Guarding the Lamp

[“Demon Lord of Changming Abyss” Su Huaiye/Xie Jiu'an & “Lantern Keeper of Jiuxiao Sect” Bai Jin, Changming Romance, Zhao Yu, Ten Lifetimes of Reincarnation]

“Master, this year’s plum blossom candy isn’t bitter anymore…”

Young Su Huaiye knelt in the snow, secretly concealing the wound left by the knife that had carved out his heart. Then he reverently offered Changming a sugar ball steeped in dragon’s blood. Through the long cycle of reincarnation spanning thirty thousand years, he willingly carved out his heart to make lamp oil and shattered his soul to become the wick, simmering the most vicious tribulations of the Three Realms into frosting so sweet it turned bitter.

By then, the Immortal Realm had rotted beyond repair. The fallen immortal Changming resolutely shattered her destined fate. Yet to her astonishment, Xie Jiu'an, a blind qin player and reincarnation of her husband’s divine consciousness, was coughing up blood as he smiled and asked her, “Miss, would you give me three drops of blood from your heart in exchange for a song, ‘Ode to Guarding the Lamp’?” Hidden inside the candy dolls was a soul-devouring curse; on the torn fragments of the marriage contract lay vows forged in heart-wrenching pain. And Han Que’s voice, dripping with cold laughter, seemed to pierce through time and space: “Every tear from Senior Sister is feeding his heart-devouring parasite!”

When the light of the glazed lamp illuminated the deepest reaches of Guixu, Changming’s white hair gently wound around Su Huaiye’s broken horn. Only then did she understand: this heart-carving pain that had endured for thirty thousand years was someone’s boundless love carved into protective scales, turning the most devastating separation into the longest love letter the world had ever known.

“Zhao Yu, this time, let me be the one to tend your lamp.”

At its sweetest, love can cut like a blade; at the end of suffering, a spark of hope can finally be seen. Even amid the ashes of the Three Realms, Changming still shines.