Demoness

At the foot of Mystic Yi Mountain, a woman in white gauze walked with a graceful sway. Her waist twisted like a water snake, as though boneless. Her pure white gown rocked from side to side with her movements like a blooming lotus, concealing tail after tail that flickered in and out of view beneath it.

Before the woman lay a burly man. There were clearly no wounds on his body, yet he reeked heavily of blood. Anyone unaware of the truth would have thought he had just crawled out of a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood.

"What a useless thing! You couldn't even handle a blood sacrifice properly! You've kept me from getting proper rest even now! What if all this toil makes me ugly?" Leaning against a handsome yet gloomy man, the woman spoke in the softest, sweetest voice while doing the most terrifying thing.

In her hand, she held a still-beating human heart. It throbbed again and again, spitting out waves of sweetly fishy vapor that flowed into the woman's nostrils.

"Still, his heart tastes rather good! Wang, could you do me another favor?"

"Of course!" Wang Daoist gazed lovingly at the woman in his arms and nodded. "Xiao Wei, whatever you want, I'll get it for you! What do you want?"

"Go bring back that boy from the Dong Family's heart for me, all right? I want to taste what the heart of a reincarnated deity is like!" The woman pressed gently against Wang Daoist, her finger sliding across his chest and leaving a faint mark at his throat. Bringing her lips close to his ear, she whispered, "Don't worry. This time, I'll help you!"

As she spoke, the woman's finger slid down again and began tracing circles over Wang Daoist's chest. The instant he nodded, she thrust her hand in and pulled out a heart that gave off a faint lotus fragrance.

"You..." Wang Daoist stared at the woman before him in utter shock, as if he had never imagined this could happen. But before he could finish speaking, the woman bit down on his neck again. A drop of pitch-black blood radiating demonic, wicked, and fallen aura slipped from her mouth into Wang Daoist's veins.

Wang Daoist began convulsing all over, strange cries spilling from his mouth. They sounded somewhat human, yet not like sounds any human should have been able to make—like wails of agony wrung out at the very limit of pain while someone was being flayed and their bones pulled out.

But Wang Daoist was not much different from being flayed now. After the blood entered his veins, patches of skin began peeling away from his neck.

Very quickly, his entire face festered, covered in blood and pus-filled sores. Then, not a trace of intact skin remained on the exposed parts of his body. Blood streamed over his muscles, staining his clothes red before dripping to the ground drop by drop, only to instantly evaporate into mist and return to his body. The sight was utterly horrifying.

The woman had already moved aside when Wang Daoist began screaming.

Watching Wang Daoist transform into a monster, the woman smiled. "Go! Bring me that Dong Family boy's heart!"

Having said that, the woman spoke to the empty air beside her. "A-Yi, let's go! Let's visit an old friend at Water Moon Nunnery!"

As her words fell, a man whose neck was covered in scales suddenly appeared. It was as though he had been there all along, and yet as though he had only just arrived. He reached out, embraced the woman, and vanished into the air again.

When the man appeared once more, he and the woman were already outside Water Moon Nunnery.

As one of the few cultivators in the area, Zen Master Mirror Flower's cultivation grounds were very simple, resembling an ordinary person's home converted into a Buddhist hall. She also usually lived there alone.

When the woman entered, Zen Master Mirror Flower was striking a wooden fish and chanting sutras.

A faint Buddhist aura lingered around the hall, repelling the woman who had entered.

"Buddhism saves all living beings! Mirror Flower, your realm is still far too lacking! Even the Bodhisattva hasn't driven me away—what right do you have to expel me?" The woman paid it no mind and stepped forward to offer three sticks of incense to the Guanyin statue enshrined in the center of the room.

A faint sandalwood fragrance drifted through the air, softening the Buddhist aura that had been filled with hostility. Zen Master Mirror Flower had no choice but to stop chanting. Her face icy, she asked, "What have you come for?"

The woman adjusted her hair and smiled. "Naturally, I've come to ask for your help!"

Hearing this, Zen Master Mirror Flower gave a cold laugh, closed her eyes, and resumed slowly striking the wooden fish while quietly chanting sutras. Indistinct Sanskrit chants echoed around them, declaring the Zen Master's resolve to refuse cooperation with demons and devils.

The woman did not care. She raised her hand, and a heart appeared out of thin air. Gently toying with it, she smiled. "You will help me. No—you have no way to refuse me! Because half your heart is in my hands!"

Zen Master Mirror Flower opened her eyes. Seeing the beating heart in the woman's hand, along with the Buddhist oil she held, anger, sorrow, and pain appeared on her face.

"Angry? Sad? In pain? Mirror Flower, did you think that practicing the Mirror Flower Water Moon Method would let you escape the other half of your heart? Water moons and mirror flowers are inherently illusory, just as all things in the world are formed from the provisional union of the four great elements. To practice this method, you must establish your heart—establish a bodhi heart, an awakened heart, an unfettered heart. But half your heart isn't even with you! What Buddhist Dharma are you practicing? What heart are you establishing? Hahaha..."

The woman threw back her head and laughed. Behind her, fox tails danced as strands of demonic, wicked, and baleful aura gathered.

The next instant, the Buddhist oil in her hand melted into the heart. Cryptic incantations instantly appeared over its surface, and waves of warped depravity echoed through the void. A chill wind rose from nowhere, blowing out every incense stick and candle in the Buddhist hall. Then a thick stench of blood, accompanied by piercing cries and wails, filled the air.

At the Dong Family residence, Jin Guang had remained on guard for quite some time when he suddenly heard a series of strange sounds. A blood-covered monster entered at once, and the instant it saw the Dong Family boy, it pounced.

"Get lost!" Jin Guang barked. The Golden Light Treasure Mirror flashed and aimed at the monster that had appeared so suddenly. A brilliant beam of light streaked out, sending the blood-covered ghost flying away, with arcs of electricity crackling around it in midair.

"A blood ghost? Doesn't seem like it! A blood corpse? That's not right either!" Watching the monster pounce again, its charred outer shell rapidly shedding in midair as it returned to normal, Jin Guang retreated half a step and flipped out a small silver knife. Its surface was engraved with lines traced in cinnabar. Once released, it became a silver-red streak of mystic light and slashed at the monster.

It easily cleaved the creature into two halves, yet to his surprise, the monster reassembled itself the very next moment.

It feared neither the mirror light containing the Five Thunder Mantra and the Golden Light Mantra, nor magical artifacts that countered wicked arts. Jin Guang's gaze turned grave. One after another, he took out a bronze bell containing the aura of Daoist thunder and fire, a jade seal as heavy as a small mountain, and a flying shuttle carrying a light, ethereal aura that was especially feared by filth. He sent them out in succession to probe the monster, but all were futile.

Has anyone guessed the true identities of the demoness, Zen Master Mirror Flower, and Wang Daoist?