Smoke and Fire [GL] - Chapter 21

The sight before her eyes went black then bright again, and Yi An was already inside a gorgeous and intricate palace.

Around her, many black-clad women stood with bowed heads. The grand hall was covered in black and dark red. A censer in the center emitted curling wisps of green smoke, enveloping Tan Tan, who was suspended in mid-air.

Before she could figure out the situation, she heard an angry roar beside her: “You guys, you have to explain this to me, dammit!!”

Followed by Luo Yao’s calm tone: “The situation is exactly as you see it. There’s nothing to explain. Are you going to arrest me and take me back to the Celestial Realm now?”

“I’ll arrest your father!! This is the heinous crime of defying the Buddha!! You’ll be dead the moment you go up there, do you know that!!” Si Yin shouted in utter breakdown.

What is all this?

Another round of coded conversation?

Yi An was annoyed.

“Where are we?” she interrupted the two impatiently.

“The Demon Realm, of course. Where else could it be?” A soft, seductive voice suddenly came from behind her.

Yi An froze all over. She turned back and saw an exceptionally beautiful woman leaning halfway on a couch, looking at her with a half-smile.

This person’s bl00d-red formal court robe trailed casually from the couch to the floor, her long hair winding around her mutton-fat jade-like shoulders, like a rotten flower that had bloomed from hell.

Shang Mian slightly curved her lips at her: “Still well, Miss Yi An.”

Yi An was so astonished she couldn’t tear her eyes away.

She asked hesitantly: “You are… Luo Yao’s girlfriend?”

“Correction,” Shang Mian’s smile deepened, “I am her wife.”

“Can you two please stop arguing about girlfriend or wife right now!” Si Yin yelled in utter despair on the side, completely ruining the atmosphere. “Can you explain this? I’m so incredibly confused right now, confused enough to feel like Luo Yao betrayed me…”

Shang Mian lowered her gaze, restrained her smile, and said nonchalantly: “Supreme Deity Si Yin, I think this is easy to understand. The Buddha wanted my Queen to kill me, but the Queen refused. We were communicating secretly, and now that we’re tired of hiding it, we’re telling you. Do you have a problem with that?”

“Then all your fighting scenes before, they were…”

“All fake.”

“From the very beginning?!”

“From the very beginning.”

Si Yin looked to Luo Yao for confirmation. Seeing Luo Yao’s attitude of complete silent assent, she said angrily: “But have you considered the consequences of doing this? You can deceive me and Tan Tan, but can you deceive the Venerable, can you deceive the Buddha? —And today, Veda, that idiot, went back to the Celestial Realm; he is definitely going to report everything to the higher-ups!”

No one expected Luo Yao to actually smile. She slowly lifted her long, sparrow-feather-like eyelashes and said: “Si Yin, I am a sinful god. Why am I guilty? Because I tried to save my daughter’s life. How do I atone? By personally killing my own wife.”

Her smile was captivating, “This is the Heavenly Law you believe in, this is the great righteousness of the world, these are the most self-righteous gods.”

Si Yin stared at her in a daze. Shang Mian’s expression also gradually became serious, changing from semi-reclining to sitting up.

“Look at her,” Luo Yao pointed to Tan Tan, who was suspended in mid-air and unconscious. “She chose to believe in the Buddha, but what was the result? Did that boundless Buddhist law spare any ounce of emotion? You saw everything that happened between A’Mian and me back then, Si Yin. So-called Buddhist law is ruthless. Haven’t you understood that enough yet?”

The anger on Si Yin’s face was gradually replaced by hesitation. She asked, “Then what do you think should be done?”

Luo Yao shook her head: “I cannot make a choice for you. I say these things only to state my thoughts. You can choose to immediately return to the Celestial Realm and report me. I don’t mind.”

Si Yin remained silent for a long moment.

Yi An watched her nervously, not blinking, afraid that her next sentence would be Fine, then I’m going back to the Celestial Realm.

After what felt like an eternity, Si Yin suddenly let out a laugh, which took everyone by surprise.

“Now everyone can have psychological balance,” she smoothed her high ponytail, saying quite earnestly, “After all, we are all sinful gods. Hey Luo Yao, how about we throw a sinful god party?”

First, there was silence, then Shang Mian led the way with a soft laugh, and then everyone started laughing heartily.

Yi An also laughed very loudly. In truth, she didn’t know why she wanted to laugh so much, only that she suddenly felt that Si Yin was actually a very, very good person.

As good as Luo Yao.

Since one of the highest combat forces in the Celestial Realm had conspired with—bah, allied with the Demon Race, the matter of the fake fighting scenes was naturally over and done with. It was then that Yi An remembered a forgotten matter: “Oh dear, where is Shen Nian?!”

Shang Mian changed her posture on the couch, slowly raising her hand. The palace gate silently opened, revealing Shen Nian kneeling outside, holding the little ghost orb in his hands.

“The things you gods didn’t think of, I did for you. The messes you gods made, I cleaned up for you. Even when a god is led astray, I need to handle it…” She sighed nonchalantly, “Your realm truly has some nerve.”

“Ah, yes, yes, yes, Demon Venerable, you are the most amazing.” Si Yin gave a very perfunctory compliment. “So, is Tan Tan alright?”

Shang Mian said faintly: “Just got possessed by an inner demon. I don’t know about other places, but in our Demon Realm, it’s a minor thing. However, this particular inner demon of hers is quite rare. I cannot completely eradicate it. As long as no one provokes her, she will be fine.”

“Then she is…”

“She used forbidden magic, severely damaging her vitality. She won’t wake up for three or four days.” Shang Mian said, raising her gaze to look down the steps. A maid immediately came over and helped her up. “Supreme Deity Si Yin, if you have nothing else to do, please stay here. These two days are a unique festival in the Demon Realm: The God-Slaying Festival.”

Si Yin: “…”

Could the name be any more straightforward?

The next day.

“Ahh, who took my phone!!” Yi An woke up late because she had no alarm clock and ran around the palace shouting, only to realize that Luo Yao and Si Yin were not there. “Where are they?!”

The attendant maid said: “To answer you, the Lord and the Madam have already gone to the viewing stand. As for His Highness Si Yin, I don’t know… Hey, where are you going!”

Yi An had already waved her hand and run off.

The moment she rushed out of the Demon Palace, she was submerged by a mountain of people—bah, a sea of demons. Before, the area around the Demon Palace was empty and desolate. She had always thought it was because there weren’t many demons, but seeing this, she realized she was completely wrong.

Directly in front of the Demon Palace, an incredibly huge arena had been set up at some unknown point, and the surrounding area was a clamor of demonic voices.

“Beat him! Beat him!”

“Good woman! Truly worthy of the Fox Demon King!”

“Qing Qiuze!! Qing Qiuze!!”

Yi An shoved past two demons and saw on the arena a woman in a high-slit cyan qipao stepping on a puddle of mangled flesh, two fingers clamping a long cigarette holder. She glanced sideways, took a puff, and exhaled a ring of smoke, every gesture bewitchingly alluring.

Then came a thunderous gong: “One hundred and thirteenth round, Qing Qiuze, wins!”

“Good!!!!”

Yi An was also encouraged by the atmosphere and clapped along. At the same time, she couldn’t help but worry for the Celestial Realm: With this kind of momentum, eradicating the Demon Realm probably won’t be that simple…

The woman called Qing Qiuze kicked the mangled flesh off the stage, leaned halfway onto the edge of the arena, and with seductive grace, hooked the chin of a waiting girl. Smoke slowly drifted from her lips: “Sweetheart, still want to come up?”

What is meant by eyes as silken as flirtation? What is meant by breath as fragrant as an orchid?

This was it.

Yi An was genuinely stunned. She had thought Shang Mian’s inherent seductive charm was the epitome. Now, seeing this Qing Qiuze, although her face was not as breathtakingly stunning as Shang Mian’s, when it came to that soft, bewitching allure, the two were equally matched.

She was about to stay and watch for a while, but she heard a demon next to her sniff the air and say to another: “Hey, I smell human.”

“Really? Where?”

Yi An instantly clapped her hand over her mouth. She recalled Si Yin’s earlier explanation that some lower-level demons eat people, so she hurriedly slipped away with the flow of demons.

This dash took her to an unknown location, but Yi An was easygoing and just wandered around casually. When she reached a restaurant, she heard a storyteller inside say: “Speaking of our current Lord, her achievements surpass previous rulers and her benevolence benefits later generations. The prosperity the Demon Race enjoys today all started three thousand years ago, with a battle in the Sea of Bl00d—”

“It is said that the Lord willingly became a demon, but this is not true. Those gods and Buddhas in the sky claim to be compassionate, yet they repeatedly made things difficult for the Lord because of her half-god, half-demon nature. This brings us to our Lord’s wife, Her Highness Qingluan. At that time, she and the Lord were deeply in love but were repeatedly separated by the Celestial Realm, which even sent the Lord to the Sea of Bl00d. The two were separated by heaven and earth, sighing at the moon night after night. Their longing was like a collapsing mountain!”

The storyteller was highly emotional at this point, as if he himself were one of the ill-fated lovers, eliciting waves of resonance from the audience: “Nonsense gods and Buddhas!” “Separating lovers, aren’t they ashamed!” “What happened next? What happened next?”

“Pfft.” Yi An wanted to laugh at the thought of Luo Yao being framed like this, so she suppressed her laughter and squeezed into the restaurant.

The storyteller continued: “Later, those gods and Buddhas, calculating that the Lord was absent, locked the Madam’s divine power and forcefully betrothed her to the third of the Phoenix Nine Sons, the Fire Phoenix. This Fire Phoenix, relying on his birth status, had long coveted the beauty of Her Highness Qingluan and self-importantly believed gods were superior to demons, looking down upon the Lord’s origin—so, to provoke the Lord, he hosted a grand, unprecedented wedding ceremony in the Celestial Realm.”

“Now, the Lord was cultivating bitterly in the Sea of Bl00d at that time. Upon hearing this news, she was furious! It is said that the greatest enmity in this world is stealing a wife, especially when the Fire Phoenix was the Lord’s own elder brother!” He slammed the table excitedly, his voice raising an octave. “The Lord instantly succumbed to demonic nature. She went on a rampage in the Sea of Bl00d, shooting down several top-tier Great Demons with her bow. She grabbed the neck of the then-Demon King, the Nine-Headed Infant, and struck with the wrath of thunder!”

As he spoke, he made a sharp pulling motion, “A pitch-black spine was completely excised without damage!”

“The Nine-Headed Infant, losing its spine, immediately died of rage. When the tree falls, the monkeys scatter. The Great Demons who were loyal to the former Demon King were all intimidated by the Lord’s might and quickly switched their allegiance. In less than half a day, ten thousand demons knelt, taking her as their sovereign!”

This section reveals the true nature of the relationship between Luo Yao (Qingluan) and Shang Mian (the Demon Lord), confirming their alliance and the Celestial Realm’s plot. It also introduces the infamous Fire Phoenix and gives a detailed, sensationalized account of Shang Mian’s rise to power in the Demon Realm.