On the outskirts of Zhenhai City stretched a sprawling maple forest. It was late autumn, and the leaves were as red as blood. A party of sixteen men strode through the crimson leaves carpeting the ground, each one powerfully built and radiating a murderous air, as though they were on their way to settle a blood feud.
The truth, however, was precisely the opposite. They were on their way to fetch a bride. Four burly men at the center of the procession carried a red bridal sedan with a gilded canopy crowned with pearls and enamel tassels hanging from its sides. Embroidered across its silken walls was a scene of a hundred birds paying homage to the phoenix, so lifelike that they seemed ready to fly out of the sedan at any moment.
Each step carried them half a li. One moment they were still at the edge of the maple forest; the next, they had already crossed it and arrived before the gates of Zhenhai City, where the elderly steward of the Chen estate, a clan of immortal cultivators, had been waiting for quite some time.
After exchanging a few pleasantries, the old steward led the way. Treading across the water and riding the waves, they arrived at a small islet north of Zhenhai City.
“Great-Uncle, they’ve arrived.”
Standing before the main house on the islet, the Chen estate’s steward bowed slightly and spoke with utmost respect.
No matter how far the person inside had fallen, demonic cultivators and independent cultivators throughout the realm were still clamoring to have him. Their ancestor had barely needed to make any effort before Likui Demon Palace sent people to collect him.
The sixteen burly men stood beside the half-gray-bearded steward for a while before the dark-faced man leading them finally spoke.
“He isn’t inside.”
There were no formations surrounding the bamboo house. The old steward was being far too cautious. He had not dared probe with his spiritual sense, and even the instincts a martial practitioner should possess had been dulled by nervousness. The master he was addressing was not in the house at all.
The steward froze, his heart giving a violent lurch. The bridal escort had already arrived. If anything else went wrong now, would the Zhenhai Chen clan not end up offending the demonic path as well?
“There are formations around Little Bamboo Islet. Great-Uncle no longer has the strength to break through them, so he must still be somewhere on the islet…”
Before he could finish speaking, the sixteen burly men had already found the correct direction and gone in search of him.
Chen Yixin had not managed to escape the islet. Just as the old steward had said, his life now hung by a thread. He might have ten years left to live. Even if he escaped Little Bamboo Islet, there was nowhere beneath the heavens that would shelter him.
The only reason he had made it back to Zhenhai alive was that some people still wanted to watch the spectacle of his downfall for a few more years. They could continue watching, and he would continue living.
When the sixteen burly men and the old steward found Chen Yixin, he was about to erect a gravestone over a freshly dug grave.
Hearing their footsteps, Chen Yixin slowly turned around. He wore moon-white robes edged in silver thread, their broad sleeves hanging loosely at his sides. His bearing was so refined and otherworldly that the spiritually barren islet itself seemed transformed the moment he turned.
Chen Yixin lightly flicked his sleeves, brushing away the dust he had accidentally gotten on them. Looking at the newcomers, he offered them a faint smile and waved a hand.
“You arrived at just the right time. Help me put up the gravestone.”
He had been working for most of the day and was genuinely tired. He had just been worrying that there was no one around to lend him a hand.
The sixteen burly men, along with the old steward who had met Chen Yixin several times before, stood rooted to the spot. Every word they had intended to say vanished with the breeze.
There is a beauty whom one glimpse renders unforgettable. One day apart, and longing grows into madness.
Yet Chen Yixin’s beauty surpassed even those words by tenfold, a hundredfold. His skin was as white as newly fallen snow, finer even than the finest spiritual jade in the cultivation world. His limpid autumn eyes seemed naturally infused with the spiritual essence of heaven and earth, making all worldly concerns vanish at a single glance. His full red lips were lightly pressed together, their color beyond anything even the finest cinnabar could produce.
Bringing such a beauty back to the Demon Palace—even if they did nothing but keep him there as part of the scenery—would still be an exceptionally elegant pleasure.
No wonder their Demon Lord, whose heart had remained cold and untouched for hundreds, even thousands of years, had finally developed the urge to abduct someone… No, to marry him. Such beauty was scarcely found in heaven or on earth.
Once the sixteen men recovered, they no longer dared look at him for too long. Following Chen Yixin’s instructions, they erected the gravestone and continued carving the inscription for him.
The old steward remained dazed for a long while before remembering what he had meant to say. He approached with his waist bent and stopped three paces from Chen Yixin.
“Great-Uncle, these are the people sent by the Demon Palace.”
By the time the steward approached, Chen Yixin had already seated himself on a large rock beside the new grave. He gave a slight nod in acknowledgment.
Chen Yixin continued carefully inspecting the grave he had dug for himself and offered a cheerful assessment.
“Very good.”
He had been born in Zhenhai and had originally intended to die there as well. Now, however, he would have to travel all the way to the Southern Territory before his death. Being able to leave a grave behind—even if it was only a cenotaph—was not bad.
He turned toward the old steward and gave him a rather serious instruction.
“Have someone look after it. When I have time in the future, I’ll come back and visit.”
Perhaps he would have someone return his ashes here. Or perhaps, when he had a spare moment, he would personally come back and pull the weeds around his own grave. At the thought, a faint smile spread across Chen Yixin’s lips.
He was already exceptionally beautiful. When he smiled, his exquisite features became almost suffocatingly dazzling. The surroundings fell silent, and all sixteen men, along with the old steward, visibly tensed.
Having settled his own funeral arrangements, Chen Yixin no longer felt any attachment to Zhenhai City or Little Bamboo Islet. He turned toward the demonic cultivator who was clearly in charge of the sixteen men, his expression friendly and his voice refined and mild, looking like the most agreeable person imaginable.
“My health is poor at present, so I cannot make the journey on my own. Do you have a transportation artifact?”
He knew his own body. He could not go hungry, nor could he endure exhaustion. With only ten good years left to live, there was even less reason to make himself suffer.
“The bridal sedan is prepared.”
The dark-faced leader raised a hand. Four men departed and soon carried the red bridal sedan, which had been left outside the bamboo house, to the new grave. From then on, there would no longer be a Chen Yixin of Zhenhai—only Chen Yixin of Likui Demon Palace.
“That’s good.” Chen Yixin nodded and waved the old steward away when he moved forward to assist him. After resting for another moment, Chen Yixin finally rose and walked toward the red sedan on his own.
One of the burly men lifted the tasselled red curtain. Chen Yixin glanced inside. The sedan contained a padded seat and a brocade quilt, which would allow him to rest along the way. Resources on the islet were scarce, and he had nothing worth packing in the first place. Without looking back, he slowly stepped into the sedan, and the curtain fell behind him.
The leading demonic cultivator nodded once to the old steward, and the sixteen men withdrew.
The old steward followed for several steps, but soon he could no longer find any trace of them. The formations surrounding Little Bamboo Islet were effectively nonexistent to the people of the Demon Palace. They had no need for him to guide them out.
He looked toward Zhenhai City, veiled in sea mist, then turned to the tall gravestone behind him and sighed softly, though even he did not know exactly what he was lamenting.
The direct descendants of the Chen clan—and likely the overwhelming majority of people beneath the heavens—probably imagined that after everything Chen Yixin had suffered, he would be consumed by resentment and rage, tormented by grief and fury. Yet anyone who spent even a little time with him would discover that the truth was entirely different.
The old steward did not know what Chen Yixin’s temperament had been like before, but the person before him showed no trace of bitterness or violence. Chen Yixin had lived on Little Bamboo Islet for more than three months, tending flowers and basking in the sun. When informed that he was being married off to Likui Demon Palace, he had merely nodded.
He treated everything with serene indifference. He had lost by a single move, and so he accepted his defeat.
Today, perhaps seized by a passing whim, he had even prepared a cenotaph for himself. The inscription on the gravestone was enough to leave anyone unsure whether to laugh or cry.
The Tomb of Chen Yixin, the Beauty Who Toppled Taixuan.
As always, Chen Yixin had no difficulty accepting his title as the greatest beauty in Taixuan. Yet “toppled” did not refer solely to beauty capable of toppling all Taixuan. Of all the storms he had stirred up thus far, not a single one had ever been remotely peaceful.
The journey from Zhenhai City in the north of the Taixuan Continent to Chihuo Prefecture in the Southern Territory took Chen Yixin and the sixteen men more than a month. They had needed only ten days to reach Zhenhai, yet the return journey took nearly three times as long.
The distance was part of the reason. The other was that the person reclining inside the bridal sedan was extraordinarily difficult to serve. By now, the sixteen burly men had engraved one phrase into both body and soul: emotionally exhausted.
Chen Yixin, by contrast, did not behave remotely like a man with little time left to live. Holding a newly acquired map of the Southern Territory, he was enthusiastically considering what he should eat that evening. He had transformed the journey from north to south into a leisurely tour devoted to eating, drinking, and sleeping.
“A-Da, tell me, do fire fruits taste better eaten raw, or cooked into fire-fruit porridge?”
Fire fruits were common throughout the Southern Territory. Unless they had grown for hundreds or thousands of years and accumulated spiritual energy, no cultivator would have any interest in eating them. Yet Chen Yixin was genuinely troubled by the question. He wanted to try both preparations, but his digestion had recently grown weaker. If he ate a fire fruit the size of his fist, he probably would not be able to finish a bowl of fire-fruit porridge afterward.
Moreover, he had always been particular about his pleasures. Since this was his first time trying them, he naturally wanted only the very best.
“Well… perhaps we should taste them first?”
The demonic cultivator Nan Ke’s expression changed as he answered and shot meaningful looks at the others. Immediately, one man darted away to pick fire fruits, another rapidly began pulling utensils from a storage pouch, and yet another went to start a fire. Their movements were thoroughly practiced and flawlessly coordinated.
Chen Yixin remained perfectly agreeable.
“That works. I’ll sleep for a while, then. Cough…”
As he spoke, he covered his mouth and coughed lightly. There was no need to look; the handkerchief was undoubtedly stained with blood. He smelled the metallic scent and frowned faintly. A pair of hands immediately reached through the curtain.
Chen Yixin placed the bloodstained handkerchief into those waiting hands, then lay down and peacefully went to sleep while waiting for them to finish their taste test and report the results.
Chen Yixin naturally possessed a unique skill that no one else could imitate, one capable of making the men this obedient: coughing up blood. He could send it gushing out in alarming amounts, enough to make even demonic cultivators tremble.
They could not allow Chen Yixin to cough himself to death on the road. Naturally, whatever he said went.
With a minor spell, Nan Ke cleaned the blood from the handkerchief. He was considering how to return it without waking Chen Yixin when a figure streaked from the distance and appeared beside him in an instant, taking the handkerchief directly from his hand.
“D-Demon Lord!”
At last, something different appeared amid the worry on Nan Ke’s face: joy and reverence. The moment he recognized the man, he dropped to his knees with a thud.
“Why haven’t you returned to the Demon Palace yet?”
Wenren Li glanced at Nan Ke, then at the others, all of whom had stopped what they were doing and knelt in greeting. He could not help asking the question. Since when had his Demon Guards acquired culinary skills? They had pitched camp, lit a fire, and begun cooking with astonishing familiarity.
“Ah…” Nan Ke froze. Only then did it dawn on him that they had already entered Chihuo Prefecture in the Southern Territory and were less than an hour from the Demon Palace. Not daring to conceal anything, he lowered his head and answered truthfully.
“Young Master Chen… was hungry.”
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