Binding the Dragon for the Empress Chapter 163

Never Regretted

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Yan Yuan took Xuan Long back to the Heavenly Realm, his injuries had to be treated in time.

The news of Yan Yuan's return from the dead soon spread throughout the Nine Heavens, and by the time Ye Ling Shenjun, Lord Yan Jing and A'Zhi arrived at Dongji Hall, Ling Yue had already treated Xuan Long's wounds, and they arrived just after Ling Yue had left.

Yan Yuan was sitting on the edge of the bed, holding Xuan Long's hand. At the sound of their arrival, Yan Yuan turned his head to look at them. A'Zhi rushed ahead of them, closely followed by Ye Ling and Yan Jing, all three of them with red eyes. The moment their eyes met Yan Yuan's, they tacitly stopped a foot away from the bed, staring at Yan Yuan, not daring to blink.

All of them were afraid that this was a dream.

Until Yan Yuan spoke.

"Father, Mother, I am back..."

Ye Ling Shenjun looked at him and blinked back tears. Before he could open his mouth to make a sound, A'Zhi had already walked slowly towards Yan Yuan and knelt down on one knee in front of him. Looking up at him and suppressing his sobs, he said, "Father..."

Previously, when Yan Yuan had not yet transformed into a physical body, he had seen A'Zhi as an adult in Xuan Long's courtyard. When he knew how A'Zhi had treated his mother, he was so angry that he wanted to teach him a lesson, but when the child he loved appeared in front of him with such a look, the softness in his heart immediately overwhelmed his anger. As Xuan Long said, it was Xuan Long himself who was heartbroken when he taught A'Zhi a lesson, and how could he, as the child's real father, escape it?

If a child misbehaves, it is because their father did not teach them well. When he left, A'Zhi was still so young, so what did he know? He had defied the dictates of Heaven for the sake of love and left his little soft child behind. He owed him more than he owed Xuan Long.

Yan Yuan was not willing to punish him, and lifted his palm to touch A'Zhi's hair.

"En, you've grown up."

A'Zhi: "These hundred and twenty thousand years, where has Father been... Why was there no word from you? Mother waited for you for a whole hundred and twenty thousand years. We all thought you had gone up in smoke and would never come back... Only Mother, stubbornly thinking you were still alive, searched for you everywhere in the Heavenly Realm and on earth, and waited for you."

Yan Yuan's complexion darkened and his gaze grew distant: "It is true that I was extinguished to ashes that day, leaving only a remnant of my soul floating in the world, which attached itself to an iris flower seed..."

He recounted all the details of where he had been and how he had been reborn over the past hundred and twenty thousand years. After his story, the hall fell into a long silence.

"It was Xuan Long..." Yan Jing held Ye Ling Shenjun's shoulder, his eyes pondering.

Everything was clearly beyond everyone's expectations. It took a long time for A'Zhi to return to his senses and murmur, "So... it was Mother who saved Father?"

Yan Yuan: "En, it was him."

A'Zhi tightened the hand hanging in his lap and asked, "... Then, what if Mother had forgotten Father after his death?"

This was obviously what Ye Ling Shenjun and Lord Yan Jing wanted to know as well.

Yan Yuan smiled, "Then I would never have been able to return."

A'Zhi hung his head in silence.

"What's wrong with Xuan Long?" Ye Ling Shenjun suddenly noticed that the man on the bed was sleeping.

The attention of the crowd was on Yan Yuan, it was only then that they noticed something was wrong. A'Zhi raised his head abruptly, joining the crowd's gaze on Xuan Long on the bed.

Yan Yuan held Xuan Long's hand tightly, looked at the man's pale face, and said hoarsely, "When I saw him, I found that his abdomen was wounded and that demonic energy had entered his body, he must have been wounded by the demons."

A'Zhi stood up and rushed to the bedside, "Mother is injured?!"

"Have you called for a healer?" Ye Ling Shenjun frowned. "Today, Xuan Long went down to the boundary to repair the crack in the world and suppress the demonic race. When he returned to the Nine Heavens in the evening to report on his orders, his injuries were not detected..."

Yan Yuan smiled bitterly and stroked the stray hair at the corner of Xuan Long's forehead: "He is like that, he hides everything in his heart and doesn't want others to know if he is injured." If no one cared about him, he wouldn't even bother to treat his injuries. He was always like that, he would just put up with it and get over it, a nature he had developed since he was a child, and it hadn't changed.

Xuan Long was originally an unwanted little dragon picked up by Lord Yan Jing from the West Sea, with no father or mother and no one to rely on, so it was not surprising that he grew up to be so withdrawn and reticent. When Yan Yuan was by his side in the past, Xuan Long came back from the battlefield wounded, but he concealed it from Yan Yuan for fear that he would worry about him. If no one was by his side, he would not make a big fuss about it and make it known to everyone.

When Yan Yuan thought about it, he felt his heart ache so much that he couldn't breathe: "Ling Yue came by just now and healed his external wounds, as for his internal wounds, he will recover completely after a period of rest and recuperation."

"That's good." Ye Ling Shenjun breathed a sigh of relief, and his heart moved, "Now that you have returned, he finally has someone to talk to."

"The two of you, you have finally been able to overcome your suffering..."

A'Zhi stared at Xuan Long's face and whispered, "For more than a hundred thousand years, has that been how Mother has lived on his own..."

He remembered that time when he went to see Xuan Long. Xuan Long didn't care much about his body, he was obviously seriously injured and still ran around to the marketplace to buy him snacks to eat.

"En." Yan Yuan replied.

"Your mother treats everyone around him well, but he doesn't treat himself very well, he doesn't take himself too seriously. You were brought into the world by him at the cost of his life, even if you hate him in every way, you shouldn't break his heart."

"Besides, he has always treated you the best and has never wronged you."

Then, Yan Yuan told him the story of how Xuan Long had given birth to A'Zhi, including how he had been infected by a demonic compulsion and sent Xuan Long, who was pregnant, to the Heavenly Prison to be tortured to death, and how Xuan Long had cut out his own heart to barter for A'Zhi after giving birth to him in order to fight for his chance of survival.

As A'Zhi listened to this, he unknowingly burst into tears and sobbed uncontrollably. No one had ever told him this before, he only knew that Xuan Long had died in childbirth, but he did not know why Xuan Long had died in childbirth.

Because he had never been treated well when he was alive, it consumed his entire life just to give birth to him, and as if that wasn't enough, he had to burn all his soul's power to make an inner elixir for him, to give him the power to defend himself. His mother was afraid that his father would not be able to tolerate him, that he would be born half human and half dragon and would be disliked and humiliated by others.

No wonder he was born with magical powers and thought that he was gifted, it was because his mother offered his life to protect him.

Yan Yuan closed his eyes and tears flowed down his cheeks: "If you want to hate, the person you should hate is me... I was the one who caused you to be born without a mother, you should hate me... What do you hate him for? He was already alone, and with me gone, you were all he had left. His heart died when you treated him that way..."

A'Zhi fell to his knees in front of the bed, shaking and sobbing uncontrollably, "Mother... I'm sorry... I'm sorry..."

"This child was wrong..."

Ye Ling Shenjun and Lord Yan Jing looked on in distress, but in the end, they were silent and did not intervene.

It was only natural for a son to teach a grandson a lesson.

Yan Yuan took a deep breath, opened his eyes, leaned down and patted A'Zhi's head, and let out a long sigh.

"Don't cry, your mother is sleeping. If you wake him up and he sees you crying like this, he will think that Father has done something to you. Even if you don't like him, he still loves you and doesn't blame you in the slightest. Father isn't saying this to blame you, he just wants you to treat him with a softer heart and love him more in the future."

"En..." A'Zhi nodded heavily and raised his sleeve to wipe away his tears, unable to stop sobbing.

Yan Yuan said gloomily, "It's my fault. When you were young, I didn't want or dare to let you know those ugly truths, so I never mentioned them to you. If I had known that you would one day misunderstand him to such an extent, I would have told you. It is better for you to hate me than for you to torture him."

"We, father and son, owe him so much..."

A'Zhi's eyes grew firm as he looked at Xuan Long's drowsy face and said softly, "In the future, A'Zhi and Father will take care of Mother together, protect Mother, never let Mother be sad again, and let Mother live happily and cheerfully every day."

Yan Yuan stroked his head, "If you have such a heart, he will be happy to hear this."

"Get up."

Xuan Long's body was weak and needed to recuperate, so after ascertaining that Yan Yuan had returned in one piece and in good health, Ye Ling and Yan Jing left after a little over half an hour, as there would be plenty of opportunities for the family to catch up in the future now that Yan Yuan had returned.

A'Zhi stood by the bedside and refused to leave, his eyes red, saying that he wanted to keep watch over his mother, but Ye Ling persuaded him to leave. As he left, he looked back at Xuan Long on the bed three times, looking so guilty and as though he wanted to rip out his own heart to make amends.

Xuan Long had just recovered from his injuries and should have slept for a few days before he woke up, but perhaps because he had something on his mind, he woke up in the middle of the night in a daze. When he woke up, he felt someone holding his hand, and it was particularly warm. He looked for the source and saw Yan Yuan sitting on the edge of the bed, holding his hand. Xuan Long couldn't help but shake the other person's hand. His heart was very slightly happy, his icy turquoise eyes moved, and the sound he made was incomparably hoarse.

"You haven't left yet?"

Yan Yuan smiled, "Where would I go, I said that I would stay with you in the future."

"If you are willing, in the next life, and the next, I will come to find you and stay with you, as long as you don't find me annoying."

Xuan Long was not surprised to find himself in Dongji Hall. The illusionary realm was like this, where one moment he was there, and in the blink of an eye he was in a different place, jumping around a lot.

It was only the Yan Yuan in today's illusion that was very strange. He had always disappeared after touching him, but today he was in his dream for such a long time. Xuan Long was afraid that he might disappear at any moment, and did not dare to say half a word against him, replying truthfully.

"I don't mind... you coming, I'll wait for you."

Wait as long as you want.

The man's fingertips gently brushed the corner of his forehead: "Good, I promise you... no matter how far or how difficult it is, I will find you and return to you."

"Just like today."

"En." Xuan Long changed his posture, turning to face Yan Yuan and curling up. He held Yan Yuan's hand against his forehead with both hands, tears welling up in his closed eyes.

Yan Yuan's heart ached as he wiped away his tears with his other finger: "What are you crying for, does your body hurt again? Is it because the healer didn't heal you?"

Xuan Long shook his head and did not say anything, but his tears flowed even harder.

People are like this. When no one cares, they seem to be invulnerable, and when they are hurt badly, they seem to be insensitive. Once someone cares, the grievances are like a river breaking its banks, and they are more fragile and useless than a snail with a broken shell.

Anyway, it was a dream, no one would laugh at him.

Yan Yuan knew that he had had a bad life over the past hundred thousand years, or rather, Xuan Long had never had a good life since he was born. If being picked up by Yan Jing from the West Sea was Xuan Long's greatest fortune in life, then meeting him was his greatest misfortune and calamity.

From now on, he will love him with all his life, until the moment his life ends, when he will leave a moment later than Xuan Long, so that his lover will not cry.

Yan Yuan knew that Xuan Long needed to vent his emotions at this time and did not deliberately stop him. He let his hand be held by Xuan Long, and his other hand ran through Xuan Long's hair. Tenderly, one stroke at a time.

"Today is your birthday, does A'Po have a gift he wants?"

"Tell me and I'll make it up to you another day."

"No need." Xuan Long paused, his grip on the other man's hand tightening a little.

He didn't want any gifts, he just wanted this person to stay with him for a little longer.

Yan Yuan had calculated Xuan Long's birth date and tried his best to break through the confines of the iris flower to come back on this day, wanting to give Xuan Long a surprise, but who would have thought that this silly dragon wouldn't even want a gift for his birthday. Seeing that he refused to say what he wanted, Yan Yuan asked him several times in different ways before Xuan Long was willing to talk, looking at Yan Yuan with those icy turquoise eyes and saying quietly.

"Every day, I want to see you."

Yan Yuan was stunned for a moment and said dumbly, "What else?"

Xuan Long shook his head, "That's all that matters."

"Silly dragon." Yan Yuan's heart was sore. He ran his fingers over the corners of Xuan Long's eyes, wiping away the wetness and twisting the corners of the blanket for him. "Go to sleep, it's just past midnight, and it's still too early for dawn. I'll watch over you."

Xuan Long was afraid that the illusion would eventually break down, but he couldn't hold on any longer and collapsed into bed. Although he was very tired, he refused to go back to sleep. When he said he was cold, Yan Yuan took off his outer robe, leaving only his shirt and trousers, and got into bed and hugged him. Xuan Long hugged Yan Yuan back, wrapping his hands around Yan Yuan's waist and pressing them against Yan Yuan's back, burying his face in Yan Yuan's chest, as if he was going to sleep.

Yan Yuan patted Xuan Long's back, and suddenly felt wet heat on his chest. He stopped moving and hugged the person in his arms a little tighter, saying in a low, mute voice, "Don't cry."

He had never seen Xuan Long shed so many tears before, and it is precisely when someone who seldom reveals his emotions in normal life sheds tears that one feels heartbroken.

When he was not by his side, how many times had he endured such emotions alone...

"I'll tell you a story and lull you to sleep, okay?"

The person in his arms did not answer, but his body trembled, so Yan Yuan thought Xuan Long had agreed. The palm of his hand caressed his back, and his reddened eyes looked upwards as he spoke slowly.

"Once upon a time, there was a fool in Heaven and a foolish dragon. The fool was an emperor and the foolish dragon was a divine general. The foolish emperor fell in love with the foolish dragon who was guarding the Heavenly Realm for him, and the foolish dragon was also in love with the foolish emperor. They were supposed to be a match made in heaven, but one day, after they fell in love, they suddenly realised that their names were not on the same page of the Divine Genealogy..."

"The foolish dragon is a lonely heavenly star, destined to be alone... There is no name next to his in the Divine Genealogy, and the name of the foolish emperor was connected with a red line to another immortal… The Divine Genealogy is written by the Heavenly Way and governs the marriage of the gods. If you defy the Heavenly Way, you will not be allowed to live."

"The foolish emperor and the foolish dragon general should have separated when they knew they were not destined for each other and stopped in time... but that foolish emperor did not believe in fate, and he refused to let go of the hand of the one he loved. The foolish dragon general always listened to the emperor, if the emperor refused, he would not leave, and if the emperor wanted to disobey the Heavenly Way, he would not turn back and would never retreat even half a step..."

"So the emperor and the divine general, in spite of the opposition of the gods, got married... The emperor married the divine general, and the foolish dragon general became the heavenly empress of the foolish emperor. The foolish dragon general would not have needed to be a general any more, but the foolish dragon general had not put aside his mission of guarding the Heavenly Realm. At the outbreak of the war between the gods and the demons, he went onto the battlefield with a pregnant body."

"He died in that great battle..." At this point, Yan Yuan's voice was so hoarse that the tone changed.

"The foolish emperor regretted it... very much... but it was all too late. The foolish dragon general's physical body perished and his soul fell into reincarnation, and there was no telling when he would return to the Heavenly Realm and take his place in the immortal ranks. "

"Maybe it was ten thousand years, maybe it was a hundred thousand years, maybe it was a million years, maybe he would never come back... The foolish emperor could not bear the loss, so he gave up everything, stripped away his divine frame and fell into reincarnation with the foolish dragon general."

"When they got married, the foolish emperor and the foolish dragon general had made a love contract. As long as the foolish dragon general's soul was still alive and his soul was not destroyed, the love contract would not disappear. Even if the foolish emperor drank mengpo soup and lost his memory, he would still follow his instincts to find him and fall in love with him."

"Forcing themselves together was already against the Heavenly Way, and the death of the foolish dragon general was actually a disaster for the foolish emperor; if the foolish emperor had gone down to the mortal world in the body of a heavenly god to find the reincarnated foolish dragon general, it would have caused the foolish dragon general's mortal body to suffer the backlash of the Heavenly Way and be killed, so the foolish emperor could only make himself mortal as well."

"What the foolish emperor could not have imagined was that he had recognized the wrong person… The Heavenly Way made a mess of things, and the demons interfered with it... Not only did he recognize the wrong lover and marry someone else as his queen, he also took the life of the foolish dragon general with his own hands..."

From the beginning, Xuan Long realised that Yan Yuan was talking about their story. His brain was groggy and he didn't know why Yan Yuan in the illusion was saying this. He felt sad and became more and more sleepy.

Yan Yuan spoke intermittently for a long time, and at the end, while shedding tears, he laughed, causing Xuan Long's heart to twist.

"Later, the foolish emperor also suffered retribution... and went up in ashes."

"He destroyed his own divine fortune and begged the foolish dragon general to take pity on him and accompany him on his final journey. The foolish dragon general was foolish after all, so he was still willing to accompany the foolish emperor on his final journey, and the foolish emperor died in the arms of the foolish dragon general... The foolish emperor felt joyful, at least after going through so much, after he had made that unforgivable mistake, the foolish dragon general was still willing to be softhearted towards him and willing to accompany him on his last journey."

"At the same time, the foolish emperor felt uncomfortable, knowing that the foolish dragon general was so great that when he was gone, someone new would surely appear by the foolish dragon general's side. However, the good thing was that he would not see anything after he died anyway, and if someone could accompany that foolish dragon, the foolish dragon would not have to live too lonely a life."

"The foolish emperor even pretended to be generous and told the foolish dragon general to give his love rival a chance, but in fact he was so sad that he was about to cry..." Yan Yuan said, his smile deepening and his eyes blurring.

"... Afterwards, everyone thought the foolish emperor had gone up in smoke, but in fact, the foolish emperor did not really disappear. A'Po, can you guess why?"

Xuan Long gradually felt that something was wrong, the joy and sorrow of the person in this illusion seemed too real: "... Why?"

"Because when the foolish emperor's time was coming, the foolish dragon general went to kneel in the temple dedicated to the Heavenly Way and prayed to the Heavenly Way, offering his life as a sacrifice for the emperor to live... He would rather go to hell himself than let the foolish emperor die..."

"Thus, the foolish emperor appeared to have died in his arms and gone up in ashes, but in fact there was still a remnant of his soul left in the world. The Heavenly Way attached the remnant of the foolish emperor's soul to the iris seeds in the foolish dragon general's courtyard, and it was twenty thousand years after the iris had blossomed that the remnant of the foolish emperor's soul grew conscious."

"The Heavenly Way sent down a divine decree and gave the foolish emperor two choices. The Heavenly Way told the foolish emperor that if he could cultivate a complete soul and physical body again under the fertilisation of the foolish dragon general, it would be honoured and they would be allowed to be married and grow old together."

"And all this is based on the premise that the foolish dragon general must love the foolish emperor. If midway through the process, the foolish dragon general falls in love with someone else, then the iris flower that the soul of the foolish emperor was attached to will wither and the remaining soul will dissipate, disappearing completely from the human world."

"What about the other option..." asked Xuan Long.

Yan Yuan: "The other option was that as long as the foolish emperor asked, the Heavenly Way would allow the foolish emperor to immediately regain his divine body and return to the Nine Heavens to continue to be the Heavenly Emperor, at the cost of the foolish emperor being cleansed of his memories, forgetting his lover from then on and never remembering that someone like the foolish dragon had ever been in his life... Of course the Foolish Emperor was unwilling. He was unwilling to compromise while he was still alive, and how could someone who had died once possibly still be afraid?"

"So the foolish emperor chose the former, but he wasn't actually sure that the foolish dragon general would continue to love him, because he felt that he wasn't good at all and that the foolish dragon general wasn't happy with him at all... If he were the foolish dragon general, he wouldn't be willing to continue to love such a scumbag." Yan Yuan smiled to himself.

"But he still chose the former... because the foolish dragon general was too good, he wanted to be married to him, to form a contract with him, to grow old with him... So even if there was just a fraction of a chance, he wanted to give it a try."

"He thought that in twenty to thirty thousand years at most, he would be able to cultivate his divine body again and return to the foolish dragon general, but who knew that the broken soul could not be cultivated in its entirety. It took him a hundred thousand years to achieve this, and the foolish dragon general waited a full one hundred and twenty thousand years."

This foolish dragon had waited for him for a whole hundred and twenty thousand years.

Yan Yuan lowered his head. The man in his arms had unknowingly burst into tears. Yan Yuan wiped away his tears and rested his forehead against Xuan Long's, saying hoarsely, "A'Po... that fool is back, thank you for being willing to wait for him."

Xuan Long: "You're back..."

Yan Yuan: "En, I'm back... From now on, I will never leave you again, so don't be afraid anymore when you see me by your side."

"That fool... will stay with you forever until he dies. During this time, even if you are tired, bored, or annoyed with him, you can't turn back, he will stick to you like a cowhide, you can't get rid of him... "

"You... came back..." Xuan Long murmured and repeated the words.

"En, I'm back. Your A'Yuan is back, and you will not be left alone again."

Xuan Long's tears flowed and his lips trembled, "The bowl of fish soup from ten thousand years ago..."

"It was me."

"At that time, my soul had just been fully repaired, so I forced myself to break through the confines of the iris and wanted to go see you. That day you went out to remove the demons, so I thought that I would make a bowl of fish soup at the house and wait for you to come back to eat it, but just as it was ready, my soul became too weak to sustain itself and I had to return to the iris. Later, when I tried to break through the confines again, I could not do so until today when I managed to cultivate my physical body and leave that square inch of land..."

Xuan Long: "Is your body... okay now?"

Yan Yuan: "Don't worry, the moment I cultivated my physical body, I regained my divine energy, and I am no different from before." He kissed Xuan Long's forehead and spoke quietly.

"A'Po, that fool who would even mistake his own wife still wants to marry you, form a contract and grow old together... Are you still willing to give him the chance to be his Heavenly Empress?"

"... Willing." Tears welled up in Xuan Long's eyes.

Yan Yuan hugged him tightly: "When we get married and have some more children, the family will be more lively..."

Xuan Long: "I'll listen to you."

Yan Yuan felt happy to hear this, but after a while, he became upset again and said sullenly, "Forget it, I don't want any more children. You lost your life when you gave birth to A'Zhi, I wouldn't dare to try again, it's enough that we have each other." As he spoke, he hugged the person a little tighter, he couldn't bear the pain of losing the love of his life any longer.

"Okay." Xuan Long still complied with him.

The two of them hugged each other quietly for a while before Yan Yuan slowly lowered his head and kissed Xuan Long's lips. Xuan Long closed his eyes and opened his lips to let the other man invade his mouth, and they kissed each other tenderly and lovingly for a while.

When someone is in love, even a mere embrace can easily give rise to lust, let alone a kiss. At the moment when this gradually frantic kiss was about to make the situation out of control, Yan Yuan suppressed a ragged pant and released Xuan Long.

"Go to sleep, it's late." Still in an embrace, he moved his body under the bedding slightly further away from Xuan Long.

Yan Yuan hugged the most precious and returned treasure of his life, patting Xuan Long's back over and over again in an attempt to relax his tense spirit. The man in his arms obediently listened to his words and closed his eyes for a long time. Just when he thought Xuan Long had fallen asleep, he heard the man whispering like a murmur:

"That silly dragon thinks the emperor is very good. Even if everything were to start over, the silly dragon would still choose to stay with the emperor, he... has never regretted it."

‿︵‿︵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: March 2, 2023