Chapter 6

A month later, I pretended to vomit. Leng Yushu laid his fingers on my wrist.

“My wife, you’re pregnant! We’re having a child!” His face lit up with delight.

Clutching my chest, I imitated other pregnant women and tried hard to bring up the previous night’s meal.

He covered his nose and mouth, unable to conceal the disgust in his eyes, though his words were solicitous.

“It pains me to see you suffer so, my wife. If only I could bear it for you.”

“You’re going through so much. From now on, I’ll be a hundred, a thousand times kinder to you and our child.”

His mouth was full of feigned concern. But when I brought up last night’s fish with pickled mustard greens, he finally reached his limit.

“I’ll write you a prescription to support the pregnancy right away, my wife.” With that, he fled the room.

Since I had become pregnant, he was often by my side, just as when we were newly married. No matter how busy Shuhan Hall was, he made time to come home and brew medicine and cook for me himself.

Every few days, though, he went to Duye Temple outside the city, professing that he was praying for me and our unborn child.

I smiled without speaking and merely pretended to drink every drop of the chicken soup laced with senluo flowers.

By the ninth month, my belly had grown very large. My time was near.

I used a spell to make it seem that my waters had broken. Leng Yushu immediately sent for a midwife in a panic.

The moment she arrived, I clouded her sight with magic. Then, after a few pretended cries of pain, I handed her the child I had prepared beforehand.

“Congratulations, Doctor Leng! It’s a boy!” Taking the child, the midwife immediately went out to announce the news.

Leng Yushu waited anxiously outside the birthing room. Only when he heard that the child had been born did he breathe a sigh of relief.

The plump, fair, adorable baby had barely been placed in his arms when his face changed. With a vicious look, he drew a dagger and held it against the child’s neck.

“Master! I’ve got it! Come quickly!”

Startled by the dagger, the child cried until he could scarcely catch his breath.

As his cries rang out, the sky suddenly changed. Dark clouds gathered across what had been a clear sky.

An enormous magical formation descended from the direction of Duye Temple, enclosing us.

The midwife fainted in fright.

Staff in hand, Zhoudu walked into the courtyard. “Fox demon! I failed to subdue you last time, but now you’ve just given birth and are at your weakest. Hundreds of monks from my Duye Temple have joined to cast this formation. Let’s see you escape this time!”

With Zhoudu to support him, Leng Yushu immediately regained his nerve. He glared at me and shouted viciously.

“Hu Li! You killed Qiushui! You brought this on yourself! At last, I can avenge her!”

I laughed coldly. “Qiushui didn’t die because of me. What has her death to do with me? Besides, isn’t the Qiushui you loved so desperately none other than Master Zhoudu beside you?”

Leng Yushu turned to him in disbelief.

“Doctor Leng, don’t listen to the fox demon’s nonsense! Fox demon, I know how hard-won your cultivation is. Submit willingly and surrender your spirit core, and I will spare your life!”

Zhoudu chanted incantations, continuing to complete the formation.

“So that’s what you want? I wondered why you went to such lengths to get close to me. You’re nearing the end of your life and want to refine my spirit core to prolong it?”

“But I have only one core, enough for only one person. How will the two of you divide it?”

Leng Yushu’s expression darkened. He turned to Zhoudu. “Master, what does she mean? Didn’t you say we could refine two cores, and I could live forever too?”

“Two? How could there be two? He went to such trouble, even taking Qiushui’s form, all for my spirit core. Why would he share it with you?”

Then I changed tack. “Then again, perhaps he would. After all those days and nights together, all that intimacy, perhaps he really fell in love with you and would sacrifice himself for you. Ha!”

Leng Yushu stared at Zhoudu in disgust and pointed the dagger at him. “Is it true? You lied to me!”

“I didn’t lie! The fox demon has only one core, but the abomination you fathered with her can be refined for another! Don’t let her bewitch you!”

Eyes tightly shut, Zhoudu was occupied with maintaining the formation and could not move. Afraid that Leng Yushu behind him really would stab him, he had to open his eyes and explain.

“Who would have thought you two really were in love? Leng Yushu must have treated you very well indeed, to make a master who’s spent decades in the Buddhist order…” Seeing that Zhoudu was distracted, I continued to goad him.

His eyes widened in fury. “Shut your mouth! Today, I’ll kill you, you monster!”

A beam of red light shot from his staff and pierced the formation, coming straight at me.

This was the moment I had been waiting for. In the instant he lost control, I activated my talisman and used the force of his staff to break free of the formation.

As it shattered, Zhoudu spat blood and collapsed.

“So… I fell into your trap the moment I entered this household…”

His unfocused gaze fixed on the talisman around his wrist. I had placed it on him that day when I put the bracelet on his arm as he entered our household.

“Why weren’t you weakened after giving birth…? Why…?”

“I was already one step from Buddhahood… But a mortal life is so short. If only… if only I’d had more time, I would have become a Buddha…”

“My master told me to deliver all living beings… But who will deliver me…? I’ve lost… I’ve lost…”