You Are More Terrifying Than Demons

Xie Lingchuan knitted his brows and retreated several steps.

At the sight of the moth demon behind him, Liu Er's face lit up with irrepressible joy.

"Xiuzhi! Xiuzhi, you're here!"

"She's shown herself." Shen Ji stared at the moth demon leader who had finally appeared, then looked toward his junior brothers and sisters. "Be careful."

They nodded in response and landed on either side of Xie Lingchuan.

The moth demons had come out in full force tonight. Fortunately, the formation had already wiped out half of them. Though the disciples now struggled somewhat, they were not completely surrounded.

Sword light flashed through the small courtyard.

Watching from the roof, A Man's heart pounded with fear, while Zhu Lianqing beside her looked perfectly calm.

"Dao Lord, they call you Senior, so I thought you were from an immortal sect too. Why aren't you fighting? You look very powerful yourself."

Zhu Lianqing looked away from Xie Lingchuan's swordsmanship and turned to A Man.

"Ah, I may be their senior, but with my flowery fists and embroidered kicks, I'd better not join the excitement."

Just then, a muddleheaded moth demon flew right up beside their faces. A Man shuddered in fright, thinking her life was over, only to see Zhu Lianqing slash her bare hand through the air toward its head. The moth demon instantly dropped to the ground, fluttered twice, and lay still.

Still shaken, A Man patted her chest, but she was also rather confused. "Didn't you just say... flowery fists and embroidered kicks, Senior?"

Zhu Lianqing spun her tale without blinking. "Ah, this one only just took human form. Its cultivation wasn't high. I can only handle ones like this, not those down below."

A Man saw that the fallen moth demon was much larger than the ones the Dao Lords in the courtyard were fighting, but she did not understand the intricacies involved and merely nodded blankly.

"Dao Lords! Dao Lords, don't hurt my wife! Don't hurt Xiuzhi! She's a good person!"

"You sanctimonious, despicable, shameless scoundrels!"

Below, Liu Er seemed to have gone mad, bowing with clasped hands one moment and hurling abuse the next.

Gradually, moth demon corpses lay strewn all over the courtyard.

Perhaps realizing that things were going badly, the remaining moth demons began showing signs of fleeing.

Since they needed survivors to lead them to White Bone Cavern, the disciples did not exterminate them all.

Liu Er, however, showed no fear of death as he clutched the moth demon leader's wing. "Xiuzhi, Xiuzhi, take me with you!"

As he finished speaking, the moth demon spread her wings, as though she really meant to wrap him up and carry him away.

The sound of a sharp blade piercing flesh rang out, and Liu Er screamed in pain.

A streak of sword light sliced halfway through his fingers, leaving him in too much pain to hold on to the moth demon's wing. His face deathly pale, he rolled on the ground.

When he climbed back up, his eyes were bloodshot as he glared resentfully at Xie Lingchuan, Shen Ji, and the others.

"You've gone too far! Using spells to bully an unarmed mortal! You call yourselves righteous immortals, but everything you do is worse than the deeds of pigs and dogs! My Xiuzhi was perfectly fine. What right do you have to kill her? And you even stopped her from taking me away!"

Sitting on the eaves, Zhu Lianqing watched Liu Er hurl abuse below and said coldly, "What a fine drama of deep love between human and demon. Did you really think that moth demon meant to take you away? Once her wings wrapped around you, you wouldn't even know how you died."

"Nonsense! Xiuzhi recognized me! Otherwise, why would she have appeared behind me just now?"

Xie Lingchuan sneered. "Simple. Because she wanted to kill you just then, too. Moth women only recognize light at night. Why else wouldn't you dare light lamps after dark?"

Liu Er was instantly struck speechless, but after racking his brains, he still argued, "You've still gone too far! Xiuzhi is a good demon. Why won't you let her go?"

"A good demon?" Xie Lingchuan approached with his sword in hand, frightening Liu Er into retreating step after step. "You say she's a good demon. Then do you dare say she's never harmed anyone?"

Liu Er stammered for a long while before saying, "But... but Xiuzhi is a demon, after all. She has to survive too. She only kills occasionally, just one or two people passing through now and then. Otherwise, she'd starve to death!"

Zhu Lianqing felt something whistle past her ear. A Man had pried up a roof tile and hurled it at Liu Er.

"Pah! What a fine performance of love between human and demon! You and your wife share such deep devotion, but what about Mingchi and me? When we first arrived here, Mingchi and I argued, and your Xiuzhi even helped mediate. To think I believed she was a good person! It turns out all of that was just to lower our guard and lure us here!"

A Man stood beside Zhu Lianqing, pointing at Liu Er, then at all the villagers in the courtyard.

"You! And you! Every last person in this village! You're all demons with human faces and beasts' hearts! No, you're more terrifying than demons! Every one of you is a murderer!"

The villagers she pointed at covered their faces and backed away, looking innocent. Some even stepped forward to defend themselves.

"Dao Lords, please listen! We had no choice! If not for Xiuzhi, the spirits in the mountains would have eaten everyone in the village long ago!"

"When spirits plagued your village, you didn't seek help from the immortal sects or passing rogue cultivators. Instead, you consorted with demons and murdered your own kind."

"You keep saying demons persecuted you, but by now, you probably can't even count how many cultivators have died in this village over the years!"

Exposed, the villagers' faces turned green and white by turns. By then, Liu Er had already assessed the situation and dropped to his knees.

"Dao Lords! Dao Lords, I beg you, please spare Xiuzhi's life! All these years in the village, she's made clothes and built houses for everyone. We've long since considered her one of us! She only wants to survive. Please, I beg you, spare her life!"

"Fools beyond saving." Zhu Lianqing snorted coldly and landed beside Xie Lingchuan.

She looked down at Liu Er, her eyes icy and her presence oppressive.

"Let me guess why you're so determined to protect a demon."

"Because you're the ones who benefit. By feeding a demon, you gain its protection. From then on, you can sleep soundly without a care, transformed from the weak who suffer bullying into those who can turn their blades on others!"

"You reminisce here about how good that demon woman was, but have you ever thought about whose wives and daughters those travelers you murdered were?"

Zhu Lianqing pointed at A Man and said furiously, "Look at A Man again! When you looked at Wei Mingchi's corpse, did you feel even a shred of guilt? When you pleaded for that moth woman, did you ever think about how you'd just separated a young couple forever, one among the living and one among the dead?"

Zhu Lianqing's words struck home one after another, leaving Liu Er speechless.

After a long while, he slumped blankly to the ground, his shoulders shaking with sobs as he kowtowed to A Man over and over. "I'm sorry... I'm so sorry... I'm sorry..."

Two trails of clear tears slid from the corners of A Man's eyes. "What use is an apology? Even killing that demon woman a hundred, a thousand times won't bring Mingchi back!" She wiped her tears away with the back of her hand, unwilling to look at Liu Er again.

Xie Lingchuan reached out and hauled Liu Er off the ground, saying coldly, "Don't kowtow yourself to death. You still have to live to see exactly what sins you've committed."