Jiang Yan had originally planned to leave the tomb immediately and go straight to the Supernatural Administration Bureau, to explain everything about the wedding robe—telling them that as long as they could repair it, she would be willing to relinquish her current powers.
But after thinking it over, she stopped in her tracks.
Jiang Yan found a piece of broken stone and sat down.
She wanted to quietly finish reading He Qingfu’s diary, right here.
Ever since she’d seen through He Qingyuan’s intentions months ago, she’d been forced into the role of savior. Jiang Yan had no desire to save the world, and she resented the feeling.
She knew He Qingyuan wouldn’t stop here, nor would some of the Bureau’s higher-ups. But she had already integrated into human society, even earned money to buy a house, made good friends, and grown fond of human food. With all this, she had developed desires and no longer wanted to retreat to the mountains.
So she was easy for the Bureau to find, and a final negotiation was inevitable.
Jiang Yan could already predict the outcome—
She would refuse to sacrifice herself, refuse to turn her true form into a rune, refuse to give up her yao identity, refuse to become an ordinary person.
Maybe some would help her, but there would also be those who would use every means to force her to go against her will.
Jiang Yan would never be at their mercy, so she would fight back with all her strength.
In the end, both sides would be wounded to some degree.
But Jiang Yan couldn’t think of a solution, and neither could He Qingyuan or the others—at least, not one that didn’t require her sacrifice. So Jiang Yan had always been counting down in her heart: when would the conflict erupt, when would she leave, when would she break from human society, when would she return to the quiet places where yao belonged.
None of this was what she truly wanted—it was just that she didn’t want to live in an environment where she was expected to be sacrificed, even if only a few people wanted that.
But now, things were different.
Jiang Yan, for once, felt a rare sense of bittersweet emotion.
It wasn’t the same as seeing her teammates wiped out and then revived. This feeling came from the fact that someone could actually help her to this extent.
Yes, help her.
Even if He Qingfu’s starting point wasn’t to help her, but to exchange benefits between humans and yao, Jiang Yan finally saw the attitude she’d hoped for from humanity. Among the Bureau’s leaders, there were not only those who would sacrifice yao, but also those who believed in human self-salvation—and that effort had started long ago.
Most importantly, the result of He Qingfu’s actions was no longer just an exchange of interests—it had also solved Jiang Yan’s current predicament.
Jiang Yan wouldn’t have to leave the house she’d spent time choosing, wouldn’t have to abandon the furniture she’d carefully arranged, wouldn’t have to leave the hotpot shop at her doorstep, wouldn’t have to sever ties with her friends. She’d have plenty of chances to spend her savings in the future.
Now, all Jiang Yan needed to keep these things was to become stronger—
It was a deal even a fool would accept.
Thinking this, Jiang Yan unzipped her backpack and took out the ten-thousand-year wedding robe, lifting it up to admire it.
He Qingfu was a clever and charismatic person, worthy of being the Bureau’s director.
She had, by herself, found the loophole in “turning yao into runes”—
The process had two steps: first, the yao’s soul separated from its true form, and the true form, along with its powers, became a rune. Second, the yao’s soul entered a human body prepared by the Bureau, at which point the yao became an ordinary human.
He Qingfu had thought about why previous yao, after being turned into runes, could only become human.
Because animal bodies couldn’t be replicated, nor could those of plants—they were living, unique from birth, so the Bureau couldn’t find a matching vessel and could only forge a medicinal body using rare herbs to house the powerful yao soul.
But a wedding robe was a dead thing.
It was handmade, and could be replicated exactly. As long as one was willing to seek out the materials and spend the time, a matching body could be made to house the powerful soul.
And since it was a trade, the new body should be even stronger than the original.
So He Qingfu, through Bai Ze, found Torch Dragon and had it take her back to the era when Jiang Yan first gained sentience. In a place where no one knew, she wove a new body for her, found more ley lines, and nourished this body for a thousand years, waiting for the day when Jiang Yan could use it.
In other words, if Jiang Yan was willing to give up her original body, let it become a rune, and move her soul into this ten-thousand-year wedding robe, she would gain four thousand years of age, rivaling the great yao of the Classic of Mountains and Seas, her powers upgraded, and if lucky, she might even master some of the laws of the world.
This was a deal she couldn’t refuse.
He Qingfu had truly done what she said in the great curtain:
—“I will work hard to find terms the other party cannot refuse, to complete this cooperation and exchange of interests.”
Jiang Yan’s lips curved in a smile.
Her fingers slid over the dragon and phoenix totem on the hem of the robe.
From the current situation, her bond with He Qingfu went far beyond this ten-thousand-year wedding robe. The one who’d raised her in the underground palace was likely the consciousness of He Qingfu, residing in Jiang Chixi’s body.
Thinking of this, Jiang Yan calmed herself, put down the robe, and picked up the diary again.
She turned to where she’d left off and continued reading.
In the later entries, He Qingfu detailed how she’d spent two years gathering all the materials, going to the underground palace every night to study the stitching, compare pattern sizes, and practice embroidery on ordinary fabric, ruining countless pieces.
She wrote seriously in her diary:
[I would steal the wedding robe that Jiang Chixi had tossed into the imperial tomb every few days, take it to the underground palace to study, then return it before dawn. Life was boring, but with a goal, it wasn’t so bad.]
[Fortunately, I’d once empathized with everything inside and outside the palace, so I knew exactly when the palace maids would be around, when the tomb keepers would patrol, so everything was done quietly.]
[The replica wedding robe is almost finished. My consciousness can finally leave Jiang Chixi. I’ve really troubled her lately, though she’s completely ignored my presence, as if she never knew I was in her body, sharing her soul.]
At this point, as the protagonist, Jiang Yan could already guess what He Qingfu would write next.
Sure enough, a few pages later, two big characters appeared before her eyes.
[Oh no…]
Even just reading the words, Jiang Yan could sense He Qingfu’s shock, confusion, and utter disbelief.
[How did it take human form??]
*
Before He Qingfu had Torch Dragon take her consciousness through time, she’d planned everything.
She would avoid all causality, secretly create the replica wedding robe, place it at the convergence of three ley lines, let its age reach the limit allowed by the Heavenly Dao, and use it to make a deal with the wedding robe yao.
In her plan, the wedding robe yao would stay in the Empress’s tomb for a thousand years, absorbing dragon qi, reaching six thousand years of age. Then, a thousand years later, it would be excavated by archaeologists, and sent to the National Museum. With the tomb’s dragon qi nearly depleted, it wouldn’t care where it went, and would obediently stay in the museum’s display case.
All of this was bound to happen.
After all, she had empathized with the wedding robe—it was just like that, that was its story.
So He Qingfu only needed to pick the right time for the replica’s debut.
She chose Xing Mountain.
She’d once foreseen that Xing Mountain would be deeply excavated by a construction crew before the horror resurgence, at just the right time. As long as she built the tomb there and set up a mechanism, the crew would trigger it, the mountaintop would explode, and the tomb entrance would appear.
Once the Bureau found the tomb, they’d understand her intentions, and would naturally take the replica wedding robe to the wedding robe yao, persuading her to exchange bodies and complete the deal.
It was a perfect plan.
But what He Qingfu hadn’t expected was that from the moment her consciousness entered this world, from the time she started stealing the wedding robe to study it, the story began to shift.
In the original timeline, the wedding robe yao had never been noticed by Jiang Chixi. It was just a repaired collectible, tossed into the dark tomb, waiting to be sealed as a burial item.
That was perfectly normal—who would care about a dead thing? In an era of exorcists, if the wedding robe took human form, the Empress would likely call an exorcist to destroy it.
Even if it was very young and harmless.
So, though the robe had gained sentience, it never took human form. It feared being discovered, as it was very weak, its only power being to increase others’ affection for it—no attack power, just like a human child.
But after He Qingfu appeared, everything changed.
From the wedding robe yao’s perspective, this powerful Empress repaired its body, gave it life, and would come to see it from time to time, patting its arms and belly, admiring its patterns, praising its beautiful totems.
While He Qingfu was studying the wedding robe’s patterns, the robe was studying her.
After two years together, the wedding robe yao concluded that the other party really liked it—after all, she was always reluctant to put it back in the tomb, lingering in the underground palace, almost wanting to sleep with it.
Too clingy, which made the yao a bit troubled.
After much thought, one night, the little wedding robe tentatively hooked the other’s pinky with a red thread and tugged:
“What do you mean by this?”
At the time, He Qingfu was mentally simulating the last cloud pattern, all excited about her imminent success.
Hearing this inexplicable question, she didn’t react at first, but repeated:
“What… what do you mean?”
Time froze for three seconds. He Qingfu looked at her own pinky in disbelief, then quickly looked at the wedding robe.
A flash of golden light.
A few breaths later, a chubby four- or five-year-old girl stood before her, dressed in pink palace clothes, her hair in cute double buns, her cheeks round and babyish, though her expression was a bit cold and impatient.
“Why do you keep touching me?”
“My belly is all red from you rubbing it.”
She lifted her skirt, revealing her soft belly, and nodded seriously: “It’s red.”
He Qingfu had no idea what was happening. Her mind was blank.
The wedding robe yao shouldn’t have taken human form. Why had it suddenly done so? It was supposed to never take human form, even after a thousand years.
And once a yao took human form, it was irreversible—it would need to eat and sleep, and could no longer remain in its original form for long.
But after all, He Qingfu had become director at eighteen. She didn’t despair at this sudden turn, but quickly calmed herself, thinking rapidly about what to do, whether she could find a way to avoid causality and keep the timeline on track.
After half a minute, He Qingfu reached a conclusion.
She could.
Because the original wedding robe had spent a thousand years in the Empress’s tomb, without any causal ties to anyone, not involved in anyone’s choices or future. So as long as this little girl hid alone somewhere, unseen by anyone, the world could still run as it should, not become a parallel world.
Having thought this through, He Qingfu crouched down and gently rubbed the girl’s belly:
“Sorry, I won’t do that anymore.”
“Were you scared these past two years?”
The round-faced girl shot back, “Why would I be scared?”
“You’re the one who should be scared.”
He Qingfu smiled gently. “If you thought I’d be scared, you wouldn’t have shown up.”
She pointed to the underground palace: “Can you live here from now on? There are a lot of exorcists outside. If you go out, it’ll be bad.”
The little girl replied carelessly, “Mm.”
This underground palace was beneath the imperial palace, known only to generations of Jiang emperors. No one else would enter, so the little girl would be safe here, with no contact with humans.
Dawn was coming, and He Qingfu had to leave. To avoid the tomb keepers noticing the robe was missing, she had to return the replica to the tomb before taking it to Xing Mountain later.
Before leaving, she warned the little girl, “Don’t run around. This is important, understand?”
The little girl’s face tightened. “Of course I won’t run around.”
“You’re not… worried about me, are you?”
He Qingfu pressed her lips together, unsure how to explain.
She now understood why the girl had taken human form—because of her own presence, her actions had made the little wedding robe curious, and had given her the sense that she wouldn’t be harmed.
But she was already hurting the girl.
This wedding robe yao should have been free, not confined to the underground palace. And after Jiang Chixi’s death, her consciousness would vanish too. What would become of the girl then? Would she be brainwashed to hide for a thousand years, or injured and forced back into her original form, placed in the Empress’s tomb to restore the timeline?
None of this was He Qingfu’s intention.
She had only come to make a deal, but now found herself in a dilemma, feeling that whatever she did was wrong.
But the little girl’s next words interrupted her thoughts.
“There are a lot of exorcists outside. I knew before I came out that I’d have to live here. If you still want to rub my belly, you should at least put a nice bed in the palace. I’m tired.”
He Qingfu was startled. “That’s all it takes?”
The little girl nodded.
He Qingfu asked, “Is there anything else you want?”
The little girl thought for a moment, then shook her head. “No.”
“Talking is tiring. Don’t ask me anymore.”
With that, the little girl briefly returned to her original form, slowly floated to a stone pedestal, and looked like she was about to sleep. Two minutes later, seeing He Qingfu still hadn’t left, she imitated a snoring sound to hurry her along.
“Hoo—”
He Qingfu was amused by the little hum, her unease easing a bit. She tiptoed out of the underground palace, returning the replica wedding robe to the tomb before sunrise.
Back in her chambers, she returned control of the body to Jiang Chixi, seeing the world of a thousand years ago through her eyes.
…
Jiang Yan turned another page, He Qingfu’s inner conflict vivid before her eyes.
[Things suddenly got extremely complicated. I don’t know what to do.]
[Fortunately, she doesn’t want to leave the underground palace yet, so I don’t have to blame myself—what happens next, I’ll deal with later. I’ll do my best to keep the world on track, but I don’t want to hurt her either. Without my empathy, I have no idea what the future will bring.]
[But, how should I put it…]
He Qingfu wrote earnestly: [She really looks like me, and she’s even cuter than I was as a child. Her face is so round. If I hadn’t been so preoccupied with future troubles, I might have pinched her cheeks.]
[Also, she doesn’t seem as calm as she looks. When she talks, she always clenches her fists, like she’s a little nervous.]
[Still just a kid.]