Against the Gods

“Two years after my father brought my mother back, they got married in Floating Cloud City. Even though my father never knew my mother’s true history, he had never felt any complications or reservations towards her because of this.”

“In the third year they were together, they had me. In the fourth year, they had Yuanba. In the seventh year… my mother suddenly recovered both her profound strength and her memories over the course of one night.”

“After that, she left, leaving behind my father, leaving behind Yuanba and I as well. She had left with a heartless determination, completely severing the destined bond of marriage between herself and my father. She also did not take anything with her. She instead wanted my father, wanted us to forget about her forever, and to never ever go looking for her…”

Even when she said these words now, Yun Che could still sense Xia Qingyue’s deep sorrow. He gave a soft sigh before speaking, “Qingyue, she was not being callous or heartless when she did those things. It was because she had no choice but to leave. Otherwise, the moment her aura was discovered, it would only bring down a huge calamity on all of your heads.”

The woman who was his one true love, the woman whom he had grandly announced to the entire universe was going to be his future god empress, had become someone else’s wife and had even given birth to two children with that man due to her amnesia… There was no man who could maintain his composure when faced with such a result. The more he loved Yue Wugou, the more crazed he would become—to say nothing of the fact that he was the Moon God Emperor as well.

Being found by him would almost certainly result in him killing Xia Hongyi, and even Xia Qingyue and Xia Yuanba as well.

Thus, she had no choice but to leave and she would never be able to return either.

“I know,” Xia Qingyue said in a melancholic voice. “But other than that, there were also her feelings towards my foster father… and her guilt.”

Yun Che, “...”

“My mother told me that the seven years that she spent together with my father was a period that she felt very safe and happy. My father loved her and she truly did love my father as well. Those years, she had never once thought of getting those lost memories back, in fact she was even afraid… Afraid that her reawakened memories would shatter her current peace and happiness. But… the moment she recovered all of her memories, everything was turned upside down.”

“...” Yun Che was only quietly listening but even he felt a heavy stifling sensation settle on him.

The Moon God Emperor had loved Yue Wugou. He had not taken any more concubines because of her, he had built the God Empress Palace for her, he had given her the name “Yue Wugou”, had planned to make her his Moon God Empress, had grandly announced her to the entire universe, had completely fractured any and all relationships he had with the Star God Realm over her…

Xia Hongyi had also deeply loved Yue Wugou. The seven years that Yue Wugou had lost her strength and memories were seven years where she was at her weakest and most powerless. During that period of time, it was Xia Hongyi who was by her side through it all, and she had even married Xia Hongyi and had two children with him…

Yue Wugou was undoubtedly a fortunate soul to have met two men who loved her with all of their souls in her life… But the moment the fog over her memories had been lifted, this all turned into heart-rending cruelty.

She had to make a choice.

Choosing Xia Hongyi would cause her to wrong Yue Wuya now and forever, and it would also bring down an enormous calamity on the heads of Xia Hongyi and her two children.

Choosing to leave Xia Hongyi would mean that she would never be able to see her husband and children ever again…

It was indeed a most cruel decision.

Furthermore, she knew she no longer had the qualifications to choose Yue Wuya ever again, the only things she was left with in regards to him were her guilt and her shame.

“After she had chosen to leave us all those years ago, my mother actually did not return to the God Realm. Rather, she… was looking for a quiet and secluded place, a place to die. Because, she felt that her own existence would only bring calamity to my family. And in regards to foster father… She felt too ashamed to ever meet him again.”

Yun Che, “...”

She had clearly done nothing wrong, yet she had somehow become the biggest sinner… Yun Che let out a deep sigh of sadness in his heart.

“But, in the end, she gave up on ending her own life and returned to the Moon God Realm. Because she wanted to see my foster father one last time, or perhaps she felt that… it was best if she could die by my foster father’s own hands.”

“But even if she did not kill herself and foster father did not kill her, in actuality, she did not have much time left.”

Yun Che was mildly shocked at those words, “You’re saying that your mother, she’s…”

Xia Qingyue sofly closed her eyes in order to not let Yun Che see the deep pain in them, “Ever since she was severely wounded all those years ago and lost all her profound strength, her vitality was actually being whittled away every year. Those seven years during which she gave birth to Yuanba and I also caused to lose nearly all of the Stainless divine aura she had left in her body. In fact, when she had finally regained her profound strength and memories all of the sudden, it was actually akin to… the final brilliant flourish of a dying sun.”

“...” Yun Che was struck completely dumb by those words, he could find no words to say in response to that.

Xia Qingyue’s mother had always had a weak constitution and this was something that the entire Floating Cloud City probably knew about. All those years ago, Xia Hongyi had mentioned this and he had also mentioned that her body was extremely weak, and when her condition was serious, even walking would be difficult for her. She had even had a difficult birth when she was giving birth to Xia Qingyue and when Xia Qingyue was born, her entire body was icy cold and her aura was extremely weak. If not for Xiao Ying using all his strength to save her, perhaps she would have lost her life during that birth.

Moreover, it was also for this reason that Xia Qingyue had been betrothed to “Xiao Che” from the moment she was born.

Coupled with that last event, the reason that Xia Hongyi gave to the public regarding the departure of Yue Wugou was that she had passed away from a weak constitution and a serious illness… This was something that nobody ever had any cause to doubt.

“My mother had originally quietly returned to the Moon God Realm, but for some odd reason, she ended up being discovered by other people. This added fuel to the fire and caused my foster father’s reputation to suffer great damage. My mother had originally thought that Foster Father would hate and resent her, or perhaps kill her himself, but…”

She softly drew in a breath before continuing, “He told my mother, ‘stainless and boundless’ was a vow he had made that would last a lifetime, and it was not because she had possessed the Stainless Divine Body nor was it because she had become ‘impure’. To him, for her to be able to return again was the greatest blessing that the heavens had bestowed upon him.”

Yun Che, “...”

“Those weren’t just hollow and empty words.” Xia Qingyue continued in a soft voice, “After my mother returned to the Moon God Realm, everyone, including the people of the Moon God Realm itself, had expected her to be locked away in some lightless place suffering under foster father’s wrath, or maybe she would even be tortured to death… But in truth, over the past few years, she had her own little world and many maidservants who were there specifically to take care of her and meet her every need. Furthermore, foster father went to meet her and accompany her almost every day, and every so often, he would use his own power to extend her life. He also did not hesitate to use the best medicinal pellets in the Moon God Realm on my mother’s body.”

“If not for all of this, my mother would have departed this world long ago, and I also would definitely not have been able to see her again.”

Yun Che was deeply shaken by those words.

It was also at this moment that his impression of the Moon God Emperor completely changed.

The “Yue Wugou” affair that had happened all those years ago had caused the Moon God Emperor to suffer such great humiliation that even Yun Che, who had not been in the Eastern Divine Region for very long, had known about it. In fact, this scandal could even have been termed as the greatest scandal in the history of the Moon God Realm.

No matter how enduring a man was, no one could easily bear such a humiliation, much less the emperor of a king realm. For him to vent all of his anger and resentment on Yue Wugou was something that was actually completely reasonable and natural in the eyes of the world… Even if these people clearly knew that it was not Yue Wugou’s fault.

Yet, the Moon God Emperor… had treated the returned Yue Wugou just as he had in the beginning.

Yun Che searched his own heart and he asked himself if he could do as the Moon God Emperor did if he was in his shoes…

“After my mother left, my father felt sick many times during the next year and he would often quietly weep. He would also sit down for an entire day while staring at my mother’s portrait… So, I swore when I was a young girl, that I would track down my mother one day so as to prevent my father’s tears from flooding his face, and so that my family could finally be reunited again…. And the reason I poured my heart into the profound way was so that I could achieve this very goal.”

“Finally, I found my mother in the Moon God Realm, but I also had no choice but to face foster father as well. I once blamed, detested, resented and even hated him. It was all because of him that my father and mother had no choice but to part, it was because of him that my family would never be reunited again… But after that, I slowly heard everything from my mother, and I personally witnessed the unstinting care he showed my mother, so I couldn’t continue hating him any longer.”

“It was to the point that acknowledging him as ‘foster father’ was something that I did wholeheartedly.”

The Moon God Emperor had saved her life, saved Yu Wugou’s life, and had used his own dignity to allow Yue Wugou to truly live a ‘stainless’ life. So how could she hate him and what could she even hate in the first place?

“The Moon God Emperor… Eh, I mean your foster father, does he know about the Profound Sky Continent and Uncle Xia?” Yun Che probed.

“He does not know,” Xia Qingyue said. “My mother was not willing to talk about it, so after foster father asked one time, he did not ask again.”

They would never ever let the Moon God Emperor know about Xia Hongyi and when she returned to the Profound Sky Continent in the future, she would nevermention the Moon God Emperor to her father either… Perhaps, letting Xia Hongyi forever live with his yearning for Yue Wugou would truly be the least cruel conclusion.

“Then your mother… is she still well?” Yun Che asked again.

“...” Xia Qingyue gave a small shake of her head but she did not reply.

Yun Che felt a faint pain stab into his heart. When she had suddenly regained her profound powers and memories all those years ago, it was already the last flashing brilliance of a dying sun. It had been an entire twenty years since that had happened… If not for the incomparably vast resources of the Moon God Realm and the Moon God Emperor’s unstinting generosity towards her, if it was in any other place, it was likely that Yue Wugou would not have been able to persist up to this point.

But it seems like Yue Wugou’s lifeforce had just about completely withered away, and even the Moon God Emperor himself was powerless to reverse the situation.

Yue Wuya, the realm king of the Moon God Realm, one of the four god emperors of the Eastern Divine Region, a man who stood at the pinnacle of the Primal Chaos Realm. To think that he would actually have loved a woman with such obsessiveness, through such sorrow… and even to such a humbling extent.

In the end, a god emperor was still a man who shed blood, sweat and tears.

“Then, this wedding celebration, could it be that it… was the fulfill the final long-cherished wish of your mother?”

“...The one who would have completed the wedding ceremony in the end would not have been me, it would have been my mother…” Yun Che now finally comprehended the words that Xia Qingyue had said.

She had given Xia Hongyi seven years and a son and a daughter, but she wanted to give the last bit of her life to Yue Wuya…

So he did not expect Xia Qingyue to shake her head instead.

“Do you know why foster father would intentionally allow me to show my face right before the wedding ceremony?” Xia Qingyue asked.

Those words left Yun Che slightly flummoxed.

No matter whether it was the God Realm or the lower realm, no matter what kind of wedding ceremony it was, the bride would always cover her face, whether it was using a great red veil or a curtain of jade pearls. Furthermore, it was only when they finally entered their bridal chambers that the bridegroom would take this covering off.

At least, for the three wedding ceremonies he had been a part of, besides the time when the Little Demon Empress had married him into her household, the other two times were like that.

(Caizhi: ???)

But Xia Qingyue had shown her face to the crowd before the wedding ceremony had even begun.

At that time, the Moon God Emperor had been agitated by the Star God Emperor’s words so he had gotten Xia Qingyue to come out and show herself to all who were present… Now that he thought about it, it seemed as if… it was done so deliberately.

“It was deliberate?” Yun Che asked.

“Yes. It was in order to allow everyone present to remember my aura, especially my aura of Glazed Glass. Furthermore, that should have been the one and only time I showed my face. After the wedding ceremony began, I would have used the ‘Moon Star Substitution’ art to temporarily project my aura to my mother’s body and allow it to cover her. After that, my mother and my foster father would complete the wedding ceremony.”

When the Moon God Emperor had personally gone to the Vanishing Moon Celestial Palace to remind Xia Qingyue to complete her “preparations”, it was to tell her to prepare to use ‘‘Moon Star Substitution”.

Yun Che’s heart was beyond moved by these words. Even if the Moon God Emperor himself was more than willing, he was unable to publicly marry Yue Wugou again… because he was still the realm king of the Moon God Realm.

He could only helplessly use this underhanded trick to finally fulfill Yue Wugou’s last wish… and perhaps, this was also his greatest wish as well.

At the same time, because Xia Qingyue had the “Heart of Glazed Glass”, she could cleanse away the humiliation the Moon God Emperor had felt all those years ago and he could also grandly announce to the universe that the Moon God Realm would receive the protection of the very heavens themselves from this day forth.

The humiliation the Moon God Emperor had suffered all those years ago was due to Yue Wugou, and as Yue Wugou’s daughter, Xia Qingyue was undoubtedly entirely willing to help out.

But if this was the case, then why did she shake her head just now? And why did she say just now that this wedding ceremony was not just for the rest of the world to see but it was even more intended for the Moon God Realm itself?

“At the same time, I could also cleanse away the humiliation foster father had suffered all those years ago because of my ‘Heart of Glazed Glass’, while allowing my mother to find release from the greatest burden in her heart.” Xia Qingyue soft words mirrored Yun Che’s thoughts, but what she said next caused him to become extremely shocked, “But all of this was not what the wedding ceremony was entirely about.”

“The other important goal was to allow me to… to rightfully and properly… succeed the the Moon God Emperor.”