But why did she forget it all later?
Ruyi shook her head, unable to remember.
Cinnabar yellow paper flew over with the wind, brushing past her jaw. Her skin felt as if it were being burned, flushing red and stinging. She pressed her lips together, raised her hand to smooth them over, and casually tucked her hair behind her ear as if nothing had happened.
Shen Qiyuan, walking ahead, suddenly became alert: “There’s demonic energy.”
He turned back, meeting her innocent eyes, and frowned slightly: “You didn’t sense it?”
“I forgot to tell you.” Ruyi nodded slightly, her skirt soft, “My internal injuries are too severe, my spiritual consciousness is sealed, only some hand-to-hand combat skills remain usable.”
With spiritual consciousness sealed, naturally, she couldn’t detect demonic energy.
Shen Qiyuan nodded in understanding, but felt it strange: “The injuries I received ascending the Great Path were already severe, yet my spiritual consciousness remains. Did Zhuzui injure you even more severely?”
Ruyi smiled without answering, only sighing: “I’ll have to rely on your protection.”
Her nature was extremely strong-willed. In their thousand years together, they had always supported each other mutually. If he saved her once, she would always repay him once. Through all their experiences, even when near death, she had never shown weakness to him.
But now, Ruyi stood before him, her rouge-bright face lowered to him, revealing a section of fair, slender neck.
Shen Qiyuan felt as if something had lightly scratched at his heart.
He turned his head away somewhat stiffly: “No matter.”
Their identities weren’t suitable for taking action in the city, so Shen Qiyuan deliberately brought her to the forest outside the eastern suburbs where demonic energy was dense.
“Stand behind me,” he said in a low voice, staring in one direction.
Ruyi obediently complied, watching as his robes rose without wind, the silk ribbons in his ink-black hair fluttering along.
A century-old bear demon suddenly charged out from between the branches, rapidly approaching them.
The bear demon originally still had a human face, but the closer it got to Shen Qiyuan, the more obvious its true form became. Under the shroud of pure white light, the bear demon flew into a rage and swiped a claw toward them.
Shen Qiyuan quickly formed hand seals. In just an instant, the white light all around transformed into a large net, binding the bear demon tightly.
“Finish it off,” he said in a low voice.
“You said you’d protect me, not that you’d feed demons right to my mouth,” she laughed lightly. “You finish it off yourself.”
He frowned, flipped his palm, and the bear demon was immediately cut to pieces by the sharp net. It’s howling accompanied the black demonic blood that splattered far away.
Ruyi lowered her eyes.
In the world of demons, there weren’t so many moral principles. They often killed each other as well.
But following an immortal to slaughter one’s kind had a different meaning entirely.
“Are you sympathizing with it?” Shen Qiyuan suddenly spoke.
Ruyi came back to her senses and looked up to see his serious expression, his brow slightly furrowed.
“Demons are the least deserving of sympathy in this world,” he said. “Mountain fires, floods, plagues – half of humanity’s suffering originates from them.”
His tone rarely carried such hatred.
Ruyi stood there in confusion, belatedly remembering Shen Qiyuan’s origins.
Every god cultivator on Qidou Mountain had a noble background, and he was no exception – the only prince of the ancient Heng Kingdom. Even without becoming a god, he could have enjoyed a hundred years of wealth and honor.
However, in his sixteenth year, a group of demons led by a nine-headed serpent conquered the Heng Kingdom. They devoured Shen Qiyuan’s parents and siblings alive, destroying the magnificent palace that had taken a hundred years to build.
Mountain fires spread from the outskirts toward the city, burning countless civilians to death. Floods submerged fields and estates, leaving not a single cow, sheep, or livestock behind.
After receiving the news, Shen Qiyuan hurried down the mountain, drove back the nine-headed serpent and its demon horde, and regardless of everything, used his immature divine power to save the world, setting up formations and casting spells for sixty-six days straight.
Just as the mountain fires were extinguished and the floods receded, the remaining dozen or so citizens of Heng Kingdom were carefully protected in his palm.
However, the cunning demons had left behind one more plague. After the plague, only a pile of corpses remained in his palm.
With his last thread of hope shattered, the exhausted Shen Qiyuan collapsed in the desolate ruins. Ruyi rushed over to carry him on her back. After taking just two steps, she felt tears flowing down her neck.
That was the only time she had ever seen him cry.
Shen Qiyuan hadn’t been called by this name before. It was after that incident that he said Qidou Mountain was too far away – if it had been closer, he might have been able to save a few more people.
Afterward, he cultivated even more diligently, almost without rest day or night.
Ruyi suddenly remembered with a start that when she had wanted to compensate him before, she had asked: “Do you have any wishes, sir?”
Shen Qiyuan had answered at the time: “No.”
He had lied. He did have a wish.
His wish, beginning three thousand years ago, had always been to exterminate all demons in the world and console the spirits of all the Heng Kingdom’s dead.
Her pupils contracted slightly as Ruyi looked down at her palms.
She had later become a demon.
She had become the very thing he hated most, the thing he wanted to eliminate as quickly as possible.
“Shen Qiyuan,” Ruyi suddenly called his name.
He continued walking forward, apparently sensing another demon in the distance, his tone somewhat absent-minded: “What?”
“You’re madly in love with me, aren’t you?” she said in a muffled voice.
The white light at his fingertips wavered, and the formation failed to cover the distant gu eagle, instead startling it into flight with a long cry.
Shen Qiyuan turned back in shock, looking at her incomprehensibly: “Do you know what you’re saying?”
Ruyi put her hands on her hips: “You dare to do it but won’t admit it?”
If he wasn’t madly in love with her, how could he bring her to the human world knowing she was a demon?
“I told you long ago that I only want to become a god.” he turned his head away and reformed his hand seals. “Matters of love have nothing to do with me. You can only be my fellow cultivator, and will only ever be a fellow cultivator.”
Can only be, and will only ever be.
These words were like a key that went “click” in her mind, then the door opened, and wind swept in from outside, scattering a sheet of white mist.
…
“Shen Qiyuan, you have me in your heart, too, don’t you?” She stood in the moonlight, smiling as she looked at him. “You just need to nod, and I won’t be in a hurry to return to my domain.”
“Go early and return early,” he said, looking at her indifferently. “During the hundred years you’re away, Zhuzui will temporarily take your place.”
The curve of her mouth gradually fell as she pressed her lips together: “When you returned to Heng Kingdom last time, I didn’t find anyone to replace you.”
“So you delayed your cultivation.”
“Shen Qiyuan!” She was angry now. “Is cultivation all you have in your head?!”
“Then why else would we come up the mountain?” he said. “If you want romantic entanglements, go back to the human world – there are plenty of people willing to accompany you. You can only be my fellow cultivator, and will only ever be a fellow cultivator.”
Her heart clenched as she bit her teeth: “I understand.”
After so many years together, she had thought Shen Qiyuan treated her somewhat differently, but it turned out that in his eyes, she was just an ordinary companion – it wouldn’t make any difference to replace her with someone else.
Unwilling to give up, she stayed on the mountain one more day, hiding in the shadows to secretly watch him cultivate with Zhuzui, thinking that if he showed even the slightest discomfort or had even a moment of distraction, she would forgive him.