Love Rebirth (Ashes of love continuation) *Mature audiences*

Jinmi (Reincarnated at six years old) Part 1

Preface

This story is a fanfiction piece on a 2018 Chinese television series called Ashes of Love.

***You can skip the recap section if you've already watched the series and scroll to the start of my story below***

To recap the series story: Zifen, a Flower Deity in the fantasy floral realm, dies after giving birth to a daughter, Jinmi. The goddess foresaw a prophecy where her daughter would suffer a great love trial within the first ten thousand years of her life. Therefore, before dying, she gives Jinmi a magical pellet (Yun Elixer) that prevents her from feeling and expressing romantic love. After her mother's death, Jinmi grows up in the Flower Realm, living as a low-level immortal. Her peaceful life is interrupted when she encounters the Fire Deity, Xufeng, who lives in the Heavenly Realm. She convinces him to take her to see the Heavenly Realm, and while there, Jinmi meets Xufeng's half-brother, the Night Deity Runyu. She also meets Princess Sui He, a close ally of Xufeng's mother, the Holy Empress; consequently, Sui He believes she will one day marry Xufeng. Xufeng and Runyu both take an interest in Jinmi. Due to the pellet, Jinmi inadvertently becomes involved in a love triangle between the two brothers, who grow to become rivals due to Jinmi and the schemes of the Holy Empress. Jinmi also learns of her true nature as a child of the late Flower Deity and the current Water Deity.
Eventually, Runyu cons Jinmi into thinking her father died at the hands of Xufeng, and she kills him, but as a result, she coughs up the magic pellet. Xufeng is later reborn in the Demon Realm. Soon named the new Demon King, he wages war against Runyu, who has now ascended the throne as Heavenly Emperor and plans to make Jinmi Holy Empress. Sui He, who went to the Demon realm with Xufeng, tricks Xufeng into agreeing to marry her so she can become Demon Queen, but she is finally defeated when Xufeng learns the truth of his rebirth.

A final battle arrives, with a fight to the death between Runyu and Xufeng. Jinmi, wanting to stop the loss of innocent lives, ultimately sacrifices herself to end the war and return peace to the world. In the aftermath, Xufeng tirelessly travels the six realms to search for the remains of Jinmi's soul. For three years, his search is unsuccessful until he discovers that Jinmi was, in fact, a teardrop in his eye. Realising that Jinmi will one day reincarnate, Xufeng decides to wait for her. After 500 years, Jinmi is reborn alongside her father in the Mortal Realm. On the day of her arranged wedding, Xufeng arrives in his phoenix form and reunites with Jinmi, who has retained her memories, and they elope. In the Mortal Realm, Jinmi and Xufeng live a carefree life and have a son who knows the story of his parents.

My story details some sensual elements surrounding their long-awaited reunion after Jinmi reincarnates.

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Jinmi (six years old)

The wooden mansion had a pristinely enclosed courtyard with a garden that boasted flowers from across the region. This was her favourite place to escape. One evening as she played by the small pond in the Xu courtyard, a handsome stranger whooshed out of nowhere in front of her. Though he was dressed modestly – he was something amazing to behold.

He said nothing at first. Neither did she. They just stared at each other. And while he was a stranger to her, she felt no fear. He was donned differently from the men and boys she knew and had a sort of regal air about him, or at least to her six-year-old mind; he did. That was it. He seemed... princely.

"Hello, uncle." She said, offering a tentative smile to the beautiful prince.

His magnetic presence made her small head strain towards his direction as she fixed on his every movement. Everything about him was evocative and painfully familiar – but she couldn't recall him. And for the first time in her young life, though not the last, she felt some poignant emotion unfurl within her that was both foreign and inexplicable to her young mind.

"Jinmi..." he sighed. Seemingly both relieved and resigned to be meeting her...again?

"I've been waiting for you." He continued. "You have?" She asked quizzically. Have they met before? Indeed, she would have remembered someone like him!

"Who are you?" She questioned boldly.

He replied sombrely, "I am a king."

"Do you have a queen?" She asked innocently.

He nodded slowly and smiled. "I do."

He paused as if he were reluctant to tell her something vital, "I lost her for a while, but I've found her again." He said many things in that brief time they spoke, but the one thing that stuck out the most was that her memories of 'another life' will be restored, and when that happens, she will know who they are to each other. He told her that it would be the auspicious time to look to the skies and await his return.

He vanished that evening, and though she kept looking for him to return – he never did.

She told her father - a bureaucrat in the emperor's office – about the strange king she'd seen, but his response was to laugh. He thought she had imagined the whole thing - as children do. Jinmi convinced herself that the man was a ghost, but her thoughts became littered with vague memories of herself from another life. These recollections were obscure impressions of strange worlds and an alien environment utterly different to what she knew. She saw vivid, kaleidoscopic colours that didn't exist in her world. And magic, though often only conveyed in the mortal world as stories or fables, she realised that magic was devastatingly real in the place she originally came from.

Jinmi grew up believing in demons, ghosts, dragons and fairies. And those fleeting images eventually became solid and had layers of context as she grew older. She started to piece together a picture of her life in a place with multiple realms. She had family and friends she loved and who loved her.

There was also a darker memory she hated to recall, of a great war between the demons and heavenly beings – which at the time was painful for her mind to examine. An acrid, barren landscape floated before her eyes. The air was pungent with iron and blood. And the dreadful din of weapons fell like thunderous raindrops amidst the cries of people being obliterated.

Something significant had happened. A colossal bird and a furious dragon poised in battle flew in the sky. And instantly, all around her was still, as power, so electric, singed the very hairs on her skin. Her heart jumped out of her mouth, and she vomited. This memory was a source of contention, and she had been unable to face it for many years.

Though the mysterious man never revisited. Every so often, Jinmi would sense him so strongly she felt like she could catch him in her hands. It would feel like she was being warmed by a delectable heat, which suffused her neck and face until she flushed pink. And she knew almost certainly that it was him.

He had become a celestial protector to Jinmi - an invisible guardian. And at age twenty-two, she finally understood that he was way more than that - he had been her lover, her king, her Phoenix. And they were deeply and irrevocably in love.

The day her father accepted her enormous dowry from the Prime Minister. The final pieces of her memories hit like a sledgehammer. But instead of being preoccupied with getting married, she kept her eyes peeled to the sky for his return.