Chapter 49 Finale Main Text Completed

Fireworks will be held at Vauxhall Gardens, Bath.

The two paid a shilling entrance fee and followed the crowd inside.

A large crowd had already gathered on the lawn on the east side of the garden where the fireworks were to be set off. Most were families on holiday, enjoying the spectacle together. There were also a few couples quietly meeting, each standing a short distance from the other, their eyes constantly drawn to the other. Some nearby were clearly aware of the situation, but in Bath, as with all fireworks displays, everyone shared a friendly smile and remained silent, without any criticism.

"Tell me, what kind of relationship will others think we have if we're like this? A husband and wife? Or a couple who have secretly run away?" Under the dim light of the park, Alice and the man's arms were linked.

"A unique relationship." Adrien looked at her and answered.

"Yes." Alice smiled and put her chin on the man's shoulder, "Closer than ordinary couples, more intimate than ordinary lovers."

"It's a lover." She continued, her breath touching the tip of her ear just a few inches away.

Adrien felt a secret joy in his heart. He endured the itch in his ear and seriously continued the second half of her sentence: "He is also a believer and a god."

Those who recognized them whispered among the crowd. Some were surprised to encounter the talk of London here, some secretly discussed the possibility of meeting the sought-after new Duke, and some simply gossiped about the two men's public displays of affection, despite the rumors that they had disregarded the etiquette of high society.

Alice paid no attention to the surrounding attention and noisy voices. None of them were as pure and persistent as the gaze of the person in front of her.

The gas lamps that had been lit in the park gradually went out. In the darkness, when the fireworks exploded, everyone's attention was drawn away.

In the dazzling night scene, Alice rubbed her chin slightly, raised her eyes and glanced at the man who was immersed in her words, indicating what he should do at the moment.

Adrien met her burning gaze, his heart beating faster.

This is outdoors, with no shelter around. People huddled together, watching the fireworks going off in front of them, while those behind them continued to move forward.

Adrian was familiar with the meaning in the Lady God's eyes. He quickly glanced around. Although he knew that a spell must have been cast to confuse other people's vision, he still couldn't help but feel nervous as people kept passing by him closely.

Just as believers know the preferences of their deities, gods also understand the hearts that believers open to them when they pray. And Alice, however, loves to play tricks on devout believers. The more they fear something, the more she wants to do it. The funniest thing is kissing a nervous believer.

Sure enough, through his shirt, she could feel the tension in his back. Alice succeeded, then raised her head slightly and kissed his defenseless lips.

The gentleman, immersed in the new world, gradually relaxed.

They kissed in the crowd, and the fireworks around the lawn finally lit up one by one, wrapping the two in this beautiful and unforgettable scene.

After arriving in Bath, they visited many other places along the way, visiting many people and seeing many sights. The last stop of the trip was Longbourn.

Driving the ostentatious carriage given by the Queen all the way from Meryton to Longbourn, it was hard not to be noticed.

Several tenant children who were playing together shouted, "The Duke is back! The Duke of London is back!" and went to inform the owner of the land, and received candy from the Bennett family's butler.

Alice entered the house but didn't see her mother. She looked inquiringly at her father who came out of the study.

Mr. Bennett said, "Your mother is chatting with your aunt and Mrs. Long again." He showed an expression that both of them understood. The father and daughter smiled at each other.

The old gentleman looked at Alice, who always had her own ideas, and the gentleman she had met before and said, "I've heard from your mother and read all those various reports in the newspapers. Is your relationship settled just like that?"

Alice nodded as a matter of course. "Yes, Dad. Even if you don't agree, I've made up my mind."

Mr. Bennett was at his wit's end. He smiled and dropped his fatherly airs. "If you secure the Longbourn estate for your mother and sisters, and I still criticize you for this little bit of rebellion or unsociability, then I will be the most unsociable person in the family, and I might even be kicked out of the house first."

The old gentleman turned and said to the handsome man who was once a faculty member and was now his daughter's lover, "If I had known that the price of thanking you for helping one of my daughters would be another, I would not have easily agreed to let Alice give you a thank-you gift."

Before the man could answer, Alice interrupted and corrected her father: "Dad, it's not what you said. Adrian gave himself to me."

"Well, since you are not marrying off a daughter but marrying a husband, I can only reluctantly regard him as half a son-in-law. If you don't find me another son-in-law who is a fraction of a son-in-law." The old gentleman joked.

The Bennets knew that the old gentleman always spoke in this way, but the speaker did not mean it, but the listener took it to heart.

That night a certain gentleman tried to find out the truth secretly, but was laughed at by Alice.

I stayed with my parents in Longbourn for a week, took Adrian to the grove she often visited, saw the hall where she used to dance, and felt the environment in which she grew up.

During this period, of course, Mrs. Bennett inevitably took him to parties to show off her daughter, the Duke, and her handsome son-in-law from an aristocratic family. At least in her heart, she still regarded Adrian as a legitimate son-in-law, although her daughter insisted on maintaining a less-than-serious relationship with this gentleman.

The two also visited Mr. Jones's drugstore in Meryton. As the first pharmacy to partner with Alice, it served as a model for druggists and garnered considerable attention. Mr. Jones, not only financially independent, but also less burdened by the daily grind of the shop. They didn't meet the doctor-owner this time. He clearly valued the partnership, displaying Alice's medicines prominently in his shop and keeping the rabbit sign clean.

After the tour of the shops, the two returned to London from Longbourn. Mrs. Bennet did not go with them. She thought that there were no twenty-four familiar people in London to whom she could tell her pride, and it would be less fun to show off to strangers. She decided to stay in Meryton for a while.

This time back in London, she was flooded with pharmacy contracts from all over Europe. Fortunately, she had decided to let Jane and Elizabeth take charge of all external cooperation matters, otherwise, she didn't know how much work would have piled up when she returned. Now, she only needed to use the Jade Pestle to prepare large quantities of medicine at once in her specially purchased suburban estate to make up for the various expenses of the previous sales, and she was happy and relaxed.

Unfortunately, he didn't enjoy it for long.

Alice was now the largest landowner in London. With the exception of a few boroughs like Camden, which had been parceled out long ago, she controlled vast tracts of land throughout Greater London. Upon hearing the news of her return, real estate developers flocked to her, offering designs for various buildings on her undeveloped land, hoping their cooperation and designs would be appreciated by the Duke.

Some of them proposed paying the Duke of London rent for a piece of land for decades to develop housing on it, while others proposed to develop a commercial district or an amusement park in the form of a shareholding partnership with Alice.

In exchange for jointly developing other park residences, Alice purchased six detached villas in St. James's Park at a very low price, one for each of the six sisters living in London.

The avenue that was almost named Regent Street was also a commercial street developed through such a cooperative. It has now been renamed Alice Street.

A year after the contract was formally signed, Alice Street was officially completed.

The various buildings along the entire street are built in a grand and fashionable style, while also displaying a contemporary elegance.

Commercial streets naturally include shops and public entertainment venues. In addition to moving Alice's Oriental Pharmacy from Bond Street to a prime location on the street and expanding its space several times over, they also reserved a prime space for Uncle Gardner's family, who were preparing to switch from wholesale to finished goods, selling fine silk clothing. Alice also approached old Lucy about the idea, but she declined, stating that the East End was more convenient for her large-scale herbal medicine business and that she was used to it and didn't want to move.

Alice also built a commercial painting gallery on the street for Adrian to sell or display his paintings.

The remaining residences and shops were marketed by developers, who sold or rented them out. Aristocrats and gentlemen, eager to live next door to the Duke, whose city was their title, flocked to buy homes. Merchants flocked to this bustling commercial street, offering cash to secure a spot. Alice and the developers profited handsomely.

Shortly after Alice Street was built, Jane gave birth to a lovely girl, the next heiress to the Longbourn land.

Elizabeth also took the opportunity to tell everyone that she accepted Mr. Darcy's second proposal.

After attending the wedding of Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy, Alice and Adrian began their second journey.

This time I am going to visit stores and travel to other European countries outside the UK.

In a hotel in a small Italian town, the two heard fellow travelers talking about a pharmacy they were familiar with.

"Have you heard of the Oriental Alice Pharmacy in London, England? The owner is actually a young lady who was made a duke by the King of England." A young man asked.

"Of course, if anyone doesn't know about it nowadays, it's totally out of fashion! That's the magical pharmacy that's leading the new fashion in Europe!" said the middle-aged man across from me, combing his thick hair with his hands. "Look, I went to Florence specifically to buy the ointment from that pharmacy, and I've grown this beautiful hair. It's the epitome of fashion today. No wigs or hats needed."

Along the way, I'd heard similar conversations several times. Alice, still looking smug, raised her eyebrows at Adrian. The man across from me also smiled proudly, for his lover and for the god he followed.

Years later, the two embarked on another European journey. On a ship from England to France, they overheard several passengers on deck arguing about which medicine Oriental Alice Pharmacy had released in recent years was the best. They weren't all British or French, but they all spoke French, the more widely used language of the day.

"It still needs the hair-strengthening and rejuvenation cream." said an elderly gentleman.

"I think it's a refreshing ointment for headaches. Since I started using it, my headaches haven't come back." said a well-dressed lady.

"I voted for the beauty pills. It's said that Miss Alice and her lover, now in their thirties and forties, still look about twenty years old after taking the pills. Even her mother, who was nearly sixty and often appeared on London's major shopping streets at the time, looks only forty." The person who said this was a man who looked to be in his early thirties. He touched his face and smiled, "Can you tell that I'm already forty?"

Alice and Adrian were sitting on the other side enjoying the sea breeze. When they heard this, they looked at each other, and they were still the same as when they first met.

She sold the reduced-strength pills to others, but used the Jade Pestle's full-strength version for her own family. It not only slowed down facial aging, but also slowed down the aging of internal organs. These things were no longer hidden from her family. The clever ones all had vague suspicions, but they kept their suspicions to themselves. The foolish ones happily took them and used them, never questioning them at all.

"You are talking about the expensive medicines from Oriental Alice Pharmacy. I asked people to buy those from the cooperative pharmacy called Tzu Chi Tang medicine. Although they are cheap, the efficacy is not bad. I got sick from the cold wind occasionally, and the cold-relieving pills are really useful." said a businessman.

"If you ask me, the best medicine for that young lady is the Huizhuan Jiuni Pills," said a Zhuangyou woman. "Although Miss Alice sells this medicine as a cheap Tzu Chi Tang medicine, many upper-class families have also sent people to buy it."

This pill, specially developed by Alice several years ago for Jane and Elizabeth, initially attracted little attention from high society, but it was only at the suggestion of several Bennett ladies attending Lydia's salon that they began stockpiling it. This year, however, it suddenly became a hot commodity. Princess Charlotte, daughter of the Prince of Wales and second in line to the British throne, nearly died in childbirth, but only survived thanks to an urgent dose of this pill. Huizhuan Jiuni Pills have become a must-have for families with newborns.

The journey lasted half a year. During the journey, many Europeans no longer called her "Miss" or "Duke", but called her the magical Oriental Alice.

The three sisters' once-lauded ambitions had long since been fulfilled. By the end of the second year after Alice was crowned Duke of London, their cooperative pharmacy had spread across nearly all of Europe. With such a vast customer base across Europe, in just three years, the Bennetts' earnings rivaled the wealth accumulated by the Darcy family over generations. As for how many people benefited from these medicines, her rapidly growing power of merit already revealed them.

Alice, however, was not as anxious to accumulate the power of merit as she had been when she first discovered the method to obtain it. After waiting for so many years, she did not mind spending a few more days on earth.

However, the pharmacy business has expanded to the whole of Europe, and so many people benefit from it every day. The power of merit is still accumulating day by day, increasing rapidly like water dripping through a stone.

This year, she has been trying her best to maintain her balance, and she is almost unable to suppress the growing power in her body. New cracks appear on her skin every day, which she then wipes away with ointment.

Adrian noticed something was wrong and stopped taking the anti-aging drug. After all, he was already nearly a hundred years old, and if he stopped taking the drug, the signs of his age would be irreversible, and his body would rapidly decline.

When Alice came back from the sister party, she went to the studio to find the man who claimed that he wanted to concentrate on painting and not be disturbed. The man leaned on the painting of rabbits and roses that was not on display and smiled at her. On his face was the mask he had used for the masquerade.

Under the mask, the exposed lips are no longer plump, but have become dehydrated roses.

"My dear lady, you will soon become a true god. I have selfishly tried to keep you here for so long, and you have granted me this despicable wish." The man sighed, "I begged for these days, I stole them... I have seen it all. Please don't force me to stay and hurt yourself."

"You always tell me to express what I want directly," he said weakly. "One last request. Can you... kiss me again?"

She really wanted to scold him. She hadn't stayed in the world just for him, but also for her sisters who had been with her for decades since childhood. But now, she really couldn't stay...

Alice endured the severe pain of her body being torn apart, held up the man's face, took off his mask, and let her eyes linger on every part, as if she wanted to remember this first believer, the lover in the world.

The man tried to use his last bit of strength to turn his face away, hoping that his lover would remember him when he was young and beautiful. After all, she was so greedy for pleasure and loved beauty.

Alice still domineeringly turned his face away and would not allow him to go against her.

Just like she had done before when she took off the man's mask, she gently kissed his blue eyes. Light, warm kisses fell on every inch of his face, finally on the withering rose.

She wanted to bite the lips she had kissed a thousand times, to punish her husband for his self-willed behavior, but she didn't dare to open her mouth again. She just kept her mouth pressed against the cool lips. The man looked at her and slowly closed his eyes.

The human body named Alice couldn't help but shed the first and last tear. The tear dripped straight onto the man's face and flowed across his pale and dehydrated lips.

Her demonic body was completely separated from her mortal body. Her face was still the same, her expression was still the same, but she had more of the spirit nurtured by the beautiful mountains and rivers of the East.

"Is this what you really look like?" Adrian murmured in his heart before closing his eyes completely.

The Jade Rabbit was filled with strength, shining like a full moon, and was so full that it flew away into the sky immediately.

She closed her eyes and concentrated, the merit power that had accumulated bit by bit within her body stirred up waves, from which flew countless tears. These were the tears of the human race related to her.

On one side, a helpless little girl died alone in the shack; on the other side, a little girl in the shack fed her mother malaria pills, and cried tears of joy as she saw her mother recover. Then, the two of them lived better and better lives.

On one side, a thin young man working as a dock porter accidentally broke his leg under the pressure of a heavy object. He had no money to go to the hospital and could only endure with bitter tears. His legs and feet were disabled and he finally starved to death one winter. On the other side, a young man healed his leg with ointment, saved some money and started a small business.

…

Tears flew past her eyes. Those who had provided her with the power of merit appeared one by one.

Finally, there was a tear from that gentleman, a tear she had tasted before, salty and with a hint of sweetness.

Under the moonlight, a huge white rabbit flew from west to east.

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The author has something to say: Rabbit is incredibly active, so the main story ends here, along with his journey to the Western world and his path to immortality. The two of them stayed together until the end of human life, their bond deepened, and they each grew and gained something. That's a happy ending for me.

The extra story includes a rabbit story line related to the Eastern Heavenly Palace, as well as a sweet sequel to the Heavenly Palace version, or it can be used as an if line.

Thank you for your support and companionship. I'm so happy that you all like this story and the Jade Rabbit in it. I've also had many first-time connections with readers throughout this process.

We met because of stories, and hope that we can meet again because of stories in the future.