Mainly because her throat-locking move at the beginning had been clean and decisive—he had been furious, his mind full of the thought that she was an ungrateful little wretch, her illness not even healed yet and already wanting his life.
Only when her breath brushed against his face did those beautiful, dangerous, and vicious phoenix eyes of his widen slightly. The demon race was much taller and larger than the human race, yet she had easily pressed herself against him.
When he came back to his senses, his entire body stiff, he was almost furious from embarrassment: last time was one thing, but why again this time?!
But he could not bring himself to push her away—
What if her unstable soul fainted from being shoved?
She was like a piece of tofu, a shard of glass—he did not even dare touch her. Relying on that, she actually pushed her luck and went further.
In the moment he was distracted, she had already bitten down, and the demon lord immediately hissed.
She kissed without any order at all, biting his lips until they broke. Both of them tasted the sweet tang of rust.
Their breaths tangled between lips and teeth, mixed with the smell of blood, tearing a tiny crack through the chaos. Perhaps the scent of blood awakened a sliver of reason—her dazed, muddled gaze flickered with a fleeting trace of confusion, like someone immersed in a lingering dream trying to struggle free.
But soon, sharp pain burst through the chaos, and the voice in her mind murmured:
“Not enough.”
“Closer… closer still.”
“Devour him.”
As if drifting in a boundless sea of desire.
Such a kiss was hardly tender or affectionate. Yet under the stimulation of the bloody scent, he could not control his breathing as it quickened, his body gradually tensing, coiling like a leopard ready to spring. The large hand that instinctively wanted to grab her and pin her down had, at some point, already come to hold her waist.
He tilted his head slightly back, long hair flowing down like water. His aggressively sharp gaze devoured her greedily, his eyes shining strangely bright, as though he wanted to tear her apart and swallow her whole with nothing but his stare.
His beautiful Adam’s apple bobbed. The bulging veins already made it clear—this demon had reached the limit of his restraint.
Expecting demons to be abstinent and self-controlled would be more absurd than expecting a tiger to turn vegetarian. He almost urgently wanted to flip her over and kiss her back viciously, return it a thousandfold.
He thought so—and indeed, he acted so. The corner of his lips lifted as he suddenly turned over, lifting her chin, about to press in eagerly for a kiss.
However, just as his consciousness was about to be dragged by the Love Gu into the abyss of chaos, within her sea of consciousness, the Kunlun Sword suddenly blazed with golden light. With the last thread of reason, she activated her spiritual energy and forced herself awake.
The instant her awareness returned, she almost instinctively raised her hand to block him.
Veins throbbed at his temples, his scorching breath right by her ear, his rippling eyes flushed red with anger. “What, you can just kiss me whenever you want and push me down, but I can’t?”
—Wasn’t she just bullying a demon?!
This vicious hound was nearly angered into laughter, glaring at this sword cultivator through clenched teeth, waiting to hear what outrageous thing she would say next. Instead, he heard her weak voice.
One sentence froze the nearly exploding vicious hound in place.
She said, “My head hurts.”
Her expression was sincere, not like a lie. After all, the Love Gu had just been acting up, and she had forcibly mobilized her spiritual energy—her head truly felt like it was splitting apart.
He froze, staring at her in disbelief. As if shocked that she could say such a thing.
Yet this sword cultivator even looked back at him with that utterly upright, apologetic, earnest gaze.
As if the person who had just pushed him down and kissed him had nothing to do with her.
She turned her head slightly. “This time, it is my fault. If you wish to strike or kill, do as you please.”
Great Demon Lord: …
He stood there taking several deep breaths, his phoenix eyes flushed red with fury, like blazing peach blossoms, glaring at her viciously, as if he wished he could carve a few chunks of flesh from her!
“You… you’re really something.”
She silently averted her gaze.
The moment her consciousness had just returned, she realized she seemed to have done something rather serious. She knew it was the Love Gu causing trouble, but the one who had done such a thing was still her.
She waited for a long time, yet the demon lord never twisted her head off.
She coughed lightly, lay back down on the bed, pulled the blanket over herself, and closed her eyes.
Her face pale, looking sickly and frail.
As if the words “about to die” were written across her forehead.
She heard the grinding of teeth from the opposite side.
Clearly, the demon race, who had always been despicable and shameless, was encountering such villainy for the first time.
The demon lord sat up, staring at her gloomily for a long while.
If it were anyone else, they would probably have been unnerved all over by that gloomy gaze. But she had often been stared at like this by him before, and now, within that gloomy look, she even sensed a strange familiarity.
—This was the gaze of a sworn enemy.
She heard the demon give two cold laughs, as if contemplating where to throw her so he could tear her corpse into pieces.
She thought for a moment, then asked:
“Still going to kill me?”
“If not, I’m going to sleep.”
He paced in place several times in resentment, and in the end, viciously flung the curtain aside and left!
She thought: tonight, he would definitely dream of killing her.
But for some reason, from that indignant retreating figure, she actually sensed an inexplicable trace of grievance.
Guiltily, she pulled the blanket over her head.
It was late into the night.
Only after the demon lord’s aura had completely disappeared did the system finally emerge.
She asked, “What exactly is going on with this Love Gu?”
She had only obtained the Kunlun Sword not long ago and had not yet properly harmonized with it when trouble came one after another.
As for the unstable soul condition the system had mentioned before, she was not too worried—after all, it was not uncommon in the cultivation world, and there would always be ways to resolve it.
It was the Love Gu from tonight that gave her a real headache.
She frowned. “I can tolerate an unstable soul, but I absolutely will not allow myself to be controlled by such a crooked, unorthodox thing.”
System: “Host, I also tried to wake you just now, but you were controlled by the Love Gu—no matter how I called, you didn’t respond. It scared me to death. There’s not much recorded in the original plot. After all, in your previous life, Host, you reacted too quickly and directly forced the Love Gu out using a mutual-destruction method, so there was no follow-up.”
“Host, this Love Gu is not Hehuan Powder. The solution that works once every three months is probably only temporary relief.”
She froze. “What do you mean?”
System: “This Love Gu seems to be controllable.”
She wanted to ask more, but a sudden stabbing pain shot through her mind.
An unstable soul was like a crumbling foundation—once she overexerted herself or forcibly mobilized spiritual energy, her soul would show signs of nearly leaving her body.
She sighed, stopped forcing herself to think about it, told the system to investigate further, and sank back into sleep.
In the middle of the night, Hongniang went out to feed Xiao Yanjing. The four of Xiao Yanjing’s heads and Hongniang all watched wide-eyed as the Honored Superior passed over the rooftop of Wuxiang Pavilion. Judging by the direction, he seemed to have gone to the ice lake. In the dead of winter, they vaguely heard a splash.
Xiao Yanjing and Hongniang looked at each other.
Although the Honored Superior truly had many quirks, and seemed somewhat out of place compared to other demons.
For example, he liked to put on airs, would give death stares at the slightest provocation, and constantly reprimanded and criticized the demons’ indecorous behavior, even picking faults with how they dressed. But jumping into a lake in the middle of the night, what kind of new problem was that?
The passing monk Guangping pressed his palms together and sighed:
What is love in this world!
✦ ─ ˗ˋ ୨୧ ˊ˗ ─ ✦
The next morning, Chao Jinsui never saw that demon lord again.
Her head no longer hurt so much. Her conscience hurt a little, but not very much.
Instead, she calmly drank porridge and chatted with Little Hongniang.
Hongniang was easy to get along with. She had lived in the cultivation world before. If one ignored her three heads, she was just like a girl full of spiritual charm—perhaps a bit overly enthusiastic toward her.
With one glance at the eternal night outside the window, she knew this was the demon realm.
But this was not the central city of the demon race—far, far from the capital palace. This was a courtyard located halfway up a mountainside within a valley. The demonic energy here was very thin, to the point that some particularly hardy spirit herbs could survive here. If one ignored the eternal night outside, the scenery was unexpectedly quite beautiful.
Hongniang said with a smile, “This place is called Wuxiang Valley. Honored Superior says it’s very suitable for recuperating.”
The master of Wuxiang Valley was called Guangping, a monk of very high cultivation. It was said he was the demon lord’s close friend. If a demon general like Moye could be considered a peripheral figure at the Demon Lord’s side, then Guangping and Hongniang would count as confidants.
Of course, Xiao Yanjing didn’t count. Xiao Yanjing was a pet.
Monk Guangping was most skilled in medical theory, and the Wuxiang Valley he resided in was the cleanest place in the entire demon realm. It was just that the demon lord had rushed her here in great urgency yesterday, nearly turning the whole valley upside down.
Chao Jinsui soon met this legendary close friend of the Demon Lord.
Monk Guangping wore a black kasaya, looking very approachable. He gave her a Buddhist salute. If one ignored that the prayer beads in his hand were made of bone, he was no different from the Buddhist cultivators who walked the cultivation world outside.
However, this was a demon monk.
From Little Hongniang’s introduction, people often said one faced the wall for ten years to break through it—but Monk Guangping not only failed to break through, he went into qi deviation instead. So he very casually came to the demon realm, continued his “quiet cultivation” in Wuxiang Valley, and several decades ago boarded the little demon lord’s pirate ship—since then, he had never been able to get off.
She asked curiously, “Master, do you intend to ferry demons in the demon realm?”
This was not uncommon among Buddhist cultivators—they were the main force in easing conflicts between humans and demons. Many were even willing to sacrifice themselves for the Dao.
Monk Guangping smiled faintly. “Indeed. This humble monk has already ferried nine hundred and ninety demons.”
“Ferried them… where?”
Guangping pressed his palms together. “Ferried them… to the Western Heaven Buddha Kingdom~”
Chao Jinsui: …
She sipped her tea: becoming a demon really wasn’t strange at all.
Guangping took her pulse. As expected, he turned his prayer beads and did not take her unstable soul condition too seriously.
“There is a method to replenish the soul, it will surely be remarkably effective. Miss need not worry.”
His tone shifted. “However, with this Love Gu inside you, if the soul is replenished rashly, I fear the Love Gu may backlash.”
Any kind of gu was never something good. No matter its function, once given the chance, it would gnaw at the host’s body and strengthen itself.
Thus, if her soul were replenished rashly before the Love Gu was removed, and her body fell into weakness, this thing would immediately retaliate!
Fortunately, Chao Jinsui had the Kunlun Sword—such a fierce and baleful object—to suppress it somewhat. Otherwise, she likely would not be sitting here drinking tea now.
The young man who lifted the curtain and entered happened to hear that last sentence. He snorted coldly, sat down on Guangping’s other side, deliberately not sitting with her.
He stared at her with a sinister gaze, occasionally baring his gleaming fangs, as if itching to bite her to death.
Yes—last night, this demon lord had stayed in the lake the entire night.
At the time, he had been furious, wanting to seize that person and subject them to harsh torture. But later, when reason returned, with his long hair nearly frozen stiff, he quickly figured out what had really happened.
—The Love Gu, it had to be that damned Love Gu!
He knew it was this wretched thing!
When she kissed him, she said nothing, her gaze unfocused, completely different from her usual clarity and composure.
And he quickly realized how serious the problem was. Because this Love Gu was clearly different from last time—it seemed to have been nurtured into something stronger.
The first time it flared up, although she had been tormented, she still had conscious awareness, still had room to choose. But this time, she was left with almost nothing but instinct.
With Monk Guangping’s explanation, she let out a sigh of relief.
His face darkened terribly as he shot her a glare.
No matter what, even if she had been controlled by the Love Gu before—
After kissing him, she had simply pulled up the blanket, coughed twice, said her head hurt, and dismissed him just like that—this still made demonic fury surge sky-high!
What made the demon even angrier was that he had actually been dismissed by her!
This demon was furious beyond measure.
She kissed him—casually kissed him—anyway, it was the Love Gu;
If he kissed her—she fainted, her head hurt, she was so ill she could not get up.
Under his glare, she was helpless. Setting down her tea, she asked sincerely, “So… are you still going to kill me?”
Well then.
She was glared at by that demon lord until she turned into a hedgehog.
