Fu Wang stood at the entrance of the small courtyard. The violent fury that had been seething in his heart got extinguished with a poof, like flames quenched with water, and from it emerged the bitter taste of smoke.
It’s been far too long since he came here. Just as he had subconsciously wanted to forget Shu Yu, this “home” that had once brought him both beautiful and painful memories was also forgotten by him.
In the second decade after Shu Yu died, he lived here alone, watching the sun rise and the moon set, the blossoming of flowers, the arrival and leave of spring and fall, year after year. He clearly knew that Shu Yu wouldn’t come back, but he always clung onto that sliver of hope, waiting here day after day— he didn’t even know what kind of ending he was exactly waiting for.
The days crawled like years, but centuries and even millenia could pass in a moment of inattention. It was more than enough time for a person to wait till their hair turned white— and for them to fall into complete despair.
“Fu Wang.” The drunkard, basically sprawled underneath the table, turned her head and saw Fu Wang, who was standing in the doorway, and exclaimed happily. She wanted to stand up, but she bumped her head against the table with a thud, so she sat back again while holding her head.
Fu Wang entered the courtyard, stepping into this place that had been sealed away by himself, a place he never meant to come back to again.
Black clothing brushed past the wooden branches hanging low in his path.
Shu Yu had already slowly gotten up while bracing against the table. She placed the empty jar of wine on the table and then pointed at Fu Wang, articulating a single, resounding word: “Worst!”
Fu Wang’s steps paused. He shifted his gaze from that slightly familiar alcohol jar to Shu Yu’s face, which looked as if they were smeared with bright rouge. Clearly, she was drunk, otherwise why would she complain that he was the worst?
After she said that word on her own, she gave a helpless hiccup, and her body swayed.
Fu Wang’s gaze followed her swaying body. Seeing her finally stabilize herself, he then looked into her eyes. Those eyes were slightly depressed and reddened, she had probably been crying. Just as he was about to step forward, he heard Shu Yu open her mouth and say again, “Too black, gloomy.”1黑不溜秋 dark and swarthy, this word can be used to define something as too dark, black, darkened, etc. In this context, Fu Wang hears it as Shu Yu complaining about his wardrobe being all black colors.
He looked down at his black clothes. Fu Wang hmm’ed, and his voice was very gentle, “Xiao-Yu doesn’t like that I wear black clothes?”
Shu Yu nodded. “Black clothes make you look like a boss.” After saying this, she shook her head again. “But you were already a boss.”
Fu Wang: “Hm?”
Suddenly, Shu Yu burst into loud tears, so Fu Wang’s slight puzzlement couldn’t be answered. Shu Yu stumbled forward a few steps and threw her arms around… the pillar next to Fu Wang, and heartbrokenly asked, “Say, you don’t like me anymore do you?”
The pillar had no answer for her, the only one who could answer was Fu Wang who had slightly opened his arms but didn’t catch an armful of her, however, this Fu Wang who only received empty air didn’t want to answer her anymore, he merely watched as she hugged the pillar and interrogated it: “How can you not like me? Is it the seven-year itch2七年之痒 The seven year itch. The seven-year itch is a popular belief, sometimes quoted as having psychological backing, that happiness in a marriage or long-term romantic relationship declines after around seven years.? No no, is it the thousand-year itch? So it’s true that long-distance relationships don’t work? You’re so busy day after day after day, what, are you gonna say you have to work overtime? Do you have someone outside? Look at how you’ve become, so cold and hard!”
She reached out with an expression of grief and indignation and knocked on the pillar. She said, “Too hard, what happened to being a gentle lover? How come it became not useful after the upgrade?”
“Look, the mouth is even gone! How am I going to kiss you now!” Shu Yu pawed at the pillar, and then hiccupped again.
Fu Wang stood behind her. He peeled her off from the pillar and hugged her, grabbing her hand and pressing it against his lips. “Here.”
“Oh.” Shu Yu felt her hand touch something soft and couldn’t help but tug at it again and again. She nodded her head solemnly. “So it thawed!”
“Since you thawed, do you still like me?” she asked again.
“What does Xiao-Yu think?” Fu Wang was hugging her as he nipped her fingers lightly.
“You definitely don’t like me anymore!” Shu Yu cried loudly again.
Hearing this, Fu Wang nodded. “Then I don’t like you anymore.”
This time, Shu Yu wasn’t pretending to be crying, but actually crying. She didn’t make any sounds when crying for real, she merely shed tears and pitifully tried to hold them back. Fu Wang lifted her chin, but she slapped his hand away and lowered her head so he couldn’t see her. Fu Wang seemed to sigh again and picked her up by the waist, raising his head slightly – just enough – so he could see her expression.
A tear dropped on his cheek. Fu Wang sat on a chair and placed Shu Yu on his lap. He rubbed away the tears on her face with his fingers as he murmured, “Are you that sad? Do you think that my heart will soften if you cry a little?”
Shu Yu’s tears fell even harder, making him unable to wipe them all away. She looked so pitiful, so adorable. Drunken in such a dazed state, and even crying from just a few words from him, he wasn’t sure if she was actually aware of what she was doing now.
He wanted to bully her, but she became so pitiful after a slight poke, so much so that he couldn’t really do anything worse to her. In the end, Fu Wang could only tighten his embrace around her and kiss away at the corner of her eyes.
“It’s my loss. I lied, I still love you.”
Shu Yu’s quiet sniffles stopped. She stared at him with reddened eyes, slightly disbelieving. “But I haven’t used my ultimate move yet!”
“Ultimate move?” Fu Wang asked slowly. Did she think that he had given in too easily?
Shu Yu even nodded her little head, stretching her hand and counting for him, “First try crying, second try screaming, and third try to hang myself.”3一哭二闹三上吊 first try crying, second try screaming, third try to hang myself. This is an idiom for causing a terrible scene or throw a tantrum to get what you want or make someone give in.
Fu Wang smiled, so very kindly. “Then I take back the words I just said. You can continue, Xiao-Yu.”
“No no no! I don’t wanna!” Shu Yu shook her head furiously. She suddenly saw a clump of purple-blues in a corner and her eyes lit up at once. She scrambled down from Fu Wang’s lap and dragged him towards that direction. After stumbling and swaying her way to that bush with great difficulty, Shu Yu yanked one flower and then shoved it into Fu Wang’s mouth.
“Stars, I planted them! You can’t back out after you’ve eaten them!”
He pulled Shu Yu’s hand which had smacked his nose downwards and guided the stardew blossoms into his mouth. Fu Wang said, “I planted these.”
Saying this, he lowered his head and used his mouth to feed the flowers to Shu Yu. “That’s why, it should be Xiao-Yu eating them. Xiao-Yu can eat these, it’s enough for me to eat Xiao-Yu.”
Shu Yu’s face scrunched up into a wrinkled ball. It was like eating bitter cucumbers. She pushed Fu Wang’s face away, covering her mouth and muffledly saying, “So bitter, so nasty, it’s more bitter than Chinese medicine.”
Fu Wang nuzzled his lips against hers again. He coaxed, “Swallow it, don’t spit it out.”
Shu Yu, as expected, only frowned deeply but she swallowed the flowers in her mouth. After seeing this, Fu Wang’s expression eased up and he cuddled her affectionately. He bit the tip of his tongue and then explored into Shu Yu’s mouth. The familiar flavor blossomed across her tongue. Shu Yu stopped caring about the bitter taste and wrapped her arms around Fu Wang, wanting more of it. Only when the bitterness in her mouth faded did Shu Yu finally let go of Fu Wang.
“You can’t regret anything!”
Fu Wang laughed lightly. Suddenly, he asked, “Xiao-Yu, do you want to go home?”
Unhesitatingly, Shu Yu answered, “Of course! My parents are still waiting for me to go back!”
“So, will you leave me one day?” Fu Wang rubbed her earlobes, his tone gradually lowering.
Shu Yu was oblivious to this. She candidly shook her head. “I wanna go home, but I won’t leave you alone, and I can’t go back anyways, I can’t go back even if I die, so how would I even go back.”
Fu Wang looked thoughtful. He asked, “Then where is Xiao-Yu’s home?”
Shu Yu blinked. Suddenly she belted out a song at the top of her voice, “My family lives on a high slope of yellow earth~~” 4我的家在黄土高坡喔哦, My family lives on a high slope of yellow earth. It is part of the lyrics to the song 《黄土高坡》, or “Huang Tu Gao Po”. It is a song written by songstress Ulan Tuya 乌兰图雅.
Not far from them a red fish leapt out of the pond and splashed water everywhere. Perhaps it was cooperating with her singing, or perhaps it deemed her singing too horrible and was protesting in its own way. Fu Wang stared at her, his expression unchanged. “Slope of yellow earth?”
Shu Yu sang again. “My home is in the north east~ By the Songjiang river~”5 我的家在东北~松江上那啊 My home is in the north east, by the Songjiang river. Lyrics from song 《我家在东北》”Home, in the Northeast”, from what I read it was created through the joint collab of Chonglong 宠龙, Kong Jiahuan 孔嘉欢 and Handong 韩东. It was sung by Chonglong however.
“Northeast? Songjiang?”
Shu Yu kept singing, “We all have a home, its name is China!”6我们都有一个家，名字叫中国！We all have a home, its name is China. Lyrics from song Big China 《大中国》, by Gao Feng 高枫.
“China?”
“Quickly use the nunchucks! Nooooooo~”7 Translator: I’m pretty sure this is a song, but I can’t find anything about it.
“…”
Fu Wang felt that he probably wasn’t going to get any answers now. Besides, every time Xiao-Yu got drunk, it was like she would become an entirely different person than her usual self. Shu Yu wanted to keep singing, but Fu Wang blocked her lips, and only let her go after a long while. Fu Wang wrapped his arms around her and said, “Xiao-Yu, don’t ever attempt to leave me, otherwise, I’m not sure what I’m capable of doing. You don’t want to see that kind of thing happen.”
“I wanna!” Drunk Fish immediately interrupted again. But just as Fu Wang had raised an eyebrow, he heard Shu Yu tack on the end, “I wanna see! Fox!”
“I wanna see fox, I want ears, I want tail~ Show me~ Show me~ Da-Yu~ I wanna see~” She had wrapped her arms around his neck and was screaming and jumping. Fu Wang rubbed his forehead and decided that it was better to not talk about serious matters with her right now. But how on earth did her mind jump towards the subject of foxes?
It took just a moment of inattentiveness before Fu Wang realized that Shu Yu had pulled up his clothes. One of her hands was groping around behind his buttocks. “Eh, where’s the tail? Where did you hide the tail?” Just as he clamped on Shu Yu’s rambunctious hand, Fu Wang’s head fell next to her assault, Shu Yu had jumped up and was searching over his head, pulling his hair away and trying to find his ears.
If he were an ordinary person, his neck would’ve definitely snapped from how Shu Yu had suddenly pressed down on him. Fu Wang was silent for a while, but then he peeled Shu Yu off and put her to the side and, with a rather good-natured temper, he answered, “I didn’t hide it. I don’t have ears or a tail anymore.”
“Liar.”
“I’m not lying.”
“I know, it must’ve fallen off, I will help you find it.” Shu Yu turned around to go outside. Fu Wang trailed behind her, holding her when she almost fell into the bushes and pulling her away in time when she nearly fell into the pond, and just like that, they wandered around the courtyard before they finally – with great difficulty – reached the gate. Shu Yu headed out and meandered her way to the azure mist forest near the courtyard.
Then she pointed at two big red blossoms on the branches and beamed triumphantly. “Look, aren’t your ears there after all?” Saying this, she plucked them off and tried to stick them over Fu Wang’s head. Fu Wang stepped back, but then he saw Shu Yu drunkenly fall to the side so he could only step forward to steady her. Shu Yu took the opportunity to pin them over his ears, one big red flower each side. It made for a simple and elegant “Demon King”.8魔王 Demon King. It’s a joke about how the villain in stories is always called the Demon King. His official title by other demons is written as 魔主, Devil Lord.
Fu Wang looked expressionless. Shu Yu wriggled out of his arms. She busily broke off a branch and circled around him to lift his outer robe. Seeing that she was just about ready to pull his pants as well, Fu Wang stopped her hands, pulling them out of his clothes.
Then, fluffy ears sprouted from his head and a large tail squirmed out from his clothing.
Shu Yu threw away the branch in her hand. She cheered as she glomped the tail behind him. Drunk people don’t know how to control their strength, so after Fu Wang sucked in a cold hiss, he looked at his furry mess of a tail, and then grabbed Shu Yu into his arms and carried her off into the depths of the azure mist’s forest.
“MMMF MMFF, tail!”
“Xiao-Yu wants my tail? Okay, I will give it to you.”
After a while—-
“Hm? No no, nooo, don’t want tail~”
“Hah~”
—— Shu Yu sat up from bed, slowly remembering the things that happened.
Rolling around in the forest. Being done in this way and that way by his tail.
It’s better to just censor that kind of filthy thing.
And then the things before that… From now on, if she quarreled with Fu Wang or got upset with him, she can just get drunk, that’s it. Not only will it solve the problem itself, it also helps in releasing pent-up anger. The one who got drunk would become shameless and wouldn’t melt too easily, and they could solve all problems just by crying. When she thought about it, she realized that her body was kinda useless.
Behind her, a warm body suddenly pressed against her. Shu Yu was pulled into a hug, and a slightly husky, alluring voice said beside her ears, “Xiao-Yu, after I have seized all of Tianyun Kingdom’s fate and have attained the strength to completely overcome the shackles of the Heavenly Dao in this world, I’ll take you home, okay?”
“Home?” Shu Yu was taken aback..
“To Xiao-Yu’s home.”
Chapter Description:
Ah~ I want to finish the novel~
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