Ten Miles Of Peach Blossoms

Chapter 21

On the fifth of Lunar August, the mid-autumn festival celebrations were held. The osmanthus flower wine that had been fermenting in Guanghan Palace was ready to drink, and Chang'e the moon goddess arranged for jars to be delivered to all the palaces.

I warmed up the jar that had been brought to Xiwu Palace, and Ye Hua and I had a couple of glasses together, which served as his farewell drink.

My plan had been to go down to the mortal world with him so that I could stay close by and watch over him, but Ye Hua would not hear of it. He was insistent that I go back to Qingqiu and wait for him there. He was probably afraid that I would use magic to protect him down there, opening myself up to my own magic backbite.

I started scheming. I would pretend to return to Qingqiu to put Ye Hua's mind at rest, but as soon as he drank the water from Forget River and transformed into his mortal form, I would come out of the shadows and follow him down.

That was how it was when you loved someone: their well-being was all you thought about, if they were fine, you felt fine. That was the amazing thing about love too: when you held someone in your heart, any hardship or wrong you experienced felt like nothing but a sweet torment.

Si Ming the Star Prince told me where I would find Ye Hua. Ye Hua was being reborn into a distinguished family who lived south of the Yangtze River. This family had an excellent, longstanding literary reputation, and for two generations the males had held senior temple positions.

Si Ming spoke with enthusiasm and clicked his tongue admiringly. He explained that his years of writing destinies had shown him that children from households like this one were certain to follow in their family's footsteps. In Ye Hua's case, this would mean using his writing ability and sharp mind to rise to a powerful position in government. Ye Hua had such remarkable writing skills in his actual life and such abundant work experience that in his reincarnated form, he was certain to excel.

At the same time, I was well aware that in the mortal world, aristocratic families like this one tended to be extremely conservative. They raised their offspring strictly and rigidly, giving them extremely dull childhoods. Their children grew up to be similarly strict, rigid, and dull, completely different from the bright and lively rural children, who grew up scampering around the countryside.

Ye Hua did not have a very lively character to begin with, so I did not nurture much hope of his reincarnated form being given one. I did worry that growing up in a family like this one would be a boring and lonely experience for him.

Ye Hua was reborn as the first grandson in the prestigious Liu family, and he was honored with the name Liu Ying Zhao Ge. I was not very taken with this name, finding it long and pretentious and nothing like his fine-sounding immortal name, Ye Hua.

I returned to Qingqiu and picked out four or five sets of clothes, which I bundled up. I poured myself a cup of cold tea to moisten my throat and then raced my way over to Zhe Yan's Ten-Mile Peach Grove, where I planned to brazenly ask for more pills.

I was halfway there when I ran into Zhe Yan racing toward me on a cloud, followed closely by Fourth Brother astride Bi Fang.

They all stopped in front of me.

Fourth Brother's eyes were radiating light. "Fifth Cub, it looks as if you are about to be granted the wish you have nurtured for all these years. We've just rushed back from the Western Sea. De Yong spent all last night tossing and turning, and this morning Zhe Yan performed soul-chasing magic on him to see what was going on and discovered that Mo Yuan's soul was no longer inside De Yong's primordial spirit. We are just on our way to have a look inside Yanhua Cave. Mo Yuan has been asleep for seventy thousand years. I believe he's chosen today as an auspicious one to finally wake up . . ."