“If one sights an injustice while on the road,” said Tianlang-Jun, “should they not draw their sword to give aid?”
“If it’s a matter of drawing her sword, this humble one will consider it,” said the woman. “Conversely, if it’s a matter of opening her purse, this humble one refuses—for you have yet to return the three silvers I lent you last time.”
“Is that so?” said Tianlang-Jun. “It’s only three silvers. All right, if you lend me three more, you can purchase me for three days.”
The woman flatly refused. “Your distinguished self doesn’t look strong enough to carry any burdens; rather he looks like someone who has never toiled, who can’t distinguish wheat from rice. What’s the point of buying you?”
Zhuzhi-Lang watched this for a long time, then said frankly, “My lord, I fear that this one…is disparaging you for being too expensive.”
Tianlang-Jun was indeed being disparaged. This wasn’t new; sometimes the servants and guards who served him secretly disparaged him too, especially when he was performing his passionate and dramatic recitations. But being told he was worth less than a mere three silvers? That was a bit much.
“Let’s put all that aside for now,” said Tianlang-Jun. “Surely my face can’t be worth less than three silvers!”
The woman choked a little, then studied his face for a while and smiled. “Mm, true, it’s worth that much.”
Then she tossed him a heavy ingot of gold.
From then on, it was as if a dam had broken, and Tianlang-Jun’s expenditures in the Human Realm burst out like a flood. He became even more unrestrained, even more unfettered, to the point that it was terrifying to watch. He’d found a rich patron, a mountain of gold. Whenever Zhuzhi-Lang pulled out an empty purse with a slightly embarrassed expression, Tianlang-Jun would happily and thoughtlessly go to that mountain and knock on her gates.
Zhuzhi-Lang couldn’t shake the feeling that something about this was wrong—that something was backward.
Why was Su Xiyan acting like one of those wealthy young masters in plays, with their distinguished statuses and heaps of money?
Why was Tianlang-Jun acting like one of those pampered young ladies, who had run away from home and was ignorant of the world?
And why was Zhuzhi-Lang acting like the prudent servant girl accompanying that lady, running errands and doing odd jobs?
Zhuzhi-Lang had attempted to alert his lord to this reversal of roles, to tell him that he needed to retrieve his dignity as the highest ruler of the demon realm, but Tianlang-Jun seemed to find pleasure in this sugar daddy, sugar baby relationship. The blind passion that he had in the past directed to the entire human race was now poured entirely upon a single person.
Su Xiyan was truly a cold and ruthless, yet wholly extraordinary person.
When they met up, she took them to see various rare and wonderful things, and to all manner of interesting and intriguing places. Forbidden codices Zhuzhi-Lang couldn’t find no matter how he tried, a wondrous spirit mushroom within a certain hidden cave, a dew lake with waters that shone like crystal, an obscure, yet marvelously skilled, pipa-playing prostitute. When they weren’t together, they’d see no trace of her for ten of fifteen days and would be unable to find her no matter how they tried.
She never batted an eyelid, nor expressed a hint of infatuation, nor spoke of pining. She had her own plots and calculations, and she looked coldly on from the sidelines.
Because half his blood came from the serpent race, Zhuzhi-Lang possessed a kind of natural animal instinct. He faintly sensed that this person who kept approaching them was an exceedingly dangerous entity.
She wasn’t like demon women, with their enchanting, by the book charm. Instead, she was solemn and driven, though she gave off the impression of being refined and courteous. Yet it was indeed only the impression of being refined and courteous. Zhuzhi-Lang dared not assume he would in fact get off easy at her hands if it ever came to a true, brutal fight.
Beneath the refined surface lay arrogance and indifference, along with an ambition that further concealed her scheming. As Huan Hua Palace’s second-in-command, Su Xiyan enjoyed a high and lofty status, and commanded thousands at every turn. On top of that, the cultivation world that Huan Hua Palace led alongside the other major sects had been the demon race’s nemesis since ancient times. Su Xiyan was indeed someone incredibly dangerous as far as they were concerned.
Zhuzhi-Lang reported all the information he’d found in full detail. Yet Tianlang-Jun wasn’t remotely concerned. Once he became infatuated with something, he disregarded even life and death as he threw all his eggs into that one basket. It wasn’t like he didn’t know the truth, he just nonetheless never showed any doubt.
The price of never doubting her was to be sealed beneath the sunless, skyless darkness of Bai Lu Mountain for more than ten years, with no chance of return.
“I want to kill humans.”
During those more than ten years, that was the line Tianlang-Jun repeated most often. In the past, he had loved humans more than anything, so he’d never done such things.
Without his vast demonic energy to sustain Zhuzhi-Lang’s man-shaped form, Zhuzhi-Lang once again reverted to his half-snake appearance. Every time Tianlang-Jun saw him arduously slithering back and forth, he would lash out with a, “Get lost.”
Or he’d say, “Your slithering is far too ugly.”
Zhuzhi-Lang would then silently squirm away and search the outside for a place untouched by the sun and moon. There, he would continue to practice his slithering, now rusted from years of disuse.
His lord’s temper became unimaginably terrible, but Zhuzhi-Lang couldn’t summon even the slightest bit of strength to feel hurt or angry.
Tianlang-Jun’s “get lost” was telling him to “get lost” to the Demon Realm, or to “get lost” to the southern border, or to “get lost” to his old home, or to “get lost” to anywhere, so long as he didn’t remain in front of Tianlang-Jun.
Tianlang-Jun couldn’t stand for others to see him so wretched and downtrodden, in a state where he could beg for neither life nor death. From the moment of his birth, he’d been the demon race’s most respected crown prince. He’d never tasted suffering, had always been composed and elegant, and had rejected all crude and vulgar things that would ruin his reputation. He’d even had some slight mysophobia. He’d hated anything ugly, but now, as he was, he was uglier than anyone.
Covered in blood, he’d been sealed beneath seventy-two metal chains and forty-nine potent paper talismans, forced to watch every day as his body slowly rotted and began to stink, all while his mind remained perfectly clear, unable to lose consciousness even if he wished to. That gang from the cultivation world had lacked the ability to kill him outright, so they’d thought up every possible method to torment him instead. Even Zhuzhi-Lang’s ugly half-snake form looked slightly better than Tianlang-Jun did in this state.
Having reverted to his old form, Zhuzhi-Lang was unable to speak, so Tianlang-Jun began talking to himself. For almost half the hours in every day, he would recite the songs and dialogues from those plays. Sometimes, as Tianlang-Jun was singing, he would abruptly cease, as if his throat had been slit. Zhuzhi-Lang would then know that it must have been a play Su Xiyan had taken them to watch.
But after pausing for a time, Tianlang-Jun would start again just as abruptly, continuing in a louder voice. Between his hoarse throat and the deserted valley, the lingering melodies drifted, long and drawn out. Drawn out and heartrending.
Zhuzhi-Lang was unable to speak; he couldn’t tell him to “stop singing”; he couldn’t raise his arms, couldn’t cover his ears, couldn’t prevent himself from hearing the notes. More and more, he understood what it meant to be “utterly powerless.”
When something makes you sad, when something brings you pain, why continue to force yourself to do it?
The only thing he could do was to persistently, day after day, use leaves to carry the Dew Lake’s water and bring it drop by drop to clean Tianlang-Jun’s eternally unhealing wounds.