- 3 hours ago
The Bride They All Chose
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Short filmTranscript
00:00My mother was the most beautiful woman in the entire realm, who married Celestia's most legendary war god.
00:04Four years in, they had me. I got my father's looks, and my mother's absolutely dismal talent for cultivation, so
00:10I became Celestia's top loser.
00:12So my go-to move, lose, call dad, no dad, call uncle, with mom's lethal beauty.
00:16She was the one every big shot wanted but never got.
00:19So I got uncles, second, third, fourth, all backing me, safe to say.
00:23I ran this place, all three realms of it, but dad always fretted no man would ever dare propose to
00:26me.
00:26Because all those uncles pining for mom, they had been bachelors for eons.
00:30No kids, no heirs, but if he's not our inner circle, dad wouldn't trust him.
00:33So he set his sights on his best sworn brother, who happened to be the reigning heavenly emperor.
00:37Long story short, the heavenly emperor, still single at the time, after a thorough campaign of pressure and bribery from
00:41dad, agreed to betroth his future kid to me.
00:43I was too young to know better, and thought it was the most brag-worthy thing ever.
00:46I went around telling everyone I was getting a hot young husband.
00:48Then I hit several thousand years old, and that idiot still hadn't found a wife.
00:52Idiot's not my word for the record, that was dad's.
00:55But he is the heavenly emperor after all, and the betrothal had witnesses, so it was binding.
00:58So my whole love life just sat there, on hold, indefinitely.
01:00Honestly I didn't mind the freedom.
01:01After thousands of years of growing up, I'd learned that love is complicated.
01:05For every romance that stands the test of time, there's an equal amount of bitterness and betrayal.
01:08Then on my three thousandth birthday, the heavenly emperor finally found his person.
01:11Before I could even feel relieved, he'd dropped everything, and chased his beloved into mortal reincarnation.
01:16Just like that, two thousand years gone, dad managed Celestia's affairs, grumbling the whole time,
01:20desperately hoping they'd come back with a baby, nearly losing his mind waiting.
01:23The heavenly emperor had once been a gluttonous beast, a creature that fed on the desires of mortals.
01:26To strip the darkness out of her, the heavenly emperor had reincarnated with her over and over,
01:30using his own divine bones as the vessel, and his own divine blood as the cure,
01:33until every last drop of her beast's bloodline was replaced.
01:35End result.
01:36He got his wife, but burnt himself out so badly he was impotent.
01:38Another thousand years of waiting.
01:40Then dad's big mouth caused a whole new problem, because the emperor used every rare moment of clarity he had
01:43to hunt dad across the realms.
01:44Through all of this, the empress and I only grew closer.
01:47Celestia was full of fragile, delicate immortals, fierce and spirited like the empress.
01:51Genuinely one of a kind.
01:52My own mother, stunning as she was, kind of a hot mess.
01:53Her version of taking care of me was sweet but scatterbrained.
01:55The empress was in a completely different league, warm and precise.
01:56So when it came to the betrothal, I started quietly, genuinely looking forward to it.
01:59On my seven thousandth birthday, the heavenly emperor's son was finally born.
02:02He had inherited his father's true form, a magnificent dragon.
02:04His name was Draven.
02:05My parents threw a big celebration, and practically shoved me over to the emperor's place, telling me to bond with
02:09Draven.
02:10But the older Draven got.
02:12The less he seemed to like me.
02:13Draven wasn't exactly gifted in cultivation.
02:14But being the heavenly emperor's son, he couldn't afford to slack.
02:17I got it, I really did.
02:18I'd been mocked for years for the same thing.
02:20My complete lack of talent.
02:21The difference was, I got over it.
02:23Draven decided I was the problem.
02:24He was convinced that spending time around me was dragging him down.
02:28Honestly, I think he's insane.
02:30And I started seriously reconsidering this whole arrangement.
02:32Draven not only doesn't like me, he's also mean to me.
02:35Why would I fight to keep someone who clearly wanted out?
02:37It's not like I was that into him anyway.
02:39Still, it stung a little.
02:40Because when Draven was just a tiny little thing, he used to follow me around everywhere.
02:44People change though, that's just life.
02:46The moment he started distancing himself, spooked by whatever gossip was going around, I knew the engagement was done.
02:51After talking it over with my parents, I decided to wait for Draven to get back from his mortal trials
02:55and then make a clean break.
02:57My parents agreed he was wrong for me.
02:59And would never let me just sit there and take it.
03:01Once Draven completed his trials, he'd be officially named a high god.
03:04The trials weren't exactly rigorous.
03:06But they gave Draven something he'd wanted for years.
03:08I had zero interest in going to that ceremony.
03:10We were basically done at that point anyway.
03:12He couldn't stand me.
03:13And honestly the feeling was mutual.
03:14But the Empress had been in retreat for her health and had been out of circulation for quite a while.
03:17She'd barely made it out in time for the ceremony.
03:19Worried about her.
03:20I showed up anyway.
03:21Because in my heart, even if she couldn't be my mother-in-law anymore, she was as close to a
03:25second mom as I'd ever had.
03:25What I didn't see coming though, was that on the day of the ceremony, Draven showed up with some mortal
03:28woman on his arm and swore up and down he was going to marry her.
03:31On the day of the ceremony, Draven showed up with some mortal woman on his arm.
03:33And swore up and down he was going to marry her.
03:35I almost went off right then.
03:37But seeing the Empress shaking with rage, I held back.
03:41Honestly, who Draven married was none of my business.
03:43He could marry ten women if he wanted.
03:45That was his problem.
03:46But you don't go public with that while you're still under a betrothal.
03:49In front of everyone.
03:50That wasn't just a slap to me, but to my parents too.
03:53Not to mention, before he even left for his trials, I had already told him plainly I'd call off the
03:57engagement once he got back.
03:59It's not easy to break off, but not impossible.
04:01You still need proper witnesses to make it official.
04:03If he had any sense, he wouldn't have brought her here.
04:06Even if he'd snuck her back quietly and waited until the engagement was formally dissolved, I would have had zero
04:10complaints.
04:11But when Draven knelt there on the dais, he made a point of looking over at me with this little
04:14smirk like a dare.
04:15I had nothing to say to that.
04:16I knew he was petty, but not this petty.
04:19His little stunt was all about one thing.
04:21He thought being engaged to me had made him a laughingstock.
04:24So he was making a point of showing everyone how he felt.
04:26I just didn't want to deal with it.
04:28Arguing with him would just make me look dumb.
04:30Did Draven ever stop and think about who exactly was doing the mocking?
04:33Just people with their own agendas, jealous and bitter.
04:34Can you blame them?
04:35No powerhouse dad or uncles backing them.
04:37Too bad Draven's brain never got the memo.
04:39The heavenly emperor just nodded, calm, unbothered.
04:42Yeah, you're not good enough, Ralina.
04:43Since you feel so strongly about this, go back down for a few hundred more years of trials.
04:47Oren, set their fate threads accordingly.
04:49Make it hard.
04:50We wouldn't want their love story to be too easy.
04:52Oh, make sure they go down with their memories.
04:54The investiture wasn't even over before Draven dragged his beloved back below.
04:57On the way out, the woman in his arm shot me a resentful look,
05:01then turned back to Draven and burst into tears.
05:04She grabbed his hand, knelt before the emperor and empress,
05:07and whispered softly,
05:08Our love is real.
05:09Not centuries, not millennia would make me give up on him.
05:13Her voice cracked on the words, but she looked at her chin, refusing to cry.
05:17Draven's eyes turned red.
05:18But other than Draven, not one person in the room actually looked at her.
05:22More than a few were quietly laughing.
05:24We're all old enough to spot an act.
05:26What's with that innocent act?
05:27After Draven went back down, I started dropping by Orens for tea and gossip,
05:31getting the inside scoop first hand.
05:32The woman Draven had brought up was Grace Shaw,
05:35a cultivator of sorts in the mortal world, decent enough, but nothing special.
05:38Draven's cover during his trials was senior disciple of a sect,
05:41and Grace was the youngest junior.
05:43Oren had personally pulled her fate record and found her story was honestly, something else.
05:46Heard a legendary cultivator was nearby exercising demons, so she bolted.
05:50What happened next?
05:51Totally predictable.
05:51Classic hero saves girl, instant love connection,
05:53and the unlucky cultivator she latched onto,
05:55none other than the idiot Draven.
05:58Gotta give credit where it's due though, Grace got lucky.
06:00Draven himself was a mess, but his bloodline was perfect.
06:03After watching Draven's story transformation for a few days,
06:05I had to take a moment.
06:07The Heavenly Emperor is something else.
06:08Two thousand years of trials really builds character.
06:10A few hundred years is nothing to an immortal.
06:12For a mortal though, that's an entire lifetime.
06:14Multiple, especially for a pair having a really rough time.
06:16That's when it finally clicked for me.
06:17Why the heavens made them go down with their memories intact.
06:19That kind of free fall, not everyone can handle it.
06:21Draven and Grace had been respected cultivators,
06:23not the strongest, but above ordinary mortals.
06:26Now look at them.
06:27One hauling manure, one scrubbing out houses.
06:29Saw mates.
06:30Literally.
06:30After about a week of watching, honestly sick,
06:32I decided to go cleanse my eyes at the Empress's place.
06:34I hadn't even made it through the door
06:35when I heard the Empress going off on the Emperor.
06:37Your disaster of a son inherited nothing good from you,
06:38just your completely broken brain.
06:40An absolute embarrassment.
06:41Your disaster of a son inherited nothing good from you,
06:43just your completely broken brain.
06:45An absolute embarrassment.
06:46The Heavenly Emperor was on his knees,
06:47nodding along, agreeing with everything.
06:48Yes.
06:49Yes, it's all my fault.
06:50Please stop, you'll make yourself sick.
06:52Your bloodline backlash is acting up.
06:54The Empress just kept going.
06:55You two are insufferable.
06:56Let me be clear, I can write off the son,
06:59but Luna stays my daughter-in-law no matter what.
07:01I paused at the doorway, and quietly didn't go in.
07:03My chest felt weird and tight.
07:05I knew the Empress cared about me,
07:06I just didn't realize how much I actually mattered.
07:08But the engagement with Draven, that was never happening.
07:11Whatever mother-daughter-in-law dream we had,
07:14she couldn't just make a new son.
07:15I figured I'd take some time to decompress,
07:18except I was barely gone for a few decades.
07:20And when I came back, I was the Empress sitting on my bed,
07:23cradling a glowing golden egg.
07:24The moment she saw me, she dropped,
07:25kicked the egg aside and grabbed my hands
07:27like I'd been missing for centuries.
07:29The egg rolled across the room,
07:30wobbled for a long time, then stopped.
07:33It looked a little tragic.
07:34I opened my mouth cautiously.
07:35New pet?
07:36The Empress waved her hand.
07:38Unbothered, I laid this one recently.
07:40It's my youngest son.
07:41I stared at the egg, lost for words.
07:43Wait, is it actually yours?
07:45Relax, this one has my beast bloodline.
07:47Tank built.
07:48But that's not the point.
07:49The betrothal's back on.
07:51It is the betrothal is back on.
07:53Technically, the original agreement
07:55never specified which son it was for.
07:56The Empress grabbed the egg excitedly
07:58and started slapping it in front of me.
07:59I could feel the floor vibrate.
08:01My eye twitched involuntarily.
08:03That egg was seriously indestructible.
08:05Gluttonous beast bloodline really does not mess around.
08:07The Empress proceeded to give me a full presentation
08:09on this egg, swearing up and down
08:11that they mate for life.
08:12Unlike a certain brainless dragon
08:14whose eyes and brain were both busted,
08:15when she saw me looking uncertain,
08:17the Empress shoved the egg directly into my arms
08:19and declared that if the second one
08:20didn't work out either,
08:21she would keep going until I was satisfied.
08:23I jumped in fast to shut that down.
08:25One is enough.
08:26Truly, really, completely unnecessary.
08:28Mostly because after everything that happened,
08:30I was done with romance for the foreseeable future.
08:31I was still trying to figure out
08:32how to turn her down gently
08:33when the Empress suddenly went pale
08:35and dropped straight down in a dead faint.
08:36I didn't even have time to react.
08:37The Emperor materialized from literally nowhere
08:39and caught her.
08:40Explaining that on top of the bloodline backlash,
08:43she'd burned through a serious amount of her core energy.
08:44Could be a few hundred years of recovery,
08:46maybe a thousand.
08:46They were going into seclusion.
08:48Please don't interrupt.
08:49Before I got a single word out,
08:51they were gone.
08:52Just me standing there holding an egg,
08:53completely baffled.
08:53I walked around with the egg for a while,
08:55realized I had nobody to call.
08:57Fantastic.
08:57My parents snuck off on another adventure without me.
09:00I looked down at the egg with a heavy sigh.
09:02It was actually pretty nice to hold.
09:04Warm, steady, kind of comforting,
09:05but I had zero experience raising anything.
09:06I set it down and started reaching out to my parents.
09:09But the egg just rolled itself right over to my side
09:11and gently bumped my hand.
09:13The warmth hit different.
09:15I dropped the transmission,
09:17reached down and patted the underside of the egg.
09:18Maybe trying this out for a couple days
09:19wasn't the worst idea.
09:20Deuce was a good kid.
09:21His favorite activity was pressing up against me.
09:23Over time, I started reading his moods pretty well.
09:26Happy meant rolling all over the floor.
09:28Really happy meant actual mid-air somersaults.
09:31Unhappy meant completely frozen in place,
09:33just sitting there like a clueless lump,
09:33but durable, genuinely durable, rolling dough for pastries.
09:36Using him as a footrest when tired, zero issues.
09:38I even used him to skip across water once
09:40and he bounced clean across dozens of times.
09:41A genuinely multi-purpose egg.
09:43I had him for 200 years though,
09:45and he still showed no sign of hatching,
09:46just kept getting bigger.
09:48The golden glow became something he could turn on and off.
09:50When I got bored, I would doodle on his shell.
09:53When I got hungry,
09:54I'd have him dial up his glow intensity
09:55and grill something.
09:56Then one day,
09:57I off-handedly mentioned what happened with Draven.
09:59After that,
10:00Deuce started dragging me to Orange every day
10:01to watch Draven's trial unfold,
10:02walking back and forth the whole time.
10:03I rubbed my chin.
10:04Pretty sure he was laughing at Draven.
10:06Draven had been down there almost 300 years,
10:08but with the emperor and empress still silent,
10:10nobody dared bring him back up.
10:12Over those 300 years,
10:13they'd lived through more than a dozen lifetimes together.
10:15Average lifespan each round,
10:1620-something years,
10:17every kind of suffering,
10:18every disaster you can think of.
10:19Without memories it would have been manageable.
10:21They'd just assumed they were the unlucky kind of mortal,
10:23born to struggle.
10:24Death comes,
10:25wipes the slate clean.
10:26But Draven and Grace weren't that lucky.
10:28Every single life,
10:29full memory,
10:29full clarity.
10:30300 years of that means 300 years of conscious suffering.
10:33Grace probably wasn't the same person she'd been at the start.
10:35Not everyone's built like a god,
10:37able to enjoy that kind of torture.
10:38The emperor had run this playbook himself,
10:39but Draven still had status waiting for him above.
10:41Grace needed to hold on to Draven if she wanted any shot at getting out.
10:44So down in the mortal world,
10:46Grace performed her part perfectly.
10:47Tough devoted,
10:48selfless always there.
10:48That face worked.
10:49Draven's heart stayed locked in,
10:50but fate records don't lie.
10:51Every single thing Grace did behind his back
10:53was documented in full detail.
10:55Seeing her secretly eating real food alone,
10:57then walking out with a bowl of plain vegetable soup
10:58and that whole,
10:59we'll suffer together my love act,
11:00I absolutely lost it.
11:01I got bored after a few days.
11:03Left the egg at Doran's.
11:04Plan was to brew spirit essence,
11:05reduced to soak in.
11:06Get him hatching faster.
11:07I sat there chewing spirit grass,
11:09privately amazed at how generous I was being.
11:12Draven always assumed my cultivation sucked.
11:13He thought I kept pace because I was secretly training hard.
11:15He also lost his mind when the empress gave me a few spirit plants.
11:18What he never knew is that when it comes to cultivation resources,
11:20nobody is richer than me,
11:21not even the heavenly emperor.
11:22My entire cultivation level was just resources stacked on resources.
11:25I barely trained a single day in my life.
11:27Dad and every uncle left me their entire private vaults.
11:29Even if Draven was the heir of Celestia,
11:31I had every right to be picky.
11:32If Draven had half a brain,
11:34I wouldn't have minded giving him a boost.
11:35Too bad he was the last cause.
11:36Better off feeding a dog.
11:38When I went to collect Juice,
11:39I walked in on Auron mid-lecture,
11:41writing all over the eggshell while he talked,
11:44and then sat back with a satisfied nod.
11:46Good, that wraps up today's lesson.
11:47I've written down all the key points.
11:49Go home and review them.
11:50Juice's entire shell was covered in tiny dense text.
11:52He'd gone from white egg to black egg.
11:54He bounced straight over and tried to launch himself at me.
11:56I held up a hand and stopped him,
11:57pinned him in place and looked him over.
11:59I was speechless.
12:00What is all of this?
12:01It's a whole curriculum on being an obedient husband,
12:03respecting your wife,
12:04doing whatever she says.
12:05I shot Auron a look.
12:06He sadly found the ceiling fascinating.
12:07I started wiping the shell clean with a handkerchief
12:08while delivering a very sincere life lesson.
12:10Listen up.
12:11Love is a two-way street.
12:12If you ever find someone you like,
12:13give genuine effort and you'll get it back.
12:15Stop letting Auron fill your head with mortal romance novels.
12:17Got it?
12:18Juice wobbled back and forth blankly.
12:20None of it landed, I could tell,
12:21because right after,
12:22he rolled around me in a giant heart shape.
12:23I wanted to disappear.
12:24Those genes run strong.
12:26Both of his sons were hopelessly love-struck.
12:29After I brought Juice home
12:30and dunked him in the Spirit Essence Pool,
12:31I got an urgent message from my parents.
12:33Two hundred years ago,
12:34I'd already figured out
12:34they weren't off having fun without me.
12:36They were tracking demon energy,
12:37which connected to some very old buried history.
12:39At the beginning of time,
12:40a creator god split the world apart
12:41and dissolved into everything that exists.
12:42The three strongest energies left behind
12:44were pure energy,
12:44impure energy,
12:45and demon energy.
12:46Those three forces became the humans,
12:48the beast clans,
12:48and the dreadborn.
12:49The dreadborn were rare but insanely powerful
12:50and completely bloodthirsty.
12:52Humans and beast clans united
12:53and pushed them back,
12:54sealing the dreadborn at the river Lethe,
12:55and slowly stripping the demon energy out of them.
12:57The devastation the dreadborn left behind was total.
13:00Mountain rangers collapsed.
13:01Oceans flooded inland.
13:01Spiritual energy crashed.
13:03Humans and beast clans had no choice
13:04but to gather the surviving livable land,
13:06push it upward into what became celestial
13:07and leave the broken mortal world behind.
13:08After hundreds of thousands of years,
13:10the faint trace of the creator's energy slowly revived.
13:13Life returned.
13:13The passages between worlds reopened.
13:15But after all that chaos,
13:17the mortal world's spiritual energy never fully recovered.
13:18Genuinely gifted cultivators got rare.
13:20It gradually became its own separate world,
13:21but it was the best possible training ground for the spirit.
13:24The mortal world slowly became the place
13:26where immortals went to grind toward godhood.
13:27I always assumed the three realms meant Celestia,
13:29the mortal world, and the nether realm.
13:31Turns out hidden somewhere in the river Lethe
13:32was an entire sealed population.
13:33The dreadborn.
13:34Now the demon energy was leaking from the Lethe,
13:35slowly spreading,
13:36corrupting the spiritual energy that everything depended on.
13:39Someone might be engineering this on purpose.
13:41I was still too small for that kind of problem.
13:43All I could do was hold tight
13:45and pray my parents came back safe.
13:47Their transmission said someone had deliberately
13:48torn open a gap in the Lethe seal.
13:50Some dreadborn may have slipped out.
13:51Stay alert.
13:52After this long sealed away,
13:54their power had to be a fraction of what it once was.
13:56But demon energy itself was a whole different problem.
13:57One brush with it and your cultivation was toast at minimum.
13:59Worst case you just lost your mind.
14:01For a good while after,
14:02Celestia and the mortal world stayed quiet.
14:04I let my guard down.
14:05Then the empress's birthday banquet came around.
14:07By then Draven and Grace had been down there
14:08in mortal trials for over 300 years.
14:10Both were visibly on the edge of complete breakdown.
14:12The banquet was coming up,
14:14so the request to go back was granted.
14:15Draven was genuinely stunned.
14:17His mother had another son,
14:18but he had enough sense to stay out of my face.
14:20The mortal world did manage to knock some sense into him.
14:22If he hadn't torched everything himself,
14:23he wouldn't be in this position.
14:25But without the emperor and empress saying the word,
14:27Grace still had zero official status.
14:28All she could do was trail Draven around as his handmaid.
14:30Draven's name covered some of the damage,
14:31but she still caught heat constantly.
14:33Because other than Draven,
14:34everyone could see her for exactly what she was.
14:36I didn't have the mental banquets for that gossip though,
14:38because juice had gone and made my life complicated again.
14:39I was mid-prep on the empress's birthday gift
14:41when I spotted him absolutely wrapped in red threads,
14:42struggling toward me like a very determined worm,
14:44with an absolutely furious matchmaker god right on his tail.
14:46I looked at that knotted catastrophe of red threads
14:47and felt my eye twitch.
14:48My hands started itching on their own.
14:50He was actively trying to drag those tangled thread ends
14:52and rub them onto me.
14:53I planted my hand against his shell.
14:54I bit out every syllable.
14:55Juice Frost.
14:57The egg went instantly, perfectly still.
14:58That's how he knew when I used the full name it was serious.
15:02Juice took the empress's surname.
15:03His actual given name was still undecided.
15:05So Juice it was.
15:06The matchmaker god filed a full grievance.
15:09So Juice had derailed who knows how many mortal love stories.
15:11Couples who were literally fated for each other,
15:12might now completely miss each other,
15:14pass each other like strangers.
15:15Worse, some wouldn't just miss the right one.
15:17They'd end up stuck with the wrong one forever,
15:18spending a decade digging wild vegetables alone in the wilderness,
15:20not even out of the question at this point.
15:21But what was done was done.
15:22One egg, one crime.
15:23The egg takes the fall,
15:24and the egg's guardian wasn't getting off either.
15:26I turned down the matchmaker god's help,
15:27took Juice and started untangling the fate threads one by one.
15:30The osmanthus tree was covered in tiny yellow blossoms.
15:32From the massive ancient branches hung fate thread after fate thread,
15:34each one fatally glowing,
15:35red silk cascading like a waterfall.
15:36Moonlight everywhere, genuinely stunning.
15:38I gave the deflated Juice a pat.
15:39Said quietly,
15:40for everyone.
15:41Their fate actually matters.
15:43Even the most ordinary mortal out there deserves a shot at happiness.
15:46Fate threads come in good and bad,
15:47but anything that grows from the osmanthus tree has a reason behind it.
15:50You can't just pull them apart, got it?
15:51You can't force fate.
15:53Me and Draven figured that out just in time.
15:55The second I said Draven's name,
15:57Juice poked right up.
15:58Did a couple of enthusiastic little rolls in my arms,
16:00and let me know he got the message when the moon was full and bright.
16:02I finally finished untangling the last thread.
16:04Juice had gone completely still against my side.
16:06I checked his energy.
16:07He'd worked himself into the ground,
16:08crashed into a temporary hibernation.
16:09While he was out,
16:10I conjured a red brush,
16:11dipped it in the moonlight glowing off the fate threads,
16:13and drew a little heart on his shell.
16:15Then I wove him an osmanthus flower crown,
16:16and set it on top of his egg.
16:18A breeze came through,
16:19soft and full of spirit energy.
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