When Shi Wuduan once again woke up, the light of that damned place’s day was already gone. He heard the crackle of a fire not far from him. Shi Wuduan came to full wakefulness as fast as possible. The memory of what’d happened before brought a scowl to his face.
Even though with the fire, the cave was still very dark. Shi Wuduan was only barely able to scan his surroundings and confirm that there weren’t any signs of another’s presence. He then blankly craned his head and looked at the ceiling of the cave; strangely enough, it was red too. A moment later, he heaved a sigh and thought, what the fuck even is this?
There was some strange plant-like thing blanketed on him, its texture was soft as silk. Shi Wuduan slowly examined himself and found that he was quite bruised. Although, the injured and swollen places seemed to have been treated already. The pain was well within his tolerance limit; far easier to endure than an arrow to the chest at any rate.
But there was still an uncomfortable soreness seeping from his bones, and his temples throbbed like they were being squeezed by pincers. He was cold too, and couldn’t help curling in on himself. Shi Wuduan felt like his body temperature had been dropping constantly ever since he’d come to this miserable place.
He was facing away from the cave entrance and the fire, staring at the flickering shadow cast on the red cave wall. Shi Wuduan almost thought the fever had burned him silly. He was dizzy and his vision was blurred. His eyes were open, but he could hardly see. Suddenly, he had the faint feeling that life was but a dream.
Why did it come to this? He didn’t have the strength to be angry or even muster up any kind of intense emotion anymore. All he could do was vacantly and exhaustedly wonder — why did it come to this?
Unconsciously, he began to sink into a long memory. His shifu’s blurry face, and loose cultivator Jiang Hua, who he didn’t even have the chance to see one last time….
In truth, Shi Wuduan was a precocious child. He could clearly remember things that’d happened when he was only two or three years old. He just didn’t think about them very often, as if he was too afraid to believe he’d ever had such a carefree, rambunctious life.
It only would distract him and make him soft.
For example, when he reminisced about Cangyun Valley, he’d be too reluctant to act against Bai Li; he almost couldn’t bear to hate him. When he remembered Master Kuruo, remembered how that old lady, for the sake of saving her disciples and for the sake of protecting him, consigned herself to be forever imprisoned on Jiulu Mountain, he couldn’t harden his heart enough to go against her wishes; he wouldn’t be able to kill the Qingcu and all those Xuan Sect disciples. When he thought of senior Jiang Hua, he’d remember everything he’d taught him about karma and fate, and he’d helplessly feel a sense of acceptance.
However, remorse, fondness, and even forgiveness would only make him weak. If he gave in to even the slightest bit of weakness, he would suffer.
The seven mountain lanterns had given seventy years of lifespan to the country. Even if, in those seventy years, the people were tormented by draughts and floods, unable to make a living, or even if disasters happened relentlessly, the winds and rains inconstant, as long as the mountain lanterns weren’t extinguished, then of “the right time,” “the right place,” or “the right people,” they’d always have one on their side.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
Ktf ulra bo la kjr atja, fnfc lo cbatlcu kfca gluta obg atfw, fnfc lo atfs kfgf afjglcu vbkc atf fjrafgc kjii ab qjamt atf kfrafgc kjii, ja atf wbwfca atfs kfgf jybea ab ojii, rbwf tfgfabobgf ecxcbkc qfgrbc kbeiv qbq eq jcv rjnf atfw ogbw atf yglcx bo vfragemalbc.
A long time ago, Shi Wuduan knew that fact. But he didn’t fully understand it, because he was truly too busy. So busy he almost couldn’t remember what his surname was.
From Haining to the capital, with travel papers, it’d take at least forty days. How distant it was, how difficult it was.
How to scrape money, how to overcome their obstacles, how to pave the way for their future plans, how to sort through the maybe genuine maybe false information passed to him through layers and layers of interconnected webs – for over a decade, every day and night, plots and schemes had become the simple black and white lines that outlined the entirety of his youth.
He knew nothing of the luxury and comfort that the sons of noble families indulged in, knew nothing of the carefree youth’s clumsy sentimentality; he only knew how to kill and how not to be killed, how to survive on this dangerous, arduous path.
Weakness… even a single bit of weakness would trap him between the hammer and the anvil. Between his conscience and the things he had to do, most of the time, he could only choose one.
Yet in that oddly peaceful time, Shi Wuduan unwittingly became lost in thought. Seventy years of fate; it seemed that heaven and earth had completely abandoned them already. They’d spent so much blood and sweat to destroy the great sects’ treaty. He’d even stuck his agents into the Dasheng Sect, used assassinations and conspiracies to bury a hidden lever. That lever had come useful in the battle of Dazhou Mountain, for the Dasheng Sect and the Xuan Sect had been successfully wedged apart and the Xuan Sect’s elites were almost completely annihilated.
But though Banya was dead, Yan Zhen was still alive, Zou Yanlai was still alive, General Zhang was still alive… and even if these people all died, Bai Li was still alive.
Back then, the mountain lanterns had risen as the Hall of Demons opened. Now, Bai Li was free and allied with the Mi Sect. The Redscarf Army, treading on thin ice, could only pace back and forth within Dongyue, unable to break through. So it turned out that this was how the lump of strings in his astrolabe, that he’d never been able to calculate, were connected. It really was a tangle of perfect chaos.
All of humanity’s struggles and screams were held within the indifferent grasp of an unseen hand; it thwarted every attempt at calculation. Even if one could calculate it, one couldn’t escape it.
Thus, a kind of emptiness, weariness, abruptly washed over him. Shi Wuduan felt like a persimmon that had rotted from the inside out. Strong on the outside but weak on the inside, the slightest touch would make him shrivel into a dried out husk.
He stared blankly at the wall, thinking, and thinking, until he passed out again.
When he woke up once more, his throat was dry as ash. Perhaps, like a kettle on the stove, it was about time all the water was boiled away. Shi Wuduan didn’t know if it was because he’d had a nightmare, but he was soaked with cold sweat. At least his head was a bit clearer.
He pushed himself up into a sitting position and saw water placed beside him. Like before, it was wrapped up with leaves. That person seemed to know that he wasn’t any good at handicrafts, so to prevent any leaking, he used nearly four or five layers of leaves. It looked more like a dumpling than a water ladle.
Shi Wuduan examined his surroundings again, but still saw no sign of Bai sonofabitch Li. He frowned and silently cursed him a few more times, but he didn’t make life difficult for himself; he picked up and drank everything down in one gulp.
For the next who knew how many days, the firewood would always be replenished. And when he woke, there’d always be clean water prepared for him, as well as strangely shaped fruits and roasted meat. Though he never saw so much as Bai Li’s shadow.
The thing that Bai Li had covered him with was indeed a large, dark red leaf. If it weren’t for the slight, veiny texture, it could really be mistaken for cloth. There were some speckled bloodstains on the corner, perhaps it was some animal’s, or perhaps…….
Well, Shi Wuduan was good at making do. He tore some strips of leaves, did some weaving and tying, and turned the sack-like thing into something resembling robes. If one didn’t look carefully, they wouldn’t notice anything off. His previous robes, which were pretty much reduced to rags, managed to serve as a blanket. It covered him somewhat when he slept.
At first, Shi Wuduan did have some anger bottled up in chest, but after the Demon Lord had tiptoed around him like a mouse dodging a cat for the last few days, it was pretty much worn away.
The meat skewer beside him clearly wasn’t the whole leg of some mysterious creature. It seemed like it’d been cut to pieces by a sharp instrument; the shape was rather unique.
Shi Wuduan gritted his teeth indignantly as he thought: I can’t believe things like this even happen. I haven’t even avoided him yet, but he’s already avoiding me like a huffy little housewife. That fucker has the guts to kill someone but not the guts to bury them, has the guts to do it but not the guts to own up to it. He’s even out here crying crocodile tears, fucking bastard!
Bai Li only crept in to replenish firewood, food, and water when Shi Wuduan was sleeping. The Inferno Realm wasn’t a peaceful place, but since he was more or less recovered, the creatures in it couldn’t harm him. Though, the silk-like leaf that Shi Wuduan was wearing was called the tujia leaf. Legend had it that the blood of a divine bird had dyed its color red. It grew upon high cliffs, guarded by hundreds of thousands of “buxu,” the divine bird’s descendants. Those beasts flew quickly and ran swiftly, their teeth and claws were sharp as knives. And, they liked to gather together in a massive flock. Bai Li had pretty much demolished half the mountain just to obtain that leaf. Afterwards, in a moment of carelessness, he’d had a chunk of flesh pecked off by a dying buxu.
Yet, the moment he laid the tujia leaf, stained with his own blood, on top of Shi Wuduan, he felt relieved, and no longer pained by his wound.
Countless times, he’d wanted to strangle Shi Wuduan to death with his own hands. Once he’d even shot an arrow at his heart. But he’d never truly seen him riddled with injuries to the point that he was taking his last breaths before.
It was… just like the time he’d seen, through Yan Zhen’s shoddy water mirror, Shi Wuduan weakly laying in bed. No, this time, it brought him an even more intense and cutting agony.
Suddenly hateful, suddenly lost, suddenly regretful, suddenly terrified.
He saw from afar that Shi Wuduan had fallen asleep facing the wall of the cave. Only then did Bai Li glance at the unevenly cooked shish kebab in his hands, creep into the cave, use his sharp nails to carve off a few pieces of meat that looked edible, stick them on a new skewer, place them on a clean leaf, and put the leaf down next to Shi Wuduan. Then he started finishing off the leftover scraps, which were charred into unidentifiable lumps.
When he came across a raw chunk, he’d roast it a bit on the fire and eat it once it wasn’t so bloody. For the ones that’d been overcooked, he’d peel off the charcoaled exterior and force himself to swallow it.
It was grosser than medicine. He almost thought that his hands must be clumsier than his feet.
He cleaned up the remaining shreds of bone and finally gave in to the temptation to look over at Shi Wuduan. Then, as if his eyes had been glued, he stared at his back for a long time. When he was done, he dithered for a while before he inched towards him, cautiously as a burglar, and carefully, gently straightened out Shi Wuduan’s loosely strewn hair. Upon seeing the ragged clothes blanketing him, his placid expression finally cracked. He then very hesitantly reached out his hand and slightly lifted the rather shoddy blanket.
Right at that moment, he realized that Shi Wuduan’s eyes were open.
Bai Li’s hand paused, then instantly shrank back as if burned. Shi Wuduan sneered coldly, his back still facing him, “What, not going to scream like I offended your modesty?”
Bai Li had never been quick-tongued. Now that his head was blank, he was even more speechless.
Shi Wuduan abruptly sat up and slapped him across the face, not holding back in the least. Bai Li staggered from the force and his ears began to ring. For a second, he could hardly hear, his face scorched with pain, and there was a metallic taste in his mouth.
His killing intent flared up instinctively and his nails grew half an inch before he suddenly regained his wits and turned to look at Shi Wuduan’s expressionless face, utterly bewildered. All he could do was stare dumbly at him.
Bai Li’s emotions were a right mess. He didn’t know what to think. He sat there for what seemed like forever before his brain churned out a thought. He thought, how am I so temperamental, like a madman?
Man, Bai Li is so pitiful.
Thank you for the chapter!
Bai Li, madman indeed 🙈
Thank you so much for your wonderful dedication and kindness sharing this with us 👏💐🙏❤️🧨
💙💙💙
1 reply, 1 help for the Demon Lord Bai Li
Glad to see that SWD is still rightfully angry about what Bai Li did.
Thank you for your hard work with the translation!