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CHAPTER 21: A Fractured Soul
Her consciousness was a blurred expanse, her body light as if drifting in mid-air. She barely had the strength to summon the Kunlun Sword from her sea of consciousness.
She remembered the Kunlun as a blade of supreme righteousness and fierce malevolence a paradox of a weapon that possessed the power to repel all things unholy. She placed the ethereal sword alongside the Love Gu, and the restless parasite, sensing the blade's biting edge, gradually subsided into a wary stillness.
The System had shielded her from the brunt of the physical agony, leaving her with only a hazy, distorted perception of the world outside.
She felt herself cocooned in a thick, rolling shroud of demonic energy. Faint voices drifted through the gloom; someone was keeping watch by her side, restless and volatile. Their presence was so menacing it nearly frightened away the physicians brought to treat her.
It felt as though a great dragon were guarding a treasure that might vanish at any moment, shifting its tail with anxious flickers, cautiously circling her to keep her at the center of its world.
The sensation was utterly foreign.
When she was a child, she had once broken a rib and collapsed with a fever that wouldn't break. Chao Taichu had only spared the time for a cursory glance, using the moment to rebuke her for her weakness.
Back then, she hadn't understood. Only later did she realize that Chao Taichu saw her merely as a useful blade.
People only care if a blade is sharp. Every wound, every grueling trial is viewed simply as a necessary whetstone. They marvel at the brilliant, cold glint of a divine weapon once polished, but who cares if the blade itself feels the pain of the grinding stone?
In those days, she could only lie quietly beneath her blankets. Chao Zhaoyue had been there, fortunately, but he was her elder brother; he could not stay the whole night. After all, he was just another blade in their father’s arsenal. If he stayed with her, he would be sent to the Cliff of Reflection to endure punishment. Why suffer for her sake?
Once he left, the silence that followed was suffocating.
Delirious with fever, she had been too terrified to close her eyes, staring wide-eyed into the dark until dawn. She lived under the persistent delusion that if she closed her eyes, she would simply dissolve into that boundless, reaching shadows. She might die soundlessly, and no one would ever know.
But for the first time, she sensed a demon who was frantic with worry because of her. He seemed to care more about her survival than she did herself. She had never sensed trepidation from this demon before; he had always been the lawless, arrogant Great Demon Lord who bowed to no one.
And yet, at this moment, he was desperate.
The surging demonic energy was the clearest proof. Once emotions became turbulent, a demon could no longer suppress their aura. Through that heavy, oppressive mist, she could actually taste his fear.
It was a novel sensation.
It was as if she were some peerless treasure, a piece of fragile glass.
But she wasn't glass; she was a blade forged in a thousand fires. The wind and the frost had never broken her, and he should have known that better than anyone.
Nonetheless, his touch was so tentative it bordered on reverent, as if he truly feared she might shatter and die in the next breath. Strange as it was, she found that by his side, she could finally let go and fall into a deep, trusting sleep.
She wasn't sure how much time had passed before the clamor outside roused her. Voices drifted in from the hall.
As cautious as this demon was in her presence, he was twice as terrifying to the doctors the moment he turned his back.
The word "Soul" was mentioned, followed by a slick-voiced demon suggesting that they simply refine her soul into a Ghost Cultivator. That way, there would be no more worries. Just a clean sweep of the mind a "cure-all" for every ailment.
This brilliantly demonic suggestion caused the Demon Lord to lift his eyes slowly. In an instant, his energy erupted, a murderous aura flooding the small room until the air nearly crystallized into frost.
At that moment, a voice drifted from the inner chamber.
"So noisy."
The world outside fell into an instant, stunned silence.
Someone actually dared to complain that the Demon Lord was being too loud?
One would have expected the Demon Lord, who was already at the frayed edge of his patience, to explode in a towering rage. Ever since their return, he had been a hair’s breadth away from a breakdown, his eyes bloodshot with frantic worry. He had tried his best to be "civil" to the doctors, enduring the bizarre whims of these demonic quacks with a simmering, silent fury. But the suggestion of "beheading to cure the headache" had finally snapped his leash.
He had just raised his foot, intent on kicking the "doctor" into oblivion, when his entire body froze.
That voice acted like a master switch.
A single, soft sentence possessed a power completely disproportionate to its volume, instantly soothing the raging demonic tides.
She opened her eyes and met the demon’s blood-red gaze. To be honest, it was rather startling.
He lowered his voice instinctively. "Did I wake you?"
"Yan Xueyi, my head hurts."
He immediately reined in the overflowing demonic energy. Looking at her as if she were a porcelain doll, he hardly dared to touch her, appearing convinced that the slightest pressure would turn her to dust.
Such painstaking care.
She moved to sit up, her head still spinning, though the fog had lifted considerably.
He frowned, his hand moving with lightning speed to steady her.
"This is a Soul-Stabilizing Pearl," he muttered. "That monk said it could temporarily steady your spirit."
He didn't explain who "that monk" was, nor did he mention the rest of the prognosis: the monk had warned that the pearl only treated the symptoms, not the cause. If she failed to wake, the problem would escalate until her soul physically detached from her body.
That was why the Great Demon Lord had been so frantic.
Now that she was awake, he let out a breath he seemed to have been holding for a lifetime. As long as she was conscious, a solution could be found.
She looked down and realized her clothes had been changed. Her gaze shifted instinctively to him. He looked away uncomfortably, clearing his throat. "I found a demoness to look after you."
The truth was, when she had fainted, his own mind had been haunted by her words “you squeezed me to death.” When he had checked later, her wrists truly were bruised from his grip. This Demon Lord had never learned how to nurse someone; he only knew how to crush them.
He felt a flicker of uncharacteristic trepidation. Acting as though nothing was wrong, he coughed again and summoned the attendant.
"Her name is Hong Niang."
A woman in her thirties stepped into the doorway. She was quite pleasant looking, though she appeared incredibly ill at ease. Humans usually looked down on demons especially those with physical abnormalities and Hong Niang was bracing herself for rejection.
She didn't care what human cultivators thought of her in general, but she knew the Demon Lord’s attitude toward this particular woman was unique. If she were rejected, it might bring shame upon her Lord as well. Hong Niang watched the short-haired beauty with bated breath.
The woman’s gaze lingered on her, but there was no flash of revulsion, no cold disdain. Instead, she offered a gentle smile. Her features were naturally icy, but when she smiled, it was like the first crack of spring on a mountain of snow.
Stunned, Hong Niang felt her tension melt away.
The Demon Lord offered a tangential explanation. "I picked Hong Niang up years ago. But... she’s not like that Wu Ya fellow."
The girl glanced at him. What does this have to do with Wu Ya?
The Demon Lord huffed coldly. Did she think he didn't know what Wu Ya was up to? Trying to latch onto them and follow them back? In his dreams!
Hong Niang and Wu Ya were nothing alike! Hong Niang was much "cleaner" than that sword cultivator!
Hong Niang looked between the two of them and sidled up to Chao Jinsui’s side. Being quick on the uptake, she began to recount her history.
"Young Miss, you know how those human theater troupes love to perform those 'beheading' plays?"
Chao Jinsui knew of them. Entertainment was scarce in the cultivation world, and since cultivators lived long lives, they often sought out the spectacles of the mortal realm though their versions were often far more dazzling and dangerous.
“Back then, a troupe had been performing their tricks, and the young Demon Lord had taken his band of brothers to see the commotion. The troupe was preparing for a beheading act, and the "prop" they dragged onto the stage was a natural-born demon.”
“Natural-born demons often possessed non-human traits. Hong Niang’s "specialty" was that she had been born with three heads. Abandoned at birth and subjected to a lifetime of humiliation, she had eventually been captured by the troupe. After all, who was better suited for a beheading act than her?”
“Just as the troupe was about to lop off her extra heads, Hong Niang had been weeping in terror. The young Demon Lord, who was then little more than a mountain bandit chief, decided he was short of a kitchen maid and "picked up" little Hong Niang.”
“That was how the Demon Lord’s original inner circle had been formed one stray soul at a time, gathered from the corners of the world. No one could have guessed that decades later, little Hong Niang would become a high-level demon cultivator, famous and feared across the realm.”
After the story concluded, Chao Jinsui remained quiet for a long time. Then, she said seriously:
"There are scoundrels among the humans as well. Hong Niang, I am sorry."
Hong Niang gasped, her face flushing red, and she scrambled out of the room.
Only after she left did the Great Demon Lord finally exhale.
Demons were like this, especially the natural-born ones. They spent their lives being discriminated against and loathed by humanity. He hadn't wanted Hong Niang to be rejected; she was a subordinate who had fought by his side to conquer the Demon Realm. If he could have, he would have tended to the girl himself.
But... this was his world. A collection of strange, twisted demons who didn't look human even when dressed in fine silks. It was like the eternal night of the Demon Realm; he couldn't make the sun rise just because she liked the light.
And yet, she didn't despise them. She wasn't repulsed. She even apologized to Hong Niang. Even though it had nothing to do with her.
She noticed that ever since she'd shown her acceptance, the demon had been stealing glances at her. His eyes were shining with an incredible brightness, the terrifying blood-red hue replaced by a gaze so intense it was almost overwhelming. The corners of his handsome mouth twitched with a smile he couldn't quite suppress.
Suddenly, she asked him:
"Yan Xueyi, is that who I am in your eyes?"
"The kind of person who would despise the demons who saved me? Who would look down on the ones who cared for me?"
The demon froze, his thin lips parting slightly.
He wanted to say that humans had always loathed demons, calling them freaks and madmen. He wanted to say that she had once made it her mission to slay demons and exorcise evil.
Instead, she said: "I don't despise them. You are all very good."
"I cannot accept kindness from someone and then turn around and demand their blood." She paused. "Yan Xueyi, am I being selfish?"
His body stiffened. He turned his head away and whispered, "It’s fine."
She didn't catch it and poked him.
He whipped back around, glaring at her fiercely. "You're not selfish! You're... you're fine!"
Could this human talk any more nonsense? Why was she insulting herself?
He stood up abruptly, tucked her back into the blankets, and pulled the covers right up to her head, wrapping her like a zongzi and forcing her to stay down.
The Soul-Stabilizing Pearl’s effects were limited, and she knew it. She stayed quiet, not wanting to cause more trouble.
But her sleep remained fitful.
As her consciousness drifted, a burning thirst began to consume her. Someone held a teacup to her lips, but the water did nothing to quench the fire. She reached out instinctively and caught hold of a hand.
The moment she felt his body heat, a powerful sensation surged through her clouded mind. It was as if a voice were whispering in her ear, urging her: Closer. Just a little closer.
The person she held was a source of radiant warmth, the only heat in a world of ice and snow.
She dimly realized the Love Gu was at work, but her mind was a hollow vessel filled only with that one command.
Closer. Closer still.
She gripped his hand and pulled.
Despite being a towering demon with a body built for explosive power, a man who could crush cultivators with his bare hands he must have been distracted. His guard was at its absolute lowest. He was caught completely off balance and tumbled onto the bed.
The moment he fell into the blankets, she flipped over and pinned him. With a practiced, lethal fluidity, she locked her hand around his throat and straddled him, holding him captive!
She felt the voice screaming for her to take what she needed from this man.
When it came to hand-to-hand combat, this demon had clawed his way out of the Myriad Demon Abyss. He wasn't easily subdued. No matter how skilled a sword cultivator was, they were no match for a brawling rogue like him in close combat.
Attacked so suddenly, the demon was caught off guard, his expression a mix of shock and budding fury. He gritted his teeth, preparing to flip her off and demand what kind of madness had possessed her but the moment he moved, his entire body turned to stone.
The muscles of his powerful waist were locked tight by her supple legs, which coiled around him like a beautiful, lethal serpent.
It was like a slender silken cord tightening around a savage hound, instantly parching his throat and stealing his breath.
Her hand was clamped over his Adam's apple; her long, dark tresses spilled over his neck.
In her delirium, she didn't want much at least, the suppressed Love Gu was demanding far less than the last time. Her eyes were fixed on his thin lips, and whatever words he was snarling went completely unheard.
The "vicious dog" pinned beneath her endured it for one breath, then another. The veins on his hands bulged with the effort of restraint.
But he still possessed a shred of logic.
He let out a cold, mocking laugh. So, the little lunatic has finally shown her true colors? She’s making her move?
Could she really not even wait a little longer?
If she had kept up the act just a bit more, he might have actually believed her. To strike while still in the heart of the Demon Realm... she really was...
"You're looking for death," he hissed, a flash of murderous intent crossing his beautiful face.
He reached for her waist, intending to hurl this ungrateful, reckless sword cultivator across the room in a fit of rage.
But then, her soft lips pressed firmly against his, silencing the cruel words before they could leave his mouth.
The stunned demon felt himself being pushed back into the pillows as she kissed him.
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