Binding the Dragon for the Empress - Chapter 151

No Solution

Ye Ling Shenjun went back to his palace and asked the immortal healer to look at him. After taking the foetal pills, he went to sleep, but he did not sleep well this night. He kept feeling like he had forgotten something important, but his physical discomfort made him unable to think about it.

The next morning, when he woke up and had his meal, he suddenly remembered that he had left the bowl of ‘Start Over’ on the stool at the head of Yan Yuan’s bed. The medicine was so precious that Yan Jing had only begged for a small bottle from the ancient gods. If he accidentally spilled it, it would be gone.

He put down the jade spoon he was using to drink his porridge and hurried to Dongji Hall.

When he arrived at Dongji Hall, he saw that the tea bowl on the stool at the head of the bed was empty. When he lifted the tent, he saw that the bedding was rolled up in a ball and there was no sign of Yan Yuan.

When he went out to ask the attendant outside, he was told that Yan Yuan had not left the hall.

He must have used a magic technique when he left.

The red carp in Yao Chi were swimming happily, but Yan Yuan turned a blind eye to them, walking in a trance along the jade brick paved path under his feet. Occasionally, some fairies passed by with plates of food and fruit, and when they saw him out in his unkempt white robe and bare feet, they bowed and cast worried glances at him.

Yan Yuan had had a seething headache since the morning, he could not hear what they were saying. After going a little way past the fairies, he paused and turned around to ask without thinking.

“Have you… seen the Heavenly Empress this morning.”

The Heavenly Empress?

General Xuan Long and the Emperor had long since separated, and the Emperor had fled the marriage on the day of his marriage to Immortal Monarch Zhiyu, so who was the Heavenly Empress now?

The fairies were confused and shook their heads.

“In reply to the Emperor’s words, these fairies have not seen…”

Yan Yuan’s eyes were bloodshot, as if he was very tired. His whole body looked like a rusty dull sword, not as bright as it used to be. Without receiving an answer, he turned to leave.

He did not know where to look for Xuan Long, so he walked on without a clue, and before he knew it, he was outside of General Xuan Hall. The magnificent silver hall in front of him seemed very familiar to Yan Yuan, but when he tried to think about it, his headache almost exploded. Sweat broke out at the corners of his forehead before he remembered that this was Xuan Long’s residence before they were married.

Stepping up the jade steps to the closed door, he tentatively raised his hand and knocked three times, not too softly but not too hard.

A few moments later, the door was really opened from the inside. Yan Yuan breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the person he wanted to see, and his eyes were glowing.

“A’Po… you and I had a big wedding last night, how come you disappeared early in the morning? Making me search so hard.”

“Didn’t I tell the Emperor that I don’t want to see you, why are you still here?” When Xuan Long saw Yan Yuan, his expression was so calm that it was almost cold, without any of the joy of a new marriage.

He had never spoken to Yan Yuan like this before, and his sudden change in attitude was a bit baffling to Yan Yuan.

“You disappeared, I’ve come to look for you…” he said, going to grab Xuan Long’s hand.

Xuan Long stepped to the side to avoid him. Yan Yuan’s palm fell empty and he looked up at the man in bewilderment.

“What’s wrong with you…”

Noticing the dark golden mask on the right side of Xuan Long’s face, Yan Yuan felt strange and familiar, but as soon as he tried to recall anything, it caused his headache to intensify. He raised his hand to his forehead and his body swayed.

Holding onto the door frame to steady himself, he saw that Xuan Long was still looking at him coldly and smiled at him.

“Is there something I’ve done wrong that has upset you?…”

“Why are you wearing a half mask…”

“When you appear in front of me, you make my heart displeased.” Xuan Long’s pupils were raised, his turquoise eyes already extremely cold, and that faint tone pierced his heart.

Yan Yuan went to sleep and got up with an exceptionally foggy mind, not even remembering why he had upset him.

“A’Po… don’t talk to me like that, I’ll be very upset.”

“If you’re angry, just say you’re angry, I’ll go make you fish soup to make amends, okay?”

“No need.” Xuan Long turned around.

“To wake up in the morning to the face of a hated man makes me sick to my stomach, how can I eat? If the Emperor disappears from my presence soon, I will feel happy.”

Even if he had done something wrong, it was wrong for Xuan Long to say such hurtful things to him at the time of their wedding, but for some reason, he just couldn’t get angry at Xuan Long, he only felt aggrieved. He took a step forward.

“If you keep talking like that… I’m going to get angry.”

“Suit yourself.” Xuan Long went back inside and slammed the door behind him.

Yan Yuan was blocked by the door and reacted by slowly raising his hand to knock on the door, “A’Po…”

“A’Po…”

“What’s wrong with you…”

“A’Po… I have a headache, will you really ignore me…”

Inside the hall, Xuan Long pressed his back against the door and closed his eyes in silence.

One person inside the door, one person outside the door, separated by a thin door, but it seemed like a thousand mountains and a thousand rivers. Xuan Long listened to the heavy knock on the door, knocking on his heart one by one, making his heart ache.

Yan Yuan knocked for a while and then stopped knocking. The pain in his head gradually made him lose all his strength and his arms dropped weakly. His body was already badly injured and he refused to take the medicine properly. A surge of qi and blood immediately caused a tickle in his throat and he could not help but cough. He coughed so hard that his vision blurred and bright red blood splashed on the silver door in front of him.

Ye Ling Shenjun quickly arrived and helped Yan Yuan go back.

Yan Yuan stood in the doorway and refused to move, covering his lips with his sleeves, coughing and trembling: “Mother, he has gotten upset with me…”

Ye Ling Shenjun’s heart was filled with mixed feelings: “I know. Come back with me first, when his anger has subsided, you can come back to coax him properly, maybe it will be fine.”

It was clear that he didn’t remember anything, but Yan Yuan felt extremely uneasy in his heart and shook his head, “No… I’ll wait here.”

“If he sees that I have waited for a long time, he will definitely come out.”

A Heavenly Emperor always running out in such a disheveled manner, making a mess of himself, not even knowing how to put on his shoes, and coughing up blood everywhere, if people saw him, they would definitely laugh behind his back.

Ye Ling couldn’t persuade him, so he put his fingers together and touched the back of Yan Yuan’s neck. Yan Yuan’s body stiffened and he fell backwards with his eyes closed. Ye Ling caught him from behind and looked at the closed door for a moment before casting a spell and disappearing.

At present, Yan Yuan’s body was no longer very strong, and a simple sleeping trick was enough to disable him.

Ye Ling was not sure if Yan Yuan had drunk the bowl and started over from scratch; if he drank it, he should have forgotten about Xuan Long, if he hadn’t, his chaotic appearance was too abnormal.

Was he just pretending to be stupid to deceive himself, or…

When he thought of that possibility, Ye Ling was horrified. While taking Yan Yuan back to Dongji Hall, he used his voice transmission technique to ask the Healing Immortal to come quickly.

When he returned to Dongji Hall, he placed Yan Yuan on the bed and produced a handkerchief to clean the blood from the corners of his mouth. When the Healing Immortal arrived, Ye Ling Shenjun got up and explained the situation. The Healing Immortal stepped forward and placed two fingers on Yan Yuan’s forehead, and a flash of green spiritual awareness penetrated into Yan Yuan’s mind and explored it carefully.

Ye Ling stared at Yan Yuan’s bloodless face, and his throat tightened: “How…”

The white-clothed Healing Immortal withdrew his hand with a gloomy expression.

“The Emperor’s spiritual consciousness is chaotic, which is exactly the symptom of mistakenly drinking ‘Start Over’.”

“That medicine needs to be taken voluntarily in order to forget one’s feelings. If it is not taken voluntarily, one will surely suffer a backlash. At first, one’s memory will be confused, and gradually one’s sanity will deteriorate and one will become dumb…”

Ye Ling Shenjun swayed and his eyes turned black, but the fairy next to him stepped forward in time to support him, and he braced himself to ask, “Is there a solution?…”

The Healing Immortal shook his head.

The answer was already clear to Ye Ling Shenjun, he just couldn’t accept it.

When Yan Jing had handed him the ‘Start Again’, he had warned that once this medicine was taken, there was no cure, so it needed to be used with caution.

He had never imagined that he would have caused Yan Yuan to drink it by mistake because of his carelessness.

If he became a fool, even if Yan Jing found a way to repair the Emperor’s Star later, what would happen if Yan Yuan’s body and life expectancy were restored to what they were before? No matter how long he lived, he would still be a person who was not even mentally sound.

And even if Yan Yuan became a fool, he would not forget that Xuan Long was his lover.

The colour of Ye Ling’s face receded at a rate visible to the naked eye, and his entire weight was supported by the fairy, as if he would faint in the next breath.

Emotional ups and downs are the worst thing for a pregnancy, so the healer wanted to approach him to check his pulse, but Ye Ling no longer cared about his own body, so he waved the healer away and he withdrew together with the fairy who was beside him.

When they had left, Ye Ling went to the bedside and sat down, touching the corner of Yan Yuan’s mouth with a handkerchief and wiping the blood that had not yet dried with the most gentle of movements.

His child had been brought up in a pampered manner and had never suffered much. The only suffering he had ever experienced was from the moment he had met Xuan Long, and he was so obstinate that he refused to turn back.

As a father, he could only watch as his child took the path of death, with no solution in sight.

From hope to despair, it only took one night…

Ye Ling closed his eyes, tears fell on Yan Yuan’s pale face, his thin shoulders trembled and he let out a suppressed whimper.

Yan Yuan fell into a coma for a day and a night, and when he woke up it was dawn. He reached towards his side but did not touch the person he wanted to touch. When he turned his head to look, he saw a person lying beside his bed.

“Mother?… Why have you fallen asleep here?”

Ye Ling’s sleep was shallow and he soon woke up. He kept watch for as long as Yan Yuan had been asleep, and when he saw Yan Yuan wake up, he forced a smile and said, “Yuan’er, you…”

“Where is A’Po?” Yan Yuan thought about the person he wanted to see. His memory was stuck on their wedding night, and the subsequent hardships were forgotten. His heart was full of sweetness, and he didn’t even notice that Ye Ling was not in the right mood, muttering to himself as he lifted the quilt to get out of bed.

“Right, he got upset with me and I haven’t coaxed him yet. I’ll go make him fish soup, and after he eats it, he won’t be angry with me anymore.”

Ye Ling grasped his arm and said dully, “It’s useless….”

“Why is it useless?…” Yan Yuan then remembered to ask Ye Ling, “By the way, Mother, do you know why A’Po is angry with me? How did I upset him?

“How could he be so angry, he has never been too angry with me before…”

Ye Ling’s heart felt like it was being cut by a knife when he saw him so dejected: “Do you know what year, month and day it is now.”

“Today… is the 9th day of the 7th month in the 13.4 millionth year of the Immortal Star calendar… Ah, the day before yesterday was the 7th day of the 7th month, the day of my big wedding with A’Po.” Yan Yuan looked strangely at Ye Ling. “What’s wrong?”

Ye Ling: “Today is the 6th day of the 9th month of the 13.45 millionth year of the Immortal Star calendar, fifty thousand years have passed since the day of your big wedding with Xuan Long.”

“What?…” Yan Yuan frowned.

Ye Ling told him that he and Xuan Long had a son, who was now five years old. But because they had been together for tens of thousands of years and had grown tired of looking at each other for a long time, Xuan Long had divorced him not long ago and had gone to be with Yan Huo Heng.

Yan Yuan thought that Ye Ling was joking. He clearly remembered that he and Xuan Long had just gotten married the day before, and had made a love contract in front of the Three Lives Stone, confessing their love for each other in front of the gods and pledging their lives to each other, vowing to the Heavenly Way that only death could separate them.

Now Ye Ling was telling him that Xuan Long and he were divorced?

Yan Yuan did not believe him. He produced an Immortal Star calendar, with inky translucent numbers arranged neatly in the air. The most prominent row of numbers was twice as big as the others, and it read the 6th day of the 9th month in the 13.45 millionth year, which was today.

The Immortal Star calendar does not lie.

“How could it be…”

He raised the palm of his right hand and condensed his divine energy; if nothing had happened, a blossoming pale blue iris would have appeared in his palm, which was his love contract with Xuan Long.

But no…

No matter how hard he tried, his palm was empty.

Yan Yuan found that the divine energy in his body had become very weak, but he did not care about this and kept trying to recall what had happened between him and Xuan Long. However, the more he thought about it, the more his head ached, and the memories drowned in the turbulent waves, without a trace of life.

Yan Yuan’s eyes reddened and he murmured a question into his empty palm.

“Why? What did I do wrong?… Why doesn’t A’Po want me anymore?…”

There was no way for Ye Ling to answer Yan Yuan, telling him about the past would be the same as ripping open Yan Yuan’s wounds and inserting a dagger into them. He couldn’t say it.

“Mother, why?”

Unable to get an answer from Ye Ling, Yan Yuan stood up and headed out, “I’m going to ask him myself…”

Ye Ling didn’t stop him, he couldn’t be stopped.

The door of General Xuan Hall was knocked with a loud bang, and the door was opened by a small and soft white figure, dressed in a light green brocade robe, with short thick dragon horns, and a pair of icy turquoise eyes exactly the same colour as Xuan Long’s, but with eyebrows that resembled Yan Yuan.

“You are…” Yan Yuan froze.

The little man looked at Yan Yuan and was also stunned. His eyes turned red and he jumped over and hugged Yan Yuan’s thighs: “Father, why did you only come to see A’Zhi now, do you not want A’Zhi anymore…”

Yan Yuan bent down in a daze and picked up the little man, his movements were slow but not unfamiliar, as if he had held the child like this countless times.

As soon as he picked him up, his tiny arms wrapped around Yan Yuan’s neck, his little face buried in the nook of Yan Yuan’s neck, and he sullenly said:

“Mother said that Father was very busy and did not have time to see A’Zhi, but in the past, when Father was busy, he would not leave A’Zhi alone. Why did it take so long this time…”

The soft voice was thick with nasal tones, like he was holding back tears. Yan Yuan’s heart throbbed with pain, and his palm hesitantly covered A’Zhi’s young spine, saying, “I’m sorry…”

The little man straightened his body and touched his hand to Yan Yuan’s face: “A’Zhi doesn’t blame Father, he just misses Father.”

“Father, you seem to have lost a lot of weight… why is your face so cold?”

Just as he was saying that, he saw Xuan Long come out of the building, followed by Lian Bi. Just now, when he was preparing to have breakfast, A’Zhi heard Yan Yuan knocking on the door and scurried to open it, even faster than Lian Bi.

“Mother, can Father stay today? A’Zhi wants to stay with Father and Mother…” A’Zhi said to Xuan Long, hugging Yan Yuan’s neck.

He knew that his mother did not like his father, so he was extra cautious.

Xuan Long remained silent.

Lian Bi stepped forward and opened his arms to A’Zhi, smiling, “The General and the Emperor have something to talk about, so the Crown Prince will go to breakfast with Xiao Xian first, okay?”

“No…” A’Zhi twisted his body to avoid Lian Bi’s hands and leaned his head on Yan Yuan’s shoulder. It had been too long since he had seen his father and he did not want to leave.

Yan Yuan knew what Xuan Long meant and patted the little man’s back, coaxing, “A’Zhi is a good boy, go and have your meal first, Father will look for you later, I will see you soon.”

Over time, he learned the name of his and Xuan Long’s child, and although he had no memory of him, his ability to coax the child was engraved in his bones, and his tone and intensity were just right.

A’Zhi, who was brought up by Yan Yuan, was most obedient to his father’s words and was finally carried into the hall by Lian Bi with red eyes, his eyes glued to Yan Yuan until the doors closed.

Xuan Long snapped his fingers and cast a boundary, so that no matter what happened outside, it could not be heard inside.

“A’Zhi… is our child.” Yan Yuan said as he withdrew his eyes from the closed door.

Xuan Long already knew that Yan Yuan had mistakenly taken ‘Start Over’ and was not surprised by his words; he did not want to entangle himself too much with Yan Yuan, so as not to reveal any flaws.

“What is the purpose of the Emperor’s repeated visits to my door?”

Yan Yuan smiled and said, “I don’t know what has happened to me, I’ve forgotten a lot about the past. I have come here to ask you why you wanted to divorce me? What did I do wrong so that you wanted to divorce me…”

“When love fades, it’s gone, so what’s the point of having many reasons.” Xuan Long said calmly.

“The Emperor is in a high position, he should be someone who can afford to let go. Repeatedly entangling, it is inevitable that people will feel that you are contemptuous.”

Xuan Long’s appearance was the same as he remembered, dressed in a black robe, his long hair unbound, his face handsome and powerful, except for the dark golden mask, which made Yan Yuan feel vaguely strange and alienated his whole being.

Holding back his tears, he asked in a mute voice. “Mother said that you are with Yan Huo Heng.”

Xuan Long: “Mhmm.”

Yan Yuan: “Did you divorce me because of him?”

Xuan Long wanted to say yes, but when he looked at Yan Yuan’s tearful face, it was difficult to speak the lie. He forced himself to speak.

“Yes.”

“Why? What he can give you, I can give you too, and I can even give you more. I am the most powerful person in the Heavenly Realm, why do you want him over me? Wasn’t I the one you once had your heart set on?”

After a moment of silence, Xuan Long said, “People change.”

“Then how about you change again, change back to your old self… okay?” Yan Yuan clasped Xuan Long’s wrist and cried to the point of losing his dignity. “Didn’t we agree before the Three Lives Stone that you would be with me forever, how come you’ve divorced me after only fifty thousand years?…”

“I don’t want to divorce… A’Po, I don’t want to divorce you…”

“The Emperor should respect himself.” Xuan Long frowned and drew back his hand, turning to leave.

Yan Yuan scrambled to catch up with him and grabbed his hand, “It’s okay, you don’t want to change, I can change, so tell me, what do you like about Yan Huo Heng? I can become like him… or even better than him. As long as you say it, I can do anything.”

Xuan Long did not break away this time and turned his back on him.

“He will not belittle himself like you do, making a fool of yourself for nothing.”