Chapter 17 - Demons (III)
"So where do you think he went?" Su Mei asked, leaning over the edge of the pagoda roof to get a better look at the culling grounds below. "He's been gone for a while. You don't think he's actually trying to skip out on clean-up duty, do you?"
Wei Ling scanned the forest in annoyance. There was no sign of him. Just what was he doing out there? And why was he taking so long? "He wouldn't dare," she said, though a part of her suspected he would. He'd done it before.
"Well, he's not on the main path," Su Mei said, her eyes glowing faintly as she activated her own version of the Eye of Clarity. "I can't see him anywhere near the latrines, either. He's gone off-trail."
They scanned the area in silence for a few minutes, Su Mei even flying down to get a better look, but she came back empty-handed. "It's too dark," she said, shaking her head. "And he's not circulating any Blood Qi, so I can't track him. He's just… gone."
He must have circled around and gone back to his room. The lazy, irresponsible wretch. He was probably already passed out on his bed, leaving his partner to deal with the aftermath of their shared kills. It would likely result in him losing all of the rewards from the culling, but Wei Fan had never been one to think ahead.
"I've seen enough," Wei Ling said, turning away from the culling grounds. "Let's go. We have a peacock to deal with."
Su Mei sighed. "Really, now? But the final show is about to start. I wanted to see the possessed guy fight."
"You can stay and watch if you want," Wei Ling allowed. "I don't mind."
Su Mei had already done her a big favor by watching over Wei Fan with her, even pointing out all the—admittedly—glaring ways in which his fighting style had changed. She'd been surprisingly observant. And surprisingly… tolerable. Wei Ling had to admit that it had been… nice, having someone to talk to. Even if that someone was a shameless harlot with a brain the size of a pea.
"And leave you to face three Third Realm cultivators all by yourself? Don't be ridiculous," Su Mei said, hopping on her own flying sword. "I'm not letting you have all the fun." She winked. "Besides, I've always wanted to see what a Silver-grade genius looks like when he's crying for his mommy."
A crude, if accurate, assessment of the situation. Wei Ling found herself approving. "Very well," she said. "I will allow you to watch. But do not interfere. He is mine."
"Wouldn't dream of it," Su Mei said with a grin. The grin faltered slightly as something in Wei Ling's eyes made her pause. "You're… not actually going to kill him, are you?"
The Bloom pulsed. A hungry, eager beat. It had been denied its vengeance against Pill Master Zhao, denied its satisfaction against the cookie thief, and denied its release against the Hammer-tail. It was getting restless. It needed to be fed. And a Silver-grade genius from a rival sect was a fine meal indeed.
Wei Ling ignored Su Mei's pointless question, pulling her hair back into a tight ponytail and tying it with a crimson ribbon.
"Wei Ling?" Su Mei pressed, now visibly concerned. "Don't do anything stupid. He's the nephew of the Skyblade Sect's Grand Elder. Killing him would be an act of—"
Wei Ling already shot out towards the main gate, leaving Su Mei to hastily scramble after her.
Killing things was easy. It was simple, clean, and satisfying. It was a solution that always worked. And it was a solution that she was very, very good at.
The hard part was knowing when to stop.
/-/
I should have probably been a bit more anxious about the prospect of dissecting a demonic beast's head in the middle of a dark forest and then consuming its brain matter. I should have been disgusted. I should have been terrified. I should have been having a full-blown panic attack about everything that could possibly go wrong.
But my anger overruled all of it.
Frankly, I'd had enough.
I'd reached my breaking point, and now I just didn't care anymore.
Which was freeing, in a way. Turning off your brain and letting instinct take over. Do what you need to do and deal with the consequences later.
I'd never lived my life like that before. I'd always been a planner, a worrier, a chronic overthinker. Shopping for a new pair of socks back on Earth took me a day's worth of research. I would read all the reviews (yes, socks had reviews) and I would compare all the prices, and then I would sleep on it.
And then I'd wear that pair of socks for the next decade or so, because why bother taking the risk of buying new ones when I already knew these worked perfectly fine?
Yeah… that wasn't a sustainable approach for this world. Maybe it would be, once I had some level of safety and security, but for now, I needed to embrace the local mindset of "sleep with the fiancée of the sect leader's cousin, deal with the fallout later."
I paused, considering that last part. Was I actually talking myself into adopting Wei Fan's life philosophy? God, I hoped not. That was a dark, dark path.
Eh, whatever. I'd already told myself I'd start acting like a paranoid schizophrenic on a meth binge, and taking reckless, if calculated risks, was part of that.
Progress came from pushing boundaries, after all. From stepping outside your comfort zone. From dissecting a monster's head and eating its brain.
Which was why I unceremoniously dumped my hard-won heads on a reasonably flat rock and assessed my limited toolkit. It included the rusty dagger I'd used to butcher my hair (which was surprisingly sharp, all things considered), a pair of gloves Wei Fan had used for cleaning the latrines (I was pretty sure they weren't actually made of leather, but some kind of demonic hide, so hopefully they'd protect me from whatever toxins were in the beasts' blood), and a small vial of disinfectant that Wei Fan had once stolen from the infirmary, thinking it was some kind of perfume (Yes, he thought he'd stolen a vial of perfume from the sect infirmary. The kid was a certifiable moron).
I pulled on the gloves and picked up the dagger, rolling the first head into position.
"Alright, let's get this fucking party started."
It quickly became apparent why pretty much every scroll I'd read on Dantian extraction emphasized the need for specialized, Qi-Infused tools. The skull of the Spiked-tongue Creeper was like a goddamn rock. I had to hack at it for a good few minutes, chipping away at the bone with my rusty dagger until I finally managed to create a small opening. It wasn't pretty. It wasn't clean. And it definitely didn't smell like roses. The stench of rot and decay that wafted out of the hole was enough to make my eyes water.
Thankfully, I seemed to have inherited a lot of Wei Fan's natural resistance to all things disgusting, because the smell didn't actually make me vomit. I just held my breath and kept working, widening the hole until I could reach in and start… rummaging around.
More and more black sludge gushed out, and I had to be careful not to get any of it on my robes. Not that my robes were particularly clean—they'd already accumulated a fair amount of blood, sweat, and grime over the course of the evening. But theoretically, someone could notice that I left the culling grounds with a certain amount of grime and came back with a different kind of grime. I didn't want to risk it.
Also, for all I knew, the sludge was probably radioactive or something.
It ended up taking me around twenty minutes in total to extract the Upper Dantian, which put a big question mark on the whole "harvesting dozens of them in the Beast Pens" plan, but I decided to stick to my newfound philosophy of "deal with the fallout later" and set that concern aside for now. Instead of letting that thought paralyze me, I just focused all my attention on the smooth, pearl-like organ that I was now holding in my gloved hand.
It was… not squishy at all. I'd expected it to be squishy, like a brain, or like a Lower Dantian, but it was actually hard and cool to the touch, like metal. It felt odd to think that I had a similar piece of metal stuck inside my own head, surrounded by all the soft, squishy gray matter. Did it even make biological sense for it to be like that? You'd think that a hard, metallic object inside a soft, squishy brain would cause all sorts of problems. But then again, this was a cultivation world. Biological sense probably went out the window the moment evolution decided to bless the local fauna with the ability to shoot fireballs out of their asses.
I held the Upper Dantian up to the moonslight, turning it over in my fingers. It didn't glow with an "inner light" or anything dramatic like that. It just looked like a small piece of polished metal.
Like a battery.
Huh.
Did it… actually hold a charge? Could I actually test it by completing a circuit and seeing if I could get a spark? Well, that assumed that this thing actually had a potential difference between two points, which was a pretty bold assumption to make for a magical organ that could probably do a lot more than just sending electrical signals on command. It might be more like a processor than a simple battery.
In any case, I didn't have the tools or the knowledge to test that theory. What I did have was a scroll from the library, which described in a very flowery, and frankly, unnecessarily poetic way, the process of absorbing a Dantian. Apparently, you had to "embrace the essence of the fallen enemy, and let its power flow into you, like a river merging with the sea."
Now for Lower Dantians, that meant you had to literally drink the Blood Qi. For Upper Dantians, however, the process was a bit more… abstract. The scroll had a "helpful" diagram showing a cultivator holding the Dantian to their forehead and "meditating" until the energy was absorbed. It didn't specify what kind of meditation, or how long it would take, or what it would feel like. It just said "meditate."
That was one of the only references the outer disciple library had on Mind cultivation, by the way, so I really didn't have a lot of options here.
I used the disinfectant to clean the Dantian, just in case, then took off my gloves, feeling the cool metal against my skin. It felt… inert. Lifeless.
I brought it close to my forehead, then paused, hesitating. I still hadn't solved the purification problem. I was about to absorb a chunk of tainted energy, and I had no idea what the consequences would be.
My fingers loosened around the metal.
I almost dropped it.
But then I remembered Feng Yao pushing me into the path of the Hammer-tail. I remembered the pain in my spine as my spinal cord meridian flared up, and then the smell of the beast's hot, fetid breath on my face as I shoved my hand into its eye socket. I remembered Li Qiang's beating, Li Hu's Crimson Blade, and Elder Pang's whip tearing into Wei Ling's back. I remembered the look on Ming Zhu's face as she described her family's debt to the sect, and I remembered the red marks on her wrists. I remembered the pregnant woman sobbing as she punched the wooden mannequin, and I remembered the dead, empty eyes of the possessed cultivator in the cage.
I was in hell.
And I was so over it.
I gritted my teeth, pressed the cold metal to the center of my forehead, and closed my eyes.
When I opened them again, I was a baby Spiked-tongue Creeper, freshly hatched from my leathery egg, blinking in the faint light of a vast, underground cavern. I was small, weak, and vulnerable. I was also hungry.
So very, very hungry.
Chapter 18- Demons (IV)
Wei Ling felt her Bloom pulse violently for a split second. She flinched sharply, and then almost fell off her sword mid-flight.
Wei Fan. Something had just happened to Wei Fan. Something bad.
But how? He was safe in his room, wasn't he? Or had he gone back to the culling grounds?
Su Mei slowed down to fly beside her. "You okay?"
"I'm fine," Wei Ling snapped, forcing herself to focus on the path ahead. It was just a flicker of unease. Nothing more. She was being paranoid. Wei Fan was probably fine. He was always fine. He was a survivor. A cockroach. You could stomp on him, crush him, set him on fire, and he'd still find a way to crawl out of the ashes, dust himself off, and then immediately go and do something stupid again.
"Look, if you're not feeling up to it, we can always just go back," Su Mei said. "I'm sure the sect elders can handle this. It's their job, after all."
Wei Ling didn't answer. She just urged her sword to go faster, leaving Su Mei in a cloud of crimson dust. The elders could handle this, but they wouldn't. They'd leave it to her, because it was her mess, and they'd be hoping that she would fail. That she'd embarrass herself, and by extension, her clan. The Sect Leader was already leaning towards the Li clan's side, and any sign of weakness from her would only strengthen their position.
Which was why she couldn't kill the Skyblade disciple. Su Mei was right about that. Killing the nephew of a Grand Elder from a rival sect would be an act of war. An act of war that the Crimson Blade Sect could not afford.
But… she could certainly humiliate him. Yes, that would do nicely. She would make him wish he'd never been born. And she would do it in a way that would send a clear message to the Skyblade Sect: The Crimson Blade Sect was not to be trifled with. And neither was Wei Ling.
She landed at the main gate a few seconds later, Su Mei right behind her, and was immediately greeted by the sight of a dozen outer disciples lying on the ground, groaning in pain. A few were unconscious, and one was missing an arm. In the center of the courtyard stood three men in the pristine blue robes of the Heavenly Skyblade Sect, their swords drawn and hovering in the air, glowing with a faint blue light. The man in the lead was tall and handsome, with a smug, arrogant smirk that made Wei Ling's blood boil. It was him. The peacock. The suitor. The one who had dared to think he was worthy of her.
The guards, recognizing her, immediately bowed. All except for one. The captain. He only lowered his head slightly. "Young Mistress Wei," he said in a rather bored tone. "There is a… situation." He had a toothpick hanging from the corner of his mouth, and didn't seem particularly concerned by the "situation". She quickly scanned his cultivation level. His Qi was tightly coiled around his Lower Dantian—a poor attempt at hiding his true strength from someone of her level— but it was still painfully obvious to her. He was a Third Realm cultivator. And he was just standing there, doing nothing.
"I can see that," Wei Ling said icily. "And why, pray tell, are you and your men just standing here, allowing these… insects… to defile our sect's sacred ground?"
The guard shrugged, not taking the toothpick out of his mouth. "Orders from the Sect Leader, Young Mistress. We are to observe and report, but not to intervene unless there is a direct threat to the sect's core infrastructure." He gestured vaguely at the wounded disciples. "Besides, what would be the point? They're all cultivators. We're just a bunch of mortal grunts. We'd just get in the way."
He was lying to her. Lying to a core disciple about your cultivation level was a serious offense.
But she didn't have time to put this insubordinate fool in his place. Not now. She would deal with him later. For now, her attention was on the peacock.
"Wei Ling! My sweet, fiery rose! You've finally graced me with your presence," the peacock mocked, spreading his arms wide in a theatrical gesture of welcome. "I was beginning to think you'd forgotten all about me. And after the magical night we shared…"
His goons snickered.
He… he dared claim that they had shared a "magical night"? That they had shared anything at all, other than a brief, violent encounter in which she had very clearly and unequivocally rejected his advances?
Wei Ling felt a blood vessel pop in her temple. Literally. "I would advise you to choose your next words very carefully, Zhang Feng," she gritted out. "Unless you wish for me to remove your tongue."
"As if someone like Wei Ling would ever stoop so low as to touch a dog like you," Su Mei added, stepping up beside her. "She has standards, you know. You'd need to last at least five seconds, for a start."
The crude insult clearly struck a nerve. Zhang Feng's smirk crumbled to a scowl. "You dare insult me, you slut?" he spat, deliberately looking Su Mei's skimpy outfit up and down. "Do you know who I am?"
One of the outer disciple hostages chose that moment to lift his head and look at Wei Ling with tear-filled eyes, snot running down his face. "Senior Sister Wei… help us…"
"Shut up, you pathetic worm," Zhang Feng sneered, kicking the man in the ribs. A kick from a Third Realm Spirit cultivator, even a half-hearted one, was enough to send a First Realm flying, and he landed in a crumpled heap, his body twitching.
Zhang Feng turned back to Wei Ling. "I met your brother recently, by the way."
Wei Ling felt her blood run cold.
He saw Wei Fan? And recognized him as her brother? Was he stalking her?
Had he been watching them?
"A rather… unimpressive specimen, I must say," Zhang Feng continued. "Is he even a cultivator? He has the Qi of a mortal."
"When was this?" Wei Ling asked dangerously.
"Oh, sometime last cycle," Zhang Feng said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "In that pathetic mortal town at the base of your mountain. I was flying by and saw a Crimson Blade disciple speaking with one of the merchants. Almost mistook him for one of the local beggars. Almost stepped on him." He chuckled. "But I was tasked with securing supplies for one of our outposts, and a Crimson Blade disciple dealing with mortal merchants interested me, so I figured, why not? Get two things done. Imagine my surprise when I realized who he was. He ran like a rat, of course. Didn't even have the decency to introduce himself. I had to ask around to find out his name. A rather rude fellow, your brother. You should teach him some manners."
"If you ever so much as lay a hand on him…"
"Oh, I wouldn't dream of it," Zhang Feng said. "I'm not a monster. But you, my dear Wei Ling, you are." His expression darkened, and he took a step closer. "Bedding you was a mistake. A moment of weakness on my part. I should have known better than to associate myself with a woman from a dying sect. But my honor demands satisfaction. So here's how this is going to go. You will get on your knees and beg for my forgiveness. And then, you will accompany me back to my sect, where you will publicly announce your betrothal to me. I will not, of course, marry a whore like you, but the announcement will be enough to restore my reputation. After that, you are free to do as you please, and I will consider the matter settled."
The Bloom screamed.
"Uh, Wei Ling, maybe it's best if you let me handle this," Su Mei said, sensing the shift in the air. "I'll just knock him out and we can throw him in the dungeons. No need to get all murdery. Really, No one has to—"
Wei Ling smiled.
Quite sweetly, as it were.
It was enough of a shock for Su Mei that she actually took a step back. "Wei Ling…?"
"You know, Zhang Feng," Wei Ling said, her voice a soft, melodic purr. "You are absolutely right. I have been a terrible hostess. Please, allow me to make it up to you." She strode forward, her hips swaying, her eyes locked on his. "You want an apology? Very well. I apologize. I apologize for not crushing your testicles into a fine powder the first time we met. I apologize for not gouging out your eyes and feeding them to the crows. I apologize for not ripping out your spine and using it to strangle your two ugly friends." She stopped a few feet away from him, her smile widening. "But most of all," she whispered, "I apologize for this."
"WEI LING, DON'T—"
Her fist shot out, a blur of crimson, and slammed into Zhang Feng's chest with the force of a battering ram. It didn't pierce through and burst his heart, as she'd intended. The bastard had managed to increase the density of the air around him with his Air Qi at the last second, creating a makeshift shield. It was a clever move, and annoyingly, it was enough to almost completely absorb the impact.
It appeared he wasn't quite as weak as she'd thought.
She would have to try a little harder, then.
Her second Blood Steel Palm slammed into his face, and his nose exploded in a shower of blood. That didn't do as much damage as she would have liked either, but it stunned him long enough for her to follow up with a kick to the groin.
The air around that area was like a block of solid steel.
Prioritizing his worthless family jewels over his vital organs... how predictable.
More dense air swirled around her, and some of it began to pool around her ears, piercing her eardrums with a high-pitched whine. He was trying to blow up her head from the inside. A classic Air Qi cultivator tactic. Pathetic. She was a Body cultivator, and her skull was a fortress. It would take a lot more than a bit of pressurized air to faze her.
She just ignored it, and then channeled a surge of Blood Qi into her legs, launching herself at him again, this time aiming for his throat. Three Skyblade swords met her in mid-air, and she had to bring her own sword out to parry them. The clash of steel on steel rang out across the courtyard, and the sheer force of the impact sent a shockwave of energy rippling through the air, knocking over several of the nearby onlookers. There was no point in trying to out-fence a path so heavily focused on swordplay, as she didn't have the control, nor the flying range to compete. Instead, she shaped blood out of her sword into a wide rectangle block, and then commanded it to batter the three swords away with a massive swing. It worked. All four swords flew out of control, and Wei Ling saw her chance. She closed the distance, grabbed Zhang Feng by the collar, and slammed him into the ground, her knee pressing down on his chest.
His goons thought that was their cue to intervene. A foolish mistake.
Twelve massive blood tendrils shot out from Wei Ling's back, each one tipped with a wickedly sharp blade, and lanced through the air, piercing the two Third Realm cultivators in a dozen different places and nailing them to the ground. They didn't even have time to scream before their bodies began to convulse, their eyes rolling back in their heads as her blood tendrils drilled into them, greedily seeking out their Lower Dantians.
There wasn't much Blood Qi to be gained from a Third Realm Spirit cultivator, but the Bloom was hungry, and it was not a picky eater.
So it fed. And it screamed for more.
And just like that, it was over.
The entire exchange had taken less than ten seconds.
Zhang Feng attempted to blast her off with a gust of wind, but she just hardened her boots with Blood Qi, anchoring herself to the ground. "You… you bitch," he choked out, blood dribbling from his broken nose. "You'll pay for this. My uncle will—"
"Your uncle," Wei Ling interrupted, her voice dripping with venom, "will be attending your funeral." She raised her hand, and in an instant, the flesh along the edge of her palm transformed into a razor-sharp blade. It wasn't the crude, jagged thing her brother had been using. It was a work of art. A masterpiece of flesh and blood, honed to a razor's edge, gleaming in the moonslight. "And I," she whispered, leaning in close, "will be sending him your head in a box."
"Wei Ling, no!"
Su Mei exploded from the side in a blur of crimson motion, her own Blood Blade Hand slamming into Wei Ling's and causing both blades to dissipate on impact. She tackled Wei Ling, sending them both rolling across the courtyard.
They tangled and wrestled, each trying to get the upper hand.
When they came to a stop, Wei Ling was on top.
"Wei Ling! Get a hold of yourself!" Su Mei grunted, struggling under her weight. "Look at what you're doing! You're going to start a war!"
Her hands wrapped around Su Mei's throat.
And she squeezed.
"Wei Ling," Su Mei choked, her face turning a dusky purple. "Stop… it's me…"
Out of the corner of her eye, Wei Ling saw Zhang Feng scrambling to his feet, a look of pure hatred on his face. He was trying to flee. The coward. He wasn't even going to try and save his friends.
But she didn't care. She didn't care about him, or his friends, or the war she was about to start. All she cared about was the satisfying crunch of bone under her fingers, the gurgling gasp of a life being snuffed out, the sweet, intoxicating release—
No. No!
Her hands flew away from Su Mei's throat as if burned, and she scrambled backward, her breath coming in ragged gasps. "Su Mei, I… I'm sorry. I…"
The other woman was out cold.
Wei Ling quickly checked her pulse. Still there. Thank the heavens. She hadn't killed her. She'd almost killed her, but she hadn't.
Zhang Feng was already gone, a faint blue streak disappearing over the horizon.
"You! Guard!" Wei Ling barked at the captain, who was still casually leaning against the gate, toothpick and all. "After him! Now!"
"And how am I supposed to do that, Young Mistress?" the guard asked, not moving a muscle. "He's on a flying sword. I'm on my own two feet."
She would have punched him in his stupid face right then and there if it wasn't for Su Mei groaning and stirring beside her.
A healer. She needed a healer. Now.
Wei Ling called her sword, gently scooped Su Mei into her arms, and shot into the air, heading for the infirmary.
Su Mei had just saved her from making a catastrophic mistake, and she'd almost killed her for it.
She'd have to… to… apologize.
Ugh. The thought was so unpleasant that it almost made her drop Su Mei from a hundred feet in the air.
From peacefully enjoying her cookies to this… this absolute mess.
A flex of her Qi sent a torrent of blood into her sword, and it shot forward, leaving a trail of bloody mist in its wake.
Clearly, it was all Wei Fan's fault. Everything was always his fault.
Chapter 19 - Demons (V)
The hunger was a gnawing, all-consuming void in my belly. It was the first and only thing I knew. My tiny, reptilian brain had no room for anything else. Hunger was my god, my purpose, my entire existence.
My mother, a massive, scaly behemoth with a hundred writhing tentacles for a tongue, nudged me with her snout, urging me to join my siblings in a frantic scramble for the nearest food source. Which, in this case, was a pile of still-twitching, monster corpses, their bodies mangled and torn, their faces frozen in masks of terror.
I feasted on their flesh, the warm, coppery taste of blood filling my mouth, and I grew. I grew strong. I grew fast. I shed my skin a dozen times, each time emerging larger, stronger, and more cunning than before.
For days, I ate.
Until it came.
One of the two-legged monsters.
It was angry at us. It shouted at us. We ate its friends.
It raised one of its upper appendages, and fire exploded from it, incinerating dozens of my siblings in an instant. I tried to flee, but it was too fast. It grabbed me by the tail, its grip like iron, and it swung me around like a club, smashing me against the cavern walls until my skull cracked and my vision went black. My mother tried to save me. She lunged at the two-legged monster, her tentacles lashing out, but the monster was too strong. It tore off her tentacles one by one, then ripped her jaws apart with its bare hands, then—
What… what the actual fuck?
I jerked violently, my awareness spinning, and I was suddenly floating above the Spiked-tongue Creeper, staring down at its injured, bloodied face.
I wasn't seeing through the eyes of the Creeper anymore. I was floating above it, watching the bloody scene play out in slow motion.
I was floating, bodiless, in a dark, alien space.
What the hell?
What the hell?!
Instinctively, I lashed out, tearing the entire scene apart, shredding the memory of my foe into meaningless fragments. I had no idea how I had done that. But it seemed like the right thing to do.
A scream of rage echoed in the void, a sound that was not my own, and then the scene shifted.
/-/
"…I'm telling you, a dog person getting a cat… it's just not natural," my sister, Sarah, was saying, watching me struggling with the polo shirt I was trying to put on over my head. "Seriously, I learned about it in like, freshman year of college. The pheromones don't mix. It's science."
It was way too early for me to open my mouth and vibrate my vocal cords, but I did anyway. "It's just easier," I grunted. "Less work. You don't have to walk a cat. Or play with it. Or anything, really. It just… shits in a box, and it exists."
"So you're basically admitting you're too lazy to love something properly," Sarah concluded, yanking the shirt down for me. "Figures."
"It's a cat, not a child. It doesn't actually want you to touch it. It just wants you to feed it and leave it alone."
"Oh," she paused, considering. "In that case, forget what I said. You actually found your soulmate. Congratulations."
"Thanks," I said, grabbing my bag and heading for the door. "Now if you don't mind getting the fuck out of my apartment, I have a job to get to."
"But I thought I'd stay and snoop around your room a bit," she teased, following me. "Maybe go through your browser history. See what kind of porn you've been watching."
"You'd be bored to tears," I said, opening the door. "Penis goes in vagina. The end. Now get out."
"Vanilla," she sighed dramatically, clutching her chest as if wounded. "I knew it. My own brother. A vanilla man." She wagged a finger at me. "I bet you don't even like it when they pull your—"
"Are you going to leave or not?"
"Sure, in a bit."
I turned to leave with a sigh.
"Wait," she called.
I turned back.
"Your shoelaces," she said, pointing. "They're untied."
I looked down. They were.
But I was late, and she'd managed to annoy me enough that I didn't feel like listening to her. "I'll tie them later."
"No, tie them now," she frowned. "What, you think you're too good for shoelaces? You're going to trip and fall and crack your head open. And then who's going to have to wipe your ass when you're in a coma, huh? Me. That's who. So tie your goddamn shoelaces, you moron, and don't forget to—" she stopped mid-sentence, and her eyes widened in horror.
"Sarah, you okay? Sar—JESUS CHRIST!"
Her face was melting. Her skin was bubbling and peeling away, revealing the raw, bloody muscle underneath. Her eyes bulged, then burst, spraying a thick, black ichor all over my pristine white polo shirt. Her mouth stretched into an impossibly wide grin, her teeth sharpening into needle-like points, and then her jaw unhinged, her tongue lolling out, a writhing mass of tentacles.
Then, the memory began to unravel.
And I became aware again.
"No! No! Stop!"
My foe was shredding one of my memories. I couldn't stop it. It was taking away a tiny part of me, and I couldn't do anything about it. I couldn't stop it from robbing me of a moment of my life that I could never have back. A moment with someone I cared about, who cared about me.
A moment with… With…
Wait…
A moment with who?
The scene shifted again.
/-/
I watched as the two-legged monster tore my mother's head clean off her shoulders. I watched it from a tiny crevice, a crack in the cavern wall where I'd managed to crawl and hide. I watched as it burned her heart, and then her liver, and then her brain. I watched as it defiled her corpse, and then I watched as it walked away, laughing.
My eyes were shining with hatred.
I would survive, I would feed, and I would take my revenge.
I was more sure of this than anything I had ever known.
And so, I fed. I fed on the remains of my own kin to survive.
Eventually, I left.
/-/
Survival deep in the dark, cold earth was a brutal, relentless struggle. There was no light, no warmth, no comfort. Only the gnawing hunger and the constant threat of being eaten by something bigger, stronger, or faster than me. I learned to hunt in the darkness, to stalk my prey with silent, deadly precision. I learned to kill without mercy, to feast on the flesh of the weak and the foolish. I learned to be a demon.
Days passed, and I—
HOLY SHIT!
My awareness snapped back into place, and I was myself again, watching the scene from that same disembodied, floating perspective.
I didn't waste a single second this time. I immediately shredded the memory.
My foe screamed. The scene shifted.
/-/
I shredded another one of the Creeper's memories, this one of it mating with another, even larger, even uglier reptile. Which meant that I had to experience the whole, disgusting process from a first-person perspective before I could tear it apart. It was thoroughly unpleasant, to say the least.
Then, I was at work. A boring, soul-crushing job where I sat in a cubicle and stared at spreadsheets until my eyes bled. It didn't take long before The Creeper started shredding that one too, and I suddenly found myself grieving the loss of a memory I hadn't even known could hold meaning. It was the mundanity of it, perhaps. The simplicity of it that suddenly felt precious.
I was deep in the earth again, fighting another Spirit cultivator who had wandered into my lair, and then I was back on Earth, arguing with my asshole of a landlord about why the hot water wasn't working for the third time that month.
I shredded what I could, but the Creeper shredded just as much.
I was losing.
/-/
It didn't take too many back and forths for me to figure out the rules of engagement. Basically, we were shredding each other's memories, one by one, and the goal was to completely erase the other. Or at least erase enough of them that the other would become a mindless, drooling vegetable.
Except the Creeper was already dead so I suppose it wouldn't become a mindless, drooling vegetable. It would just stay dead with a slightly mangled Upper Dantian, it didn't really have anything to lose.
I, however, had everything to lose.
Which was terrifying, because, instinctively, I knew that a shredded memory was gone for good. There was no getting it back.
And I'd already lost five or six of mine. Insignificant ones? Important ones? I had no idea. After all, how could I know what I'd forgotten?
I was essentially trapped in a death spiral of mutual assured lobotomy, in which I was losing ground frighteningly fast. The Creeper was somehow way better at this game than I was. Which was puzzling, because this little lizard clearly wasn't a Mind cultivator, nor a silver-grade talent. So how was it so much stronger than me? It was only after I took a moment to calm down between fights and actually think about what was happening that I realized what was going on.
Simply put, the Creeper had the home field advantage. I wasn't sure how I could tell that this made a difference, because I had no idea what was actually happening with this process, and there was always a chance that the memory-shredding was just some kind of metaphor. But I did know that we were inside its Upper Dantian, and that my absorption attempt had somehow triggered some kind of firewall, a defense mechanism that was now actively trying to erase me. Which meant that I was the intruder. I was the virus, and the Creeper's memories were the antivirus software, and I was getting my ass kicked.
In truth, my Silver-grade talent was likely the only thing keeping me in the fight. If I'd been a green-grade, or even a blue-grade, I would have been wiped out in seconds.
A 1 in 2000 aptitude, and I was still losing to a fucking lizard.
Clearly, I'd done something monumentally stupid. Something that no sane Mind cultivator would ever do. I had skipped a step. A very, very important step.
So now what?
Well, the truth was that my Silver-grade genius wasn't really the most unique thing about me, was it?
The most unique thing about me was that I wasn't from this world. I was an alien. An anomaly. A glitch in the system. Not 1 in 2000, but one in millions, perhaps billions. I was a transmigrator, and that was a card I hadn't played yet.
After all, I did have two sets of memories to work with, didn't I?
So why the fuck would I sacrifice my own, precious ones from Earth, when I had access to sixteen years' worth of some moron's self-destructive bullshit?
There was no reason to.
I let the Creeper take another one of my memories—a particularly boring one about filing my taxes—and then, after it was my turn to retaliate, I didn't reach for one of my own.
I reached for one of Wei Fan's.
Chapter 20 - Demons (VI)
From the moment I was pulled into the memory, I knew that something was inherently different this time. For one, I was aware. I was aware that I was in a fight with a demonic beast, and I was aware of its presence in the memory with me. For another, I was still myself. I wasn't Wei Fan. I was me, watching Wei Fan's memory play out like a movie, with the Creeper as an unwilling audience member.
I focused on the memory… and would have flinched in surprise if I had the body for it.
Child Wei Fan did not look anything like the Wei Fan I knew.
I was standing inside a fancy bathroom looking at myself in a large, ornate mirror. Or rather, I was looking at Wei Fan, who was looking at himself in the mirror. He was maybe six years old, with a round, cherubic face, big, innocent eyes, and a mop of unruly black hair. He was wearing a silk robe that was clearly too big for him, and he was trying, and failing, to tie the sash around his waist.
"Here," Wei Ling's voice said from behind him, and a pair of hands reached out to help him with the sash. "Let me."
Wei Fan let go of the sash, and their eyes met in the mirror.
The sight of Wei Ling as a child was almost as jarring as seeing Wei Fan. It wasn't her face or her hair—her hair was still pulled back into a high ponytail, and her face still had that same doll-like perfection—but it was her eyes. Her eyes were… normal. They weren't feverish. They weren't unhinged. Just… normal.
"Weiii Lingg," I—or rather, Wei Fan—whined, drawing out her name in a petulant tone. "I can do it myself."
"No, you can't," she said firmly, though not unkindly. "You'll just end up tripping over it again." She finished tying the sash in a neat bow, then ruffled his hair. "There. All done."
"Why do I have to come with you, anyway?" Wei Fan whined again.
"Why wouldn't you want to come with me?" she frowned.
"Well," Wei Fan began, fidgeting with the hem of his robe. "I just don't think your friends like me very much…"
"Nonsense. Of course they like you," Wei Ling scoffed. "And if they don't, I'll make them like you." She glared at him in the mirror, as if daring him to disagree. "I'll break their legs, one by one, and then I will make them eat their own teeth. And then they will like you. See? Problem solved."
If I had any control of Wei Fan's face I would have been staring at her with my jaw on the floor. But Wei Fan, the little sociopath, just giggled. "Okay," he said, and then grabbed her hand. "But I'm, um, slow. So slow… I'll just slow you guys down. Could you, you know, do that thing you do…?"
Wei Ling sighed, but it was a theatrical, fond kind of sigh. "Fine," she said, and, to my shock, a tendril of blood shot out from her forearm and drilled itself into Wei Fan's. I couldn't feel anything, of course, but from the way Wei Fan rolled his eyes back in his head and then slumped against her, it was clear that he had just received a massive jolt of Blood Qi.
Another tendril withdrew from her other arm and drilled into his neck, and this time I got the sense that the direction of the flow was reversed. She was siphoning something out of him. Something other than just blood.
"There, now you can keep up," she said, pulling the tendrils back into her arm. She didn't look like the process had been particularly unpleasant for her. In fact, it looked like her pupils were dilated, and her cheeks were flushed.
Which was fucking weird. Granted, I did read about Qi sharing techniques before, but outright giving someone a blood transfusion? That sounded incredibly risky. I mean, what if their blood types weren't compatible? Wouldn't his immune system reject it?
Then again, Wei Fan clearly wasn't going into anaphylactic shock, so I guess antigens and antibodies weren't a thing in this world. Or maybe siblings in this world were just naturally compatible. Still, this was weird. Very weird. And strangely intimate. And more than a little creepy.
The Wei siblings exited the bathroom hand-in-hand and walked down a long, lavishly decorated hallway. One of the Wei elders passed them in the hallway, and gave them a disapproving look. Wei Ling just glared back at him until he averted his eyes and hurried away.
The next elder they passed also averted his eyes and hurried away, and the next one after that didn't even dare to look at them, just flattened himself against the wall and waited for them to pass.
The entire dynamic felt incredibly off in a way that I couldn't quite put my finger on, and I suddenly found myself regretting that I hadn't spent at least some amount of time going through Wei Fan's childhood memories. I think when I first woke up in that courtyard getting mauled by Li Qiang a lot of the memories integrated seamlessly and automatically, but not all of them. Mostly just the recent ones. The vast majority of them were still unprocessed, and now I had to do it manually. Which was time-consuming so I hadn't bothered. It seemed like a mistake now. A big one.
Hopefully, I'd be able to follow this one just long enough to—
The Creeper finally became aware.
And the memory, complete with my own thoughts and observations about it, began to unravel.
/-/
I was a third-person observer this time, watching Wei Fan and Wei Ling facing each other in one of the training courtyards of the Wei Clan manor. They were surrounded by at least a dozen elders, who were all taking notes on scrolls and murmuring to each other. It was an old memory. Wei Fan was maybe ten here.
Wei Long, the Wei Clan leader, was standing in the middle, looking impatient. He was ridiculously tall and broad-shouldered, with a thick, black beard and a stern expression. He clearly knew how to assert his authority, because everyone was doing everything in their power to avoid eye contact with him.
"Ready yourselves," he said, and the two children bowed to each other, then took their fighting stances.
A tense moment later: "Begin."
The spar lasted all of five seconds. Wei Ling exploded forward in a blur of crimson, and Wei Fan didn't even have time to raise his hands before she had knocked him to the ground. She didn't punch him, or kick him, or use any martial arts techniques at all. She just ran into him, like a freight train, and sent him flying.
"Again," The Wei Patriarch commanded. And the two children repeated the process. And again. And again. Each time, Wei Fan would get knocked down, and each time, he would get back up, a little slower, a little more bruised, but he would get back up. Wei Ling, on the other hand, showed no signs of fatigue. In fact, she seemed to be getting stronger with each "spar."
I recognized one of the elders. It was the servant who'd come to Wei Fan's room a few days ago to deliver Wei Ling's message, the one I'd slammed the door in his face. He was much younger in the memory, but it was definitely him. He was the only one who didn't look pleased with the proceedings. In fact, he looked downright pained. His brow was furrowed in a deep frown, and he kept glancing from Wei Fan to Wei Ling, then back to the Patriarch, as if he wanted to say something but didn't dare.
A few rounds later, and the Wei Patriarch had clearly had enough. "Stop," he commanded, and Wei Fan immediately collapsed on the ground, his face flushed with exertion. "You are holding back, Wei Ling," the Patriarch stated. It wasn't a question. "I told you to use your full strength. Do you disobey me?"
"No, Father," Wei Ling said quickly. "It's just that he hasn't been feeling well lately. He—"
"So you presume yourself a healer now, do you?" he sneered. "You think you know what's best for him? You think you know more than I do?"
"No, Father, but—"
"If you do not use your full strength on the next exchange," he said, "I will have him flogged to the bone. Do you understand me?"
Wei Ling nodded, her lips pressed into a thin, white line.
"Yes, Father."
She turned back to Wei Fan, and then mouthed the words, "I'm sorry."
His eyes widened in fear, but he didn't say anything. He didn't have a chance to say anything, because what followed was fucking brutal. There was no other way to describe it.
"There," Wei Ling said a minute later, panting, as Wei Fan lay broken and bleeding on the ground. "Is that enough? Are you satisfied now?"
"It will have to do," the Patriarch said, turning away. "Take him to the infirmary, and—"
"Wait!" Wei Fan croaked, making everyone turn back to him. He was pushing himself up, his arms trembling, his face a mess of blood and dirt. "One… more… time."
"Shut your mouth!" Wei Ling hissed.
"No, no, let him speak," the Patriarch said, turning back with a flicker of interest in his eyes. "What is it, boy?"
"I have… something… to… show you," Wei Fan gasped, struggling to his feet. He was a mess. His nose was broken, his lip was split, and one of his eyes was swollen shut. But he was standing. Barely. "Something… new."
"Oh? And what would that be?" the Patriarch asked, though he didn't sound entirely dismissive. "A new way to bleed all over my courtyard?"
"Just… call the next exchange," Wei Fan said, spitting a mouthful of blood onto the ground. "And you will see."
The Patriarch raised an eyebrow, then glanced at Wei Ling. "You heard him."
"But—"
"Do it," the Patriarch commanded.
For a moment, I was sure that Wei Ling would refuse. Her hands were clenched into fists, her jaw was tight, and her eyes were blazing with fury. I thought she was going to attack her own father.
But then she took a deep breath, and the tension seemed to drain out of her. "As you wish, Father," she said, her voice devoid of all emotion.
A second later, she exploded forward once again.
And met a wall of flames.
I gaped with pretty much every other elder in the courtyard as Wei Fan, with his one good eye and his broken body, unleashed a torrent of fire from his hands. It was impressive, it was unexpected, and it was utterly useless. Wei Ling just ran straight through it, her Blood-Iron Carapace barely even flickering, and sent him flying into the wall.
When he got back up this time, the courtyard was silent.
Wei Ling looked downright horrified.
No one dared to move.
"I tested my aptitude for Spirit cultivation in secret, Father," Wei Fan announced proudly. "It is green-grade. Fire affinity." He gestured to the scorch marks on the wall. "I can be useful to the clan. I can be a Spirit cultivator. My teacher says I have talent. He says I can reach the Third Realm before I'm thirty. He said—"
"You have tested your aptitude for Spirit cultivation in secret?" the Patriarch repeated quietly. "You have taken a teacher? You have been practicing behind my back?"
Wei Fan nodded. "Yes father. I have taken initiative. I have been diligent. I have been working hard. I have been—"
"Silence," the Patriarch said. He walked over to Wei Fan, his face unreadable. He stopped in front of the boy, towering over him, and for a long moment, he just stood there, looking down at his son. Then, he raised his hand. "How long have you been cultivating your Middle Dantian?"
"A-a year, Father," Wei Fan stammered, eyeing the massive hand nervously. "Almost."
The hand descended, not in a slap or a punch, but in a gentle touch, resting on the boy's head. "A year," the Patriarch repeated, his voice still flat. "And you have reached the peak of the First Realm." He paused. "Impressive."
Wei Fan seemed to relax slightly, then he nodded eagerly. "Yes, Father. I—"
CRACK!
The Patriarch's other hand shot out, and his palm slammed into Wei Fan's chest, right over his Middle Dantian.
The sound was like a tree branch snapping in half.
"FOOL!" he roared, his face contorted in a mask of pure fury. "YOU WORTHLESS, DISOBEDIENT WHELP! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT YOU HAVE DONE?!"
The sudden shift in his demeanor was so abrupt, so violent, that I felt a jolt of fear myself. The elders flinched back, their faces pale. Wei Ling cried out, her voice a strangled gasp.
Another crack, this time louder, and a spray of blood erupted from Wei Fan's mouth. Wei Long didn't stop. He grabbed Wei Fan by the throat and slammed him into the wall, then began to pummel him with a series of brutal, open-handed slaps. "YOU THINK YOU CAN DEFY ME?! YOU THINK YOU CAN CHOOSE YOUR OWN PATH?! YOU ARE NOTHING! LESS THAN NOTHING! YOU EXIST FOR ONE PURPOSE AND ONE PURPOSE ONLY! AND YOU NEARLY THREW IT ALL AWAY FOR A PATHETIC, GREEN-GRADE TALENT THAT A THOUSAND OTHER DISCIPLES IN THIS VALLEY POSSESS!"
"My Lord, stop! You'll kill him!" several of the elders shouted and tried to intervene, but the Patriarch just swatted them away like flies, using massive blood tendrils that made Instructor Bai's look like flimsy noodles.
More brutal slaps rained down on Wei Fan's face, his head snapping back and forth with each blow. "LOOK AT WHAT YOU HAVE DONE TO YOUR MERIDIANS, YOU IDIOT! YOU HAVE STAINED THEM WITH FIRE QI! IT WILL TAKE YEARS TO PURGE! YEARS! AND FOR WHAT?! A MOMENT OF PETULANT, CHILDISH REBELLION?!" He roared, lifting the boy higher. "YOU ARE MY SON! YOU WILL OBEY ME! YOU WILL FULFILL YOUR DUTY! OR I WILL BREAK EVERY BONE IN YOUR BODY AND FEED YOU TO THE DEMONS!"
I found myself moving towards the raging man, as if I could do something, anything, to stop him, but I just phased through him. It was just a memory.
"Stop," Wei Ling whispered.
I turned to see her standing in front of her father, her hands clenched into fists, her body trembling. "Please, Father, stop. I'll do anything. Just… don't hurt him anymore. I'll do anything, just… please. Stop."
Wei Long wasn't hearing her. "WHY DID YOU MAKE ME DO THIS?" he roared, slapping Wei Fan again. "WHY? WHY? WHY? YOU AND YOUR MOTHER! YOU ARE BOTH CURSED! YOU ARE BOTH POISON! YOU ARE BOTH—"
"I SAID STOP!" Wei Ling's scream was not a child's scream. I wasn't sure what the hell I was hearing, but it wasn't a sound a human should be able to make. It was a high-pitched, unearthly shriek that seemed to tear at the very fabric of reality. The air in the courtyard shimmered, the ground shook, and the elders all clutched their heads, their faces contorted in agony.
Wei Ling exploded forward in a shower of blood, her small body convulsing as if she were being electrocuted, her arm outstretched towards her father.
Her tiny fist met the massive palm of a Fourth Realm powerhouse…
…and the Fourth Realm powerhouse went flying.
I stared in shock as Wei Long sailed through the air all the way to the far wall of the courtyard, where he hit it with a dull thud. He wasn't hurt. He wasn't even bruised. He just lay there for a moment, stunned, then slowly picked himself up, a look of utter disbelief on his face.
A Second Realm child had just sent a Fourth Realm patriarch flying.
I didn't understand what I was seeing.
There was another short stretch of silence… and then the entire courtyard erupted in cheers. The elders were on their feet, their faces alight with a manic, almost religious fervor. They were hugging each other, clapping each other on the back, and shouting praises to the heavens. I watched in confusion as one of them actually started weeping with joy.
"My daughter," Wei Long breathed. "My daughter, my precious daughter… you have finally Bloomed."
I looked around, confused, at the cheering elders, at the proud father, at the broken son, and finally, at the girl at the center of it all.
The girl at the center of it all burst into tears. "Wei Fan," she sobbed, crawling over to him. "Wei Fan, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to… I didn't mean to…"
I blinked at the sight of Wei Ling crying, which was maybe the most alien thing I'd seen so far.
And then everything clicked together.
The weird blood transfusions, the crackling voice, the constant protectiveness, the possessiveness, the barely suppressed rage.
HOLY FUCK!
I felt like I was going to pass out from the shock of it all.
The Wei clan! Oh gods.
The Wei clan was a freaking de—
The Creeper shredded the memory.
/-/
It turned out that Wei Fan's memories were a lot more effective than my own when it came to psychological warfare. Somehow, the fact that I was aware during the memory playback, and the Creeper wasn't, seemed to give me a huge advantage. The Creeper had a harder time shredding Wei Fan's memories, and I had a much easier time shredding its own. The power dynamic had shifted. I was winning.
Also contributing to my advantage, was the fact that Wei Fan's memories were incredibly detailed and artificially vivid. It was like watching a high-definition movie. The Creeper, it seemed, was having a much harder time processing the sheer amount of sensory information in Wei Fan's memories compared to mine. It was like trying to drink from a fire hose. The Creeper would get overwhelmed, and I'd be able to shred two or three of its memories for every one of his that it managed to destroy.
I'd seriously underestimated how powerful was the fact that Wei Fan's memories were like files on a hard drive. My own memories were nothing like that. They were organic, messy, and incomplete.
Which raised all sorts of disturbing questions about the nature of my transmigration. Was I really just a soul that had taken over someone else's body? Or was I something else entirely? Because it almost seemed like I was given access to a backup. The question was, who made the backup? And why?
But those were questions for later. Right now, I had a lizard to lobotomize. And I was getting pretty good at it. I'd shredded dozens of its memories by now, and I could feel its resistance weakening with each one. It was lashing out blindly, desperately, trying to find a memory, any memory, that would give it an edge. It was losing, and it knew it.
Honestly, what was I even losing in exchange? A few drunken binges? A few failed attempts at wooing some outer sect disciple? A few embarrassing public displays of idiocy? It really wasn't that big of a deal. Maybe a combined total of three hours of his life that I'd lost. I would burn a year of his life to save a single day of mine. Losing my own memories felt like losing parts of my identity. Losing some of Wei Fan's memories felt like deleting a few corrupted files. If anything, it felt like I gained something.
So I kept going. I lost a few more memories, but I shredded dozens more of the Creeper's. It was a massacre. A one-sided slaughter. And I was enjoying it a little more than I probably should have.
I mean, fuck this thing. It was already dead, so it wasn't like I was torturing a living creature. I was just… deleting data.
So I kept on deleting.
Eventually, the Creeper stopped fighting back. It just lay there, a quivering mass of broken memories, and let me tear it apart. I had won.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then, the entire memory-space began to collapse, the darkness folding in on itself, and I was falling, falling, falling….
"JESUS CHRIST!"
The sweetest flood of pleasure shot through my entire being as the Creeper's consciousness dissolved into a swirling cloud of pure, untainted Dream Qi. I breathed it in, absorbing it, feeling my own Upper Dantian fill to the brim, and then expand, and then fill again. It was better than any drug Wei Fan had ever taken. It was better than sex. It was better than anything I had ever experienced in either of my lives.
I was full. Sated. Overwhelmed.
It was over all too soon.
My eyes snapped open, and I was back in my own body, lying on the forest floor, the cold metal of the Upper Dantian still pressed against my forehead. My head was pounding, my body was slick with sweat, and I was pretty sure I'd been drooling.
I just managed to roll over before releasing the most violent projectile vomit of my life.
/-/
Li Hu winced and retreated back behind the tree, the stench of Wei Fan's vomit hitting him like a physical blow. He'd been following Wei Fan for the past hour, trying to be as discreet as possible with his Blood Qi circulation suppressed, but it was difficult when your target was thrashing around on the ground, alternately screaming and muttering to himself like a lunatic. And that was only after a long stretch of drooling and convulsing that had made Li Hu seriously consider getting a healer.
Good thing he hadn't, though, because explaining why he'd been stalking a fellow disciple in the middle of the night would have been a difficult conversation to have. He'd just stayed hidden, watching and waiting, hoping that he wouldn't be watching a fellow disciple die. It was Wei Fan, yes, and he hated him, but he didn't want him to die. Not like this. Not from some kind of seizure or Qi deviation. He wanted to kill him himself, in a proper duel, for all the sect to see.
Thankfully, Wei Fan didn't die, as the retching noises subsided a few minutes later, replaced by ragged, desperate gasps for air. Li Hu peeked around the tree again.
He didn't understand what he was seeing. Three severed heads, a rusty dagger, and Wei Fan, who was now staring at his own hands as if he'd never seen them before. What in the Nine Hells was he doing? Was this some kind of demonic ritual?
It had to be.
So then…
Li Hu considered his options. His uncle's orders had been to observe, not to intervene. But this was beyond mere observation. This was evidence. Hard evidence of demonic cultivation. If he could prove that Wei Fan was consorting with demons, the Li clan would have all the justification they needed to demand his immediate execution. And Wei Ling's as well, for harboring a heretic.
He could easily overpower Wei Fan in his current state and drag him back to the sect for questioning. It wouldn't even be a fight.
After all, Li Hu was a loyal nephew, but he was also ambitious. This was an opportunity to distinguish himself, to earn a place in the inner circle. Exposing a demonic cultivator would bring him great honor and reward.
He immediately squashed the thought. He was not a fool. His uncle was a cautious man, and there was a reason for his caution. Wei Ling was a monster, and provoking her was a death sentence. No, it was better to follow orders. As always.
With a final glance at the still-gasping Wei Fan, Li Hu melted back into the shadows, his footsteps silent as a ghost. He would report what he had seen. And then, he would wait. His uncle would know what to do. He always did.
Moments later, Wei Fan began retching again, the sounds so loud and violent that they accompanied him all the way back to the main path. Li Hu gritted his teeth, but didn't turn back.
Just what was going on with that bastard?