So Bitter

Ning Xuan stood motionless for several breaths, like a lifeless statue.

The next instant, he felt as if a hand had seized his heart.

Thankfully, he had been through transmigration before. A few possibilities flashed through his mind, like "a dream within a dream" or "a haunting."

His hands and feet were ice-cold, but his mind began to turn.

If the previous scene is repeating, that bear demon probably won't show up until dawn, so I need to go down the mountain tonight. But if this isn't a repeat—or if I failed to hide properly and the bear demon spotted me early...

Ning Xuan remembered the pain of being eaten alive.

Anyone who hadn't been gnawed from the feet up by a bear could never understand the kind of pain that drove a person mad.

How can there be demons? Why do things like demons even exist?!

Ning Xuan clutched his hair in anguish.

He wanted to cry.

He had been transported here sixteen years ago and had lived in Star River County for sixteen years. He had sought out martial arts and pursued immortality, yet had never found anything supernatural. As for demons, he had never even heard of them.

And that pain was something he absolutely, absolutely never wanted to experience again.

Calm down. Calm down. Now that it's happened, I have to find a way.

Ning Xuan forced himself to settle down, refusing to let fear control him.

He had to choose the surest path to escape.

He recalled the layout of the manor.

In front of the manor was a broad terrace, with a mountain path on either side. The one on the left had stone steps and was fairly wide; the one on the right was little more than a rough track cleared through the weeds and trees, narrow and cramped.

But both paths were flanked by dense, black woods. If a ferocious beast was lurking there, going down the mountain recklessly would be suicide.

Behind the manor was a cliff, and his bedroom had been built right at its edge. He only had to open the window to let in the towering mountains and vast sea of clouds—a truly pleasing sight.

After a moment's thought, Ning Xuan suddenly came up with a plan.

He crept through the manor and checked every corner. Finding no danger, he hurried to the storeroom, took some coarse hemp rope and a fairly large wooden tub, then gritted his teeth and spent quite a while making a hanging basket.

After testing its strength, he hurriedly washed himself and changed into clean clothes without a scent. Then he tossed two sweaty garments onto each of the mountain paths in front of the manor, and flung his stinking boots far down the slope.

Once he had done that, he rushed back and repeatedly wiped himself down with dirt, leaves, and anything else he could find. He also took a dagger from the guards' quarters and cut some leafy branches.

Then he went behind the manor, found an old tree, tied the hanging basket to it, and lowered it inch by inch—not too far, in case he couldn't climb back up.

After testing it a few times, he climbed into the basket and arranged the leafy branches around himself, piling some on his head.

It was the best plan he could think of.

He didn't need to escape.

He only needed to hold out until dawn.

Whoosh.

Whoosh.

The cold wind cut to the bone.

He stayed perfectly still in the basket, waiting in nervous dread.

Dawn slowly broke.

Ning Xuan watched clearly as the blazing sun rose between the mountains.

Its pale light was like the eye of some terrifying giant, slowly opening.

He breathed lightly, held down his racing heart, and tried to picture Xiao Jie's pale, shapely thighs and snow-mountain breasts, distracting himself from the fear in his heart.

The sun climbed higher and higher.

The mist above the cliff brightened.

Ning Xuan felt a sense of calm.

Suddenly, a raindrop fell from above.

Plip.

It landed to the left of his nose, then quickly trickled down.

He caught the scent of the rain.

Rank!

So rank!

Overpoweringly rank!

He slowly lifted his head and looked up. A black bear, over ten feet tall, was sprawled at the edge of the cliff, staring down at him.

When their eyes met, the bear demon grinned mockingly, then reached out a claw and grabbed the hemp rope holding the basket.

Ning Xuan's eyes filled with unimaginable despair.

The next instant, he gritted his teeth and tightened his grip on the dagger.

He had taken it from the guards' quarters and used it to cut branches earlier.

Now he pressed the blade to the rope and sawed at it, then hacked at it frantically.

The dagger was sharp.

The hemp rope snapped almost instantly.

As he plunged over the cliff in the basket, he felt an unexpected sense of relief. As long as—as long as the bear demon didn't eat him alive, dying from the fall would be fine!

He kept his eyes open, watching the cliff race past and the bear demon above.

Thump!

Ning Xuan felt as if he had passed through something.

Then he hit the ground.

But the agony he had expected never came, because he was... back in the manor.

The moment he crossed some kind of boundary, he had been sent back to the manor, landing in his own bed along with the basket, as if caught in a ghostly maze.

Just then, a thudding sound came from far away. It was fast, growing faster and faster. At first it sounded like distant drums, but soon it became thunder right beside his ears, pounding so hard his eardrums seemed about to burst.

He stared in horror. Dust rose in the distance, and the sound of buildings collapsing one after another filled the air. He had only just scrambled to his feet when a gigantic figure smashed through the wall of his bedroom.

Heavy panting, a rank stench, and a colossal shadow appeared in his sight once more.

"It's been a long time since I ate a human." The bear demon bared a savage grin.

Ning Xuan's Adam's apple bobbed. He sprang to his feet, trembling as he gripped the dagger. Howling and sobbing, he charged forward and roared, "Die!!"

Thump!

The bear demon knocked him down.

The bear seemed to enjoy prey with some fight in it. It didn't even take Ning Xuan's dagger away, letting him weakly slash at its armor-thick hide before it began to feed—slowly, elegantly.

"Ugh...!"

"Ahhhhhh!!!"

"It hurts!"

"It hurts so much!"

Ning Xuan was drenched in tears and snot. Then his body arched and jerked.

Thump!

He sprang up, then collapsed back down.

The bedboards let out a dull thud.

He panted heavily. It took him a long time to calm down.

The gauzy canopy hung quietly. The bedding had long since been soaked with tears, while moonlight fell on the walls and pine waves rustled outside the window. Everything was so quiet.

"Xiao Jie," he called, his voice hoarse. As expected, the beautiful woman who came whenever summoned didn't answer, because she wasn't here at all.

Was he trapped in a nightmare almost like a cycle of reincarnation? Or was this some other kind of Avici Hell?

During his last death, he had actually tested many things.

For example, he simply couldn't leave the manor.

"Maybe... maybe there's an exception. Maybe I just haven't found the right way out."

Ning Xuan shot to his feet and hurriedly put on his shoes. He took the dagger from the guards' quarters with practiced ease, and this time he also armed himself with a long saber.

He ran frantically toward the front of the manor.

He raced down the wide mountain path on the left.

After barely a dozen steps, he felt as if he had collided with something. The next instant, the scenery shifted, and he was back in his bedroom.

He ran out again, this time taking the dirt path on the right.

Again, after only a dozen steps, the scenery before him changed in an instant, and he was back in his bedroom.

He frantically tried to leave the manor in every direction. He squeezed through gaps in the woods and jumped from the cliff at every angle.

He tried over a hundred times, but without exception, the moment he left the manor, even by a little, he was sent back as if caught in a ghostly maze.

Until—

Dawn broke again.

The blazing sun, its light deathly pale, bore down on the silent manor.

The young man stood alone in the courtyard beneath the sunlight, a dagger in his left hand and a long saber in his right, his hair hanging in disarray.

His head drooped and his eyes were narrowed, but his gaze no longer belonged to a pampered young master. It was bloody and wild.

Suddenly, he heard the wind.

The wind had risen.

It came from behind him.

He spun around and swung his dagger and long saber, roaring as he hacked at the bear demon!

Thump!

It sent him flying.

He was pinned beneath the bear demon.

With its back to him, the bear sat down and began chewing on his leg.

He hacked at its spine with his saber and dagger, but all he did was make the bear more excited.

Unimaginable pain surged through him, wave after wave.

"So bitter."