Chapter 2

At the third quarter of the Yin hour, the night rain was falling steadily.

The streets of the entire Nine Nether Capital were submerged in a deep, hazy rain mist. The pavilions on both sides, adorned with scarlet lanterns, were bustling with people, the sound of drums and flutes incessant, as if a night banquet was in full swing.

Only upon closer inspection did the shadows cast on the dim paper windows appear somewhat bizarre.

The lower body of a gracefully dancing woman was coiled like a snake’s tail; guests exchanging drinks would extend six arms with a mere shoulder shrug; a young man, seated and fanning himself, had nine fox tails swaying leisurely across the black wooden floor as he conversed.

Among them, not a single one was human.

These were the thousands of demons and spirits who had traveled from various cities across the Nine Netherworlds to attend the grand wedding of the demon lord.

People called it the “Night Banquet of Demons and Spirits.”

“…Everyone says, ‘Better a servant to a noble family than a minister to the emperor.’ The noblewomen from the southern aristocratic families are perhaps even more esteemed than the imperial princesses. Does that Miss Yinshi truly intend to marry into our Nine Netherworlds?”

The clinking of cups and the warm fragrance filled the air.

Just as Shanshao lifted the curtain of the inner chamber, he overheard this remark.

The handsome gentleman who spoke was leaning against a four-legged couch, holding a goblet of amber wine with a limb extended from his back.

Seeing Shanshao’s group suddenly appear, he did not show any surprise but instead met the hostile gaze of the young man in blue with a subtle smile:

“It is said that last month, while waiting to be married at the Jiling Terrace, this noble lady was so repulsed by the appearance of demons and spirits that she ordered all demonic servants and ghost attendants not to enter the inner hall. Lord Shanshao, you are one of the twelve Nuo gods close to our lord; do you know if this rumor is true?”

Another limb holding a gold-leaf fan emerged, covering the corners of the gentleman’s raised lips.

“If it’s false, Lord Shan Zhu should quickly dispel the rumor, or else people might think our lord pacified the plague ghosts everywhere for Da Chao, only for Da Chao to look down on us. Isn’t that, right?”

The sounds of drinking and chatter quieted somewhat, and many demons and spirits began whispering, their eyes darting between the two.

Glaring at the gentleman’s face, Shanshao curled his lips and spat out two words:

“Idiot.”

The gentleman’s smile remained unchanged.

As Shanshao glanced at the onlookers, they quickly averted their eyes, pretending nothing had happened.

Who dared to watch the commotion between the twelve Nuo gods and the faction of the jade-faced spider?

The inner chamber soon regained its lively atmosphere.

“This lot, if it weren’t for the lord, who knows where they’d be serving as someone’s lapdogs. Ungrateful scoundrels!”

After leaving the banquet, a subordinate glanced upstairs and couldn’t help but curse.

The person next to him agreed: “Exactly, who blabbed about the Jiling Terrace incident? When I find out, I’ll cut off their tongue!”

“Can you even manage that?”

Shanshao, arms crossed, stared at the figures moving through the rain.

The night rain drizzled as the innkeeper, holding an umbrella, carefully directed the staff to load one box after another onto a cargo cart.

It’s said these boxes contained daily clothing prepared for Miss Yinshi. Fearing the Nine Netherworlds’ embroiderers weren’t skilled enough, a team was sent south of the Great Wall to commission the best embroiderers at great expense, then transported back here.

The young man in blue casually opened a box to take a look.

After a moment, Shanshao closed the box of dazzling clothes and sneered in the direction of the Eternal Night Palace:

“Marrying a golden peony from the Immortal Capital Yujing, such incidents will likely become common.”

His words were soon validated.

The boxes Shanshao’s group had brought back, after a long and tiring journey, were stopped by the maids outside the Eternal Night Palace before they could even reach the gate.

“…Say that again?”

The young man tapped the scimitar at his waist, his fingers drumming, seemingly amused by anger, as he stared unblinkingly at the arrogant maid:

“What do you mean, your lady can’t wear the cheap materials of foreign lands?”

In the darkness, Liuyu suddenly opened her eyes.

Dim light filtered through the red silk canopy, enveloping the person inside in a seductive crimson glow. As her senses gradually returned, Liuyu stared at the golden-embroidered flowers on the canopy for a long time before recognizing the pattern of phoenixes and peacocks in harmony.

For a moment, Liuyu felt disoriented. The first thought that came to her mind was—

Everyone’s dead; could they still be arranging a ghost marriage for her?

But soon, Liuyu realized something was off.

The Qi Sea, the root of the twelve meridians, the foundation of life force.

Her Qi Sea had been mostly destroyed nine years ago during the Battle of Guanshan. How could it now be so peaceful and stable?

Moreover, her cultivation level had drastically fallen.

She had reached the ninth level before her death, so how could her Qi Sea be restored, yet her level regressed to the seventh level of a century ago?

Liuyu’s fingers twitched slightly. She suddenly raised her hand and touched her face.

Smooth and soft, without the weathering of a decade of hardship, and not a trace of the horrific scars.

Liuyu’s eyes widened in astonishment.

Before she could grasp the situation, her attention was drawn to an argument outside the window.

“—Shanshao! How dare you! The two lords are in the inner hall, and you dare draw a blade outside the Eternal Night Palace! Do all you people from the Nine Netherworlds lack manners and etiquette?”

“Stop pretending. In the eyes of you people from Yujing, haven’t we always been from a backwater place? What etiquette does a backwater need?”

The clear voice of a young man carried a chilling edge.

“You can’t stand the food, can’t stand the houses, and now you can’t even wear the clothes. Do you really think you’re a golden Buddha that needs to be worshipped? I want to see just how delicate you are—move aside.”

“Impudent! Miss has ordered that demons and spirits must not enter the inner hall. How dare you force your way in!”

“People from your Immortal Capital Yujing can come and go freely in the Eternal Night Palace to serve your lady closely. Why can’t we see our lord? This is the Nine Nether Capital; if you want to show off, go back to your Immortal Capital Yujing!”

“Chao Yuan! Chao Ming! What are you still doing, come down and stop them!”

Liuyu, shaken from her muddled thoughts, finally realized what they were arguing about.

…Chao Yuan? Chao Ming?

She suddenly sat up straight from the lacquered wood bed and pushed open the window beside it—

In the southern regions of the Da Chao, south of the Demon Ghost Great Wall, such a scene could never be seen.

At the end of the sky, mountains upon mountains overlapped, and the ground was piled up at their feet.

In the distance, green forests and bamboo groves shone with a blue-green hue in the morning mist. A towering red lacquer bridge connected the towns on either side, following the river upstream, where countless pavilions with black tiles and red pillars could be seen, arranged closely in tiers around the Grand Night Palace according to the mountain’s terrain.

This was the capital of the Northern Wastelands’ Nine Hells, Ye City.

The place where she had lived for a hundred years.

“Shall we fight?”

A voice suddenly came from the cherry blossom tree outside the building.

Liuyu looked towards the sound.

A girl with double ponytails sat cross-legged on a branch, entwining red threads around her slender fingers. As she played with the strings, she asked the boy opposite her, her pretty yet childlike face showing no hint of emotion.

“Let’s fight.”

The boy, who looked almost identical to her, picked the red thread from her fingers and said nonchalantly without even glancing at the fierce mountain demon below.

“It’s not that strong anyway.”

These two were twins, the elder sister named Chao Yuan and the younger brother named Chao Ming.

When Liuyu was ten years old, the fortress under the Yin Mountain Clan sent these two to her. Originally, they were to sign a life-and-death contract and serve as death guards by her side.

However, little Liuyu took one look at them, and decisively crumpled the life-and-death contract into a ball and threw it away.

“I don’t need this.”

Little Liuyu jumped down from the chair and said to the kneeling twins,

“Can you use a sword? Come, let’s have a fight. If you are to risk your lives for me, I must make you convinced and obedient.”

Later, in the years when Lily lived under an assumed name and endured countless ambushes and assassination attempts, Chao Yuan and Chao Ming indeed risked their lives for her without regret.

But at that time, Liuyu couldn’t even preserve their bodies.

Looking at their figures now, Liuyu was momentarily disoriented, not knowing what day it was.

Noticing Liuyu’s gaze, the girl among the flower shadows lifted her head, revealing a questioning look.

Liuyu’s eyes turned slightly sour, and she instinctively leaned forward—

Her wrist was suddenly grabbed with force.

It was only then that Liuyu noticed someone had been beside her pillow the whole time.

As the brocade rubbed, the person slowly sat up, one long, slender hand propping on the bed, the other casually resting on a bent knee. When Liuyu turned back, she was met with a pale, gloomy face.

With deep-set features and pale lips, his long black hair was thick, half slightly curling on his shoulder, the other half hanging in front of his pine green wide robe.

His eyes, dark and deep, harbored a faint green shadow like a forest at dusk, cold and profound, reminiscent of a coiled cold-blooded snake in its nest.

Liuyu’s gaze moved slightly, landing on the bite marks on his chest and the faint finger marks on his neck.

Some long-buried memories slowly resurfaced.

Feeling a bit awkward, Liuyu looked away.

Those deep eyes swept past Liuyu’s face and looked out the window.

“Mountain demon.”

A hoarse, cold voice, full of chill, passed over Liuyu and was sent out to the parties confronting each other outside the building.

“Stand down.”

The people from Xian Du Yu Jing appeared calm on the surface but couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief inwardly.

The cultivation realms were divided into nine levels. As one of the generals under the demon ghost lord, the mountain demon’s strength was estimated to be equivalent to the peak of the middle three realms. His subordinates were similarly formidable.

As for their side—

Apart from Chao Yuan and Chao Ming, who were experts of the sixth realm, the others were only at the fourth or fifth realm.

If a fight broke out, they had no absolute certainty of victory.

“Lord!”

The mountain demon abruptly looked up at the building, the silver ornaments on his body jingling.

“It’s not that we’re causing trouble, but Xian Du Yu Jing has gone too far! Do you know there are many rumors outside, disrespectful to you, and those led by the Spider of Jade Face have always harbored rebellious intentions. Now they have an excuse to attack you—”

“…So noisy. You get so angry just because you were sent out to do something.”

The mountain demon hurriedly replied, “How could I be tired when serving the lord…”

“If you’re tired, go back and rest for five days. Have someone carry these boxes away. Hand your tasks to Ghost Pipa.”

The still sleepy voice was tired and faintly impatient.

Mo Lin’s mood was indeed not good.

But it wasn’t due to this morning’s conflict.

Amid the red gauze curtain, a warm incense burned. He gazed at the slender wrist he was holding.

When she seemed like she wanted to jump out the window to intervene, he had stopped her, thinking she would immediately struggle free. Unexpectedly, she just let him hold her, resting her chin in her hand, looking at him with slight curiosity.

Without the past incidents, this reaction would almost be considered friendly.

But recalling all the events since her arrival in the Nine Hells, Mo Lin himself found the idea laughable.

If she had any fondness for the Nine Hells, she wouldn’t have barred demon servants and ghost attendants from entering the inner hall while waiting to be married at the Ding Ling Platform, nor would she have rejected the food he sent, using only the supplies they brought from Xian Du Yu Jing.

After their wedding, she didn’t plan to move into the main building, preferring to stay in Ding Ling Platform with the people she brought from Xian Du Yu Jing.

Last night, she even asked him if he knew she had a rather good childhood sweetheart in Xiandu Yujing.

She said their marriage was merely a result of weighing the pros and cons, best left in peace without unnecessary feelings.

Though everyone knew how this marriage came to be, she didn’t even bother to pretend, almost as if she wanted to put up a sign saying she was Xian Du Yu Jing’s spy sent to monitor the Nine Hells, rather than genuinely wanting to be his consort.

He had accepted the reality, even not planning to consummate the marriage last night.

She, however, took the initiative to lower the bed curtains and undo his belt.

“The marriage alliance was proposed by me, and I don’t plan to remain a widow, but—”

The young girl straddling his waist stared at the black snake scales spreading from his chest to his neck due to his fluctuating emotions and said:

“At least at times like this, can you not show this side?”

The snake scales were a trait of demonic creatures.

She despised the part of him that belonged to a demon.

In that instant, the darkness in his eyes almost swallowed everything.

Liuyu keenly sensed the hostility emanating from Mo Lin.

At this point, if Liuyu still didn’t understand the situation, she would be too slow.

Although she didn’t know the reason, it seemed she had indeed returned to the first year after marrying into the Nine Netherworlds.

It was the day after she and Mo Lin had just gotten married.

As for Mo Lin’s cold attitude towards her, Liuyu, combining it with the conflict outside, roughly recalled what had happened.

In her past life, after she married into the Nine Netherworlds, such conflicts were countless.

Who was Liuyu?

She was the youngest celestial leader of the Ling Yong Celestial Dao Conference, the precious daughter cultivated with all the resources of the grand Hua Sect.

But once the marriage agreement was set, everything changed.

Her defeated opponents, those mediocre and powerless enemies, finally found a flaw in her brilliant reputation that had lasted over ten years. They gloatingly sneered behind her back while pretending to sympathize—

“True to her name, Yingshan Liuyu, always considering the bigger picture.”

“If it were me, I’d rather die than marry a demon.”

“I heard that demon eats human flesh daily and has three heads and six arms. To sleep with such a monster, it really takes courage…”

Rumors and ridicule washed over her like a tide, drowning the proud young Liuyu.

In fact, Liuyu didn’t dislike demons.

Demons were born from the union of evil spirits and humans. If it weren’t for the foolishness of the human royal family, who believed that sacrificing innocent girls could quell demonic disasters, such wickedness wouldn’t have been created.

At that time, Liuyu just couldn’t adapt to the fall from heaven to hell.

But looking at it now, what kind of hell was this?

Before her eyes, the Nine Netherworlds were still intact, with Chao Yuan and Chao Ming yet to encounter any misfortune.

In the distant celestial capital, Yujing, her parents and her half-sister were still alive and well.

And her enemies were still obliviously waiting for her to take their lives.

A subtle smile tugged at the corners of the young girl’s lips.

Starting over in this life, although she couldn’t go back to before the marriage, it didn’t seem too regrettable, did it?

Liuyu’s gaze fell on the veins slightly bulging on Mo Lin’s hand.

The dry, cold touch of his palm still lingered on her wrist bone, with scars and calluses pressing against her flesh, giving Liuyu a sudden sense of reality.

These were the hands that ignited the Boundless Ghost Fire, terrifying countless people in the celestial capital Yujing, turning the entire Jiufang family into a sea of fire, and causing her enemies to howl in agony, wishing for death.

In her past life, Liuyu had resented, feared, and even admired this husband of hers in a subtle way.

However, in the end, she never opened her heart to him, not even once.

…If her past actions only led to a dead end, what would happen if she took a different path in this life?

“What are you looking at?”

Mo Lin frowned slightly, thinking she was displeased with his offense, and then he released her wrist.

Last night, he had already understood her attitude.

She only allowed contact between them in bed. Afterward, she turned indifferent, and if it weren’t for the others outside, she probably wouldn’t even let him stay the night.

Everything she did was for the Yingshan clan.

Otherwise, she wouldn’t want any contact with him.

Mo Lin was well aware of this.

“Rest assured, no one will rush to spend money on you. If you don’t wear those clothes, so be it.”

His face was cold as frost, and his tone was equally emotionless.

“Last night, you said you wanted to move to the Spirit Gathering Platform. I agreed. As for other matters… once a month, I’ll handle the trivialities, but you’ll manage the finances. I’ve remembered all of these. Anything else, Missy?”

After speaking, even Mo Lin found it a bit ridiculous.

She dared to make such demands.

But then again, last night she even bluntly mentioned her long-admired childhood sweetheart, so what wouldn’t she dare to say?

“Can I ask for anything?”

Coming to her senses, Mo Lin looked at the young girl, her face as calm as the night before, with a mocking smile:

“What do you think? Do you want my life too?”

Liuyu thought—

Yes.

Not only did he give it, but he gave it readily.

A moist breeze blew in from outside the window. Liuyu, with only a quilt covering her, glanced at the disarrayed bed, not finding her clothes, only seeing a loose green robe draped over the bed’s end.

She picked it up and draped it over her shoulders.

Her brow twitched almost imperceptibly.

The demon’s eyes glowed eerily as he stared at her, unable to hide the strange light in them.

…Before sharing a bed last night, didn’t she say she had a cleanliness obsession and insisted on bringing her own bedding and curtains?

At this moment, Liuyu couldn’t remember these trivial details.

In her previous life, after ten years of exile, her cleanliness obsession had long been worn down by the struggle for survival. She had even worn human skin to escape pursuit. How could she be picky about such things now?

The young girl’s eyes curved into a smile as she looked at her demon husband.

“Since you are my husband, your life, power, and wealth are half mine.”

Wrapped in the master’s dark green robe, she looked like the most beautiful peony embraced by the lush green of midsummer.

“Let the mountain spirits bring up the boxes. How could you take back the gifts you’ve given me halfway?”