“Check how many gifts Tian Qi’s palace has received this year and report back.”
Soon, the guard returned.
“Yesterday, at the hour of the Tiger (3-5 a.m.), three carts of wine barrels were delivered to Tian Qi’s back gate. The gatekeeper said they were all of excellent quality.”
The guard reported anxiously, not daring to raise his head. Silence fell over the hall, broken only by a faint sigh.
For the sake of the one he truly loved, he’d once again ended up as a mere diversion.
For reasons unknown, in the 137,800th year of Shang Gu, on the eve of Bai Jue’s birthday, the True God Bai Jue departed for the mortal realm, and for several years, he did not return. No one knew where he had gone.
Shang Gu’s great ambition of marriage was never fulfilled, and she spent her days in Yue Mi’s palace, lamenting and sighing.
Yue Mi seemed particularly unimpressed with her recently, rolling her eyes at every complaint.
“Oh, this is too difficult! Why is chasing a husband so hard? Trying to understand a man’s heart is like finding a needle in the sea! Ugh, ugh, ugh—where in the world did he go?”
Every day, Shang Gu would ask the same question. Leaning against the corridor, Yue Mi gazed northwest, muttering to herself.
“If I’d known your way was this unreliable, I wouldn’t have bothered learning anything about silent dedication! I ground three carts of fine wine for him, and it didn’t make a ripple! I put in all my effort, roamed the Three Realms, and still, he didn’t even come back for his birthday…”
Her gaze was fixed on Tian Qi’s palace.
Shang Gu, lost in thoughts of the distant Bai Jue, didn’t hear Yue Mi’s muttering and continued to wait for his return, hoping to finally confess her feelings and bring her beloved home.
The two of them waited in the Star-Plucking Pavilion for several years, yet Bai Jue and Tian Qi never returned.
Perhaps it was destiny. That year, before Tian Qi’s birthday, he secluded himself in the Hall of the Universe, having foreseen the impending Chaos Calamity. He left for the mortal realm and never returned.
Instead of Bai Jue, Shang Gu received news of Tian Qi setting up a world-ending array in the mortal realm, threatening to destroy the Three Realms.
The True Gods Zhi Yang and Tian Qi rushed back to discuss a plan.
From that day on, the Goddess Yue Mi never wore her once-carefree smile, nor did she roam around looting treasures as she had before.
The day before Shang Gu resolved to sacrifice herself to save the Three Realms, she drank with Yue Mi in the Star-Plucking Pavilion.
Yue Mi asked her, “Bai Jue has returned. Why haven’t you told him?”
Shang Gu was silent for a long time before finally replying, “I am the ruler of a realm, a True God of the Three Realms. There are things I must do. If it all has to be lost, it’s better that he never knows.”
Suddenly, she turned to look at Yue Mi beside her.
“There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you for years.”
“What is it?”
“You don’t like wine, so why did you ask me for Wuhua Wine that year?”
Yue Mi froze, then fell into a long silence before finally smiling. “I never thought the blockhead would figure it out one day. There’s no need to guess—it’s exactly as you think.”
It was common knowledge across the realms that the True God Tian Qi loved wine.
Yue Mi turned to leave, her ethereal voice drifting down the long steps.
“Just like you, I never found the right opportunity, and over all these years, I missed my chance. Shang Gu, no matter what happens, protect him for me.”
Shang Gu didn’t fully understand the meaning of Yue Mi’s words, but if she had, there would have been no regret that haunted her for tens of thousands of years afterward.
In the end, she didn’t succeed in her sacrifice. The next day, Yue Mi led the other gods down to the mortal realm, where they perished in Tian Qi’s world-ending formation. The only survivor to return to Shang Gu’s realm was a small, inconspicuous phoenix—back then, she was not yet the Heavenly Empress Wu Huan, but merely one of Shang Gu’s divine beasts.
The news arrived on a bright, sunny day. Shang Gu held the jar of Wuhua Wine that Bai Jue had taken from her long ago, gazing toward the Goddess of Stars and Moon’s palace. She drank alone until she was thoroughly drunk, and no one dared to interrupt.
Afterward, the story truly began.
The True God Shang Gu sacrificed herself, sealing her realm in dust. The True God Bai Jue lived on alone, beginning a long vigil that would last more than sixty thousand years.
Sixty thousand years later, when everything had finally settled, Tian Qi retrieved Shang Gu’s three hundred years of sealed memories from a statue in the Cang Qiong (Sky) Realm. Even then, he never understood why a single tear was embedded within the statue of the goddess who had perished sixty thousand years ago.
He had always thought it was a tear left for Shang Gu by Yue Mi.
There were many things he never knew—he hadn’t known them sixty thousand years ago, and he still didn’t know them sixty thousand years later.
Shang Gu’s words had been very true.
“If everything must be lost, it’s better to never have it at all.”
It wasn’t just Shang Gu and Bai Jue’s choice; it was also Yue Mi’s final choice and her way of letting go.
Yet, ultimately, there was too much regret.
Shang Gu had finally waited for those words: “I am Bai Jue.”
But what about Yue Mi?
The three cartloads of wine barrels she had carefully collected over ten years remained sealed and untouched in the wine pavilion of Tian Qi’s palace, left in dust for sixty thousand years, and no one had ever come to open them.
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