It’s hard to say, ah? You weren’t exactly upstanding when you sneak attacked Mobei-Jun… Shang Qinghua said sincerely, “You don’t.”
“Then do I look like the type of demon to be that patient?”
“That, I don’t know. Then, my lord, how do you want to ‘use’ me?”
“How will I ‘use’ you?” Linguang-Jun laughed. “By killing you to vent my anger. Was that so very hard to understand?”
Shang Qinghua froze. “That’s not necessary. You’d just be wasting your resources! My lord, you can probably use me to threaten Mobei-Jun or whatever—what a pity it would be to simply kill me!”
“‘I don’t have a mote of value in his eyes. At most, I’m a convenient attendant and punching bag.’ Who said that again?”
“Humans have a saying, ‘Modesty is a virtu—’” Before he had finished the word “virtue,” Shang Qinghua threw out his hand, yelling, “Behold my Black Sun Immortal Fire!”
Numerous balls of roiling red flame shot through the air. Frightened, Linguang-Jun darted aside to dodge. However, the flames extinguished the second they hit the ground. It clearly wasn’t Black Sun Immortal Fire, which was impervious to wind or water—that bastard Shang Qinghua was just tricking him!
Linguang-Jun was enraged, new resentment fanning old hate. Casually brushing his hand over a dangling drop of dew on a drooping leaf, he aimed right at Shang Qinghua and attacked.
Shang Qinghua only felt a chill in his calf before his leg had been shot through by an ice bullet solidified by demonic energy. He couldn’t have run even if he wanted, and he crashed to the ground with a thud.
Linguang-Jun lightly pushed one foot into the kneecap of Shang Qinghua’s other leg and pressed down. “You’re just like a cockroach—too good at running! I’ll destroy your legs first. We’ll see how you run then.”
Shang Qinghua didn’t have any of the integrity required to remain unyielding in the face of destruction, and his soul nearly fled in a fright. “My king!”
Speak of the king and he shall appear.
An ink-blue silhouette fluttered into view like a specter. Two balls of black qi collided with a crack.
Linguang-Jun clutched one of his legs, now broken at the knee, crazed with anger. “You brat—do you have to show up so promptly?! Can’t you wait just a bit longer?! Can’t you wait to arrive until I’ve already brought down my heel?!”
With a kick, Mobei-Jun broke his other knee, then said coldly, “I can’t.”
Linguang-Jun was quite strong-willed. Both his knees had been pulverized into powder, but he didn’t scream. Instead, he cursed his nephew out all the more hysterically. “You really are the seed of your frozen-faced father! You could have been like anyone, but you had to be like him. Turtle and tortoise born in the same nest—he steals and so do you! He died early—so why can’t you die early too?! Fuck…”
Mobei-Jun said, “Keep cursing and I’ll send you on to keep him company.”
Shang Qinghua stared, tongue-tied. Though he knew Linguang-Jun had always nursed a deep resentment toward his older brother, he’d never thought it would be deep enough to make him wholly lose his poise and shout abuses in the street…
Amidst Linguang-Jun’s crazed curses, Mobei-Jun casually flipped his hand and tossed him into the ravine. Falling down the ravine like that might kill a human, but a demon certainly wouldn’t die. Shang Qinghua didn’t remind him to pull the grass up by its roots. This was Mobei-Jun’s own uncle, and his father had doubtless told him that no matter what Linguang-Jun did, to be a bit indulgent with him.
In truth, Shang Qinghua didn’t want to remind Mobei-Jun of anything at all; if he could let him forget Shang Qinghua’s existence entirely, that would be even better…
Mobei-Jun withdrew his gaze from the bottom of the ravine. “Stop right there!”
Shang Qinghua, dragging a perforated calf, had been about to furtively slip away. He hadn’t expected to be exposed until that shout, and he froze in place.
Even a pervert caught red-handed wouldn’t have had as guilty a conscience. He listened to the sound of Mobei-Jun’s footsteps treading across frost and cracking ice as he walked over, and he hurriedly covered his own face.
Mobei-Jun seemed to be in quite the temper today; he wasn’t the least bit aloof. “What are you doing?!”
“Didn’t you say ‘never let me see you again’?” Shang Qinghua asked awkwardly. “There’s no way for you not to see me now, so I’ll just cover my face.”
Mobei-Jun lifted his hand, and Shang Qinghua covered his head out of habit.
Silence.
Mobei-Jun separated his two arms and straightened them, at the end of his patience. “If you let me see you do this sort of thing again…you won’t be keeping your hands!”
There was just a hint of teeth-gnashing fury in his tone. Shang Qinghua reflexively wanted to cover his head again, but he managed to choke it down for the sake of this pair of hands, which had toiled so heroically as they typed on his keyboard.
Struggling to hold it all in, he began to shake and shake. He shook until Mobei-Jun said, “Am I that frightening?”
“Uh, actually, not really!” said Shang Qinghua. “It’s just that I always feel like you’re going to knock me around a bit, my king. Before, ah, the hitting or kicking, it was whatever, but now that you’ve officially succeeded to the throne, your cultivation cannot be compared to what it once was. You could make raging waves beat the shore or send stones flying to pierce the clouds with a single strike; I’m afraid I couldn’t endure even a few of your hits…”
“Shut up,” said Mobei-Jun. “Follow me, come!”
Shang Qinghua threw caution to the wind and firmly threw himself on the stone wall like a lizard. “I won’t come! No—I want to leave! I want to return to my old home.”
“If I let you hit me back, then will you not go?” Mobei-Jun asked.
“Especially if I stay to let you beat me up three times every day, I might as well… What?!”
Hit him back…?
Let me hit him back…?
Mobei-Jun is willing to let me hit back…?
In order to stop me from leaving, Mobei-Jun is willing to let me hit back?
This staircase of words cycled through Shang Qinghua’s thoroughly shocked brain again and again.
Mobei-Jun lifted his chin, stiff and unmoving, emitting a bold aura of Hit me however you like; I won’t retaliate. Nevertheless, he kept sneakily glancing at Shang Qinghua out of the corner of his eye.
When Mobei-Jun didn’t see him move even after a while, he seemed to suddenly grow happy. Although when he was happy, the only sign was that the tips of his eyebrows raised a touch higher. “You’re not going to do it?” he asked. “Time’s up. Fine, I won’t let you hit me. Let’s go.”
Wait a minute, I didn’t say I wouldn’t do it! thought Shang Qinghua. There was a time limit?