When it came to the Malice-Suppressing Sect’s whereabouts, although their fame resounded throughout the cultivation society and even poverty-stricken places knew there existed such an “abode of the celestial immortals”, there were very few who actually knew where the Malice-Suppressing Sect was located. Its inner workings were also a secret. It was, in all, a cultivation sect that was as mysterious as a myth.
Logically speaking, for such a sect that was deemed the most powerful of cultivation sects and was founded as far back as a millennia ago, with deep roots in history and deemed as the sanctum of cultivators, it should’ve been crowding with disciples at its gates, loud and flashy and indulgent. At the very least, it shouldn’t be like this, where the common cultivator didn’t even know where it was located.
It can’t be helped; they did things differently than the norm.
Shu Yu and Yinlan were both mortals, and most cultivators didn’t interact much with the common folk, considering themselves superior to them. As for cultivators who called themselves celestial immortals, the lower their cultivation, the louder and more condescending they became. On the contrary, real disciples from larger sects were much humbler.
But the problem was, with their current identities as ordinary humans there was no possible way to come into contact with elite cultivators. The ones with low energy output can only use small things like talismans and sutras, they can’t even fly and are also full of ego. They could find this kind of cultivator, but those cultivators wouldn’t know where to go either.
In the end, Shu Yu decided to look for somewhat known cultivation sects and ask around. Situ Jingjing was a young miss who had never left the royal capital of Wuyue Kingdom before she was eighteen, and then when her country fell, she became directly entangled with the domineering Male Lead, Long Xuan. Things about cultivation which seemed so far away from a normal human’s life were things she knew nothing about. At most, she knew the name of a few sects, but she didn’t understand anything else, and Shu Yu understood even less than her.
Fortunately, Yinlan was here. He was a death servant; he came in contact with many things that ordinary humans didn’t know about and so just happened to know the approximate location of one or two cultivation sects.
Thus, Shu Yu trustingly followed Yinlan towards the deep mountains and old forests. It was said those sects liked to settle in such places far away from mortal cities.
They were now on the search for a cultivation sect called Spirit Seeing Sect, for which they had spent three days ducking around the mountains. Shu Yu assumed she could endure it, after all she used to run around in the wild when she was in the Clear Wilderness. But she overestimated her current delicate body. Before, she would’ve found it easy and quickly to get used to something, but that was because of her strong demonkin body and ever increasing skills in martial arts. This current body? It was already stunning that she could last three days in the deep uninhabitable mountains with it.
Using her sword as a crutch, Shu Yu trudged forward with one foot sinking in shallower than the other on the path that Yinlan was opening, breathing heavily. She felt blurry shadows appear in her vision and her steps felt strengthless, as if she were stepping on cotton. She raised her hand and touched her forehead, feeling scorching heat on her hand. Her sluggish brain needed two heartbeats for processing before Shu Yu realized she had caught a fever.
After having transmigrated for more than a year, this was her first time falling sick, it kind of surprised her. But thinking about it, the past few nights she only slept in the mountains and forests and when she woke up her clothes would be wet from morning dew. All she ate was raw jerky too. With Situ Jingjing’s frail constitution of a princess, it would’ve been weird if she didn’t get sick.
Yinlan walked in the front, silently clearing the way. Not only did he cut down the spiky thorns and branches, but he also cleared away dead branches and stones on their path, despite that his speed was still faster than Shu Yu’s. He didn’t seem to notice her situation and Shu Yu didn’t want to trouble him either. She gritted her teeth and continued forward, optimistically thinking that maybe she’d get better after sweating it out a bit.
Given Yinlan’s ambiguous feelings for Situ Jingjing in the original plot, Shu Yu was confident this loyal puppy was secretly in love with his own princess, so these days although she was friendly towards him, she never gave him the chance to misunderstand, lest she accidentally wreak on his feelings.
As Shu Yu struggled to walk for a while more, her step faltered and she stumbled, seeing dark in her vision. She fell forward into a pile of leaves. In the front, Yinlan stopped his actions and turned to look at her.
Shu Yu held her head, giving a grimacing smile as she mumbled, “I think I’m sick, seems like I‘ll be causing you trouble, I’m really sorry.” She exerted force on her arms and tried sitting upright, but she didn’t have much strength left and couldn’t manage to sit right.
Seeing her struggling movements, Yinlan, who was standing there quietly, just watched her. He walked towards Shu Yu step by step. When Shu Yu tried getting up again and was about to fall down, he aptly supported her.
Shu Yu’s eyes were tightly shut, her brows slightly knitted, it looked like she couldn’t hold on any longer and fainted.
The limp person lying in his arms with her eyes tightly closed seemed to – for just a moment – stir Yinlan’s emotions. Something rippled through his calm gaze but it disappeared just as quickly.
Yinlan suddenly reached out and stroked Shu Yu’s cheek, the scorching heat against his fingers seemed to be endearing to him as his entire palm pressed up, and in the end his hand came to rest over Shu Yu’s eyes. After caressing her eyes for a moment, Yinlan’s gaze dropped to Shu Yu dry, peeling lips.
He seemed to be pondering for a moment before slowly lowering his head and licking Shu Yu’s lips. Shu Yu stirred, a soft murmur escaping her lips.
Yinlan tapped his finger on Shu Yu’s forehead, and she immediately fell into a deeper sleep. Yinlan’s finger moved away from her forehead and traced down the bridge of her nose, which was covered in tiny beads of sweat, and came to rest against her lips.
Yinlan stood in place as he held the person in his arms, looking down at her, his expression impossible to see with the way his head was lowered. His fingers moved, tracing across the slight opening of Shu Yu’s mouth and then pressing down against her lower lip.
Her lips which were dry from dehydration cracked with beads of blood, a faint metallic scent permeated the air, and Yinlan’s fingertips were also stained with slight blood. He raised his hand to his lips, his tongue flickering out to lick the blood staining his fingers, his half-lidded eyes the crimson color of blood.
After licking his fingers clean, he still felt dissatisfied and simply lowered his head, starting to delicately lick Shu Yu’s lips, swiping away the blood trickling from there. His actions gradually became gentle, and by the time he raised his head again, Shu Yu’s lips were already moist with color.
Again, his fingers pressed on those full lips. Yinlan’s voice rang next to the unconscious Shu Yu’s ears like the soft, crooning whisper of a lover, tainted with the taste of bloodstained hostility.
“If you are unable to satisfy me, I will eat you, your skin, your bones, your blood and flesh… all of it, inch by inch… This time, not even your soul will be left, alright?”
Shu Yu had a strange dream. She dreamt Fu Wang was sunning salted fish over their yard. The air was being filled with a fishy stink.
There, Fu Wang was counting the fish. One, two, three, four… He finished counting and turned to her with a smile and asked her: “Shall we eat fish today?”
Shu Yu looked at the yard full of fish. After catching so many fish, what would they do if they didn’t hurry up and eat them? So, she nodded, saying, “Okay, let’s have fish stew.”
But Fu Wang disagreed and pointed at a fish. He said, “Let’s have fried fish.” Then he pointed at another fish. “And braised fish.”
“Ok ok ok, we’ll do as you say.”
“We’ll eat fish today, eat fish tomorrow, eat fish the day after tomorrow…”
Hearing his words, Shu Yu hastily asked, “Why don’t we eat something else? How long would we have to eat to finish this many fish?”
Fu Wang beamed. He said, “A thousand years.”
Shu Yu woke up from the raw fright of having to eat fish for one thousand years. She opened her eyes and stared at the roof soullessly, still immersed in the bizarre dream. She couldn’t help but think, if Fu Wang was still by her side, even if she had to eat a thousand years’ worth of fish, she would still– …she would try her best to do it.
“Princess, you’re awake.”
Shu Yu was startled and woke up completely. She looked at Yinlan who stood beside her bed. She recalled that she had fainted on the mountain road. Putting her hand against her forehead, she found that she didn’t have a fever anymore. She had gotten better pretty fast.
Shu Yu sat up and drank the cup of warm water Yinlan offered her, feeling her hoarse throat getting better. She said, “Thank you for taking care of me. Where are we now?”
“A wooden hut abandoned by a hunter in the mountains.”
This wooden hut was indeed old. There was nothing in this house except for the wooden bed beneath her that looked like something put together on the spot. Shu Yu felt that she was better and wasn’t willing to dawdle any longer, so she got off the bed and said, “I’m fine now, let’s keep going.”
Just as she stood up, she almost fell again, but was supported by Yinlan’s hands. In the end, Shu Yu was carried on Yinlan’s back as they left. She hadn’t recovered yet, so after leaning on Yinlan’s back for a while, she fell asleep again.
Next time when she was woken up by Yinlan, he had found a secluded and peaceful village in this kind of deep mountain forest.
It was exactly like how it was written in the Records of The Peach Blossom Spring. A clear stream flowed through a path of peach trees, the land in front of them was vast and bright, the ground was flat and vast with rows of neatly arranged houses, there were also fertile fields, beautiful pools, mulberry trees and bamboo. The sound of poultry could also be heard.1桃花源记 Record of The Peach Blossom Spring, a fable written by Tao Yuanming, about a fisherman discovering by chance an ideal utopia in the form of a peaceful village living in harmony with nature, separated from the outside world and its conflicts for centuries. Peach Blossom Spring can also be used to describe an idealistic place or dream of peace, repose, and beauty. The men and women saw two outsiders arriving at their village. They did not show alarmed expressions, but instead came forward with a beautiful woman at the front, inviting the two to rest in the village.
Who knew what Yinlan was thinking, but hearing this, he really was prepared to carry Shu Yu into the village. Shu Yu hastily patted his shoulder and jumped down from his back, then she pushed him behind her, warily posing a question to the people in front of them: “May I ask where this place is? My companion and I got lost and came upon this place, is it possible for you to give us some directions?”
“This is Peach Blossom Village, the people in the village have lived here for generations and only go out a few days each year to the outside world to trade some necessities. Occasionally there will be lost hunters who wander here, too. The two guests don’t need to be nervous. Seeing as the two guests are covered in dust and dirt, why don’t you two rest in the village first?” The delicate young lady had a kind smile on her face. Her friendliness didn’t seem fake.
But Shu Yu only became more and more wary. She gestured towards Yinlan and said, “Thank you for your kindness, but we still have important matters to attend to, so we’ll take our leave first.” After saying this, she took a step back and was about to tell Yinlan to leave quickly.
At this moment, the dainty young lady’s expression abruptly changed. She laughed loudly. “Having arrived at my Peach Blossom Village, you still hope to run away?! Be good children and stay to become our food!”
Following her words, the peaceful and serene surroundings suddenly morphed. The green mountains and forest turned into barren mountains and withered trunks. And regarding the friendliness of the villagers in front of them? Each and every one of them now sported atrocious and malicious looks, smiling twistedly at the two individuals.
If there were ordinary people here, they would certainly lose their composure from sheer terror after seeing such a scene, but Shu Yu’s guts have been trained into huge mounds of fat by her experiences in the past year or so. Aside from ghosts, there weren’t many things that could make her lose her composure from fear.
Seeing that their path was being blocked by bizarre-looking people, Shu Yu’s hold on her sword tightened, her gaze locked on the pretty young lady. She asked, “You are demonkin?”
“Mortals call us monsters, we don’t often hear others call us demonkin.” said the young girl prettily. She inspected Shu Yu up and down, as if pondering where to bite down first.
Hearing her confirmation, Shu Yu suddenly asked another question: “Since you’re of the demon race, then do you know if the demonic realm of Mengze is still around? And, have you ever heard of a demon named Fu Wang?”
As she stalled for time Shu Yu wracked her brain thinking of an escape route. No matter how strong Yinlan was, he was still a mortal, with so many demons here, how could they escape?
But something she didn’t expect was that when she heard her question, the smug young lady suddenly became terrified. She fearfully looked around and her voice became shrill. “Who are you! How do you know these things! You, how dare you say his… that Lord’s name directly!” The demonkin around them were also getting restless, each of them glancing around paranoidly, as if afraid of being heard by someone.
Shu Yu’s mind sparked. She originally planned to stall for time, she didn’t expect for this demonkin to actually know about Fu Wang, she was a bit pleasantly surprised. The records she read were written by humans and they only had a general gist of it, and she wanted to know much more details than that. Demons were different from humans, there were many demonkin who lived several centuries and many who lived for more than a thousand years, they might know more about the story.
Thus, Shu Yu could only persistently question them: “You really know about Fu Wang? Is he really in Acheron Mountain right now? Do you know how to get to Acheron Mountain?”
“ARGH, YOU SHUT UP! Don’t involve us in this!” The demon young lady had a face full of fear as she furiously glared at Shu Yu. After saying that she beckoned her equally trembling and shivering demonic accomplices and they quickly scampered as if their asses were on fire, leaving behind broken down houses in the middle of barren hills and filthy water.
“Hey wait!” Shu Yu failed to stop them and could only watch as the demons vanished before her eyes.
Shu Yu felt very conflicted. She was so close to getting an important piece of information, and those demons’ expressions of having come across a taboo made her even more curious. More than that, such a dangerous scenario was resolved, just like that? She only said a few words. She even thought they were going to die today, here in this place, but who could’ve thought it would develop into this farce-like scenario.
Fu Wang seemed to have become the legendary You-Know-Who, like the Boss Voldemort from Harry Potter. Even his name had become taboo.
So, her Da-Yu had become—— Vol’De Fu Wang?
Chapter Description: Shu Yu: Watch me spew verbal fire! (actually, no)
Niom: Translator here. Compared to the moral-shattering scenes a dozen or so chapters ago, what happened here is nothing! Red flags? Shu Yu’s favorite color is red, isn’t it! (also, I have a specifically acquired immunity for fucked up stuff.jpg)
