Chapter 79

Emperor Zhaoyan had stripped Xiao Changyuan of his ability to love leaving only hatred in his life.
Now even that hatred had vanished.
Xiao Changyuan felt that his long life was utterly meaningless.
To him, the imperial palace was nothing but a magnificent, splendid ruin, but the little butterfly told him:
“The imperial palace is an amusement park!”
The butterfly fluttered and wrote this sentence on the white rice paper.
“You can indulge in pleasure here to your heart's content!”
Yun Pianpian began racking her brains to recall the Tyrant Yuan's preferences, but she bitterly realized that she actually didn't know what Tyrant Yuan liked. Apart from liking her, Tyrant Yuan seemed indifferent to everything else.
He didn't care for luxurious clothes or fine food, nor did he enjoy bustling crowds. Aside from practicing demonic arts, Tyrant Yuan appeared to have no hobbies whatsoever.
Wait, he did have one hobby!
He enjoyed throwing silver notes.
So the excited butterfly eagerly wrote: “We can go to the city walls and throw silver notes!”
Xiao Changyuan said, “Throw silver notes?”
“This is really fun! You'll definitely like it!”
The butterfly lifted her head and looked at him with eager anticipation.
Xiao Changyuan watched her for a while.
“Alright.”
The day was bright and sunny, with clear skies for miles.
The majestic emperor, with his dragon, like grace and phoenix, like bearing, stood tall on the city walls, scattering silver notes into the sky. The common people below the walls shouted “Long live the emperor!” as they greedily scrambled for the silver notes, fighting until they were covered in wounds and blood.
The city was bustling with noise and littered with debris.
Xiao Changyuan looked down upon the commoners from his elevated position like a lofty deity.
In his cold, lifeless eyes, a ripple of emotion suddenly stirred.
Yun Pianpian fluttered her wings in the air, watching him.
Xiao Changyuan did not look at her but lowered his gaze indifferently to observe the greedy crowd.
The emperor’s thin lips curved almost imperceptibly.
“Truly amusing.”
Yun Pianpian danced joyfully in the air.
She had finally made him happy.
After a moment of gleeful fluttering, as if remembering something, her small face suddenly froze.
Xiao Changyuan noticed her unusual behavior.
“What’s wrong with you?”
Yun Pianpian glanced up at Xiao Changyuan, then turned her gaze to the commoners below the city wall. She suddenly realized that the original Xiao Changyuan in the story had stood on the city wall scattering silver notes because of her.
The future tyrant Yuan had also learned this game from her and later taught it to her future self. It was like a closed loop, she and Xiao Changyuan were each other’s teachers, each other’s cause and effect, teaching one another how to play.
It was a cycle filled with a sense of destiny.
It was because of her present self that the future tyrant Yuan came to be.
So, she was not a substitute after all.
She was the little butterfly the tyrant Yuan had spoken of.
Once she understood this, the last trace of jealousy in Yun Pianpian’s heart completely vanished.
She fluttered her butterfly wings and flew cheerfully to Xiao Changyuan, approaching his handsome face, and affectionately rubbed her butterfly head against his cheek.
I forgive you.
Xiao Changyuan didn’t understand what she was doing. He asked in confusion, “Is your head itchy?”
Yun Pianpian: “...”
This hopeless brat.
Xiao Changyuan reached out and pinched her wings, gently rubbing her butterfly head with his fingertip.
His expression was utterly serious.
“Let me scratch it for you.”
Yun Pianpian: “...”
If you annoy me to death, you’ll have no empress, you brat.
Yun Pianpian had tried using her butterfly form to tell Xiao Changyuan her real name, but divine punishment struck again, a white bolt of lightning crashed onto her butterfly head.
Yun Pianpian had no choice but to give up, her head smoking.
In the following days Yun Pianpian exhausted all her efforts to make Xiao Changyuan happy. She remembered that in the original story, Xiao Changyuan seemed to enjoy listening to songs, so she urged him to summon singers to the palace.
In the exquisitely carved pavilions and water, side terraces, musicians played the zither, and beauties sang. Xiao Changyuan narrowed his phoenix eyes as he listened.
Yun Pianpian fluttered her wings nearby feeling a bit unsettled inside.
He always narrowed his eyes when he was happy.
It seemed these singers had pleased him.
Yun Pianpian had originally encouraged him to bring the singers into the palace to make him happy, but when he actually took pleasure in their presence, she inexplicably felt jealous.
She was afraid Xiao Changyuan would fall for another woman.
Out of sight, out of mind.
Yun Pianpian fluttered her wings and left the pavilion.
She flew aimlessly through the palace when she suddenly heard the sound of crying. Curious, Yun Pianpian flew toward the source of the weeping.
She saw a young palace maid being beaten. An old matron was whipping her with a cane, scolding as she struck, “This is the most precious 'Black Dragon Resting in Ink Pond' among all the peonies! Everyone here isn’t as valuable as this single flower! And you, you went and killed it! I think you have a death wish!”
The young palace maid, dressed in a sky, blue palace gown, was being whipped with a rattan cane until tears and mucus streamed down her face. “Matron, I was wrong! Please spare me! I truly know my mistake now.”
Yun Pianpian found the voice somewhat familiar.
The maid writhed in pain, dodging frantically, and lifted her tear, streaked, blurry, eyed face.
Yun Pianpian saw her features clearly, her heart jolted in shock.
The young maid was actually the original palace maid from the story, the one whose body she had taken over.
The old matron raised the rattan cane high and brought it down with force, screeching harshly, “If I spare you, who will spare us?! Our fate rests on this single blossom, and now that you’ve killed it, it’s better to beat you to death as payment for this flower’s life!”
Yun Pianpian trembled all over in fear. So, in the imperial palace, even a single flower was worth more than a human life. She rushed over to save the young maid, flying straight into the old matron’s face and striking at her eyes. The matron roared in fury, “Where did this butterfly come from? Catch it, quickly!”
The maids surrounding the matron, hearing her command, reached out to grab her. But as a butterfly, she was light, nimble and dodged skillfully. Using her ability to fly, she led the maids in circles. In the midst of the chaos, she suddenly noticed everyone kneeling down.
Trembling, they all prostrated themselves at her feet.
From behind came a cold, chilling, low voice.
“Who dares harm my butterfly?”
Xiao Changyuan had been listening to music in the waterside pavilion when he suddenly realized she was no longer by his side.
He immediately stood up to search for her.
Truthfully, Xiao Changyuan did not care for music, he had only thought she enjoyed it.
He simply liked having her company.
Xiao Changyuan searched throughout the palace for that fluttering pink silhouette. Hearing the clamor, he approached and saw the palace servants trying to catch his little butterfly. A cold, ruthless fury surged within him.
“Who dares harm my butterfly?”
Yun Pianpian turned her head and saw Xiao Changyuan standing behind her, his icy gaze fixed menacingly on the servants.
“Drag them away and give them fifty strikes.”
The matron and maids knelt, kowtowing and begging for mercy. “Your Majesty, spare us! Your Majesty, have mercy! We would never dare again! We beg for your mercy!”
Fifty strikes would either kill them or leave them permanently disabled. Yun Pianpian did not want these people punished because of her. So she flew in front of Xiao Changyuan, shaking her head desperately, trying to stop him.
Xiao Changyuan gazed at her with cold eyes for a moment.
“Change it to ten strikes.”
The matrons and palace maids didn’t know why the emperor had suddenly changed his mind, and they wept with joy: “Thank you, Your Majesty, for sparing our lives! Thank you, Your Majesty! Long live the Emperor!”
The group was dragged away by the eunuchs to receive their punishment.
The eunuchs mistook the little palace maid dressed in pale green palace attire for an accomplice and began pulling her away by the arm. Yun Pianpian immediately rushed over, fluttering her butterfly wings as she circled the green clad maid’s head.
Xiao Changyuan said, “Release this maid.”
The eunuchs immediately let go at his command.
Xiao Changyuan walked over to the little palace maid, but his eyes were not fixed on her.
Instead, they were on the butterfly, Pianpian.
He frowned slightly.
“Do you like her?”
Yun Pianpian nodded her head vigorously.
Xiao Changyuan’s frown deepened.
So the little butterfly didn’t only care for him alone.
Xiao Changyuan returned to his bedchamber, and Yun Pianpian flew down onto a sheet of paper, dipped in ink, and wrote: “I want to know the little maid’s name. I want her to do what she loves.”
Xiao Changyuan summoned the little maid to his bedchamber.
“What is your name?”
The little maid timidly replied, “This servant is called Xiao Luo.”
“Where would you like to be assigned?”
Xiao Luo was taken aback, and her dull eyes suddenly seemed to sparkle: “This servant would like to work in the Wen Yuan Pavilion.”
Xiao Changyuan assigned the maid Xiao Luo to the Wen Yuan Pavilion, where she became the head maid responsible for cleaning.
Yun Pianpian recalled the words of the maids.
She buried her head and wrote on the white paper: “I don’t like peony nectar.”
“What nectar do you like?”
“Qiongzhi Red Plum.”
Red plum blossoms are very hardy and almost impossible to kill. Yun Pianpian wanted to save these servants. Moreover, she truly loved Qiongzhi Red Plum.
Xiao Changyuan ordered the maids to cultivate Qiongzhi Red Plum, and everyone no longer had to stake their lives on peonies.
Yun Pianpian occasionally visited Xiao Luo in the Wen Yuan Pavilion.
Xiao Luo was illiterate, but she loved reading books, especially those spring books with illustrations of handsome men. Whenever she looked at these handsome men, her dull eyes would shine with a radiant glow.
Yun Pianpian fluttered her wings and landed on the page of the book in Xiao Luo’s hands. Glancing down, she saw that the book told the story of a licentious princess and her three thousand male consorts.
Yun Pianpian lifted her head to look at Xiao Luo.
She found it somewhat unbelievable.
So this was how Xiao Changyuan had come to know the little maid.
It turned out that even before willingly giving up her body, the little maid had been obsessed with the idea of three thousand male consorts.
Such a grand ambition…Yun Pianpian felt she couldn’t compare.
From behind her came Xiao Changyuan’s icy voice.
“Why have you come to see her again?”
Yun Pianpian was so frightened that she immediately fluttered her wings and took flight.
Xiao Changyuan reached out and effortlessly caught her by the wings, carrying Yun Pianpian back to his bedchamber.
The hall was silent, not a sound to be heard.
The emperor wore an expression as cold as ice.
“Do you like her that much?”
Yun Pianpian shook her butterfly head in fear.
Xiao Changyuan’s gaze was icy as he looked indifferently at her.
“Then why do you keep seeking her out?”
Xiao Changyuan’s expression was murderous.
Yun Pianpian instinctively felt afraid, she worried he might kill the little maid.
This guy’s possessiveness was truly terrifying.
To save the future, Yun Pianpian dipped her butterfly feet in ink and wrote a colossal lie on the paper.
“I was playing hide and seek with you.”
Xiao Changyuan remained expressionless and silent.
Yun Pianpian continued spinning her tale: “I was afraid you wouldn't be able to find me during hide, and, seek, so I always hid in the same spot every time we played. That way, you could always find me.”
After writing this line, Yun Pianpian lifted her butterfly head guiltily to glance at Xiao Changyuan.
Seeing that he still didn't speak, she timidly lowered her butterfly head and wrote another sentence.
“The great tyrant found his little butterfly!”
To express her joy, Yun Pianpian deliberately drew a bright, smiling face after these words.
~(^o^)/~
Xiao Changyuan watched her for a long time, as if trying to discern whether she was lying. After what felt like an eternity, he finally said, “No matter where you hide, I will find you.”
From then on, Yun Pianpian often played hide, and, seek with Xiao Changyuan. They would set boundaries for each round, usually hiding within the bedchamber. Sometimes Yun Pianpian would conceal herself in a vase, other times beneath a teacup, occasionally within the layered curtains, and at times behind memorials to the throne.
Every time, Xiao Changyuan would find her.
“I found you.”
Whenever Yun Pianpian was discovered, she would happily spin in place, fluttering her wings, then flutter onto Xiao Changyuan's face, rubbing her head against his handsome cheek.
Xiao Changyuan would extend his hand and Yun Pianpian would land in his palm.
She thoroughly enjoyed their games.
Until one day, the most dreadful thing happened, summer reached its end.
No butterfly could survive beyond the summer.
Yun Pianpian was hiding among the petals of a broken branch of begonia placed on the windowsill when she suddenly felt her eyelids grow heavy, her entire body weak and unsteady. All her energy seemed to have been drained away in an instant.
A phrase suddenly surfaced in her mind:
The oil exhausted, the lamp extinguished.
So this was how brief a butterfly's lifespan could be.
She had thought she could stay by Xiao Changyuan's side until he followed the original plotline and met the real her.
But she never expected that misfortune would come so swiftly.
Yun Pianpian's soul drifted out of the little butterfly's body. She watched as a gentle breeze swept through, carrying the butterfly's lifeless form out of the bedchamber. After losing its vitality, it resembled torn pieces of paper, blown farther and farther away by the wind.
Finally, she vanished without a trace.
“Are you hidden yet?”
Xiao Changyuan opened his eyes and began searching for her within the bedchamber. He combed through every corner of the room but found no trace of her.
Yun Pianpian watched his earnest expression as he played the game.
Suddenly, she felt a pang of sorrow.
The tyrant would never know he would never find his little butterfly again.
Because the little butterfly had died in the gentle breeze.
In the end, Xiao Changyuan conceded defeat.
“I lost. You can come out now.”
But that vibrant, radiant pink butterfly did not emerge.
Xiao Changyuan frowned slightly and murmured to himself, “Could it be that this time, the little butterfly has hidden outside the bedchamber?”
He stepped outside and began searching everywhere for the little butterfly. He searched from morning until dusk, visiting the Wen Yuan Pavilion, the Golden Hall, and many side chambers. Yun Pianpian's transparent soul followed closely behind him, her eyes brimming with tears as she watched him search for her.
She was right behind him but he couldn't see her.
She reached out to embrace him but her hands passed right through his body.
Yun Pianpian cried out, “Stop looking for me.”
You won't be able to find me anymore.
Xiao Changyuan's expression gradually darkened.
He ordered everyone in the palace to search for a pink butterfly. The palace servants carried lanterns and scoured every corner, but no one could find her.
Xiao Changyuan's face grew increasingly cold.
He searched for her all night long.
Finally, he returned to his bedchamber.
Xiao Changyuan gazed at the empty, desolate palace.
“Little butterfly, I lost. You can come out now.”
Yet, the room remained deathly silent.
No living being responded to him.
The dark, icy depths of Xiao Changyuan's eyes gradually dimmed, as though something within him was quietly dying.
Seven days later.
Xiao Changyuan had turned the entire palace upside down but still found no trace of Butterfly Pian.
His gaze fell upon the stack of rice paper.
Covered densely with Yun Pianpian's words.
Xiao Changyuan burned every last sheet.
The flickering flames cast a faint glow upon the emperor's jade, like, aloof face.
His expression grew increasingly cold and indifferent.
“Don't you want to play with me anymore?
Have you returned to the heavens?
Have you grown tired of me?
You abandoned me.
You liar.
I hate you.”
Yun Pianpian embraced him from behind, tears streaming down her face as she sobbed, “I didn't return to the heavens, I haven't grown tired of you, I didn't abandon you. Xiao Changyuan, please don't hate me.”
But her body passed right through his and she fell heavily to the ground.
Yun Pianpian lifted her head and saw the icy, frigid look in Xiao Changyuan's eyes. She wept uncontrollably.
“Please don't hate me.”
Yun Pianpian finally understood.
Why the tyrant Changyuan was even more prone to anxiety and insecurity than she was.
Because he thought he had been abandoned by the little butterfly, he thought the little butterfly had grown tired of him.
Yun Pianpian had believed that the most terrifying thing in the world was for Xiao Changyuan to hate her. But she never imagined that there was something even more terrifying than his hatred.
It was the fact that Xiao Changyuan would never find her, even in death.
After Xiao Changyuan burned all the rice paper she had written on.
Yun Pianpian cried until she fainted.
When she woke again, she found herself atop the Moon-Snatching Tower, with a heavy snowfall blanketing the sky.
The delicate snowflakes drifted down, freezing as they touched the ground.
She saw Xiao Changyuan, clad in robes as dark as ink, standing tall and graceful atop the Moon-Snatching Tower. His coldly handsome face was veiled in a layer of frost, and his long, thick black eyelashes were frozen into icy crystals.
In his hand, he held a branch of red plum blossoms, its vibrant petals frozen into icy shards by the biting snow.
The sky was filled with falling snow, drifting down in a soft, rustling cascade.
But his indifferent gaze was even colder than the blizzard around them.
Ye Suxin, wrapped in a rabbit, fur cloak, stood beside Xiao Changyuan, singing to the immortals in the heavens.
No response came.
The icy chill in Xiao Changyuan’s eyes gradually faded into lifeless stillness.
Amid the mournful howl of the wind and snow, Yun Pianpian heard the sound of his heart turning to ashes.
“She will not return.”
Yun Pianpian felt a sharp pang in her heart.
So, Xiao Changyuan had asked Ye Suxin to sing in the snowstorm to the immortals, all to search for traces of her.
He had prepared her favorite flowers, arranged for the most beautiful voice in the world, and built the Moon-Snatching Tower for her.
But he had not awaited her arrival.
Yun Pianpian reached out from behind Xiao Changyuan, wrapped her arms around his waist, and rested her head against his back.
“I never left you,” she said, holding back her tears. “When autumn comes next year, we will meet again.”
By the end of next summer and the beginning of autumn, she and he would awaken by the stream in Jiangjia Village, meet, and fall in love.
Completing this cycle.
Xiao Changyuan could not sense the embrace of her soul.
Without hesitation, he turned and left the Moon-Snatching Tower.
Yun Pianpian wanted to chase after him, but a gentle breeze carried her farther and farther away. A thick fog appeared before her eyes.
She brushed the fog aside.
She found herself by the stream in Jiangjia Village, where a man and a woman lay beside the water. She felt puzzled, why had her soul not returned to the body of the little palace maid?
She had once read a theory: when a time traveler crosses through time, two identical lives cannot exist in the same space.
She had always believed that on the day of their first meeting, she would return to the body of the little palace maid.
But the scene before her now told her: that was not how it truly was.
The little palace maid turned pale as she looked at Xiao Changyuan.
“I've lost my memory too.”
Yun Pianpian's pupils contracted sharply.
This person was not her, she was Xiao Luo.
Why was this happening?
Yun Pianpian had always believed that Young Yuan, Xiao Changyuan, Amnesiac Yuan, and Tyrant Yuan formed a closed loop.
But she had overlooked one person.
That was the original Yuan.
The torrent of time had not flowed toward the tributary where Yun Pianpian resided but had surged toward the original work instead.
Yun Pianpian's face gradually turned pale.
So, meeting Xiao Changyuan was not an inevitable outcome, it was merely a chance occurrence in a temporal branch. She might never see Tyrant Yuan again.
A vast expanse of white mist appeared before her.
Yun Pianpian rushed frantically into the mist.
She arrived at the original story's grand finale.
Snowflakes swirled wildly, and a bitter wind howled mournfully.
Xiao Changyuan lay in a pool of blood.
Meanwhile, the male and female leads, lost in passion, embraced and kissed amidst Xiao Changyuan's blood, ushering in their beautiful happy ending.
The crimson blood soaked through Xiao Changyuan's black robes, dyeing the white frost and snow a vivid, brilliant hue, like red plum blossoms blooming amidst the wintry landscape.
Xiao Changyuan's gaze was unfocused, his breath faint as a thread.
In his final moments, he did not think of his mother or his elder brother, but of the little butterfly who loved jade branches and red plum blossoms.
She had accompanied him through his most difficult childhood.
She had given him hope for life.
But later, she disappeared and she never appeared in his life again.
Xiao Changyuan never understood why the little butterfly had left back then.
It was only in his dying moments, as he watched the couple kissing in the blood, that he vaguely understood.
It was because he had disappointed the little butterfly.
Once, on a bright morning, the little butterfly had kissed his thin lips just like that, but at the time, he hadn't understood why she did it.
And now, it seemed he finally understood.
But it was too late.
So, the little butterfly had liked him.
Was it because he was too oblivious that she left him?
Xiao Changyuan didn't know if he liked the little butterfly.
But if there was a next time, when the little butterfly kissed him, he would not interrupt her.
He would let her kiss him quietly.
Xiao Changyuan felt his life slipping away.
He lay on the cold, snowy ground, gradually losing all sensation.
He could no longer feel the chill of the frost and snow, nor the warmth of the blood flowing over his body. He couldn't perceive the pain of his wounds, he had grown cold.
Next was his hearing.
He slowly ceased to hear the mournful, icy wind.
He could still see the swirling snowflakes but he could no longer perceive their sound.
Finally, his sight.
His vision grew increasingly blurred, yet, his gaze suddenly fixed on a single snowflake drifting slowly down.
Xiao Changyuan's scattered focus slowly gathered once more.
It seemed he saw his little butterfly.
That snowflake descending gently from the sky appeared to shimmer with a bright, intense pink light, just like his little butterfly.
Xiao Changyuan slowly extended his bloodstained hand, wanting to catch that snowflake falling from the sky.
Just like many years ago.
After he found the little butterfly, she would nuzzle his cheek with her head and then alight in his palm.
The great tyrant had found his little butterfly.
Xiao Changyuan slowly moved his thin lips.
“I found you.”
Xiao Changyuan weakly curved the corners of his lips.
On his pale, cold, handsome face, a contented smile surfaced.
His bloodied hand fell and he closed his eyes forever.
“No.”
Yun Pianpian threw herself over him, desperately trying to grasp his ice, cold hand. She wept until her tears fell like rain, until she was choked with sobs, until she could hardly breathe.
She finally understood why, when she had first read the ending, she had cried as if her heart were breaking.
It turned out she hadn't been shedding tears for the love between the male and female leads.
She had been aching for this unloved, tyrannical ruler.
The tyrant had died without ever finding his little butterfly, but she had realized it too late.
Yun Pianpian cried until her heart ached, her entire body trembling uncontrollably. It felt as if her heart had been brutally torn apart, never to be mended again. Every inch of her flesh throbbed with a dull, lingering pain, and the agony in her chest made it hard to breathe.
Yun Pianpian cried until she struggled for air.
Her vision darkened and she completely broke down and fainted.