Realms In The Firmament

”I don’t drink,” Zhao Pingtian said.

”I do,” Ye Xiao said, ”it is destiny that put us together. We must celebrate it with liquor. Besides, to listen to your story without liquor, it feels something is lacking. It would be boring.”

Zhao Pingtian was shocked. He was stunned and then he said, ”True. I will drink then.”

He then took a jar of liquor and raised his head. Within seconds, he drank it up.

Ye Xiao was shocked. [What the hell! You said you don’t drink? This is more than you drink! No other man can drink if this is what you call don’t drink!]

Zhao Pingtian put down the jar and stared at Ye Xiao firmly. He said, ”Feng Monarch, let me ask you. Can you really see Rou-Er? My Rou-Er?”

Ye Xiao operated the Yin Yang Eyes again and looked around Zhao Pingtian.

He saw a girl with softness in that grey fog looking back at him, with expectation.

”I don’t know if she is your Rou-Er or not. I do see a girl with a mole on her forehead. She is just beside you.” Ye Xiao nodded to confirm.

Zhao Pingtian smiled, ”Really? Rou-Er, have you always been around me? I didn’t know. God truly blesses me so much!”

The girl in the grey fog sighed as she looked at Zhao Pingtian with tears.

Ye Xiao said, ”Brother Zhao, may I ask what is going on? I think if I know all of this, I can give you… more help!”

Zhao Pingtian was thrilled. He grabbed the jar and drank more. He said, ”Even if you didn’t ask, I will tell you about this… You… Ah… It is my biggest regret though… I don’t where to begin…”

He took in a deep breath. He looked lost. It was like all of a sudden. He had returned to the old days, the days that he would never forget…

…

”Rou-Er was my fiancee…” Zhao Pingtian took in a long breath. His eyes were full of softness.

”Back then, I was an intellectual. All I did was reading and writing. I was hoping one day I could pass the examination to become an official in the court… Rou-Er was a girl from the village beside mine. We grew up together. Our parents knew we liked each other, so we were engaged…”

”When I was eighteen, Rou-Er was seventeen. We were preparing the wedding…” Zhao Pingtian bitterly smiled. Deep in his eyes, there was both softness and pain, ”… We were village kids. We never wanted much. We played together all the time. When we were about fifteen, we all knew something about love and marriage. We had a distant time, but then we stayed together all the time again… We never thought anything would go wrong…”

”We were so happy together. Our hearts bonded together. Rou-Er had already made her own wedding dress…”

”However, suddenly, there was that day, I went to the river in her village… It was the place we went out for date. We kept from others’ sights all the time and we met there, just the two of us. I went there everyday in those days, but Rou-Er didn’t show up. It never happened before…”

”I thought she must be shy because we were about to get married, so I decided to be patient. After a few days, I couldn’t bear it anymore. I wanted to see her so much. I went to her home and saw her father. I thought that since we were about to marry each other, even if she didn’t want to see me, I would just have a secret look at her…”

Zhao Pingtian sighed. He looked in the distance, stunned.

He stopped talking.

Ye Xiao didn’t urge him though. He just had his drinks. Two cups to be drunk up, he sighed. [Things must have gone wrong after this then.]

He looked up at the girl in the grey fog. The girl was looking at Zhao Pingtian with sorrow. She didn’t even blink.

”That day… I saw Rou-Er. She was so happy, with a young man, holding his hand. They looked so close to each other. She wasn’t even that close to me… When I saw them, Rou-Er’s face turned pale…”

”I guess you can understand how I felt that moment. I… I…” Zhao Pingtian was so grievous that he lowered his head, ”… I raged and got over to them. I questioned her who that man was. I asked her what relationship they had.”

”Rou-Er looked at me indifferently. She said she had always treated me like a brother. She didn’t… didn’t see me as a lover. And… And…” Zhao Pingtian said, ”Rou-Er said that she never felt safe with me. She didn’t know what kind of man she liked until she met that guy… I… I was just someone passing by in her life. I was a man who wouldn’t have destiny to be with her!”

”She loved a powerful man, a hero… She said an intellectual was useless in miserable times! She asked me would I fight somebody with books if troubles came to us! Intellectuals were the weakest in the world!”

”She said that a girl needed safety. The man beside her was in top levels of Human Origin Stage… I had no money or power. I was just a poor young man. I was proud about what I had as an intellectual, but I was never able to get any position in the court…”

”All in all, I was a man without future.”

”She said, brother, I won’t upset you. If you are a superior cultivator, it is fine for me to marry you. But… You are not…”

”She said, ‘If you are not, maybe you can be rich. That will work too. If you don’t have money, a bright future will work too. If you don’t have that too, you may be strong and powerful. Nothing. You have nothing! How can I end up with you? How do I dare to be with you? Should I go starve at home with you? Love won’t feed. And there is no love!’”

When he said that, he was self-mocking. He was sad but not angry; even the girl he loved sneered him.

Ye Xiao didn’t feel surprised though. He knew that there must be something wrong in this issue.

”I was desperate. I asked her if she really decided to be with that guy. I asked her, are you going to forget everything about us, as if it is like wind?”

Zhao Pingtian bitterly smiled. ”Rou-Er said that… The man beside her needed to cultivate three more years before he could get married. Three years later, it would be the day they got married… She said, ‘Brother, if you can defeat him three years later, maybe I will marry you.’”

…