Shui Shui was born at the peak!
No, she was born missing.
She was the revered Holy Maiden of the Xuanling Sect. After a great battle, she disappeared by accident and was found by Ran Xuan. By a twist of fate, she became Ran Feng's little sister, and he carefully kept her by his side.
She depended on him innocently. “Big Brother, aren't we siblings?”
His attachment ran deep. “What siblings? Isn't A Shui my Dao companion?”
The Heavenly Dao was cruel. When the demons of the Upper Realm invaded, the two fought side by side to the very end. Ran Feng exhausted his cultivation and had little time left to live. To save him, she traded her life for his and returned to her true form.
Six hundred years later, their identities had long since become worlds apart, and he had forgotten her.
When they met again, she was no more than an illusory image of the aloof divine being.
“Xiling is the reincarnation of a fragment of this one's soul. The other gods in the lower realms were all here to accompany this one through its trials. As for Xiling, let the matter end here.”
“Ran Feng, you chose to forget me. Shouldn't that hurt?”
“You finally came back. I've waited for you so, so long...”
*
After Shui Shui fell, the Heavenly Dao set time in motion again, turning back five hundred years and erasing every trace of her. The world forgot her, and from then on, there was no more Fairy Xiling on the Guiyuan Continent.
Ever since Ran Feng could remember, he often dreamed of a woman in white and blue whose face he couldn't make out. She seemed to love playing the qin, so he learned to play it too.
Then a girl in red appeared, and the dream changed. The people in it changed too. She was similar, yet not the same. At first he resisted her, but gradually began to fall for her. His heart had changed.
“You're my wife, A Shui. Don't think of me as him.”
“Then what about me? Am I his substitute too?”
“A Shui, you have always been my choice. That has never changed.”