Tempting The God - Chapter 3
Chapter 3: Injured
Since that day, Luyi no longer kept a tight watch on Shen Jixue as she had before, nor did she restrict her from entering or leaving Songhe Court.
Instead, it seemed as though she couldn’t be bothered to care about her anymore.
Shen Jixue’s routine consisted of rising early to heat water and heading out to collect plum blossom snowmelt water for Lin Mozhi.
She didn’t care how Lin Mozhi treated the snowmelt water she delivered daily, nor did she hope to touch his heart through persistence.
She simply sought an excuse for an opportunity.
Suspicious people don’t even dare to accept others’ kindness without reservation.
Shen Jixue sneered internally but kept working, shaking the plum tree once more.
“How dare you!”
A servant girl suddenly rushed out from behind and yanked Shen Jixue to the ground.
The porcelain jar, nearly filled with snow, fell and landed softly on the snow without breaking.
Hurriedly, Shen Jixue reached out to pick it up, but the servant was quicker, snatching it and handing it to her mistress.
Looking up, Shen Jixue saw a striking figure dressed in a red cape with golden crane embroidery.
The luxurious attire made the already stunning visage even more dazzling.
Before she could get a good look, the servant girl who had pulled her scolded, “You lowly maid, what are you staring at the Second Miss for?”
“She… Second Miss took my jar,” Shen Jixue stammered timidly.
“Please give it back to me.”
Lin Moyu burst into laughter as if she had heard the funniest joke in the world.
Her melodious voice was laced with venom.
“Why don’t you tell me, is there anything in this household that truly belongs to you? Even you were sold to us by your parents, nothing more than a discarded daughter.”
“That’s not true!”
Shen Jixue suddenly straightened up, her eyes filled with tears but unwavering.
“My parents said they’d come back for me!”
Lin Moyu’s cruel smile deepened, her joy evident in hitting Shen Jixue’s sore spot.
“A mere servant dares to talk back? Feicui, slap her.”
Feicui obeyed immediately.
She signaled to two older maids, who held Shen Jixue down as Feicui swung her arm, delivering more than a dozen heavy slaps until Lin Moyu called her to stop.
Shen Jixue knelt on the snow, her hands barely supporting her body from collapsing entirely.
Bound by a mortal frame, the dozen strikes left her ears ringing and her cheeks burning as if on fire.
Blood slowly seeped from the corner of her lips, dripping onto the pristine snow, stark and piercing.
It had been so long—so very long—since she had seen her own blood.
Shen Jixue lowered her gaze, concealing the fleeting crimson glint in her eyes.
“Do you still want this jar?”
Lin Moyu dangled the porcelain jar in front of her, shaking it with a mocking grin.
Shen Jixue stared at the jar in Lin Moyu’s hand for a long moment before tentatively reaching for it.
Seeing this, Lin Moyu exclaimed with amusement, “You really want it, don’t you?”
With mischief in her heart, she repeatedly withdrew the jar whenever Shen Jixue’s hand was about to touch it, forcing her to crawl on the snowy ground.
Bored after a while, Lin Moyu pondered briefly and said, “How about this: tell me why you’re collecting snowmelt water from the plum blossom tree, and I’ll return the jar to you. What do you say?”
“How… does that matter?”
Shen Jixue’s swollen face distorted her speech, but when Lin Moyu nodded in agreement, her eyes lit up as she tried her best to explain, “For… for the y-young master’s eyes…”
“What did she say?”
Lin Moyu frowned and glanced at Feicui.
“She likely meant ‘to treat the young master’s eyes,’” Feicui replied after some thought.
Lin Moyu raised an eyebrow.
She stood up slowly and gazed down at Shen Jixue, who knelt in the snow.
Her tone carried layers of meaning as she said, “How touching, the loyalty between master and servant. Don’t you think so, Feicui?”
Feicui merely chuckled along in agreement, bowing without adding a word.
“If I don’t grant this wish, I’d seem like the villain,” Lin Moyu mused, placing the jar on the snow a short distance away.
She tapped the jar with her toe, her tone calm.
“The jar is here. Come and take it.”
Shen Jixue fixed her gaze on the porcelain jar not far away.
She crawled two steps forward in the snow and extended her hand—
Just as she was about to reach it, the delicate shoe in front of her suddenly kicked the jar with force.
Stunned, she instinctively followed its trajectory.
The porcelain jar collided with the trunk of a plum blossom tree and shattered with a crisp crack, spilling its fragrant snowmelt water onto the ground, mingling irretrievably with the dirty snow.
Before Shen Jixue could withdraw her hand, it was crushed under the heel of that embroidered shoe, which twisted maliciously.
Her hand, already swollen from collecting snow, sank into the icy ground, a sharp coldness and pain piercing her nerves.
Shen Jixue cried out, trying to pry Lin Moyu’s foot away.
“Feicui!”
At the command, the wet nurse and the maids sprang into action.
Feicui waved her hand, and they rushed forward to restrain Shen Jixue.
A handkerchief was stuffed into her mouth, silencing her cries and screams, trapping all her anguish in her throat.
Only after Lin Moyu had vented her anger did they let go of Shen Jixue, who had already collapsed onto the snowy ground, limp and nearly unconscious, unable to resist.
The hand that had been trampled and twisted repeatedly was now covered in blood, with only her fingers twitching slightly, a silent testament to the excruciating pain that pierced through her entire being.
Lin Moyu cast a glance at the blood-stained snow surrounding the injured hand, a satisfied look flickering in her eyes.
She took out a handkerchief to conceal her smirk and chuckled lightly, “Let’s go.”
The group responded, “Yes, Miss.”
Feicui lingered a step behind, casting a smug glance at the motionless Shen Jixue, a strange excitement rising in her heart.
She deliberately stepped on that injured hand, pressing down hard until she heard a muffled groan of pain that pleased her.
Mimicking Lin Moyu’s gesture, she covered her lips with a handkerchief, as though she too were one of the high and mighty mistresses of the Lin family.
“Feicui, hurry up,” Lin Moyu called gently, her voice as soft as if she were truly kindhearted.
“My shoes are dirty now. Throw them away when we return.”
Shen Jixue heard Feicui quicken her pace to catch up with Lin Moyu, raising her voice to ask, “Miss, why didn’t you use spell? Why dirty your new embroidered shoes?”
Lin Moyu let out a light snort.
“Father said cultivators mustn’t use spell on mortals. If word got out, it could ruin my chances of entering the Xuanxiao Sect.”
As their footsteps faded into the distance, Shen Jixue lay gasping on the snowy ground for a while before propping herself up with one arm.
Catching sight of a figure following her at a calculated distance, she scoffed inwardly.
Lin Mozhi truly cared for her, didn’t he?
Whether it was Lin Moyu or Lin Mozhi, beneath their beautiful or gentle facades lay the hearts of demons.
A crooked beam corrupts the rafters below.
That unseen Lin family patriarch must be no better.
Such is the hypocrisy of humankind.
Shen Jixue staggered to her feet and leaned against a veranda post, slowly making her way toward Songhe Courtyard.
Her once clear, bright eyes now burned red, tears streaming down her swollen cheeks.
Her hand, bloodied and trembling, seemed to cry out in pain with every movement, yet she stifled her sobs, not daring to make a sound—a pitiful sight.
She glanced casually at the shadow hidden behind a veranda post, her face feigning helplessness while her mind raced with calculations.
Lin Moyu was the eldest child of the family head and his current wife.
She had been identified early on as having a heavenly-grade fire spiritual root and had become the darling of the household.
Now, barely past her coming-of-age ceremony, she was already at the Foundation Establishment stage.
What a pity.
Were it not for the fact that using demonic energy to kill would leave traces of demonic energy on the corpse, drawing the so-called righteous sects of the cultivation world to hunt her down, killing Lin Moyu would be as easy as crushing an ant.
But now, trapped in a mortal body with no cultivation, she might manage to counter-kill a Qi Refining cultivator, but against a Foundation Establishment cultivator, even risking her life would amount to nothing.
When Shen Jixue returned injured, the courtyard was empty.
Lin Mozhi’s room remained closed, and Luyi was likely inside attending to him.
In no mood to exchange pleasantries, Shen Jixue, her mind surging with murderous intent, walked straight into her small room and shut the door.
In winter, the kang bed cooled quickly, but fortunately, the fire in the stove was still burning.
She added a few sticks of wood, wrapped herself in her clothes, and lay down.
(T/N: A kang is a traditional heated platform used for sleeping, living, working, and entertaining in northern China.)
Her injured hand accidentally bumped the edge of the bed, causing her to frown slightly.
But compared to the deep, bone-revealing wounds she had suffered in the Abyss of Ten Thousand Demons, this minor injury was nothing.
Born with demonic bones and impervious to heart demons, her master had declared upon their first meeting that she was destined to walk the Dao of Killing.
For such practitioners, all things in the world could be slain, and none would trouble their minds.
Her master had personally thrown her into the Abyss of Ten Thousand Demons—a forbidden zone teeming with evil demons.
If she survived and walked out, her mastery of the Dao of Killing would be complete.
Back then, she was merely a teenager, barely three years into cultivating the dao’s techniques.
The abyss, filled with demons driven mad by heart demons, was a deadly environment for anyone but her—a perfect training ground.
Initially, she could not defeat those demons.
Hiding was nearly impossible among the skeletal rocks, where danger could emerge from any shadow.
Her body was constantly battered, covered in blood day after day.
But eventually, she learned to identify weaker demons, picking them off first.
Over time, the number of demons she could kill grew, and her cultivation soared.
When no demon in the abyss could challenge her, she emerged victorious, her mastery forged in a sea of corpses and blood.
“Creaaak—”
The sound of the old door opening broke her reverie.
The intruder closed the door behind them, shutting out the cold, and approached lightly, stopping three steps away from the bed.
Judging by the footsteps, it was Luyi.
Shen Jixue, lying with her back to the door, simply closed her eyes, pretending to sleep, unwilling to engage.
Seeing her “asleep,” Luyi did not disturb her but instead rummaged quietly before placing something on the small table near the bed with a soft “click.”
Without further action, Luyi stood silently for a moment.
Shen Jixue felt her gaze lingering on her injured hand and arched a brow slightly.
After a long pause, Luyi finally turned and left.
When the door creaked shut again, the room fell silent once more.
Shen Jixue turned her head slightly, glancing at the small porcelain bottle on the table.
Without even checking, she knew who had sent it.
Clearly, Xu Chang had reported today’s events to Lin Mozhi.
At their first meeting, he had professed care and concern for her.
Yet now, as this “little maid” was bullied to the brink of ruin, all he could offer was a bottle of medicine.
Shen Jixue scoffed, ignoring the bottle as she lay back down, staring blankly at the drab roof beams above.
Darkness fell, but she made no move to light a lamp.
Instead, she raised her hand, blood now dried and crusted, studying it intently.
It had been a long time since she’d been injured.
Pain felt unfamiliar.
Suddenly, a soft, melodious voice filled the room.
“Why do you put yourself through this?”
The voice, though clear, carried an imperceptible allure, so captivating that one might yearn to see the face behind it.
“What are you doing here?”
Shen Jixue frowned, her gaze sharp and unaffected.
Ripples shimmered in the air, revealing a figure.
The tip of a pinkish-lotus shoe stepped forward, followed by a delicate fragrance.
The figure was a beauty of unmatched allure, her every glance and movement exuding an intoxicating charm.
Compared to her, the stunning Lin Moyu seemed nothing more than an immature girl.
To behold her was to see embodiment of seduction itself.
But her companion seemed unmoved.
Shen Jixue, gazing down at the enchanting woman sprawled in her arms, said coolly, “Elder sister, what are you doing? I’m still young. I don’t understand such things.”
“You called me elder sister?!”
Fu Xingren’s expression twisted as she pinched Shen Jixue’s cheek.
“You’re hundreds of years older than me, Lord Sovereign!”
“So you still recognize me as the Sovereign.”
Shen Jixue brushed her hand aside.
If not for her sealed powers, this woman wouldn’t have touched her so easily.
“What news from the Demon Realm?”
Fu Xingren blinked innocently.
“Nothing of note.”
Shen Jixue’s gaze turned icy.
“If there’s nothing, why enter the mortal world without permission?”
With tension mounting between the divine and demon realms, any misstep could invite a celestial army to descend, bringing ruin to the Demon Realm.
A scene from the Hongmeng Mirror flashed through her mind.
Her voice softened, carrying lethal intent as she loomed over Fu Xingren with commanding presence.
“Are you trying to bring down your Hehuan Sect?”
