The moon essence gathered by the fox demons lay scattered among the flowers and trees, turning the dark sky a ghastly white as day. The thick reek of blood filled the air, making Xiao Chunhe’s features look even more strikingly vivid.
He looked at the young, upright Daoist before him and suddenly felt Heaven was terribly unfair. Softly, he asked, “What if there is a blood feud between us?”
Yue Jingming’s expression stilled. “What do you mean?”
Xiao Chunhe remained standing in the doorway. “Your parents were killed by a fox demon. What if that fox demon was my mother?”
Yue Jingming’s pupils contracted sharply. “Don’t talk nonsense!”
“What if your master killed my mother to avenge your parents?” Xiao Chunhe’s throat hurt badly. He lowered his eyes to the blood on the ground.
Never before had he felt himself so despicable and hateful, nor had he ever loathed his half-demon birth as fiercely as he did at this moment.
“Do you have evidence?” Yue Jingming asked.
“That Chalcedony Demon Heart was my mother’s heart. I could never decipher the talismanic markings on it.” Xiao Chunhe looked at him calmly. “Until you used Zushan’s blood talisman to stitch my wound closed. Those markings… dissolved on their own.”
The hand hanging at Yue Jingming’s side curled unnaturally. “That is my master’s secret method. Only he can undo a Demon-Locking Curse he personally set.”
“Xiao Wen told me all of this. He wouldn’t lie about something concerning my mother. Whether it’s true or false, something must have happened between them back then.” Xiao Chunhe tugged at the corner of his mouth. “No matter what, I’m going to gather my mother’s remains and find the person who killed her so I can avenge her… just as you once did for your parents.”
Yue Jingming said, “The matter hasn’t been investigated clearly. Don’t jump to conclusions.”
“If we’re going to stay together.” Xiao Chunhe forced down the bitter ache in his throat. “Do you think the truth can actually be uncovered?”
Yue Jingming was silent for a moment.
“If it can’t, do you think we could truly stay together with clear consciences?” Xiao Chunhe shook his head. “We couldn’t. We would inevitably begin suspecting each other, obstructing each other, growing resentful. The rift between us would only deepen until in the end we became unrecognizable to one another. That would be too ugly.”
“If we separate now, and later the truth is uncovered…” Yue Jingming said calmly. “If there is no blood feud between us after all, would you still be with me?”
This time, it was Xiao Chunhe who fell silent.
“We would no longer have the chance.” Yue Jingming said coolly. “A month and a half apart was enough for you to think through all of this. By the time the truth is uncovered, whether it is good or bad, there will be no possibility left between us. Fate between people is finite. It cannot withstand endless wearing away.”
Xiao Chunhe sighed. “Then what do you want to do? Everything I said during the day was sincere. You’ve never even seen what I’m truly like.”
“Have I never seen the real you, or have you simply never been your real self on Zixu Mountain?” Yue Jingming took down the Clear Breeze Sword.
Xiao Chunhe raised a brow. “You’ve lost all your cultivation. Don’t overestimate yourself.”
Yue Jingming looked up at him, gaze clear and cold. “Xiao Chunhe, I have given you many chances too.”
A bone-chilling cold suddenly swept in from behind. Alarm flashed through Xiao Chunhe’s eyes as he shot aside. The door panel he had been leaning against exploded into powder. He stared in startled disbelief. “When did you—”
“I walked through many places on Zixu Mountain during the day.” Yue Jingming came at him with sword in hand, powerful qi surging around his body. It resembled a cultivator’s true qi, yet also demonic qi, mixed with ghost qi and demonic-path qi. The four were extremely mottled together, but astonishingly abundant. Caught off guard, Xiao Chunhe was forced back several zhang.
“I buried talismans throughout Zixu Mountain’s mountain-protecting formation.” Veins stood out across the back of Yue Jingming’s hand as his blade pressed toward Xiao Chunhe’s neck. “I came to stop you from making a grave mistake.”
The black veins along Xiao Chunhe’s neck spread all the way to the corners of his eyes. His eyes turned bloodred as he gave a savage laugh. “What mistake have I made?”
“You took the Myriad Demons Scroll and set up a Demon-Gathering Formation on Zixu Mountain. Once it activates, every demon suppressed within the Myriad Demons Scroll will be released. You intend to make them slaughter the fox demons of Zixu Mountain, then use them to refine gu and strengthen yourself.” Yue Jingming forced him back against the wall. “You want to use the Myriad Demons Scroll to eliminate Xiao Wen, refine enough demonic qi, and then avenge your mother. Am I right?”
Xiao Chunhe narrowed his eyes. “How did you know?”
“That day, when I said I would refine away the demon-gu inside you, your reaction was strange.” Yue Jingming said, “You didn’t seem opposed. You only seemed to think it would be troublesome.”
Xiao Chunhe clicked his tongue. “So what? Those demons aren’t human. What do they have to do with you?”
“You have something to do with me, so they have something to do with me.” Yue Jingming said coldly. “I absolutely will not let you stray onto an evil path.”
Xiao Chunhe looked at him in exasperation. “I knew this would happen.”
“Withdraw the formation. Whatever the truth is, we’ll investigate it together. When the time comes, we’ll repay kindness with kindness and vengeance with vengeance.” Yue Jingming said in a low voice. “Stay by my side.”
“In your dreams.” Xiao Chunhe bared his teeth. “If I stay beside you, I won’t be allowed to do this or that. I refuse to believe that when the time comes, you’ll let me storm Zushan!”
“That isn’t something you should be worrying about right now.” Yue Jingming flourished his sword and drove straight toward one of his major acupoints. “Come with me.”
“Ah! You’re so annoying!” Xiao Chunhe regretted this so bitterly his intestines practically turned green. Generations of foxes had warned that honest, handsome Daoists were not to be provoked, yet he had still managed to lift a rock only to drop it on his own foot.
Xiao Chunhe raised his fan to block the sword and struck a palm toward the wound on Yue Jingming’s shoulder. “I’m about to get married. Stop delaying my auspicious hour!”
“I’ll steal the groom.” Yue Jingming looked at him blandly. “Your auspicious hour is exactly what I intend to delay.”
Xiao Chunhe stared at him in shock. “Are you sure your qi deviation is over?!”
Yue Jingming struck a palm toward his dantian. “I should have refined you into a spirit pet back then.”
Xiao Chunhe hurriedly dodged. Only belatedly did he realize the Daoist was angry and saying vicious things on purpose. Gritting his teeth, he said, “Then we’ll see whether you have the ability!”
He retreated while forming seals with both hands, then spat a mouthful of blood into the technique and hurled it at Yue Jingming. The instant Yue Jingming raised his sword to block, pain abruptly tore through the center of his chest. Black curse markings spread across his entire body. He plummeted from midair, every meridian blocked so completely that he could no longer circulate qi.
“Tsk. I hadn’t planned to use this yet.” Xiao Chunhe wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth. “But sooner or later there would come a day when I needed it.”
Yue Jingming looked down at the faint talismanic marks appearing across his chest and suddenly remembered. “That time beneath the tree…”
“Exactly. I kissed you until your head was spinning, and you didn’t resist at all.” Xiao Chunhe caught him by the chin. “I’m not some good fox, and you hate evil with a passion. Naturally I had to leave myself a safeguard. Surprised?”
Yue Jingming raised his head and glared at him, anger blazing in his eyes. “Xiao Chunhe.”
Half-kneeling before him, Xiao Chunhe patted his face frivolously. “Reasoning with you nicely never works. You really are the most troublesome person in the world. My formation hasn’t activated yet, so hurry up and leave while you still can.”
Yue Jingming suddenly seized his hand. Caught off guard, Xiao Chunhe pitched forward, and in the next instant Yue Jingming sealed his lips.
Xiao Chunhe: “You… mmph!”
Yue Jingming caught the back of his neck and deepened the kiss, biting through the tip of his tongue. Xiao Chunhe hissed in pain and shoved him away. “Stop dreaming. Even if you kiss me to death right now—ngh.”
A violent pain suddenly tore through the wound in his chest. The red mole left where his severed finger had been reattached abruptly lit up. Bloodred talismanic markings spread over his entire body, linking to the red mark at the wound on his chest. They forcibly blocked his meridians and pinned all the demonic qi in his body firmly inside his dantian.
“What did you do?” Xiao Chunhe stared at him in disbelief.
Only Yue Jingming’s lips held any color in his pale face. He gave the faintest smile. “Ancient texts record that foxes are exceptionally cunning and their thoughts ever-changing. At the time, I was in qi deviation… so I happened to think through more possibilities than usual.”
After regaining his senses, he had intended to undo it for Xiao Chunhe as soon as possible. He had never expected there would truly come a day when it was useful.
Xiao Chunhe was furious. He ground his teeth. “You actually schemed against me?!”
“Mm.” Yue Jingming looked at him calmly. “I should have schemed against you more, so you wouldn’t cause some catastrophic disaster in the future.”
Xiao Chunhe’s face turned iron-blue. “Undo it!”
“The fox demons of Zixu Mountain may be people you dislike, but their crimes do not deserve death. Do you understand what will happen if you release the demons inside the Myriad Demons Scroll? If the world is plunged into misery because of it, even ten thousand deaths would not absolve the two of us.” Yue Jingming said.
Xiao Chunhe sneered. “I don’t care.”
Yue Jingming grabbed the front of his robes and forced the fox demon closer, enunciating each word. “I care. You are my fox, so you should listen to me.”
Xiao Chunhe glared at him viciously. “Do you know how long I’ve planned for today?”
“It was nothing more than a passing impulse.” Yue Jingming endured the agony tearing through every limb and bone. “Cultivating through the demon-gu is not the proper path, and the puppet nails are a burden too. Abolish your cultivation and start over with me.”
“I refuse to start over!” Xiao Chunhe slapped his arm aside. “It isn’t your place, Yue Jingming, to control me—”
The Clear Breeze Sword in Yue Jingming’s hand flipped and stabbed into his own chest. Horrified, Xiao Chunhe hurriedly reached out to cover the wound and cursed, “Have you lost your mind?!”
The instant he looked up, Yue Jingming pressed fingers smeared with his heart’s blood heavily against the space between Xiao Chunhe’s brows. Without hesitation, he drew a bloody Demon-Suppressing Talisman. Agony tore through Xiao Chunhe’s chest. In the next instant, it felt as though an immense weight had smashed down onto the crown of his head. He collapsed flat onto the ground and reverted to fox form.
Unlike the thin, adorable little fox Yue Jingming had seen before, the fox in front of him was powerfully built, covered in disorderly black-and-red fur, with vicious features and narrow fox eyes containing only pinpricks of black pupil. Its sharp fangs were stained with blood, and its entire body was covered in sinister talismanic markings. The murderous karmic aura swirling around it alone was enough to call it a great evil demon.
If Yue Jingming had seen this true form when he first descended the mountain, he would have cut it down without the slightest hesitation.
Xiao Chunhe raised his head, wrinkled his nose, bared his fangs, and glared at him ferociously. “Want to see if I’ll eat you?!”
Half-kneeling on the ground, Yue Jingming caught him by the scruff, pulled out the demon-binding rope, and bound the evil fox tightly. When it continued struggling, Yue Jingming reached out and seized its tail.
Xiao Chunhe’s voice instantly turned vicious. “Yue Jingming! What exactly are you trying to do?!”
The fox slammed its head into Yue Jingming’s chest hard enough to make him cough up a mouthful of foul blood. Yue Jingming wiped it away, looked at it, then smeared it directly into Xiao Chunhe’s tail fur. After thinking for a moment, he hoisted the rather large fox onto his shoulder and said blandly, “I already told you. An abnormal sign has appeared in Heaven, and an evil demon has descended into the world—”
“I came to subdue the demon.”