After Death, I Became My Shijie’s Palm-Sized Birdie – Chapter 22
by Little PandaEvents of the Past, Part 21
The Real Lu Qiaoyi Died Decades Ago
When the disaster struck, it was an ordinary morning like any other.
The Golden Immortal Realm elder left behind to guard the sect cast aside all his decorum and cursed loudly. Everything had happened too suddenly—even now, he hadn’t figured out how the enemy had infiltrated the sect, nor how he himself had been placed under a restriction.
Thinking it over again and again, the only possibility was that a traitor had arisen within the sect.
So many disciples had merely come for early morning lessons, only to lose their lives right inside the sect. Looking at the corpses strewn everywhere, Elder Yin’s heart bled.
The Sect Master had entrusted the duty of guarding the sect to him, and he had vowed with absolute certainty that as long as he was there, all would be well. Yet only a few days after the Sect Master departed, the sect had fallen under his watch.
He had no face to meet the Sect Master, nor any face to face the disciples who had suffered this disaster.
If he could, he would rather self-detonate on the spot, dragging this horde of demon cultivators down to death with him. However, bound by the restriction, he was entirely unable to channel his power and could only watch helplessly as the disciples were slaughtered.
The Ten Thousand Souls Demon Lord knew how to torment someone most effectively, which was why he saved this fish on a chopping block1 for last.
Meanwhile, Dong Shiyue’s master had angered the Ten Thousand Souls Demon Lord by smuggling her young disciple out, so she was hauled out first to be made an example of.
The elder was already gravely injured, leaving her virtually powerless before the Ten Thousand Souls Demon Lord.
The Ten Thousand Souls Demon Lord needed to harvest a massive number of souls on this outing. He had already refined several sects, but the disciples of those smaller sects were generally weak—how could their souls compare to the quality found here in Wenshen Sect?
“Everything you’ve done to our sect today, the Sect Master will repay a hundredfold in the future!” a Wenshen Sect disciple’s voice reached the Ten Thousand Souls Demon Lord’s ears.
Raising a hand, he struck the disciple dead on the spot. It was easy to tell that those words had indeed touched a sore spot.
Ever since Yun Heng had rushed to the borderland, the Demon Realm’s advantage had vanished in an instant. Although he had broken through to the True Immortal Realm, a considerable gap still remained between him and Yun Heng. Forced to fight while retreating, he knew that even if the other two Demon Lords said nothing openly, they were undoubtedly mocking him behind his back.
“Is everyone from Wenshen Sect here?” the Ten Thousand Souls Demon Lord asked the figure beside him, who was draped entirely in a black robe.
“…They’re all here.” The person hidden beneath the black robe nodded softly.
The Ten Thousand Souls Demon Lord was suspicious by nature, and since matters were of utmost gravity this time, he couldn’t allow Wenshen Sect to leave survivors behind to send word out like Tianyu Sect had. He needed time to refine the people here, and before that was accomplished, Yun Heng couldn’t be allowed to find out.
Thus, even though the “person” beside him assured him that there were no other living souls left in the sect, he still uneasily swept his divine sense over every inch of Wenshen Sect’s land.
Only after confirming that there wasn’t a single trace of living aura anywhere else in the sect did the Ten Thousand Souls Demon Lord finally put his mind at ease. He glanced at the corpse on the ground before turning his gaze back to the Golden Immortal Realm elder.
“Indeed, your Sect Master is extremely troublesome for us.” The Ten Thousand Souls Demon Lord admitted this truth, but facing the Golden Immortal Realm elder’s furious and contemptuous glare, his lips pulled back into a wide grin. “That’s why I came for all of you.”
Amid the shocked and uncertain expressions of the Wenshen Sect crowd, he continued, “Once I’ve refined all your souls into a shield and set it before her, do you think she’ll be able to bring herself to strike?”
“Shameless!” Veins bulged on Elder Yin’s neck in intense fury.
The Demon Lord had no sense of morality; he took Elder Yin’s words as praise.
To the Demon Realm, Yun Heng was the most troublesome thorn in their side. Years ago, the Demon Lord had begun plotting against her, but for a long time, he’d been unable to grasp a single weakness of hers.
It wasn’t until several decades ago that the Ten Thousand Souls Demon Lord suddenly discovered a stray Demon Seed had unexpectedly taken root and sprouted within Wenshen Sect. At that moment, he realized his opportunity had finally arrived.
The Demon Lord suddenly reached out and snatched someone from the crowd. It was Dong Shiyue’s master. Though covered in blood and breathing her last, she had forced herself to stay conscious and secretly sent out a distress signal.
But not only did the signal fail to transmit, it was caught red-handed by the Demon Lord.
The Ten Thousand Souls Demon Lord curled his hand into a loose fist, and a malevolent spirit’s sharp claw materialized in midair, clamping around the female cultivator’s neck. Severely injured, she lacked the strength to break free, and after a couple of weak struggles, she could barely move at all.
“Are you curious as to why your distress signal couldn’t get out?” The Ten Thousand Souls Demon Lord sneered. “Because what shrouds your sect right now isn’t your protective mountain array, but the ancient Heavenly Cover Array. As long as you remain here, let alone Yun Heng—even the Heavenly Dao itself won’t know what’s taking place.”
Thus, the Ten Thousand Souls Demon Lord would have more than enough time to refine them. The previous sects had disappeared silently in the exact same manner.
“The array…” Elder Yin’s pupils contracted slightly. Although he wasn’t particularly skilled in array craft, he knew that a protective sect array of their scale couldn’t be altered overnight. To alter an array of this caliber would take at least several years—and could the elder responsible for overseeing the grand array over all those years have been completely unaware?
Anyone chosen as an array protection elder was a master in the field. It was impossible for someone to tamper with the array right under her nose without being noticed. Which meant…
Elder Yin looked around him. Currently, the only elders at or above the Earth Immortal Realm remaining in the sect were himself and Lu Qiaoyi.
Now he was standing here, yet Lu Qiaoyi was nowhere to be found.
Was she truly missing, or was she actually the traitor planted by the Demon Realm?
Elder Yin felt a sudden chill run through his whole body. Lu Qiaoyi was one of the people the Sect Master trusted most. No one, including them, had ever suspected her. If she truly was a traitor, once everyone who knew the truth was dead and she lurked back to the Sect Master’s side… would the Sect Master be able to tell?
“Won’t you beg for mercy? If you beg, perhaps I’ll give you a swift death.” The Ten Thousand Souls Demon Lord looked at the blood-drenched female cultivator with great interest.
Dong Shiyue’s master forced a cold sneer onto her face. She would never believe the Demon Lord’s lies.
“Good, very good. I’ve always admired people with backbone.” The Ten Thousand Souls Demon Lord produced a small bronze tripod from his sleeve, then drew a scythe-like weapon with his other hand.
Black mist seeped faintly from the scythe. The trapped female cultivator closed her eyes. The others wanted to save her but were powerless, forced to watch helplessly as the scythe descended.
Right at that moment, the sky dimmed for a fraction of a second—the sun, its radiance already obscured by the blood mist, was stripped of yet a bit more of its light.
When the Cangwang Realm was first born, the very first tribulation it endured was the falling of the sun—a catastrophe of total destruction. As an arrow representing the Sun-Fall Tribulation shot forth, even the avatar of a True Immortal Realm cultivator sensed mortal danger.
Without a second thought, the Ten Thousand Souls Demon Lord immediately dragged the black-robed figure beside him in front of himself as a shield. That arrow shattered the tripod in his hand and struck off the black robe at the same time.
Rumble! The top-tier demon artifact exploded at the impact, and the dead souls trapped within fled in all directions.
Blood slid down the black-robed person’s cheek, exposing the face that had been carefully hidden to the open air.
“Cough…” After firing that shot, Wen Qiwu felt the blood and qi in her chest surge violently. She gasped softly for air—wielding a Divine Artifact in her current state was still far too much of a strain.
But when she caught sight of the face of the black-robed person beside the Demon Lord, the blood trapped in her chest suddenly surged upward. A sweet, metallic taste filled her throat, and she spat out a mouthful of blood right then and there.
That tripod was a cherished treasure of the Ten Thousand Souls Demon Lord. Wealthy as he was, treasures of that tier were still rare even for him. Yet he had no time to grieve the tripod, for far more worthy of his attention was the person who had made him sense danger!
However, when he saw the person who had shot that arrow, surprise flitted across his eyes as well. It was a cultivator whose physical condition appeared terrible; furthermore, her cultivation was merely at the Void Refining Realm. How could a mere Void Refining Realm cultivator make him feel endangered?!
“How… how could it be you?” Wen Qiwu muttered.
She stared at the person beside the Ten Thousand Souls Demon Lord. That appearance was all too familiar—it was an elder who had stayed by her side as she grew up since childhood, taking such meticulous care of her all these years!
That face… belonged to Lu Qiaoyi.
She wore a black robe, with the purest demon qi churning around her body. Yet her face no longer held any of its former warmth or vivacity; she was like a wooden puppet completely devoid of humanity.
Subconsciously, Wen Qiwu believed it must be because Elder Lu had been controlled by those despicable people of the Demon Realm that she had turned out like this. Enduring the pain in her heart, she silently unsealed layer after layer of restrictions on the Divine Artifact.
She knew full well what price she would pay for doing so, but for the sake of the living disciples within the sect, and to save Lu Qiaoyi, she felt no regret.
Moreover, Wen Qiwu had heard it just now: the Ten Thousand Souls Demon Lord intended to use the people of the sect to threaten her shijie. She would never allow such a thing to happen.
“You two know each other?” Perhaps because Wen Qiwu’s power seemed as weak as an ant to the Ten Thousand Souls Demon Lord, his initial shock quickly gave way to carelessness. A hint of contempt even emerged in his expression—a mere Void Refining Realm cultivator actually thought she could kill him?
“Listen to me asking such a question—you’ve stayed in this place for decades, so how could you not know the people here?” The Ten Thousand Souls Demon Lord said to “Lu Qiaoyi,” “Do you want to go say hello to her? I give you permission.”
Decades? But Elder Lu had clearly been in the sect for hundreds of years!
When “Lu Qiaoyi” looked at Wen Qiwu, her expression remained entirely flat, no different from gazing at the grass, trees, or stones beside her. To be exact, there was nothing in her eyes at all, much like a refined puppet.
Seeing her reaction, the corner of the Ten Thousand Souls Demon Lord’s mouth curved into a smile. Sure enough, a Demon Seed was a Demon Seed—it would never develop improper emotions toward anyone. That was precisely why these tools were so convenient to use.
He had no intention of kindly letting “Lu Qiaoyi” greet Wen Qiwu; those words just now had been nothing more than a test.
“Elder Lu…” Wen Qiwu’s lips moved slightly, a child-like helplessness surfacing in her expression. She realized that this calamity within the sect had occurred entirely because Lu Qiaoyi had served as an insider, enabling the Demon Lord to infiltrate the sect so effortlessly.
But why would she do this? Lu Qiaoyi had entered the sect at the age of five; it could be said that the sect was her home. She had no reason to help those demon cultivators slaughter the sect.
“Wen-shimei! Do not be fooled by her! I understand now, I understand! She’s not Elder Lu at all! She’s a Demon Seed! Elder Lu must have passed away long ago, and a Demon Seed parasitized her body to replace her!” A shrill, agonizing voice rang out above Wendao Mountain.
“Oh? To think someone in Wenshen Sect actually recognizes a Demon Seed.” The Ten Thousand Souls Demon Lord looked toward the person who had just spoken, a hint of surprise in his tone. The matter of Demon Seeds was a secret of the Demon Realm, so he hadn’t expected anyone from the Immortal Domain to know. “That’s right. She is indeed a Demon Seed.”
“I… I…” The person pinned by the Demon Lord’s gaze shrank back slightly, but upon realizing she was showing cowardice before the enemy, she immediately stiffened her neck and met the Demon Lord’s gaze head-on. “This is something we only recently uncovered! Because we didn’t have concrete evidence yet, the Sect Master ordered us to keep investigating!”
“The three current Demon Lords of the Demon Realm extracted seeds from the ancient True Demon who perished alongside the Demon Emperor tens of thousands of years ago and cultivated them! Word has it that when a living creature is on the verge of death, these seeds can enter their bodies and steal their final breath of vitality, allowing the Demon Seeds to live on inside them! Ordinary methods cannot detect them at all!”
These words struck Wen Qiwu’s ears like a bolt from the blue. Her hand holding the bow trembled faintly as she looked at “Lu Qiaoyi” and asked, “Elder Lu… should I call you a Demon Seed?”
“Lu Qiaoyi” was like a puppet without self-awareness, showing no reaction whatsoever to Wen Qiwu’s trembling question.
In the end, it was the Demon Lord who answered for her. “Yes.”
The final sliver of hope in Wen Qiwu’s heart shattered completely. Her body swayed slightly, almost failing to keep her footing.
So Elder Lu had already passed away—she had been gone for decades. And the entity accompanying her all these years was merely a demon possessing Elder Lu’s outer appearance?
Wen Qiwu didn’t even know when Elder Lu had been replaced. At least in her memory, Elder Lu’s personality and behavior had never changed in the slightest. Could it have happened before she even arrived at Wenshen Sect?
Seeing her on the verge of collapsing, the Demon Lord felt in quite a good mood, so he cleared up her confusion.
The reason Demon Seeds were the Demon Realm’s secret weapon was that upon birth, they would seize the original owner’s memories. Through these memories, they would mimic the original owner’s every movement and action. A newly born Demon Seed was a blank sheet of paper with no self of its own. Once that blank paper perfectly replicated the original owner’s personality, even those closest to the person could hardly spot any flaw in them.
“Demon Seeds are heartless and emotionless, making them the most useful weapons. We never have to worry about them letting emotions ruin things.” On the contrary, the people around a Demon Seed would often hold unrealistic expectations for it precisely because of their own emotions.
Such scenes had played out countless times already. Almost every sect destroyed previously had undergone a similar tragedy, and the Ten Thousand Souls Demon Lord enjoyed nothing more than savoring their feelings of agony and despair.
“I will only ask you one thing.” There was no point in saying anything else. Her eyes rimmed with red, Wen Qiwu bent her bow and notched an arrow once more, rune-like patterns swirling across the silvery-white Nine Tribulations Bow. “Was my master’s death related to you?”
Back then, when Elder Lu had braved danger to seek medicine for her, her master had gone to rescue her and ultimately never returned. Wen Qiwu now suspected that this matter was connected to “Lu Qiaoyi.”
A dark gleam seemed to ripple across the Demon Seed’s eyes. Wen Qiwu was too far away to be sure whether there had been a faint flicker of warmth in her expression.
The Demon Seed nodded, admitting that the matter was indeed connected to her.
Wen Qiwu closed her eyes in agony. She now roughly understood when Elder Lu had been replaced.
Had it not been to seek a cure for her illness, Elder Lu and her master would not have met with tragedy, leaving an opening for the Demon Realm to exploit.
Clear tears spilled down from the corners of her eyes. When Wen Qiwu opened her reddened eyes, the vulnerability in her gaze had been replaced by killing intent and unyielding resolve. Feeling her intent, the Divine Artifact in her hand emitted a low hum. She would save the sect at all costs and make every enemy stained with the blood of her loved ones and fellow disciples pay in full!
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