novelraw Chapter 90 : You Can Only Be the Little One
Chapter 90 : You Can Only Be the Little One
Chapter 90: You Can Only Be the Little One
“Wait, take me with you, wait for me!”
Mei Zhao Zhao almost fell as she tugged at Lu Changyuan’s robe. “I don’t want to die.”
Before the great gate, the black-robed woman clutched Lu Changyuan’s arm tightly, refusing to let him leave.
Lu Changyuan sighed helplessly. “Miss Mei, men and women should maintain their distance.”
“You’re definitely strong. You killed that demon from the Glazed Dynasty back then. Go! Kill him! I want to go home!”
“Me? Kill him?”
Lu Changyuan looked up at the throne already formed in the sky. Xiao Qingfeng stood upon it, blocking the Nether River behind him with one hand.
“At this point, aren’t you all on the same side?”
This was the Nether Kingdom. Even if he encountered someone from the Dawning Sun Stage, Lu Changyuan could still think of a way—find a few spirits and rush forward together to kill the opponent.
But Xiao Qingfeng had plotted for hundreds of years. Now the great momentum was in his favor, and he had already reached the Half-step Jade Radiance Stage.
How could he fight that?
Half-step Jade Radiance meant he was already close to the Jade Radiance Stage—it wasn’t just the Dawning Sun, but one who grasped the laws themselves.
Moreover, this was still the Nether Kingdom. Lu Changyuan couldn’t even borrow another sword from Sword Solitary Sun.
Mei Zhao Zhao shook her head wildly like a rattle drum. “No! Look at him! Does he look like someone on my side? I just knew that slut in red had no good intentions. Giving me this mission was just to send me to my death.”
Lu Changyuan felt a headache coming on.
This demoness from the Pleasure Sect had a body so soft it was almost boneless. The faint fragrance of her young body constantly invaded his senses. Even though he couldn’t see her face, he still felt his mind wandering.
“I say, Miss Mei, we… aren’t that familiar, are we?”
“Nonsense. I gave you a cultivation technique. Doesn’t that make us friends?”
Lu Changyuan sighed. “Your master’s name is Bu Bailian, isn’t it?”
“How do you know?”
“You’re just like her—a ghostly one.”
Mei Zhao Zhao immediately latched onto his words. “So, you know my master?”
Lu Changyuan really did.
Bu Bailian had been the last disciple taken by the Pleasure Sect’s master after the sect’s restructuring. If he remembered correctly, she later became the Pleasure Sect’s master herself.
“Save me! Wuu!”
Lu Changyuan smacked her on the head. “Speak properly.”
Quite springy.
Only then did Mei Zhao Zhao straighten herself and suddenly change her tone. “I only think that Young Lord Lu is quite powerful. Look, I’m but a weak woman with no abilities. I just want to survive—so of course I have to depend on a strong man like you, Young Lord Lu.”
All that happened in just moments.
This Mei Zhao Zhao could shift her tone and persona instantly, transforming from a naïve fool to a cunning demoness who knew the situation well.
That was what the demonesses of the Pleasure Sect were like.
One could never know their true nature.
Lu Changyuan said nothing, turning his gaze toward Xiao Qingfeng in the heavens. For a moment, he even felt some admiration.
That man had already succeeded halfway.
He didn’t know what Xiao Qingfeng had done before, but now, what Xiao Qingfeng was doing was perfectly clear.
It was, in fact, quite simple.
He was stripping the Nether Lord of his authority and his kingdom. Once Xiao Qingfeng killed all the old ministers of the Nether Kingdom, the Nether Lord’s citizens within this city would all vanish.
A king without citizens was unfit to be king. When that time came, Xiao Qingfeng would complete his act of stealing heaven’s order—turning the Nether Kingdom’s people into his own. Naturally, the kingdom would become his as well.
He had already achieved a reversal between life and death.
Now he only lacked his Dao foundation.
Once he fully controlled the Nether Kingdom—devouring the remnants left by the Nether Lord—he could use it to prove his Dao and ascend to Jade Radiance.
In other words, Xiao Qingfeng was already at the Half-step Jade Radiance Stage.
【You are about to die】
Oh.
So I’m fated to die in Xiao Qingfeng’s hands, huh.
Lu Changyuan ground his teeth. “Why didn’t anyone mention Xiao Qingfeng was here from the start?”
As the killing intent around them grew thicker, dark figures began emerging one by one from the shadows.
Mei Zhao Zhao panicked. “Run!”
Seeing her dart out of the room, Lu Changyuan paused and frowned. “Why are you fine walking out into the night?”
Mei Zhao Zhao glanced at herself, then up at the sky. “Maybe he’s changed the Nether Kingdom’s laws.”
There was no time to think further. From within the fog, black spirits charged at them.
Unlike the true spirits with distinct appearances, these black spirits—born from Xiao Qingfeng’s will—were faceless, like executioners in the dark.
An axe came crashing down, slashing straight toward Mei Zhao Zhao’s face.
“I told you! He wants to kill me!”
Though her voice was soft and aggrieved, the strength in her hands was anything but. A flash of black light cut through the air, and the spirit before her shattered into mist.
The Pleasure Sect’s demonesses might be tender in words, but once they fought, they were ruthless to the extreme.
Lu Changyuan couldn’t see her face hidden beneath the black cloth, but judging by the cold and merciless aura surging from her, he could imagine it was stern and composed—just like her master, who spoke in a honeyed voice only to strike and kill a moment later.
Oh.
Her grandmaster had been the same.
Mei Zhao Zhao slew three or four of the black spirits in succession. “This won’t do. Think of something quickly.”
Killing these spirits was useless.
As long as Xiao Qingfeng lived, he could endlessly create more black spirits through the Sun-Moon Sundial and the Nether River.
Mei Zhao Zhao looked to the distance. “Where’s the Nether Kingdom’s exit?!”
“It won’t appear anymore.”
The Nether Kingdom’s exit should have appeared when the Nether River did. But now that the river’s flow was blocked, the exit would not manifest.
“Then what do we do?”
Lu Changyuan actually knew of another way out.
Walking the Death Path could also lead one out of the Nether Kingdom.
When he had stolen the Three-Life Fruit years ago, he’d been trapped by the disciples of a great sect and forced to hide in the Nether Kingdom for a hundred years before finally escaping through that path.
But the Death Path lay beneath the royal palace. And Xiao Qingfeng, standing upon his throne, was watching over that very place. The Nether Lord’s laws lingering there were also a valuable nourishment for him.
They couldn’t possibly walk up to the palace right before Xiao Qingfeng’s eyes, open the Death Path, and stroll in.
And besides—was the Death Path even easy to cross?
Without the Supreme Pure-Spirit Forget-Immortal Technique, and without the strength of the Sixth Realm, Dawning Sun, Lu Changyuan doubted he could make it through this time.
From the streets came the screams of the dying.
The black spirits were slaughtering people.
No—
Not just cultivators. Even the Nether Kingdom’s original spirits were perishing.
Because the Ghost Gate had opened, the spirits who had temporarily regained color and resembled their living selves had little time to rejoice before being cut down by the black spirits’ axes.
What was even more terrifying—those slain spirits melted into the ground and soon rose again, transformed into black spirits themselves.
Lu Changyuan said coldly, “Let’s go.”
“Where?”
“My home.”
Mei Zhao Zhao blinked in confusion. “Your home?!”
Lu Changyuan couldn’t be bothered to explain. Since she was the descendant of an old acquaintance, he simply grabbed her and sped away—crossing from West City through the thick fog until they reached East City.
It wasn’t long before the houses of East City came into view.
Lu Changyuan opened the door directly and brought Mei Zhao Zhao inside.
What greeted him was a voice:
“Young Master Lu, you’ve returned home—and brought another woman with you?”
The silver-haired girl leaned weakly against the courtyard wall, blood staining the corner of her lips as she looked at him.
Lu Changyuan frowned and asked, “What happened?”
“There was a spirit that disguised itself as you and tried to deceive me. I fought it a few rounds, but then I was struck by backlash from that man in the sky.”
Su Youwan added, “What’s happening outside?”
“Xiao Qingfeng is trying to seize control of the Nether Kingdom to prove his Dao and ascend to Jade Radiance,” Mei Zhao Zhao said. “He also intends to kill everyone. None of the cultivators who entered the Nether Kingdom this time can escape.”
Ever since Xiao Qingfeng used the Sun-Moon Sundial to perform the Stealing the Heavens and Swapping the Sun technique, everyone within the Nether Kingdom had been divided into two categories.
One kind was of the old dynasty—citizens of the Nether Lord. When a new dynasty rose, those of the old one had to die.
The other kind was his citizens—the new dynasty’s subjects.
But to become one of his citizens, one must first die, and then be reborn as a spirit created by him.
So—
No one could truly remain alive.
Su Youwan ignored Mei Zhao Zhao and looked instead at Lu Changyuan.
“What do you think?”
Lu Changyuan shook his head. “Whether he succeeds or not, he has already touched the threshold of Jade Radiance. He already commands the Law of Jade Radiance, though he lacks the foundation of its Dao. He’s difficult to deal with.”
He turned again. “But before he seizes control of the Nether Lord’s city and authority, he likely can’t disobey the Nether Lord’s decrees.”
Su Youwan took two small steps forward and extended her fair hand. “My silk handkerchief.”
Lu Changyuan finally realized and took it out from his robe, handing it back to her. The girl accepted it, wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth, and said, “What Nether Lord’s decrees?”
Su Youwan was beautiful to begin with. Now, wounded, she looked even more fragile and pitiful. The strands of her silver-white hair were streaked with red, giving her an air of exquisite brokenness.
Lu Changyuan brushed a hand over Severed Thought and said, “Without invitation, one may not trespass into a spirit’s dwelling.”
That was another rule of the Nether Kingdom.
That was why the cultivator named Li Lang, who had barged into a spirit’s home uninvited, had been swallowed whole, dying without a trace.
And that Fourth Realm cultivator had been clever enough to knock first, offering his own blood to rent the house temporarily.
Su Youwan retied her hair, thinking to herself that the false Lu Changyuan from before had also knocked on the door, and had only entered after she said, “Come in.”
When the golden skeleton saw her struck back into the house, it hadn’t pursued further—perhaps for that very reason.
Xiao Qingfeng, for now, could not yet change the Nether Kingdom’s laws.
Mei Zhao Zhao looked at the calm faces of both Lu Changyuan and Su Youwan and wondered—did these two really have a way out?
So she asked, “Then… Xiao Qingfeng can’t seize the Nether Lord’s authority?”
Lu Changyuan turned his head and said with certainty, “No. He’s very likely to succeed.”
Once Xiao Qingfeng completely absorbed the Nether Kingdom, he could rewrite its laws and abolish the Nether Lord’s decrees. When that happened, even staying inside a house would no longer be safe.
The real question was—
How long would it take before Xiao Qingfeng fully mastered the Nether Kingdom?
Mei Zhao Zhao muttered, “Then what do we do now? Just sit here and wait to die?”
Su Youwan looked at Lu Changyuan. Mei Zhao Zhao looked at him too.
One was blindfolded, the other shrouded head to toe in a black robe—neither showed their eyes.
Lu Changyuan couldn’t help but wonder if all female cultivators had something peculiar about them.
Mei Zhao Zhao’s voice turned soft and coaxing. “Young Lord Lu, hurry and think of something, say something!”
Su Youwan found her noisy.
Chirping and chattering—
Like a little bird.
Lu Changyuan sighed. “There are two ways. The first—while Xiao Qingfeng hasn’t yet completely mastered the Nether Kingdom, I can take you both through the Death Path to leave. But to be honest, that’s nearly impossible. Xiao Qingfeng is right at the palace gates, absorbing the remnants of the Nether Lord’s Dao. There’s no way we can just stroll past him.”
Mei Zhao Zhao lifted her hand, two pale, slender fingers curving delicately—no red dye painted on them, yet they seemed to carry some bewitching charm that made one’s heart itch. “And the second way?”
“Find the Nether Lord.”
If the Nether Lord returned, Xiao Qingfeng could never seize the kingdom.
How could a thief overpower the true master of the house?
Lu Changyuan sighed again. “The Nether Lord surely isn’t dead—but I don’t know her current state.”
Reincarnation was an uncertain matter. At least, Lu Changyuan had never met anyone who’d truly reincarnated.
At most, there were cases of possession or a lingering thought walking the Red Dust once more.
None of those had truly died—just like Xia Lianxue. She had even become an infant, but was that true reincarnation?
Of course not.
Lu Changyuan continued, “We have to find a way to call her back.”
Mei Zhao Zhao was utterly lost, but she understood one thing—she was most likely going to die here today.
She said miserably, “The Nether Kingdom has existed for three thousand years, and the Nether Lord has never returned. Doesn’t that mean we’re all going to die here today?”
The silver-haired girl spoke softly, “To live and sleep together, to die and share the same grave—also not bad. Young Master Lu, shall Youwan and you marry first?”
What?
Lu Changyuan had been thinking about where to find the Nether Lord, but that sentence caught him off guard. He looked up at Su Youwan.
The silver-haired girl’s eyes were covered, but her tone was utterly serious.
“Youwan wasn’t joking.”
“Let’s talk about that after we survive.”
“Alright.”
Mei Zhao Zhao was utterly dumbfounded. She couldn’t keep up. Even the most open-minded demonesses of the Pleasure Sect wouldn’t suggest marriage and a bridal chamber at a time like this.
Who was the real demoness here—the Pleasure Sect’s Mei Zhao Zhao or this silver-haired little Daoist nun?
Mei Zhao Zhao blurted, “You… you two?!”
Su Youwan replied calmly, her voice ethereal, “You wish to marry too? Dying as a virgin—surely that’s shameful for one of your Pleasure Sect, isn’t it? Hmm, since you came after me, you can only be the little one.”
That was indeed true.
Even for a sect focused on balancing yin and yang through the suppression of desire, dying as a virgin was disgraceful.
Mei Zhao Zhao gritted her teeth. “I’ve no intention of fighting Cihang Palace’s Little Ancestor over a man.”
The silver-haired girl’s face remained blank, but her words startled everyone. “He isn’t my man.”
“Then whose man is he?”
“Xia Lianxue’s.”
Only then did Mei Zhao Zhao recall Xia Lianxue and exclaimed, “Marvelous, truly marvelous—the fairy from Cihang Palace is even more seductive than I am.”
Lu Changyuan said helplessly, “Your Highness, please stop with such jokes. And you too—if either of you keep teasing, I’ll throw you both out.”
Su Youwan tilted her little head in confusion—rather adorably.
But she said nothing.
Mei Zhao Zhao took a deep breath, unable to comprehend. “How can you both be so calm? Isn’t this a life-and-death situation?”
Su Youwan and Lu Changyuan spoke almost at the same time.
Lu Changyuan said, “The greater the crisis, the calmer one must be. Otherwise, death comes faster.”
The silver-haired girl said, “My master once said, when facing great peril, one must remain tranquil. Even if you’re to die, die calmly. Only then, in that final moment, might you still find a chance to live.”
Mei Zhao Zhao found the two of them very much alike, while Lu Changyuan thought Su Youwan’s words sounded strangely familiar.
Su Youwan added lightly, “If you must die, would you rather die calmly and with dignity—or die panicked and miserable?”
With those words, Mei Zhao Zhao, oddly enough, no longer felt so anxious.
She even began to think—when the bridge reaches the riverbank, it will naturally straighten itself.