Thriving after the Moon Falls (I Can’t Possibly Take Pity On A Demon) - Chapter 90
Chapter 90
Ever since Yan Chaosheng returned, no matter how wild the storms raged outside, the Ghost Realm had never been livelier.
Countless came groveling and fawning.
Yan Chaosheng had crawled back from a bottomless abyss, withstood eighty-one strikes of heavenly thunder, he was no longer the powerless demon who could be cornered and slaughtered like back then.
Su Lun had once refused to support him, precisely because he knew that the Yan Chaosheng of those days, despite his spiritual energy, was just a hot-blooded kid.
His temperament too raw and green.
Even if he followed him, the Demon Realm would never rise to greatness.
That was why he decided to take a gamble with his old friend Zhan Xueyang, hoping Yan Chaosheng would grow up.
Who would’ve thought that after dying once and coming back, he’d turn into someone even Su Lun couldn’t read.
Gone was that moody brat who used to sulk and throw fits over nothing.
Now, just a single lazy smile from him could send chills down your spine.
It made people feel like nothing could be hidden from those eyes.
A butterfly demon chattered away beside him, painting the skies with honeyed words.
He kept smiling patiently, listening with apparent grace but in his eyes, there was only cold indifference and contempt.
Su Lun only had to glance once to feel the weight in his chest.
Unlike Zhan Xueyang, Su Lun had never liked getting tangled up in the chaos of the Eight Wilderness.
This Lord of theirs, if he used to be a man of passion and loyalty, now he was pure steel, hard as nails and unflinching in his methods.
He hadn’t even rushed to “take revenge” on Liu Shuang.
If this were the old Yan Chaosheng, he would’ve flown to Liu Shuang’s side and wrung her neck the moment he had the chance.
But now? Yan Chaosheng acted like nothing had happened, like the woman hadn’t killed him once.
Su Lun figured that following someone this deep and calculating wasn’t going to get him any perks and more likely, he’d get himself buried along the way.
So one morning, he packed his things, planning to slip away without a word and return to the human world to loaf around like he used to.
But just as he crossed over the crest of Mount Qingcang, he spotted someone sitting at the cliff’s edge.
A long halberd stabbed into the stone wall beside him.
The man turned back with a smile.
“Lord Su Lun, where are you headed?”
Su Lun let out a dry chuckle and cursed in his heart: Damn, I’ve been cooped up too long in the Ghost Realm, figured I’d stretch my legs.
Yan Chaosheng said, “Perfect timing. I’m heading out too. Let’s go together.”
Su Lun: “…”
He stuffed his pack away and had no choice but to follow.
By the time they reached the borders of Kongsang, Su Lun’s heart skipped a beat.
Is this for revenge? But a personal vendetta with emotional entanglements like this… he shouldn’t have brought Su Lun along for that.
Besides, Chishui Liushuang wasn’t in Kongsang.
She was far away on the battlefield aiding Jimo Shaoyou.
Yan Chaosheng definitely knew that.
“What’s the Demon Lord planning to do?”
“Settle a score early,” Yan Chaosheng said.
They arrived at the spirit vein of Kongsang.
The thick spiritual energy surged like a waterfall, so abundant it cleared the mind and soothed the soul.
Deep in the woods, hidden among the trees, a woman was pounding against a barrier.
“Let me out! What right do you have to keep me locked up? To think you’re my father. What kind of father does this? You’re better off being a lapdog of the Chishui clan!”
She shouted for a while, then slumped to the ground, drained.
“Feng Fuming…”
Su Lun stared at her in shock.
Wasn’t that Chishui Liushuang? But then again, not quite.
The woman inside the barrier had a face nearly identical to Liu Shuang’s, at least eighty percent similar but her whole aura was completely different.
What the hell was going on? Why did the Demon Lord, who had been nourishing his soul for three years, come straight here?
Su Lun raised an eyebrow, curiosity piqued.
Yan Chaosheng stepped forward, and the barrier that Mi Chu had tried and failed to open countless times crumbled into dust at his fingertips.
Mi Chu’s face twisted with fear, backing away.
“Y-You—who are you? How dare you trespass into the forbidden land of Kongsang’s spiritual veins? Guards! Guards—!”
“Don’t bother,” Su Lun told her lazily.
“You’ll only be getting folks killed for nothing.”
Mi Chu’s face went pale.
As a cultivator raised as a proper immortal, her instincts were still sharp.
One look was all it took to know these two weren’t ordinary.
Neither was human, and neither was trying to hide it.
One radiated demonic energy, faint but unmistakable.
The other—pure ghostly aura, billowing like a storm.
She still wanted to scream for her father.
But the tall ghost cultivator had already wrapped his fingers around her throat.
His fingers were ice cold, so cold it made her heart seize up.
The ghost energy started seeping into her, and he just gripped her throat enough to choke off her voice.
She couldn’t make a sound.
She trembled all over.
She thought he was about to kill her but he didn’t.
He just stared at her face, eyes fixed.
Mi Chu bit her lip and clung to hope.
That slut’s face really is useful.
This half-dead creature actually froze up just looking at her.
That bought enough time for her father to show up.
Lou Xinzhu might’ve locked her up here, but he still doted on her and he wouldn’t leave her to die.
If she could just hold out a little longer, the guards would be alerted.
She’d be saved.
She was thinking too naively.
If the guards here really had what it takes, these two wouldn’t have gotten in so easily in the first place.
Yan Chaosheng’s gaze carried a smile, but it sent shivers down the spine and made one’s heart seize up.
“You don’t deserve that face. I’ve already let it slide once, acted like a beast once. This time, I won’t let her keep fretting over it.”
Mi Chu hadn’t even reacted yet when pain tore through her body, and her face throbbed with an even sharper agony.
She gasped, struggling with hoarse cries, but someone still forcefully crushed the Huayan Bead inside her.
As the bead shattered, her stunning beauty seemed to shed its false mask, reverting back to her original face.
And the man didn’t seem to want her life, after destroying the bead, he released her and let her collapse onto the ground.
Mi Chu realized what had happened and broke down in an instant.
“My face—give it back! Give it back!”
She lunged forward, tears and snot flowing down her face.
The bead was gone! She could no longer do what she had planned.
Replacing Chishui Liushuang had always been her inner demon from long ago.
Chishui Liushuang’s father was the realm lord, but her own father was just a rigid, old-fashioned keeper of the spiritual veins.
Chishui Liushuang was loved by millions, while she grew up under someone else’s roof.
Chishui Liushuang had unmatched beauty, while she was merely plain and decent.
Even when it came to marriage, Chishui Liushuang’s suitors were either Kunlun’s dazzling young master or that high-and-mighty Lord from the Heavenly Palace.
Mi Chu hated it to the bone.
She was obviously smart and hardworking, so why did she always come up short next to her?
Three years ago, her secret affair with Feng Fuming hadn’t been as foolproof as she thought.
Before Chishui Chong could catch on, Lou Xinzhu gritted his teeth and dragged his daughter to the spiritual vein, hoping to teach her properly and set her mind right.
Mi Chu knew she couldn’t win against her rigid father, so she quickly agreed to go.
But the night before they left, she snuck off to the Bai clan’s immortal estate and tricked Bai Yuxiao into coming out.
Back then, his face was frosty.
“What else does the immortal lady want to say? Spit it out.”
After all, they’d grown up together, and Mi Chu hadn’t done anything outright back then.
She cried like a pitiful pear blossom in the rain, her eyes red and full of remorse.
Her sobs eventually melted some of Bai Yuxiao’s coldness.
In the end, Mi Chu told him,“My father’s taking me away tomorrow. I was blinded before and did a lot of things that let you down. When the young master passed, I didn’t think about your feelings either. I’m sorry. From now on, I’ll stay in the Southern spiritual vein to cultivate in peace. I’ll never return to Kongsang. Please tell Liushuang… Sister Mi Chu is sorry.”
Bai Yuxiao pursed his lips and wiped away her tears.
In his younger days, there had once been a place in his heart for this girl.
Now, with time having passed and everyone he remembered slowly fading away, Bai Yuxiao couldn’t help but feel a little sentimental.
That was when Mi Chu asked for the Huayan bead, saying she had once messed with Feng Fuming, but from now on, she wanted to start fresh and live a proper life.
Men often can’t see through the jealousy that takes root in a woman’s heart.
After a moment’s hesitation, Bai Yuxiao thought, It’s just a bead, not some priceless treasure—my brother and Liushuang didn’t even want it anymore.
So he casually gave it to her.
Mi Chu followed her father to the spiritual vein, then instantly transformed into Chishui Liushuang’s face.
When Clan Leader Lou saw this, how could he not understand?
His daughter wasn’t “repenting” and she was still clinging to her delusions!
To stop her from falling further, he locked her up at the Southern spiritual vein and she’s been imprisoned ever since.
Three years.
Feng Fuming was busy conquering the Eight Wilderness and didn’t have time for her.
She stayed locked away until today, when Yan Chaosheng and Su Lun showed up.
Now that the dream was shattered, Mi Chu hated the man in front of her with every fiber of her being.
But that man no longer looked at her.
Instead, his gaze shifted to the man behind her, Lou Xinzhu.
Lou Xinzhu helped her up.
“Mi Chu, are you alright?”
When he saw that her face had changed, Lou Xinzhu’s expression also darkened.
He looked at the visitor and said:
“Your power pierces the heavens. Are you here today to take the lives of Southern’s guardians?”
Lou Xinzhu wasn’t like Mi Chu with her shallow cultivation and he could tell at a glance that even if all of Southern’s immortal soldiers charged at once, they still wouldn’t be able to lay a finger on this man.
A bead that could only be melted down by the Shennong Cauldron, he crushed it with his bare hands.
Just what kind of terrifying power was that?
Yet the man looked at him with a complicated expression.
“I didn’t come to kill. I came to settle a karmic debt.”
Yan Chaosheng drew out a thread of spiritual vein from his body and offered it to Lou Xinzhu.
“Ancient-bloodline spiritual vein. From this moment, the karma between us is cleared. Clan Leader Lou, take care.”
With that said, Yan Chaosheng didn’t dally. He turned and left Southern spiritual vein with Su Lun.
Lou Xinzhu stared blankly at the spiritual vein in the air, so full of power it was almost frightening.
He chased forward several steps before it finally clicked where he had seen this man before.
Wasn’t this the very same Yan Chaosheng of the demon clan who had been executed in the main hall three years ago?
Mi Chu lifted her head, staring at that thread of spiritual vein.
Clan Leader Lou sighed, put the vein away, but didn’t hand it to her.
Something like that…who knows if absorbing it would be a blessing or a curse? This person’s background was unclear.
Even if his daughter wanted it, he couldn’t really give it to her.
Wouldn’t it be better to live peacefully and keep one’s head down?
His health was deteriorating day by day, the price of guarding the spiritual veins.
Sooner or later, he would pass on.
Mi Chu was his only daughter.
He would make sure she was settled properly.
There was no need for her to stoop so low and scheme her way down a dirty path.
—
Clan Leader Lou… or rather, perhaps Yan Chaosheng ought to call him “Master.”
Back before the Demon Lord had awakened, when he was young and cultivating in Kongsang, he suffered humiliation after humiliation, barely scraping through countless brushes with death.
The one sliver of hope he had back then came from Lou Xinzhu, who returned from guarding the spiritual veins and, with great foresight, brought him into the immortal sect.
The kindness couldn’t be overstated.
The royal clan of Xiangliu had many flaws, cold-heartedness, stubborn pride but they knew how to employ people well, were strict in reward and punishment, and never forgot a great debt.
In the Demon Lord Yan Chaosheng’s memories, things had played out entirely differently.
Back then, when he entered Kongsang, Liu Shuang was already dead.
There was no such “Young Miss” of Kongsang, only the ever-adored Immortal Mi Chu.
Clan Leader Lou had shown him much kindness, and even wished to betroth his daughter to him.
Yan Chaosheng hadn’t agreed or disagreed, but Mi Chu resisted with everything she had.
Lou Xinzhu was left with no options and made one final request: if he passed one day, please let his daughter Mi Chu live.
Yan Chaosheng took it to heart.
Later, when Mi Chu said she wished to be by his side, he brought her back with him and so the story unfolded: the tale of Liu Shuang severing their soul connection.
He let her misunderstand, watched coldly as she walked away.
Years ago, that delicate, crying girl had nearly broken her heart, thinking her husband loved someone else and treated her as a stand-in.
Little did she know that from the start, his motives had been twisted.
He’d deliberately fallen into the Canglan.
Later, a silly and adorable little girl came to find him, insisting she had to repay a debt of gratitude.
He raised his eyes to look at her and saw a pure and devastatingly beautiful face.
So beautiful, so endearing, like the morning clouds glowing with life.
He thought to himself, he had been fellow disciples with Mi Chu for years, yet never once had he felt this way about her.
So pretty and so stupid.
People of the Xiangliu royal clan were cold by nature and they wouldn’t be moved just by a lovely little thing.
But Yan Chaosheng thought, before cutting out her heart, coaxing her first wouldn’t be a bad idea.
Maybe she’d obediently agree to refine her Huiling heart willingly, it would save him a lot of effort and help revive his clan.
Back then, Yan Chaosheng had long since stepped into the mortal world.
When he met her, he was covered in mud.
He never thought of his actions as something he’d need to pay for.
So he asked, “What’s your name? Where are you from, little immortal?”
With firm and ringing clarity, she replied, “Reporting to my lord! I’m Liu Shuang, a immortal herb of the Canglan, and I’ve just turned one hundred! I’m ready to serve the Demon Lord at any time!”
He didn’t know why, but he just wanted to laugh.
So he really did laugh.
She threw herself into the net, so silly it was almost painful.
Until many years later, when Yan Chaosheng was struck by heavenly thunder, his soul nearly shattered and scattered.
Even then, like a vengeful ghost, he still clawed his way to find her and only then did he realize, he’d been wrong from the very start.
Even if he had been despicable enough to cut out her heart with his own hands, he still shouldn’t have overestimated himself and dared to taste what love felt like.
He once drowned in boundless splendor, only to spend the next ten thousand years in utter loneliness, sitting alone atop a mountain peak, everything he laid eyes on was nothing but torment.
Even if he had no right, even if it meant defying fate and going against the Heavenly Will only to be struck into ashes, he still went mad longing to see her again.
Meeting a scumbag, he thought with downcast eyes—too bad, just her luck.
