Pale blue moonlight spilled across the courtyard, and the lamplight in the small window was dreamlike.
Half real, half a mirror image of the past—there was neither splendor nor the aura of an immortal abode, only the night view of an utterly ordinary little courtyard. Orange candlelight streamed through the window, its faint warmth illuminating the delicate, pretty face of the slender figure in the yard.
Actually, it was nice to sit quietly for a while.
She took out a tiny green bamboo stool, sat obediently on it, and stared blankly at the window, making up for the regrets left behind.
She did not want to push open the door. A little fear lingered in her heart—fear that once she opened it, everything would turn to emptiness.
Gazing at the window's silhouette, she remembered struggling bitterly for food in the Hundred Thousand Mountains, hiding in cracks between rocks with no guarantee of surviving the next dawn. Again and again, she fled; again and again, she fought with all her strength. Cold-blooded, savage, desperately living.
It was rare for her to set aside her exhaustion and truly feel the ordinary—to feel the warmth of candlelight, to feel beauty.
Perhaps, to many cultivators, this would count as an Inner Demon. It could only be said that one's origins decided everything. Divine beasts and ferocious beasts, few in number, belonged to the earliest batch of living beings. Pure demons were born somewhat later, while Inner Demon trials only appeared in an even later age, so she could simply ignore them.
There was a reason they were so rare.
Besides, so-called Inner Demons were merely the desires buried in one's heart. Once she saw through them, they no longer mattered.
The little courtyard was quiet. Stars wheeled through the pale blue sky above the