Chapter Text
Why did the little fox run away from him?
As with all questions that Dijun pondered, there was a dual meaning to this one. At one level, he was reflecting on his visit to Qingqiu. After fulfilling his rather tiresome responsibility to hand a proclamation to Lian Song, Dijun had strolled through the wild grasslands of the Fox King’s realm. And sure enough, he had seen a little red fox. But it had run from him.
Just as a spark of delight had flickered in his heart at discovering a little red fox after so many years, it fled from him.
Which had stirred the deeper question that, even after centuries, clung to his mind as stubbornly as the final leaf on a branch in autumn, refusing to fall from the tree.
Why had his little fox run away from him?
It was this that he pondered when he returned to Heaven Kingdom and happened to overhear a junior goddess gossiping about him with that supreme bagua, Si Ming.
‘But if Dijun plays tricks on you, I can’t get back at him for you,’ the dark-haired goddess was saying.
Dijun found gossip tiresome. He had no interest in it. Although he realized that he was the subject of gossip as much as any other senior immortal, this was the most tiresome of all. He was quite content to ignore gossip that invovled him, except when it was thrust in his face like this.
On such occasions, he had no qualms about embarassing the purveyor of gossip.
So, he asked the pertinent question – suddenly, and loudly, of course.
‘Why can’t you avenge him, if it is I who plays tricks on him?’
As expected, the junior goddess showed instant remorse for her careless words and slowly turned to face the object of her gossip.
But very, very unexpectedly, Dijun recognized a familiar face.
It wasn’t just that she was the Princess of Qingqiu, who had been rather slack in adhering to etiquette during Lian Song’s proclamation of the marriage edict between Ye Hua and Bai Qian.
Seeing her up close, just a few steps away, Dijun was struck by the realization that hers was the face that had eluded him since returning from the mortal realm.
He had been dreaming of her.
At the sight of this goddess with the red, phoenix wing on her forehead, the blur of confused images that had haunted him came into focus. Her extended sword, saving him on a mortal battlefield. Sparring with her. Galloping with her at full throttle on horseback. Clinging to her when she had been falsely imprisoned in the dungeon.
Wanting her.
Wanting to die without her.
Was it real, or a trick of his imagination?
Dijun’s quick reflexes had preserved him throughout a long existence, and served him well now in this moment. He had been seeking answers about the memories of his mortal trial, which did not match what was in the scroll Si Ming had shown him. Dijun suspected this goddess had some of those answers.
So, despite the flood of impressions that her face provoked, he kept his expression neutral and impassive.
‘The Princess of Qingqiu seems to know me very well,’ was all he said.
She looked terrified.
But she recovered fairly quickly – if not at all convincingly.
‘Your Majesty must be joking.’ Deflection.
‘You live in Heaven Kingdom. I live in Qingqiu. The same as all immortals, my knowledge of you comes from imagination.’ Self-deprecation.
‘I don’t know anything of you.’ Deception.
She had spoken more truthfully when she had been gossiping about him. He did play tricks on Si Ming. And on Lian Song. It relieved the boredom. Somehow, the Princess of Qingqiu knew this about him.
But she felt compelled to insist that she knew nothing at all.
Dijun suspected he knew why.
Si Ming must have enlisted her help for the love trial in the mortal realm, and she was afraid she would be in trouble if she was found out. She needn’t worry, though. Dijun suspected he knew why Si Ming had chosen her. The author of mortal calamities had probably realized how hard it would be to affect Dijun at all with something so mundane as a love trial, and had resorted to desperate measures. And so he had recruited a stunningly beautiful goddess, rather than relying on an ordinary mortal, to stir at least some response.
Dijun patted Si Ming on the shoulder as he walked past, deciding that he needed time to develop a strategy to break through the Princess of Qingqiu’s polite wall of denial if he were to get some candid answers about his mortal experience.
After all, if he could just understand, then perhaps his troubled sleep would be resolved.
And the pain in his chest would subside.
It was only a matter of satisfying his curiosity.
And then, the ache he felt whenever he closed his eyes and envisioned the woman from his dreams -- this woman -- would fade.
Although…why did he suddenly feel like he was sleepwalking?
And why did he have to fight so hard not to turn and look back at her?