The body of an Illusory Realm cultivator was far tougher than a secular person could ever imagine. Yet, such a body in the mouth of this demon-god was like a soft, white dough figure!
The other cultivator was a resident Taoist priest from the neighboring prefecture of Pingcheng, with the Daoist na Changping Zi. He had once studied under Yue Yunzi and they shared a master-disciple bond, which was why he had been summoned. He had previously studied the Dao in Grotto-heaven before descending the mountain to gain experience in the secular world. Following his sect's instructions, he avoided provoking terrifying great demons and only eliminated minor spirits. In addition, he was revered and worshipped by the people in the city…
How could he have imagined that his fellow Daoist beside him would be so easily… deprived of his life!
A cultivator certainly considered the possibility of his own death—the path of cultivation was not a smooth one, with various tribulations and hardships awaiting. However, he had imagined dying from a stroke of bad luck during cultivation, having his cultivation crippled and dying as a secular old man, or dying a heroic death after a fierce battle with a great demon…
How could he have imagined dying like this?!
He hadn't even had ti to form a Daoist seal or pinch a talisman before being eaten in a single bite!
Changping Zi was dumbstruck in that instant—his entire field of vision was filled by the body of the demon-god, like an iron tower that blotted out the sky. All he could see were cyan iron scales, splattering red blood, incomplete limbs, torn muscles, and the red-stained broken ends of bones…
Then he heard the sound of his companion’s remaining half-body landing on the ground with a squelch, like a pile of mud—
In an instant, it jolted him out of his daze! His eyes widened, and he suddenly let out a loud scream. He randomly grabbed a handful of talismans from his sleeve and frantically threw them out. He only had ti for one last look at the demon-god's horns and sideburns before he fled, screaming all the way!
An Illusory Realm cultivator did have so ans of escape. Li Yunxin only saw a cloud of dust rise on the official road, and the Taoist priest had already appeared a hundred paces away.
But he didn't give chase. He only raised a hand and extended an index finger.
The air at his fingertip suddenly distorted, followed by a flash of bright white light—with a hissing sound, a twisted and scorching trajectory was instantly drawn in the air, striking the Taoist priest in the cloud of dust a hundred paces away.
A miserable scream ca from afar. The distant figure stumbled but did not fall. Blood splattered on the ground, but he fled even faster.
Then Li Yunxin lowered his hand and turned to look at Old Daoist Liu.
The slaughter was over within two breaths, and there were few people in the vicinity anyway. When Changping Zi's screams faded away, the cicadas in the woods began to chirp softly again, weaving a sumr background soundscape.
Old Daoist Liu stood in the sun a hundred paces away, staring, motionless and silent.
The tall demon-god suddenly grinned and spat fiercely on the ground.
With a splat, half a body and a head were spat out. They rolled on the grass, into a thicket, startling a small animal hiding inside.
Then, a cloud of mist rose around him, and the tall body rapidly shrank, returning to the size of a normal person. The mist also quickly gathered, forming a white robe.
Li Yunxin frowned, wiped his mouth with his hand, and spat on the ground a few more tis. Then he wiped his white fan and produced a small jar of wine. He pulled out the stopper, tilted his head back, took a large swig to rinse his mouth, and spat it out. After doing this several tis, he sighed, “What’s so good about it.”
Seeing him return to his human form, Old Daoist Liu slowly walked over. He stood beside him, looking at the dismbered body on the ground, at the dark red blood everywhere, and then at Li Yunxin.
Then he coughed. “Well… perhaps… the cooking thod was improper. Beef and mutton wouldn’t taste good eaten like that either.”
Li Yunxin turned to look at him. “Don’t waste your effort. I am a demon now, but it’s not said that demons must like to eat people and raw flesh. The body is just a container. This here—”
He pointed to his head. “The things in here are what’s most real.”
“Then…”
“To let them know who I am.” Li Yunxin looked towards the official road. “That old fellow is too timid and thinks too much. It would be very awkward if I made all the arrangents and he still didn’t make a move.”
After speaking, he saw Old Daoist Liu still staring at him and smiled. “Are you afraid of ? I’m not going to eat you.”
“It’s not that I’m afraid…” Old Daoist Liu’s expression was extrely complicated. “I didn’t have a deep impression when I heard you talk about it before, Brother Xin. But now that I’ve seen what you looked like just now with my own eyes…”
“You’ll get used to it. I’m also slowly getting used to it. But you need to be careful these few days.” Li Yunxin said as he walked towards Weicheng. When Old Daoist Liu passed by the corpse in the woods, he couldn’t help but look at it a few more tis, but said nothing.
“That Yue Yunzi suspects I might be the Dragon's Son, Yazi, but it was just a guess before. Now that I’ve revealed my divine form, eaten one and scared away another, that Taoist priest should know that I am the Dragon's Son.” Li Yunxin said as he walked. “He will have many thoughts, but in the end, he will make up his mind. I don’t know much about their Daoist Orthodoxy, but I know that if soone in my family was killed by so demon, whether for profit or reputation, I would have to do sothing. So now… it’s our declaration of war against him.”
Old Daoist Liu followed behind him without speaking. It seed he needed so ti to digest what he had just seen.
Li Yunxin didn’t explain any further about what had just happened. He believed that the old man would quickly adapt to the fact that he was now allied with a demon, fighting against the “righteous path” of the world.
This kind of thing always sounded cool and stylish, but not many people could cheerfully be a “villain.”
Yeah… unknowingly.
How did I beco the evil villain?
This thought flashed through Li Yunxin’s mind, and he couldn’t help but laugh out loud.
Old Daoist Liu was oblivious to his thoughts but had his own. After walking a dozen steps, he caught up from a step or two behind Li Yunxin. He walked with his head down for a while, then said out of the blue, “When ordinary people fight, there’s no thod. They scratch, claw, and when provoked, they bite. It’s human nature. It's just that their teeth aren’t that sharp—they can’t bite through. Biting and eating are two different things.”
“Yes. Two different things,” Li Yunxin said.
Old Daoist Liu let out a slight sigh in his heart and said, “Hmph,” though he didn't know what he was hmphing about. Then he started talking about serious matters again, seeming to have cast aside his previous worries. “But there’s still sothing I don’t understand. Brother Xin, you’ve now entered the city and want that Yue Yunzi to think you are Yazi. But Yazi and Chiwen are both Dragon's Sons… You call yourself Chiwen, yet you want him to think you are Yazi. What’s the reason for this?”
“Because Yazi has a bad reputation,” Li Yunxin turned to smile at him—just a quarter of an hour ago, this person had just bitten off a cultivator's head. “Yazi’s territory—I also heard this from others—is said to be within the Ye Kingdom and Li Kingdom. But you’ve also heard of him, right? What do the common people say about him?”
“‘Yazi always seeks revenge,’ right? They also say he is cruel and impetuous. A few days ago, I was strolling in the city and saw a woman with a child. The child was crying, and the woman said, ‘If you cry again, Dragon Two will take you away.’ Although the child ignored her and it had no effect… it’s a telling example. Dragon Two, Yazi, neither has a good reputation.”
“But Chiwen. You used to run that Dragon King Temple, what was its reputation like?”
Old Daoist Liu thought for a mont. “Well… to be honest, the people of Weicheng all know of Chiwen—the nine sons of the dragon are known throughout the world. But not many people know that our Wei River Dragon King is Chiwen… According to the old folks—and I used to think so too—our Wei River Dragon King is… a real Divine Dragon. It’s said that a very, very long ti ago, a Divine Dragon did indeed manifest its holiness here.”
“But speaking of Chiwen, people aren’t really afraid of him. Back then, Young Master Nine ate people, but the number of people he ate in a year, sigh… in Weicheng, those who died of illness, accidents, old age, starvation, and cold, must have added up to over a hundred every year. The ones he hard… no one really paid any attention.”
Li Yunxin snapped his fan shut. “That’s it. Chiwen’s reputation is considered good.”
“A few days ago, I told you about people’s power of faith, strong faith and weak faith. But there’s one thing, Old Liu, have you ever thought about it—”
“If you do a favor for soone, they might not be grateful to you and might even beco greedy. But if you harm soone—just once is enough for them to rember. It’s relatively difficult to make people worship and revere you. But it’s too easy to make people fear you.”
“So since that’s the case, why do so spirits still manifest their powers to do good? You should know that if you help soone this ti, but not the next, that person might curse you for not being an effective god. But if he curses you, and you go to his house that night and snatch his son to eat—I guarantee his whole family will rember you for a lifeti, and they will fear and resent you intensely. What a powerful form of faith that is.”
Old Daoist Liu let out an “ah.” “Didn’t you say… doing evil deeds would get you eliminated by the Daoist Orthodoxy…”
“That’s one reason,” Li Yunxin sighed slightly. “I only learned of this matter recently—luckily, I didn’t go down the wrong path. You know that heaven and earth have yin and yang, and cultivation also emphasizes the two energies of yin and yang. This Votive Power follows the sa principle. Good will and malice both give people power, but just like yin and yang, they counteract each other. Good will is not easy to co by, while malice is easy to obtain. But the Votive Power gained from being feared and hated… will also make one’s temperant beco cruel and impulsive—which is not a good thing.”
“I was very confused before. A great demon like Young Master Nine could have run rampant in this Wei River and Weicheng area, and he also needed to feed on incense Votive Power. But why was he so cautious?”
“Look at how he ate Li Yaosi’s concubine back then—that was the family mber of a prefectural official. If people found out about this, it would cause a huge uproar. But he only ate her at night, without even showing his face much. And eating others? He ate them in temples in the wilderness, outside the city.”
“Think about the Great Ghost that previously wore the Human Skin Bag of that Jinghua Artificer Young Master Qin… He actually ate the souls of livestock and wild beasts, and didn't easily eat humans!”
“I originally felt that using reasons like ‘protecting one’s own nest’ and ‘not fouling one’s own nest’ to explain these things was a bit far-fetched. But now I know… even if they think good will is optional, they do not want the faith from malice!”
Old Daoist Liu was once again completely captivated by this novel idea. He frowned in thought for a while and also felt it made so sense. For a mont, he felt as if he had learned another secret of the cultivation world, and his heart grew even more curious. He quickly asked, “Why don’t they want that malice? That Yazi… in that case, isn’t he the embodint of malice!”
Li Yunxin shook his head slightly. “That, I don’t know. What effect malice has, my friend in the city doesn’t know either. It’s just that he has been a Yin Spirit for longer than I have and has more channels for information, so he slowly learned a little bit. The Lord of Dongting should know—otherwise, why would he transform into a ‘Daoist Priest Li’ to eat people. But he won’t tell .”
“But no matter what, I know that the Votive Power brought by good will and malice… are to so extent antagonistic.” Li Yunxin let out a light breath. “If Yue Yunzi is smart enough, he will make an issue of this. If he’s not smart enough…”
“Then he’s dead for sure.”
…
…
Yue Yunzi frowned slightly, looking at Changping Zi, who was slumped on the ground.
This was an Illusory Realm Taoist priest, over one hundred and thirty years old this year. In his early years, he had studied under him, but his aptitude was truly ordinary. However, Yue Yunzi had been a secular person before becoming a cultivator. Thus, he knew that aptitude was often not the only standard for judging whether a cultivator was worth befriending.
So, adhering to the worldly wisdom he retained from his ti as a secular person, he was decent to almost everyone—naturally, asured by the standards of interaction among cultivators.
Therefore, after Changping Zi passed one hundred years old and was still stuck at the early stage of the Illusory Realm and was sent to another master, this Illusory Realm Taoist priest of ordinary aptitude still held a favorable impression of Yue Yunzi and still respected him as his master.
The thirty-odd cultivators secretly summoned by Yue Yunzi this ti were probably all in similar situations. So had been his disciples and had an emotional bond with him. So had received favors from him and owed him a debt of gratitude—having said things like “I will definitely repay you in the future.”
For cultivators, the phrase “I will definitely repay you in the future” was not a casual pleasantry as it was among secular people. No one liked to owe others favors—because it could trigger a tribulation. It was precisely for this reason that the Daoist Orthodoxy and Sword Sect did not particularly advocate for close master-disciple relationships; it was enough to simply follow the rules. But Yue Yunzi had skillfully used this set of rules, passed down over millions of years, to win the goodwill of many people.
Now, this Changping Zi, who had co because of their past relationship, was slumped on the ground, repeatedly muttering one sentence—
“A tribulation, a tribulation, it is truly a tribulation…”
When he fled, that terrifying demon had struck his Snow Mountain Qi Sea with an incomparably powerful spiritual energy. The difference in their realms was truly vast. Changping Zi endured the terrifying pain of his cultivation dissipating to return to his post and report the details. By now, his entire body had begun to slowly lose sensation.
He felt this was a tribulation—if not for that past relationship, he would not have co to help his forr master.
And he would not have ended up in his current state. (To be continued.)
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