He clearly cared a great deal, yet he appeared light as the wind and drifting clouds, as though he had reluctantly become like this just to coax her.
And if she made a big fuss about it, he would definitely change back immediately, and pretend that none of this had ever happened!
Sure enough, seeing her like this, the demon lord grew very uncomfortable and immediately stepped back:
“If not, I’ll change back.”
Clearly, for a lawless great demon lord, turning himself into this appearance made him feel rather awkward. Moreover, this great demon who had always declared himself number one under heaven was even less accustomed to showing weakness in front of others.
She came back to her senses and grabbed his sleeve, her eyes instantly full of laughter.
—She had simply remembered the little demon from many years ago, who had looked just as arrogantly overbearing.
She suddenly said to the demon lord: “Lower your head.”
He looked at her suspiciously, but still leaned his beautiful face closer.
Who would have thought that the next moment she reached out, grabbed his demon horns, and ruffled his head—like petting the little dog on Mingyue Mountain.
He froze for a moment, then immediately flew into a rage from embarrassment. “You dare!”
Cunning human cultivator!
Despicable human cultivator!
But she was not afraid of him at all, lips pressed together, smiling like a pretty little fox that had stolen something fishy, refusing to let go. Furious and exasperated, he knocked her away with his horns and glared at her resentfully, his phoenix eyes like black gemstones burning with fire.
She pressed her lips together and started laughing again.
He yanked her inside and shut the door.
He stared at her for a long time, his expression shifting between dark and light:
Sure enough, she had completely let down her guard, and was even beginning to push her luck!
When he placed his finger on her brow, she still stared at him intently, as if she could not look enough.
He said gloomily, “Is it really that good-looking? Wasn’t it good-looking before?”
She said very seriously, “It was also good-looking.”
He snorted coldly: Smooth-talking human cultivator!
“But when you were the bride, you looked the best.”
The demon lord’s face darkened.
He said chillingly, “Close your eyes. Don’t look anymore.”
She obediently closed her eyes, knowing that if she kept looking, he would become angry from embarrassment again.
She opened her divine sense.
She knew this demon lord had strong pride. Since he was willing to become like this, she did not want to let his goodwill go to waste.
This time, she tried hard to open her divine sense toward him, not to resist.
Probably because he had turned himself into the appearance of the little demon, the little demon formed from his divine sense also became smaller.
Thus, he was very different from the Demon God.
Facing such a little demon, she could no longer associate him with the Demon God at all.
Sure enough, this time, when his divine sense entered her sea of consciousness, it did not meet with strong resistance.
Both of them let out a sigh of relief at the same time.
Only at the very end, the demon lord saw a new memory.
—It was the scene of her in the snow, pierced through the heart by ten thousand arrows.
She had originally been slowly opening her sea of consciousness to him, but when they traced back to this memory, it was the nightmare buried deepest in her awareness, the one she could never let go of. She instinctively tried to seal it off.
He also immediately withdrew.
Although she sealed it very quickly, he still saw that image.
He did not understand why so many memories that had never actually happened appeared in her mind?
It had been like this last time, and it was like this again this time.
Were they her nightmares? But they were far too real.
For a moment, both of them fell silent.
To enter someone’s sea of consciousness was to pass into their inner world, and also to enter their deepest thoughts and nightmares.
It was like the hidden scars buried in everyone’s heart.
She did not speak, and he had no intention of tearing open her scars.
Yet he had no way to ignore that image.
He pressed his lips together and suddenly said to her:
“It won’t be like that.”
His phoenix eyes were like black gemstones burning with fire. He snorted coldly, “If such a day truly comes, you can just use me as a shield.”
“Demons are not as easy to kill as your human race.”
“I am not afraid of pain.”
“Even if pierced through the heart by ten thousand arrows, I would not feel pain.”
When he said this, though he still looked like a youth, his tone was full of lofty disdain.
At first glance, this flamboyant little demon seemed to be boasting—
But she knew he could do it.
The little demon had always kept his word since childhood; he had never lied to her.
Seeing that she did not speak, his beautiful face leaned closer, long eyelashes lifting, his narrow phoenix eyes especially striking:
“What, you don’t believe me?”
She suddenly smiled, reached out, and went to touch his demon horns again. He instinctively wanted to dodge, but thinking of that dream, he hesitated for a moment, then leaned his horns toward her again.
She felt like she was petting a big dog.
Even though this vicious dog was truly very fierce.
But just touching his demon horns made her mood improve.
“I believe you. If such a day ever comes, Yan Xueyi, I will definitely use you as a shield—don’t blame me for being heartless and unjust.”
He glanced at her and let out a faint scoff. “Protecting a mere little human cultivator—I can still manage that.”
“As long as I am alive, you will not die.”
He did it.
When she died in her previous life—he was already gone.
She felt her fingertips begin to burn, and the tip of her heart trembled slightly.
She had been betrayed, abandoned, used—she could no longer treat people with complete sincerity.
She said she could trust, yet she was still like that patient in a fevered night, afraid to close her eyes.
However, like a layer of hard ice called trust, it too began to slowly melt before this blazing flame.
She said, “Let’s try again.”
She thought, this time she would definitely succeed.
His divine sense invaded her sea of consciousness once more.
She remembered how shocked and flustered he had been the first time she kissed him, remembered how he had pulled her out from the barrier of the great protective sect formation…
Sure enough, Yan Xueyi encountered no resistance at all. He passed through the barrier smoothly and soon entered her sea of consciousness.
Generally speaking, a cultivator would only ever know what their own sea of consciousness looked like in this lifetime. Even extremely intimate dao companions rarely opened their seas of consciousness to one another.
Chao Jinsui’s sea of consciousness was, in fact, the appearance of Mingyue Mountain.
Lush forests and slender bamboo, a gentle breeze drifting by. A small stream flowed down from the mountain peak. A bamboo house stood there, tea utensils placed by the riverbank, two or three scrolls scattered on the ground. There was a guqin, and a book pavilion.
Quiet and elegant—yet it felt very desolate.
The Kunlun Sword rested beside the bamboo house;
Kunlun Sword Art floated in midair.
They said the sea of consciousness was a person’s inner world—hers was truly far too lonely.
After this demon lord entered, it was as if he had arrived in his own home. He directly seized her bamboo couch, lay down on it, one long leg bent, clearly planning to settle in and refuse to leave.
Chao Jinsui waited for a long time and realized he simply was not moving.
“Yan Xueyi, get up. Time to work.”
He glanced at her, snatched the book from her hands, covered his face with it, and said, “Let me take an afternoon nap first.”
Chao Jinsui: “…”
Is this the consequence of handing over trust?
She was already starting to regret it.
He dawdled on that bamboo couch for quite a while. Only after she called “Yan Xueyi” three times did he slowly pull the book off his face and lift his head to examine her sea of consciousness.
—Because her divine soul was unstable, the “sky” above her sea of consciousness looked extremely mottled now, as if riddled with holes.
So-called repairing the divine soul meant helping her patch up these mottled areas.
The little demon leaned closer and immediately began raising his price on the spot: “Call me gege (brother), and I’ll fix it for you right away.”
Her gaze was faint and quiet. “Yanyan, if you still don’t start, I’ll go find Guangping instead.”
He snorted, pulled her over, and closed his eyes.
She could not help but frown, feeling a strong sense of invasion.
—In truth, this kind of repair was like stitching, using the power of his divine soul to mend her fractured one.
They were very different people—one like a mass of black flame, the other cold frost. Clearly two completely opposite qualities, yet using black flame to mend ice carried a strange kind of harmony.
The feeling was very strange, as if from this moment on, a subtle connection had formed between him and her.
A little like their first kiss.
Breaths entwined, lips and teeth pressed together, biting into one another.
Ice and fire intertwining brought a peculiar dizzying sensation.
Her mottled divine soul was gradually being repaired.
Who knew how long had passed. When they tried to go further, both of them felt resistance coming from the shattered sea of consciousness—it must have reached its limit.
She withdrew from her sea of consciousness, drenched in sweat, her mind spinning with dizziness.
The moment she opened her eyes, she saw the demon lord staring at her lips, who knew what he was thinking.
He had already returned to his normal appearance—full of aggression and menace. As he took a sip of cold tea, his throat bobbing slightly, he looked even more like a ferocious beast that had not yet eaten its fill.
He thought: It really felt like kissing… mm, it felt quite good.
—They could repair it a few more times.
—Fortunately, Guangping hadn’t been called!!
However, this demon lord probably did not know that when ordinary people repaired souls, it would not be this compatible.
Compared to this demon lord’s satisfied hunger, it took Chao Jinsui quite a while before the intense dizziness finally eased.
The only thing that comforted her was that her condition had clearly improved.
Soul repair was undoubtedly a massive undertaking. Now that one-third was complete, it should take two more times to fully repair it.
She suddenly paused.
Wait—
She suddenly discovered that inside her sea of consciousness, at some unknown time, a gigantic skull had appeared.
She focused her gaze—and the skull immediately turned into the appearance of the little demon, drifting back and forth inside her sea of consciousness.
One moment he was lounging on her bamboo couch with one leg crossed over the other, the next he was frowning thoughtfully in front of her sword, and then he slipped into her bedroom and refused to come out.
It was as if he had left behind a line of words:
On such-and-such year, such-and-such month, such-and-such day, a certain demon came here and claimed it as his own.
Chao Jinsui: …
She was about to go question that demon lord, but he had already turned into a wisp of black smoke and drifted back next door.
She knocked on the door panel next door. “Yan Xueyi, this isn’t fair. I haven’t even been to your sea of consciousness!”
He had already entered her sea of consciousness openly and freely.
His lazy voice drifted over, extremely vile, full of the demon lord’s arrogant swagger:
“The one with the unstable divine soul isn’t me.”
—He was definitely taking revenge, revenge for her touching his demon horns and rubbing his head like a big dog.
He tempted her, “If you’ve got the ability, try breaking in?”
Breaking into the Demon Venerable’s sea of consciousness—the danger spoke for itself. She wasn’t stupid; who would walk straight into that!
Across the way, the demon lord sat by the window, a smile curling at his lips, thinking lazily:
Unless one day she could break in, he would absolutely never let her see his sea of consciousness.
The demon lord’s sea of consciousness was actually the appearance of the demon realm—an eternal night, and a vast Myriad Demons Abyss.
The eternal night of the demon realm was different from the night of the cultivation world—there was no starry sky, no moon, only marsh gas and darkness.
Yet in this demon lord’s sea of consciousness, there was a round moon.
Moonlight stretching for a thousand li, illuminating his wilderness.
✦ ─ ˗ˋ ୨୧ ˊ˗ ─ ✦
Now that one-third of Chao Jinsui’s divine soul had been repaired, it was already enough for her to use spiritual energy normally.
Before, she had always felt like her “soul was not attached to her body,” as though a layer of gauze separated her from her own physical form—this was what was called an “unstable divine soul.”
But now, she had a much clearer sense of her body.
So she immediately discovered—
Her dantian was already faintly gathering milky-white spiritual energy, circling again and again, slowly expanding her meridians and dantian.
Clearly, this change had not just begun. Because her divine soul had been unstable, she had not sensed the changes in her body at all.
She was about to enter the mid-stage of Nascent Soul!
Since waking up, her cultivation had remained at the early stage of Nascent Soul.
