#ye qingti

When Ye Qingti became the Marquis, conflicts at the border were endless and troubling, and so the new, young Marquis could not wait till the Emperor arranged a marriage before he went off to patrol the border, and stayed there for five years, driving away the the Da Tan tribe that was causing trouble at the border in the process.

Ye Qingti made incredible progress, and the Emperor was very happy, and not only rewarded the house of Yong Ning greatly once he returned to the city, but also arranged a marriage with Councilor Qi's eldest daughter, and then gave him a beauty to be a second wife. In this dynasty, past emperors sometimes liked to give beauties to their subordinates, but the current Majesty lived for forty something years and was on the throne for twenty something, but never gave a beauty to a subordinate. Even though he was a general, and did not think as much of the atmosphere at court as the civil officials did, he thought this matter was somewhat bizarre.

After a few rounds of secret investigation, he found out that the beauty that had been given to him was a Consort Chen that had been living in the Emperor's palace, who had not at first been particularly noticed, but had saved the Emperor from the water at the Wei Tuo Hu Fa Dan four years ago, and earned His Majesty's interest. According to the rumors, Consort Chen loved His Majesty ridiculously deeply when she was unfavored, but without reason, when His Majesty became deeply in love with her, she was very cold with him and made him angry constantly. An even more private secret was that even though Consort Chen was so cold, His Majesty still favored her greatly for four years, and no night in those four years did Consort Chen ever let him near her.

Ye Qingti was sat on the wall drinking and watching the moon, and hearing the spy say this, dropped the jar in his hand, shattering it on the floor, paused for a long moment, and said, "What a curious woman. If His Majesty has tolerated even that, what great mistake could she have made that cause His Majesty to give her to me as a second wife?"

The spy paused for a moment, and said: "She...wrote Her Highness the Noble Consort a love letter."

To take a second wife was not like marrying a first one, from engagement presents to meeting the bridal party, carrying all out according to the etiquettes. To marrying a wife took up many months, and to take a second wife was only to pick a day, and lead her in through the back door. Ye Qingti's whole heart had been on the battlefield since he was young, and rarely took an interest in matters of romance, but he was rather curious about this Consort Chen. The day Consort Chen came to the house, even though Ye Qingti left the study late at night, he decided to go to Bi Yun Courtyard to meet this curious woman.

Because he was too lazy to get maids to come open the door, Marquis Ye flipped over the wall directly, and without even touching the ground, he heard a light laugh like a silver bell, and looking toward the sound, saw a blue lotus pond, full of lotus leaves, and a great distance away there was a white-clad woman with light footsteps walking between the water and the lotuses to chase the fireflies in the pond.

Beneath the silver moonlight, that woman suddenly turned her face, and between relaxed, dark eyebrows there was a flower, bright eyes as if the stars were melted in them, the smile touching her lips adding to an already beautiful face. Marquis Ye heard a great noise in his mind, and two phrases from a text he'd read as a young man crashed into his heart: like the moon concealed by light clouds, floating and swaying like the snow on a flowing breeze.

When he flipped over the wall and landed beneath an old pear tree, he stepped subconsciously and broke a branch, and in the silent night the sound was especially attention grabbing. As expected, the woman in the pond appeared alarmed, a warm white light shooting straight into the pavilion in the middle of the lotus pond, and after, the woman was gone.

He hurried to the pavilion, and within, a green-clad woman rubbing her eyes stood up from a stone stool. The green-clad woman had a round face and could only count as somewhat good looking, looking at him blankly for a moment, and then said: "Marquis Ye?" But he noticed the flower on the woman's forehead. No, it wasn't a flower - it seemed more like a birthmark in the shape of a beautiful flower, like spread phoenix feathers, like the one on the white-clad woman's forehead a moment ago.

He stayed at the borders for long years and had seen all sorts of bizarre things, and thought her playing dumb was adorable and laughable, narrowing his eyes and asking her plainly: "You're a demon?"

He thought she would deny it, like a snake demon that had married a hunter of a border village that he had encountered when he had been twenty, who denied it to the end even when her tail came out. But she only paused half a moment, and asked him with a distressed expression: "Someone like me looks like a demon?" Before he could respond, she sighed. "This is getting ridiculous. Before, they just thought the flower on my forehead was a demon flower, and now my real body is being thought to be a demon." After sighing, she continued to ask him: "Do I really seem like a demon? Why do I seem like a demon? Have you seen a demon as pretty as I am?"

It was because she was so beautiful it seemed impossible she was human, that he was sure she was a demon, but she asked him if he had ever seen a demon as pretty a demon as her, and so his heart was moved, and though he thought the hypothesis was somewhat ridiculous, asked her with a smile in his eyes: "What, are you a god from the heavens?" 

She pursed her lips a little: "Do you mortals think there are only gods in the heavens? I'm not a god from the heavens - I'm a god from the country of Qingqiu. Have you heard of the Eastern Wilderness? I am the goddess of the Eastern Wilderness, Feng Jiu."

When she said this, her clear eyes danced with teasing, and even though she wore the round face of Consort Chen, one forgot her face and only saw her clear eyes.

The heart in his chest began, violently, to beat.

Ye Qingti had lived twenty three years, and had not known what love was. The first time he tasted love was to fall in love with a god. This god was very beautiful, lively and gentle, was an excellent cook, liked to mess around with weapons, and made good conversation with him. According to her, she came to the mortal realm to make a love calamity for the current Emperor.

She asked him: "Do you know what it means to create a calamity? I'm actually not a professional at creating calamities, but I have such bad luck. I came to the mortal realm to to repay a debt of gratitude, but then I met my aunt who was here to change someone's fate and got roped into it." She complained about the Emperor to him: "Siming made me create a love calamity for him last minute. Do you understand how difficult that is? Siming gave me a play, and I used all the ways the horrible ladies use to hurt men written on there, and he still loved me deeply without regret." She shuddered. "I didn't have any other choice than to go with a bad idea and write his Noble Consort a love letter." She sighed: "I did something like that, don't you think he should've given me a noose or some poisoned wine? What was he thinking, to give me to you as a second wife? Now even if I want to leave, I don't dare to, for fear of implicating you!"

She took him for a friend, and sincerely complained to him, and so he held a jar of wine, drank and smiled. He remembered hearing someone say that gods had no feelings, that those who were gods had neither the seven emotions nor the six desires. That he fell in love with a god meant there would be no conclusion. Sometimes he hated that his heart was moved that night, hated that that moment of being moved could last for five years, taking root deep inside so that he could not remove it if he wished to. He had been lost, and had struggled, listened to Taoist lectures from the Councilor, and meditated with Buddhist monks, but after all that still wanted to return to her side, even just to watch her from afar. She said she was here to create a love calamity for the Emperor, but it seemed she also created a love calamity for him.

He didn't want to burden her, in actuality, thought to bury his feelings until he too, grew old and died and would be buried, but when it came to the moment of death, he couldn't keep it inside.

After Consort Chen hurt the Emperor, the Emperor began to take a liking to studying Taoism, trusting especially an old Taoist, giving him the rank of royal advisor and constructing an Imperial Tao Temple, discussing Taoism with him on the fifteenth of every month.

He only knew that night that this Taoist was an evil demon, who had wanted to take the Emperor's soul to create a magical pill with it, plotted for five years and thought to take the Emperor's life during that rare astronomical period of yin, and took a demon blade, Lan Yu, to attack the Emperor when he came to the temple as usual.

He hadn't thought the silver bell always attached to her wrist was a magic item that could tell when the Emperor was in danger, and he hadn't thought that a god could have feelings. When the demon blade Lan Yu was flying toward the Emperor, her face was clearly pale, and when she put herself in the path of the blade in front of the emperor, her voice seemed as if her heart was ripping out of her chest when she called "Donghua!" The Emperor's name was not Donghua, that was the first time he had heard such a name. Without hesitation, she threw herself in front of the Emperor, and without hesitation, he threw himself in front of her. 

The tip of the blade stabbed into his chest, but he held it tightly in his hand. 

He was afraid the point of the sword would travel through his heart and hurt the woman standing behind him. 

The demon Taoist died under her sword, and when the guardes belatedly formed a protective circle around the Emperor, he finally collapsed into her arms.

When she chattered to him, he always liked to smile, and even at his death, his pale face held the trace of a smile. "They say...Gods have no feeling, and I...believed it. But...Gods can have feelings....yes?"

He saw her nodding as she cried, and wishfulness blossomed in his heart: "This life...our fate has ended...Can we...make a promise....for the next life?"

She was still crying, the tears falling on his face, but did not give him the answer he wanted. Choked with tears, she said, "Qingti, I owe you a life. I will pay you back."

"Qingti, I'll observe mourning three hundred years for you."

"Qingti, please rest in peace."

He loved her so deeply, he gave his life for her. But there was nothing in the world that said one could exchange a life for a feeling.