Chapter 34

When Yuan Zhong opened his eyes, the sky was filled with brilliant, vibrant evening clouds.

He was leaning on a wooden table, slightly lifting his head. Tanyin was sitting beside him, carving a rustic wooden bracelet with a chisel. The glow of the sunset illuminated her somewhat youthful face, making the fine hairs and stray locks of hair around her neck appear more prominent, making her seem less like a high and mighty goddess.

Yuan Zhong gazed at her for a long time, then suddenly reached out, tentatively touching her pale face. The skin under his fingertips was cool and soft.

“Awake?” Tanyin asked without lifting her head, still focused on carving the bracelet.

Yuan Zhong noticed that although she had the face of a fifteen-year-old, her speech and actions were like those of an eighty-year-old, old and solemn. She had always been like this, neither smiling nor speaking like other lively young girls, nor behaving like those well-educated ladies from noble families. Instead, she was often dull and occasionally ridiculously foolish, which made him chuckle.

“How old are you?” he asked softly, his voice still carrying a trace of drowsiness.

Tanyin, taken aback by the sudden question, immediately lowered her head and started to count seriously, “Seventeen years as a mortal, four hundred and fifteen years as a wandering soul after death, five thousand and twelve years as a goddess… Hmm, that adds up to…”

“Old lady,” Yuan Zhong concluded before she could finish.

She didn’t know how to defend herself against being called an “old lady,” so she just stared at him blankly. The amusement gathered in his beautiful eyes, which, perhaps just awakened, had a moist, spirited look, with long and thick eyelashes that were both warm and enchanting, carrying an inexplicable allure.

“Tanyin,” he called her softly.

“…Hmm?”

“Don’t leave again,” he flicked her forehead.

“I won’t wait next time.”

Tanyin felt herself being drawn in by the vivid and mysterious colors in his eyes.

She asked softly, “Then… where are you going?”

He smiled and said, “I won’t tell you.”

She wanted to speak but didn’t know what to say. The charcoal in the brazier burned brightly, giving off a faintly sweet scent. She felt a sense of comfort, as if her entire body were soaked in warm water. The trials of life and death, even the tribulations, seemed far away, leaving only Yuan Zhong’s voice and Yuan Zhong’s presence. In this vast world, it felt like it was just the two of them.

The bracelet in her hand was taken by him to play with. This wooden bracelet was hardly exquisite. Made of camphor wood, it had four small grooves with four clear crystals embedded in them, each the size of a fingernail. The crystals emitted a faint white glow, but apart from that, there was nothing special about it.

“What’s this?” Yuan Zhong thought she had made something strange again.

Tanyin took the bracelet back, smoothed the rough wood, and wiped it clean with a handkerchief before putting it on her wrist. The faint divine light around her instantly retracted, and the sense of awe-inspiring power he felt from her also vanished. At that moment, Ji Tanyin seemed like an ordinary mortal.

“For moving around outside, this avoids detection,” she smiled.

“Actually, after becoming a goddess, one shouldn’t have any contact with the mortal world. I’ve broken many taboos.”

Yuan Zhong sneered, “What taboos, what no contact with the mortal world. There used to be foxes and war ghosts serving the gods.”

“That was in ancient times,” Tan Yin shook her head, “Everything changed after the war between gods and demons.”

Yuan Zhong propped his head on his hand, interested.

“Tell me about the divine realm. How did you become a goddess?”

“A goddess?” Tanyin smiled, “Back then, I never thought I would become a goddess…”

She was the last living member of the Ji family of craftsmen. After she died, the Ji family was completely extinct. Her soul couldn’t cross the Bridge of Forgetfulness, wandering near her corpse for days, seeing many people, including those who had once offered vast amounts of gold to buy the Exquisite House, and those neighbors she had been on good terms with. Everyone was talking about how the Ji family had been punished by the heavens for creating blasphemous things, hence their fatal fate, not even sparing the youngest of them.

Perhaps her inability to cross the Bridge of Forgetfulness and her forced wandering in the mortal world were forms of heavenly punishment. What about her father and other clan members? Were their souls also wandering in the mortal world without peace?

Initially, her soul was trapped in the old Ji house, unable to leave the vicinity. She hid in the shadows all day, feeling as if she were being burned alive whenever sunlight touched her. Her soul, dazed and unaware of the passage of time, gradually gained the ability to leave the old house and eventually appear in the sunlight, even using her thoughts to manipulate small stones and twigs.

In the ruins of the old Ji house, she drew countless designs in the ashes with a twig. She wanted to create many things and wasn’t afraid of death. Death couldn’t extinguish her passion for craftsmanship.

Until one day, she suddenly felt enlightened. A golden light descended from the heavens, summoning her to the upper realms. The Primordial God conferred upon her a divine status, making her the unparalleled craftsman, Goddess Wushuang.

“When I first ascended to the divine realm, I didn’t know anyone. I wandered around aimlessly and ended up by the milky way, where I met… hmm…” Tanyin suddenly stopped. For some reason, she didn’t want to mention Taihe to Yuan Zhong. She quickly skipped over that part and continued, “There is golden sand in the milky way. So, the first thing I made after ascending was the Concentric Mirror, the one you saw in the imperial tomb last time.”

Yuan Zhong didn’t notice her slight pause. “Are there many celestial gods in the divine realm? You just mentioned the Primordial God; what is that?”

Tanyin smiled, “There were quite a few gods and goddesses back then, but the divine realm is vast and cold. Everyone has their own duties, and it’s common not to see each other for hundreds of years. As for the Primordial Gods, I’m not entirely sure. They are different from us gods and goddesses. They are probably the true gods. When I first ascended, all I saw were clusters of warm and majestic golden lights. Those were the Primordial Gods. Unlike gods and goddesses, they don’t have human forms…”

She was originally a mortal, and her understanding of gods was the same as all mortal legends. They were supposed to be extraordinarily beautiful and powerful. But the existence of the Primordial Gods shattered all her previous understandings.

They… or rather, it might be more accurate to refer to them as “it.”

They don’t have human bodies, only clusters of soft light. Later, she understood that the Primordial Gods were the embodiment of thoughts, unlike the gods and goddesses who still retained traces of “humanity.”

They had nothing left.

They didn’t communicate in the way humans understood, or rather, gods and goddesses at their level couldn’t fully comprehend the way Primordial Gods existed.

Tanyin suddenly paused. A flash of inspiration crossed her mind. For some reason, thinking about the form of the Primordial Gods made her think of the gods and goddesses turning into transparent light fragments upon their demise. She also couldn’t help but recall what Han Nu said about the human tribulation. It seemed that the beginning of the disintegration of the divine body signaled the arrival of human tribulation. But what about Taihe? He only lost his left hand but showed no signs of disintegration. Why did he need to sleep?

Tanyin fell into deep thought. She felt like she had grasped a clue, but the connections were too vague. She didn’t have the intuitive perception of others; her craftsman’s thinking was always methodical. No wonder Taihe once said she didn’t seem like a girl.

“What are you thinking about?”

Yuan Zhong leaned his face close to hers, his nose almost touching hers. She was startled, leaning back abruptly. The flash of inspiration was scared away, completely forgotten.

Yuan Zhong held his face, smiling mischievously. He spoke slowly, “Not a bit of vigilance.”

Tanyin’s face turned red. She suddenly stood up, stammering, “Um, it’s getting late. I’ll go back to my room. You… you should rest early.”

He chuckled, “I just woke up; why would I rest?”

He enjoyed seeing her occasionally flustered, struggling to speak coherently while trying hard to appear calm. Such an expression made her seem nothing like a high and mighty goddess. Many times, he couldn’t tell if he liked the cool and indifferent gaze of the goddess on the high platform or the mortal-like Ji Tanyin more. Actually, they were the same person, whom he had known for a long time. But in those times when he didn’t know, the silly mortal Ji Tanyin was already unique to him.

Yuan Zhong wanted to say more, but suddenly, there was a cautious knock on the door. Little Yuan Zhong’s voice, sounding mischievous, came from outside, “Master, Big Zhong, you… ahem, have you finished for the day? Do you want to eat something to replenish your strength and then continue?”

Tanyin, this silly girl, obviously didn’t understand the innuendo in his tone. She quickly opened the door. Little Yuan Zhong stood at the doorway with a tray in hand, craning his neck to peek into the room. Seeing the neatly made bed that hadn’t been slept in, he gave Yuan Zhong a disdainful look.

“Black chicken and soft-shelled turtle soup!” Little Yuan Zhong handed the tray to Tanyin, raising his voice on purpose.

“Someone needs to get a good supplement! All intentions but no courage!”

Just as he finished, he saw Yuan Zhong approaching menacingly with a small wooden mallet.

Frightened, Little Yuan Zhong hurriedly ran downstairs, shouting, “Big Zhong, I’m doing this for your own good! You don’t appreciate the concern of an honest person!”

Yuan Zhong forcefully slammed the door shut and continued to glare at the tray in Tanyin’s hands with a murderous look. On the tray were two porcelain soup bowls with a ripple pattern, presumably containing the black chicken and soft-shelled turtle soup Little Yuan Zhong had mentioned.

Tanyin placed the tray on the wooden table and lifted the lids, releasing a rich aroma. Even as the owner, she was surprised by Little Yuan Zhong’s culinary skills. She turned and called to Yuan Zhong, “Come, have some soup.”

Yuan Zhong glanced at the soup bowls, and his expression suddenly changed drastically. He pushed the door open and transformed into a beam of golden light, darting towards the lakeside. The poor old turtle, sensing his approach, floated to the surface with tears streaming down its face. It extended a front leg, revealing a large chunk of flesh had been cut off. It nudged Yuan Zhong’s leg with its head, indicating he should look towards the Xie Xiang forest.

Yuan Zhong could hardly bear to look. In the Xie Xiang forest were a dozen celestial cranes, a gift from the lord of Xiang Mountain. Needless to say, the black chicken in the soup was undoubtedly these celestial cranes he had been raising.

He felt a wave of dizziness and nausea.

“What’s wrong?” Tanyin, clueless about what had happened, chased after him, asking repeatedly.

Yuan Zhong turned back and suddenly gave her a gentle smile.

“I have something to do.”

There was a murderous intent in that smile! Tanyin quickly took a step back, watching in astonishment as he turned into a golden light and flew towards the small building, his voice icy cold.

“Little Yuan Zhong! Come out!”