Chapter 20
Yu Tai crouched by the river and washed her face, droplets running down her smooth, fair cheeks and falling into the water.
Her last memory before losing consciousness was Shu Li’s face. Beyond that, she could recall nothing.
Sensing the qilin inner core circulating inside her and the abundant cultivation of peak Nascent Soul, Yu Tai glanced behind her. Shu Li was crouching there, playing with Xia Mo as though waiting for her.
Her eyes settled on the ring of red marks around his wrist, and her expression darkened.
[This is what you meant when you said nothing would happen if I ate it?] Yu Tai asked with a humorless smile.
The System answered weakly, [Nothing happened… The qilin inner core just got angry and went berserk because you weren’t the master it had chosen, so it made you suffer a little. You still received every bit of the benefit!]
Yu Tai ground her molars. In the original novel, the male lead had experienced pain after swallowing the qilin inner core too, but it had been as comfortable as bathing in warm sunlight.
When it came to her, the thing seemed determined to torture her to death.
[Tell me everything that happened yesterday. Don’t leave out a single detail.]
The System recounted the previous day’s events as she requested.
Yu Tai pursed her lips when she heard that Shu Li had told Xia Mo to break the chain. Then she frowned slightly. [I remember you calling to me while I was barely conscious.]
[Yes. I suddenly lost my connection to you for some reason. By the time I reconnected, you and the male lead were… k-kissing, um,] the innocent little System answered in embarrassment.
Yu Tai had some memory of it and found the matter rather surprising.
Shu Li had originally been the qilin inner core’s chosen master, so his presence would naturally calm the enraged core. Yet he himself did not know that.
What had prompted him to act as he did?
Still puzzled, Yu Tai rose to her feet. Though she had not broken straight through to Spirit Transformation as she had imagined, the tremendous surge in her cultivation still pleased her.
Now that she had obtained the qilin inner core, Bishui Secret Realm would soon begin collapsing. She needed to get out as quickly as possible.
With that thought, she turned toward Shu Li, who had risen at some point and was now quietly watching her.
“The chain is already broken. Why are you still here?” She walked over and spoke with such sincerity that she almost seemed genuinely willing to let him go.
Shu Li lowered his eyes to her. Mottled sunlight slanted through the rustling leaves and played across his face, making his features look deeper and his pupils even clearer. “Didn’t Junior Sister say that I was so remarkable that after one taste, nothing else could satisfy you, and that you would pine for me day and night?”
Seeing the wariness on Yu Tai’s face, he slowly unfurled a genial smile. “I’m nothing but a cripple now, and I know Junior Sister’s secret. Since your cultivation has risen so dramatically, I would rather seek your protection than return and suffer further humiliation.”
Yu Tai blinked. [He suspected before that I wasn’t the original Yu Tai. Has he confirmed it now?]
The System was astonished by her sharpness. [!! Th-Then what do we do? Did he do something yesterday while I was disconnected from you?]
Yu Tai shared its suspicions, but Shu Li’s Dao foundation truly had been destroyed. He was a cripple in every sense of the word. What could he possibly do?
Ever since she had taken the initiative to provoke this man, he had seemed shrouded in far more mystery than she was, leaving a trace of fear buried in her heart.
But the truth was that Yu Tai could not leave Shu Li. She needed the righteous qi within him.
Once she found a higher-ranked Demon-Concealing Pearl and resolved the problem permanently-or no longer needed to hide the fact that she was a demonic cultivator-she would make a clean break with him.
But until either of those things happened, no matter what secrets he possessed or what he was hiding, she would never let go of him.
Yu Tai pulled a new veiled hat from her ring and tossed it to Shu Li. “Let’s go.”
They could not linger here. They needed to leave the secret realm as quickly as possible.
Shu Li readily put on the hat Yu Tai had thrown him. Her suddenly frosty attitude did not upset him. No matter what Yu Tai did, he always seemed just as mild and amiable.
Xia Mo trotted over and pawed at Yu Tai’s skirt, trying to climb up.
Yu Tai lifted it by the scruff and gave its bottom a smack. “You ungrateful little thing.”
It had broken the chain with a single swat, yet now it was behaving as though nothing had happened.
Xia Mo chirped twice. Unable to understand it, Yu Tai set it back down.
Of course. The heroine and male lead had always been on the same side. No amount of bamboo could change the fact that she had kidnapped, imprisoned, and forced them.
Demon beasts were much more perceptive of emotions than humans.
Xia Mo tilted its head, unable to understand why Yu Tai had suddenly become so cold toward it.
It wanted to tell her that it had stuffed her spatial pouch with lots of beautiful fruit. Would that cheer her up?
“Chirp.” At the aggrieved cry from his demon beast, Shu Li picked Xia Mo up and stroked its head. “Don’t worry. It won’t be long.”
The System was somewhat concerned. A dramatic rise in cultivation was a good thing, but Yu Tai was a demonic cultivator whose path was inherently unorthodox. Her strengthened demonic qi would inevitably affect her temperament to some degree, making her increasingly cold and bloodthirsty.
It warned Yu Tai.
Yu Tai was startled by the System’s explanation. No wonder her emotions had felt out of control ever since she woke up. She was not normally this sensitive or prone to overthinking.
She was about to ask the System for a solution when a delighted and astonished voice suddenly came from ahead. “Junior Sister!”
Yu Tai looked up and, unsurprisingly, saw Jiang Yibai and his companions in the distance.
They appeared to have fared well over the past few days. Though they looked a little disheveled, their expressions suggested that they had reaped a rich harvest.
Yu Tai stepped to one side, concealing Shu Li and Xia Mo as they approached. Her voice was cool, but her expression held the easy joy of reuniting with an old friend. “Senior Brother Jiang!”
After so many days apart, hearing Yu Tai call to him made Jiang Yibai’s heart tingle.
Junior Sister seemed different from before.
She had become even more… endearing.
When he caught sight of the figure behind her, which she could not fully conceal, Jiang Yibai froze for a moment before remembering that it was the demon beast she had brought inside.
“Wow, it’s so cute!” A sharp-eyed female cultivator spotted Xia Mo. She immediately took several steps forward and crouched down to stroke its head.
“Chirp!” Xia Mo snarled viciously and slammed a paw into the ground, blasting open a huge crater. It bared its teeth at the female cultivator in warning.
Startled, the female cultivator retreated several steps and complained resentfully, “Junior Sister, your demon beast is so fierce.”
Yu Tai nodded. “It’s wary of strangers and dislikes being touched by outsiders. Please don’t reach for it without permission, Senior Sister.”
And if it bit off one of her limbs, she had better not come complaining to Yu Tai.
The female cultivator was not particularly happy, but since Yu Tai was their Junior Sister, she ultimately said nothing.
Just then, a leaf fluttered onto Yu Tai’s shoulder. The sight of her slender shoulders made Jiang Yibai’s heart surge. He moved several steps closer, intending to remove it for her.
But someone else moved faster.
Jade-like fingers plucked away the leaf. When Yu Tai saw Jiang Yibai reaching toward her, she instinctively stepped back several paces and, by sheer coincidence, backed straight into the arms of the person behind her.