Fanfiction3: A-Li's Three Lives, Three Worlds - Chapter 10 (Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms 三生三世十里桃花)
Chapter 10
written by LigayaCroftedited by kakashi & panda
He had been too careless today.
For hundreds of millennia, the world continued to exist oblivious of The Observer’s presence because he never interfered.
But today, he did.
He exerted influence.
All because of her.
She visited the temple five times a year; at every change of the season and on her mother’s death anniversary. The Observer looked forward to each visit, and made sure all the trees and seasonal flowers she liked showed off their best greens and blooms. Her visits were one of the scarce times he could be with her and be able to look at her for as long as he liked. Breathing the same air as her — sharing tea and talk — refreshed The Observer’s lonesome existence. Because she always wanted to stay longer, he knew she felt their connection, too.
But today, she brought an unexpected visitor with her.
An outlier.
So he had told her who her companion really was: a Prince of the Immortal Realms.
She was an intelligent woman whose craving for stability unnaturally spurred her bursts of impulsive behavior. How she found the High Immortal, The Observer would never know, but today he had appealed to her common sense. She already lived a good life in Luoyang and her father was safe from those who were after his head. So, what was she doing associating herself with an immortal?
He had posed the question expecting her to flee from her companion as a result. He thought revealing the immortal’s identity was a well-calculated risk. After all, mortals were taught early on to be wary of immortals. Immortals’ boredom often drove them to do things that were up to no good for mere mortals. There were countless tales of flooding, famine, pestilence, and yes, even heartbreak, to fill ledgers and ledgers of legends. The Observer was confident that she would know better.
Or he should have.
Because things took a turn for worse.
As somebody who had lived longer than anyone could aspire to walk either the mortal or immortal realms, The Observer had taken extreme care in order to hide himself from the new gods who now roamed and ruled this world.
However, today, his hand had been revealed and he knew the event sent a beacon up to Jiuchongtian.
All because of that boy.
Fuxi’s grandson.
Heavenly Emperor Ye Hua’s eldest son.
The Future Crown Prince of the Four Seas and Eight Deserts, Li.
No immortal had ever come this close in proximity to him without his permission. He had been equal-parts shocked and furious when the upstart effortlessly sliced through the talismans and seals he had painstakingly put in place to hide this location from Heaven and Mortals, except to the Xues. As his seals were decimated by the boy’s mere will, he saw with the same eyes that had seen the dawn of this world’s creation, the sheer amount of power and potential that lay dormant and hidden within Li’s spirit. It was preposterous how his power had almost been trumped so easily.
Before his illusion had completely broken revealing him to Li, he had pulled deep from Hùndùn [1] to conceal his location, all while was still talking to her. The double duty was such a huge strain and had taxed him so immensely that he had hastily let her go so he could continue with the repair. He worked fast; but in his current encumbered state, he knew he could not escape discovery for much longer. Pulling past the Liánzi [2] to Hùndùn always had consequences and he knew somebody from Jiuchongtian would have noticed the brief imbalance in this world’s yin and yang flow by now.
By the time he had fully-restored the seals to hide the temple from the former Tiānjūn’s roving eyes and caught up with the pair, the two were already locked in a deeply passionate lover’s embrace.
The Observer had never seen her look at him the way she looked at Li.
And it broke his immortal heart.
Chapter 11
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Endnotes
1. (混沌) Primordial Chaos. Entropy. The sum of all orders. The world of plenitude where everything is shifting and extant. Magick thus draws power from Chaos because it rearranges the natural order in a physical realm. (Adapted and crafted by Author for this FF. Mistakes on script translation or original definition are mine.)2. (帘子) The curtain/veil/mass that stands between the Physical Realms (or, the state of order formed from the infinite set of possibilities that lie within Chaos/Entropy) and Chaos. The physical realms are immutable, so “piercing/tugging at the curtain/veil” —such as when employing magick — is prone to backbite unless the yin is balanced by an equally capable yang.(Adapted and crafted by Author for this FF. Mistakes on script translation or original definition are mine.)