Ordered to Marry by the High King - Chapter 40

Cold-faced, and not easy to deal with—could she really be Longming? But the name sounded so awkward. How did Longming become Ěrmíng (Tinnitus)? Now one’s hard of hearing, the other’s got tinnitus—two demons and not a single good ear between them.

Zhuoxue spotted a teapot on the table and thought to pour some water to soothe Suli’s throat. As she did, she asked, “I want to see her—how can I meet her?”

“If you want to die, go see her!” Suli refused. “She’s the village chief’s daughter—meeting her is no different from meeting the King of the Underworld. She’d only send you into the mountains with her own hands!”

That’s definitely not the same, Zhuoxue thought to herself. It’s not like she hadn’t seen the King of the Underworld before. Unrelenting, she probed, “Where does she usually go? What does she do?”

Suli gave her a look like she’d seen a ghost, then placed her palm on Zhuoxue’s forehead in a panic. “Have you fried your brain? How can you seriously be thinking about that ice-block of a person?”

Zhuoxue was simply thinking, if Longming was also trapped here, the two demons meeting might mean they could look out for each other.

“Dear sister, just tell me about that Erming,” she said, having finished pouring the water and handing it to Suli.

Suli widened her eyes. “Trying to send me to the grave, are you? That’s the stinky water I use to fake corpse rot!”

Zhuoxue froze—no wonder she smelled something foul. So it came from the teapot. She turned around and poured the water back in, then nestled close to Suli and said, “I’ve lost all my memories—she’s the only one I remember. What if seeing her brings the rest back?”

“That kind of luck exists?” Suli was skeptical. “You better not be faking amnesia just to get a glimpse of her.”

Zhuoxue said, “Am I really that obsessed?”

“You once ran away from home and spied on her outside the school for days!” Suli was fuming. “If I hadn’t gone looking for you, you would’ve starved out there!”

Zhuoxue was stunned into silence. She nearly starved herself just to see Longming? But this whole “running away for Longming” drama sounded just like her current journey from Qiufeng Ridge. She continued gently, “I’ve never lied—I just want to remember the past. I can’t spend the rest of my life muddling through.”

Suli’s eyes turned red. After a long silence, she let out a sigh. “At least it’s just memory loss, not insanity.”

“Living so dazed might really lead to madness,” Zhuoxue added dramatically.

“You…” Suli was out of options. “You want to know, I’ll tell you. Just don’t try to see her.”

“Then I’ll only listen, not look,” said Zhuoxue.

Suli’s expression showed displeasure. “That Erming is no good. Her personality is terribly strange—always keeps to herself, never talks to people. She probably knows black magic. That’s why she’s the one really in charge of the village—even the chief listens to her every word.”

“So powerful,” Zhuoxue exclaimed. “What else? How did she become a widow?”

Suli gave her a suspicious look and slowly said, “She went away for a while. When she came back, she claimed to have married—but the one she wed was short-lived, now nothing more than bones buried in sand.”

Zhuoxue was dumbfounded. At first it sounded nothing like Longming, but thinking more carefully, it did bear some resemblance.

Suli growled, “Don’t go pitying her. The tribute list this year—she must’ve made it! Every year, she casts lots and reads omens, claiming it’s the fox spirit’s will. Whether it is or isn’t, only she knows!”

“Then what name did I appear under on the list?” Zhuoxue was truly curious.

Suli, annoyed yet helpless, said, “Yuxue. I swear I taught you to read for nothing—you went and forgot your own name!”

Yuxue (玉雪)? 

Take one half from Jueguang (珏光), one half from Zhuoxue (濯雪)—what a neat fusion of the two.

Zhuoxue memorized the name and kindly said, “Thank you for teaching me.”

Suli narrowed her eyes. “Still thinking about her now?”

“Wouldn’t dare,” Zhuoxue replied, saying one thing while thinking another.

“Go to sleep,” Suli said, turning around. She bent down and crawled under the bed, struggling to spread out the straw mat. “Tomorrow we still have to keep pretending to be ghosts.”

Zhuoxue watched wide-eyed as Suli crawled under the narrow bed boards and said in shock, “We’re sleeping like this?”

“That’s right, and our bodies need to be well hidden too. They don’t believe we’ve died—they’re still out there searching for our bodies,” Suli said as she pulled a thin blanket over herself. It looked far too flimsy to keep warm.

Zhuoxue, unwilling but with no better choice, climbed under the bed as well, a damp rag draped over her head. Staring at the floorboards just inches above, she muttered, “Feels like a coffin.”

“Ptui, ptui, ptui!” Suli turned her head and spat.

Zhuoxue still didn’t understand. “Why does the fox spirit eat people?”

“No one knows. No one’s ever seen it, and no one’s ever asked,” Suli replied, her voice still hoarse from being strangled with rope earlier.

“All those tributes sent into the mountains before—were they really eaten?” Zhuoxue pressed.

Suli coughed twice, clearly irritated. “Not a single one ever came back. They must’ve been eaten clean—bones and all.”

Zhuoxue felt no drowsiness at all. Her thoughts wandered elsewhere. It all sounded suspiciously like how she acted when eating chicken. Could this illusion have been shaped from her own memories?

Moments later, deep breathing sounded nearby—Suli had already fallen asleep.

Zhuoxue carefully scooted out, afraid the slightest rustle would wake her.

The creaking of the door was drowned beneath the roar of heavy rain. Under the eaves, rainwater dripped and splashed. The moonlight revealed only mud—those shallow footprints were long gone. Mud was everywhere she looked. Standing by the door on tiptoe for a while, Zhuoxue finally made up her mind and stepped outside.

She draped herself in a rain cloak but couldn’t find a bamboo hat. Rather than keep looking, she set off in the rain, alone and slow.

No one was around. She and Suli lived on the outskirts of the village; to reach the main area, she had to walk nearly a mile down a muddy path just to hear a barking dog or see flickering candlelight in the distance. The mud clung to her shoes, water flooded the ruts in the road, some shallow, some deep, impossible to judge by sight. Every step she took was uneven and uncertain.

Zhuoxue couldn’t help but wonder—what else could this be but a dream? Could it be… a trap laid by a Nightmare demon? But how could a Nightmare demon have such a clear grasp of her past with Longming? And if that demon knew so much, why not strike earlier at Qiufeng Ridge—why wait for her to descend the mountain?

Impossible. No Nightmare demon could know her so thoroughly. If this really was a nightmare, it must’ve been built from her own memories, without the demon needing to fabricate everything in detail.

Rain whispered against leaves and roofs.

Then again, Zhuoxue thought something felt off. They say falling into a nightmare is like entering a trance—even the strongest cultivators can’t tell real from false. How had she snapped out of it so easily?

She still had to see Longming—only then could she make sense of everything.

The rain poured harder than before, more fierce than earlier. The night was already dim, and now the moon was hidden behind thick clouds. If not for her fox eyes, she might not have been able to see the road ahead. The torrential rain washed away all the heat from her body. Rarely had she been drenched like this, and oddly, it felt refreshing.

The cold rain slapped her face—she felt like some tree spirit or flower sprite bathing in the storm. But her damp hair bun grew heavy, pulling painfully at her scalp. She untied her hair ribbon and removed the wooden hairpin, letting her wet hair fall over her chest and back in clumps—she looked like a ghost fresh out of the deep mountains.

The village was silent. Everyone had gone to sleep.

Zhuoxue walked along the muddy path, not knowing which house belonged to the village chief. So she approached them one by one, poking holes in the paper windows.

This house was quiet—two adults and two children sleeping side by side. Definitely not the one.

This one? The owner was sleeping while hugging a chicken?

That one wasn’t asleep—a woman was feeding medicine to her eldest son. Clearly not Longming.

That one was even less likely—the whole family was wailing and sobbing. Longming would never cry like that.

Zhuoxue moved quickly, stabbing holes in nearly every window in the village. She would rather make a thousand mistakes than miss a single possibility. House by house, her fingers were starting to go numb, and still she hadn’t found Longming.

Each time the thin paper tore, she pressed her face close, scanning the interior of the room. This time, luck turned against her—just as she leaned forward, she was met with a face twisted in panic and fear.

The person, awake in the dead of night, had come right up to the fresh hole she had made and cried out in terror, “There’s a ghost! A ghost—!”

At the finger-width hole, a bloodshot eye drew back slightly, revealing half a face as pale as death.

Zhuoxue’s eyes burned with irritation. She hurried back out into the rain and turned to see several households lighting their lamps in unison—clearly roused by the person shouting earlier. She quickly scanned her surroundings and ducked her head, hugging the base of the wall as she walked. If only she could return to her fox form—she’d be able to dash far away in an instant.

Braver villagers came out into the rain, holding lanterns, shouting with righteous fury, “Where is it? Who’s pretending to be a ghost?!”

From a distance, someone cried out, “It’s a ghost! Someone poked a hole in my window paper—I saw her! Her eyes were blood-red!”

The village lit up in a blaze of lamps. One by one, villagers wrapped in blankets stepped outside, voices trembling as they echoed the claim, “Mine too—there’s a hole in our window paper. I don’t even know when she came.”

“Same here!”

“I heard a noise but didn’t think anything of it. Then I looked closer—my newly patched window paper was pierced!”

“I saw half her face—she looked a bit like Yuxue,” the first frightened villager said, panicked. “Could she have really hanged herself?”

“I saw it too! There’s a ghost floating in the thatched house—it must be her coming back!”

“That’s right, I even smelled a corpse—but never found the body.”

Zhuoxue thought to herself, Not bad—this trip wasn’t wasted. I really did become a ghost by accident.

Suddenly, a door slammed open.

A woman stood beneath the eaves, cradling a swaddled infant. Her expression was as cold as the northern wind and snow; just one look at her eyes and brows made it clear she was distant and unfeeling. Her gaze swept over the crowd with an air of lofty detachment. She spoke, flat and indifferent. “What’s all this noise? What’s there to fear about a vengeful ghost?”

Hidden in the shadows, Zhuoxue’s heart leapt. Isn’t that Longming’s voice? But voice alone wasn’t enough. She needed to see her face to be sure.

A mix of shock and joy surged within her. She cautiously peeked out, straining her vision to confirm. That striking, seductive figure with the cold and indifferent face—yes, it truly was Longming.

Longming still had her altered appearance—black hair, black eyes—but she seemed deeply immersed in the role, utterly absorbed in the illusion.

Zhuoxue crept along the wall for several steps. How could I, someone whose cultivation is beneath Longming’s, be more lucid than her?

She dared not reveal herself, so she slipped behind the house and called softly toward Longming, but the downpour drowned out her voice.

Once Longming appeared, the villagers seemed to settle as though they’d been given a calming elixir. No one screamed in terror anymore.

Longming swept her gaze over the crowd and said coldly, “Who saw her just now? Step forward.”

The villager who had first shouted raised a trembling arm. His lips quivered as he said, “Her eyes were red like they were bleeding—she must’ve come back for revenge!”

Longming replied coolly, “Don’t be afraid. She ended up this way because she refused to go into the mountains. Let us all sincerely pray to the fox spirit for protection. The fox spirit will surely capture the evil ghost and bless our village with peace and a bountiful autumn.”

Zhuoxue nearly popped her eyes out of her head. What on earth? These words are coming from Longming?!

She studied her again, but the angle was poor. She could barely make out half of Longming’s face and couldn’t see what was wrapped in the swaddling cloth.

Assuming this Longming was Erming, then how did she end up with a baby after years of widowhood?

And yet, the villagers obeyed without hesitation. Ignoring the mud underfoot, they turned toward the distant mountains and knelt in worship, chanting over and over, “We plead for the fox spirit’s blessing on a bountiful autumn, we plead for the fox spirit’s blessing on a bountiful autumn…”

“All right. The vengeful ghost won’t return tonight,” Longming said.

Then someone stepped forward, voice shaking. “My lady, the Ma family strangled their child earlier this evening. The name list will need to be updated. But… there are no other babies left in the village.”

At those words, the households with children all instinctively shielded them, regardless of age.

Longming fell silent for a long while. Then she looked down at the bundle in her arms and said, “If no other family is willing, I will offer my own child to the fox spirit.”

The crowd was overjoyed—but dared not show it.

“It’s late. Everyone, go home and rest,” Longming said, turning back into the house. As soon as she closed the door, the light went out.

The villagers dispersed, all except the few families who had been called out by name. They remained in place, sobbing quietly.

Zhuoxue couldn’t believe that Longming had truly fallen under a spell to this extent. She deliberately kept watch outside Longming’s window for a full quarter of an hour. Only when everyone had returned home and extinguished their lights did she lower her voice and call out.

“Are you awake? If you are, just answer me.”

The window slammed open. The cold-faced woman holding the swaddled infant cast her eyes downward, glaring at the base of the wall with the expression one would give to a corpse.

Zhuoxue froze for a moment, then immediately turned and ran.

The woman looked like Longming, but she couldn’t truly be Longming—Longming would never look at her like that. Through the swaying wind and rain, the woman suddenly stepped out, still cradling the infant, and without a word, began to pursue her.

Hearing footsteps behind her, Zhuoxue didn’t dare look back. She ran and shouted, “Why are you chasing me? Say something, at least!”

Longming said nothing. She suddenly pulled a bone whistle from her sleeve and blew a shrill, piercing note—clearly trying to summon the villagers who had just gone back home.

Zhuoxue’s foot slipped, and she tumbled down a muddy slope. Luckily, the spot was thick with trees and tall grass, which concealed her. She ran back to the thatched hut, dove under the bed, and shook Suli awake, panting heavily. “We have to go—this place isn’t safe anymore.”

Suli, startled like a frightened bird, opened her eyes at once and stared at the rain-soaked Zhuoxue. “Where did you go?”

“We’ll talk later.” Zhuoxue cracked the door open, terrified the villagers might already be arriving.

Suli said, “There’s one place we could hide. But with the heavy rain these past few days, it might not be easy to stay there.”

“No matter.” Zhuoxue couldn’t afford to care.

Suli gritted her teeth and quickly led her to the hiding place.

When they reached a towering ancient tree, Zhuoxue paused in surprise. The tree looked awfully familiar—just like the one on Mount Lingkong that had been split in two. The hollow was high up; they had to climb a bit to reach it. Inside was partially flooded but just barely large enough to hide a person.

Zhuoxue let out a breath of relief and asked in a low voice, “That child Erming has—where did it come from?”

“You went to see her! I knew you couldn’t resist!” Suli immediately caught on.

“She’s supposed to be alone. Why was she holding a swaddled infant?” Zhuoxue pressed.

Suli sighed. “It was left to her by an old companion. The child’s gravely ill and has never been able to grow.”

Zhuoxue thought to herself, This scene can’t possibly be formed from my own memories. Maybe I’m not craving Longming, but Longming is definitely craving Jueguang.