Millennium of Reincarnation --- Chapter One: Lotus Bloom
The child was finally born, but because her mother died during childbirth, she had neither a yang registration nor a yin registration, so she survived in the world as neither fully human nor ghost.\ Because when her mother broke her amniotic fluid back then, she drank a bowl of lotus petal soup that had undergone the Qingqiu Soul-Returning Spell, the child was named Danqing, with the nickname Qinghan.\ She was a child born with imperfections; neither parents nor heaven and earth could give her completeness. Therefore, her mother turned the last drop of undrunk lotus juice into a ring, which had two recessed flaws resembling imperfections. At first glance, it seemed to spell the characters for 'Lotus Bloom.'\ Gradually, Danqing grew up and came to resemble a lotus that had just bloomed at the first hour of the day.\ The reason she could continue to live was because of a lotus ring on her hand, and every day at the first hour (Yin hour), she had to bathe in the lotus pond. If she didn't soak in the lotus pond for three days, Danqing would slowly fade into ashes.
Millennium of Reincarnation --- Chapter Two: Fu Xiang
Because she was born in a turbulent era, people of that time had to either be loyal to the country or collaborate with the enemy; no one could remain uninvolved, including Danqing, who was not entirely human. Moreover, since she was not fully human and her mother had died at her birth, her mother's spiritual power fully transferred to her. Originally, she was a girl without background, destiny, or burdens, a girl who could have lived an ordinary and happy life even amidst chaos, but her fate was thus twisted.\ Danqing had always used her abilities and spiritual power to defend the Song dynasty's land.\ Yet, what is destined to come, can never be avoided.\ One day, while picking lotus pods, Danqing noticed a man falling from the sky into the lotus pond. He could not swim and frantically waved his hands in struggle. She quietly slipped into the water and used a current to return him to the shore. The wound on his back continuously bled, ruining a pond full of pristine lotus flowers. He didn't care, didn't care at all what had saved his life, and didn't mind his blood mixing with the clear lotus pond; once on the shore, it seemed an invisible string pulled him to run. Danqing had never seen anyone so fearless of death; she thought: besides those who had already died, can anyone face the calmness of death like this?\ Danqing silently followed behind the man.It turned out he was charging toward the battlefield by the lotus pond, brave and unarmed, but he drove the Han soldiers into retreat step by step. The situation was supposed to be won by the Han, but they could capture all the Liao soldiers, except him, because he was not afraid of death.
The Han people were loudly discussing: "How could this man be so brave?" "
The nearby Liao soldiers, seeing him return, hurriedly shouted: "How can you come back?" "Then they grabbed him again and threw him, throwing him several feet away, yet he didn't forget to shout: "Go! Go!" But he was like a wild child with bloodshot eyes from fighting, unable to drive him away, and instead tried to run forward. He mumbled loudly, "Kill him!" Because he was from Liao, no matter how much Duan Qing admired his fearlessness, she couldn't help him. He killed another Han man, and before dying, he stabbed his arm. The scene became even more brutal as blood splattered everywhere. Except for when her mother died in childbirth, Dan Qing had never seen so much blood since childhood. She not only remembered the scene vividly, but also remembered the man who had brought red into her life. The Liao man was almost dead, leaving only him and a bearded man desperately protecting him. That man threw him into the lotus pond once again, and this time. Danqing found an excuse for herself. To prevent more Han people from dying at his hands, she secretly summoned a small stone to trip him. He had clearly twisted his ankle, but even if he had to crawl, he would crawl to the place where he would die. She had no choice but to act, pulling him back into the blood-stained lotus pond. With a wave of her hand, the entire lotus flower in the pond covered him. It was hidden there, and no one could find it. She thought he would struggle violently, but surprisingly, he didn't. Perhaps it was this girl who reminded him that he had bled a lot and was close to death. He tightly held Danqing's hand and hid under the lotus for a while. She knew the Han had already gone far away, so she pulled the nearly fainting man ashore. "Do all these flowers obey your command?" He asked a question she didn't know how to answer. She smiled without answering. "Miss, what's your name?" "Danqing."Her voice seemed as if it came from a distant, ethereal fairyland. Of course, using the word 'fairy' to describe Danqing's beauty is by no means an exaggeration, though it sounds a bit clichéd and doesn't quite match Danqing's ethereal nature.\ He didn't let go of her hand; on the contrary, he held it tighter, as if genuinely afraid that a living person might disappear right before his eyes.\ No matter how hard he tried, he still couldn't grasp Danqing; her hand could slip free in midair. He felt like a scoundrel and said awkwardly, "My name is Fuxiang."\ "Will I die?" It was another sudden and rude question.\ Danqing paused for a moment and said, "Probably not. I'll go find some food now."\ She took the large batch of lotus pods she had just gathered, extracted the seeds, and handed them to Fuxiang.\ "Is this edible? Do you always eat this?"\ Danqing shook her head. To her, lotus seeds were the basis of life; she ate only the pods. Were it not for unavoidable circumstances, she would never let Fuxiang eat the seeds.\ "Is it very bad-tasting?"\ "No… it's… good…" He wanted to say "No. It's very good." Because of Danqing's gentle grace, he felt that any word he might say would be clumsy and fail to reflect the purity of the girl before him.\ Danqing smiled faintly. Fuxiang, seeing her show her teeth, stared at her smile in a daze.\ "Your injury has healed. Can you leave now?"\ "The life-saving favor of the young lady, I shall repay with my own life in the future." Even a rough Liao man could have moments of elegance. Had he been dressed in Han clothing, he might even have looked like a graceful, handsome young gentleman!\ Hearing his words, Danqing's heart tightened: he was a Liao soldier, a soldier capable of facing hundreds alone. Saving him didn't mean she was endangering her own country, did it?!\ She walked away quietly, softly chanting: "The lotus, already against human ethics, has drifted until now, severing its roots. Why must it fall from the heavens again? Disturbing the souls of the lotus in the entire pond."\ Seeing her about to leave, Fuxiang knew he couldn't keep her with his own abilities, and anxiously called out, "Lady, can you say your name one more time?"\ "Qinghan." Danqing actually told him her nickname. Since he couldn't remember Danqing, let him remember Qinghan!\ "Qinghan! I truly will repay you with my life!" His voice echoed across the entire lotus pond, finally using the reverberation to locate where Danqing was.What he said, she would definitely take to heart!
Reincarnation for a Thousand Years--Chapter Three: Old Friends, Old Places
Danqing never dared to show herself in the Song army because of her background and identity. Every action had to be as secretive and arduous as her father's had been back then. The difference was her father always had companions, whereas she would never have any.\ No matter what, the Song army was never inferior to neighboring countries. Unfortunately, the rulers were incompetent and foolish. In the first year of Zhenghe, Emperor Huizong of Song sent the eunuch Tong Guan on a mission to the Liao Kingdom. Danqing followed him there. Because her father died there, her mother also met an untimely death as a result, and she herself ended up living like a monster.\ “Someone's outside!” At the border post, the Song soldiers discovered Danqing, who was lost in thought.\ In the blink of an eye, a dozen or so Song soldiers surrounded her.\ “She's a spy from Liao!” The Song soldiers, seeing her remain silent, naturally assumed she was a spy for the Liao Kingdom.\ “Don't let her live! Kill her!” They indiscriminately wanted to kill Danqing. She was stunned: Is this how her father died back then?\ “Let her go.” Fu Xiang unexpectedly appeared here, leading Liao soldiers several times their number to surround them. With that, Fu Xiang safely took Danqing away.\ She entered the Liao camp, which she had longed to infiltrate day and night, so easily. Was this the place where her father, despite being so cautious, could not protect his life? Why did they want to kill her father? Why did she end up an orphan for so many years? Didn't they have any family? Danqing's eyes immediately turned red.\ “Qinghan, don't cry. They can't kill you. Did you accidentally wander in?”\ “My father died like that!”\ Fu Xiang thought she meant her father was killed by Song soldiers and consoled her: “Don't be afraid. I will protect you from now on.”\ If he knew that Danqing had come to spy on military affairs for the Song, it would already be too late to kill her.\ “You wouldn't.”\ “I really would. I said, even if you took my life, I wouldn't make a sound!”\ He made a bunch of solemn promises, like a child pleading to keep a pet. But in the future? When this child grows up, would the promise made back then be completely forgotten?\ “You wouldn't,” Danqing insisted.\ “I would. All my life, I would.”Fuxiang couldn't help but become stubborn. “I swear by my birthday, if I betray this, may I die a terrible death.”\ Fuxiang bent over and wrote: Fuxiang, Bingzi Year, August 12th, Yin hour. “What about your birthday? I want to write it next to mine. This person only protects this person for a lifetime.”\ Danqing took it and wrote: Qinghan, Gengyin Year, May 17th, Yin hour.\ “Qinghan, you must be mistaken, right? If that's the case, you should be either 1 year old or 61 this year…”\ Danqing smiled slightly. “I should be 121 years old.”
Reincarnation for a Millennium -- Chapter Four: Death in That Year
Since the Song kingdom had already sent Tong Guan on a diplomatic mission to the Liao kingdom, it proved that Emperor Huizong of Song had intentions of destroying Liao. Given this premise, the Song kingdom needed a large amount of enemy intelligence. But after years of war, soldiers had died or were exhausted. Patriotic spies often never returned, and those who were not so patriotic were basically useless even if they returned.\ Danqing had no choice but to do what her father had done back then: steal intelligence.\ She had a legitimate reason to stay within the Liao territory.\ Fuxiang always wanted to take care of her. Even though he was always puzzled by Danqing's inexplicable disappearances, it was actually a good thing for him. Because she would appear when he wanted to take care of her, and disappear when she became a burden.\ “Woo…” The bugle sounded; the Song army was attacking.\ “Hmph! The Song dare to attack?!” Fuxiang shouted as he gathered troops.\ Unexpectedly, just as he stepped out of the camp, several cold arrows flew straight at them. The Song kingdom had organized a group of death-seeking soldiers to sneak attack the Liao camp, targeting the food supplies.\ Corruption from the top to bottom of the Song dynasty had greatly reduced military provisions. Under pressure, they had no choice but to rush in and seize the supplies overnight. The Liao forces realized it too late.\ “This is bad, Qinghan!” Fuxiang was truly afraid that Danqing would fall into their hands. In the chaos of war, the army would fixate on their target and wouldn't even glance at other civilians.\ “Qinghan! Qinghan!”\ Fuxiang ignored the danger, searching for Danqing in the midst of flying arrows.\ In fact, on the battlefield, especially when the enemy is stronger, everyone must first learn to hide. Shouting loudly was undoubtedly contrary to this. It meant exposing one's location, putting oneself on the brink of death.But this was the only way with hope to find her before Danqing encountered Song's army, so he had to take the risk.\ On the way back from the lotus pond, Danqing hurried along.\ "Qinghan!" Fuxiang saw her from afar.\ An arrow followed closely behind him, but he couldn't see it. Danqing leapt forward in a single step, and before he could react, she had switched to his original position. And so an arrow came from behind, hitting her right shoulder. Her hand, which had been holding tightly onto him, finally couldn't sustain it and gently slid down along his arm. Fuxiang flusteredly picked her up and ran toward a Liao army post a hundred meters away.\ "Don't… bother… with me."\ "What did you say?" Fuxiang brought his ear closer to Danqing.\ "Put… me… down."\ "We're almost there, hold on, you must hold on!"\ "I really don't… need… to. I should have died long ago."\ Originally, Fuxiang had been calm relying on the few hours he had spent as a military medic, but hearing her words made him panic: "Qinghan, you can't die! You… absolutely cannot pass out! Look at me."\ He felt that the Danqing in his arms had become so light she might float away, as if devoid of the extra weight of life, like a cicada shell after the creature has left.\ They reached the post.\ Danqing grabbed Fuxiang's hand and said seriously, "I'm not lying… I should have died long ago."\ "How can I help you?" Fuxiang thought Danqing had lost her mind and ignored her words. He examined the depth of the arrow penetrating her back. "I think the only way is to pull it out. If it hurts, just shout! If we don't, you'll die."\ Danqing used her strength to resist his hand: "I really should have died long ago, even saving me… is meaningless."\ "It certainly matters. To me. Endure it, just hold on and it will be over." Fuxiang used the military medic technique to swiftly tear open the clothing on Danqing's back. He gripped the arrow shaft, pulled hard, and the arrowhead came out, and she fainted.\ Before losing consciousness, she said one more thing: "I already died long ago. Died in the first year of Chunhua…"\ These words slid down with her tears, landing in his palm.
〈To be continued〉
