Chapter 41: Old Dream (IV) She vaguely felt Jiang Lang at that time...
Her consciousness returned with each word, and she was still in the dilapidated courtyard in the wind and snow. Lian Qiang breathed a sigh of relief and realized that there was still a smile on the corner of her lips.
That was truly a period of time that could not be compared with any treasure. It was so precious that even now, even Qiang only needs to recall it to feel as if all the suffering in the world can be swallowed.
She looked at Chu Shan opposite her. Chu Shan's face also had a look of wanting more, and it was obvious that he was also immersed in it and couldn't extricate himself.
"It was a delicious dream, thank you." Noticing her gaze, Chu Shan nodded seriously in affirmation, expressed his gratitude to Lian Qiang, and reached out to push the object that suddenly appeared on the table.
"This is..." Lian Qiang hesitated. The object in front of her was completely transparent and shining, just like the shape of silk.
"This is the dream silk woven from your dreams. Now, it belongs to you. As long as you light it, you will see the lover of your youth."
Chu Shan consciously regarded Chi Xingji as her lover. Lian Qiang smiled silently but did not refute this: "But I... I don't want to use it anymore."
"Why?" Chu Shan didn't understand her sudden change.
"Because I don't want to forget. After having this dream, I realized that he had actually been very kind to me in the past. We were once very close friends," Lian Qiang said slowly. "You're right. Without the bad, people can't discover the good. Happiness and sadness are interdependent."
She solemnly held Chu Shan's hand again and said, "Besides, if you can handle so many emotions, then I should be able to do it too."
"...You just suddenly couldn't bear to forget, right?"
Lian Qiang smiled embarrassedly but did not deny it.
"It already belongs to you, so it's naturally up to you to deal with it. Whatever you want to do has nothing to do with me." Chu Shan said calmly, and suddenly felt his hands being clenched tighter.
"You said before that after you're happy, you'll be sad for a long time," Lian Qiang stared at her with sparkling eyes. "You've eaten up my sweet dream, so it's only right that I help you share some of the pain."
Chu Shan was stunned for a moment, then said, "Should I say you are open-minded or naive?"
Lian Qiang was happy: "Both words sound good, I like them both."
"Since you said so," Chu Shan held her hand, "then let me let you taste the flavors of life."
As she finished speaking, all kinds of life flashed before Lian Qiang's eyes.
In these memories, she saw all kinds of people, including Chu Shan, sometimes a little boy, sometimes an old man in his eighties. "He" traveled along the way, met and said goodbye along the way, and grew into a completely different person along the way.
Lian Qiang stared intently, a whirlwind of emotions swirling around her. Suddenly, she caught sight of a scrap of red clothing embroidered with a familiar floral pattern. She opened her mouth to call out, but the figure vanished in an instant, as if she had been blinded by the sight.
... Was she really seeing things? Lian Qiang suspected that while she was concentrating, thousands of years passed by in the blink of an eye. In the blink of an eye, she saw herself walking in the snow, heading towards "herself".
This is the present moment, and it is also the end of memory.
Lian Qiang slowly opened her eyes. She had experienced so much in her life, but it was only a brief moment. But for Chu Shan, it felt like thousands of years.
Chu Shan raised the corners of his lips slightly and asked, "How do you feel?"
"...I have so many mixed feelings, it's hard to describe them in words," Lian Qiang stroked her chest, as if she was still feeling a lingering fear. "I probably don't have the ability to dream like a silkworm."
The girl's lips curved even more: "That's a nice thing to say."
"I wanted to ask you something. You once said that a demon cultivator visited us a hundred years ago. Was that demon cultivator dressed in red?"
Seeing that she asked so many questions, Chu Shan pondered carefully. "I seem to have some impression of him. It must be true. There seemed to be a branch of red plum blossoms embroidered on the corner of his clothes. At that time, I only thought that the white snow and red plum blossoms were beautiful, but my impression of him was dull. How come you recognize him?"
"Not necessarily. Perhaps it's an old acquaintance." Lian Qiang's words were vague, and she brushed it off. Chu Shan knew she didn't want to say more, so he didn't ask any further questions.
At dawn, the snow had cleared, and Lian Qiang had no reason to stay any longer, so she simply stood up and said, "The sky is clear now, and it's time for me to go."
Chu Shan stood up to see her off. In the short time she had spent there, her face had changed again. Fine lines had crept up around her eyes, and a few strands of gray hair had grown faintly at her temples. Lian Qiang could see that her back had become considerably more hunched.
"You..." The concerned words were swallowed up before they came out. Lian Qiang stopped talking and looked at Chu Shan's determined expression, but in the end, she said nothing.
Today was a rare sunny day. Under the sunlight, the snow melted slightly. Although the chill still persisted, Lian Qiang was still happy.
She turned to Chu Shan and said, "After this farewell, I don't know when we will meet again. I hope we will meet again someday."
Chu Shan simply shook his hand, signaling her to stop being so sentimental. Lian Qiang smiled knowingly and then headed straight down the mountain.
On the way, she couldn't help but glance back, but Chu Shan was already too far away to see him anymore. Lian Qiang realized that since she and Chi Xingji met, they had always been saying goodbye. Either he was seeing someone off, or she was leaving first.
——Probably not anymore. Lian Qiang hugged Meng Cansi tightly in her arms and without much thought decided to go back to the Demon Realm to meet Jiang Lang.
Although he has lived there for a long time, Lian Qiang is still not used to the turbid atmosphere of the demon world, but he can gradually discover the beautiful scenery in the demon world.
The Demon Realm was devoid of greenery, and was filled with thorns. But bright red or pure white flowers often bloomed from these thorns. Jiang Lang had once frightened her, saying that red flowers were watered by blood. This had left Lian Qiang feeling uneasy for a long time, and from then on, even if it meant taking a long detour, she would always avoid red flowers.
One day, she went out with Jiang Lang. Seeing her like this, Jiang Lang teased her with great interest that she actually believed his lies.
Lian Qiang really couldn't control herself and rolled her eyes at him. She immediately regretted it, thinking that the Demon Lord was no match for Lian Bai. If he continued to joke with her like a brother, how could he allow her to act so rashly?
Unexpectedly, Jiang Lang did not get angry but laughed instead. He even pierced his fingertip with a thorn and personally put a drop of blood on the corner of Lian Qiang's eye.
“It’s quite similar.”
After looking at it for a long time, he only said these three words.
His fingertips were so cold that they made Lian Qiang's face feel cold as well, and then slowly spread to her whole body.
But Lian Qiang didn't say anything. Under Jiang Lang's gaze, she carefully wiped away the blood bit by bit with her sleeve, restoring her original appearance.
While she was wiping, Jiang Lang stood by with his arms folded, watching. When she was done, he chuckled and said, "I was kidding."
But this time, Lian Qiang didn't believe it. She vaguely understood why Jiang Lang had been so nosy in saving her, but then she felt that they were both truly pathetic.
She once had the illusion that she could find some shadows of her closest relatives in Jiang Lang, but Jiang Lang, as the Demon Lord, wanted to see someone through her, which was only deceiving himself. It was both ridiculous and pathetic.
In the end, you will never be able to achieve liberation and perfection.
But since that day, Lian Qiang inexplicably felt that Jiang Lang had lowered his guard against her a lot. She could freely enter and exit many places in the Demon Palace. He no longer stared at her in a daze for a long time. He would continue to assign her tasks, but it didn't matter whether she completed them or not.
Over time, everyone knew that the Demon Lord had a nymphomaniac. Rumors also circulated that she was Jiang Lang's beloved concubine, someone not to be messed with lightly. Jiang Lang didn't care about this, and Lian Qiang simply smiled it off.
It took her a long time to realize that what Jiang Lang did that day might have been an invisible test, and she passed it?
Her thoughts were pulled back, and Lian Qiang recalled the figure she saw in Chu Shan's memory. She always felt that it was very similar to Jiang Lang.
Considering the time span a hundred years ago... maybe it really was him. Therefore, I had to go back to the Demon Realm.
She walked and stopped along the way, and it was half a month later when she returned to the demon world.
The Demon Palace was a familiar place to her, like home. The guards had already recognized her, so Lian Qiang had no problem walking straight to the main hall.
Fortunately, Jiang Lang was there. Lian Qiang stepped forward and bowed, then, without paying any attention to what he said, sat down on the stone steps below the throne, a few steps away from Jiang Lang.
The sky in the demonic realm was always gloomy, like the mortal world where dusk is approaching but night has yet to arrive. Even the candles in the hall were dim, as if a strong gust of wind could blow them out. Lian Qiang, minding her own business, lit the candles a little brighter. Dazzled by the sudden brightness, Jiang Lang simply looked at her with a half-smile, not attempting to stop her.
Regardless of whether Jiang Lang wanted to listen or not, Lian Qiang told him everything she had seen along the way, deliberately omitting the part about Chi Xingji, and only saying that there was a powerful person who had a destiny with her all the way.
The Demon Lord simply shook the wine glass, causing the liquid to slosh alarmingly in the transparent container, threatening to spill at any moment. Yet, he remained unconcerned. "Such a kindhearted being? He couldn't even see you were a demon and kill you?"
"Well," Lian Qiang said without changing his expression or heartbeat, "Maybe they think I'm too weak and pitiful."
Jiang Lang sneered, "Why are you pitying me? I provide you with good food and drink, yet you don't even have the slightest sense of being a subordinate. You even need me to constantly help you cultivate to suppress your demonic energy. So, tell me, what kind of demon in the world is as comfortable as you?"
"That must be because they saw I was too weak, unable to carry it on their shoulders or lift it in their hands." Lian Qiang patted her chest and continued to lie without thinking. Jiang Lang was too lazy to talk to her anymore: "You have an aura of immortality on you—it stinks."
Lian Qiang was deflated, but she still tried to smell the scent on her body, but she couldn't smell anything.
"Let me guess, could it be that you ran into that unfaithful ex-husband?" Jiang Lang asked lazily. Even though Lian Qiang didn't mention much about her past, he could guess about it just by thinking about the day he rescued her.
He didn't care whether it would hurt Lian Qiang's heart, since they had always been like this.
"Stop talking about that—don't talk about that. Do you know who I ran into?" Lian Qiang deliberately changed the subject and handed over the Dream Silk that she had treasured for so long. Its presence made the hall even more brilliant.
"Dream silk." Jiang Lang glanced at it and quickly looked away. He spoke of such a treasure in such a nonchalant tone.
Lian Qiang asked back, "You actually know it?"
She was still thinking about how to ask next, when Jiang Lang spoke again lightly: "Do you think I am you? I am just a dream silkworm, so I will recognize you naturally."
Jiang Lang lowered his eyes and rubbed his forehead, as if he was extremely tired, or as if he recalled some bad memories: "When I was young and ignorant, I also went to ask for help like you."
Her eyebrows twitched, and Lian Qiang subconsciously asked, "What happened next?"
What answered him was the fallen wine glass and the object in Jiang Lang's hand that was exactly the same as the one in her arms.
Lian Qiang held her breath slightly.
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The author has something to say: The update time has been delayed for the past two days. I'm sorry, but there won't be any updates after that, because after that - there may be no updates hahahahaha! (No, I'm just kidding. I will still work hard to catch up on the updates.)
The content of the previous chapter has been partially changed, you can go and take a look, but it is not a big deal.
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