A breeze swept toward the village where Yi Shuyuan was staying, flowed through its lanes, and blew into the old village head's courtyard.
The whole village was quiet, and the old village head and his wife were sound asleep.
Yi Shuyuan materialized and returned to his room. Hui Mian hopped onto the table with a piece of fruit in his paws, then lay down to nibble it.
"Hui Mian, do you think all cat demons with enough cultivation have multiple lives?"
Hui Mian raised his head and licked the fruit crumbs from his mouth.
"How could that be? Being a cat demon would give you far too much of an advantage!"
"Listen to you. Demons all think humans have the advantage."
Yi Shuyuan tossed out the remark, and Hui Mian immediately nodded again and again.
"You're right, sir. Humans have the greatest advantage! Born as the most spiritually gifted of all creatures, born under the protection of fortune, born in harmony with heaven's ordained course."
But when he noticed Yi Shuyuan watching him, Hui Mian's voice dwindled, and he muttered, "Just joking..."
Yi Shuyuan stopped playing the lute to an ox. Instead, he took out the fruit basket and set it on the table, lost in thought.
The cat demon had clearly died from his first sword strike. Yi Shuyuan could not have mistaken that.
So when he sensed the cat demon escaping afterward, he had truly been startled.
He had always heard that cats had nine lives, but that was only a fanciful saying.
Yi Shuyuan did not believe life could arise from nothing. Those supposed nine lives must still share a single root.
At that thought, Yi Shuyuan recalled the gray aura that had escaped when his sword split the cat demon's skull. Was that the foundation of