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CHAPTER 30: The Little Demon Lord
The System finally buckled under the pressure and began to reason with her, appealing to her emotions:
"Host, look at it this way,even obtaining the Kunlun Sword requires passing the Patriarch’s trial."
So it was perfectly normal for the System to test her character, right?
She replied unhurriedly:
"You have a point. But how can you compare yourself to the Kunlun Sword? The Kunlun Sword can cleave mountains and seas; what use do you have?"
"To stand on the sidelines and clap while I'm charging into battle?"
The System: "..."
Chao Jinsui looked toward the Heaven-Mending Stone on the table:
"You’ve known the Heavenly Dao was flawed and about the Heaven-Mending Stones since Su Liuyun died, yet you kept it from me to 'test' me?"
The System trembled. "Secrets of the Heavenly Dao concern the survival of the entire world, Host!"
Chao Jinsui sneered. "Then let me ask you: if the mission fails, what is my fate?"
The System’s voice grew smaller and smaller. "Your soul will be scattered."
“No reincarnation, no rebirth. That was the price for starting over.”
Chao Jinsui let out a short laugh. "See? For the past hundred years, I wasn't wrong to think of you as an Inner Demon."
The System hurried to explain: "Host, your resolve is steadfast; otherwise, I wouldn't have chosen you from the start."
Naturally, the System had no intention of letting its Host die. If the Host died, the System would cease to exist. It simply wanted to clarify the Host’s stance and attitude before laying everything out.
Chao Jinsui raised an eyebrow. "Oh? Is that so?"
The System was forced to speak the truth:
"What if you and the Demon Lord hit it off and you fell into the demonic path? Wouldn't the Heaven-Mending Stone be in danger then?"
The System began to wail loudly. Initially, the simple-minded System truly believed that sleeping with the Demon Lord would bring peace to the world. Who knew it would turn around and find the Heavenly Dao was flawed? If the Host and the Demon Lord became too affectionate and let emotions cloud their judgment, it would have dug its own grave.
Chao Jinsui: "..."
Fine. She had known from the start the System wasn't very bright. She had once suspected it was a fragment of the Heavenly Dao itself, but now it seemed shockingly foolish. If the Heavenly Dao were truly this weeping system,the world might as well be destroyed.
However, even if the System wasn't the Heavenly Dao, it was inextricably linked to it.
She called a halt. "Stop crying. Just tell me about the Heaven-Mending Stones."
The System choked back a sob:
"Host, you've heard the ancient myths and legends, right?"
“The cultivation world had its own myths, though they differed greatly from the mortal versions.”
“Legend says that in ancient times, Pangu split the heavens and the earth; the pure Qi rose to become the sky, and the turbid Qi sank to become the ground. The residual pure Qi became spiritual energy, while the residual turbid Qi became demonic energy. Pangu was the first Heavenly Dao, and Nuwa was the second.”
"When Nuwa mended the heavens, she used five stones. Since then, the Heavenly Dao remained stable throughout the generations."
"What the Heavenly Dao lacks now are those five Heaven-Mending Stones."
Chao Jinsui asked, "So if we find these five stones, we can mend the flaw in the Heavenly Dao?"
"Yes," the System replied. "Once the Heavenly Dao is restored, the future where demonic energy overwhelms everything can be changed. When the balance between demons and the Dao is restored, the world’s calamities will vanish."
She looked at the first stone on the table, her finger tapping it gently.
"Tell me everything you know."
The System spoke honestly: "Each stone carries a portion of the Heavenly Dao's providence. Wherever they are located, the providence will be overwhelming."
Chao Jinsui naturally thought of Su Liuyun, the "Child of Providence." So the first stone had been hidden within the Su family. This explained why Madam Zi could cause chaos in Mandarin Duck City for a century, killing countless people without anyone noticing anything amiss. The Su family had thrived, their business growing larger, and Su Liuyun’s luck had been unfathomably good. In a sense, they were stealing the providence of the Heavenly Dao.
"Is the flaw in the Heavenly Dao man-made?"
The System: "As long as we find the people stealing the providence, we can find the location of the stones!"
Chao Jinsui threw a bucket of cold water on the System:
"Providence is invisible and intangible. How are we supposed to find it? Are we supposed to hunt down everyone in the world and see who is lucky enough to survive?"
The System: "..." What kind of demonic speech is that!
Even if the System was still largely useless, it had at least pointed out a clear path. Her mood suddenly brightened. She went downstairs to buy the local specialty,Peach Blossom Wine,from the waiter, then leaped onto the roof and brought out the glazed wine cups Chao Zhaoyue had prepared for her.
As soon as she set them down, she saw a demon on the roof. The youth with black hair and black clothes looked even darker than his outfit.
"Why aren't you sleeping? What are you doing out here in the night wind?"
Though cultivators could go without sleep, it remained the best form of recovery under any circumstances.
"I can't sleep," Chao Jinsui replied, handing him a cup of wine.
The Demon Lord, with his two horns, sat beside her. Being tall, his long legs were cramped as he sat. He glanced at her delicate little wine cup, then simply reached out his long arm and took the entire wine jar.
He watched her for a long time before asking suddenly:
"Is killing Madam Zi really that satisfying?"
Was she really that happy about slaying a piece of scum who terrorized a region? He could never understand human cultivators like her. Logically, he should despise such people,yet, he found he quite liked seeing her this way.
But today, he had guessed wrong.
"No."
Ever since she woke up from her long dream, she had been searching for a way to minimize the damage, a way that wouldn't lead to her and the Demon Lord facing each other with drawn swords in the end. She was actually very lost. After breaking away from Kunlun and leaving that suffocating home, what could she do to change their ending?
She didn't want to kill him, which was why she had given the Subduing Demon Sword to Yan Xueyi. She often wondered: if the surge of demonic energy was inevitable, and if Yan Xueyi eventually became the Demon God and brought ruin to all living things, what would she do?
Perhaps, she would still draw her sword against him. A thousand times, ten thousand times. Without the Subduing Demon Sword, there was the Kunlun Sword, and a thousand other ways. Because she was Chao Jinsui. As long as she remained herself, regardless of past heartbeats or moments of softness, and irrespective of emotions or self-interest, she would still make the same choice in the end.
She said:
"Have you heard the mortal lyrics? 'All things are fate, and nothing is within man’s control.' I used to believe in fate a little."
The Demon Lord sneered. "What fate? I don't care for it."
He turned to look at her. His high-pointed horns made him look arrogant and peerless, his phoenix eyes full of disdain.
"If I believed in fate, I would never have crawled out of that damn Myriad Demon Abyss."
Chao Jinsui was stunned.
The Demon Lord laughed coldly. "Isn't that monk Guang Ping the one who believed in fate and ended up suffering a cultivation deviation? Guang Ping was once a monk at Tairuo Temple, and he loved a female cultivator. But the temple's rules were strict; he was the future abbot and didn't dare break them. He forced himself to face a wall for ten years to sever his emotional ties. When he came out of seclusion, she was dead, and he went mad. You see, if the monk hadn't believed in fate back then and had left the temple with his beloved, would any of this have happened?"
He had only just realized this himself. He glanced back at her and downed the wine in one gulp.
Chao Jinsui hadn't expected to hear such an old secret of Guang Ping’s. After a long silence, she said, "I used to believe, but now I don't." She touched the Kunlun Sword by her side and smiled.
She was truly happy today. Although the System wasn't very honest, it had pointed the way. She had a plan now, a direction. She had seized her fate once again. She didn't need to toss and turn at night, nor did she need to look at this demon and lose herself in struggle and self-doubt.
He watched her shoulder-length black hair fluttering in the night breeze. Her calm, cold profile seemed to radiate a soft light under the moon. She seemed very pleasant, even humming a little tune.
He listened quietly, slowly swallowing the last of the wine. The Demon Lord’s beautiful phoenix eyes narrowed, like a satisfied, relaxed beast lying tamely by its trainer's side, lazily listening to her song with his tail swishing back and forth.
He thought that if he could just coil his tail around her and listen to her sing for a lifetime, that would be enough.
Guang Ping was meditating under the eaves when he saw the Lord return, his gaze deeply resentful. He had come out in the middle of the night to strike his wooden fish, only to hear the Lord using his past to comfort someone.
"Lord, how could you poke at someone's scars like that?" He hadn't thought of those past events in a long time.
The Lord glanced at him. "It's nothing. I just suddenly understood a few things."
For instance, regarding how to treat a loved one, the Demon Lord realized he must learn from the monk's mistakes and never be like Guang Ping. He tilted his head. "Guang Ping, they say the mistakes of those before us are a mirror for those who follow."
The monk: "..."
The monk was even more depressed, and thus struck his wooden fish until dawn,only to be doused by a bucket of washwater from an enraged Hong Niang upstairs.
The monk: "..."
When Chao Jinsui went to find the monk to dispel the Love Gu, she found Guang Ping looking a bit listless. When asked, he sighed: "The mortal world is full of suffering... so much suffering."
Hong Niang laughed until she shook. "What 'suffering mortal world'? Monk, it's the washwater that was bitter, wasn't it?"
Guang Ping: “hmph”
Fortunately, the Gu inside Chao Jinsui’s body had no Gu King to sustain it. In the time it took for a stick of incense to burn, Guang Ping had lured it out using a box of special incense ash, and the Gu vanished completely.
Afterward, Guang Ping called Hong Niang out. Before leaving, he instructed:
"Miss Chao, mending the soul is not the work of a single day; it must be done slowly. Remember not to resist, otherwise your soul will suffer tremors. Remember this well."
The soul was vital to a cultivator, and hers was already fragile. This was no small matter.
The Demon Lord spoke, his voice steady and pleasing: "Don't force it. We can take our time and try slowly."
Chao Jinsui closed her eyes, trying to open her sea of consciousness. She had to suppress her urge to resist when the Demon Lord’s divine sense which entered her mind. However, the sea of consciousness was a person's inner world, the seat of memory and awareness. The more powerful and vigilant a cultivator was, the harder it was to control the instinct to fight back.
He also closed his eyes, placing his finger on the point between her eyebrows, injecting his divine sense. Her eyelashes fluttered as she felt a divine sense as hot as fire and incredibly overbearing. That sense condensed into a phantom of the Demon Lord, about to enter her consciousness.
In an instant, scenes of countless battles with him flashed through her mind. She resisted violently as a matter of reflex! A sharp, stabbing pain hit her! He immediately pressed down on her shoulders to keep her from struggling too much, but he withdrew almost instantly.
Her face was pale and she was drenched in sweat. The Demon Lord stared at her for a long time before handing her a cup of tea. Because he had entered her sea of consciousness, he had seen the memories that had flashed by.
She steadied her head as the sharp pain faded. "Again."
He frowned, watching her for a moment, but eventually reached out again. This time, he tried to probe with only a fraction of his sense. It was successful at first, but perhaps because it reached deeper into her consciousness, it triggered an even more violent resistance.
The sensation of being invaded by another’s divine sense was too strong. Images of her past life flashed uncontrollably,back when the demonic energy was at its peak and Yan Xueyi was approaching the status of Demon Lord. At that time, his rationality was intermittent. It was the most brutal memory she had.
She had been cast aside by him; he told her to leave, but she didn't listen. In the next second, the Demon Lord, having lost all reason, nearly threw her off a mountain peak. She had gritted her teeth, drawn her sword, and plunged it into the Demon Lord’s abdomen.
He withdrew even faster this time,not because she couldn't take it, but because the memory had shocked him too much.
"When did I... when did I ever treat you like that?"
The sharp pain made it hard for her to recover, and she couldn't hear what he was saying. After a while, she opened her eyes. "Again."
"No. You're too weak right now. We'll try again tomorrow."
She said, "I know my own body. One more time."
Looking at her like this, even the ruthless Demon Lord found he couldn't bring himself to continue. He forced himself to look away from her pale face and placed his finger on her brow again.
This time, he saw the scene even more clearly. He saw his own pitch-black eyes and his utterly inhumane side. He had stabbed her without hesitation. Even though it was just a memory, he felt an indescribable pang in his heart.
The Demon Lord suddenly realized: the person in her memory really was him. But it was him having lost control. His face turned deathly pale, even more so than hers. Because he knew that was a very real possibility.
If he lost control, if...
He looked at her and withdrew his hand, remaining silent for a moment. "This isn't working. I'll go get Guang Ping and have him try."
Chao Jinsui hadn't expected him to be able to see memories of her past life. He didn't ask, and she didn't explain. She realized the problem,deep in her consciousness, it was hard to distinguish between Yan Xueyi and the Demon Lord. Especially since they had been enemies for a lifetime in her previous world, and she hadn't known the difference between the man and the god. The understanding of the past few months was still too shallow compared to a lifetime of war.
Her voice was weak but firm: "No. I only want you."
She knew herself well. Since she was a child, she couldn't even trust her own father; she had no elders to rely on, and her only brother was barely older than her. Thus, from a young age, it had been incredibly difficult for her to trust anyone. When she eventually trusted her sect, it resulted in being pierced by ten thousand arrows. She hadn't even truly trusted the System that had been with her for a century, let alone anyone else.
Now, there was only him.
In the past, after seeing that scene in her memory, the Demon Lord might have retreated. He was decisive in slaughter throughout his life, yet he was cautious only with her, like someone returning to their hometown but afraid to step forward. They had been enemies for so long, and she had treated him with such coldness, drawing swords time and again. After being rejected so many times, the Demon Lord had become like a startled bird; he didn't want to face her wariness and rejection.
And... he was facing a scene from her memory that he couldn't defend himself against. He couldn't even say to her that he would never hurt her like that. His dark expression had never been this pale.
But this time, he was only silent for a moment.
"Fine, I won't go." He pursed his lips, his profile incredibly determined, his jaw tight like a leopard ready to spring. "I'll find a way."
Not just for her soul,but for the day he could stand before her and say: "I will never hurt you."
With the downfall of the Su family, the servants and maids fled Mandarin Duck City, and the city felt much emptier.
The next day, Ling Yun finally woke up. As soon as she saw Chao Jinsui, she grabbed the hem of her clothes, refusing to return to the Kunlun Sword Sect.
"Young Sect Leader, after you left, the Sect Leader turned us over to the Hall of Discipline Elders."
Every disciple who had secretly helped Chao Jinsui open the mountain gate had been punished. Although Chao Taichu hadn't gone too far, the leaders, Ling Yun and Wu Ya, had been expelled from the ranks of inner disciples.
Ling Yun said despondently, "Senior Brother Wu Ya was sent to the Demon Realm to transport a batch of rare spiritual herbs. I don't know if he can come back..."
Chao Jinsui turned to her. "And you? How did you end up coming here with Chao Xiaotu?"
Ling Yun’s expression darkened. Her situation had been one of pure degradation. She hadn't just lost her status as an inner disciple; she could never practice in the inner sect again and was forced to serve Chao Xiaotu, being ordered about like a common servant. She couldn't practice her sword, and she had no freedom.
But what was worse...
"Young Sect Leader, I followed Chao Xiaotu to the Su family. After the selection of the bride for the ritual, Senior Sister Xiaotu insisted on seeing Madam Zi. When Madam Zi refused, she tried to follow her in secret. I didn't want to go, but she threatened to send me back to the Hall of Discipline!"
The young girl's pale face was filled with terror. "Who knew... who knew..."
"Senior Sister Xiaotu followed Madam Zi underground and found that giant spider... she wanted to run, but she was too slow, so she pulled me in front of her to block the spider silk and ran away herself."
So, Ling Yun had been bound by the silk and nearly died. She had been filled with terror and despair, truly thinking she was going to die a miserable death. The girl began to tremble uncontrollably.
"She used you as a shield?" Chao Jinsui’s anger flared.
Ling Yun was an inner disciple recruited by Kunlun from the outside; she was talented and had a bright future. Chao Taichu had demoted her to the outer sect for his own selfish reasons, but even so, Ling Yun was not a servant or a maid of the Chao family. There was no reason for her to die for a young lady of the Chao family. No matter the sect, such disregard for human life was unacceptable! What did Chao Taichu and Chao Xiaotu think the Kunlun Sword Sect was? Their private backyard?
She was silent for a moment, then said to Ling Yun, "I won't send you back to Kunlun. Rest for now. Don't worry about anything else; I will arrange everything."
Before she left, Ling Yun stopped her: "Young Sect Leader, there's one more thing. I remember Senior Sister Xiaotu was talking about resurrecting Senior Brother Su... she even wanted to steal a coffin."
Ling Yun didn't believe in resurrection, but after seeing that sinister giant spider, she couldn't help but worry.
Chao Jinsui paused. She remembered that Madam Zi had wanted to resurrect Su Liuyun and had found a coffin and a body. The one Chao Xiaotu wanted to steal... it couldn't be that one, could it?
Chao Jinsui was almost laughing from anger. Truly stupid and wicked, without any improvement. But she couldn't help but wonder: what kind of spell had Su Liuyun cast on her to make her so devoted? Even now, she wanted to resurrect him?
Chao Jinsui asked the System suspiciously, "Did Su Liuyun put a Love Gu on Chao Xiaotu?"
After everything, she was still thinking about snatching back the coffin to resurrect him. In her previous life, Su Liuyun had been a monumental scoundrel, yet she remained unrepentant until death. Compared to her, even the most devoted cultivators didn't have such a steadfast Dao heart.
System: "Host, you might not believe it, but there’s no Gu. It’s true love."
Chao Jinsui: "..." True love?
She paused again. No, except for the matter of Su Liuyun, Chao Xiaotu was actually quite clever. Even as a child, she knew how to win favor before Chao Taichu and how to use Ling Yun to block a spider; she was clearly very smart.
In a flash of insight, she remembered when she had first woken up from her dream and returned to the sect. Chao Xiaotu’s reaction had been very strange,she was shocked and surprised, as if she believed Chao Jinsui shouldn't have come back in one piece.
The System remembered too: "Could it be that she is like you?"
She knew the future; she knew Chao Jinsui would be struck by the Love Gu and appear covered in blood. But because things turned out differently, she had been shocked.
Chao Jinsui mused, "It might be more than that. Chao Xiaotu likely knows that Su Liuyun is the 'Male Lead'."
That would explain her unwavering devotion. Because she knew he was the protagonist, she would endure a thousand torments and still treat him like her first love. Most people would only mourn after a lover died, but Chao Xiaotu acted as if he couldn't die, focusing entirely on resurrecting him.
Where did she get such confidence? Unless she believed she was the Female Lead and Su Liuyun was the Male Lead. That's why such a shrewd person displayed a devotion so contrary to her nature. Like a gambler who already knows they will win, she wouldn't hesitate to bet everything!
She said suddenly, "System, have you noticed? Chao Xiaotu’s luck is also quite good."
The System muttered, "How could it not be? She survived in front of the Gu King... and she survived the Patriarch’s trial last time."
The System froze the next second. Yes, that was the point! She even knew the future and who the protagonist was! The location of the second Heaven-Mending Stone was now obvious!
Chao Jinsui got up quickly and walked outside. She needed to repair her soul quickly,it had to show some improvement before she could investigate this lead. She couldn't let the Inner Demon possess her every time.
She knocked on the door. "Yan Xueyi, are you there? Did you find a way?"
After a long while, the door pushed open from the inside, and Chao Jinsui saw a face both familiar and strange.
It was the "Little Demon Lord."
The Demon Lord as a teenager possessed a beauty that was flamboyant to the extreme. Compared to the later gloom and moodiness, he was more like a sharp, radiant weapon. The horns on his head made that arrogance even more striking. He was like a black, flickering flame.
The Little Demon Lord tilted his horns, leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed. A trace of unnaturalness flashed across his handsome face as he asked:
"How about now? Do you still have your guard up?"
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