Chapter 5: A Proper Sacrifice

After Di Zhonggu finished the task assigned by Goddess Xuan Yue and returned to Tianqi to report, he realized he couldn’t even get into the Moon Temple.

With his barbarian status, let alone entering the Moon Temple, even getting close to it would get him blocked.

Fortunately, he was quick-witted. He watched from a distance until he saw the maid who had come to notify him that morning appear, and only then did he manage to enter the Moon Temple smoothly.

The inside of the Moon Temple was different from its gleaming, glassy exterior. The hall was simple but not lacking in luxury, and the crystal skylight over the main entrance cast down a hazy moonlit glow. Stepping inside felt like bathing in moonlight, with a charm that calmed the heart.

“Your Holiness, General Di has arrived,” Yue Xin, a maid of the Moon Temple, reported in front of a tall crystal door.

“Let him in.”

“Yes, Your Holiness.”

After answering, the maid Yue Xin waved for Di Zhonggu to push open the door and enter alone.

Even after hearing Goddess Xuan Yue’s permission, Di Zhonggu still couldn’t believe he actually had the chance to meet her alone, and in her private chambers at that!

He hesitated in front of the crystal door for a moment, then pushed it open, and a wave of fragrance washed over him.

This wasn’t the mysterious bedchamber of a goddess at all. It was just a study.

Di Zhonggu saw the seductive figure who had been stirring his soul these past few days and keeping him sleepless at night. She was bent over the desk, writing something with a pen in hand, revealing a breathtaking side profile of incomparable beauty, and from afar she gave off a sacred aura that dared no one to profane.

Goddess Xuan Yue did not look up. Her soft red lips parted slightly. “General Di, how did the matter I sent you to handle go?”

“Reporting to Your Holiness, this subordinate arrived late. By the time I got there, the battle was already over. The person being surrounded had been wounded…” Di Zhonggu paused. His instincts told him he needed to change his wording. “That man wasn’t seriously hurt. The people who took part in the encirclement were dead or crippled. However, just as I was preparing to move in and rescue him, a giant dragon suddenly appeared and snatched him away!”

“What did you say!”

A chill swept over him, but Di Zhonggu forced himself to continue. “He… he was… was abducted by… by a giant dragon that suddenly appeared… However, however, this subordinate saw that the dragon seemed to have no ill intent toward him.”

“When the dragon descended from the sky, it crushed the remaining members of the encirclement to death on the spot. When it grabbed him, I saw an invisible force wrap around him. Otherwise he definitely wouldn’t have been able to withstand that sudden grab from the dragon’s claws.”

Goddess Xuan Yue’s crescent-shaped brows knitted tightly. Her peerlessly beautiful face showed deep concern. After a moment of thought, she asked, “You’re sure that dragon meant him no harm?”

“This subordinate is sure. If that dragon had wanted to hurt him, it would have been effortless. And that dragon appeared at the critical moment to save him.”

Goddess Xuan Yue fell silent.

Di Zhonggu only felt an unprecedented pressure bearing down on him. He was secretly relieved that he had changed his story. But her reaction only made him suspicious again.

Could the rumor in the streets be true? The one I went to rescue... was actually the husband she’s secretly involved with?

Thinking of that, Di Zhonggu couldn’t help sucking in a sharp breath. He quickly shoved the thought to the back of his mind. If the rumor were true, wouldn’t that mean the Star God Emperor had been cuckolded?

“What did that dragon look like?” After a long silence, Goddess Xuan Yue spoke again.

Since awakening until now, she had never heard of dragons existing in this world, and any “appearances” were only legends passed down in the mortal world.

“Reporting to Your Holiness, that dragon was as huge as a mountain, and its speed was so fast I couldn’t make out its appearance at all. But its scales were black with hints of red, almost like lava.”

“There’s something else. I also saw a young man nearby at the time, but that young man had already…” At that, Di Zhonggu raised his head and glanced at Goddess Xuan Yue. Only after not feeling any more pressure did he dare continue reporting. “That young man had been pierced through the chest by the imperial guard’s halberd. When I found him, he was already dead.”

“The young man you mentioned, did he have a braid?”

Di Zhonggu nodded, and then he saw Goddess Xuan Yue’s ample chest rise and fall slightly.

“How is the peach tree?”

“The situation there is a little unusual. When I arrived, I didn’t find a single person, and I also didn’t see the young man you mentioned. But by the time I got there, that peach tree had already withered. If not for the petals on the ground, I would have thought I had gone to the wrong place.”

Goddess Xuan Yue secretly breathed a sigh of relief. If the peach tree had withered, that meant their son Lin Jinyu was still alive.

It was just that Xiao Chen…

“Sigh…”

With a faint sigh, Goddess Xuan Yue waved for Di Zhonggu to leave on his own. Then she raised her slender hand to support her forehead, thinking over how she should proceed from here, only to see that Di Zhonggu was still standing by the hall door.

It seemed Di Zhonggu hadn’t noticed her gesture. His hands were held in front of him as he rubbed them lightly together, his head lowered as though something had caught his eye.

Following his gaze, Goddess Xuan Yue lowered her head and immediately understood what was going on. The pair of delicate, small, snow-white bare feet hidden under the desk were lifted lightly, forming a graceful, alluring curve, one above the other.

Looking again at Di Zhonggu standing by the door, sure enough, his eyes were moving along with them.

Goddess Xuan Yue couldn’t help but take a serious look at this barbarian.

This trip to rescue Lin Qingyun had clearly produced no real results, and whether Di Zhonggu could become one of her pieces on the board still needed more observation.

At this moment, Di Zhonggu’s mind was also in turmoil. Looking at those two delicate, snow-white little feet under the desk, he found it impossible to stay calm. Especially when he saw the moonlit glow radiating from those jade-like feet as white as congealed cream, he felt a fierce impulse rise in his heart. He wanted to lift those slender, beautiful feet into his hands and admire the sacred moonlight up close.

If he could, he even wanted to carefully touch them with his tongue, to lick and savor the taste of that moonlight…

After a long while, Goddess Xuan Yue’s red lips parted again. “Why are you still here?”

Di Zhonggu came back to himself all at once. He swallowed unconsciously, took out a storage ring, and said in a low voice, “Reporting to Your Holiness, the corpse of that young man pierced through the chest by the halberd has been stored in this ring. How would you like me to handle it?”

Goddess Xuan Yue did not hesitate in the slightest. She took the ring from Di Zhonggu with a motion through the air and placed it on the desk. A strand of divine sense probed inside, and Xiao Chen’s death state made her understand something. A complicated expression appeared in her brows.

“I’ll handle it myself. You may leave first.” Goddess Xuan Yue issued the order to see him out.

But Di Zhonggu still did not want to leave. He clasped his hands and stammered, “This subordinate… this time… even if I had no credit, I still worked hard…”

“Enough. This palace knows what you’re thinking.”

Goddess Xuan Yue cut him off with a cold laugh. With a flick of her snow-white hand, a crystal cup placed in the hall landed at Di Zhonggu’s feet. “This matter isn’t enough for you to redeem yourself. Take it. You have one day to go to the center of Infernal Fire Lake and fetch me a cup of water.”

“In… Infernal Fire Lake?”

Di Zhonggu was stunned. Infernal Fire Lake was a forbidden place that even the Star God Emperor did not dare step into lightly!

For hundreds of years, no one had ever been heard of taking a cup of water from the center of Infernal Fire Lake. She was clearly telling him to go die!

And besides, I… that’s not what I meant at all!

“What, you don’t want to?”

“I do, I do. This subordinate will go fetch the water right away.”

Di Zhonggu did not dare linger for even a moment. He could already feel the air around him growing colder, so he hurriedly grabbed the crystal cup and fled in a panic.

After Di Zhonggu left, Goddess Xuan Yue took Xiao Chen’s body out of the storage ring. The ice-cold corpse made the vast bedchamber seem especially lonely, and her beautiful eyes were filled with complicated emotions.

As for her husband’s disciple, Goddess Xuan Yue knew him well. She knew why Lin Qingyun had taken Xiao Chen in, but she hadn’t expected things to end up here after all.

She was not grieving too much. That did not mean she was a cold woman. Right now her husband’s life or death was still unknown, and her son’s whereabouts were also uncertain. With the future situation so murky, she simply couldn’t afford to be distracted.

After calling Yue Xin in to have Xiao Chen buried, Goddess Xuan Yue began seriously thinking about the future.

She had sent Di Zhonggu to rescue Lin Qingyun in order to pass him a message, but she hadn’t expected a giant dragon that appeared out of nowhere to completely ruin the plan.

At present, the Star God Emperor was pressing closer and closer. In the past two days, he would come again after nightfall. Although he concealed it very well, Goddess Xuan Yue had already guessed what he meant.

Nothing more than having her go to the holy pool to cleanse and purify her body, to return him, the Star God Emperor, a “pure” body, and with his extremely arrogant and self-important personality, he would probably even make her restore her virgin essence.

If she were not the Moon Goddess, the Star God Emperor would even have her completely rebuild her body. It was laughable beyond measure.

However, Goddess Xuan Yue already had a plan to deal with Xing Shendi, and to disgust him with it. And this had to mention Di Zhonggu, this barbarian.

According to her original plan, Goddess Xuan Yue wanted Di Zhonggu to secretly take control of all the barbarian tribes on the borders of the Shenqi Kingdom. Later, after accidentally overhearing Di Zhonggu’s lustful thoughts about her, she came up with a plan that killed two birds with one stone.

Since Xing Shendi wanted a “pure Goddess Xuan Yue,” how could she possibly let him have his way?

For a man like Di Zhonggu, who lusted after beauty, a little temptation would win his heart more easily and make him easier to control. At the same time, it would also disgust and retaliate against the always arrogant and self-important Star God Emperor.

The woman he loved, defiled by a lowly barbarian of humble birth…

That was also why Goddess Xuan Yue had deliberately hinted at Di Zhonggu’s fantasies that night: she wanted Di Zhonggu to be loyal to her, just as his name suggested.

As for what Di Zhonggu had just been thinking, Goddess Xuan Yue saw it as clearly as day. It was just that what Di Zhonggu was showing her now was still far from enough to make him one of her pieces on the board. Making him fetch a cup of water from the center of Infernal Fire Lake was one of the tests.

Of course, Goddess Xuan Yue was not a woman to be taken lightly either. But for the sake of the greater plan, for the future she shared with Lin Qingyun, some sacrifice was unavoidable.

Besides, the cost of controlling a mere barbarian, compared with what she could gain, was hardly worth mentioning.

“Your Holiness, the Star God Emperor has arrived.”

Just as Goddess Xuan Yue was thinking, Yue Xin’s voice came from outside.