Since that matter was of me several thousand years old from human to immortal, I can only gloss over the matter with how I felt.
My first and last wholehearted love as a human.
During that time this immortal lord had the zeal of a young man. All day long I would be playing at the town's brothels, thinking it was romantic. On a certain day at the Chang'an street I looked back out of the blue and saw a beautiful woman stood leaning on a railing. With this one mere glance she became the obsession of my life.
She was a courtesan who sang in a pleasure house. Ten bolts of fine silk can get her to sing for you and with a hundred taels of gold you're able to spend a pa.s.sionate night with her. I boldly tossed in a thousand gold and easily exchanged for night with the lady. Night by night we sat and talked idly, I didn't want to wrong her and force her to couple with me in bed. My thoughts were entirely focused on means to gain her favour — anything to hear her say, with all her heart, that she likes me.
In the end, before she could fall for me she took a fancy to a poor pedantic examinee.
She took the pearl jewelries, antique jade artifacts, precious ink-stone qin I presented her and sold them off one by one to provide for that poor man. She rented him a room to read his books in and also bribed top to bottom so he could attend the imperial exam. The result was that poor scholar placed high in the exam, pa.s.sed brilliantly as the top scorer. He took her into his residence in a powder white sedan chair and they both lived happily ever after. She became someone else's wife. Stories of this spread far and wide on the streets.
I was the helper who foolishly spent away his money in that story.
My heart closed up, I was crushed, it's not hard to imagine how my spirit broke at that time. I would get drunk during daylight, recite poems in the dark of the night. Xiao Li in a gloomy spring, Wei Zhuang in his sorrowful autumn, Xiao Du drunk on his Ten Years Dream of Yangzhou — I could recite each desolate words of poetry one by one backwards.1
I was hurting from the double ninth festival up until the next year's double fifth festival, when she went to the temple to burn incense. I stopped her in the main hall, asked her how exactly was that scholar better than me. I treated her with such deep feelings and yet she went and fell in love with some scholar.
She replied to me this, the gentleman had proclaimed your feelings again and again but in truth you do not understand what feelings are. You believe loving with your all is spending all your money and pa.s.sion is presenting this servant treasured qins, fragrant fans, jade bracelets and golden hairpins. Despite being poor, my husband had been true and sincere with this servant. A n.o.ble-born young master such as yourself may never had had wonton noodles from the roadside stall, that you mistook desire to be love. When you understood true love, the you of that moment is my answer.2
I sullenly left the temple, my feet aimlessly tread the road. More than a year's worth of love sick, heartache, yearning, all lost all its worth after her brief counter.
I walked, and saw a waft of thick smoke rising. Are you saying just because I haven't eaten wonton noodles my feelings can't be called feelings?
I walked feebly towards the smoke. I pulled out the small chair in front of a low table, I sat down and said dejectedly, "Boss, give me a bowl of wonton noodle."
And after drinking that bowl of noodles I became Immortal Song Yao.
Heng Wen had insincerely consoled me: "Fate. That is precisely the Mandate of Heaven. One cannot go against the Mandate of Heaven."
That's right, Heng Wen had mocked me like that. I had indeed told him about this.
At that time this immortal lord had sighed deeply. "Heaven mandated I would be born under the Lonesome Luan star."
Heng Wen had laid on the black limestone beside the lotus pond. He said, still with his eyes closed, "No, rather, it was heaven mandated you would become immortal."
Thinking about it like this; if you look at it as an onlooker, the drama I'm acting in right now with Tian Shu and Nan Ming was about ten, twenty percent similar to my love story of that year.
Li Siming fell for Mu Ruoyan, Mu Ruoyan was already in a relations.h.i.+p with Shan Shengling. Li Siming would tie Mu Ruoyan to his side, use all kinds of methods to torment him mercilessly, and hit these mandarin ducks with a stick. Regardless of Jade Emperor not planning anything good for Nan Ming and Tian Shu, Mu Ruoyan and Shan Shengling's true love will remain as always; unmoved, unshaken, from beginning to the end.3
As it turns out this immortal was still the helping hand who spends like a fool.
Don't tell me I'm destined to play this type of role in this kind of drama?!
That immoral old Jade Emperor!!
I fell asleep with such grievance that I even dreamed of Nan Ming Dijun coming, bearing a small pink sedan chair. His body clad in armor, he heroically stood in front of the Dongjun w.a.n.g's manor's gate, wanting me to return his Tian Shu.
Inside my heart was crying out: Dijun, quickly take Tian Shu and carry him on the sedan, the farther the better, this immortal lord really don't want to wait on him anymore. Outside, my mouth said fiercely: "This immortal had chosen Tian Shu, he is precious to me. No one can take him from me!"
In the haze someone pulled me up and shook me.
I opened my eyes halfway and saw that it was Heng Wen who had grabbed my lapels. “What..?"
Heng Wen drawled out: "Your dear precious Tian Shu is in the middle of coughing blood. Quit sleep talking, go check on him now."
With a flash of light I warped back to Li Siming's room. At this hour the sky was already turning bright. Still half asleep, I saw Tian Shu's face that was as white as paper. His eyes were shut close, the corner of his mouth still had a trickle of blood. On the bed was a white handkerchief he dropped, blood had bled through it. The edges of his cuffs were also stained with specks of blood.
He was perfectly well, what blood is he throwing up?
Heng Wen said beside me: "Your most precious darling had coughed up blood and fainted, what are you still staring for? Take him into your arms and shout for the doctor now." He raised a hand and pushed me into Li Siming's body.
I turned and sat up on the bed, supporting Tian Shu halfway up before wiping the blood on his mouth. Heng Wen used a spell that allowed Li Siming's mortal eyes to see him. He sat on a stool, watching the unmoving Tian Shu in my embrace with a smile.
My face turned hard as iron and I shouted, "Servants!"
A maid pushed open the door and kowtowed. With a quivering voice, I said, "Go call the physician, lord Yan threw up blood."
Translator: Padam Chinese checker: h.e.l.liotn English checker: Strwbrrytruffles
Today I got off work late, so not many updates, only revealing a bit of Ah Yao's old love story, hehe~~ Feel free to repost, thanks so much *^^*
[1] Series of poems, idiom 伤春悲秋 , Spring , Autumn , Ten Years . Sad depressed poems, if you want you can read them. Not sure if I found the correct Wei Zhuang/correct autumn poem. ↑
[2] …was true to me… : treat with all of heart, sincerely, heart-to-heart. …desire..: willfulness, interest. ↑
[3] they use 两情相悦, which is heart-to-heart love, one another happy with each other, their hearts, behaviours, values agree with each other. They're each other's happiness. ↑