Luo Yuan hadn’t seen such a change before. She watched the red marks beneath her fingertips spread and bloom around his chest. The irregular red traces looked somewhat like scattered petals, as if flowers were blooming out from the cracks, imprinting themselves upon his body.
The vivid red against jade-like skin — the sight was dazzling beyond measure, making it impossible to look away.
“Red truly is a beautiful color.”
Luo Yuan quickly lifted her head and saw the deity open his eyes. He smiled faintly, holding her by the waist. Much of his long hair was pressed beneath her, his chest and half of his arm exposed. Messy, yet giving off a sense of sacredness that could not be profaned.
She stared blankly into his eyes. A body that no longer belonged to the living should have long since lost its heart, yet she clearly felt something in her body pounding against her chest.
At this moment, the deity even reached out to stroke her head, guiding her to look at his chest, speaking with incomparable gentleness: “An, look, this is the red you gave me.”
Her ashes were burning within his body, growing outward from inside, turning into these marks. From the moment his body was molded into being, this was the first time such a color had appeared. Within the seemingly fragile body of his wife, there were the most tenacious roots, which was why such bright red flowers could bloom.
“So hot.” He squinted with a smile as he expressed how he felt. It was also heat, but different from the scorching pain when he had been molded into existence.
Luo Yuan knew he meant his chest was hot, but it was really hard not to think in another direction. This must be what Minghuang and the others often called “flirting,” right? Flirting without form and without awareness.
“Erge, you’ve turned into this smiling form again.” Luo Yuan worked hard to keep her gaze fixed on his face.
The deity leaned in very close and said, “An is happier looking at this face, isn’t she.”
“Erge, I’ll admit my mistake first.” Luo Yuan suddenly said.
Shen: “Hm?”
Luo Yuan took a deep breath and moved her legs slightly.
Shen: “What is An doing?”
Seeing his expression, her fumbling hand movements grew more difficult, giving her the illusion she was committing a crime. But then she thought, she’d committed crimes before anyway — and she was already dead — and she had already apologized first, so it was fine.
“…Can I do something like this?”
The deity tilted his head slightly without answering, simply watching her with a pure and gentle smile.
Where did this heavy sense of guilt even come from? Luo Yuan bit her lower lip, her heart torn in conflict. She had acted on impulse just now, and now the arrow was nocked… she kind of wanted to retreat.
The deity suddenly laughed softly, pulling the white robe over them both, wrapping them inside. His nose touched hers. “An, such a mischievous child.”
Luo Yuan’s voice trembled a little. “Erge, are you teasing me on purpose again?”
“It’s clearly An who is moving.”
Luo Yuan suddenly let out a soft gasp as she felt her legs and hands being entangled by something. “Wait, Erge?” This wasn’t quite what she had imagined?
Smiling, the deity covered her mouth.
“Mm—” Luo Yuan felt that the faint cool fragrance around him had grown extremely thick, and that cool scent had turned into a warm one — an ambiguous, entwining fragrance like the red threads surrounding them, soft in appearance yet seeping in everywhere.
Why could he do such things with such a clean and gentle expression? Luo Yuan clutched one of his hands, burrowing into his arms again and again, wanting to escape that entangling feeling.
“Ai, my wife is truly passionate.” He said this with the tone of an elder, making Luo Yuan flush with shame. She yanked down his hand forcefully. “E–Erge!”
“Mm? What is it?”
At a time like this, he was still using that tone to ask her what was wrong? Luo Yuan was practically about to be driven mad by his contradictory expression and actions. She gritted her teeth, wrapped her arms around his neck, and her hands instinctively tightened in his hair.
“Mm.” Pulled hard by the hair, the deity was forced to tilt his head back slightly, revealing a long, slender, snow-white neck.
Truly like a white crane stretching its neck — beautiful and pure—
Luo Yuan held him tightly and bit down.
The fragrance was so thick it made one almost unable to breathe.
The cocoon woven from red threads still hung safely in the shrine. From the scattered red threads, Luo Yuan sat up and saw a new cocoon beside her. The deity had formed a new cocoon, but she had emerged.
She pressed her hand against her face, flushed from the memory, and got up to walk outside. Thinking of what had happened earlier, she was distracted to the point her soul seemed still tangled within that red cocoon. Completely unaware of her surroundings, she stepped directly into the sunlight. Only when she came back to her senses did she quickly retreat. After a moment, she realized her foot didn’t seem to have that burning pain from the sun.
No pain? She stretched out her hand — a pale hand somewhat similar to the deity’s — showing an almost translucent, lustrous quality under the sunlight. The sunlight shone on her skin, a lazy warmth pouring down, the scorching pain gone!
Had her transformation already succeeded? Would she now be like a normal person, no longer fearing the sun? She couldn’t help turning her head to glance at the red cocoon in the shrine. Then she stepped forward again, walking into the bright sunlight.
It was real. She smiled.
Unfortunately, that smile disappeared the moment she saw the charred courtyard. Except for the shrine which was completely unharmed, everything else in the courtyard had been scorched. The rose she had transplanted hadn’t even had time to produce its first bud, and the cluster of red camellias Erge liked had died as well.
She pushed open the equally charred courtyard gate and stepped out of the deathly quiet courtyard. Minghuang and Minghui, who had been waiting outside, ran over to surround her.
“Sister An! Are you alright? It’s been several days, and we didn’t see you appear at all. We were scared to death!”
“Is the deity alright? What about the Liang deity?”
Luo Yuan waited until they finished speaking before answering them one by one. “The Liang deity has already been devoured, the deity is still in the cocoon. As for the courtyard inside…”
She sighed. “We should repair it before Erge wakes up.”
She didn’t know when the deity would break out of the cocoon. Minghuang and Minghui, the newly appointed shinu, didn’t know either. They brought out the deity records, the book documenting the deity’s cocooning patterns and dates and showed it to Luo Yuan.
“Before you came, Sister An, the deity’s cocooning was always very regular. There were no unexpected incidents. We have no precedent for anything abnormal like this.”
As Luo Yuan flipped through the deity records, she unexpectedly found that it also recorded the number of people the deity devoured each time, details about where they were taken from, who in the Qin clan was responsible for each round of selection, and other such information. She flipped ahead and found her own entry. Her name was there, but crossed out in vermilion ink. And in all the pages she searched, she found no second case like hers. As the deity had said, there had never been another like her before.
“In the past, the deity shed his cocoon basically once a year. When the time was near and the deity began showing signs of change, we would find suitable people to be devoured. But now that the pattern has been broken, no one knows when we’re supposed to do that anymore.” Minghui sighed.
Luo Yuan closed the book and said, “From now on, I’ll choose.”
Minghuang: “Ah?”
Luo Yuan: “From now on, everything concerning Erge will be handled by me.”
The two of them exchanged a glance, then both burst into smiles. Minghuang teased, “This is the difference between having a wife and not having one. Our generation of shinu is way too blessed!”
This time, the deity took an extremely long time to break out of the cocoon. Even Luo Yuan hadn’t expected this. She had the courtyard repaired, had people bring many red camellias and rose bushes, and replanted everything bit by bit, restoring the charred courtyard to a renewed state — yet the deity still had not broken the cocoon.
She sat beside that cocoon of red threads, occasionally worried, wondering whether she had used too much of the deity’s strength, causing him to be unable to break the cocoon. Such a thought made her anxious. Minghui and the others were also somewhat uneasy, but far worse off than all of them was the Liang clan.
The Liang clan’s deity and his lady had both disappeared; they had become a family without a deity. Even in this era, although the Liang deity’s symbolic meaning outweighed his practical one, losing this ancestor still made many members of the Liang clan feel uncontrollable panic and fear.
And their matriarch, Qi Ji, who controlled many of the Liang clan’s industries — with her disappearance, the Liang clan’s companies had indeed fallen into chaos.
The matter of Qi Ji secretly killing members of the Liang clan back then to force the Liang deity to devour had long lost all witnesses. The Liang clan made no record of it, and after more than two hundred years, no one knew the truth of what happened. Because of her massacre at the time, Qi Ji felt guilty toward the remaining members of the Liang clan. She indulged and cherished them excessively. In the eyes of many members of the Liang clan, she had always been fiercely protective and a powerful shield. Regardless of how outsiders viewed her, in their hearts she was an extremely important existence. Her fall was the greatest source of the Liang clan’s turmoil.
The Liang clan had many collaborations with the Qin clan. On the very day the Liang deity was devoured, members of the Liang clan went to the Qin clan to demand an explanation. Naturally, the Qin clan would never allow them to disturb the deity at the old residence. They blocked all those interrogations and troubles.
During the time Luo Yuan was still inside the cocoon, the relationship between the Qin and Liang clans had already grown very strained. In truth, for nearly a hundred years, the relationship between the two clans had been delicate, with frequent minor clashes. Now the enmity was completely formed. The Liang clan’s upheaval brought considerable impact to the Qin clan as well.
Upon hearing that Luo Yuan had emerged, the clan elders soon hurried to the old residence and gathered, speaking to her about the Liang clan.
“We have dealt with the Liang clan for thousands of years. There have been conflicts, and there have been harmonious times. But now that the Liang deity has perished, the Liang clan will inevitably fall apart. There will be no returning to the past. What we should do now must be decided by consulting the deity.” A solemn elder with graying hair and vigorous spirit said.
Another elder, with a ruddy complexion and a slightly plump build, had a fiery temper. He immediately said, “If you ask me, there’s no need to trouble the deity at all. Since everyone has already torn off the mask, there’s no sentiment left to speak of. It’s not like it was in the old days when our clans got along. These past years those brats from the Liang clan have taken advantage of us countless times in the name of good relations. No need to tolerate them anymore! Always showing off how well Jincheng is developing, looking down on our Yuzhou — what the hell! I’ve long found them an eyesore!”
The elder with a long, thin face added coldly, “Indeed. The Liang clan’s style is very different from ours. We parted ways long ago. What affection is there to speak of? It’s better to separate sooner rather than later.”
A smiling elder spoke slowly, “Eh, my elder brothers, no need to be so hot-tempered. After all, we have many business collaborations. Cutting ties completely won’t be so simple. No need to rush. The Liang clan’s decline is already inevitable. Why hurry to push them to desperation and provoke a counterattack? Better to take things slowly, slowly.”
These clan elders all had different temperaments, speaking one after another. Luo Yuan sat above them, watching, and suddenly revealed a smile.
She recalled that these long-lived elders had mostly been blessed by the deity when they were newborns. Their personalities would be influenced, to some extent, by the deity’s state at the time of blessing. So through these fiery-tempered, cold, stern, or amiable elders, she could imagine what the deity had been like during those earlier eras.
All the Qin clan elders: “……”
Why was the young lady seated at the head suddenly looking at all these elderly men with such a gentle and benevolent smile?
