The Charade…..
The first contrived, purely false move was her misleading request for Zhe Yan’s amnesia potion. A total farce. Since it was something Bai Qian never intended on drinking, not even for a second. Nonetheless, in her mind the show, the semblance was a needed performance to divert and deflect all and any inquiries about her ambiguous, mysterious heavenly trial that she refused to discuss with anyone.
Her self-defense and her rationalizing were an utter shame. The absolute humiliation still stung and reddened the surface of her face like a severe sunburn. To recall the constant and countless degradation she’d endured as the mortal woman everyone knew as SuSu, made her mouth bitter with intense resentment.
For Bai Qian, not a single suffering or grieving. The misery-filled moments while in Nine Heavens did she ever want to erase from her memories. Those dreadful dark days of tormenting, disgracing remembrances were the odorless, undetectable accelerant fuel that silently, secretly stoked the embers of vendetta that was slowly and gradually growing inside her.
So in retrospect with hindsight, it’s entirely feasible to question maybe Bai Qian subconsciously, latently premeditated everything from the very start, even if she, herself wasn’t aware of that fact yet.
The second deception was her fraudulent act of slumber while actively listening to her anxious, worried family and Zhe Yan discuss her openly in full detail. As she’d expected, it was her protective mother, the Fox Empress who clinched the case closed for her daughter, and talked everyone else into going along with Bai Qian’s outward, earnest desire which they all believed was to forget everything.
Once again, that was a small but essential part of the unrecognized design that was little by little starting to form and solidify in Bai Qian’s grudge-holding and debt-measuring mind.
Her next lengthy pretense prevailed as she continued to mislead her family, Zhe Yan and her Shifu, High God Mo Yuan. Everyone around her for hundreds of years. Bai Qian simply feigned complete ignorance. Acted as usual, said nothing even after hearing of her unexpected and shocking engagement to Ye Hua.
Because in the back of her stirring, calculating brain, she’d already filed it away knowing that too would in due time serve its intended purpose. Of course, in the end, everything would attend to her ultimate concluding objective.
During her sedentary time. Over the silent, watchful years, she heard about it all. Bai Qian overheard everything… Ye Hua’s coma, his awakening after his long sleep of sixty years and forced marriage to take SuJin as his side consort. She was aware that he’d stabbed her in the heart with his sword on their wedding day. And of his desperate, almost pitiful quest to create a replica of SuSu using the Soul Gathering Lamp.
At first, she’d almost convinced herself into thinking that it was merely minor interest. At least that’s what she told herself while carefully watching, monitoring and recording all the occurrences happening in Nine Heavens. While still in full denial of her actual reasons, she nevertheless had a detailed diary of everything, kept precise records of every turn with each event involving Ye Hua, SuJin and Heavenly Lord like a running tally on a scorecard for a competitive sport.
Because with her eyes as their reward, they were playing a game. A match she’d subconsciously decided to enter, conquer and finally reclaim the trophy or trophies if you counted each eyeball separately. It was then her facade began to crack and crumble belatedly.
It wasn’t something she could pinpoint with accuracy as to when she decided on revenge but at some period, she determined to live and observing only in silence wasn’t fair to herself. For everything she’d endured, Bai Qian felt the profound need for payback, retribution and make SuJin cry blood tears for every drop she shed as SuSu.
In return for every humiliation, insult and wrongful treatment, she would compensate in full using all the power she possessed as High Goddess Bai Qian Queen of Qingqiu. The only daughter of the Fox Emperor and High God Mo Yuan’s most beloved disciple, Seventeen.
Therefore, in the end, Bai Qian planned first to bring Sujin, and then Heavenly Lord to their knees for destroying something even more significant, more valuable than her sight. They were undisputed murderers. Plain and simple.
Both SuJin and Heavenly Lord were assassins of something utterly beautiful, incredibly pure, forever irreplaceable inside her. Something that was eternally gone. Together they were the destroyers of her innocent, unconditional love and unadulterated, absolute devotion to one man, Ye Hua. Making them the guilty criminals responsible for killing her beating heart, breathing soul and her existing emotional capacity to hope, love or trust anyone wholeheartedly ever again.
However, for her plan to work, she needed someone on the inside and eventually reached out to Ye Hua somewhat reluctantly. In a twisted, dark humor and irony, she purposely chose the anniversary of the day he met SuSu on Mount Junji, and asked him to meet her in Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms alone.
To be continued…