It Lit Up

The little maid's neat little teeth bit off the head and flying sword as though she were biting into a chocolate ball about to melt. The sight reminded Li Yunxin of a line from a novel he had read in his previous life—"Why are you picking it up and eating it?"

And Huainanzi, no matter what, counted as a "personal disciple under the Voidsoar Sword Sect's sect master." The title sounded like that of some nameless passerby extra, and now he truly had become one, but Li Yunxin would never think that Huainanzi was some insignificant small fry in this real world he inhabited.

That meant this mistress and servant truly were demons terrifyingly powerful.

Perhaps... even stronger than the Ninth Young Master.

He let out a soft breath, tilted his head, and smiled. "That really wouldn't taste good. I once saw someone eat it in quite an interesting way. That person tore it apart first, then set it over a fire and slowly roasted it—"

The little maid blinked when she heard this. "Eh? You aren't afraid of us? Miss, this person isn't afraid of us!"

Miss Bai Yunxin pursed her lips in a smile. "That's why he's so amusing. Then tell me, what did the one you encountered look like? Have you met any other demons?"

"Ah... it probably counted as a demon. I didn't see what it looked like clearly. I only saw that its eyes were huge, it was as tall as me, and it had scales on its body. It said it was the Ninth Young Master..."

Li Yunxin actually rather wanted to figure out what kind of demon the Ninth Young Master was, if he truly was one. He had been a modern man in his previous life and watched television dramas. Back then, he had always enjoyed guessing demons' original forms. Though he had now gone through adventures himself, that curiosity had not faded.

Besides, neither his former self nor his present self had been a proper "normal person." When it came to the mortals and demons of this world, whenever he thought of his old life, he always felt that he was somehow closer to demons...

Bai Yunxin looked so formidable... perhaps great demons all knew one another—perhaps she happened to know the Ninth Young Master.

But after he finished speaking, he saw the expressions on the little maid's and Bai Yunxin's faces gradually turn strange.

The two exchanged a glance. Then even Bai Yunxin, who had seemed calm and composed all along, began breathing slightly faster.

"He... where did you see him?" Bai Yunxin narrowed her eyes, leaning her face slightly forward as she stared at Li Yunxin.

Her posture was strange. Li Yunxin found it familiar, yet could not remember where or when he had seen it before.

But he realized the smiles had vanished from both demons' faces. What replaced them was an urgent longing—an even greater longing than when they had smelled the fragrance on him.

If the experience and knowledge from his previous life had not deceived him, he thought it was a hunger for food.

"Ah... in... Qinghe County?"

"It's him, Miss!" The little maid's eyes went wide as she hopped excitedly in place. "Little Nine, Little Nine, Little Nine! It's Little Nine!"

"It's Little Nine..." Bai Yunxin seemed to realize she had lost her composure. She drew her neck back and became once more the quiet, delicate young lady from a modest Household. Yet Li Yunxin noticed her throat move, as though she had swallowed something.

"Then... I won't go to Weicheng with you. Li... Yunxin. Mm, that's a good name. Look, I have a name too—Bai Yunxin." Bai Yunxin leaned close to him and gently took another two breaths. "Once I find Little Nine, I'll come find you."

"You mustn't hide from me and refuse to see me. Mm... like this."

She reached into her sleeve, felt around, then gave a slight tug and pulled out a small silver-flashing sword.

Calling it a sword was not quite accurate—this long weapon was two fingers wide, more like a straight saber with a pointed tip. One edge was fully sharpened, while the other was sharpened halfway. It was a weapon fit for both thrusting and slashing.

The blade was a meter long, with almost no guard, only a white, smooth, elongated hilt.

"Here, this is for you," Bai Yunxin said. "Take it."

"With it, I'll be able to find you."

Li Yunxin immediately held out both hands and accepted it. "All right. I'll wait for you in Weicheng, but you must come."

Bai Yunxin smiled with pursed lips. "You... if you run away, I'll eat you."

Then she suddenly spread her arms. Her sleeves instantly widened, nearly concealing her entire body. A fierce wind abruptly gathered in the forest, accompanied by a clear, piercing shriek. Then Bai Yunxin's two broad sleeves turned into a mass of dense mist and shot straight into the sky with the gale—

A few seconds later, only Li Yunxin and the sword in his hand remained in the woods.

He stood there for another dozen seconds, making sure that mistress and servant, along with the black donkey, had all vanished into the clouds. Only then did he let out a long breath, bend slightly, and rub his legs.

His legs had gone numb and were about to cramp. Sweat had soaked through his clothes, and when the cool breeze blew over him now, he felt sticky, damp, and chilled, as though he were about to fall ill.

What the hell. In barely over ten days, he had run into two great demons!

He glanced at the sword in his hand and frowned slightly. He did not know why Bai Yunxin thought he "smelled delicious," but he knew this sword was no good thing. Perhaps that demon would use it to find him in the future.

He did not believe even the slightest bit in the "fondness" and "kindness" the demon had shown him. Because he knew he actually understood the mindset of those demons very well—the mindset of beings who wore human forms but had never regarded humans as their own kind.

So he bent down and drove the sword forcefully into the grass.

The sword was astonishingly sharp and sturdy. It sank into the ground all the way to the hilt without the slightest effort—Li Yunxin felt a faint resistance midway through, likely where it struck a stone. Yet the sword tip seemed to have sliced even the stone beneath the earth apart with ease.

Only then did he pat the back of his head and say, "Hey, come out."

When sprites possessed someone, they usually attached themselves to the Mud Pill Palace in the head. The cat demon had been curled up inside him for so long without making a sound; she had most likely been scared out of her wits by Bai Yunxin, that great demon.

After a few breaths, Three-Flower Madam finally said, "Huh? They left? Ah... she scared me to death. One peck—ah, scared me to death! Sigh, my lovely body... sigh, it can only be used like this... sigh..."

Her voice gradually faded. The next moment, Li Yunxin saw Qiao Jiaxin's corpse, which had been lying on the ground, stand up again.

Only this time, it was a ghastly sight. Describing it as guts spilling and belly torn open would not be an exaggeration.

Li Yunxin frowned. "Let her rest in peace in the earth. She's already like this—surely you can't walk down the road in that body. You'll scare people."

But the cat demon seemed to be extraordinarily attached to this body. She shook her head unhappily and covered her belly with one hand. "Scared! Clothes, put on clothes, huh? It'll be fine if I put on clothes! Hmph, how dare you! This is this Madam's dharma body, uh... eh? What's that? Mm? What is it? Mm?"

She let go of the hand covering her belly, her attention wholly drawn to something else. Then she reached for Li Yunxin with a pair of bloody hands.

A cat acting like that was rather cute, but a woman's corpse was not.

Li Yunxin frowned and snapped at her, "What are you doing?!"

The cat demon jumped in fright and awkwardly withdrew her hand to cover her belly again, but her gaze had locked onto Li Yunxin's chest and would not move away. "Eh? What's this? Mm... ah, this is fun, ah..."

Only then did Li Yunxin notice that his chest had lit up.

There was moonlight in the forest, but it was still night, and not the full moon of the fifteenth. Thus he could clearly see a soft white glow shining through the clothing over his chest.

The glow was square, about the size of a palm.

Li Yunxin was startled. He quickly slipped his hand into his clothes and pulled the object out.

It was the crystal-clear Tongming Jade Slip. It had turned a soft milky white, as though light filled it from within but remained contained without spilling out. On one side of the jade slip, against a white luminous background, appeared a line of...

"Writing."

Below that line of "writing," a thin black dot was continuously jumping.

Li Yunxin stared at that line of writing, then froze.

Then he raised a hand and vigorously rubbed his eyes before looking at the line again.

After standing there blankly for several minutes with an utterly bizarre expression on his face, he finally parted his slightly trembling lips—

"Holy... shit."