Chapter 35: Little Senior Sister, Help Me Put The Demon Core Back In

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As if I’m not afraid of you. Yeah right!

Chu Po was speechless for a moment. How did he manage to bury all that explosive powder in secret, then still act as though nothing had happened and stay close to them? If Master ever found out about all this, he would pull out his blade and split him in half without a second word.

Yan Yueting really had hidden it well. The fact that he had already cultivated a demon core meant he had forged demon bones and reached the Golden Core stage. Just thinking about the way he had dug the demon core out made Chu Po’s own golden core ache in sympathy.

No wonder he looked like a ghost when he came out of the Dao Cultivation Tower.

Yan Yueting slid down against the torture rack and sat on the floor, lowering his head, not daring to look at her anymore. “Little Senior Sister, go.”

In the corner of his vision, the hem of her dress was the only light in this dim prison cell. But now that white dress had been stained with his blood too, dirtied by him.

Yan Yueting’s fingertips twitched. The chains had already broken, and the spiritual power that had been sealed inside him was slowly returning.

Chu Po’s nerves immediately tightened. She thought he was about to do something. But he only cast a cleansing spell.

Chu Po watched the bloodstains disappear from her clothes, returning her skirt to a pure, spotless white. For a moment, she did not know whether to laugh or cry.

She crouched down, letting the snow-white skirt spread around her and once again soak up the blood on the floor. She clearly saw a pained look flash across Yan Yueting’s face.

Chu Po: “???”

Fine, fine, sorry. She’d fix it.

Chu Po immediately stood back up, cast a cleansing spell on herself, and turned herself so clean she practically glowed in the prison cell. Only then did she gather her skirt and squat down again. “Yan Yueting, you could leave anytime. Then why haven’t you?”

“Because deep down, you don’t actually want to either, do you? You don’t want to completely tear things apart with us. You like Xiao Xuanshan. You like us. That’s why the more peaceful and quiet life on Xiao Xuanshan becomes, the more afraid you are, afraid that one day, it will turn into this.”

“But being afraid alone is useless,” Chu Po said. At that moment, she felt exactly like her old homeroom teacher, trying to counsel a troubled teenager back onto the right path. “You can do something to stop things from turning this bad.”

“So what if you have demon bones? So what if you have a demon core? Those are only a kind of cultivation method. The Great Dao is nameless. Anything in this world can enter the Dao and cultivate. It’s not as though spiritual cultivation is the only path.”

“Among the righteous, there are those who fall to demons. Among the demonic, there are those who turn toward goodness. Master used the Heart-Questioning Mirror to test you, he only asked about your heart. If he had truly cared about your half-demon bloodline, you would have died the moment your demon pattern was exposed when you entered the inner sect.”

After finishing that whole speech, Chu Po secretly replayed it in her head and felt it was extremely logical and well-argued. No wonder she had once been on the school debate team.

Yan Yueting sat on the floor, looking slightly blank, probably stunned by her argument.

“Junior Brother Yan, if you really used the man-eating flower to harm half the sect, then there truly would be no turning back.” Chu Po cautiously reached out to take his hand. “If you want to leave, I’ll take you away. I’m not afraid of pain. Forget thirty spiritual lashes, I could take a hundred.”

That was a lie. But this was an illusion, so she could boast all she wanted. No whip would actually land on her here.

Yan Yueting made a whimpering sound. “Little Senior Sister…”

The hand in hers moved, the fingers slowly tightening until they clasped hers in return. Chu Po relaxed and smiled, only to be yanked forward by a sudden violent force. She was pulled into a blood-soaked embrace as Yan Yueting held her tightly, with such force that her whole body began to ache.

“Little Senior Sister.” Yan Yueting pressed against her neck, his voice hoarse and low. “Little Senior Sister…”

Something hot landed at the base of her neck. Chu Po drew her neck in, shivering all over. This was the first time a man had hugged her so hard. Even her fingertips burned. Her white dress was crushed completely into his arms, staining over an even larger area with blood.

It was only after a long while that Yan Yueting loosened his grip a little. Something was pushed into her hand. Looking down, Chu Po saw it was a dagger.

Yan Yueting wrapped his hand around hers, angling the sharp tip toward his own lower abdomen. “Little Senior Sister, then help me put the demon core back in.”

He was smiling when he said it, his eyes bright blue.

On his other hand floated a dark red demon core. Black demonic qi curled around it in fine wisps, and it glowed faintly with a blood-colored light.

Now it was Chu Po’s turn to be dumbfounded.

You’re a pervert, right? You really are a pervert, aren’t you?!

“I’m not doing it…” Chu Po tried to pull her hand away. “You dug it out yourself, so you put it back yourself.”

She wasn’t an OB-GYN! Besides, OB-GYNs only took things out, they were not in charge of stuffing them back in.

Yan Yueting blinked, and a tear slipped down from the corner of his eye, dripping onto the back of her hand. Pitifully, he said, “Little Senior Sister, help me.”

Then the force gripping her hand increased a little. Chu Po watched as the dagger tip sank into his abdomen, and blood burst forth, splattering across her skirt.

Yan Yueting’s whole body was trembling. Chu Po, who was practically sitting in his lap, was trembling too.

With a clang, the dagger was thrown to the floor.

Chu Po gritted her teeth, grabbed the demon core from his palm, and pushed it into the wound, all the while repeating to herself, ‘This is an illusion. This is an illusion.’

Outside the illusion, on the formation platform, the mist suddenly churned. A beam of light shot out from one of the two figures, forcing back a little of the fog. The golden light turned into a hollow inscription-shaped talisman.

“A Demon-Sealing Edict?” Liu Junxing exclaimed.

The moment he spoke, the inscriptions of the Demon-Sealing Edict scattered apart, revealing within them a blood-red inner core wrapped in demonic qi.

“Well now, this is interesting. He actually hid a demon core.” Liu Junxing cast a glance at Elder Yuanqing and, seeing the shock on his face, immediately seized the chance to kick him while he was down. “Surely not, surely not, Elder Yuanqing, you can’t have only now found out that a disciple under your roof had a demon core, can you?”

Beside him, Wen Lian wore an expression that said he could not bear to look. “Master, calm down.”

Liu Junxing called out, “What, I can’t even say a few words without you getting angry? You mustn’t move around carelessly. If your blade intent enters the illusion, those two children will suffer.”

Elder Yuanqing lifted his eyes and shot him a cold glare. “Shut up.”

“Tch. Asking for help and still taking that attitude.” Liu Junxing withdrew the teasing from his face and said, half musing, half testing, “What if he’s cultivated a demonic heart?”

“I’ll clean the house myself.”

After that, Liu Junxing said nothing more.

While they were talking, the demon core dissolved into countless strands of demonic qi, rushing through Yan Yueting’s body, coursing along his meridians, and returning to his dantian, where it re-formed.

Dark clouds gathered above the Naihe River. Before long, they dispersed again.

Inside the illusion, the prison cell became even more saturated with blood-qi, dark and foreboding.

Chu Po heard Yan Yueting say slowly, “Little Senior Sister, right now, your whole body is covered in my blood. You smell completely like me.”

The delight in his voice made Chu Po’s scalp go numb at once, and she instinctively stumbled backward.

Yan Yueting grabbed her immediately and clamped down on her wrist. “Little Senior Sister, I won’t let go again.”

Through his point of view, Chu Po suddenly saw her own back.

In the little square courtyard, bathed in golden morning light, she turned and walked briskly toward the gate, her figure light as a butterfly impatient to fly over the wall.

It was that day after returning from the back mountain trial, when she had made things clear to Yan Yueting and wanted to draw a line between them. She had thought the sky would be wide and open after that, and there would be no more ties.

If one day, the butterfly wants to fly beyond the wall again, he will cut off its wings.

He gave her a chance.

A chill ran down Chu Po’s spine. This tone, this familiar flavor hit her full in the face.

Just wait. I’m grabbing that dagger right now and digging your demon core out again!

She was suddenly hauled into a fierce embrace, and the scene before her collapsed. Her consciousness went black.

A moment later, someone kneaded her awake.

The instant she opened her eyes, she met a pair of round, black grape-like eyes set in a small face. It looked like a child of only two or three.

The child had lowered his head and was peering at her with cautious curiosity, those dark round eyes reflecting her image.

Chu Po found that this time, she had attached herself to some kind of object, a small one, like a little pouch.

“A’Ting, this is a longevity cord. Come, Mother will tie it around your neck.”

So this child was Yan Yueting when he was little?

Then Chu Po was lifted and jostled about for quite a while before finally coming to rest against his tiny chest, and with that, she got a clear look at the person across from him.

It was an ordinary peasant woman, perhaps in her thirties. There were faint crow’s-feet at the corners of her eyes, and when she smiled, she looked especially gentle.

The woman tucked the longevity cord into his collar and said, “When we’ve saved up a little money, we’ll have a silver one made for you.”

Chu Po was covered by a little hand and pressed tightly to his heart. She could feel Yan Yueting’s heartbeat quicken, and heard him give a muffled “Mm.”

She let out her divine sense and saw the shine in Yan Yueting’s eyes.

When he was little, Yan Yueting had been obedient and quiet. When the woman was busy, she would take him to the village entrance and let him play with the local children.

But those children bullied outsiders. Knowing he had been fished out of a stinking ditch and didn’t even have a proper name yet, they all surrounded him and called him Wild Duck.

“Hahaha, did you really hatch out of an eggshell?”

“Say something! Can’t you talk?”

“How could a duck talk? He can only go quack-quack.”

“You’re a wild duck, so you can definitely float, right?”

A bunch of boys tried to push him into the river behind the village and make him float for them.

He didn’t want to get his clothes wet, otherwise he’d just be giving Mother more work to do when he got home. He shook them off and tried to run, but they chased and blocked him from every side, and in the end they still kicked him into the water.

A little girl who couldn’t bear to watch stood on a rock and reached out to pull him up.

That only made the boys angrier. They splashed water at the two of them and shouted, “Come look! They’re holding hands! Er’ya won’t be able to get married in the future, she’ll have to marry this stinky duck now!”

“He’s the drake, and you’re the duck hen, quack quack quack…”

They circled them, making quacking noises and yelling until it was deafening. The little girl called Er’ya flushed bright red and picked up stones to throw at them.

Just then, an adult passed by the shore and barked, “What are you little brats doing? Stop playing in the river, or the water ghosts will drag you off and eat you!”

“He is a water ghost! Uncle Yan fished him out of the water!”

“Who knows how many people he’s already eaten!”

The adult hurried over. “You little bastards, itching for a beating again, are you?”

The children scattered in all directions. Even the little girl who had wanted to pull him up hesitated, then turned and ran.

Yan Yueting was hauled out of the water by that man. “Go home quickly, don’t get sick.” Then the man left too. But he didn’t dare go home. He was afraid they would think he was a burden and stop wanting him.

Dripping wet, Yan Yueting stood on the bank, shivering feeling cold as he wrung out his clothes with reddened hands, turning in the sunlight to dry them.

The early spring sun did nothing except shine brightly, throwing his tiny shadow onto the ground.

Chu Po’s divine sense floated in the air as she watched him.

Was this an illusion of Yan Yueting’s hatred?