Unleash the Demoness

Just as Li Bai opened the front door and was about to go inside, he heard a dull thump. He looked over and saw the Azure Flood Dragon, barely a foot long, coiled guiltily atop the closed laptop.

"Your servant welcomes Young Master home!"

The Demoness even had the nerve to act as if she'd done nothing wrong.

"If you want to play, just play. Why sneak around?"

Like a kid caught watching TV instead of doing homework, Great Demon Li showed no mercy as he pried open the laptop. Sure enough, the screen lit up. After logging in, he found a full-screen game of Minesweeper, with the Demoness having already cleared nearly ninety percent of the mines.

The Wi-Fi password had been changed, so Qingyao Demoness, forcibly cut off from the internet, had been reduced to playing offline games.

"It's so boring! Your servant wants to go online!"

In just one day, the Demoness had become a seasoned netizen. Her internet addiction was ravenous, and she clearly had little interest in cultivating.

"How many hours did you cultivate today?"

Li Bai wasn't about to indulge this freeloader. She could play computer games and watch TV, but getting online was out of the question.

"Your servant will fight you to the death!"

The Demoness lunged at him in a fit of rage.

Li Bai was about to wash some rice when he casually grabbed the Flood Dragon, held her under the faucet, and gave her a thorough soaking to clear her head.

Then he tossed her into a pot, added water, turned on the gas, and started stewing her.

Though the Glazed Heart's range extended only three feet, it was enough to fend off the Demoness's ambushes.

"From now on, you have to cultivate for at least two hours a day. Otherwise, I'll braise you, stir-fry you, and stew you."

The powerful blue-green gas flame quickly heated the pot. The Demoness tried to dart out, but Li Bai pushed her back in with one finger. It looked like boiled Azure Flood Dragon was on the menu tonight.

Even people who kept cats or dogs at home had to set rules for them, lest they pee and poop everywhere. And Li Bai was raising a demon. If he didn't keep her in line, she'd be completely lawless.

Unlike Hong Li, the well-behaved little Demoness he'd raised at home, Qingyao was a wild Demoness, always untamed.

The long leave Dean Zhou had given him had come at just the right time. He could cultivate and restore his powers while training the Demoness not to cause an unmanageable mess in this world.

Which was stronger, a Demon King or nuclear weapons? He could figure that out for himself!

If the world learned that an Azure Flood Dragon Demon King from another realm was here, then being captured for electric shocks, blood draws, and all sorts of drug infusions would be the least of her worries.

They'd have a high-precision microtome on hand, the kind that could slice a human body into five thousand to ten thousand pieces. And beside it, there would certainly be plenty of hot pots.

Clear broth, red broth, fragrant and spicy, numbing and spicy, hot and sour—given foodies' nature, they'd never pass up the chance to find out what dragon meat tasted like.

Why hot pot? Sichuan had an advanced medical industry, ranking among the best in the country. As the saying went, if even Huaxi Hospital in Sichuan couldn't cure you, there was no point going anywhere else in the country.

The Demoness was stewed by Li Bai for a solid half hour. In the end, she simply closed her eyes, leaving only her head above the water, and refused to leave the pot.

In ancient times, hot springs were called "soup." And what was bubbling on the gas stove now but a pot of soup—Azure Flood Dragon soup?

After dinner was ready, Li Bai finally fished the Azure Flood Dragon, now cooked until her sinews and bones were soft, out of the pot. The Demoness had clearly enjoyed the stew so much that she couldn't even be bothered to move.

"Take a look at this."

Li Bai set the bracelet he'd gotten from the Dong family's daughter in front of Qingyao, then began serving food into his bowl.

Dinner consisted of three dishes and a soup: braised pork, fried yellow croaker, shredded pork stir-fried with celery, and tomato-and-egg-drop soup. It wasn't extravagant, but it was a feast for the eyes, nose, and palate.

"What's this...?"

The rice spoon coiled in the Demoness's tail clattered onto the table. All her attention was fixed on the string of beads, which glimmered with moonlight beneath the lamp.

She sensed the Moonlight Essence contained in every bead. It was exactly like the faint energy contained in the cool moonlight of the other world—perhaps even purer.

"These beads are made of moonstone. See if they're any use to you."

After leaving the Dong family, Li Bai had remembered an important detail.

The moonstone bracelet wasn't expensive, which meant this world had an abundant supply of moonstone—enough for the Demoness to restore her cultivation and perhaps even advance further.

"They... they should be useful!"

Though she'd neglected her cultivation lately, Qingyao Demoness knew that the cultivation resources inside her Storage Dragon Scale would only dwindle. Unless she stayed in deep hibernation and avoided using her Demonic Arts, she couldn't preserve her current level of cultivation for long.

Even so, without resources to cultivate, her powers would gradually wither until she became a wild beast again, her intelligence shrouded in darkness. Unable to withstand the ravages of time, she would eventually turn to dust and bones.

For any member of the Demon Race lucky enough to gain sentience, that was a torment crueler than death.

The greater one's cultivation, the more one understood how hard-won it was.

Yet the bracelet beads that had suddenly appeared before her gave the Demoness a glimmer of hope.

"Where did you get these?"

In her excitement, the bracelet suddenly snapped with a sharp crack. The thin string holding its twenty-four beads broke. Before the moonstones could bounce all over the room, the Azure Flood Dragon twisted with nimble grace, catching every round bead and corralling them all into the center of her coiled body. Not one escaped.

She didn't even care about her dinner. Opening her mouth toward the beads, she gently inhaled. Strands of faint blue radiance, like moonlight, rose up, hazy as clouds or mist, and were soon drawn into her.

The moonstone beads, drained of their Moonlight Essence, became much murkier. Their original blue glow was gone.

The Azure Flood Dragon lowered her head. Strange light rippled across her green scales, and her Demonic Qi fluctuated faintly. She was clearly refining the pure Moonlight Essence she'd just absorbed.

Li Bai quietly took a jade talisman from his Storage Ring and infused it with a wisp of spiritual energy. The Runes lit up at once, enveloping the fluctuations emanating from the Flood Dragon and preventing even the slightest trace from leaking out.

Though the Heaven and Earth Rules in this world made cultivation difficult, Li Bai couldn't be sure whether some extraordinary person might detect the strange commotion the Demoness made while cultivating.

By the time Li Bai finished his dinner, the rippling light across the Demoness's body had stopped, disappearing back into her emerald scales.

The pure Moonlight Essence contained in more than twenty soybean-sized moonstone beads had taken her over half an hour to refine and transform into her own Demonic Qi.

Her stagnant cultivation had finally budged, recovering by the tiniest bit.

In the other world, this amount of recovery would have been insignificant. But given her current circumstances, it was an extraordinary and unexpected gain.

"Young Master, Young Master, your servant wants more! More!"

The Azure Flood Dragon coiled on the dining table finally pounced on Li Bai while he was scrubbing pots and washing dishes. She wrapped herself around his neck with an insatiable look, wheedling as she tried to plant a KISS on him. Her venomous fangs, however, were chilling to behold.

Li Bai pulled the Azure Flood Dragon off his neck and tossed her onto the stove. Pointing at the pots, dishes, and bowls submerged in thick suds, he said, "That was the only bracelet. There's no more. What you get next depends on how you behave. Otherwise, you get nothing. From now on, all the housework is yours: washing dishes, sweeping, tidying up. Come on, get to work!"

As the saying went, only Demonesses and petty men were hard to raise.

So he absolutely couldn't spoil her. Li Bai left her to her chores and went to enjoy life as a Young Master.

The Demoness gazed mournfully at the sink full of bubbles. Had she just walked right into a trap?

Moonstones containing Moonlight Essence weren't exactly cheap. At the rate the Demoness used them, the cost would be exorbitant. Ordinary people could never afford to keep her.

The sink began clattering again. Li Bai paid no attention to how the Demoness managed to wash dishes with just one tail. He woke up the laptop from sleep mode and logged into the "17th Floor" forum, eager to see how those Taoist priests from Qingliang Temple were smearing his name.

As the saying went, a dog that bites doesn't bark. Qingliang Temple clearly excelled at this.

They stayed out of sight while sending anonymous accounts to bite at people from every direction, making sure they'd never lose. Even if things spiraled out of control, they could always put on a show of mediating with a few fake-sounding words and earn a reputation for being above the fray. It had to be said: this tactic of achieving victory without making a move was vicious.

Not everyone had the judgment to assess things objectively and rationally. Under this kind of provocation and hype, it was easy to spark a herd mentality that couldn't tell right from wrong. This was a textbook psychological operation.

After reading more than ten posts that twisted the facts and talked nonsense, Great Demon Li, whom Great Dean Zhou had praised for his composure, finally took action.

Shut the door!

Unleash the Demoness!