After Death, I Became My Shijie’s Palm-Sized Birdie – Chapter 27
by Little PandaHallucination
“Shijie, it hurts so much.”
“Lunatic! A true lunatic! How dare you—that’s—aaahhh!!” The Ten Thousand Souls Demon Lord shrieked. His soul convulsed within the chains, pitch-black links biting into his spectral body like serpents, draining his power to feed the array.
She was using a demon as a sacrifice and demonic secret arts to resurrect her shimei1—wasn’t she afraid of resurrecting a monster!
Only after this round of extraction ended did the Demon Lord, serving as the sacrifice, manage to recover his voice after a long moment. His soul had grown even weaker. It wouldn’t be long before his True Immortal Realm soul was drained dry entirely.
The fear in his heart had reached its peak. He understood that if he didn’t do something soon, it would be too late.
“Let me go… I can help you find a better way, something better than this method! In—in the cracks between the six domains, there’s an unformed secret realm! In that place, there’s a technique to reverse time!” Reversing time was a taboo that even the God Realm couldn’t interfere with. Though it had no aftereffects for the person being resurrected, the success rate was less than one percent of the demonic secret art. The Ten Thousand Souls Demon Lord certainly wasn’t kind enough to explain the drawbacks to her—he only hoped to buy himself some time.
He knew she wouldn’t let him go easily, so he offered an even more tempting bargain. If Yun Heng was willing to delve into the demonic path to resurrect her shimei, there was no reason she wouldn’t be tempted by his proposal.
But Yun Heng’s reaction was beyond his expectations. The Immortal Venerable, who was filling in the array, only paused briefly before continuing to meticulously trace its patterns.
This array before her was likely her last hope. Yun Heng was exceedingly careful, not daring to make the slightest error.
The Ten Thousand Souls Demon Lord repeated himself in a hoarse voice, but Yun Heng ignored him entirely.
His soul wept tears of blood. The Ten Thousand Souls Demon Lord was consumed with regret—if he had known this day would come, he should have spared no cost to kill Yun Heng at the border a century ago.
True, there had been a considerable gap in strength between them, and his plan to refine the entire Wenshen Sect into a demonic weapon had failed. But his avatar had perished together with a crucial figure, and that person’s death had dealt Immortal Venerable Yun Heng a devastating blow, exposing several fatal openings on the battlefield.
He and the other two Demon Lords had joined forces to severely wound her—that had been the best chance to kill her, the only opportunity! But Yun Heng’s fearsome reputation was long established. Even gravely injured, the sight of her leveling her sword at the Demon Lords had terrified them into retreat, letting a perfect opportunity slip away.
Yun Heng had returned to the Wenshen Sect to recuperate for decades. When she reappeared, she had carved through his territory, cutting him and his loyalists down beneath her sword.
Once Yun Heng recovered, they could never be her match—let alone the fact that the other two Demon Lords hadn’t even reached the True Immortal Realm. The relationship between the Demon Lords was inherently delicate. They could cooperate for mutual benefit, but at their core, they were rivals. Since Yun Heng’s fury was directed solely at the Ten Thousand Souls Demon Lord, the other two naturally wouldn’t seek out the Immortal Venerable’s displeasure. They hid in their own territories like turtles, pretending they’d seen nothing.
The isolated and helpless Ten Thousand Souls Demon Lord had been cut to ribbons and his bones ground to dust. If he hadn’t still been of use, his soul would have been tortured into oblivion long ago.
After completing the array, Yun Heng inspected every detail carefully, then took a jade slip from the shelf beside her. When she channeled immortal power into the slip, a passage of script imprinted itself onto the array.
It was ancient demonic script—even a Demon Lord might not recognize it.
This script recorded the Resurrection Secret Technique. Though it was a demonic creation, Yun Heng had been driven to the edge. How could someone afflicted by a heart demon remain rational? She had no choice. Even a poisoned lifeline—she had to grasp it.
As long as she could resurrect her shimei, she was willing to pay any price.
She sliced off a wisp of the Demon Lord’s soul and cast it in, then drew a gash across her own wrist with sword qi. When her blood merged with the array, it immediately began to activate.
Instantly, black mist surged within the array. The power extracted from the Ten Thousand Souls Demon Lord’s soul transformed into a pure demonic qi, gathering before the Demon Lord into the shape of a “seed.”
Not all the demonic qi in the array gathered there. Some drifted elsewhere, and a trace settled on Yun Heng herself. Under normal circumstances, such corruption could never approach her—but now, perhaps because her will and power were both tainted with intrusive thoughts, the demonic qi found its opening.
Thump thump…
A faint heartbeat echoed from within the “seed,” as if some living thing was about to hatch.
Yun Heng walked to the seed and traced it with careful fingers. A fragile light flickered in her eyes. Was it almost done?
But the “seed” hadn’t fully absorbed its sacrifice, so the time it held form was brief. Before Yun Heng could examine its progress, the seed melted back into the array.
Yun Heng could only pour her own power into the array as well, forcing the “seed” to “mature” faster into a vessel.
After all this, exhaustion seeped into Yun Heng’s expression. She rose to leave this dark dungeon. Just as she was about to close the door again, the weakened Ten Thousand Souls Demon Lord suddenly changed his face.
He had changed faces in the most literal sense. The Ten Thousand Souls Demon Lord cultivated the Ten Thousand Souls Demon Art, having absorbed countless souls into his body, and his own soul had been split into several fragments. The one begging for mercy just now had been the main soul. It had held on until it finally couldn’t endure any longer and passed out, and another face took its place.
This was an even more deranged soul. He didn’t beg or try to negotiate with Yun Heng. Instead, he let out a bizarre, cackling laugh, as though he’d found something tremendously entertaining.
“Hahaha, the Immortal Venerable is actually using our Demon Realm’s Resurrection Secret Technique? Let me see—oh, you want to resurrect your shimei, using our demonic secret art? Does your shimei know you’re doing this? Does your shimei know she’ll be resurrected as a monster?”
The dungeon door frame warped under Yun Heng’s grip. She lowered her eyes, standing in shadow, and heard every word he said—not a single one missed.
“How fascinating. If your shimei becomes a monster, will the Immortal Venerable turn against her own flesh and blood? Oh, and by the way—if she becomes a demon, wouldn’t she be one of us? Hahaha, what an honor, what an honor!” The soul’s laughter dripped with mockery.
“And who knows whether the resurrected monster will retain her sanity and memories. If she remembers everything from before, she’ll probably hate you to death!”
She wouldn’t let that happen. Ah Que wouldn’t become a monster. Only… she wouldn’t be purely human anymore. That was the price the resurrected had to pay.
Would her shimei resent her?
Yun Heng felt the unhealed wound in her chest tear open again. Blood cascaded from her heart. She was terrified—terrified that her shimei would resent her.
She stood at the door for a long while. Then she activated the array once more and shut the door amid the Demon Lord’s screams.
The blizzard had descended again outside. The scenery on Yunwu Mountain was a blur. Yun Heng’s heart was torn by warring emotions. By the time she came back to herself, she found she’d walked to the back mountain training ground.
This was where her shimei had practiced swordsmanship as a child. Unfortunately, she’d had no talent for the sword dao, and later, when that illness was discovered, she’d had to give it up.
But from childhood, her shimei had loved following her around. When she practiced the sword, that small figure would sit on the steps not far away. It had been that way from beginning to end, never changing. Ah Que was well-behaved and quiet—at the age when other children were most mischievous, she was effortlessly easy to mind.
A gust of wind and snow swept past. In her daze, Yun Heng saw a small figure sitting in that spot, gazing at her obediently. She hurried forward several steps, her expression not even having time to change—but behind the wind and snow lay only emptiness.
Yun Heng stared blankly at the empty ground, the fissure in her heart torn even wider.
She walked to those steps one pace at a time, then sat in the spot where her shimei used to sit most often. The view here was excellent—she could see the entire training ground.
“Ah Que…” Yun Heng pressed a hand to her heart. The pain there was nearly unbearable.
“Did I do something wrong again?”
The Demon Lord’s words had brought a look of struggle to Yun Heng’s eyes.
But whenever she wavered, the heart demon would arrive as promised.
Yun Heng’s body trembled involuntarily. She looked up, and the battered figure of her shimei appeared before her eyes.
【Shijie, it hurts so much.】 That cry was laced with tears. Yun Heng’s heart seized. The taste of blood surged up her throat.
Yun Heng had extracted fragments of what Wen Qiwu had experienced before her “death” from the shattered Life Tablet. She’d seen the baptism of heavenly lightning, watched her shimei’s frail body crack apart beneath the savage power. The shimei she had cradled in her palms since childhood, terrified of even the slightest bump, had her soul scattered to the winds in that agony.
For a century, Yun Heng had scarcely slept a peaceful night. The moment she closed her eyes, she fell into nightmares. In those dreams, her blood-soaked shimei wept and said to her: “Shijie, it hurts.”
She couldn’t save her shimei in those dreams either. Night after night, the nightmares persisted for a hundred years.
Tears fell from Yun Heng’s eyes, drop after drop onto the ground. Nightmares and heart demons intertwined, driving her to the edge of collapse.
Dong Shiyue’s worries were well-founded. Yun Heng had trapped herself a century ago. She couldn’t move on, and she didn’t want to. If not for the sliver of hope that still tethered her, she would have broken down long ago.
【Shijie, I want to live. Please save me, won’t you?】
A faint wisp of black qi enveloped Yun Heng, an ominous aura spreading. She “saw” her shimei embrace her, then bury her face in her arms and weep softly. Blood trailed from the wounds on her shimei’s body, gradually forming a small pool at her feet.
This was the scene of her shimei’s death. Yun Heng’s bloodless lips trembled, her eyes brimming with agony. She raised her hands and carefully drew the “person” into her arms—only to embrace empty air.
She collapsed to the ground. Biting wind and snow blew in, blurring her vision and chilling her heart. Blood seeped from the corner of her mouth, falling onto the snow like blossoming plum blossoms.
She didn’t use immortal power to shield herself. Before long, a thin layer of snow had settled on her body. From a distance, she looked almost lifeless.
“Don’t be afraid, Ah Que.” Yun Heng’s eyes were red, great tears splashing onto the ground. She murmured, driven by sheer obsession: “I will save you. Shijie will definitely save you.”
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