[Widower-top story. Laid-back fortune-teller bottom x gloomy, obsessive merman king top]
After the gods fell, only two great races remained in the world: humans and demons.
The demons had their Demon Kings and Demon Venerables, while humanity had its Venerables and Grandmasters.
Li Guannan was nothing special, except that he happened to be the junior disciple of one of humanity’s Five Grandmasters...
A master is a master, and a disciple is a disciple.
Not only could the disciple never catch up to his master, he was even worse than a blade of grass his master had casually planted by the door.
After a century of cultivation, Li Guannan had only just reached Foundation Establishment. The grass planted outside his door twenty years ago had already formed a core and taken human form.
Li Guannan spent the whole night feeling dejected. At dawn the next day, he finally made up his mind: he was going down the mountain.
If he couldn’t become an immortal, then he’d live a carefree life as a mortal.
*
When plum blossoms bloomed in the twelfth lunar month, a fortune-teller came to the capital.
He was skilled at fortune-telling and reading faces, drawing talismans and studying the stars. He even handled feng shui and burials, and could perform immortal arts. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say he was a master of everything.
He was also stunningly handsome, like a heavenly immortal descended to earth, and won the favor of many people of rank and influence.
The fortune-teller quickly became famous, and Prince Jingyu specially invited him to his residence to be his... concubine?
Li Guannan naturally refused.
Prince Jingyu, Zhu Wu, had always been a libertine.
Rumor had it that he was attracted to both men and women and never turned anyone away. His manor had no fewer than a hundred beauties, if not three thousand.
Not to mention that there was something strange about him in every way.
Still, the prince seemed to have set his sights on Li Guannan and kept coming around to provoke him.
Zhu Wu: “I tell you, fortune-teller, I took a real liking to you at first sight.”
Li Guannan: “And I tell you, Your Highness, I disliked you so much at first sight I felt like throwing up.”
Zhu Wu laughed. “Why not cast a divination and see whether you and I were inseparable lovers in a past life?”
Li Guannan rolled his eyes and cast a divination.
But after reading the result, he panicked.
The hexagram was Mountain over Earth, the Stripping Hexagram, an extremely ominous sign.
The man before him was a demon, and a great demon at that: a member of the Merman Royal Clan, a Demon Venerable named Zhu Qingchen.
Terrified, Li Guannan packed his things that very night and ran.
*
Li Guannan’s fate is marked by great calamity, yet the Tai Bai Star also appears in his chart.
His master said he was born to undergo a life-and-death love trial, to settle the ill-fated bond planted in a past life. Only then could he fulfill his dream of becoming an “immortal.”
[Reader’s Guide]
1. A former immortal reborn as a laid-back fortune-teller, a bottom who has never liked being constrained, x a widower merman king who has spent three thousand years searching for his wife, has long since gone mad, but loves pretending to be a sweet, harmless schemer to win his beloved’s attention.
2. Still a widower story, still a love full of bitterness and heartbreak, still a deeply painful romance (quietly crossed out). Past and present lives, a little angst (please spare me, grimacing-face emoji).
3. Both leads are each other’s first. The top’s one-sided love is unbelievably intense, and the couple is bound tight with steel wire.
4. The world has humans, demons, and gods. Obsession that runs too deep gives birth to demons.
5. The cover is a template, not a fixed depiction of the characters. Thanks to the artist @Shuibuxing.
Theme: To save others, first save yourself. To save yourself, first save your heart.
