"Don't you like it?"
Qiao Ranran looked at the curtain of beads hanging from the Phoenix Crown. Every tiny white bead was made from merfolk pearls from the East Sea, polished into flecks of starlight that shimmered and faded.
How could she not like something so beautiful? Pei Ling had even made it with his own hands—but she had never imagined he would give it to her like this.
Pei Ling seemed to realize something. He leaned sharply toward Qiao Ranran, trying to read the panic in her eyes. "What? Are you having second thoughts?" They had come this far, and he certainly would not give her the chance to back out. But more than that, he wanted to know what she was thinking.
"I, I just..."
"Just what?" Pei Ling smiled. "Don't you know the Bonding Ceremony is the same as a mortal wedding—stricter, even?"
"I do, I know..." Claiming otherwise would have been ridiculous. But an idea had taken deep root in her mind: bonding and marriage were still different things. Bonding was like a contract, a promise to walk the road together. Marriage, though—marriage felt far more intimate.
"Qiao Ranran."
"Ah? Yes?"
"You don't want to marry me?"
Qiao Ranran froze.
Until now, Pei Ling had only said that once they reached the Deity Transformation Stage, they would hold a Bonding Ceremony. Qiao Ranran had seen nothing strange about that. But hearing him put it this way made something brush against the softest part of her heart. It ached and swelled with a feeling she could not name.
In that instant, everything they had been through flashed before her like fireworks. She nodded gently, wrapped her arms around Pei Ling's neck, and whispered, her voice barely louder than a mosquito's, "Of course I do."
Pei Ling laughed