Three days later, the frenzied black python gradually regained clarity of mind.
Ling Qing waited until he was fully awake before putting away the Immortal-Ending Sword and the Nine-Layer Azure Gate.
The black python rose and transformed into a broad-shouldered youth. Cupping his hands in salute, he said, "Many thanks to you for saving me, Daoist. Had you not helped me, I fear I would have spent the rest of my life regretting injuring my mother."
He had gone mad from cultivating demonic arts, but that did not mean he was unaware of what he had done in his madness.
Especially for one like him, whose changes were so drastic—perfectly normal when lucid, then suddenly utterly mad—the two states were sharply divided.
Precisely because of this, the less human he had been in his madness, the more grateful he was upon recovering his senses that he had not harmed his kin while mad.
"Mm." Ling Qing flicked the whisk in his hand and said, "This poor Daoist does not know what demonic art you cultivated to end up in such a state.
"Yet seeing that you are still a filial son, I have a secret method here that can help you refine away the demonic root within your body.
"However, I see that when you first attained the Dao, the foundation of your demonic path accounted for half of it.
"If you cultivate my secret method, I fear you will have to discard your own foundation. You may even fall from the Heavenly Immortal realm.
"Are you willing?"
"My son..." The woman beside them looked at her child with delight written across her face, yet stopped herself from speaking.
She rejoiced that Ling Qing had a method to free her child from the torment of this madness.
But everything her