Su Xuan crossed his arms, watching the spirited sword cultivator, a smile he couldn’t suppress curving the corner of his lips. He said: “In the Beast Realm, we release fireworks during Mid-Autumn. Want to go watch fireworks together?”
Sang Dai smiled and nodded: “Alright!”
She turned to leave, and just as she was about to step out of the inn’s door, the young man called out to her.
The sword cultivator glanced back, her features as clear and graceful as ever.
The young man’s heart raced. He softly called out to her: “Dai Dai, I’ll wait for you.”
He called her, Dai Dai.
Sang Dai smiled in response: “Little fox, I’ll come and bring you home.”
The little fox sat on the windowsill, gazing at the towering mountains in the distance. He waited, waited until the moon rose, waited for the night to arrive.
He waited until footsteps approached from behind, and a smile tugged at the corner of his lips.
He felt that he had finally waited for his very own fairy.
“Dai Dai, you’re here—”
Before he could finish his words, a long spear pierced through his chest.
The young man fell from the window, kneeling on one knee on the ground. He coughed violently, clutching the blood hole in his chest, his crimson eyes staring at the elders of the Twelve Palaces who were walking toward him.
They were all at the Nascent Soul stage.
“A mere boy, what do you have to fight with?”
He fought until his meridians were shattered, without the strength to even breathe. The clothes the sword cultivator had bought for him were stained red with blood. As the young man was carried away, he struggled and looked toward the mountains outside the window.
On that mountain lived his sword cultivator.
“Dai Dai…”
Once again thrown into the underground prison, chains pierced through his body, golden threads sucked his blood and flesh, feeding it back to the spiritual veins of the Beast Realm. In his daze, during that year, he wondered if Sang Dai would notice he was missing when she returned to the inn. Would she be foolish enough to venture into the Beast Realm to rescue him?
He thought that Sang Dai would do just that. Part of him didn’t want her to come, yet part of him longed to see her again.
He waited and waited, and a year passed.
He never saw his sword cultivator.
What came instead was the news that the Beast Realm was going to extract his spiritual roots and sacrifice them to the Guixu Immortal Realm.
As the person holding the blade approached him, the one who had kept his head lowered for the entire year suddenly raised his gaze, his eyes filled with murderous intent.
He thought, I cannot die.
Even if he had to die, he would crawl out of here and see her one last time.
He hadn’t seen the fireworks with her yet, hadn’t returned the damaged clothes to her.
He hadn’t gone home with her.
But he didn’t know that his beloved sword cultivator had also gone through despair.
Sang Dai ran up the mountain excitedly to tell her parents about the situation, but Sang Wenzhou and Madam Shi were sitting on the high platform with cold expressions.
They said, “The Beast Realm has already sent people to the Immortal Realm. This is a matter for the Beast Realm, the Sword Sect should not intervene.”
“What…”
Sang Dai suddenly realized something in terror and drew her sword, about to rush down the mountain.
Sang Wenzhou struck her in the back with a palm, and she fell to the ground, watching her parents walk toward her holding a bowl of medicine.
“You’ve been outside for a month, your meridians are still poisoned. Bring someone, let the young lady have blood drawn.”
The sharp blade cut through her wrist, filling an entire bowl with blood. Sang Dai was too weak to struggle, her body refusing to move as she tried to save Su Xuan, but Madam Shi gripped her chin, forcing her mouth open and pouring the toxic medicine, which stripped her of her spiritual roots, into her.
Madam Shi held the dazed Sang Dai in her arms after she drank the medicine, her cheek pressed against Sang Dai’s forehead as she softly said, “Dai Dai, be good. This is for your own good, for your cultivation. You are a Heaven-grade spiritual root awakener. You are the pride of the Sword Sect.”
But Sang Dai’s mind was consumed with only one thought.
— Little fox, run.
The Sword Sect had drugged her with a softening poison. For the half-month she couldn’t move, she felt despair and collapse, but all she received was the bowl of medicine Madam Shi had brought.
“Dai Dai, you’ve been confused lately. Your mother made this medicine for you. Drink it, and you’ll be fine.”
It was the poison that made her forget Su Xuan.
The Forget-Me-Not herb, the last of its kind in the world at that time, was bought by the Sword Sect at a great price. They poisoned her with it and then the elders searched her soul, erasing all the memories of Su Xuan from her sea of consciousness, making her forget the events of that month.
Sang Dai was forced to drink the poison, falling into a deep sleep for an entire month.
The day she woke up again was the Mid-Autumn Festival.
Her mother told her that she had been possessed by a vengeful spirit for a while and had forgotten some memories.
Sang Dai believed it.
Yet, when she dressed and gazed at the full moon outside the window, she felt a sense of confusion.
Something in the depths of her being seemed to guide her. She stepped out of the bamboo house, unknowingly walking outside.
Shen Ciyu, who had come to visit, was horrified when he saw her standing at the edge of the mountaintop, lost in a daze. He thought the vengeful spirit had taken over her again, and he rushed to stop her in a panic.
“Sang Dai?”
Sang Dai unconsciously raised her gaze. “Senior Brother Shen?”
Shen Ciyu sighed in relief and asked, “What are you going to do?”
Sang Dai stood at the mountaintop, staring at the mist below, blinking.
“I… what am I going to do?”
Sang Dai murmured:
“I need to… meet someone, watch the fireworks.”
“Who are you going to meet?”
“…I don’t know.”
In the 120 years she had forgotten, only Su Xuan remembered this.
Only he remembered that their first meeting wasn’t in the Sword Sect, but in the Beast Realm.
After he became the Beast King, he excitedly came to the Sword Sect, carefully prepared clothes in hand, only to have the sword cultivator forget him. She thought he was insulting her and sliced the dress he had gifted her with her sword.
At that time, the sword cultivator, cold-faced and holding her sword, had told the helpless boy:
“In the Tianque Mountain area, demons and evil spirits are forbidden.”
She had forgotten it all.
In the blink of an eye, 120 years had passed.
Sang Dai covered her eyes and cried silently.
Even when she cried, the sword cultivator remained quiet.
The fireworks were still going off. She had bought all the fireworks in the capital and set off a show that was a century late, just for him.
Tears fell down her chin, and in a hoarse voice, she said: “Su Xuan, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought you to the Sword Sect.”
She had been deceived by the Sword Sect. She thought they would stand by her side.
But she never expected that her value to the Sword Sect was the same as Su Xuan’s value to the Beast Realm at that time.
A Heaven-grade spiritual root awakener, only useful for exploitation.
Su Xuan closed his eyes and wiped away the tears on his face.
He turned around and pulled Sang Dai into his arms. “You don’t need to apologize, Sang Dai. You never have to apologize to me.”
He didn’t know what Sang Dai had gone through. He thought she had simply forgotten him.
He never imagined that his sword cultivator had also fought desperately to save him.
“I survived. I didn’t die. I became the Beast King, killed the elders of the Twelve Palaces, and never fought with the Immortal Realm again. Sang Dai, the things you wished for back then, I’ve done them all.”
Sang Dai had wished for Su Xuan to survive.
Sang Dai had wished that the Beast Realm would no longer wage war with the Immortal Realm, and that the common people could live in peace.
Su Xuan had done it all.
The fireworks were still burning outside, and the demon cultivators under the city walls saw the two people on top of the wall.
“Is this… the fireworks the Lord prepared for the Madam?”
“What? I just saw the Madam running back and forth buying a lot of fireworks from the shops and telling them to set them off when the clouds cleared.”
“The Madam prepared them for the Lord?”
“Of course!”
The demon cultivators cupped their hands to form a trumpet shape and shouted:
“The Madam is so beautiful! The fireworks are so pretty!”
“The Lord must treat the Madam well! She is the most beautiful female cultivator in the Beast Realm!”
“I like the Madam!!”
“I like the Madam too!!”
“I really like the Madam!!”
Sang Dai laughed quietly in Su Xuan’s arms, the tears rubbing onto his clothes. She felt embarrassed and didn’t dare to wipe them with her sleeve.
“Sorry, I got your clothes dirty.”
The fox quickly turned his head and wiped the tears from the corner of his eyes. “You owe me.”
Sang Dai smiled, trying to coax him: “Alright, I’ll make it up to you.”
Su Xuan stood up, extending his hand toward Sang Dai. “Come with me to do something, and consider it your way of compensating for my clothes.”
Sang Dai tilted her head and asked, “What is it?”
Su Xuan answered in a calm voice: “I won’t say now, this is your compensation.”
But when she met his glass-like eyes, Sang Dai heard his true thoughts.
[A gift for Dai Dai, a gift that was a century late.]
When she gave him the fireworks that were a century overdue, he also presented her with a gift he had kept hidden for a hundred years.
Sang Dai reached out and took his hand.
Su Xuan pulled her up.
“Sang Dai, will you come with me?”
“Yes, I’ll go with you.”
Sang Dai was excited to see the gift Su Xuan had for her.
—-
TL: The author said it’s sweet but I’m crying??