Qinglian’S Heart Is Covered, Fate Meets Chapter 2

The ranks of Immortals erupted in shock. An Immortal Official stepped forward and bowed, asking, “Great Power, if all our Immortal colleagues descend to the mortal realm to undergo tribulation, and only a few return, leaving the Immortal Realm without governance, wouldn’t that disrupt the order of Heaven and Earth?”

A figure stepped slowly out from the seats below, his robes fluttering. It was the Star Lord of Fate. He stroked his beard and chuckled softly. “No matter. They can descend in batches. This tribulation is both a test and an opportunity. There will always be Immortals who can overcome the calamity and return.”

The Great Power nodded in agreement, his gaze sweeping over the Immortals in the hall, finally resting in the direction of the Jade Pond. Lianhua was still in a daze when a decree summoned her to the front of the hall. She looked at the Great Power’s majestic face, feeling an invisible force envelop her. In the next moment, her immortal essence was completely sealed, and her memories receded like a tide. Even her own name and origin vanished from her consciousness.

When she opened her eyes again, Lianhua was lying beside a bluestone path in a water town in Jiangnan. The fine rain dampened her plain clothes and blurred her vision. She rose in confusion, looking at the unfamiliar white walls, dark tiles, and covered boats around her. She felt an emptiness in her chest, as if she had lost something extremely important.

She didn’t know who she was, where she came from, or where she was going. She simply assumed she was a homeless orphan girl. To survive, she worked as an embroiderer for wealthy families and helped mend clothes at the docks. As seasons passed, she experienced the warmth, coldness, and hardships of the mortal world.

It was during the continuous plum rain season in Jiangnan. She had put away her needlework and was about to return to her lodging when she bumped into a young man in white at the alley entrance. The young man held an oil-paper umbrella, standing in the misty rain. His eyes were gentle but carried a hint of deep melancholy. Seeing that Lianhua was soaked, he offered her his umbrella, his voice clear as a spring. “Miss, please take shelter from the rain.”

Lianhua was stunned. She took the umbrella, and when her fingertips touched the young man’s slightly cool skin, her heart inexplicably trembled. From then on, the two often met. The young man was named Moyuan, a down-on-his-luck scholar. He taught her to read, and she mended his old clothes. The old locust tree at the alley entrance sprouted new buds and then shed yellow leaves, and affection quietly blossomed in their hearts.

Under the moonlight, they promised to grow old together, agreeing that once Moyuan passed the imperial examination, he would marry her with a grand procession. But the chess game of fate is never decided by mortals.

The year Moyuan traveled to the capital for the exams, Lianhua contracted a serious illness. She was confined to bed, and no medicine could help. She lay in her dilapidated little room, listening to the wind and rain outside the window, feeling her consciousness slowly dissipate. In her final moments, she thought she heard someone whispering in her ear, saying she was originally an Immortal Lotus from the Jade Pond, sent down to undergo tribulation. But no matter how hard she tried to think, she couldn’t recall anything, only Moyuan’s image grew clearer in her mind.

She thought this was the suffering of life and death, but she didn’t know it was only the beginning of the calamity.

When she opened her eyes again, she was back in the rainy alley where she first met Moyuan. The rain was the same, the oil-paper umbrella was still there, but her illness was gone, and Moyuan was still in Jiangnan. She thought it was a dream, but the lingering bitter taste of medicine on her palm made it feel incredibly real.

This time, she cherished her time with Moyuan even more, but fate still repeated the past trajectory. Moyuan went to the exams, she fell ill, and finally closed her eyes in regret.

Again and again, she was trapped in this bitter sea of reincarnation, experiencing the pain of separation and death, and witnessing all the joys and sorrows of the mortal world. She began to doubt her own existence but always held onto her deep attachment to Moyuan.

After countless cycles of reincarnation, in this lifetime, she finally survived until Moyuan passed the imperial examination. Red silks wrapped around the streets, gongs and drums roared, but when the wedding procession arrived at her door, the groom was nowhere to be seen. She waited for a long time, only to receive the devastating news that Moyuan had fallen from his horse and died.