Why Is The Demon Lord Unhappy? - Chapter 4

Night falls.

The sound of cicadas came from the woods, their cries hoarse and desperate, as if singing a mournful song with their last breath.

A gust of strong wind swept through, carrying a few fallen leaves. The leaves stopped and piled up outside the barrier, unable to enter the cave dwelling even a fraction.

Gu Jingmo saw that Xuan Song was obedient. After being captured, he didn’t clamor to escape. Instead, he agreed to be her Dao Companion, dual cultivate with her, and was even willing to accompany her to find medicine. Therefore, she did not tie him up.

This matter was smoothly progressing to an extent that was baffling.

Since they decided to look for medicine, they naturally had to plan their itinerary.

She and Huang Tao gathered together, took out their two storage bags, and poured out all their belongings. They were all basic magic tools, and there were only a few spirit stones.

This was even what Huang Tao had painstakingly saved while Gu Jingmo was healing.

Huang Tao counted their spirit stones and couldn’t help but sigh, “You can’t use your spiritual power right now, and we don’t even have a decent flying artifact. I’m afraid we can only travel slowly. I’ll hunt along the way and sell some spirit beast corpses to exchange for spirit stones, then we’ll travel through teleportation arrays.”

Gu Jingmo was also filled with melancholy, “If only I could have kept my Myriad Treasure Bell back then…”

“It’s great that you survived that situation; you’ve already defied the heavens. Artifacts and spirit stones can be accumulated again, it’s alright,” Huang Tao said, then stood up, took a low grade sword, and walked out of the cave dwelling, “I’m going out now to see if there are any spirit beasts I can hunt.”

“Mhm.”

Huang Tao didn’t seem very bright, but she was gentle and obedient, and she was quite efficient in handling things; whatever she was told to do, she would immediately act upon it.

After Huang Tao left, only Gu Jingmo and Xuan Song remained in the cave dwelling.

Xuan Song had been sitting cross legged, meditating and regulating his breath. When his eyes were closed, his eyelashes drooped, covering those cold eyes, which unexpectedly gave him a touch of docility.

This was how a youth should look.

Gu Jingmo found herself liking this, propping up her chin and staring at Xuan Song for a long time.

Although Xuan Song’s eyes were closed, he could feel himself being locked onto by a gaze, which made him feel a bit displeased.

Perhaps because he had been an elder in the cultivation world for too long, no one had dared to be so disrespectful to him for a long time. This prompted him to open his eyes and look at Gu Jingmo with displeasure.

The lighting artifact in the cave dwelling was not high grade; it was the entry level type commonly used by low level cultivators. The light was dim and unstable, flickering between bright and dark. The light and shadow on Gu Jingmo’s face also went up and down.

The lighting artifact was on one side of the cave dwelling, shining on Gu Jingmo’s side profile, leaving the other side of her face submerged in darkness.

The half face view better showcased the superiority of her contours: the smoothly flowing lines of her cheeks, the upward tilt of her eye corners, and the high bridge of her nose casting an elongated shadow.

After their eyes met, she was surprisingly calm and even smiled at him.

The flickering light danced in her eyes, sweet and lively. Her narrow eyes, when smiling, unexpectedly resembled a crescent moon, less seductive and more approachable.

Xuan Song’s slightly furrowed brows relaxed almost imperceptibly. Seeing her appearance, he couldn’t even bring himself to be angry, only gazing back at her with deep eyes.

The stream outside the cave dwelling flowed gurglingly. The clear moonlight spilled down from the sky like silver ink, staining the water in the stream, which shimmered like a shattered mirror.

Speckles of light, accompanied by the light of the artifact, diffused a soft glow in the cave dwelling, making Xuan Song’s face look gentler.

This moment of tranquility suddenly changed.

Gu Jingmo abruptly clutched her heart.

Thump

Thump thump

Her heart rate gradually slowed down, beating in extremely slow rhythm, yet each beat felt like a full-force strike from a Nascent Soul cultivator, making it unbearable for her.

If it were a normal fight, it might have been easier, but her current pain was internal and struck at her most vulnerable spot. She had no power to resist.

The spiritual power within her body began to become chaotic and rampaging. She was in unbearable pain all over. Initially, she could barely sit up by supporting herself with one hand, but later she simply fell to the ground.

Xuan Song was shocked to see her condition, immediately stood up, and walked toward Gu Jingmo, but she stopped him, “Don’t come over! It will hurt you.”

After saying that, even though she was in agonizing pain, she struggled to throw a barrier toward him, sealing him within it.

Soon, Xuan Song understood what Gu Jingmo meant by ‘it will hurt you’.

After losing control of her own spiritual power, she spontaneously combusted again, but this time the self-immolation was even more terrifying.

The entire cave dwelling was engulfed by tyrannical flames. This kind of dominant True Fire was savage and fierce, actually attacking the cave dwelling so much that it shook, stones rolled, and the stone walls cracked and shifted, producing a earth-shattering rumbling sound.

Fire attributed single spiritual root, the most dominant offensive spiritual root in the cultivation world.

Especially for someone with Gu Jingmo’s exceptional talent, it was even fiercer and more abnormal.

It was rumored that Gu Jingmo’s True Fire could be called mutated True Fire. Ordinary methods could not extinguish it, and its killing power was even stronger.

The horror of such an uncontrolled situation was imaginable.

Gu Jingmo, in the center of the fire, was obviously in extreme agony. Her expression gradually became ferocious, letting out uncontrolled low growls and moans. Her fingers grasped the stone on the ground, fiercely digging into the stone, leaving clear, concave marks, and then she forcibly crushed a piece of stone.

Xuan Song could tell that Gu Jingmo had lost her autonomous consciousness and was showing signs of Qigong Deviation.

Perhaps this was the “injury” Gu Jingmo was talking about.

He looked at her painful struggling state and couldn’t figure out what kind of injury would cause her such a condition. Could it be that Heavenly Venerable Xiuzhu’s prescription wasn’t meant to scatter her cultivation, but truly meant to save her?

Wasn’t Heavenly Venerable Xiuzhu killed by her? Why would he write a prescription to save her?

It was strange.

Strangely ridiculous.

Gu Jingmo concealed her cultivation, probably not just to hide her identity.

With her flamboyant and willful personality, she wasn’t afraid of having her identity known. She had sealed her own cultivation so that when her injury relapsed and went out of control, the energy released would only be at the Foundation Establishment stage, not the Soul Transformation stage.

If a Soul Transformation stage cultivation rampaged so uncontrollably, it would cause devastating damage that could destroy mountains and rivers. Innocent cultivators within a hundred-mile radius would be attacked until their souls were utterly annihilated.

Looking at Gu Jingmo’s injury relapse, he slowly raised his hand.

At this moment, Gu Jingmo had no autonomous consciousness and was fragile and vulnerable. If he made a move now, he could easily take her life.

However, looking at the barrier protecting him, he hesitated.

In the end, he only walked towards Gu Jingmo. After stepping out of the barrier, he was attacked by the vast sea of fire. His personal protective shield activated, and he strained to walk toward Gu Jingmo.

He hadn’t concealed his cultivation, but at the moment, he was merely a Puppet Technique of Xuan Song.

The Puppet Technique did not have Soul Transformation stage cultivation, only barely the Foundation Establishment stage cultivation. Getting so close to the rampaging Gu Jingmo was truly pushing it.

When Gu Jingmo first approached Qingyou Temple, he had sensed it. At that time, he came down the mountain just to see what Gu Jingmo was doing in the secluded part of Qingyou Temple.

A casual Puppet Technique, even one that could fool Gu Jingmo, was bound not to have very high cultivation, which now became an obstacle.

He struggled to get close to Gu Jingmo, pressed his palm to her forehead, and injected spiritual power into her body, trying his best to stabilize her chaotic spiritual power.

This was an extremely difficult process.

The chaotic rampage of Gu Jingmo’s spiritual power exceeded his imagination. His protective shield was completely destroyed. The scorching flames burned his robes and skin, as if thousands of hot irons were pressing on every part of his body.

He hesitated whether to Invoke Soul Into Body, allowing his main body to come and help, but then he noticed that Gu Jingmo seemed to have returned to her senses, looking at him with a bewildered gaze.

He gritted his silver teeth and held on, continuing to transmit spiritual power that could calm the soul and soothe the mind to Gu Jingmo, lest his identity be exposed.

There were still many things he hadn’t gotten answers to, so his identity could not be revealed.

The flames gradually subsided.

Gu Jingmo propped up her body, as if she wanted to say something to him, but she slowly closed her eyes and fell toward him.

He subconsciously reached out to catch her, but looking down, he saw that the magical robe on Gu Jingmo’s body was unable to withstand the attack of her rampaging flames. Some parts had been burned to ashes, scattering during the fall, like falling sawdust.

The specially refined magical robe also became fragile in the face of the powerful fire.

He looked down and could see the smooth skin on her back, glowing with a warm color under the illumination of the remaining flames in the cave dwelling, incredibly translucent.

He instantly felt inappropriate, took a step back, and at the same time let go of Gu Jingmo.

Gu Jingmo had already fainted. Without support, her body fell to the ground.

He quickly glanced again and then rapidly turned around.

Most of Gu Jingmo’s magical robe was intact, but a few areas exposed her skin, already damaged.

Men and women should not touch each other; naturally, he could not look.

He went to the entrance of the cave dwelling by himself, used spiritual power to adjust his Puppet Technique. The magical robe on his body recovered as before, only the areas burned by the fire were still throbbing with pain.

A Puppet Technique that could deceive Gu Jingmo was undoubtedly realistic. Forcibly helping Gu Jingmo heal in this way would cause him and his main body to suffer injuries.

It was not worth it.

He couldn’t understand.

At this moment, Xuan Song was lost in thought: Why did he save her?

If his kneeling disciples and grand-disciples at Qingyou Temple knew that he not only failed to kill Gu Jingmo after leaving the mountain but actually saved her, he wondered what those good-for-nothings would think.

Standing at the entrance of the cave dwelling for a long time, Huang Tao still hadn’t returned. Gu Jingmo was still lying there, so he could only turn around and walk back.

Using Earth attribute techniques, the misplaced mountains slowly returned to their original position, and the cracks vanished in an instant.

The chaotic situation inside the cave dwelling instantly returned to normal, even the stones crushed by Gu Jingmo were restored as before.

Next, it was time to deal with Gu Jingmo…

In the early morning.

There was still heavy fog in the forest. Huang Tao carried the corpse of the hunted spirit beast, traversing the mist shrouded jungle. When she reached the vicinity of the cave dwelling, she heard Gu Jingmo calling her, “Huang Tao! Huang Tao!”

She thought Gu Jingmo had come out to wait for her and happily ran over, only to see that Gu Jingmo had been buried in the dirt, with only her head exposed above the soil.

“Demon Venerable, what happened to you?” Huang Tao quickly dropped the things in her hands and ran toward Gu Jingmo.

“Don’t even mention it. My injury relapsed yesterday. When I opened my eyes today, I found myself buried here. My spiritual power is also completely exhausted, and I can’t do anything. I called Xuan Song, but he ignored me. I could only wait for you to come back.”

“I’ll dig you out right away.” Huang Tao used her spiritual power and a sword to dig the dirt. Unfortunately, her spiritual power was not high, and the quality of her sword was not up to par. It broke after a short while.

Huang Tao was anxious, afraid that Gu Jingmo would suffer in the dirt, so she simply formed a hand seal and transformed into the appearance of a yellow dog, her magical robe falling to the ground beside her.

In the form of a yellow dog, Huang Tao was half-covered by her clothes, using her two front paws to constantly dig the dirt. It was indeed faster than before.

Xuan Song sat cross-legged in the cave dwelling. The prayer mat was burned, so he could only sit on the bluestone slab.

Listening to the master and servant outside the cave dwelling digging and cursing, and thinking of Gu Jingmo’s exasperated look, the corners of his mouth unexpectedly turned up slightly, an uncontrollable smile.

It was a smile he hadn’t even noticed himself, and it was the first time he had smiled in who knows how many years…