Font Size:
Every time he came to treat her, it usually took the time it took for an incense stick to burn.
“You’re really not yourself today,” Shen Yueqing said, frowning as she looked at Xie Hengyu. “Could it be because of that little fox?”
Hearing this, Xie Hengyu, who had been keeping his eyes closed, suddenly opened them.
Shen Yueqing looked as if she had figured it all out. “So I guessed right. Is it because she formed a contract with that demon? Are you jealous?”
The word “jealous” was used quite delicately.
Xie Hengyu didn’t think he could feel jealousy over a demon. His emotional threads had been severed in his youth, and he cultivated the Path of Emotionlessness—devoid of love or attachment. How could he feel jealousy?
Xie Hengyu replied with a cold expression, “It’s just the love curse acting up.”
Shen Yueqing didn’t understand much about matters of love either. Seeing that Xie Hengyu didn’t want to elaborate, she didn’t press further. Instead, she added, “My medicine is almost out. Make some more when you have time.”
After saying this, Shen Yueqing handed him an exquisitely crafted magical tool. “I made this little thing in my spare time. It hasn’t been tested on anyone yet. A Shang is, after all, your nominal Dao companion. If she’s been wronged, isn’t it only right for you, as her Dao companion, to stand up for her?”
Xie Hengyu glanced at her and took the tool.
As he was leaving, Shen Yueqing couldn’t resist reminding him, “Let me know how it works after you use it. I’ll make some adjustments.”
*
After A Shang descended Yujie Peak, Wu Zhu, who had been waiting at the entrance for a long time and was starving, finally saw her. He rushed over, clutching his stomach and whining pitifully, “Shang Shang, I’m so hungry! I’m going to starve to death!”
“Why have you turned into this?” A Shang looked at Wu Zhu, who had now taken on the appearance of an eleven or twelve-year-old boy, and was somewhat surprised.
“Why else?” Wu Zhu said angrily. “It’s all because of your man. That whip of his scattered what little demonic energy I had left. Who knows how long it’ll take for me to change back?”
“…” A Shang’s eyes turned cold as she corrected him. “He’s not my man.”
“Not your man?” Wu Zhu trailed behind her, muttering, “Then who is that pretty boy? When I was repairing your spiritual veins at the bottom of the cliff, I noticed there was a trace of primordial yang energy in your body. If it weren’t for that energy protecting you, you would’ve died when you fell. I’ve already asked around. Who would’ve thought that delicate-looking guy is actually the number one swordsman in the cultivation world…”
“Are you done talking?” A Shang interrupted him with a cold expression. “Do you still want to eat or not?”
At the mention of food, Wu Zhu immediately shut his mouth.
Because of Wu Zhu’s identity, A Shang didn’t dare take him to the sect’s dining hall. Instead, she had to pack food and bring it back for him.
As soon as she set down the packed meal, the ravenous demon pounced on the food box, swallowing it whole, box and all.
A Shang: “…”
“Is there more?” Wu Zhu tugged at A Shang’s hand. “That’s it? I’m still hungry…”
A Shang: “…”
Suppressing her anger, A Shang gritted her teeth and said, “You just ate my portion too.”
Wu Zhu looked at her in disbelief. “No way, Shang Shang. Is your sect so stingy that they only give disciples such tiny portions? How are you supposed to have the strength to hunt demons like this?”
A Shang was beginning to seriously suspect that the creature she had formed a contract with might actually be Taotie, the legendary gluttonous beast of antiquity, given how insatiable his appetite was.
“No way,” Wu Zhu pushed at her. “I’m still hungry. Go back to the dining hall and get more.”
A Shang smacked him on the head. “Then spit out the food boxes first!”
Those were two of her only remaining food containers!
In the end, Wu Zhu failed to cough up the two boxes he had swallowed—after all, as he put it, anything that entered his stomach was there to stay.
As a cultivator, A Shang wouldn’t starve from missing a single meal, but she couldn’t understand why Wu Zhu, an ancient demonic beast, acted like he was on the verge of death after going without food for just one meal.
Afraid that he might actually lose control and start eating people if pushed too far by hunger, A Shang had no choice. The dining hall was already closed at this hour, so she reluctantly spent three spirit stones to buy some food from a fellow disciple.
In the blink of an eye, the large bundle of food she had bought from her fellow disciple for three spirit stones had been completely devoured by Wu Zhu.
Now, the satisfied demon finally let out a contented burp and sprawled blissfully across the bed.
When A Shang returned from soaking in the spiritual pool at the back mountain, she found the red-haired youth, now full and drowsy, fast asleep on her bed.
She had always lived alone, and suddenly having someone else here felt strange—even annoying, for a fleeting moment.
But then again, she needed him. After all, she wasn’t strong enough yet. She needed him as a sword, a constant safeguard for her safety.
She couldn’t guarantee that something like what He Zong had done to her would only happen once. She needed a backup plan, an insurance for her survival.
A Shang didn’t wake Wu Zhu. Instead, she sat cross-legged on the nearby daybed and began meditating.
*
By the time Xie Hengyu returned to Yujie Peak, the mountain was empty—A Shang was nowhere to be seen.
Only his two puppets remained, clutching a piece of clothing and tugging at it between themselves.
Xie Hengyu: “What are you doing?”
At his voice, the two puppets startled, and in their panic, the garment they had been fighting over fell to the ground.
Xie Hengyu recognized it at a glance—it was the outfit he had instructed them to prepare for A Shang earlier.
She hadn’t taken it with her.
One of the puppets, seeing the clothes on the floor, quickly crouched down to pick them up, then hugged them tightly to its chest and took several deep, exaggerated sniffs.
Xie Hengyu: “…”
These two puppets were manifestations of his own severed emotional threads, sharing his senses. He disliked being attended to by others, so he had kept them around. Never before had they acted out of line.
Yet he had never imagined that puppets born from his own emotions would grow so attached to A Shang. Even after she left, the mere clothing she had briefly worn had driven them to this state of obsession.
“Have you both lost your minds?” Xie Hengyu’s face was cold, his tone unmistakably displeased.
The two puppets seemed to sense his anger—misinterpreting it as a desire for A Shang’s clothes—and obligingly held out the garment she had worn, offering it to him with exaggerated generosity, as if inviting him to take a whiff as well.
Xie Hengyu: “…”