Ten years ago, Zhou Tuya followed his fellow disciples and stumbled into a secret realm left by Tianxiao for training.
There, he and his disciples saw a portrait of him as a child at a Tianxiao banquet.
In the portrait, he was only five years old, but his bone structure already showed extraordinary elegance.
Zhou Tuya secretly took the portrait and seized the opportunity brought by the secret realm, leaving his fellow disciples forever in the collapsed realm.
Back at Xuanheng Sect, his cultivation soared, and he rose to become an elder of the sect.
That portrait, he kept as a treasure.
It was one of his trump cards. He believed that one day, he would use it.
The moment he saw Xu Liling, he knew the time to use the portrait had come.
So he persuaded his disciples to act, presenting the portrait to prove Xu Liling’s identity.
Though Xu Liling was no longer a child, one could still recognize at a glance that he was the grown version of the boy in the portrait.
The disciples believed it halfway, and Ning Fei pushed it the other half.
He planned to return to Xuanheng Sect, holding Xu Liling’s head alongside the portrait, to intimidate the demonic forces.
At that time, whether Xu Liling was truly that person or not,
he thought, once the demons’ faith collapsed and the Mysterious Path could suppress the Demonic Path, no one in the Mysterious Path would care.
And if that person truly appeared to disrupt his scheme?
Then he’d simply change the plan—the portrait and the head would still be usable pieces. He would still achieve great merit.
The head alone or the portrait alone wouldn’t have such a perfect effect.
Having obtained the portrait and soon the head, he was convinced this was another opportunity granted by the heavens.
But he never considered—
what if that mortal, Xu Liling, was truly that person?
Because how could it be possible?
How could that person marry a mortal woman and live in seclusion in the wilderness?
That person was the faith of the Demonic Path, who bathed the Nine Palaces of Qiongyu in blood and slaughtered the thirteen states of Yaojing!
Zhou Tuya’s head fell to the ground, and in a world dyed red with blood, he watched his headless body collapse onto the blood-soaked earth.
Looking at the “scholar” in a green robe drenched in blood, reveling in slaughter, his lingering consciousness still wondered—
How could this be possible?
Ning Fei knew Zhou Tuya had deceived all the disciples.
Her father, also an elder of Xuanheng Sect, had warned her about Zhou Tuya’s true nature, telling her to be cautious.
Yet she still helped Zhou Tuya.
Because she had decided that Zhou Tuya and those disciples all deserved to die!
From the moment Zhou Tuya closed the realm-breaking gate, and the disciples only cared about saving themselves,
when she looked back and saw her senior brother, under the iron hooves of the demonic army, looking at her hopelessly as he was beheaded by the demons, Ning Fei had been thinking:
Why? Why were these people the ones who survived, and not her senior brother?
They all deserved to die!
They should have died with her senior brother back then!
But her father was highly respected, and she couldn’t let him be implicated by her crime of harming her fellow disciples.
So she went along with the plan, helping Zhou Tuya slaughter the mortals.
When they all became sinners, she would return to Yunzhou, expose their crimes,
and pretend to be deceived, claiming she went mad from mental torment, poisoning them all!
By then, people would only pity a poor, mad girl who killed a group of sinners, and no one would blame her father for failing to raise her properly.
In this plan, the only ones she felt sorry for were the mortal couple, Qin Yingran and Xu Liling.
But she had no choice.
They could only blame their bad luck.
Just like her and her senior brother—
they had finally earned her father’s approval, promising to become dao companions after this demon-slaying mission.
Yet she could only watch her senior brother die miserably, his body trampled by the demonic army!
But why did things turn out like this?
Covered in blood, Ning Fei crawled toward the broken sword that had fallen to the ground.
On that sword hung the sword tassel her senior brother had given her.
The pain of her broken leg made Ning Fei scream, her heart-wrenching cries echoing through the wilderness.
Xu Liling crushed her leg bone, noticed her longing, and looked at the sword tassel she was desperately reaching for.
“Do you want this?”
He stood by the broken sword, looking down at her, his dark eyes seemingly piercing through her heart. “Was this given to you by someone important?”
Ning Fei didn’t answer, but raised her eyes. All she could see were corpses strewn across the ground, heads rolling in blood—all her fellow disciples.
Xu Liling’s expression was one of pity: “I will definitely kill you. But if you tell me this is important to you, I don’t mind letting you hold it as you die.”
Ning Fei had no strength left to answer, but she forced herself to speak, reaching out with a trembling, blood-stained hand.
Xu Liling, however, crushed the sword tassel under his foot, brought down his blade, and laughed.
Blood mist sprayed, staining the sword tassel red.
Ning Fei’s head rolled away, the world spinning.
Her consciousness hadn’t fully faded when she saw Xu Liling’s mocking smile:
“How could you believe the words of a demon?”
Yes, how could she believe the words of a demon?
Especially a demon among demons like Xu Liling.
Little Yellow walked over, looked at Ning Fei with pity, and swallowed her in one gulp.
Yingran sat in the protective barrier Big Flower had created for her, unable to move for a long time.
Her mind was blank.
The small courtyard in the distance, filled with scattered flesh and corpses, made her want to vomit.
Her usually calm and gentle husband stood with a firewood knife amidst the blood-soaked pile of bodies.
He closed his eyes, calming himself from the demonic excitement stirred by the slaughter, then surveyed the gruesome courtyard, frowning with impatience and clicking his tongue.
“So annoying.”
Yingran closed her eyes, leaning against a tree, desperately convincing herself this was just a nightmare.
When she woke, Huaizhen would still be the husband who worked with her at sunrise and rested at sunset. Their courtyard would still be that ordinary but warm home.
But the wafting smell of blood kept reminding her—
This wasn’t a dream.
Her husband was a demon.
A demon who, with an ordinary firewood knife, could instantly kill over twenty cultivators!
“So annoying.
Cleaning this up will definitely be a hassle.
And the mistress only went out to gather vegetables—she’ll be back in an hour at most.”
Little Yellow thought with a hint of schadenfreude: Let’s see how he handles this!
If he were willing to lift his seal and revert to his demonic form, a single spell could restore the courtyard instantly.
But anything touched by his demonic form would be tainted with demonic aura.
Pure herbs heal people; demonic aura harms them.
Even if the courtyard were restored, the mistress wouldn’t be able to live there anymore.
Xu Liling glanced at it.
Little Yellow immediately became obedient and fawning, wagging its tail like a real dog.
Xu Liling ordered, “Eat everything clean and call a few mountain sprites and wood spirits.”
It froze, looking at the courtyard full of corpses, its face showing distress. “I can’t eat this much at once. Can I eat slowly…?”
Xu Liling was already in the kitchen boiling hot water. “Finish eating, then catch six chickens and watch the road. If she comes back, stall her.”
Little Yellow: “I can’t eat…”
Xu Liling: “Come back after the mountain sprites and wood spirits leave.”
Little Yellow: “I can’t…”
Xu Liling shot it a look.
It crouched on the ground, eating with a face full of grievance, not daring to say more.
The longer the bodies remained, the higher the risk of discovery.
In the kitchen, water began to boil. Xu Liling walked into the courtyard, collected the storage pouches from the cultivators’ bodies, picked up the spirit stones Ning Fei had thrown and cleaned them, then went to tidy the room Ning Fei had ransacked earlier.
His arrangements were orderly and unhurried.
Yingran gazed at him numbly.
Her husband wasn’t a mortal, and even Little Yellow wasn’t an ordinary dog.
She rubbed her temples, then saw Little Yellow raise its head and let out a deep, beastly roar.
The roar shook the mountains. Though not loud, its soundwaves stirred the forest.
In an instant, grass, trees, and stones transformed into spiritual forms, drifting toward her courtyard like a gust of wind.
Yingran was shocked.
They worked with clear division of labor.
The wood spirits formed from grass and trees repaired the broken wooden door and fence, while the mountain sprites formed from stones purified the blood-soaked ground.
The water in the kitchen was ready.
Xu Liling emerged from the house, ignoring the busy little spirits, grabbed clean clothes, picked up the hot water, and went to the side room to bathe.
Moments later, he came out in a clean green robe, his dark hair still wet and loose, tossing the blood-soaked clothes to Little Yellow.
Little Yellow carried them to a corner, pulled out a fire starter, burned the clothes, and swept the ashes into a ditch to be washed away by the water.
Xu Liling sat back in a reclining chair in the courtyard, crossing his legs, whittling bamboo strips to reweave the vegetable basket and dustpan.
The mountain sprites and wood spirits bustled about, gradually restoring the courtyard.
The corpses on the ground slowly disappeared as Little Yellow ate until it nearly vomited. Finally finished, it went to catch chickens and waited on the path Yingran would take to return from gathering vegetables.
In a daze, Yingran felt that what was happening in her courtyard was like a fairy tale.
When a fairy tale princess faced trouble, “little animals” would come to help.
Only this trouble was a bit cruel, and the help was a bit bloody.
Yingran noticed the green robe on Xu Liling and let her thoughts wander:
No wonder he always rotated between a few nearly identical green robes.
Was it so he could swap into a new one and discard the old if something happened?
If she hadn’t seen it with her own eyes, she wouldn’t have noticed he’d changed clothes when she returned home.
The courtyard was restored to its original state, and the mountain sprites and wood spirits returned to the forest.
The sun was setting, and Xu Liling’s hair had dried. He tied his dark hair with a jade bamboo hairband, bustling about in the clean courtyard under the twilight, as if he were still the refined scholar she knew.
Little Yellow sat by the roadside, waiting for her to return, occasionally scratching an itch with its leg.
It, too, seemed like the familiar little dog she knew.
Yingran leaned against the tree, watching them from afar.
The sky darkened, and a candle was lit in the house.
Xu Liling moved between the main room and the kitchen twice, reheating the soup that had gone cold.
After heating the food one last time, he stood at the doorway for a moment, then turned toward the back of the house, as if preparing to ride the flying steed to look for her.
Yingran let out a breath, pulled Big Flower—still in its dead cat state—from the leaves, placed it in the vegetable basket, picked up the basket, and walked down the mountain.
Step by step, she entered the courtyard.
The courtyard bore no trace of the afternoon’s tragedy, and the air was filled with the aroma of food.
Yingran’s gaze swept over the gate, the courtyard wall, the vegetable basket, and the dustpan hanging on the wall…
The memories of her and Xu Liling ordering the gate together, slowly building the courtyard wall and fence, and learning to weave the vegetable basket and dustpan together…
They intertwined in her mind with the images of those spirits repairing the blood-soaked mess in the blink of an eye.
In the night, the courtyard was cloaked in an eerie glow.
“Where have you been? How did you end up like this?”
The familiar voice asked.
It was the familiar tone, calm with a subtle trace of concern.
He had been about to ride the flying steed to find her but stopped when he saw her return. He sent the steed back to the stable and approached her.
Demon.
He’s a demon.
A voice in Yingran’s mind kept reminding her.
She lowered her eyes, avoiding his gaze. “This morning, I was going to gather vegetables, but I suddenly wanted to pick mushrooms in the mountains, so I took Big Flower with me.
I fell in the mountains, sprained my ankle, and got lost. Luckily, Big Flower guided me, and I made it out. Big Flower… is already exhausted and asleep.”
Xu Liling gently touched her face, wiping the dirt from it with his thumb, and bent down to pick her up.
It was strange.
She knew he was a demon, yet his movements still felt gentle, and his palm was as warm as ever.
She stopped him. “Huaizhen.”
Xu Liling paused. “Hm?”
Yingran smiled at him. “Let me put Big Flower back first.”
Xu Liling took the vegetable basket from her and placed it on the ground. “Let Little Yellow take it back.”
Little Yellow immediately came over, wagging its tail fawningly, picked up the basket, and returned to its kennel.
Yingran wasn’t worried that Little Yellow would eat Big Flower.
Because Little Yellow was clearly so full it could barely move.
She watched Little Yellow walk away, then suddenly felt her body lighten.
She let out a soft gasp, turning to look at Xu Liling, who had lifted her into his arms.
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