Binding the Dragon for the Empress Chapter 146

The Way to Change Fate Against Heaven – Part Two

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When he saw who was coming, Si Shen sobered up in an instant and pretended to be calm as he got up and bowed to Yan Yuan. Yue Lao sat there dumbfounded, staring at him for a long time, but when he heard Si Shen address the Emperor, he sprang to his feet and bowed after him.

Yan Yuan's throat seemed to be gripped by something, his nose was sour and unbearable, and he said mutely: "What did you mean when you said that it was not impossible for Xuan Long and I to be together?"

When Bei Chi saw Si Shen and Yue Lao drinking, he used his voice transmission technique to tell Yan Yuan. Yan Yuan did not want to disturb them, so he intended to leave straight after hiding his form, but Bei Chi told him that the two gods were talking about him, so Yan Yuan asked Bei Chi to repeat the conversation to him word for word using his voice transmission technique, and he heard this.

Si Shen, who was still standing with his hands raised, straightened up and knelt down at the sound of the words, hanging his head and saying, "This little god has been drinking today, and after drinking, he spoke nonsense and said what he shouldn't, please forgive him, Emperor."

Yan Yuan could not see anything, it was pitch black in front of him, but he clearly sensed the tension in Si Shen's words; Si Shen was lying, he must be trying to conceal something.

Was it really possible for him and Xuan Long to still be together?... What lay between them was a gap that could never be crossed, a distance between life and death. As long as he lived, it was impossible for him to be with Xuan Long, and the closer he was to Xuan Long, the worse it would be for Xuan Long.

So he endured the pain of longing and stripped himself away from Xuan Long's life, not wanting to disturb his tranquillity.

But Si Shen said that it was not impossible for him and Xuan Long to be together.

Was there really a way to change fate and overcome the Heavenly Way against all odds? If there was, he was willing to do whatever it took to change it, to reunite with Xuan Long and love him for an eternity.

He did not ask for tens of thousands of years, just a hundred lives would be enough. He knew that was something he could not ask for, so he did not dare to be too greedy.

Yan Yuan withdrew his arm from Bei Chi's support and stumbled in the direction where Si Shen was by feel. As Si Shen saw his opponent approaching, his heart was tense with remorse and his mind was racing with excuses before Yan Yuan suddenly fell.

He landed on his knees and let out a muffled grunt, which startled the three people present. Si Shen was the closest to Yan Yuan and rushed over to help him with a single step.

"Emperor!"

The fall was so hard that Yan Yuan couldn't stand up for a while, but as if he couldn't feel the pain, he fumbled around and grabbed Si Shen's arm, asking in a murmur:

"There is a way, isn't there?"

"Tell me... what the method is, no matter what it is, as long as it allows me to be with him, I am willing to do anything..."

Si Shen lightly but firmly drew back his hand and lowered his eyes, "All that this little god said was the truth. Everything else was just nonsense. If the Emperor is unhappy, this little god is willing to be punished."

Yan Yuan opened his lifeless eyes, and after a moment of silence, he said, "What am I punishing you for... if I punish you, will he be able to come back to me..."

Perhaps Si Shen was really drunk and talking out of his ass.

Yan Yuan put his palms on the ground, avoiding the support of the crowd, and sluggishly climbed up, the white robe in front of his knees fell with a tear, and it was dusty; there was no trace of the Emperor's nobility.

He turned his back on the moonlight and walked into the darkness.

Yue Lao, who had not had the chance to speak out, looked at his noticeably diminished back and his eyes reddened.

Before Yue Lao became the Moon Elder, he was just an unknown immortal in the Third Heaven. His real body was a white bellflower, and because of his weak character and low spiritual power, he was often bullied by the other clans.

One day, ten thousand years ago, when Yan Yuan and Xuan Long were visiting the Second Heaven, they passed by his thatched hut and saw him being blocked by some butterfly clansmen who wanted to strip him of his clothes. They were bullying him for no reason other than that they had nothing better to do all day. They were deliberately teasing him, wanting to see his self-esteem trampled on and his face humiliated.

He grew up at the foot of a mountain in the mortal world and had ascended to immortality by mistake by absorbing the spirits of the sun and moon. Without having gone through the proper training and without a clan behind him to rely on, he could only put up with the bullying and endure it.

He endured it day after day, thinking it would be the same as every other day, but when the butterfly clan was about to do something evil one day, Yan Yuan and Xuan Long suddenly appeared and subdued them with a single move.

Some people are born immortal, but if they behave badly, they will be stripped of their immortal bones and sent to the mortal world to taste the pain of reincarnation.

At that time, the young bellflower had not yet seen anything in the world, so when he was saved, he wanted to follow them to repay their kindness, and it just so happened that Yan Yuan had not brought anyone to attend to him when he came out. Thinking that Xuan Long was pregnant and needed someone to run errands and buy food, he allowed him to follow him all the way to the mortal world. After a trip to the mortal world, he returned to the Heavenly Realm only to learn that the people who saved him were the Heavenly Emperor and Heavenly Empress.

Soon afterwards, the previous Moon Master was relegated to the mortal world for making a mistake and the position of deity became vacant. Seeing that he was good and attentive, Yan Yuan asked him to take over the position of the Moon Master and be in charge of the marriage of mortals.

The little bellflower became the Moon Master of the Nine Heavens, and no one dared to bully him anymore. The little bellflower always remembered the Emperor's kindness and wanted to repay it when he had the chance. However, before he could find the chance, the Battle of Gods and Demons suddenly broke out and Xuan Long died at the Divine South Ridge, followed by Yan Yuan who fell into the mortal world.

For ten thousand years, the Emperor and Empress suffered the pain of reincarnation and finally returned, but he was still trapped by love, struggling and suffering, and he could not do anything about it as he watched.

After the man had gone far away, Yue Lao was still standing in the same place. When Si Shen called for him to go back, he did not respond and looked foolishly in the direction where Yan Yuan had left, asking softly:

"You have a solution, don't you? Why didn't you tell the truth to the Emperor?..."

Si Shen frowned, "No."

Yue Lao turned to look at him, "You're lying, you've always been a good drinker and you don't talk nonsense when you're drunk. If you say you have a solution, then you really have a solution. You must be hiding something from me! If you're not helping the Emperor and General Xuan Long, are you trying to help Immortal Monarch Zhiyu?"

"What nonsense." Si Shen raised his hand to shake his arm. "Stop making a fuss and go back to rest."

Yue Lao shook off his hand, his eyes red: "Am I talking nonsense? That night when I was drunk and confessed my feelings to you, you played the fool and woke up the next day as if nothing had happened. I know you don't like me, and if you don't, so be it, but I am so disappointed that you watched the Emperor and General Xuan Long get trapped in love and were unwilling to lend a helping hand."

"Today, I will sever my ties with you. You will go back to your Si Shen Hall, and I will go back to my Yue Lao Hall, and we will never speak to each other again. I will find a way to help the Emperor and General Xuan Long on my own, and find another husband of my choice."

Normally, he would not have dared to say such heavy words to his beloved, but he was so drunk and upset that he spat them out under the influence of the wine.

He turned around shakily and said he was leaving, but Si Shen chased after him and grabbed his wrist, his eyebrows knitted together, "I'm not looking down on you."

Yue Lao stopped in his tracks and heard the man behind him whisper:

"You and I are not mentioned in the divine list of marriages, I am afraid that if you stay with me, you will follow in the footsteps of General Xuan Long. I dare not take that gamble."

Yue Lao froze, not expecting such a reason: "Then... then do you also like me?"

"Mhmm, I do"

As his wrist was gripped a little tighter, Yue Lao's eyes became moist and hot, and he turned around and hugged Si Shen's waist: "Then we don't have to get married, we can just be with each other like this, that's fine."

"Mhmm." Si Shen lifted his hand and pressed it against the thin back of the person in his arms, and after a long time, he said:

"Xuan Long is a Lonely Heavenly Star. With a fate like that, no one will end up in a good situation with him. However, the Emperor is the Purple Heavenly Star, and as the Emperor's Star, his fate is stronger than any other god in the Heavenly Realm. As a result, Xuan Long has been countered by the Emperor, and when the two are forced together, Xuan Long will surely suffer and die. Unless..."

"Unless what?"

"Unless the Emperor's qi of the Purple Heavenly Star is mostly destroyed so that his destiny is weaker than Xuan Long's, naturally he will not restrain Xuan Long, but then it is the Emperor who will be restrained..."

"Even if he can be with Xuan Long, he won't be able to live long..."

After hearing what Si Shen said, Yue Lao's hands and feet went cold, his lips were open and he could not speak for a long time, even his breath was trembling.

How could this approach be called a solution? One life for another... how could it be a solution?

"No wonder you don't want to say it no matter what..."

Si Shen sighed: "I only mentioned it casually, but who knew that by coincidence, the Emperor would run across it."

"If the Emperor knew about it, the consequences would be unthinkable."

When people are desperate, even the faintest glimpse of hope can be as reckless as a starving traveller in the desert who sees a mirage, as reckless as a moth to a flame, and will eventually lead to destruction.

"The Emperor must not know..." Yue Lao's voice trembled.

No one noticed that there was an unusual aura lurking in the air, and that aura belonged to Yan Yuan's confidant – the divine general Nan Chi.

His intuition told Yan Yuan that things were definitely not as simple as they appeared, so upon returning to Dongji Hall, he immediately ordered Nan Chi to find out what was going on.

At first, Nan Chi was reluctant to tell Yan Yuan what he had heard; he was loyal to his Emperor and could not stand by and watch him go to ruin, but at the same time, he could not disobey the Emperor's orders.

And so Yan Yuan learned it in the end.

He leaned back against the bed, his face suddenly alive, a long-lost light even appearing in his hollow eyes, and his pale fingers draped over the brocade quilt tightened slightly, like an opium addict, excited and expectant. Sometimes joyful, sometimes sad.

"If I do that, how much time do I have left to live?..."

"A hundred years."

"A hundred years..."

One hundred years was a long lifespan for a mortal, but for a god, it was just a snap of a finger.

Yan Yuan would not even be able to see A'Zhi grow up.

But he had a hundred years to beg for Xuan Long's forgiveness.

"A hundred years is enough..." for him to atone for his sins to Xuan Long.

It was not easy to learn such a secretive method, but the method of destroying one's qi and destiny was something Yan Yuan already knew.

There is a forbidden place in the Ninth Heaven, which is located in the Land of Eternal Night, and when you enter, you will see a huge purple star floating like a golden crow in the sky, draped with mysterious waves of light.

That is the Emperor's Star.

The forbidden land has been firmly guarded by the ten divine beasts for many years, so it is not easy for anyone to enter, but Yan Yuan can easily enter because it is his destiny that is guarded by the divine beasts.

‿︵‿︵ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ・❉・ ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ‿︵‿︵

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Translator Notes

Please feel free to comment any mistakes I made so I can improve and do better as I go through the book.

Translated: January 30, 2023