The red fox’s true form flashed past for only an instant, but Xiao Chunhe knew Yue Jingming had seen it.
His true qi faltered, and the bamboo leaves slashed across his face, leaving several bloody cuts. Yue Jingming’s expression turned cold. “You’re a fox demon?”
Xiao Chunhe shook his head, yet instinctively took a step back. “I…”
Yue Jingming seized his wrist and pulled him back in front of him. “The demonic qi on you is extremely faint. It belongs to that gu demon. Besides, you have neither demon bones nor a demon core, and your meridians are no different from an ordinary human’s. How could you be a fox demon?”
Elio’s Notes: The source uses 蛊妖 here, literally “gu demon,” rather than the recurring 妖蛊 / demon-gu affliction. FD keeps the two terms distinct unless the novel explicitly equates them later.
His gaze was grave, filled with confusion as he stared directly at Xiao Chunhe and waited for an explanation. At a loss, Xiao Chunhe lowered his eyes, his thoughts in complete disarray. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to deceive you. I was going to find the right time to—”
“Daoist Master, don’t listen to his nonsense! The red-fox lineage excels at illusion arts. What you experienced while you were with him may not even have been real. A cultivator’s heart is a great tonic to them, and they’ll do anything to achieve their aims!” Xiang Zhao’s voice came from outside the formation. “Daoist Master, please leave the formation at once!”
Xiao Chunhe whipped around, his expression vicious and his five fingers curled like claws. With startling accuracy, he seized her by the throat. He paid no heed to the bamboo leaves slicing his arm bloody and refused to yield even an inch. “Shut up,” he snarled.
His strength was tremendous. Xiang Zhao was dragged directly into the storm of bamboo leaves, her feet kicking helplessly off the ground as she clawed at Xiao Chunhe’s arm. A sickening crack came from her neck.
“Hmph.” Xiao Chunhe’s eyes were scarlet as he gave a cold laugh. “Die.”
Xiang Zhao clutched his arm and looked desperately toward Yue Jingming for help. The Yingshi Token that had been hanging at her waist gave off a faint glimmer. Yue Jingming’s gaze sharpened, and he caught Xiao Chunhe’s arm. “Wait. Spare her life.”
Xiao Chunhe abruptly let go and stared at Yue Jingming in disbelief. “I promised you I wouldn’t do evil anymore, but they’re the ones trying to kill me now!”
Xiang Zhao collapsed on the ground, gulping air and coughing violently.
“She has a Yingshi Token from my sect.” Yue Jingming stopped him. “And what she said is not entirely without reason—”
Xiao Chunhe violently shook off his hand. “You believe her instead of me?!”
Yue Jingming said sternly, “Calm down. Since both sides are giving different accounts, then we should—”
“Who cares about different accounts?!” Xiao Chunhe seized the front of his robe and laughed in fury. “The moment you saw I was a demon, your whole attitude changed. What, are you going to tie me up with these two bastards and interrogate us one by one? See who’s done more evil and kill that one first?”
Yue Jingming frowned. “That is not what I mean.”
“Then let me kill them!” Xiao Chunhe wrinkled his nose and bared his teeth. Fox fur flickered indistinctly across his face, while the demonic qi he had been suppressing surged upward, almost reaching the heavens.
An aura from some distant memory flashed past. Yue Jingming jolted in alarm and almost instinctively stepped back, his hand closing around the hilt of his sword.
Xiao Chunhe’s eyes instantly reddened. He stared at him in disbelief. “…Rongxi?”
Yue Jingming’s voice turned cold. “Calm down.”
Yet his hand never left his sword.
“Heh.” Xiao Chunhe gave a cold laugh. A line of tears slid from his scarlet eyes as he gritted out, “Fine. Saves me a great deal of trouble.”
Before the words had even fallen, he suddenly lunged at the weakened Xiang Zhao. Yue Jingming raised his sword to block him, but Xiao Chunhe shifted direction in an instant and charged straight out of the formation.
“Stop!” Yue Jingming barked, breaking through the formation right behind him.
“You think you can run?!” Cen Shuang raised both hands and sent the bamboo-leaf formation crashing down over Xiao Chunhe.
Yue Jingming spun around and split the formation apart with a single sword strike. Countless bamboo leaves instantly turned to powder, and the backlash made Cen Shuang vomit blood and slam heavily to the ground.
By the time Cen Shuang’s senses returned, the Daoist and the fox demon were already several dozen feet away.
“After them!” Xiang Zhao ran over, accidentally planted a foot on Cen Shuang’s chest, and used him as a springboard to launch herself after them.
Cen Shuang spat out another mouthful of blood.
＊
The trees on both sides blurred past. Yue Jingming had drawn on nearly all his true qi, yet he still remained one step behind.
“Xiang—” Only when Yue Jingming tried to call out to him did he realize that, from beginning to end, he had never known the man’s real name. A surge of emotion, part irritation and part anger, suddenly filled his chest. He raised his voice. “I won’t hurt you!”
Xiao Chunhe glanced back at him and gritted his teeth. “You’ve already broken my heart!”
Yue Jingming snapped, “Your body cannot withstand this kind of exertion. Stop and let us talk properly.”
“Talk about what? Listen to you tell me that humans and demons belong to different worlds? Or lecture me about all that righteousness and morality?” Xiao Chunhe mocked himself. “I don’t have long to live anyway. I only wanted to spend what little time I had left peacefully by your side. Call it self-deception or shameless persistence if you like. I saw that you didn’t exterminate the Li family’s fish demons or the Zheng family’s two white foxes, so I thought your prejudice against demons wasn’t that deep. In the end, you’re no different.”
“Just stop first!” Yue Jingming mustered his qi, shot forward, and caught Xiao Chunhe by the shoulder.
Xiao Chunhe was startled. His footing slipped, and he pitched forward. Yue Jingming caught him and shielded him in his arms, and the two of them tumbled a long way down the jagged, rock-strewn slope before finally stopping.
Pain tore through Yue Jingming’s back. He closed his eyes for a moment before looking down at the man in his arms and explaining, “It isn’t that I don’t believe you. But you deceived me first. You still owe me an explanation.”
Xiao Chunhe raised his pale face. “Would you ever be friends with a demon?”
Yue Jingming fell silent.
“Heh.” Xiao Chunhe gave a self-deprecating tug of his lips. “Then becoming spouses would be even more impossible, wouldn’t it?”
Yue Jingming’s gaze went utterly flat. “Yes.”
Xiao Chunhe nodded. He took the compass from inside his clothes and placed it in Yue Jingming’s hand. “I… came down the mountain to search for my mother’s remains. Shangyun Pavilion probably noticed me long ago. They’ve been tracking the moyao too, and I heard quite a bit along the way. If they catch me, I’ll suffer a fate worse than death.”
Yue Jingming said, “I won’t let them catch you.”
Xiao Chunhe shook his head and looked at him with a complicated expression. “Hear me out. The moyao is not simply a single demon. It is currently residing inside a human body, which makes it extremely difficult to trace. It also split apart its original body and hid the pieces, mixing truth and falsehood so thoroughly that they’re hard to distinguish. It could never have done all this alone. Someone must be helping it… The Li family of Jiarong County and the Zheng family of Dengling both have countless ties to the capital. Don’t wade into these muddy waters.”
Yue Jingming frowned. “How do you know so much?”
“I have my reasons.” Xiao Chunhe lowered his eyes to the compass. “This thing can identify the moyao’s aura. It’ll be useful for you to carry it. And one more thing—”
His expression turned serious. “Cen Shuang’s eyes belong to the moyao. Don’t believe anything he says.”
Yue Jingming’s voice was icy. “Who exactly are you?”
“Who I am doesn’t matter anymore. Cen Shuang’s formation specifically suppresses half-demons. I’m not going to survive.” Xiao Chunhe sighed softly and looked at him with sorrow in his eyes. “Rongxi, you cannot even bear to kill a demon with a little goodness in it. This world is far more dangerous than you imagine, and the affairs of Shangyun Pavilion and the moyao are even more complicated. Someone as pure-hearted as you should spend your whole life cultivating quietly in the mountains. Why insist on rolling through the dust of the mortal world?”
Yue Jingming had just opened his mouth when the man before him suddenly cupped his face and kissed him.
The wind sighed through the mountain forest. Brilliant, blazing sunlight spilled down, illuminating their torn, dust-stained clothes. The crisp fragrance of bamboo leaves filled the air, only to be overwhelmed by the rich, scorching scent of charm incense. Yue Jingming stared in shock at the foxlike eyes inches from his own. Their entwined lips and tongues were warm and soft, and their uneven breaths were as light and elusive as the ribbon clenched in his hand.
A cool breeze swept past. Yue Jingming abruptly came back to himself and shoved hard, but a hand caught the back of his neck and deepened the sudden kiss.
His No-Thought One-Mind Art, his Clear Breeze Sword Art, everything vanished from his mind. His thoughts were utterly blank. All that remained was the suffocating heat and fragrance between their lips and teeth, and the unfamiliar yet familiar body of a man wrapped around him.
And a fox demon at that.
The thought struck like a bolt from a clear sky and jolted him completely awake. Yue Jingming shoved the man away, his chest heaving as shock and anger surged together.
Xiao Chunhe crashed backward against a rock. He stared fixedly at the handsome Daoist’s face, as though midwinter snow had been stained crimson by sunset, or an aloof immortal had finally been touched by mortal dust. Unable to suppress a smile, he slowly licked away the trace of saliva at the corner of his mouth, not knowing whose it was.
Yue Jingming’s pupils trembled. His lips pressed into a rigid line.
The beautiful, bewitching features of a fox faintly surfaced across Xiao Chunhe’s face. He deliberately leaned forward, slipped a long finger into his own mouth, stirred it lightly, then purposely brushed it across Yue Jingming’s face. He laughed under his breath. “Rongxi, your mouth is so sweet that I can hardly bear to die.”
Yue Jingming slapped away the dirty hand, but Xiao Chunhe had already withdrawn it. Like a nimble fox, he bounded several times and blocked the path of Cen Shuang and Xiang Zhao as they arrived. The flush at the corners of his eyes had not yet faded, and his expression carried lazy satisfaction. “Since the two of you are so tireless about seeking death, I suppose I’ll have to oblige.”
Yue Jingming grabbed his sword and rose, only for agony to rip through his internal organs. He covered his mouth, and richly fragrant blood gushed from his throat while the true qi around him scattered like drifting clouds.
“Xiang—” The moment he opened his mouth, another mouthful of blood surged out.
During that meeting of lips and teeth just now… he had been fed something.
At the edge of the cliff, Xiao Chunhe held Cen Shuang by the throat. His long nails gouged out those emerald-green eyes. Amid Cen Shuang’s shrill screams, Xiao Chunhe stuffed both eyeballs into his mouth and chewed them in great bites. Red-and-white blood ran down his chin and into his collar, drowning the red mole on his chest.
Yue Jingming pushed himself upright on his sword and staggered toward him.
Cen Shuang screamed hoarsely, but the formation gathered in his palm still had not dispersed. Xiang Zhao, arriving from behind, thrust her sword without hesitation straight at Xiao Chunhe’s heart.
Yue Jingming lurched forward, only to trip over loose stones and fall to his knees. When he looked up again, the long sword had already pierced Xiao Chunhe through the chest, while Xiao Chunhe’s claw had torn straight through Xiang Zhao’s waist and abdomen.
Yue Jingming opened his mouth. Xiao Chunhe only flashed him a brilliant smile, then spat two glowing green pellets from his mouth and tossed them toward him.
Cen Shuang’s Demon-Capturing Formation crashed down. The ground shuddered violently, fissures spreading wider and wider until the three people and the cliff beneath their feet plunged together into the abyss.
The intense, luxuriant fragrance that had wound itself around Yue Jingming vanished in an instant.