When Ling Luo awoke, it was still raining. She rubbed her eyes, sat up, and stared blankly at the rain curtain.

The more she wanted to see him, the more she dared not face him.

Ling Luo never imagined there would be a day when she’d be afraid of seeing Yue Liangze angry or disappointed.

Just before becoming a demon, she had promised to accompany him after leaving the demon’s lair, teasing him with “What will you do without me?” Little did she know she was digging a pit for herself. When that day truly came, she realized how excessive she had been.

In her previous life, she didn’t know Yue Liangze’s feelings, nor did she know how much he hated demons.

Now that she knew everything, she realized how cruel it was for Yue Liangze to continue loving her.

Ling Luo curled up, hugging her knees and muttering: “Demons are truly hateful.”

The black spirit demons played and frolicked with the spirits of Tianzhao Mountain. White and blue fireflies rose from the earth and dissipated. Ling Luo could successfully occupy Tianzhao Mountain because it was once the origin of her mother’s clan, and also because of the human realm’s spiritual vein within her body.

After the torrential rain stopped, Ling Luo went down to the outskirts of Tianzhao Mountain.

She remembered that she had half a disciple living on the mountain’s edge, growing flowers, and living in retirement.

It was just past noon, but due to the continuous downpour, the sky remained gloomy. Heavy clouds covered the daylight, making it look almost like nightfall.

Water dripped from the vine trellis in the courtyard. An elderly man in gray clothes was weaving a bamboo basket under the eaves, with various tools placed by his feet. A gray-backed, white-bellied silk mouse was nibbling on a carrot beside him.

Suddenly, a small white fox darted out from the void and chased after the silk mouse, which fled in terror. The old man watched with amusement at first, but when he saw the silk mouse weakening, he called out: “Ah Bao, come quickly and save Little Bao!”

Mu Xujing, who was cleaning inside, pushed open the window and looked out. He saw the snow-white fox pinning his beloved silk mouse to the ground with one paw. The mouse was squealing in panic, while the fox sat elegantly and arrogantly, staring at him.

Mu Xujing: “…”

This all-too-familiar fox signaled the end of his peaceful days.

Mu Xujing put down his feather duster and climbed directly out the window, walking toward the white fox.

He said softly to the white fox: “Let it go.”

The silk mouse finally caught its breath. Once free, it clung to Mu Xujing’s trouser leg, trembling.

Mu Xujing bent down to pick up the silk mouse, then followed the white fox outside.

“Where are my flowers?” Ling Luo asked.

Mu Xujing pointed in a direction and took her to see the flower shed.

The small flower seedlings in the pots had already sprouted, grown, and formed buds. They would bloom in a few days.

Ling Luo remembered they were very beautiful flowers.

She liked them very much. Every morning, Yue Liangze would pick a branch and place it in her room.

The little white fox reached out with its paw to touch the delicate flower leaves, circling the flower shed.

Mu Xujing observed from the side and asked her: “Does he know you’re here?”

Ling Luo: “No.”

Mu Xujing continued: “A few days ago, he sent a Flying Cloud Message asking if I had seen you. That’s when I learned you had become a demon.”

He wasn’t very surprised about Ling Luo becoming a demon. Whether Ling Luo became a demon or ascended to immortality, he didn’t find it strange—he just believed she could do it.

“Are you afraid?” Ling Luo snorted with a laugh.

Mu Xujing shook his head and crouched down to straighten the flowers and plants that had been pressed down by the fox’s paws. He chose his words carefully: “He’s very anxious, looking for you everywhere.”

Ling Luo watched him, wagging her tail.

Mu Xujing said calmly: “Aren’t you going to find him?”

The little white fox raised her chin: “Of course, I’ll find him, but I have some things to do first.”

“Take good care of my flowers. I’ll come to get them in a few days.”

Mu Xujing watched as the little white fox turned to leave, and asked: “Where are you going?”

Ling Luo said: “To Tianji.”

Mu Xujing stroked the frightened silk mouse. After making sure Ling Luo had left, he immediately took out a Moon Listener to send a message to Yue Liangze, informing him that Ling Luo had gone to Tianji.

Yue Liangze, who had been brought back to the Sacred Sword Sect and confined by his senior brother, saw Mu Xujing’s message and a layer of gloom appeared in his eyes.

She would rather go see Mu Xujing than come find me?

Originally kneeling in the stone chamber to calm his mind, Yue Liangze took up his sword and stood, only to be stopped by his eldest senior brother guarding the door: “What are you doing? Go back and kneel properly.”

Yue Liangze pursed his lips and said softly: “Senior Brother, I need to find her.”

“You’re not the only one looking for her. Your other two senior brothers and various immortal sects are all searching for her,” his eldest senior brother remained unmoved. “As for you, first eliminate the demonic energy inside you before we talk.”

Yue Liangze promised: “I won’t become a demon.”

“That sounds good, but look who can’t even control the demonic energy now?” The eldest senior brother gestured with his eyes for him to look down. Black energy was swirling around Yue Liangze’s sword-wielding hand.

“She’s going to Tianji, right?” The eldest senior brother leaned against the doorway and continued, “You dare to return to that hellish place?”

Yue Liangze calmed his mind and controlled the outward-spreading demonic energy.

“Perhaps I would have been afraid in the past, but now I’m not afraid anymore,” Yue Liangze said softly. “No matter what, I must find her.”

The eldest senior brother raised an eyebrow and looked at him: “Are you going to fight me?”

Yue Liangze lowered his head, his voice very gentle: “Senior Brother, I beg you.”

The eldest senior brother: “…”

The head disciple of the Sacred Sword Sect couldn’t stand his little junior brother showing weakness.

Yue Liangze successfully left the Sacred Sword Sect and headed to Eastern Island’s Tianji.

When Weird Compassion Immortal came to the stone chamber to see his little disciple, he found only his eldest disciple there.

“Where’s your junior brother?” Weird Compassion asked.

The eldest senior brother: “He left.”

Weird Compassion was puzzled: “Didn’t I tell you to watch him? How could he escape from right under your nose?”

The eldest senior brother said: “He begged me.”

Weird Compassion: “…”

Eastern Island’s Tianji was currently at the center of a storm. The disciple who killed the Nanshan Snow River Sect Master and became a demon was this year’s champion of the Golden Luan Pool Banquet, the little disciple of cultivation world elder, True Lord Cen Xi.

This emerging new Twenty-Sixth Demon and her tangled grudges with Nanshan Snow River’s Feng family were topics of endless discussion.

After leaving the demon’s lair, Ling Luo had not been heard from again. But the ten thousand demons, who had briefly rested, began to wreak havoc in the mortal world on a large scale. The Demon Kings used the Twenty-Sixth Demon’s Death Mist Gate to freely transport to different locations, making it impossible to defend against them.

People’s hatred for the Twenty-Sixth Demon grew by the day.

The praise once given to Ling Luo had turned into contempt and insults. People transferred their hatred for dead relatives and friends onto demons, shouting that they couldn’t coexist. Many claimed to have seen Ling Luo running rampant in various places and then leaving through the Death Mist Gate. Unsubstantiated crimes and hatred were all pinned on her.

Ling Luo mingled with the mortal world on her way to Tianji, listened briefly, and left in disgust.

A bunch of brainless fools.

Sui Wu agreed and then asked her: “Who is the person the Heavenly Dao mentioned?”

“We’ll find out eventually,” Ling Luo raised her hand to open the Death Mist Gate. “Now we’re going to see an old acquaintance.”

Even with the Death Mist Gate, entering Eastern Island’s Tianji would cause a disturbance and be discovered. But Eastern Island’s Tianji had a loophole, which was the Saha Realm that restricted spiritual power.

Black lines opened in the void, and Ling Luo walked out holding a bottle of begonia flower wine. She saw the familiar ten-thousand-foot-high walls and compartments, with iron chains hanging down from above, cold and strange.

The night sky was filled with stars, and the wind blew from the canyon, wailing like ghosts and howling wolves.

Ling Luo stood in the void, looking at a man bound by iron chains in a compartment on the cliff face. She bent down and passed the wine bottle through the gap.

Qing Shun, who was sitting cross-legged, raised an eyebrow at her: “Well, well, I haven’t seen you for a while, and you’ve changed your appearance.”

In the years after Yue Liangze left Tianji, Ling Luo occasionally came to the Saha Realm to see Qing Shun. They were quite familiar with each other. Each time, she wanted to learn about Yue Liangze from Qing Shun, but he always kept her in suspense, unwilling to tell.

“No need to envy me. Soon you’ll be just like me,” Ling Luo tapped the iron bars with her finger, easily breaking the restrictions on them.

Qing Shun lightly licked his canine tooth, a faint dark red light flashing in his eyes.

These restrictions weren’t very powerful, but he still couldn’t break them.

Although not powerful, they could only be broken from the outside. Qing Shun, trapped inside, could only wait for someone else to remove them.

After decades of waiting, his time had come.

Qing Shun reached for the wine bottle and removed the seal, saying: “What do you want to hear this time?”

Ling Luo slightly raised her chin: “No need for you to tell me. He’ll tell me himself now.”

Qing Shun narrowed his eyes: “I’ll give you one last chance. I know some things he will never voluntarily tell you.”

Ling Luo looked at him suspiciously. Was his relationship with him that good?

Qing Shun took a sip of begonia flower wine, shaking the bottle and saying: “One of the three treasures of Tianji. I never thought I’d taste it in my lifetime.”

Ling Luo placed one hand on the sword at her waist, waiting silently for what would come next.

Qing Shun extended his hand, indicating for her to cut the iron chains, and said softly: “My master once had a junior sister with a compound surname.”

Ling Luo’s hand on the sword paused slightly.

“This junior sister had extremely high talent as a sword cultivator. My master often said that if she hadn’t chosen to marry a wandering cultivator, the position of Second Sect Master might have been hers,” Qing Shun continued in an unhurried tone. “In her early years, she eliminated demons, using an alias in the mortal world to uphold justice, offending many people and many demons.”

“After giving birth to a son, she perished along with a demon.”

“Everyone thought she was dead, but later they discovered that while the person had died, that demon had not. It even returned to the mortal world using her body. At that time, no one noticed anything wrong. My master thought his junior sister had returned, bringing her child with her, so he let her stay at Tianji.”

“But this demon hated the junior sister intensely. After gaining trust by using the child’s mother’s body, it fed the junior sister’s child with demons every day.”

Those delicious delicacies in others’ eyes were, in the child’s eyes, grotesque faces and dismembered limbs.

The woman held a bowl and a soup spoon, smiled, and leaned close to him, feeding him by hand.

“While others ate food to grow up, this child ate demons to grow up,” Qing Shun laughed coldly. “Later, that wandering cultivator came to confront them, finally exposing this demon’s identity, and perished along with it.”

“The Tianji Sect Master was furious at being deceived by a demon and made a fool of. He suppressed the news and felt disgust towards a child who had been fed by demons and was full of demonic energy. However, he said that for the sake of his fellow disciple’s child, he would let the boy fend for himself.”

Qing Shun finished the last sip of begonia flower wine and said: “They’re all hypocrites.”

Ling Luo gripped Sui Wu tightly, her fingertips turning slightly white.

Yue Liangze had mentioned that his father died eliminating demons and that he had never seen his mother.

Perhaps in his view, that was just a demon wearing his mother’s shell.

No wonder he hated demons and only ate food he prepared himself because he had experienced such unbearable and painful events.

Qing Shun looked at Ling Luo’s face full of killing intent and raised an eyebrow: “See? These are things he would never voluntarily tell you in his lifetime.”

He looked at Ling Luo with interest: “Back then, I was going to take him away, but ended up being confined here.”

Ling Luo drew her sword to cut the iron chains on his body and said coldly: “Your master is still locked up in the Mingxin Shrine, never coming out.”

Qing Shun narrowed his eyes and walked out of the compartment, stepping into the void. When he opened his eyes again, they were completely dark red.

He flexed his shoulders, neck, and back, making cracking sounds. Facing the starry sky, he descended to the ground and, without hiding or evading, made his way straight from the Saha Realm to the Mingxin Shrine, killing as he went.

Tianji’s spirit birds flew in chaos, and shrill warning messages resounded throughout the inner and outer gates.

Mu Hengtian and others, who had been discussing matters in the Discipline Hall, saw the surging demonic energy and flames in the mountains and immediately grew solemn. Yun Shouxi, thinking it was his little disciple attacking, stood up and left.

Ling Luo watched as Tianji fell into chaos, but she went in the opposite direction from the crowd.

Qing Shun had attracted everyone’s attention, while she was heading to the Green Stone Quarter. Ling Luo believed Qing Shun could give her enough time because the first thing this Twenty-Sixth Demon did after emerging was to kill his master.