This great demon lord was born without the sense of pain, so how could he feel hurt?
But she did not expose him.
She even somewhat enjoyed the quiet at this moment. After ending a battle, exhaustion surged in like the tide; even now, there was still a sluggish feeling in her dantian where spiritual energy had been completely depleted.
He refused to get up, and she closed her eyes to regulate her inner breath.
For a time, neither pushed the other away, quietly leaning together, like two small beasts relying on each other.
Below them, the demonic qi that seemed to have no end surged and churned, but it was no longer as dense as before. At this moment, the violently swelling demonic qi on this demon gradually subsided, and the black haze in his phoenix eyes slowly faded as well, revealing his original pupils, no longer looking so terrifying.
However, as reason returned—
Yan Xueyi saw the collapsed ground around them, the fallen pillars, the hall as though it had been swept through by a violent gale.
No one understood better than this demon what he was like when he lost control.
All these years, the Demon Venerable had used every possible method to cultivate an almost self-torturing level of self-control, precisely because he knew very clearly just how destructive he would be once he lost control.
This was also the side of himself he least wanted her to see.
He paid no attention at all to the Kunlun Sword in his arm, his tone somewhat tense, and a little cautious.
With difficulty, he asked, “Are you hurt?”
She opened her eyes. “Just a small scrape, nothing serious.”
He let out a breath of relief.
A wave of lingering fear surged into his heart. If, when he lost control, he had done something beyond remedy… his fingers felt somewhat cold, and suddenly he held her very tightly.
She did not understand why his whole body was rigid, but in the end she did not struggle, only pushing at him slightly.
After quite a while, he gradually loosened his grip.
But when he raised his hand and saw the demonic patterns emerging across his body, he suddenly remembered that the way he looked now certainly could not be considered good-looking—perhaps even ugly and ferocious.
This demon thought: like this, it must be very unsightly, right?
Even for those born with demonic seeds, losing control was their most extreme state, the one they least wished to face. Even demons did not wish to become beasts driven only by instinct, without reason, without thought—capable even of easily destroying what they cherished most in their hearts, bringing about irreparable calamity.
And what was more, this unbearable side of him had been seen entirely by her.
This was the true face of demons. No matter how human they might appear in ordinary times, when controlled by demonic qi, they were beasts without reason, evil spirits.
She leaned against his shoulder, completely unable to see his expression at this moment. Feeling that her inner breath had been regulated, she looked around and was about to release him and stand up, but suddenly he pressed her head down and stuffed her into his arms. The demon lord said:
“You’ve just expended too much. I’ll take you away.”
She did not notice that there was something slightly off in his tone.
Chao Jinsui: “No, I think I’m fine. I can walk on my own.”
Afraid she would see the demonic patterns, the demon lord immediately said, “No, you can’t.”
Chao Jinsui had just been about to argue, when she felt the inner demon leave her body. Yan Xueyi said, “It’s not good for the inner demon to possess you for too long.”
She opened her mouth, but did not argue.
But the next moment, when she tried to lift her head, her whole person was pressed straight into his arms. He scooped her up in a horizontal hold and started to leave.
Several times along the way, she tried to raise her head from his arms.
—But every time she tried to look up, he pressed her back down.
Chao Jinsui: “……”
“Yan Xueyi, are you trying to suffocate me?”
He froze, then said awkwardly, “If you don’t raise your head, I’ll loosen my hold.”
But immediately after, she felt a layer of black silk cover her eyes, blocking her vision completely.
She finally realized something was wrong and suddenly pulled the silk off.
—After the silk fell away, she saw Yan Xueyi’s face. Ferocious demonic patterns covered it, like black tattoos crawling across half his face.
The demon lord’s pupils suddenly shrank. He immediately turned his face aside, his complexion turning extremely pale all at once. His thin lips pressed tightly together, his whole being like a ferocious beast driven to the brink.
Like Hongniang, before he turned eleven, Yan Xueyi had in fact wandered and struggled among the human race. At that time, demonic slaves were quite popular in the cultivation world, and he had even been captured and made into a slave for a period of time.
That was also the first time he met her.
The little demon had always been very fortunate—
She had only seen how miserable he was back then, and had not seen that half his face was covered in demonic patterns.
When he was young, the little demon could not hide those demonic patterns well; they would appear from time to time. Coupled with his unusual demonic horns, those who saw him would curse him as an evil ghost, a monster, an aberration—followed by endless spitting, fists, and kicks.
The little demon would curl up in the corner, using his tattered clothes to cover the ugly demonic patterns on his face, never daring to let others see.
They said those were marks left by demons, and that after death, one would fall into the eighteen levels of hell.
So when the little demon saw the bullied Hongniang, he had, for once, felt a faint trace of pity.
Because they were both monsters, despised, reviled, forever little “devils” who could not stand in the light in the eyes of the human race.
Later, he went to the Demon Realm. In the Myriad Demon Pit, there were all kinds of strange demons; mere demonic patterns no longer stood out. He had finally found a place suited to his survival, and from then on he moved through it like a fish in water. Wherever he went, the gazes directed at him were filled with fear; he was no longer the aberration spoken of by humans.
But he deeply understood the attitude of the human race. The existence of these demonic patterns seemed truly to proclaim that he was, in essence, an evil ghost—especially when he had just revealed his most unsightly side.
What would she think of him?
He almost violently turned his face aside, his expression extremely grim and gloomy, his fingers clenched so tightly they turned pale.
He knew very well that she must have already seen his most unbearable side. Yet like a shepherd mending the fold after the sheep were lost, he still wanted to try to cover things up a little, unwilling to face the most humiliating reality.
But he did not hear any sounds of mockery or shock.
He felt a somewhat cool, soft hand press against those ugly demonic patterns.
He heard her gentle voice. “It’s not ugly.”
She even traced along them, her movements very light and soft. “Connected together, it looks like a butterfly.”
Chao Jinsui was not lying—
It was just that too many people had never carefully looked at these demonic patterns. Before, they disdained them; later, they did not dare. Once one did not treat them as something monstrous, upon close inspection, they were actually very beautiful, like a butterfly about to spread its wings and fly.
She said softly, “In our cultivation world, there is a kind of spiritual chrysalis buried deep underground. It must endure three cold winters before, in the following year, it breaks out of its cocoon and turns into a black butterfly ready to take flight.”
At that moment, his heart was like molten lava surging and churning.
Scorching, searing, burning hot.
He suddenly turned his head back, grabbed the hand that was still resting against his cheek, and looked at her. His gaze instantly became burning and obsessive, like a fierce, blazing fire.
He gripped her hand with extreme force and suddenly pulled her toward him. They were pressed extremely close, as though he wanted to embed her into his flesh and blood.
She heard the demon lower his head almost obsessively, pressing her hand against his cheek, his expression stubborn as he looked at her, his gaze turning extremely dangerous:
“I will never let you go in this lifetime. Even if I’m about to die the next second, I’ll kill you first and then die together.”
She felt that something about this demon had changed, but when she looked carefully, he was still that same demon.
Chao Jinsui tried to pull her hand back. “Yan Xueyi, I comforted you, and now you want to repay kindness with enmity?”
The demon lowered his head. His voice was gentle and lingering, yet carried a trace of ruthless viciousness: “In our Demon Realm, there’s also a bedtime story. There is a kind of demonic snake—if you feed it when it is hibernating and about to starve to death, when it opens its eyes the next year, it will cling to you tightly, for all eternity, unable to rest even in death.”
Chao Jinsui: ……
Do all you demons fall asleep listening to horror stories or something?
They were extremely close—so close she could hear his heartbeat.
His aggressive phoenix eyes stared at her for a long time, then suddenly he leaned in and bit down on her shoulder.
She hissed, “Yan Xueyi, what madness has gotten into you now?”
And she couldn’t push him away no matter how she tried.
She should have been afraid, because that spot could be considered a vital point—
It carried an almost hair-raising sense of danger, not any less than when she had just faced the out-of-control demon lord.
But for some reason, she suddenly thought of that big wolfdog on Mingyue Mountain. It was very fond of a cold and aloof tabby cat that often came to Mingyue Mountain to freeload for meals—
And its way of expressing affection was to clamp the cat’s head in its mouth.
Of course, every time it did that, the tabby would smack it flying across three mountain peaks—but the next time, that big dog would still happily go back to pick up the little tabby again.
The demon released her and asked, “What are you thinking about?”
She honestly told him just that.
Demon: “Don’t compare me to that stupid dog!”
Sui: “That dog isn’t stupid. Its name is Conghui.”
Demon: “In any case, you’re not allowed to compare this Venerable to that dog.”
Sui: “Then don’t go around biting people.”
The demon glared at her. “I don’t bite other people. I only bite you!”
As soon as the words fell—
Chao Jinsui: “……”
Demon: “……”
He coughed lightly. For a moment, the atmosphere became extremely strange.
Then, in order to ease the oddly quiet tension, the demon lord glanced around, remembered that there was still a sword in his arm, and very casually pulled out the Kunlun Sword, tossing it aside with a flick—blood immediately sprayed out along with it.
As though he were an entirely different demon from the one who had just cried out in pain.
Chao Jinsui: ……
She saw him casually reach for that strip of black silk, intending to wrap it around himself. Finally unable to watch any longer, Chao Jinsui directly dragged him to a clean patch of ground and pinned him down—yes, after all that pulling and tugging, the two of them still had not even left the hall.
The Kunlun Sword was an extremely sharp divine sword. If wounds from it were not treated properly, they would take a very long time to heal.
She had just been about to tear a strip from her own inner lining, but then remembered that after killing that spider, there might have been venom on it. She smacked him lightly. “Tear your clothes.”
The demon lord’s expression turned strange, and he refused to move for a long time.
Chao Jinsui looked up at him: ?
She simply yanked him over and tore off the hem of his robe, poured some hemostatic powder, and very skillfully bandaged him up. Chao Jinsui had often been injured before, and the Kunlun Sword Sect had also taught simple bleeding control and treatment of external wounds, so she worked quickly and deftly.
Soon, she had pressed down and stopped the blood that had been wildly gushing from his wound.
He watched her busily moving around at his side. Very obediently, he placed his hand on her knee.
