberately meant to disrupt the Emperor's plans? Wouldn't I have become a knife in someone else's hand?"

"So you bet your own life against them?" The Emperor had been forcefully suppressing his anger. Seeing Chi Lian's complete lack of fear in hindsight, he finally lost control of his temper, his voice turning sharp and severe. "You still have the nerve to talk about what's more important... Chi Lian, can your life be weighed by the pound, compared in importance to these things?!"

The Emperor was a noble deity of great cultivation and magnanimity. He rarely got angry and seldom even spoke harsh words. Chi Lian had almost never seen him lose his temper. Being suddenly reprimanded so sternly, he was completely stunned. Immediately following was an indescribable rush of sorrow and grievance. His heart felt even colder than it had in the Snow Prison. He immediately threw off the blanket and struggled to get out of bed, about to kneel and beg for forgiveness on the spot.

With quick eyes and hands, the Emperor held him down. "Lie still, what is this nonsense!"

Chi Lian would never be the type to say things like, "I did it all for your own good." He forcefully broke free from the Emperor's hand, gritted his teeth to hold back his sorrow, and said coldly, "I am just this kind of unruly person, used to being lawless. If the Emperor doesn't like it, find those who aren't unruly to be your disciples. I am not fit to serve you."

The Emperor: "..."

He too had been muddled by anger. He hadn't been truly furious in many years, yet he was inexplicably thrown into turmoil by this matter that concerned neither the peace of the Three Realms nor the lives of all beings. He felt that if this continued, before anything happened to Chi Lian, he himself would be the one to develop a Heart Demon.

Chi Lian was trapped on the bed by him, unable to get down, but he refused to yield or bow his head. He sat there in his disheveled inner robes, the frosty chill brought out from the Snow Prison not yet dissipated, looking as if he would shatter at a single touch.

"It's my fault."

The stalemate didn't last long. The Emperor sighed first, bent his knees to sit by the bed, and reached out to the immortal whose face was like ice and snow but whose eyes were brimming with tears. "You suffered so many grievances for my sake. Not only did I fail to protect you, I even got angry at you. It was my fault."

Chi Lian's amber, translucent eyes stared at him. That gaze seemed to contain a thousand emotions, yet not a single word could be spoken. He just asked softly, "Was I being unruly?"

"It's not your fault," the Emperor said with resignation. "If you want to be unruly, then be unruly. Because I happen to like the unruly ones."

Hearing this, Chi Lian was finally willing to move, shifting from the middle of the bed to the edge and burying himself in the Emperor's embrace as if in forgiveness.

The Emperor held this ancestor of his, truly unable to say a single harsh word. And yet, it was precisely this Chi Lian, who would not suffer the slightest disadvantage, who had been willing to swallow his pride and freeze in the frigid dungeon for more than ten days, terrified of becoming his soft spot, a weakness for others to exploit.

"Did I scare you?"

Chi Lian shook his head and shifted into a more comfortable position. "No."

'It's a good thing the Emperor can't read minds,' Chi Lian thought. 'My treasonous, romantic fantasies... if I spoke them aloud, I'm afraid they would scare you.'

The curse planted by Immortal Venerable Qingyang many years ago finally broke through its seal at this moment, baring its sharp, venomous fangs.

He was destined not to be the majestic, bright moon, but only a despicable shadow, lingeringly clinging to the traveler beneath the moon, luring him into a deeper, darker wilderness, treating this short night path as a lifetime that would last until the end of time.

Infatuated wishful thinking was a crime of great disrespect. He had just escaped the Snow Prison, only to fall into a prison of the heart in the blink of an eye.