Chapter 144: Heaven Above

Huang Guolun was so startled by Huang Tao's nonsense that he almost tumbled right off the bed, successfully waking him up completely.

Sun Yanxi found an unexpected ally and burst into laughter. "Peach, why are you so adorable? Godmom simply adores you to pieces!"

"Godmom, words alone mean nothing, you have to treat me to prove it! If you truly love me, take me out for a grand feast! Dad hasn't taken me out for a proper meal in ages, he's so stingy!"

Sun Yanxi smiled and agreed readily, "No problem at all! Name whatever you want to eat, and I'll treat you tonight!"

"That's fantastic! Dad, Godmom says she's treating me to dinner tonight! You're coming with us too!"

Huang Tao gave Huang Guolun a mischievous wink. His crafty expression clearly telegraphed that he was creating an opportunity for his father. Of course, he was also securing a chance for himself to indulge in fine cuisine.

Huang Guolun was in no mood for dining right now, and he rudely poured cold water on the idea, "What feast? You're already as round as a bowling ball."

Sun Yanxi came to Peach's defense, "Old Huang, how is our Peach fat? His current figure is cute, not fat!"

Huang Tao said smugly, "See? Godmom has an eye for true beauty, while you, Dad, suffer from legendary blindness! You're just jealous that my life is better than yours, which is why you always abuse me and deny me delicious food! Godmom, you must stand up for me! If Dad won't let the two of us go to dinner, you might as well take me home with you instead. I won't be his son anymore, I'll be your son! ...Mom!"

Huang Guolun was already in a foul mood, and hearing Huang Tao address Sun Yanxi as "Mom" made him feel as though he had been stabbed in the chest.

He snatched the phone away, his face darkening as he scolded Huang Tao, "Is your mouth itching for a beating?"

Huang Tao stubbornly talked back, "Right, my mouth is itching! You haven't treated me to a grand feast in ages, so my mouth is craving one!"

"Stop spouting nonsense with me! If you want something to eat, go ask your grandma for an ice cream cone! Don't run your mouth off with Teacher Sun! Even if you talk until the sky falls, I'm not letting you go out for dinner!"

"Why are you acting like this? Why take your anger out on a child?" Seeing Huang Guolun suddenly lose his temper, Sun Yanxi was displeased from the other end of the video call.

Huang Guolun was burning with vexation and didn't have the bandwidth to reply to Sun Yanxi. He just glared at Huang Tao, using his eyes to threaten the brat into clearing out immediately!

Huang Tao was smart enough. Seeing the look on Huang Guolun's face, he knew he wouldn't get away with any favors this time. With a defiant snort, he muttered, "A dog barking at Lü Dongbin, you fail to recognize a good heart! I'm going to ask grandma for an ice cream cone! You can stay single for the rest of your life!"

Before scrambling off the bed, Huang Tao didn't forget to throw a final line to Sun Yanxi to smooth things over, "Godmom, my dad is having his period today, don't hold it against him. We'll talk about the grand feast another time, but don't forget to treat me! When the time comes, we won't bring my dad—just the two of us will go gorge ourselves and make him green with envy!"

Sun Yanxi chuckled, "Right, green with envy!"

"Hmph!"

Huang Tao gave Huang Guolun one last fierce glare before happily scampering down from the bed and dashing out of the room.

Once the little rascal was gone, Huang Guolun finally enjoyed some peace and quiet.

Looking at Sun Yanxi on the other end of the video, Huang Guolun was momentarily at a loss for words.

Sun Yanxi reproached him, "What is wrong with you? Why fly into a rage at a child? He doesn't know any better and was just talking nonsense, you could have just let it go in one ear and out the other. Why scold him like that?"

"I'm not taking it out on him," Huang Guolun sighed quietly, adding, "I'm just in a rather poor mood today."

Sun Yanxi asked with concern, "What's wrong? Did something happen?"

"Nothing major. I won't talk to you for now, I need to step out."

Sun Yanxi pouted slightly, adopting a petulant tone, "Are you really that reluctant to talk to me?"

"No, don't get me wrong, I genuinely have something to take care of outside. Let's make it next week—I'll find some time to treat you to dinner at that music restaurant you mentioned."

"You promised that, don't go back on your word later."

"I won't. I'll definitely treat you next week."

"Well, I was actually going to treat you, but if we're going to that music restaurant, you'll definitely have to host. You can just sing a song and get the bill waived, heehee, the two of us can enjoy a free meal."

Huang Guolun managed a helpless, bitter smile at Sun Yanxi's remark and said, "I'll do my best. I've got to run now, heading out. See you at school tomorrow."

"All right, see you at school."

Ending the video call with Sun Yanxi, Huang Guolun glanced at the call duration. It had surprisingly been over twenty minutes.

He had no idea what Huang Tao and Sun Yanxi had been chatting about earlier to make the boy accept Sun Yanxi as his godmother.

This little brat was getting bolder by the day.

Damn it, could Mr. Yi's prophecy about Huang Tao's eccentric and bizarre destiny actually be coming true?

The more Huang Guolun thought about it, the more annoyed he became, so he simply decided to stop thinking about it altogether.

Retrieving a bottle of liquor from home that his elder uncle Huang Hao had enjoyed during his lifetime, along with a pack of cigarettes and two of Huang Tao's stolen ice cream cones, Huang Guolun drove toward Fubei Cemetery.

Along the way, Huang Guolun stopped to buy some pastries that Chen Jia had loved when she was alive, as well as some traditional cakes preferred by the older generation, intending to pay his respects to his uncle Huang Hao as well.

His uncle Huang Hao could be considered the pioneer of their family's cemetery business and was currently laid to rest in the family's private burial plot at Fubei Garden, which boasted the best Feng Shui.

Excluding newly established cemetery projects, their family currently operated three large-scale cemeteries in the northern suburbs of the capital: Nanshan Cemetery, Fuan Cemetery, and Fubei Cemetery.

Among them, Fubei Cemetery was the smallest in scale of the three, but possessed the superior Feng Shui.

When Huang Guolun's uncle Huang Hao passed away years ago, he was buried in Nanshan Cemetery, which he had personally developed.

Later, after Fubei Garden was developed and guided by the advice of a Feng Shui master, Elder Huang opened up a hill with the finest Feng Shui within Fubei Garden, built their family cemetery, and relocated the graves of the older generations along with Huang Hao's to the family plot.

An entire slope of that small hill belonged to the Huang family's private cemetery. According to seniority, burial plots from the mountaintop down to the foothills had been reserved for every generation, stretching all the way down to Huang Tao's grandsons and great-grandsons, ensuring that everyone would have a resting place after death.

Chen Jia was buried in the burial sector designated for Huang Guolun's generation.

Currently, it was a single plot.

Initially, Huang Guolun had wanted to construct a joint burial plot for Chen Jia so that he could be buried alongside her when his own time came a century later.

However, Elder Huang and Old Madam Zhou did not permit him to do so.

The two elders knew that Huang Guolun and Chen Jia shared a deep bond, but Huang Guolun was still young and would undoubtedly seek another wife in the future, and that future wife would walk by his side for a much longer portion of his life. If a joint tomb were to be built, it should be shared with his future wife—how could it possibly be built with Chen Jia?

Thus, Elder Huang made the executive decision to construct a single burial plot for Chen Jia.

Every festive season when offerings were burned for the departed, Huang Guolun would come here to sweep Chen Jia's grave and update her on Huang Tao's growth.

Because they had always lied to Huang Tao, telling him that his mother had gone to Mars on a mission, Huang Guolun had not yet had the heart to bring Huang Tao to sweep Chen Jia's grave.

The members of the Huang family all agreed that they would wait until Huang Tao grew a bit older and possessed greater psychological resilience before bringing him to visit Chen Jia's resting place.

Not long ago, when burning winter clothes for the deceased on the first day of the tenth lunar month, Huang Guolun had just swept Chen Jia's grave.

Scarcely two months had passed, yet returning now, Huang Guolun's frame of mind was no longer as peaceful and calm as it had been last time.

Although he was extremely reluctant to believe that what Mr. Yi had said was true, a thorn had been driven into his heart, making him feel an overwhelming sense of guilt toward Chen Jia.

Right now, he desperately wanted to prove that everything Mr. Yi had said was sheer nonsense.

Yet this was something that could not be proven overnight.

Coming to sweep the grave under the shadow of such psychological turmoil, one could only imagine how complex and tangled Huang Guolun's emotions were.

Arriving at Fubei Garden and parking his car in the lot at the foot of the hill, he walked for over half an hour to reach the family cemetery.

He first went before his uncle Huang Hao's grave, poured wine for him, carefully lit a cigarette for him, and chatted with his uncle for a while before descending to the mid-slope to reach Chen Jia's grave.

Looking at Chen Jia's eternal smile on the headstone, washed into grayscale by the passage of time, Huang Guolun felt as though his heart was being sliced by a knife.

Silently arranging her favorite pastries, Huang Tao's favorite ice cream cones, and two cans of cola that both mother and son had loved before the headstone, Huang Guolun sat down beside the grave and began to speak to Chen Jia: "Wife, did you hear what Dad said to me this morning? Saying you were thirsty must have been an excuse; you just wanted me to come over and chat with you for a bit, didn't you? Were you trying to persuade me to put everything out of my mind and just live my life steadily? But Wife, I can't simply ignore this matter. If what that Mr. Yi said is true, I can no longer afford to 'create bad karma'."

"Whoosh..."

A sudden cold wind swept through the mountains, making Huang Guolun shrink his neck in a shiver.

A chill ran down his spine, stirring up superstitious thoughts in his mind. He quickly amended, "You don't want to hear about this, right? Fine, I won't talk about it anymore. Since you're thirsty, I'll drink a can of cola on your behalf, then water the trees, and I'll come back to talk more with you when I'm done."

With that, Huang Guolun popped open a can of cola and chugged it down in one breath.

Burping twice, he offered a bitter smile and a nod toward Chen Jia's portrait before standing up to leave the burial plot. He called the cemetery staff and asked them to bring several buckets of water over.

After dismissing the staff, he personally watered the pine and cypress trees surrounding Chen Jia's plot.

Even after finishing, he still had a significant amount of water left. Using a carrying pole, he lugged the remaining water to the graves of other familiar and unfamiliar elders in the family cemetery, watering their pine and cypress trees as well, as if punishing himself by working until he was drenched in sweat.

It seemed that only by torturing himself this way could he find a semblance of peace in his heart.

When he finally returned to Chen Jia's plot, Huang Guolun's arms were trembling, his lower back ached fiercely, and with an old and weary posture, he seated himself on the icy stone platform. He finished the remaining half of the second can of cola and continued talking to Chen Jia: "You aren't thirsty anymore, right? I've watered every single pine and cypress in this entire section. If there's anything else you need me to do, send me a dream. As for Peach, you must be able to watch him grow from up in heaven. That little rascal is getting craftier by the day; a single day apart feels like three autumns. When he grows a few years older, I'll bring him here to see you."

"Whoosh..."

Another northern wind swept through the mountains, as if Chen Jia were signaling that she did not want Peach to come see her.

As a mother, though she missed her son dearly, she would undoubtedly prefer to make sacrifices for him.

She would rather let Peach continue believing through his childhood that she had gone to Mars on a mission than leave any dark memories behind in his formative years.

Realizing that Chen Jia did not wish to hear about this either, Huang Guolun stopped dwelling on the subject.

Instead, he shifted topics and asked, "Do you want to hear me sing?"

Although during Chen Jia's lifetime, Huang Guolun's musical proficiency had not yet reached its current pinnacle of mastery where the sharpest sword leaves no trace, Chen Jia had loved hearing him sing. Regardless of whether he sang well or poorly, any song he sang for her was her favorite.

Every time he came to sweep the grave in the past, Huang Guolun would carry a guitar, chatting and singing with Chen Jia.

Today, having come in a rush and with a heavy heart, Huang Guolun had not brought his guitar.

However, since he imagined Chen Jia might want to hear him sing, Huang Guolun decided to simply sing a cappella.

"I wonder if you can hear my singing usually. You must be able to hear it, right? And you can probably tell that my singing skills are quite extraordinary now, can't you? Is this the blessing you prayed for me from heaven? Thank you, Wife, I love you, but I really can't sing you a love song today. My heart aches—can you feel it?"

Huang Guolun's throat felt sour. After gathering his emotions, he continued, "You used to love Zheng Jun's music, so I'll sing one of his songs—*The Vault of Heaven Above*."

This song perfectly mirrored his own desolate, grief-stricken, and utterly helpless state of mind at this moment.

Why were their destinies plagued by such twists and turns?

Carrying a bleeding heart, Huang Guolun raised his voice, a single note startling the wild birds resting in the trees—

...

*Dancing disheveled hair / The cold wind of the twelfth lunar month / Wild pigeons graze across the azure sky*

*Pity that in this life / It is already fated by destiny / That I cannot walk the path beside you*

*No reason / No reason / Only excuses / Only excuses*

*Leaving only the vault of heaven above / Leaving only the vault of heaven above*

*She turns out to be so fickle / She turns out to be so capricious too*

...

Like a lonely hero standing on a precipice questioning the heavens, Huang Guolun's rendition of these lyrics echoed through the vast, quiet mountains with a majestic and soaring resonance!

Looking back, vicissitudes had already visited them several times; how could endless emotions be expressed in words?

The mortal world is like a dream, and all suffering stems from the heart.

Huang Guolun poured all of today's stifled misery into the song—

...

*Standing upon the ancient plains of our ancestors / I weep as I offer sacrifices to you*

*How many dreams were shattered right here / Now all turned into wisps of flying smoke*

*No reason / No reason / Only excuses / Only excuses*

*Leaving only the vault of heaven above / Leaving only the vault of heaven above*

*She turns out to be so fickle / She turns out to be so capricious too*

*Ooh... As a heavy snow quietly falls!*

*Ooh... All loves and hatreds melt away right here!*

...

If time could flow backward, Huang Guolun truly wished he could return to the days before he had ever met Chen Jia.

What a wonderful ending it would be if a heavy snowfall could melt away every trace of love and hatred in this world.

Alas, there was no such snow in this realm, and even less of such a melting away.

Life was nothing more than a trial of cultivation, bound by the jade lock of romantic attachment and armored in the golden plates of desire, granting no liberation across countless lifetimes—

...

*Who is it that bound me with the jade lock? / Denied release through all eternity*

*Who is it that fitted you with golden armor? / Plunged into fire and water across every rebirth*

*No reason / No reason / Only excuses / Only excuses*

*Leaving only the vault of heaven above / Leaving only the vault of heaven above*

*She turns out to be so fickle / She turns out to be so capricious too*

*Leaving only the vault of heaven above / Leaving only the vault of heaven above*

*She turns out to be so fickle / She turns out to be so capricious too*

...

Huang Guolun's heroic and unyielding singing reverberated through the cemetery, nearly loud enough to reach Bai Yao, who was preparing to enter the grounds from the opposite side to conduct an inspection.