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July 1 - August 20, 2024
“There is nothing wrong with saving people. Why would the heavens condemn me for doing the right thing?” Uh…but what if the heavens do condemn you? “Then it is the heavens who are wrong. Why would I apologize to those who are wrong?”
And thus, the crown prince replied with his now-famous line: “Body in the abyss, heart in paradise.”
When the people call you a god, you are a god. If they call you crap, you are crap. You are whatever they say you are. It had always been thus.
That infamous weirdo, the laughingstock of the three realms, the legendary Royal Highness the Crown Prince, he…he…he…he fucking ascended again!
Ling Wen-zhenjun stood tall with her hands folded behind her back. “Congratulations, you have won first place on the chart of ‘Heavenly Official Most Hoped to be Banished Down to the Mortal Realm’ of this calendar cycle.”
Ling Wen replied, “It’s all right if you don’t. There used to be a bell there, but when you ascended, it fell because of the tremors.” “…” “That bell is older than you, but it has a spirited character and enjoys a good spectacle. Whenever someone ascends, it tolls a few times in applause. When you ascended, the tremors were so strong that the bell tolled like mad and couldn’t stop at all. In the end, it shook itself off the bell tower before it finally ceased. And when it fell, it crashed down onto one of the heavenly officials passing by.”
“No,” Xie Lian said. “Even if you give me a spiritual device, I won’t have any spiritual power once I go down, so I couldn’t use it anyway.”
Three days later, the Mortal Realm, in the north.
Then, very slowly, he backed up.
Little Shop of Chance Encounters,’ what an interesting name.”
Yet who knew when he left in such a dashing manner, and jumped down dashingly, that his sleeve would be caught by a dashing cloud. Yes, it was caught by a cloud. He didn’t know how his sleeve got caught, but either way, he tumbled across the million-meter-high sky, and by the time he tumbled down, he no longer knew where he was.
He gazed toward the main street and saw a group of men and women, both young and old, escorting a bright-red marriage sedan as it passed by.
One might ask, if there was an Upper Court and a Middle Court, was there a Lower Court? No. Actually, there had been one when Xie Lian first ascended.
Back then, when they got really upset, they’d stab each other with words at most. But with the way things were now, faking it was no longer necessary.
“Let me just confirm. You two really came as willing volunteers? If not, then please don’t force yourselves.” The two answered in unison, “I’m willing.” Looking at those two grim and dispirited faces, Xie Lian thought inwardly, You guys actually mean “I want to kill myself,” right?
That groom waited for the marriage procession to arrive, but he waited for a long time and still there was no sign of the bride.
Once again, the bride was gone. However, this time there was something left behind. On a small road, the search party found a foot that hadn’t yet been fully eaten.
Chapter 2: Three Clowns, Night Discussion on the Palace of Tremendous Masculinity
EVER SINCE THEN, things had gone out of control. Less than one hundred years after that first incident, there had been a total of seventeen brides ...
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Although seventeen brides had gone missing, there were thousands more who were perfectly fine.
“To find some place to settle for the night,” Xie Lian replied. “Fu Yao, why are you rolling your eyes again?” Nan Feng continued his questions, still puzzled. “Then why are you heading to the wild bushes?”
But when Mu Qing saw that his statues had been hideously sculpted, he would either secretly destroy them and make people start over, or appear in dreams to express his displeasure.
“Who fought you?” Fu Yao demanded. “Fought?” Xie Lian was confused. “No one?” “Then all those injuries on your body…” Nan Feng was hesitant. Xie Lian looked at them blankly. “I fell on my own.” “…” Those were indeed the injuries from when he tumbled down from heaven three days ago.
“Listening to you, those who don’t know would think your Palace of Nan Yang sides with the Palace of the Crown Prince and fights hard to right the injustices against him.” Nan Feng sneered too. “Your general certainly is the ungrateful one that bites the hand that feeds him, what more can I say?”
Nan Feng finally pried away the steamed bun that Xie Lian had clutched in his grip hoping for a chance to eat it. He said, looking like he couldn’t take it anymore, “If it’s fallen to the ground, don’t eat it!”
Those three silly guys are here again. What a shame, each looks sightlier than the other, but each of their brains is more damaged than the next. What god, what ghost, what heavens? When you’re crazy, what good is a decent face?
Xie Lian replied warmly, “It’s fine. Even if other people hear us, they won’t care, they’ll only think we’re insane.” “…”
The headless body sitting inside the sedan also fell forward with a bang, and the whole person crashed out of the sedan.
“Fu Yao, you’re not speaking as an immortal should,” Xie Lian said. “And can you fix that eye-rolling habit of yours? Why don’t you set a small target for yourself first and roll only five times a day or something like that?”
“…No, Miss, please don’t misunderstand, this isn’t a hobby of mine,” Xie Lian explained.
“It means exactly what you heard,” Xie Lian said. “It’s to tell the bride inside the sedan to only cry and not smile.” “I meant, what’s the meaning of this creature running over to give you hints like this?” Nan Feng said.
“I’ve been smiling ever since I mounted the bridal sedan,” Xie Lian said. “…” Just as he spoke, the body of the sedan abruptly dipped.
No matter how high on his guard Xie Lian was, to be treated this way, he couldn’t help but think: If he was a real groom, then he’d genuinely be a most gentle and considerate one.
“Young master, we just saw each other! I helped you put on rouge, did your hair and your whole makeover…” Xie Lian could not find the words to reply to that. “…” Everyone turned their eyes on him, and some started to whisper among themselves. He vaguely heard the words “hobby,” “abnormal,” “unbelievable,” and he cleared his throat. “This was a mission requirement. Mission requirement. Nan Feng, Fu Yao, you…”
“No, no, no.” He explained: “There were only seventeen before, but now there are eighteen. Among the eighteen brides’ corpses, one is fake: the ghost groom is hiding among them!”
When Xie Lian heard them, he blurted out of habit, “Thank you, thank you. Please support my act with money if you have the means, or with applause if you haven’t… Wait?!”
“I’ve got a bit of a situation here right now, kind of urgent,” Xie Lian said. “Not gonna lie, there are a dozen dead people chasing me right now.” “Huh? That awful?!” Ling Wen was shocked. “Not too horrible,”
The bones of both her legs were broken, but the legs remained, and she had been using her knees to walk all this time. The odd THUMP THUMP sound he heard was the sound of her dragging her two broken legs to hop across the ground.
Xie Lian spoke up. “General Pei Junior, might I ask, how will Xuan Ji be handled?” “Sealed under a mountain,” General Pei Junior replied. To use a mountain as a seal was certainly the usual way the Heavenly Realm dealt with monsters and ghosts.
Nan Feng commented, “Weirdos.”
Xie Lian used this opportunity to nag at them to spread the philosophy of good and bad karma, advising them to pray a lot for each of the brides once they went back down the mountain, and to think of a way to contact the families of those brides to come and collect their corpses.
Fu Yao smirked. “Please, your cross-dressing isn’t that terrifying.”
“He…has the Human Face Disease.”
Feng Xin had never been good with women, and Xie Lian felt sorry that he was the one given the task of interrogation.
Mu Qing said coldly, “He just said that he met Hua Cheng.”
“Your Highness walked the Mortal Realm for hundreds of years, and yet you are still so ill-informed. I’m really curious to know what you’ve been doing all this time.” Eating, sleeping, busking, collecting junk, duh?
The name Hua Cheng5 was very obviously fake, and his appearance was most likely fake too.
Some say he was a fool who was tormented by the death of his love;
Was that little silver butterfly really that scary? Xie Lian wondered. It wasn’t that bad… It was kind of cute.
Although Hua Cheng had been ubiquitously known as the devil incarnate, Xie Lian didn’t think he was that scary.
