Chapter 12
Before she could succeed, the man rose.
The movement seemed unprepared and almost slow, yet by sheer coincidence, he evaded Mo Xiaowei’s outstretched hand with perfect precision.
She did not even touch the gauze hanging from his hat.
“You… You startled me.” She pouted and feigned embarrassment.
Whenever she made that expression in front of her fellow disciples, they hurried to coax her. The person before her merely nodded.
The breeze stirred by his turn carried a faint, cool fragrance. Mo Xiaowei noticed that the hands beneath his sleeves were damp.
Had he been washing his hands?
Even his fingertips were slightly red.
Mo Xiaowei bit her lip. Why was she wasting so many words on a demon beast with little intelligence? She could simply take what she wanted.
“Hey. That stupid woman Yu Tai doesn’t value you. She killed so many demon beasts, yet she never gave you a single beast core.”
“It doesn’t look like you signed a lifebound contract with her. Why not follow me instead? I’m the only daughter of the Chengtian Sect’s sect leader. If you choose me, I’ll never treat you poorly.” She circled in front of Shu Li and lifted her chin with an arrogant expression.
“Really?”
The voice beneath the veil was as refreshing as wind through mountain woods and spring water striking stone.
Mo Xiaowei’s heart clenched, and her throat went dry. “You can… speak! No, that isn’t the point. Of course it’s true! I promise I’ll treat you far better than she does!”
Unable to contain her excitement, she stepped forward.
The half of Shu Li’s face she had glimpsed by chance had already bewitched her. Now that she had heard his voice, a hint of madness entered Mo Xiaowei’s eyes.
“You want my demon beast?”
Yu Tai lifted her eyes. The panda sprawled beside her opened its eyes alertly as well, hostility filling its gaze as it looked toward Mo Xiaowei.
Yu Tai leisurely fed Xia Mo a piece of cloud bamboo, then activated the chain on her wrist. It contracted without warning, pulling Shu Li off balance and dragging him back to her side.
Her lips curled, her eyes openly provocative. “In your dreams.”
Mo Xiaowei’s expression darkened at once. “Yu Tai! Don’t be ungrateful! He already agreed, so what right do you have to keep him prisoner?”
Yu Tai remained perfectly composed. “What does his agreement matter? I’m his master.”
Her expression turned fierce. “As long as I refuse to let go, no one gets to covet him.”
The System applauded.
How thrilling would that line have been if the male lead had said it?
Seeing the tension between them, Passerby and the others hurried over.
“Junior Sister, what happened?”
Mo Xiaowei shook with fury. At their arrival, she leaned toward them as if she had finally found her support.
“Senior Brother! That demon beast agreed to come with me, but Yu Tai refuses to let him go!”
Passerby’s eyes flickered. Truthfully, he wanted the black-eyed panda more than this demon beast able to take human form.
After all, everyone had witnessed the panda’s overwhelming strength throughout the journey.
“Fellow Cultivator, how many spirit stones would it take to buy this demon beast?” Passerby asked.
Yu Tai sneered. “No fortune could buy him.”
Another male cultivator grew displeased. “We were only asking. What kind of attitude is that?”
“What kind of attitude? Was your brain given to you solely to make you look taller?” Yu Tai shot back.
“You-”
The male cultivator, who stood only five feet seven, trembled with rage.
They could not understand how the formerly approachable Yu Tai had suddenly become like this.
She rose. “This is where we part ways.”
Passerby was about to stop her when the five-foot-seven cultivator blocked him.
“Senior Brother! Let her go! Anyone would think we couldn’t survive without her!”
As events proved, they truly could not.
Once separated from Yu Tai, their luck plunged to unprecedented depths.
Every demon beast they encountered was high-ranked. Even Mo Xiaowei, protected at the center of the group, became filthy and disheveled.
She considered crushing her jade token and leaving more than once, but she had not encountered a single opportunity. If she departed like this, everyone would laugh at her.
“This is all that bitch Yu Tai’s fault! How can she be so petty?” Mo Xiaowei collapsed into tears for what must have been the hundredth time.
The five-foot-seven cultivator whom Yu Tai had mocked joined in cursing her.
Passerby tried to persuade them to stop, but bitterness churned inside him as well. He faintly blamed Yu Tai too.
He could have paid spirit stones. It was only a demon beast. Did she need to be so absolute?
And it was not only Yu Tai. If Junior Sister had spoken a little more pleasantly, perhaps things would have ended differently. The same went for his Junior Brother. Why provoke Yu Tai over a small remark about his height, then stop Passerby from intervening?
The more he thought about it, the worse he felt. In the end, he stopped speaking altogether.
Once a spark of malice took root in a person’s heart, pent-up frustration would feed it. That tiny beginning would slowly spread until it could no longer be concealed.
Then they encountered Yu Tai again.
She appeared injured and leaned motionless against a tree.
Her two demon beasts stood to either side.
At the sight of the figure Mo Xiaowei had yearned for until she nearly went mad, her fingers began to tremble.
“Senior Brother…” she called unconsciously to the man beside her.
Everyone remained hidden behind the grass, perfectly still.
Yet every gaze was fixed upon the weakened Yu Tai.
Understanding what Xiaowei meant, Passerby struggled for a moment. “That… wouldn’t be right.”
The five-foot-seven cultivator’s venomous gaze roamed over Yu Tai.
“Why not, Senior Brother? She betrayed us and broke away first. Besides, didn’t the elder say before we entered the secret realm that life and death are ruled by fate?”
Even if they killed Yu Tai here, no one would care once they left, so long as none of them spoke.
Someone even began to analyze the situation.
“She’s relied on that demon beast the entire way and hasn’t done a thing herself. She was always nothing but a decorative vase in the Qingshan Sword Sect. She probably climbed into some powerful expert’s bed and received a demon beast like that to protect her.”
“And something went wrong before we entered the Bishui Secret Realm. Even if that expert knows her soul lamp has gone out, there’s no way to come in and help her.”
The argument made little sense, but everyone present had plainly developed the desire to kill Yu Tai. No one would contradict it.
That was right. According to their reasoning, no one would investigate Yu Tai’s death or discover what they had done.
Once Yu Tai was dead and the demon beast belonged to them, wouldn’t every treasure in the Bishui Secret Realm fall into their hands?
They looked toward Passerby, every pair of eyes glittering with greed and malice.
The exhaustion in their bodies warned that their spiritual power was running dry. If they did nothing, their luck would likely kill them here.
The path of cultivation was harsh and cruel. Wasn’t survival of the fittest only natural?
Yu Tai, forgive us.
Blame your own bad luck for crossing our path.
“Song Si, lure those two demon beasts away,” Passerby ordered in a low voice.
“Junior Sister, leave the humanoid demon beast to you. The rest of you-”
His gaze hardened.
“Come with me to kill Yu Tai.”