Smoke and Fire [GL] - Chapter 20

The moment this thought formed in her mind, Luo Yao found it incredibly hard to believe. Setting aside why Veda was suddenly so distant, Tan Tan was right here; there was no reason for him to be seeing her.

She frowned and said, “My fellow immortal, everything else is negotiable, but I cannot let you take this demon away. The Celestial Realm only talks a good game. I know better than anyone how they truly discriminate against the Demon Race.”

These were words she would never have spoken in the past. But now that she had stepped down from the Glazed Terrace, she didn’t care anymore.

The man pondered for a moment, then the Buddhist light around him suddenly surged, and the lotus seat steadily descended towards the ground.

He stepped out of the golden light, his white robes flowing, his ink-black hair like a waterfall. He was counting a string of pure azure prayer beads, exuding the air of an immortal ascetic, clear and bright.

“One who defies the Buddha, dies,” he said calmly, his gaze lowered.

Si Yin let out a short, sharp gasp. Not just because of his words, but because of his face.

“Veda… Veda?!!”

Veda heard her extremely startled tone, his brow slightly furrowed, seemingly confused: “High Goddess Si Yin, is seeing me such a shock?”

Si Yin stared at him as if possessed, then suddenly turned to Luo Yao, her eyes clearly asking: Is it him?

Luo Yao nodded.

Thus, a surge of something akin to anger was added to Si Yin’s astonishment. She raised a finger and pointed at Luo Yao: “Who is she? Do you know her?”

Veda’s frown deepened: “High Goddess Si Yin, you…”

“Answer me!”

“The former Chief of all Deities, the Divine Bird Azure Luan, who brought down divine wrath after unauthorized assistance to High God Linshuang’s demonization. She is now a convicted deity.” he stated calmly.

“Good… good, good.” Si Yin said “good” three times in a row. She then raised her hand, pointing at Tan Tan, so angry that her fingertips were trembling, “Then tell me, who is she.”

“Si Yin, stop talking!” Luo Yao interrupted her sharply.

She could distinctly feel Veda’s demeanor had changed. He was nothing like the gentle man with smiling eyes she remembered. There was clearly a gap in information, which Si Yin, too angry over Tan Tan’s situation, hadn’t noticed yet.

Moreover, whether Veda didn’t care or truly forgot, Tan Tan remembered—for hundreds of years, they hadn’t even dared to mention Veda’s name in front of her.

Luo Yao looked worriedly at Tan Tan. The latter was in a state of trance, her eyes unfocused as she stared at Veda, not even blinking.

“…Veda.”

She suddenly called out.

“Tan Tan, Tan Tan?” Luo Yao felt a bad premonition and quickly signaled Si Yin with her eyes.

Si Yin immediately understood, quickly moving to block her view: “Tan, you’re mistaken. We need to rush back for hotpot. Be sensible, alright…”

Unexpectedly, Tan Tan raised her hand and pulled her aside. She walked forward step by step, across the clumps of weeds on the ground.

“Veda, why wouldn’t you see me?” Her voice was very ethereal. “Answer her. Who am I? Tell them.”

Veda looked very confused. His tone was distant: “You are the former Flower Goddess, in charge of the blooming and fading of flowers, who was later demoted for defying the will of the Buddha. I believe I have not met you before… Do you have a question?”

“Defying… the will of the Buddha…”

Tan Tan suddenly smiled, a profoundly ironic and sorrowful smile. She murmured these four words, and a tear slipped from her left eye.

“This is bad,” Si Yin muttered to herself. “Veda, you f*cking idiot, you shouldn’t have said that of all things…”

“Wh-what will happen?” Yi An asked nervously.

“If you once were willing to abandon your innocence, even your divine position, and become the laughingstock of the entire Celestial Realm for one person. Now that person returns to you and tells you he doesn’t know you.” Si Yin took a deep breath, looking down at her: “What would you do?”

Yi An was stunned.

The first thought that flashed through her mind was to make that person suffer a fate worse than death, or at least experience her own pain before anything else.

“And you don’t remember… don’t know,” Si Yin continued, “Tan Tan was born to be the most beautiful. When she was demoted, on her face…”

Just then, Tan Tan spoke again, and Yi An missed her last few words.

Tan Tan spoke softly: “I once thought you wouldn’t break my heart. Later, when the affair was exposed, you were cowardly. I thought that was enough, but I never expected you would abandon your pride and kneel in the Buddhist Hall, begging for the Buddha’s forgiveness. I thought my pain couldn’t get any worse than that. But I was wrong, Lord Veda. I truly underestimated you.”

“I’m very sorry, Flower Goddess Highness, I don’t know what you are talking about…”

“Shut up.”

“I understand, but…”

“I told you to shut up!!!” Tan Tan suddenly looked up menacingly, her tone sharply hostile, something she would never use normally. She raised her left hand, then flipped her palm down without hesitation. In that instant, everyone heard a terrifying sound from deep within the earth.

It was then that Yi An understood the words Si Yin hadn’t spoken: Tan Tan was born to be the most beautiful, and when she was demoted, a bright red tattoo appeared on her face. She finally understood why Tan Tan seemed to be constantly reapplying makeup, and her nose twinged slightly with sympathy.

Luo Yao and Si Yin’s faces both drastically changed.

At first, Yi An didn’t know why they were so tense, but then, thousands of vines burst out of the ground, each one thick enough to require three people to embrace.

Flower buds quickly began to grow and bloom on the vines. The petals separated and started to spin in an extremely fast circular motion, centered around Tan Tan, quickly forming a crimson tornado.

Fortunately, Si Yin quickly scooped up Yi An, while her other hand wrapped around Luo Yao, successfully retreating from the area before the petal hurricane spread, avoiding the tragedy of being swept inside.

“This is bad, this is bad, this is all ruined,” she frantically scratched her ponytail into a bird’s nest mess. “Tan Tan has been completely possessed by her inner demons!! What do we do?!”

“We can’t leave her. I’m going in,” Luo Yao said.

Si Yin flashed in front of her: “I knew you’d say that!! She’s attacking indiscriminately right now! I wouldn’t dare go in, so why should you?!”

Luo Yao countered: “So you want to watch her be consumed by her inner demons and fall into demonization?”

Si Yin faltered.

“Shang Mian, Linshuang, I’ve seen enough of this… Si Yin,” she stepped forward, grabbing Si Yin’s sleeve and looking into her eyes, “I don’t want to personally witness everyone around me fall. Can you understand what I mean?”

For a long time, the two confronted each other beside the flower hurricane.

After a long while, Si Yin finally seemed to steel herself and slightly moved aside.

“Your Highness, I have a bad temper. If anything happens to you, I will wreck the Celestial Realm,” she said with her arms crossed over her chest, her tone incredibly helpless. “So, if you don’t want the world to fall into chaos, protect yourself, understand?”

“Understood.” Luo Yao patted her shoulder and smiled.

With that, she flashed into the hurricane.

The swirling colors of crimson filled her vision. Luo Yao struggled to hold up her barrier, trying hard to look into the eye of the hurricane. There, she could vaguely see Tan Tan curled up in the center, hugging her knees.

She tried to approach, battling the resistance step by step, but the closer she got to Tan Tan, the greater the resistance became.

So she had to stop where she was. She forced out a thread of spiritual energy with her right hand, but it was quickly scattered by the overwhelming petals.

Just as she wondered what to do, she heard a low sob.

“A’Tan?” she tentatively called out.

Tan Tan in the eye of the wind remained curled up and motionless, but the sobbing voice responded to her: “Your Highness, tell me, what is love?”

Luo Yao said: “It is mutual belief.”

“But why does it make me so painful…”

“That means you love him enough, but he might not love you that much.”

“…Is that true?” The voice sounded momentarily lost, then sank again, “But I can’t figure it out, Your Highness, I don’t understand. I already gave him my heart, my innocence, everything I had. All I wanted was for him to be a little more responsible. I just wanted to hear him admit me in front of everyone, say that I was his lover, just one sentence, but he wouldn’t.”

“I know his heart holds the Buddhist Dharma, and the Buddha says all beings suffer, all attachment is sin. He regretted being with me from the moment we started. I always knew. He liked me on one hand, and on the other, he felt he was defiling his faith… But what about me?”

But what about me?

But what about me?

She murmured these three words, seeming to bite them off.

Luo Yao opened her mouth, unable to answer her. Perhaps this relationship was wrong from the beginning, but she would not, and did not want to, say that.

The inner demon, unable to get a response, finally burst into fury: “BUT WHAT ABOUT ME?!! WHAT AM I TO HIM!!!”

In an instant, the petals exploded in all directions, like a devastating storm.

Luo Yao’s pupils contracted. There was no time to shield herself. Just as she was about to be swallowed by the petals, the white feather on her right earlobe suddenly dropped below freezing point, erupting with dazzling light.

Immediately after, from Si Yin and Yi An’s perspectives, a massive and ominous pressure descended from the sky, sweeping away the petals like a gigantic palm, forcing everyone to look down.

Yi An was suffocated by the pressure and fell to her knees with a thud. Everywhere she looked, the weeds were slowly turning into ice sculptures. Even the water vapor in the air crystallized into tiny ice particles, stabbing her lungs with every breath.

Next, everyone felt a terrifyingly powerful presence, reigning over them.

“Demon Lord… how dare you…?!” Veda, fortified by the Buddhist light, barely managed to stay on his feet. He glared at the mid-air figure, his eyes wide with disbelief.

A seductive soft laugh came from the air: “Why don’t you tell me why I wouldn’t dare?”

With her voice, a bl00d-red figure slowly stepped out of the void, hooking her arms around Luo Yao’s waist from behind, without sparing a single glance for anyone else.

“Sister, being disobedient again, hmm?” She smiled, fiddling with Luo Yao’s earring, her lowered eyes full of charm.

At this point, the hurricane had stopped. Everyone knelt before her, and the flowers across the vast field drifted down like a grand rain.

They were embraced in the very center of the flower rain.

Luo Yao whispered: “Get Tan Tan and Shen Nian back to the Demon Realm first. We’ll discuss the rest later.”

Shang Mian smiled and gave a slight bow: “As you command.”

Finished, she lightly raised her hand. Everyone present, except Veda, was instantly enveloped in a swirling black mist.