The fortune that Great Qi had lost couldn’t be used by others for nothing—it would all have to be recovered with principal and interest, wouldn’t it?

Thinking this, Lord Can said no more and merely stood behind Dong Yuan, but the way he looked at the deity was like examining a piece of fat meat about to enter his mouth…

As for Cui Xiaoxiao, who remained at old Cui’s tofu workshop, her daily routine consisted of helping her ancestors pick beans, cutting little paper figures in her spare time, and reading through several volumes she had brought from the demon clan during her leisure hours.

Recently, for some unknown reason, she had been very fond of sleeping and felt tired from time to time, making her wonder if she might be secretly with child. Thinking of all the tender and sweet intimacies she had shared with Wei Jie in bed, Xiaoxiao couldn’t help but blush again.

However, when she accompanied the Cui family’s wife to town to have the doctor check her pulse, everything seemed fine.

It was just that after feeling her pulse, the doctor asked with puzzled uncertainty whether she had previously suffered from blood loss; otherwise, why would her pulse be so weak?

Hearing this, Xiaoxiao found it rather amusing—how could a cultivator suffer from blood loss and weakness?

But when she checked her pulse after leaving the medicine shop, she discovered that her qi and blood were indeed severely depleted.

However, having formed her inner core, she was sustained by a surge of spiritual energy that made her ignore her body’s discomfort, like an extremely exhausted person temporarily forgetting their fatigue by relying on strong tea for stimulation.

She had never heard of anyone who had cultivated an inner core suffering from this kind of blood loss condition!

Returning to the Cui family courtyard, old Cui was cutting meat in the kitchen. Ever since this young Cui heroine had come to stay with them, their meals had improved—no longer just vegetables and tofu three times a day, and they could even stew the meat in larger chunks.

Usually, Xiaoxiao would help the two ancestors chop firewood and boil water, but today she had something on her mind, so she returned to her room early.

On the bed in her room lay several books she had brought from Demon City. She had read through them once before—they generally described the deeds of past generations of saints. Actually, as a saint, when the demon clan had no troubles, she merely received offerings from the clan members, so there wasn’t much of significance recorded.

Xiaoxiao read through to the end at a glance, then suddenly drew in a sharp breath.

It turned out there was a reason why no more saints appeared after the last generation of Demon Sect saints. At that time, the demon clan’s power was being weakened by the Heavenly Court. When the demon clan’s strength was exhausted, the saint’s bloodline would be awakened. While strengthening the demon clan, this would also cause the saint herself to have a shortened lifespan. Once the saint died young, it would be very difficult for new saints to emerge for the next several hundred years.

This was Heaven’s way of balancing the demon clan’s power. A saint’s power was not to be underestimated, but once she became the best sacrifice to nourish the demon clan, her life would not last long, and she would not continue to strengthen the demon clan indefinitely…

Reading this, Xiaoxiao felt her scalp tingle with shock.

She remembered that her bloodline had been awakened when the demon clan was at its weakest while drifting at sea. When her power awakened, she had roused over a thousand demon embryos on the island in one breath.

Could it be that this was the reason for her current symptoms of blood decline?

Thinking this, Xiaoxiao felt dizzy again and collapsed onto the bed with a thud.

She was suddenly extremely grateful that Wei Jie had already left. If he discovered her current condition, or even that she couldn’t escape the demon clan saint’s fate of blood decline and early death, given his current state, he would fall into demonic madness immediately…

If that happened, wouldn’t her journey to two hundred years ago have been completely in vain?

But was there truly no cure for her blood decline condition? She was still so young and had finally met someone she could spend her life with, but before they could enjoy their sweetness together, this terrible consequence had arrived instead. Xiaoxiao couldn’t help but laugh—the “Ten Injuries” fate was indeed domineering, not even sparing herself in the end.

Just then, she suddenly heard the sound of wooden fish being struck outside the courtyard wall.

She listened intently for a while and suddenly discovered that the little paper figures she had scattered around the courtyard were wiggling their bottoms and dancing gracefully to the sound of the wooden fish.

Xiaoxiao slowly got up and followed the wiggling paper figures outside the courtyard. By the riverside, not far from the Cui family courtyard, she once again saw that fortune-telling old monk.

The old monk’s appearance was unchanged—still wearing Buddhist prayer beads, leaning on a yin-yang eight trigrams flag, looking like someone who didn’t distinguish between Buddhism and Taoism.

Seeing Xiaoxiao come out, he smiled slightly: “Young lady, we meet again by fate. I wonder if the yin-yang mirror I gave you last time has been useful?”

That yin-yang mirror had been taken away by Wei Jie when he left. Thinking the old monk had come to reclaim the mirror, Xiaoxiao could only apologetically say: “The mirror isn’t with me, so I’m afraid I can’t return it to you, Master, for the time being.”

The old monk smiled: “It’s karmic connection with you two isn’t finished yet. When the time comes, it will naturally return.”

Xiaoxiao continued with clasped hands: “May I ask which immortal Master is?”

The old monk smiled and answered indirectly: “Young lady, have you comprehended what I told you last time?”

Xiaoxiao looked at him steadily and thought about what this old monk had said at the time.

Oh, he had said that she and Wei Jie’s sinful karma had blocked their path forward, and they should quickly comprehend that flowers in mirrors and moon in water are all empty illusions—then they would have immeasurable immortal destiny.

But at the time, these words had seemed absurd, so Xiaoxiao hadn’t taken them to heart. Neither she nor Wei Jie was a person who coveted immortal destiny. It would be best if they could cultivate and achieve positive results, but if they couldn’t, wandering the mortal world together wouldn’t be bad either.

But now she had just discovered that she had contracted blood decline from sacrificing for the demon clan. Wouldn’t their once-imagined companionship until white-haired old age soon become flowers in mirrors and moon in water—all empty illusions?

And if she died in front of Wei Jie, it would surely trigger his heart demons, causing him to repeat his past life’s mistakes and meet another bad end!

Thinking this, Xiaoxiao shook her head with a bitter smile: “Master, do you see any way to resolve this difficulty of mine?”

The master said firmly, “You are not a person of this life, so why must you bear this life’s tribulations? Perhaps only by returning to where you should return will things take a turn for the better…”

Xiaoxiao understood what he meant, but now that Dong Yuan had returned to the mortal world, and there was still the uncertain factor of Lord Can, how could she possibly abandon Wei Jie and leave?

However, the master’s words did open up her thoughts. This master’s origins truly aroused her curiosity. Since he knew so many heavenly secrets, how could he be an ordinary person?

Xiaoxiao looked at him steadily, then suddenly flashed a toothy smile and, mimicking a fortune teller’s tone while counting on her fingers, said: “I guess you come from heaven above, but with the world in such chaos, you didn’t appear early on, yet now you’re enlightening worldly people like this—you’re just a muddled immortal who can’t pretend to be confused.”

The old monk hadn’t expected this girl to guess that he was an immortal from heaven and still dare to tease him like this.

He couldn’t help but throw back his head and laugh heartily: “You girl, sharp-tongued and quick-witted, unable to tolerate even half a bit of confusion in your eyes. Perhaps when you become an immortal, you’ll understand that whether human or god, the most difficult thing is pretending to be confused… If one were more confused, where would there be so many obsessions that turn into demons in this world? Speaking of demons, Wei Jie is destined to experience the cliff fall and snake disaster, heavenly punishment and severed arm, slanderous accusations and false charges, the sorrow of losing his mother, phoenix valley burning, and blood blade against blood relatives—these six disasters. Unfortunately, you’ve helped him shoulder most of these tribulations, but this seventh tribulation is one he must experience himself—you can’t substitute for him!”

After saying this, he rummaged through the bamboo basket on his back—it contained many deity statues that the monk usually used for fortune telling.

He picked and chose, finally finding a crudely made Zhulong deity statue, then pried off the two protruding eyeballs from the statue and handed them to Xiaoxiao.

“When you want to find it rare to be confused, this might be able to help you…”

Xiaoxiao had just taken the deity statue’s eyeballs when the monk suddenly fell backward with a “plop,” falling into the water. When he struggled and floundered out of the shallow river again, he was calling out in panic: “Damn it, I… how did I fall into the water? This… where is this? Hey, this girl, why do you look familiar… Oh my, aren’t you the one who smashed my deity statue last time!”

Xiaoxiao sighed, knowing that the true god had already left the monk’s body.

After she again compensated the monk with silver and sent him away, she saw the Wei family’s hawks and falcons flying in from various places.

Xiaoxiao took the letter and opened it to read. It turned out to be a letter from Tang Youshu in Demon City.

The letter briefly described the current situation in Demon City. Wei Jie and Lady Fu were not getting along well and had now reached a tense standoff.

The cause was that the current Empress Dowager had dreams at night, dreaming that the Dong Yuan Divine Lord from heaven angrily rebuked that there were too many unruly people in the mortal world who actually listened to slander and defamed the deities above.

So he appeared in the Empress Dowager’s dream, telling her to build a temple for Divine Lord Dong Yuan at Fanshan Mountain, reshaping his golden body to correct the world’s perspective.

The Empress Dowager had always been superstitious about gods and Buddhas. Hearing this made her even more unsettled. After much consideration, she had the Emperor immediately handle this matter.

The Emperor was extremely filial. Upon hearing his mother’s words, he immediately allocated funds for large-scale construction, extensively renovating an existing temple at Fanshan Mountain, and deployed five hundred craftsmen to melt down gold bricks, preparing to cast a gleaming golden statue of Dong Yuan for worship inside.

The temple’s location faced Demon City directly, separated by only five hundred li.

Lady Fu now also knew that Dong Yuan was the true culprit behind the tragedy of Demon City back then—how could she endure this?

She immediately wanted to lead the clan members to destroy that temple. But Wei Jie blocked them, stating bluntly that this was an order from the mortal realm’s monarch. If Lady Fu left the city to destroy it, it would mean declaring war on the human world.

So the two disagreed and came to blows. Of course, Lady Fu was no match for Wei Jie and was immediately beaten to the ground by him.

But Lady Fu was, after all, the demon clan’s original leader. Seeing their city lord being bullied, those tamed water yakshas’ fierce and warlike nature was instantly aroused. Many clan members even shed their human appearance again, their skin becoming bumpy like toads, their faces becoming hideous.

But Wei Jie now clearly possessed the power of his previous life as a demonic dao lord, and for a moment, he intimidated the many defiant water yakshas, barely managing to keep them stable within the city.

Tang Youshu, as the water yakshas’ private tutor, still had some prestige. By earnestly explaining the reasoning and repeatedly saying “Lady Fu, please calm down,” he managed to resolve the situation.

But he felt that as Dong Yuan’s temple was completed, the relationship between the two sides would become increasingly tense. As a last resort, he urgently sought reinforcements, wanting to call Xiaoxiao, the demon clan saint, to intimidate the clan members.

When Xiaoxiao saw that Fan City was going to build a Dong Yuan temple, her heart immediately sank!

The reason Fan City was where Demon City was located was that this place was a gateway where yin and yang converged. How could the Empress Dowager have such a dream for no reason? And what conspiracy was hidden behind this Dong Yuan temple?

Thinking this, she wanted to set out immediately, but was worried that something might happen to the Cui family courtyard again.

Just then, Wei Jingfeng, who had just arrived, said to Xiaoxiao: “Sect Leader Cui, don’t worry about this place. With me watching over it, I absolutely won’t let anything happen to the Cui family couple. You should quickly go find A Jie and bring him back.”

Xiaoxiao gratefully clasped her hands and hurriedly rushed back to Fan City.

It was just that her blood decline condition seemed to have worsened considerably in just one short day.

When she tried to fly on her sword, she fell off the sword blade and couldn’t help coughing. When she slowly opened the hand covering her mouth, she found a handful of dark red blood in her palm…

Xiaoxiao took a deep breath, wiped the corners of her mouth clean, turned around to buy a horse in town, then rode toward Fan City.

But no matter how fast the horse’s pace, it couldn’t compare to the sword flying. By the time she reached Fan City, five days had already passed.

When she passed by the temple being constructed in full swing, she was shocked to see the face of the deity statue inside. The golden statue’s face had that same ambiguous smile, identical to Dong Yuan—both so inscrutable and profound, with eyes full of cold disdain for all living beings…