Peach Demon Chapter 1 part2

Aww the cuteness continues! There’s so much more to their relationship that makes their relationship binding, and this chapter details that extremely momentous event that drastically changes both Shangguan and Ah Zhuo. But besides this momentous event, we also see newfound hope~ ❤

Thanks for reading, and be sure to check out the if you haven’t already! 🙂 Also, be sure to let other people know about this cute short story so that they can enjoy it too! 🙂

Chapter 1.2: Looking for her in the Crowd

She whispered into Shangguan’s ear, making his whole face turn red.

Suddenly, Ah Zhuo had her hand on his chin and was glaring into his serene black pupils as she sternly said, “Could it be that… your father is that local tyrant’s son?”

Upon hearing these words, Shangguan’s heart became discouraged, but he was slow and prudent, so the discouragement did not show. Shangguan directed his calm gaze at Ah Zhuo before saying, “Ah Zhuo, the local tyrant isn’t a cuckold. He can’t live as long as you*.” Ah Zhuo nodded and let him go.

*TLN: Implies that Ah Zhuo is a cuckold because she lives so long, while the tyrant is dead. The fact that the tyrant is mortal makes him not a cuckold, so the fact that Ah Zhuo is immortal, makes her a cuckold. It isn’t clear whether Shangguan was deliberately implying this, or if his words just happened to imply this.

After a long interval of silence, she realized something, “Could your words just now have been scolding me?”

“No.”

Ah Zhuo thought about it for a long time, but immediately decided to to put this behind her and resumed to tell him about some other stories.

Shangguan lowered his eyes, listening carefully. However, in his heart he was thinking, 'This thousand year old peach blossom essence is actually a foolish young lady.

Actually, Shangguan always knew that after the two people had gotten closer over the past two months, Ah Zhuo had gradually stopped putting up her guard around him. In the beginning, she had threatened him and forced him to apply the fertilizer. But, later on, she didn’t even take it to heart, and instead was sincere in being good to him. Sometimes, she would even find some silver and let him go to the tea stand outside of the Hundred Li Slope by himself to buy him something to eat from the couple at the stand. Shangguan didn’t bother running away because he had already given Ah Zhuo his promise of staying by her side until she regained her true form. And Ah Zhuo was not worried because she had totally forgotten that she had been the one to threaten him for the fertilizer at the start.

Thus, Ah Zhuo had  said, “In all of the thousands of years I have been alive, you have been the first to listen to all my words. I like you.” She was pure and straightforward, not trying to conceal it in the least.

However, Shangguan could not be pure and straightforward, as he had the burden of carrying out the vengeance of his family. His mind was deeply etched with the destruction of his sect. The impression of the word revenge had been branded deeply into his heart.

Before the day when a soft shoot would grow from Ah Zhuo’s true form, she spent her time running around Shangguan in  circles. Her focus was Shangguan’s butt; she was looking at it with a hint of tenderness, while also snickering for the longest time. It was almost as if she wished she could cut it off and place it in front of her, so that she could light incense sticks and pray to it.

Ah Zhuo’s infectious delight even had Shangguan smiling.

Sometime in the evening, an uninvited guest disrupted the happy atmosphere. It was a crow demon with an unknown origin who had come to eat Ah Zhuo.

That demon was very weak. It still could not transform into a human form. Ah Zhuo had half of her demonic power, so she took care of it with two punches, but her power was insufficient to drive it out.

Even though Ah Zhuo herself was of no use, it was a fact that her internal core had been cultivating for 1000 years. This crow had come for her internal core, and its mouth was focused in prodding at Ah Zhuo's abdomen, thus resulting in a clumsy battle of irreconcilable adversaries between a human and a crow.

Shangguan was observing the battle with anxiety from the side, but as a little door guard of a small jianghu sect with a lack of experience in martial arts or essence, how could he take part in the fight between two demons? He picked up three rocks and threw them over. Two of those rocks landed on Ah Zhuo's head.

Ah Zhuo was so angry that she began to rain curses on him, "Go away go away! You're ruining everything!"

Shangguan's mind went blank, but he really did break into a run and ran away. Under the gradually darkening sky, his figure disappeared in just a moment's notice.

Ah Zhuo was dumbfounded when she saw that he had really left. The crow demon chose that brief moment of her shock as an opportunity to peck at her stomach, and thus tore off a chunk of her flesh. Ah Zhuo was in so much pain that cold sweat began to form. Her body swayed before she fell to the ground. The crow immediately threw itself at her. Ah Zhuo tried her best to protect herself.

If Shangguan Qihua really had wanted to run away, he would have done so a long time ago. This time he ran away… going for the black dog that the couple at the tea stand owned.

Actually, he had been longing for the meat of that black dog for awhile now, but since the couple was nice, he had been restraining himself. But today, he was euphoric over the fact that he hadn't killed it off long ago…

After killing the dog, he took  a basin of dog blood back with him. However, after he had happened upon seeing Ah Zhuo getting punctured by the crow, he only felt his head begin to ring. In a flash, he was incapable of enduring any further so he rushed up to the crow, and kicked it aside. With his other hand, he splattered the dog blood all over it.

That crow became startled due to this unforeseen event. When it saw that its feathers had become sticky and greasy, it quickly reacted by yelling furiously and shaking the feathers on its body. Then it rushed straight for Shangguan.

Shangguan could only remember seeing the crow's beak enter his cardiac atrium… before fresh blood sprayed out, and pain seared through his entire body. He thought he'd be dead for sure. His eyes soon went black as his consciousness faded away.

When he woke up again, he could see Ah Zhuo sitting next him with a pale white face. When she saw that he had opened his eyes, a tear fell onto his face. Ah Zhuo hesitated before saying, "I thought you didn't want me anymore."

"I went to retrieve the black dog's blood…"

Ah Zhuo shook her head which made Shangguan think that she didn't believe him. This caused his heart to palpitate with worry, but his dumb mouth did not know how he could persuade her to think otherwise.

Ah Zhuo's tears frantically fell, as she complained to him between her sobs, "I thought you left, I thought you left…" Shangguan's face went red from anxiety and he immediately got up to help Ah Zhuo wipe away her tears. After a long while, he said, "Ah Zhuo, don't cry, I won't leave you." After he saying this, he continued to repeat those words.

"Shangguan Qihua…" Ah Zhuo reached out both of her hands to hug his neck, as she choked with sobs while repeating his name, "Shangguan Qihua, Shangguan Qihua…"

From under the peach blossom tree, Shangguan could hear her softly calling out his name. His heart had been crushed into soft pieces, each of which ached with a sense of limpness and sorrow, coming together to form one jagged piece. His heart throbbed as it extruded blood that warmed his entire body.

The clarity and brightness of today reminded him of the atmosphere of that day.

Today, the scenery hadn't changed too much, besides a cut off piece of wood…

His heart was contracting in bursts. Shangguan Qihua had to take plenty of deep breaths in order to calm himself down. Putting down the Icy Firmament Sword that he had been holding in his hand, Shangguan caressed the broken stump of wood with one hand, while also caressing his heart with the other.

What happened with the crow had been extremely strange. Shangguan could clearly remember the beak thrusting into his chest, but why was it that nothing had happened to him? Ah Zhuo said that he had remembered incorrectly, but how could his mind have made up that part about the split hole in his clothes as well the blood that had splattered all over the ground?

It had also been that from that day forth, his body seemed to have gained a new and unfathomable strength. He was so powerful that he had a hard time imagining the full extent of his strength. It felt like his internal power had been increased by a total of ten years all within the span of a nighttime… or perhaps it had increased by even more than just that.

Up until now, he had not been able to make heads or tails of this strange phenomenon…

On the ground, a blue snake was rapidly slithering away. Shangguan glanced in its direction,  his pupils slightly flickering in the sunshine. That was to be his next destination- the underground palace of the ancient nation of the Chen Kingdom.

The reason he knew of this place was because back then, after Shangguan had nurtured the peach blossom tree back to health, Ah Zhuo had recovered a lot. Her desire for fun had appeared once again, and she had asked if there was anything in particular that he wanted to do.

He was silent at first, before giving his reply: "Revenge."

Not long after that, Ah Zhuo had brought him to the underground palace where they dug out many treasures, including the Icy Firmament Sword.

Only then did Shangguan Qihua find out that the identity of Ah Zhuo's "local tyrant who had gotten rich in a night" was actually the monarch of the Chen Kingdom, while the son of the local tyrant was actually the Crown Prince of the Chen Kingdom.

Depending on his memories of the paths Ah Zhuo had taken him into the palace, he had to walk on a narrow and long road for awhile before a vast palace hall appeared. Apparently, Ah Zhuo said that the Crown Prince of the Chen Kingdom was a stutterer, which caused the ministers to dislike him as a rebellion stemmed in their hearts. As for the Crown Prince, he didn't learn much in terms of what he should have learned. Instead, he learned some Wei and Jin philosophy and gossip.

This underground palace was structured on the fengshui philosophy [1]. All these years, it had really never lost a brick or a roof tile.

[1] Fengshui:Feng shui or fengshui is a Chinese philosophical system of harmonizing everyone with the surrounding environment. The term feng shui literally translates as “wind-water” in English. Feng shui is one of the Five Arts of Chinese Metaphysics, classified as physiognomy (observation of appearances through formulas and calculations). The feng shui practice discusses architecture in metaphoric terms of “invisible forces” that bind the universe, earth, and humanity together, known as qi. (THANK YOU WIKIPEDIA)

The end of the underground palace opened into two great pits. Inside, were all the treasures that the Crown Prince of the Chen Kingdom had liked. In the middle of the pit was a cold jade bed, the place where Crown Prince's corpse should have been. However,  the last time Shangguan and Ah Zhuo came in, they weren't able to locate the whereabouts of the Crown Prince's corpse. Shangguan's heart felt a little nervous, but Ah Zhuo didn't mind and said, "That rascal mumbled and hogged the conversation in his past life. After he died, perhaps someone suddenly moved his corpse. It isn't a big deal."

This time…

As he went into the end of the palace, Shangguan was slightly startled. This time… even the cold jade bed had disappeared…

Shangguan was suddenly struck by a thought. He ran to the other side of the underground palace and peered into the pit. All the treasures were placed in there neatly. It would seem that no one else had come in beforehand. Shangguan thought, Outsiders would definitely want to steal these treasures. Who would want to move that kind of a cumbersome bed?!

He once again went back to where the ice jade bed had been and found the imprint on the ground left by a heavy object. This imprint was even very new; it had probably been moved recently.

"Ah Zhuo…" Suddenly his sense of happiness made his voice shake.

Knowing that she was still alive was worth more to him than anything else.

Translated by tranzgeek

Edited by Ely and ADVY

Chapter end