Heaven's Favorite

Pei Zhaoyu has three favorite things: beautiful things, impressive people, and anything interesting.

The Heavenly Dao has one favorite thing: Pei Zhaoyu.

Since she was little, Pei Zhaoyu has felt that she was a little luckier than other people.

All right, not just a little.

She had just changed into a new dress when a downpour caught her on the way down the mountain.

She glanced up at the sky. "Don't get my new clothes wet."

Two raindrops fell, then the rain stopped.

Satisfied, Pei Zhaoyu walked down the long street.

Only after she left the street did the rain come crashing down behind her.

Her senior fellow disciple, walking beside her, looked back for a long time.

Pei Zhaoyu asked, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

He just suddenly felt that the sky seemed a little biased.

Later, everyone realized it wasn't just a little.

It was a whole lot!

The group passed a spirit-fruit tree. At the very top hung the ripest, prettiest fruit.

Someone said, "Too bad we can't reach it."

Pei Zhaoyu looked up. "I want that one."

A gust of wind blew, and the fruit plopped right into her hand.

The people beside her fell silent for a moment. Someone looked up and said, "I want one too."

The tree didn't so much as stir. The person glared at it resentfully.

Pei Zhaoyu took a bite and offered some comfort. "Maybe you weren't sincere enough."

Was sincerity really the issue here???

They were traveling in the summer, and the sun beat down mercilessly. After walking for half an hour, Pei Zhaoyu got fed up. "It's a bit hot."

A small cloud drifted overhead, shading her perfectly.

When she walked, it walked too.

When she stopped, it stopped too.

Her companions quietly edged closer to her.

Pei Zhaoyu looked at them. "What are you doing?"

"We're going the same way."

The whole group crowded closer and closer.

At last, Pei Zhaoyu got annoyed and hurried ahead.

The cloud followed her!

Everyone behind her was left to bake in the sun again.

A group of people were trapped in a desolate place, unable to find a way out.

Someone joked that since Pei Zhaoyu was the Heavenly Dao's favorite, she should try wishing for something.

Pei Zhaoyu was irritated. "I'm not a wishing well."

"Just think of anything."

She thought for a moment. "I want roast goose."

Everyone else: "..."

Half an hour later, the smell of roast goose really did drift through the air.

Everyone else: "?"

Pei Zhaoyu: "!"

Following the delicious scent over a ridge, the group found a household roasting a goose, and finally found their way out, too.

After that, everyone gradually got bolder.

Someone slipped her ten spirit stones before drawing lots. "Fellow Daoist Pei, draw one for me."

Pei Zhaoyu took the money. "Sure."

The man drew the toughest opponent in the whole competition. When he returned, he demanded indignantly, "Aren't you supposed to be lucky?"

Pei Zhaoyu said, "I drew your lot."

"Exactly!"

"I never promised I'd draw you a particular opponent."

"..."

Someone else wanted to bet using her luck. "Fellow Daoist Pei, who do you think will win, the one on the left or the one on the right?"

Pei Zhaoyu said, "Give me half if you win."

"Why should I?"

"You're using my luck."

The other person thought it over. That actually made a lot of sense!

The worst of them all was Xu Qingluo. When other people found out the Heavenly Dao favored Pei Zhaoyu, they at least had the sense to be amazed.

After Xu Qingluo found out, she put it to the test without saying a word!

"In theory, this formation won't explode."

Pei Zhaoyu asked, "In theory?"

"..."

"What are the actual odds it won't explode?"

"...One in ten."

Pei Zhaoyu said, "That's pretty high! Let's do it!"

Later, Xu Qingluo was building a large-scale lightning device. Everything was ready except for one last bolt of lightning, but the storm had already reached the edge of the clouds.

Xu Qingluo stared at the sky, and Pei Zhaoyu looked up too. "One bolt short?"

"Mm."

"Then let's have one more."

The moment she spoke, a glimmer suddenly flashed at the edge of the clouds, which had nearly dispersed.

Boom!

The final bolt of lightning really did strike down.

Xu Qingluo shouted, "Zhaoyu!"

Pei Zhaoyu charged in with her sword, caught the lightning, guided it, and redirected it with a single stroke into the device's final component.

The lightning device blazed to life.

It worked!

The two of them circled their new device, inspecting it.

Pei Zhaoyu pronounced, "It's so ugly."

Xu Qingluo said, "Get lost."

Later, when the sect elders passed by while they were testing their formation, they took it in stride. "Just don't burn down the back mountain."

Pei Zhaoyu had gotten quite used to the Heavenly Dao's favor, and occasionally even took advantage of it.

Once, after losing a bet, she was in a bad mood and called up to the sky without thinking. "Give me five hundred spirit stones."

She waited a while.

Nothing.

"So stingy."

Her senior fellow disciple laughed at her. She dusted off her clothes and left.

A few days later, in a little alley she'd never been down before, she came across a jewelry peddler of unknown origins. There was a hairpin on his stall that was so pretty she couldn't take her eyes off it, and its price was ridiculously low!

Her senior fellow disciple asked later, "What happened to your five hundred spirit stones?"

Pei Zhaoyu was looking at herself in the mirror. "What five hundred spirit stones?"

The Heavenly Dao hadn't given her five hundred spirit stones, but apparently it still couldn't bear to disappoint her, so it made her happy with something else instead.

Of course, it didn't always get it right.

Sometimes the Heavenly Dao would eagerly send her something it clearly thought was gorgeous.

Pei Zhaoyu would stare at it for a long time. "...It's so ugly. What even is this?"

A few days later, some little trinket she actually liked would roll up to her feet from who knew where.

Over time, Pei Zhaoyu figured it out.

The Heavenly Dao really did love her.

It just had terrible taste sometimes!

Fortunately, Pei Zhaoyu had excellent taste herself.

She chased after beautiful things, impressive people, and spectacular sights she had never seen before. She dared to set the power of a lightning array on herself to its maximum. When she heard that a woman with a spear had fought for an entire day without losing, her first response was, "She's that good? Then let's fight!"

Sometimes, even when the world had already placed an easy opportunity right at her feet, she still found it unsatisfying.

When it came to revenge she truly wanted, she didn't take advantage of an opening handed to her. She strode through the front gate with her sword and called out, "Come out and fight me!"

After all, the Heavenly Dao favoring her was one thing.

Pei Zhaoyu being strong in her own right was another.

Zhou Che first met her in an Immortal Market that had started walking around on its own.

The streets were moving, the stalls were running, and the exits vanished without warning.

He was busy chasing after the stall owners, asking why the Immortal Market had moved ahead of schedule, where the first street had started to shift, and whether this had happened in previous years.

Pei Zhaoyu was busy buying hairpins.

As they passed each other, Zhou Che still remembered to remind her, "Hurry up. Which entrance did you come in through?"

Pei Zhaoyu looked at him. Who was this guy?

He was the one refusing to leave the Immortal Market even though it was about to move off, and yet he was already trying to tell her what to do?

When she finally finished buying her hairpin and came back, he asked again, "Which entrance did you come in through?"

Pei Zhaoyu asked, "And who are you?"

Zhou Che said, "The guy who just told you to hurry up."

Fine.

He was kind of interesting.

But he was really annoying!

So, at the Inter-Sect Tournament, with over a thousand people drawing lots,

her senior fellow disciple asked her, "Who do you want to draw?"

Pei Zhaoyu looked around at the crowd and pointed at Zhou Che.

"Him."

Her senior fellow disciple said, "There are over a thousand people."

Pei Zhaoyu thought about it. He had a point. So she looked up politely. "Could you give me a hand?"

The lots were turned over.

Zhou Che.

Everyone from every sect: "..."

Pei Zhaoyu raised her lot toward the other side of the crowd.

Across more than a thousand people, Zhou Che could see four unmistakable words written all over her face: I knew it.

Oh, and two more: Hee hee.

Once they were on stage, Zhou Che raised his sword and asked her, "Aren't you going to ask again?"

"Ask what?"

"Ask whether you can win."

Pei Zhaoyu looked at him as if he were strange. "Why would I ask that before a fight?"

Then she beat him up beautifully.

After resting below the stage for a while, Zhou Che suddenly thought the whole thing was even more outrageous than he'd realized.

The Heavenly Dao was only responsible for putting people in front of her.

Whether she could beat them was up to her.

Zhou Che's biggest flaw was that he asked too many questions.

He saw a strange wind and had to ask about it. He saw cloth that changed color and had to ask about it. And whenever he saw Pei Zhaoyu, he had questions for her too.

Why are you going?

Why aren't you going?

Did you see that just now?

Why did that thing only fall over here?

When Pei Zhaoyu got annoyed, she started charging him. One spirit stone per question.

Zhou Che paid up. Pei Zhaoyu got rich.

Later, she didn't even have to ask what he wanted to know. She already knew.

Once, the Immortal Market stayed in one place for days without moving.

On the first day, Pei Zhaoyu looked at it and suddenly thought:

If Zhou Che were here, he'd annoy everyone to death.

She laughed to herself for a while, but didn't call him.

A few more days passed, and the Immortal Market still hadn't moved.

At last, Pei Zhaoyu sent him a message. "You'd definitely want to know about this. It stopped moving!"

After meeting Pei Zhaoyu, Zhou Che's life gradually became just as unreasonable.

When a secret realm opened, a thousand people were randomly teleported. Zhou Che had learned his lesson, so he made a point of standing as far away from Pei Zhaoyu as possible.

A flash of white light. He opened his eyes, and Pei Zhaoyu was standing beside him.

Zhou Che: "..."

Pei Zhaoyu: "..."

Zhou Che asked, "Did you make a wish just now?"

"No."

"Tell the truth."

"I really didn't."

"Pei Zhaoyu."

She was silent for a moment.

"I only thought about it for a second."

"..."

For the first time, Zhou Che seriously wondered whether standing a thousand people away from someone counted as far.

They kept parting ways, only to meet again.

Pei Zhaoyu chased beautiful things, impressive people, and spectacular sights she had never seen before.

Zhou Che chased after every strange question in the world.

When she heard that nine out of ten people died on the ancient battlefield in the southeast, she asked excitedly, "I heard there's a flower in there that changes color twelve times at night?"

"There is."

"Then let's go."

Zhou Che asked, "Did you hear the part about nine out of ten people dying?"

"I heard it."

"And you still want to go?"

"There's a flower."

Zhou Che: "..."

Great.

He had another question now.

What was wrong with this woman?

Later, when Pei Zhaoyu saw a strange wind, she would note its direction for him.

When Zhou Che saw the mirror cicada's metamorphosis, which Pei Zhaoyu couldn't get there in time to see, he watched the whole thing and described it to her afterward.

Her messages were always no more than: "There's something weird here. Want to come?"

So when someone forged an invitation from her, Zhou Che took one look and said, "It's fake."

"How can you tell?"

"She wouldn't talk like that."

"Then how would she say it?"

Without a moment's thought, Zhou Che said, "There's something..."

Wait, why should I tell you?

Everyone knew the Heavenly Dao favored Pei Zhaoyu, but there was a strange rule to that favoritism. For little things, it indulged her without limit. But when it was time for her to draw her own sword, the Heavenly Dao never fought for her.

Later, someone cornered her at the Cliff of Falling Winds.

Her opponent sneered. "Aren't you the Heavenly Dao's favorite? Why don't you ask it to save you?"

Pei Zhaoyu glanced at the bottomless abyss beneath her feet. Then she turned around and jumped straight off.

Everyone was horrified.

Only after she was halfway down did she look up and casually ask, "Could you give me a foothold?"

A crosswind suddenly rose between the mountains, lifting her by a mere half zhang.

Only half a zhang.

But Pei Zhaoyu landed on it with perfect precision, pushed off, twisted in midair, and drew her sword.

She killed her way back to the top of the cliff!

For the rest of the way, heaven and earth didn't carry her a single inch.

And she didn't let heaven and earth fight a single one of her remaining opponents for her.

Years later, the old patterns of heaven and earth gradually became unreliable, and the world saw a wondrous new celestial phenomenon for the very first time.

The news spread in every direction, and countless people traveled over mountains and rivers to reach Nanming.

Pei Zhaoyu traveled a long way, too.

But when she arrived,

a sea of clouds stretched for a hundred li.

It was completely sealed off.

Nothing could be seen!

A crowd of people waited from dawn until dusk. Some studied the wind, some waited for the clouds, and some were already planning to come back the next day.

Pei Zhaoyu grew tired of waiting. She looked up at the sky. "I came all this way."

Before anyone could react,

she added, "So show me."

The wind fell still for a moment. The next instant, the clouds above her opened a narrow slit.

The slit widened to a hundred zhang.

A hundred zhang became ten li.

After ten li,

the hundred-li sea of clouds parted to either side above her head.

Beneath the new celestial phenomenon, the mountains and rivers, the mighty winds, the sea and sky all came into view!

Everyone on the mountain looked up. No one could find the words to speak.

Standing beside her, Zhou Che unusually had no questions either.

After a long while, someone murmured, "You... made the sky open?"

Pei Zhaoyu corrected them. "I didn't tell it to open. I only asked it to show me."

She looked at the new sky stretching a hundred li before her and added, "Not bad."

Later, many people said that the Heavenly Dao had spoiled Pei Zhaoyu all her life.

They weren't wrong.

When she wanted to see something, heaven and earth would occasionally part the clouds for her.

When she wanted to meet someone, she really could draw their name out of a crowd of a thousand.

When she was upset, the Heavenly Dao wouldn't give her five hundred spirit stones, but it knew to comfort her with a hairpin instead.

Sometimes it got the gift wrong, and she complained.

But Pei Zhaoyu had made her own way to every place she had truly been.

She had beaten every person she truly defeated with her own strength.

She had chosen every thing she truly liked for herself.

And the person she truly fell in love with...

At first, she had picked him herself from a crowd of more than a thousand.

"I want Zhou Che."

[The true darling of the Heavenly Dao: a bold, beauty-loving, incredibly powerful sword-wielding heroine who rushes toward anything interesting and takes the Heavenly Dao's blatant favoritism as perfectly natural × A sword-wielding hero with an insatiable curiosity, a chatty, fussy streak, and a habit of chasing questions all over the world until he ends up chasing a person, too]

[Pei Zhaoyu × Zhou Che]

Lighthearted xianxia | Darling of the Heavenly Dao | Long-term travels | Adventures amid wonders | Bickering couple | Equally matched leads

Theme: Even a heaven-blessed prodigy must find her own path in life