Three hundred years had seemed such a long time.
Fengjiu still remembered everything about him, his fair complexion, his cold and emotionless stare, the gentleness of his touch, and the ethereal glow about him that captivated her every time she saw him.
It had hurt her so much to have to bid him goodbye. But she had firmly reminded herself that she was the queen now, and that her subjects needed her. She was not the playful, willful princess of the past anymore. Nevertheless, the love for him in her heart had been so strong that she had been willing to live and die for him.
When she received the news of Bai Qian and Yehua's wedding, all she could think of was how she would finally see him. As she walked through the celestial grounds, images of him clouded her mind. How had he been for the last three hundred years? Had he been thinking of her just as she did of him?
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Donghua had lived a life without love.
Such a life had been nothing to the mighty emperor Donghua, as he had lived for eons in the Ninth Heavens without the need for a companion.
But all had changed when he had met the playful and innocent fox princess Bai Fengjiu. He had long known that he would have no destiny with her. To grant her a chance at love with him, he had chosen to undergo a love trial in the mortal realm. As Si Ming had said clearly, that would be the only chance they would be able to live together as a couple. They had their one chance at fate, in the mortal realm. He would have given anything to be with her, had he not made his decision to erase his name from the Rock of Three Incarnations.
The last three hundred years had been torture. However, he hadn't expected that he would be finally seeing her again. She looked even more beautiful compared to the last time he had seen her.
The pale green dress on her was a nice touch. The simplicity of her dress had indeed brought out the beauty in her. Compared to the outfits she had been wearing in the Ninth Heavens during the first few times he had met her, her dress now made her look different. She looked a lot more mature now, Donghua observed. He wished he knew who she had in her heart.
She bowed as he came near. "Bai Fengjiu greets Your Majesty Donghua Dijun."
"It's been a long time, Jiu'er," he said. She was surprised at the change of tone of the cold emperor towards her.
They continued the conversation between the two of them. Fengjiu seized the opportunity to ask if anything had changed in the immortal realm while she was away in the Qingqiu Kingdom, and what was new in Taichen Palace. He would have loved to answer her that he missed her, but he hesitated, recalling how her father Bai Yi had asked if he had been willing to marry her. He didn't know if she had a suitor now, after such a long time.
"Taichen Palace has a lot of new fairy maids," he eventually said. "Nothing much has changed, it has always been how it was." He then proceeded to ask about her life at Qingqiu.
"Living as a queen is very tiring," she said. "There's a lot on my desk everyday, and I can't afford to sleep early. Every night when I retire to bed, I have so much on my mind. I don't know which subject of mine is suffering, and how I can do the best I can."
Donghua noted how much she had changed and how mature she was at this stage. He wanted, so much, to pull her into his arms and hold her to him tight. Again ,he hesitated.
They were both hiding their feelings and pretending to be strong, but in their hearts, they were yearning for each other.
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The wedding ceremony between Bai Qian and Yehua would go on for a number of days. A day went by, and not a moment had passed without the blooming Fengjiu catching the attention of every eligible bachelor at the ceremony. Regardless of age, looks, height, status or even cultivation, each immortal was slowly losing their heart to the charming little fox, especially with her newfound maturity as the queen. She was the heart of the party, and she had been so preoccupied with socialising that she had almost forgotten about him. Whenever he tried to engage in conversation with Fengjiu, one of the young immortals would beat Donghua to it. And when she had sent a message to Si Ming to call him over, he had arrived only to see that she was with some other immortal, laughing about jokes and the scenery.
By the second day, when Fengjiu continued to be 'too busy' to speak to him, Donghua was infuriated. When another young immortal cut in front of him to socialise with Fengjiu, he could no longer take it. The jealousy emerging in his heart and mind was starting to consume him from within. He was determined to claim her as his Jiu'er.
So be it, he thought. The young immortal found himself on his knees when a lesser bolt of lightning hit him across his back, courtesy of Donghua the Jealous God. What else could he do but run for his life? And so, Donghua had prevailed. From the second day to the final day of the wedding, he finally had Fengjiu all to himself.
Fengjiu was surprised when the cold god had her cornered with her body against a pillar, before he magically teleported them into a room which they now had to the privacy of just the two of them, away from the noise of the crowds and everyone else. With a single tap of his fingers, a table filled with fruits and tasty desserts materialised before them.
"Jiu'er," he called out, "Finally you have time for me."
"What are you up to?" she asked curiously. Had this cold-hearted god devoid of all feeling and emotion, or so as he tried to make himself appear to be, finally admitting that he had feelings for her all along? She feigned ignorance, pretending she knew naught of his plans.
"Is this some kind of joke?" she asked.
"Jiu'er, you know why I rejected your feelings in the past. But that was the past," he said. "It's been three hundred years, and the fear of losing you has been tormenting me, day after day. I have always held back because of the sake of the worlds. But today, I will no longer do that."
Fengjiu turned to look into his eyes, a look of disbelief across her face. "Are you joking?"
"Jiu'er, you drive me crazy with jealousy when you talked with all those men. Were you trying to test my patience?"
"They were set-ups by my aunt," Fengjiu explained. "I don't know them at all, much say have feelings for any of them. Because I..." she paused, "will always have that someone in my heart."
Hopefulness filled Donghua's mind. He gathered Fengjiu into his arms and pulled her into his embrace. "Jiu'er, you already knew of my feelings long ago. You were right when you said I still had feelings for you when I went to the hut in the mortal realm. I have been hiding from them for so long, but I cannot afford to lose you anymore. If I could turn back time and prevent my old self from removing my name from the Rock of Three Incarnations, I would do it."
The moment that Fengjiu had awaited had finally come, when Donghua took her lips in his, and kissed her with such a fiery passion that neither of them could hold back. He had warded the room strongly from being entered by anyone other than themselves. They had been so occupied with kissing each other that they lost count of time. And with every moment of their kisses, the intensity between them simply got stronger. She immersed herself in the sweet taste of his lips as his tongue slowly explored her little mouth. He lifted her up gently and carefully laid her on the majestic bed in the room, slowly undoing the bows on her dress and sliding the silk-like material off her slim, petite figure.
She knew the moment was about to come, and she willingly embraced that other side of him, giving herself entirely to him as their bodies united. Like it had been when she had used the drowned Consort Chen's body and he was the Song Emperor while having his love trial, she had felt that tinge of pain at first, which eventually led to pleasure as they came together as one. As they lay together under the sheets with Fengjiu in Donghua's arms, they only knew one thing: that with Donghua's violation of his oath, calamity would befall them soon. There was a price to pay for defying their destiny. Fengjiu wasn't afraid, and she was willing to take any risks that accompanied her choice, for another chance at love with Donghua.
They spent the remaining days of the royal wedding with each other, inseparable like a pair of mandarin ducks. But on the final day of the wedding when she woke up, Fengjiu realised that the day for her lightning trial had come. Fengjiu had been due to receive three strikes of lightning in her trial to ascend as a High Immortal. At the same time, the Sky Kingdom, whose skies had been clear as day the day before, had suddenly turned dark. All that were present knew that the darkness of the skies was an unusual phenomenon and all feared the calamity that was about to befall the Sky Kingdom. Fengjiu witnessed the darkness from the window of their chambers and before Donghua could stop her, she had dashed outside.
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1.2: The Trial of Lightning: Her First Trial
Lightning bolts rained from the skies, striking her all over her body one at a time and scorching her with each strike. Holding back the pain from each time she was struck, Fengjiu counted six strikes. In her aunt Bai Qian's time, she had only been due to receive three strikes of lightning, but her master Mo Yuan had taken all three strikes in her stead. Donghua found her minutes later, she had already collapsed in the ground in a pool of her own blood, but lightning continued to fall from the sky, striking her. He immediately wasted no time in pushing her out of the way and receiving the bolts for her. But even after being struck by thousands of lightning bolts, the darkness of the skies still continued to surround the Sky Kingdom. Finally, after a long time, the lightning ceased, but every being in the Sky Kingdom was horrified when meteorites appeared in the sky and launched themselves at Donghua.
Being the highly-revered Emperor Lord, naturally many high immortals would come to Donghua's aid. But it was to no avail, as a barrier had already formed itself around Donghua and grew stronger as each high immortal put in more effort and higher cultivation in trying to save him. The rocks continued propelling at him, until he completely vanished from sight and could not be found. All who were present, could only wish that this was the last of the calamity that was about to befall the Sky Kingdom. But there was no use, as Donghua was definitely gone from the ends of the universe.
ns 15.158.61.12da2
