I am a tree demon, born on the summit of Mount Fulong in the snowy December.
I've drifted along the river of time for innumerable years, countless people coming and going in my life. Some I can never remember, some I can never forget.
I've kept company with flowers and plants, birds and beasts on Mount Fulong, and I have also experienced all four emotions with various humans and demons in the mortal world; I've been an ignorant little maid, and I have also been an infinitely impressive lady boss; I've hated and been hated; I've loved and been loved.
As an unaging and undying demon, I've probably lived too long. Well, too long to sum up my life, and I'm too lazy to retrieve the forgotten past.
So, I just live as happily as I can. The past cannot be recovered, the future cannot be controlled, so I might as well treasure each day. That's enough.
Such a simple idea became more clear and profound to me after I got married.
However, regarding this whole getting married thing, I still have an indescribable sense of unreality to this day.
The plane was bumping slightly in the clouds. I turned my head to look at the man beside me who was sleeping so soundly that he was drooling. His face was still so remarkably handsome that his brilliance wouldn't be lost even a bit no matter where he placed it, not even in this silly sleepy look. The centuries of time haven't left any adverse marks on his appearance. I think it's not because time favors him too much, but because he despises time too much. This man despises too many things - the demons that offend him, the obstacles that hinder him, the dangers that threaten him, and even the "rules" he should abide by as a member of the East China Sea Dragon Clan.
Since the day I met Ao Chi, I have never seen anything or anyone who can surpass him. Even if he loses in a battle, what is lost is only that particular fight, not the person he is. That stubborn, proud head of his will never bow down willingly.
I don't think I'm as tough and domineering as him, but I also never easily lower my head.
Disliking someone is often because they are too similar to you; likewise, liking someone is often because they are too similar to you.
I "disliked[1]" Ao Chi for centuries. Once, I hated his insufferably arrogant attitude when he captured me in the Sea of Despair; I hated how he forced me to live through the excruciating time when I was completely disheartened and wanted to give up on life; I hated how he nagged me like an old lady, controlling me and making me learn various spells I had no interest in; I hated how he tirelessly imitated humans and presented me with a ring every year.
And what I hate most is that he suddenly disappeared from my life for twenty years, all because of the "responsibilities" he had as a member of the East China Sea Dragon Clan, without informing me at all, and even deliberately deceiving me.
That year, he purposely said those outrageous things which made me so angry that I told him to beat it at once. It's the first time he was so obedient and really beat it; beat it for twenty years, leaving me only with the pure-gold dragon pattern amulet that I can't lose or throw away no matter what I do and is always tied to my wrist.
I must have spent too long in the human world, and even my thinking and actions have been affected by the tacky philosophies of the human world — I dislike you when I see you, I miss you when I don't. True to this saying, I indeed embarked on nearly twenty years of searching. I kept walking, kept searching, but he seemed to have evaporated from this world, leaving me no trace to follow. I was a little tired from walking, so I opened a small shop named "Unceasing" in an inconspicuous city, selling desserts, and my customers included not only humans but also demons. They didn't come to bother me; on the contrary, they came to ask for my help.
But I don't think I have provided them with any extraordinary help. At most, I brewed a cup of Fleeting Life tea that is bitter at first and then sweet for them, and listened to them finish a story. I never expected them to thank me because I don't think my trivial actions deserve to be thanked or remembered at all.
But in the end, when I encountered the real enemy, trapped and in imminent danger, these demons unexpectedly gathered around me, giving their all to protect me.
As for that year's sudden calamity, I don't remember much about the details, and I never discuss it with anyone. It was nothing more than a disaster caused by jealousy and obsession. Yet, it fulfilled the saying "to profit from a disaster." The man who had beat it for twenty years suddenly returned without warning at the moment when my life was under the most severe threat.
Then I realized that this was yet another story as tacky as a primetime soap opera.
He left me for twenty years due to difficulties. As a member of the East China Sea Dragon Clan, he had the heavy responsibility of guarding the Axis of Time and saving the Earth. He was Ultraman who gave up his life to fight to the death against all monsters that threaten human peace. He deliberately provoked me just because he feared he might never return. If that were the case, he thought it would be better for me to hate him than to miss him. At least, I wouldn't keep thinking about a hateful man for too long.
Even his so-called "painstaking effort" was so dumb and childish. This is the man I disliked for so long.
But in the end, Ao Chi, the well-known evil dragon from the East China Sea Dragon Clan, and I, the tree demon lady boss from Mount Fulong, got married on the nth Christmas after we met.
I still remember our conversation when Ao Chi proposed to me—
Me: Give me three reasons.
Him: First, nobody wants you except me. Second, nobody can want me except you. Third, I love you.
And so, the lady boss of Unceasing Dessert Shop found a place to stop.
And so, the lady boss of Unceasing Dessert Shop closed her shop, washed her hands and made soup[2], and became a married woman.
I know that someone has turned my experience of running the shop, the cup of tea I brewed called Fleeting Life, and the stories of the demon customers who patronized me, including the catastrophe Ao Chi and I experienced, into a novel called "The Story of Fleeting Life." I heard it's selling quite well. I even plan to visit the author of the book someday to thank her for portraying me as beautiful as a flower and loving money as much as my own life[3]. Ao Chi clamored to go with me. He bared fangs and brandished claws, complaining that the author didn't adequately depict his brilliance and prowess. He wants to protest and threaten the author into either revising the original text or writing a sequel where he is the absolute male lead, in the overshadow everyone else style!
I'm genuinely afraid that one day he'll be taken away as a mental case. His super-egotistical arrogant attitude is unlikely to ever change.
Roughly speaking, we've been married for nearly two years now. During this time when I'm not the lady boss, the two of us have traveled to almost every country on the planet. Though I'm not human, my love and curiosity for this world are no less than anyone else's. Ao Chi is still devilish. One moment he was mocking me for not seeing the big world and getting awed by things like seeing the Nazca lines; the next moment he was scolding me for my unsightly manner of eating corn on the cob in the Andes Mountains while generously handing out lots of candy to the children in the Native American village where we stopped over.
When we were in Romania, we stayed in a hotel run by vampires, and he scolded me again for being careless and refusing to stay in a proper luxury hotel, and insisting on staying in a family-run black inn[4] in the country. As a result, he indiscriminately taught the vampires a hard lesson, almost changing into his true form and burning down their establishment. Later, we found out that those vampires didn't harm anyone at all; they were just running a legitimate business, occasionally collaborating with the local tourism department for some cosplay shows, pretending to be vampires to scare tourists and create an atmosphere. Naturally, he refused to apologize, but he was quite generous with money. The medical expenses compensated to the vampires were enough for them to open ten larger-scale inns.
And when we roamed to Bermuda, my great husband started complaining again. He said the sea wind was too annoying, the UV rays were too intense, which sooner or later would tan me into a dark-faced demon. If I became ugly, he wouldn't want me anymore. While complaining, on that dark and windy night, he calmly dealt with several mermaids who lured human souls with their songs, thus secretly getting rid of danger to a ship full of passengers. After it was done, he came to scold me again, asking why I couldn't go anywhere better and insisted on coming to this even-birds-don't-shit[5] Bermuda.
You see, that's how Ao Chi is. This man is always lecturing, always impatient, always nagging. Sometimes I really wonder if I married not the evil dragon from the East China Sea, but the famous Tang Sanzang[6], the Emperor of Nagging. Can you imagine that the "bad guy" who could once be so hostile to me and was as ruthless as a sharp blade, also has such a mother-in-law split personality hidden in him? It took me quite some time to get used to it, and I attributed this discomfort to the newlywed syndrome. Although I've known him for so long, now, this brand-new relationship between us is still in its infancy, and we're learning to navigate it together.
We've essentially long been accustomed to being "alone," but once we step into this thing called "marriage," everything has to be multiplied by two. Both Ao Chi and I still need time to get used to it.
However, despite his complaints and nagging, over the past two years, wherever we've gone, no matter how unwilling he seemed, as long as it was a place I wanted to go, he would accompany me, and as long as it was something I wanted to eat, he would get it for me no matter how remote the corner of the earth.
After we got married, he developed a habit of holding onto my hand when sleeping.
He said, when I hold your hand like my own, it means there's only love between us.
With a roll of his eyes he added, this means you've become an inseparable part of me, and I can't throw you away even if I want to.
Cheesy nonsense, but he could say it with such conviction.
"I just don't want to wake up and find that you're gone," he mumbled this sentence after finishing his nonsense, then buried his head deep into the pillow and snored like thunder.
I looked at his sleeping face and smiled.
My hands always used to be cold in winter, as if they couldn't generate warmth on their own, but ever since we got married, even in the bitterest cold of winter, my hands have never been cold again, because they are always wrapped in Ao Chi's perpetually warm hands.
Even now, as he takes a nap on the plane, Ao Chi is still habitually holding my hand.
We're probably becoming more and more like an ordinary human couple. When traveling around the world, we dutifully buy plane tickets, stay in hotels, use various modes of transportation normally, haggle over price with people, and even insist on getting receipts after meals, and if we accidentally win five bucks, we're ecstatic like crazy. Except for a few special occasions where we need to show a little bit of "skills," we have almost forgotten that we're a pair of "others" with hidden magic.
I turned my head and looked at the clouds passing by outside the window. In about two hours, I'll return to the city I left for nearly two years.
Wherever I go, I always use "go." Only for Fulong Mountain and the city named Wangchuan, I use "return."
Home is for "returning."
My "Unceasing" is still on that little street in Wangchuan City. I plan to go back and take a look, and then spend some time there. Maybe I can even invite those noisy demons for a tea party? Ah, maybe not. If they find out I'm back, I don't know what strange troubles they'll bring me. But I probably should make time to see my adopted nephew, Zhong Xiaokui. That kid once sent me an email. There were not many words, but it made me deeply aware that a teenager in the midst of adolescent confusion really needs me, his adopted aunt, to be a trouble recycle bin. Hold on, there's also that old ba*tard Jiu Jue. I heard a few days ago that he's getting married as well, and he even asked me to prepare a big red envelope. This is an enormous piece of gossip! Who would have thought this demanding and super picky old man would willingly walk into the grave of love? I'm dying of curiosity!
Alright, there are quite a few things I need to do.
On the plane, most passengers were asleep. Ao Chi's snores rose and fell rhythmically and I was daydreaming when a booming sound reverberated inside the cabin.
Suddenly, an unusually strong turbulence struck, causing everyone's hearts to momentarily skip a beat as their seats shook. The timid ones screamed, while the brave ones turned pale and murmured in low voices.
From the speaker came the sweet and calm voice of the air hostess: "Dear passengers, the plane has encountered a strong air current, and there may be some turbulence. Please fasten your seat belts and refrain from leaving your seats. Thank you!"
As a demon, my hunch about any impending accident will always surpass that of humans.
We're going to crash.
Sure enough, before the announcement finished, before Ao Chi could wipe the drool from his half-awake state, and while everyone still clung to the hope that everything was just a "normal occurrence," we heard a loud sound, the kind only heard when machinery fails and causes an explosion. Passengers sitting near the window in the middle section of the plane could clearly see thick smoke and flames billowing from the right wing.
The entire cabin tilted suddenly, hundreds of oxygen masks dropped rapidly from above, and of course, there were luggage of all sizes tumbling down from the overhead compartments, adding to the chaos.
The screams that followed almost burst my eardrums.
Plummeting, weightlessness, inadequate blood supply to the brain, heart palpitations, and all kinds of terrifying feelings that can kill people erupted in every passenger's body. For me, this is a rare and memorable experience — as a tree demon, I finally experienced a plane crash; a "first" in my life, and another milestone.
At the moment of imminent catastrophe, only Ao Chi, rubbing his sleepy eyes, casually asked, "We're crashing?"
"Yes, we are," I replied calmly.
"F*ck!"
The plane, like a wingless iron bird, was falling in a direction not its own. The ground ceased to be ground; it became the evilly grinning mouth of Hell waiting for it to die horribly.
No one believed they would survive. Most could only bury their heads between their knees, clenching their teeth and praying to the gods they worship, "Save me, I don't want to die, we don't want to die."
The desire to survive was so strong that even I could hear it.
Though I'm not a god, just a demon, I can fulfill their desire.
The loud noise of collision, metal smashing to pieces, an earth-shattering event that could make one's blood flow backwards, all of it ended in just a few seconds in a towering splash of water, like a gigantic wave crashing down with an unstoppable force.
The plane crashed into a vast lake, cushioned by a relatively gentle force.
The massive iron bird didn't sink; it floated, remaining intact. Even the previous smoke and flames had disappeared. Overall, it was a relatively perfect water landing. In the moment of near-death, I vaguely saw an unusual shadow outside the window, racing past at incredible speed, shooting into the sky. Fortunately, everyone escaped unscathed. The crew swiftly organized passengers to don life jackets and climb out of the cabin through the emergency exits.
In the turquoise lake, countless bright orange shapes suddenly appeared that were swimming continuously. The shore wasn't too far from the crash site, another stroke of luck.
It was my first time wearing a life jacket, which I found interesting. Ao Chi, refusing to wear the "potato sack,[7]" simply leaped into the water and impatiently joined me in swimming towards the shore.
As my fingers parted the water, tiny splashes rippled and danced around me. It was early spring and the winter cold was still undiminished. In the spring cold, the survivors swam desperately around me...
Their teeth chattered from the cold, but I didn't feel any cold. Each drop of lake water that touched my body seemed warm, and the heat emanated not from the outside, but from within myself. It was a strange sensation.
I'm a tree demon, and it is natural for wood to float on water. Even if I don't swim, I won't drown. But I don't like swimming, and this has been the case for thousands of years. My heart has always rejected the feeling of being surrounded by water.
As far as I can remember, I have accidentally fallen into the water only once, and that was an absolutely unpleasant experience.
Yet, it was precisely that incident that created the grudge that led to the millennia-long entanglement between me and Ao Chi.
On the lakeshore, the people who had been spared thanked their lucky stars.
"Thank goodness it landed on water!"
"Luckily, the plane didn't explode!"
"It's a miracle it didn't sink into the water!"
Poor souls, you probably haven't realized that when a plane crashes, whether it collides with land or water, the outcome is the same. This plane didn't explode or sink, which has violated your laws of physics.
At the critical moment between life or death, if Ao Chi and I hadn't used our own "skills" to "lift" the plane and gently "set it down" on the water...
Well, let's just say the gods heard your prayers at that time. It'll be easier for you to accept it if you think that's what happened.
I squeezed the water out of my hair, breathing slightly heavily.
"Controlling" a plane without any preparation still costs me a little bit of vital energy.
Ao Chi shook his hair vigorously like a puppy that had just taken a bath and then started complaining, saying that he had clearly wanted to have fun for a few more days before returning, so it was my fault that had to take this crappy flight. After saying that, he scolded me for a mere plane making me pant after all my daily cultivation, wanting to know how I would manage if he was not by my side to take action.
When it comes to exaggerating his own importance, Ao Chi always has an infinite enthusiasm.
"If you keep clamoring, we'll get a divorce!" I didn't want to start a war of words; I just dropped a bomb.
"You..." He immediately shut his mouth, then muttered sulkily, "I'm doing this for your own good!"
It's said enemies will get together[8], not enemies will get divorce. Could it be that all couples end up bickering like this? They say marriage is a science, and it's easier to fall in love but hard to stay together. It's not easy to make it work.
I looked at Ao Chi, his usual trump card deflated, feeling both angry and amused. How long will this single-celled guy stay with me like this?
I thought for no reason.
Looking back at the lake, the surrounding forest seemed familiar.
The captain held a satellite phone and dialed for rescue.
Over an hour later, a rescue team comprising government officials, medical personnel, and police uncles arrived swiftly, evacuating everyone from the lakeside and taking them away in several large buses, roaring into the distance.
It was only then that we found out our crash site was in a small county town called Dai County in a certain province and city.
Dai County...
I looked at the fields and houses passing by outside the bus window, the evening sky wet and gray.
Ao Chi, wrapped in a blanket, had already dozed off, his head resting on my shoulder, his snoring uninterrupted.
I felt myself drifting off too.
The sound of raindrops tapping on the window grew louder and louder.
I opened my eyes to see the rain pouring down heavily, turning the world outside into a blur of dots.
"Hey, it's raining again, that's great!" the driver exclaimed happily as he turned on the wipers.
"Yeah, now the spring drought in our county is completely solved!" an acquaintance sitting behind him agreed cheerfully.
"Exactly! It's been dry for so long! The heavens have opened their eyes these days!"
I blinked sleepily, yawned, and dozed off again.
Footnotes:
[1] Note that 讨厌 also means to loathe; to hate; to despise.
[2] 洗手 作 羹汤 comes from Tang Dynasty poet Wang Jian's "Three Poems for the Bride" (新嫁娘词三首). The poems describe the experiences and feelings of a bride who has just married into her husband's family. The whole poem describes a fragment of the bride's first three days of life, with each poem written on one day.
[3] Idiom: to be extremely stingy or greedy for money.
[4] 黑店: an inn that kills and robs guests.
[5] 鳥不拉屎: (derogatory) deserted/desolate place.
[6] Monk Tang from Journey to the West.
[7] 完全 显露 不 出 曲线: completely revealing no curves. It's a mouthful so I went with potato sack to convey the idea.
[8] 不是冤家不聚頭: Literally “not enemies, no getting together.” If you were not destined to be lovers, you would not be together. Those with some kind of connection will be brought together (often said about lovers who have a disagreement). In the next line, Shaluo says 不是 冤家 不 离婚, meaning “not enemies, no getting divorce.”
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