"You're also on the Demonic Path." That single word, "also," exposed her identity.
She no longer cared. She had unleashed a demonic art, and with such dense Demonic Qi, even an idiot could tell she belonged to the Demonic Path.
Shi Chun, who was secretly enduring the pain, froze for a moment. What the hell? My first job fresh out of prison, and I kidnapped someone from the Demonic Path?
Still, he promptly stopped the knife he had driven into Xiang Lan'er's body. His opponent had yielded, and he had no desire to charge down a road to certain death.
In fact, he was precisely the "idiot" Feng Chi had in mind. He genuinely had no idea what Demonic Qi looked like.
Had Feng Chi not said it herself, he would never have known she belonged to the Demonic Path.
That revelation was a real kick in the teeth. It left Shi Chun troubled-deeply troubled.
Feng Chi had reached that conclusion because virtually anyone whose cultivation was below hers could not withstand the demonic sound she unleashed. This technique was called "Demon Chant."
To withstand her Demon Chant, someone either needed cultivation above hers or had to practice an art of supreme yang and righteousness whose properties could counter it.
Yet even someone practicing such an art would be affected to some extent if their cultivation fell so far below hers. Under her Demon Chant, they could not possibly show no sign of mental distress. At the very least, there should have been some reaction of resistance.
In her experience, the only possibility for someone to remain unaffected was that they, too, practiced a demonic art-and one of a similar origin, not some miscellaneous demonic art.
If it was not some off-brand demonic art, then it could only come from one of the Three Demonic Lineages, whose arts shared the same source.
If she ruled that out, only one possibility remained: this fellow had concealed his strength, and his cultivation far surpassed hers. Was that possible? In any case, she had dismissed the possibility.
Hearing this, Xiang Lan'er's eyes flickered across her pained face. Along with her profound surprise, she felt humiliated, for the three lineages were rivals, and she was the Saintess of one of them.
As for Shi Chun, he was already at something of a loss as to how to answer.
If playing along could save his life, his moral standards were low enough that he had no objection to posing as someone from the Demonic Path. He could even drag Wu Jinliang into the act. The point was to survive first; whatever came afterward could wait.
The problem was that he had only heard a thing or two about the Demonic Path. He knew nothing about it, not even its basic outline. The moment they started discussing it, his cover would be blown. Strictly speaking, he did not even qualify to impersonate a member of the Demonic Path.
He had, however, heard of the "Linked Mountains" and "Returning to the Storehouse" she had mentioned. Supposedly, after the Devil Ancestor founded the Demonic Path, it branched into three lineages: Linked Mountains, Returning to the Storehouse, and Heavenly Change. After the Demonic Path fractured and fell, the three lineages had long since vanished under the orthodox path's relentless suppression.
As for the current state of the Demonic Path, he knew absolutely nothing.
The question was, how could he be so unlucky as to stumble into this?
He badly wanted to ask her, If I release her, can you let us go?
But he also knew that was wishful thinking. Their group was a target of the Heavenly Court's harshest crackdowns. Now that he had seen through their identities, it would be a miracle if they did not kill him. They might even hunt him to the ends of the earth.
He had ruled the Eastern Nine Plains in the Land of Exile and fought against all sides, surviving his share of deceit and intrigue. He understood a few of these games, and he knew full well that people hiding in the shadows were the ones against whom no defense was ever enough.
And what was that faint black mist that had inadvertently drifted close to him? Why did its approach make him inexplicably excited?
It was an instinctive affinity.
Still fearing a trap, he used his power to hold his breath.
But, damn it, the pores all over his body actually popped open on their own, one after another, and began drinking it in with ravenous delight.
He was abruptly alarmed, thinking he had fallen victim to some covert demonic trick. Just as he was about to threaten her, another strange phenomenon suddenly arose inside him.
Something within his magical power seemed to have been activated and was actually circulating on its own.
On closer examination, it did not quite seem to be circulating by itself. Rather, that inexplicable excitement had stimulated him into instinctively practicing his cultivation art.
As the black mist absorbed into his body circulated with the art and disappeared, it powerfully stimulated his body and mind. It gave him a pleasure so comfortable he wanted to moan, a joy that stirred his very soul and soothed the pain brought on by his right eye's effect.
What astonished him most was that the medicinal power left in his body from taking too many pills the previous night-three of them-was now producing effects he had been unable to feel no matter what he did last night.
His cultivation, which had remained stable and still as stagnant water, actually showed signs of stirring. It gave him an impulse to release Xiang Lan'er and carefully explore what was happening.
But with a formidable enemy before him and his life hanging in the balance, how could he dare lower his guard?
Feng Chi waited a while. Seeing that he still refused to answer and that strange expressions kept crossing his face, she could not help frowning.
She could wait, but the Saintess could not. Her wound was still bleeding. Was he trying to deliberately torment the Saintess with this despicable tactic?
Then again, this bastard really might do such a thing. He could redeem people from a brothel only to resell them, and he could resort to lowdown tricks that even those on the Demonic Path disdained. What was beyond him? He was an absolute disgrace to the Demonic Path!
She immediately snapped, "Answer me!"
Fine. Shi Chun still had to fight for a sliver of survival. He ventured, "Are you from the Heavenly Change lineage?"
Of the Three Demonic Lineages, she had asked whether he belonged to Linked Mountains or Returning to the Storehouse, but had left out Heavenly Change. That might mean she belonged to Heavenly Change.
Startled and suspicious, Feng Chi asked, "You really don't know who we are?"
Shi Chun said solemnly, "If I'd known who you were, I wouldn't have touched you."
Feng Chi was both shocked and furious. "You didn't know who we were, and you still dared act against us so recklessly?"
Their understanding of the matter had collided.
She then pointed at the broken blade dripping blood in his hand. "Bastard, take that knife out of my young lady first and stop her bleeding! The three lineages have agreed not to slaughter one another anymore. We must unite our strength and compete fairly, or face the combined wrath of the others. What do you think you're doing?"
Shi Chun countered, "What happened to my brother?"
Feng Chi said, "He's fine. He won't die. He'll be all right once he wakes up. Pull out the knife and stop the bleeding. Didn't you hear me?"
The Demonic Path was not something he could afford to provoke. Shi Chun truly did not want to offend her now, and he was quite cooperative. He called, "Turn around."
Grinding her teeth, Feng Chi could do nothing about him. He was the one holding a hostage, after all. She forced herself to turn around.
Shi Chun's hands moved swiftly. He pulled out the knife and sealed her acupoints to stop the bleeding in one fluid sequence, though in the end he still held the short blade against the area near Xiang Lan'er's wound. "Done," he said.
Only now did the two sides begin to feel a little like fellow travelers on the same path.
Turning back, Feng Chi immediately inspected Xiang Lan'er's wound. Once she saw that the bleeding had indeed been controlled, she demanded again, "Which lineage do you actually belong to?"
Shi Chun genuinely wanted to bluff his way through as a member of the Demonic Path, but he knew absolutely nothing about it. There was no chance of pulling it off; he would only outsmart himself. All he could do was sigh. "You already know my background. I was just released from the Prison of Life's jail, and I was born and raised in the Land of Exile. How could I possibly belong to the Demonic Path?"
"Ha." Feng Chi scoffed. She knew the Demonic Path's methods all too well. Preparing a few people with clean identities for future use was perfectly normal. So what if he was a native of the Land of Exile? Was that difficult to arrange? She said mockingly, "Here, I'll give you a chance to prove you're not from the Demonic Path. If you really can prove it, I guarantee I'll let you both go."
Shi Chun responded cautiously. "How do I prove it?"
Feng Chi tipped her chin toward the black aura already faintly swirling around him. "Demonic Qi. Take a few deep breaths of it, and you'll have your proof."
The offer was far too tempting. Before Shi Chun could respond, he glanced at the black aura that happened to drift before his eyes, and he could not help twitching his nostrils and the corner of his mouth at once, drawing a deep breath into his lungs.
It felt wonderful. Unable to help himself, he turned his head from side to side and took several more breaths. The ripples in his cultivation became more pronounced as well. It could clearly help improve his cultivation.
This is Demonic Qi? Even as Shi Chun reveled in inhaling it, his heart pounded with alarm, and he questioned himself over and over. What I'm absorbing is actually Demonic Qi?
The problem of his cultivation stagnating for two or three years without an inch of progress had actually found its solution just like that. He truly found it hard to believe, and he did not know whether he should be happy.
Though his heart was full of melancholy, the sight of more black aura drifting over and the memory of that wonderful sensation instinctively made his nostrils and the corner of his mouth twitch again. He could not resist inhaling another stream.
"Heh." Feng Chi laughed coldly outright. "No matter how high your cultivation is, it can't be so high that drawing Demonic Qi into your lungs leaves you completely unaffected. You're breathing Demonic Qi as though it's air, yet you still dare claim you aren't from the Demonic Path? Who the hell are you trying to fool?"
"I knew it. How could someone fresh out of the Land of Exile possibly be heading for Mount Wukang? Turns out you've set your sights on Mount Wukang, just like us. Is there any point in hiding it at this stage? Tell me. Which lineage are you from?"
Shi Chun truly wanted to beg her to stop talking. He could barely withstand the shock; his body and mind were numb.
He recalled the cultivation art he practiced, personally taught to him by Eighth Uncle of the Eastern Nine Plains. At first, he had been made to memorize the art, committing it to memory word by word without knowing what any of it meant. He had simply practiced as Eighth Uncle taught him. Only later, once he truly learned to read, did he understand the art he had memorized.
The art's terminology did indeed contain many instances of "demon." He had originally thought they referred to vanquishing demons. Something like "Demon-Undoing Hand," for instance-he had assumed it meant destroying evil demons. Now it seemed that was not the case at all.
So the "Demon-Bathing Art" was a bona fide Demonic Path cultivation art. Apparently, he had not read enough. He needed to read more!
Eighth Uncle had not read enough either, teaching him all that nonsense.
From now on, he absolutely could not reveal the slightest hint of this cultivation art to outsiders, unless he was tired of living.
After all these years of fighting and killing, only today did he know who he truly was. So I myself am a demon!
He instinctively turned to glance at Wu Jinliang, lying unconscious on the ground, and recalled the jokes they had once shared about vanquishing demons and defending the righteous path. If Wu Jinliang learned that he was a demon himself, would he look down on him?