After the White Moonlight Fell from Grace

Before she was cast into the wasteland, Zhou Chiying had always believed that Chong Yan loved her.

After all, everyone knew that the Divine Lord Chong Yan treasured her above his own life. He nearly broke with his family to marry her, broke through fourteen states to claim the top spot on the Heavenly Gods List, and, even knowing she had perished, searched through the cycles of reincarnation for her next life, hoping to rekindle their love.

Look at him. He was so deeply devoted.

The awkward truth, however, was that the deeply devoted Divine Lord Chong Yan had mistaken someone else for her.

He mistook a woman who had three parts of her aura, five parts of her temperament, and seven parts of her appearance for her reincarnation. From then on, he had eyes for no one else.

He granted her every request and cherished her above all else. He cleared forbidden lands for her and forged divine bones for her. He gave her almost everything he had, and in the end even planted a Love Gu in himself to prove his unchanging devotion.

Zhou Chiying returned at that very moment. Yes, she hadn't died back then; she had merely fallen into purgatory by accident.

Only after she returned did the other woman realize that the exalted Divine Lord had been so good to her because he had mistaken her for someone else. But by then, she had already fallen deep into the sea of love. Heartbroken, she wanted to leave, yet the Love Gu forced her to remain entangled with him.

And Chong Yan? He took back every kindness he'd shown the woman and destroyed the divine bones he'd forged for her. He treated her coldly, yet couldn't bear to be apart from her for even a moment.

The two spent years trapped in a love-hate relationship. Only when the woman faked her death did Chong Yan finally come to his senses. By then, the Love Gu had been removed, and he finally admitted that he hadn't been bewitched by it: he had fallen in love with her of his own accord.

Once the Gu was gone, he saw his true feelings more clearly.

Meanwhile, she, the white moonlight, had finally left the stage for good.

*

Everyone said Qiao Mi was merely a stand-in who'd taken the place of Zhou Chiying by sheer accident, and that Zhou Chiying was the one Chong Yan truly loved.

If Zhou Chiying had never returned, everyone would probably have believed that she was Chong Yan's untouchable white moonlight.

But unfortunately, Zhou Chiying came back to life. What's more, in this world where the stand-in was supposed to take center stage, she fully demonstrated the destructive power of a vicious white moonlight. From the moment she appeared, she was guilty beyond redemption. Every tragedy in the stand-in's life was her fault, and Chong Yan's preferential treatment ended there and then.

Even now, she couldn't get over the scarlet look in Chong Yan's eyes when Qiao Mi took her own life. She couldn't understand how anyone could make betrayal seem so heartbreaking.

So when Chong Yan finally knocked her into the wasteland with his own hands and condemned her to never be reborn, she could still smile and wish him everything he wanted, scattering all earthly attachments like a madwoman.

*

Many years later, her mother asked her, "Since His Excellency has allowed you to return, does he mean to reconcile? If so, I hope you'll think of the family and put the greater good first."

"?"

Zhou Chiying looked perplexed and had to explain patiently. "To His Excellency, I'm just a thing of the past. To me, he is just a stranger at the end of the world. Mother, you needn't entertain such wishful thinking."

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