After Death, I Became My Shijie’s Palm-Sized Birdie – Chapter 30
by Little PandaDream Voice
Wen Qiwu’s Voice Reached Into Her Dream
The dungeon was so quiet that only the sound of some liquid dripping onto the ground could be heard. Most of the long-life candles in the outermost Soul Attracting Array had gone out, and the few remaining flames could barely illuminate Yun Heng’s figure.
The not-yet-dead Ten Thousand Souls Demon Lord crawled out from the failed array. Seeing Yun Heng’s slight trembling, he sneered inwardly.
She must have failed. Haha…
The Demon Lord only dared to think it. He had seen what Yun Heng looked like when she lost control—even if he had a hundred times the courage, he wouldn’t dare provoke her now.
He had finally broken free; finding a way to save himself was the most pressing matter.
The Demon Lord crawled outward inch by inch through the darkness. He knew the odds of escaping Wenshen Sect alone were slim; he needed to find someone to meet him outside. So he carefully sent a wisp of his demonic qi beyond the dungeon. The process went surprisingly smoothly—but before he could rejoice, a bone-chilling sword intent sliced his soul body clean in half.
The Demon Lord’s miserable shrieks echoed through the dungeon. His soul body was exceptionally frail now; a single strike from Yun Heng would have been enough to scatter his soul entirely, but she had deliberately held back, not letting him die so quickly.
When the Demon Lord saw the shoes entering his field of vision, he was so terrified that he forgot all about the pain in his soul body and scrambled frantically to the side. But the cold-gleaming divine sword pierced through the upper half of his soul and pinned it in place. This Divine Artifact inflicted tremendous damage on souls; the more the Demon Lord struggled, the faster his soul dissipated. Not wanting his soul to scatter entirely, he could only lie flat on the ground and behave.
Suddenly, he felt a force tighten around his neck. The Ten Thousand Souls Demon Lord was forced to tilt his head up and meet Yun Heng’s gaze.
Seeing her blood-tinged eyes, the Demon Lord suddenly felt that this Immortal Venerable might be more suited to rule the Demon Realm than himself.
“Why can’t I find her soul?” Yun Heng’s voice was very soft, but in the silent dungeon, it was clear enough. The dim candlelight flickered, casting her pale face in a light that made her look less than living.
The Ten Thousand Souls Demon Lord knew she was asking him, but he had never studied this kind of Resurrection Secret Technique—how was he supposed to know why it failed!
But he couldn’t say he didn’t know, either. He had no doubt that if he did, Yun Heng would make him join her shimei1 in death.
“If… if the ritual went correctly, then there are only two possibilities. Either this person hasn’t died, or there’s something wrong with her soul—say, she was affected by dark arts, preventing the technique from retrieving her soul from the past, something like that.” The former was a certainty; the latter was merely the Demon Lord’s speculation.
“Dark arts…”
Yun Heng murmured, repeating those two words. Her shimei hadn’t been afflicted by any dark arts, but she had suffered from Spirit-Dispersing Syndrome. Could it be because of that illness?
This was what she had feared most all along. Her shimei’s soul was fragile—like porcelain riddled with cracks, ready to shatter at the slightest touch. The Demon Realm’s secret techniques carried a trace of dark malevolence. Yun Heng was afraid that even if she somehow managed to recall her shimei’s soul, Ah Que wouldn’t be able to withstand such an ordeal.
The Ten Thousand Souls Demon Lord’s eyes shifted. “I have considerable expertise in the way of souls. Why don’t we make a deal?”
The Demon Lord’s title hadn’t been earned for nothing. His research into souls was built upon the suffering of countless dead spirits. At the very least, no one in the current Cangwang Realm could surpass him.
Yun Heng looked at him. The icy killing intent in her eyes made the Demon Lord shudder, as if she had already seen through his trick.
Was this woman mad or not? The Demon Lord wondered uneasily.
“You’re right.” Her voice carried an eerie softness. The candlelight swayed gently, and a few more lamps went out without a sound. Shadows crept over the Immortal Venerable, fair as snow and radiant as the moon.
She took a step forward. Alarms blared in the Demon Lord’s mind. She raised her hand, and soul power pierced straight through his sea of consciousness.
The Demon Lord’s faces immediately twisted—the woman was searching his soul!
Soul searching had once been this Demon Lord’s specialty. Now the tables had turned, and it was his turn to taste that agony.
The Soul Search Technique demanded much from its caster; the slightest misstep could cause the target’s soul to collapse. The Demon Lord couldn’t count on Yun Heng being careful during the search. To prevent her power from outright destroying his sea of consciousness, he could only endure desperately.
His memories were extracted one by one with painstaking care. Yun Heng imprinted the Demon Lord’s years of soul research into her own mind. Even if she had gone mad, she would never entrust anything concerning her shimei to the scheming Demon Lord—so she would do it herself.
After his memories were copied, the Ten Thousand Souls Demon Lord was thrown back into his prison cell. Yun Heng pored over his research day and night, activating the Demon Realm’s secret technique again and again. The Demon Lord, serving as the sacrificial offering through failure after failure, even wished for a quick death. All the retribution for his years of taking pleasure in others’ torment had finally caught up with him.
But Yun Heng’s condition was hardly better than his. She grew thinner by the day, and the exhaustion and anxiety on her face became increasingly apparent. This secret technique would gradually drain the caster’s life. The Demon Lord noticed that Yun Heng coughed blood more and more frequently, and her mistakes during the rituals—caused by failing energy—became increasingly common. So during his occasional moments of lucidity, he would viciously curse Yun Heng to die before him, so that when he recovered, he could slaughter the entire Wenshen Sect!
He clung to such malicious thoughts and endured. But one day, two days, three days… the days passed one by one. He was already on the verge of having his soul tortured to dissolution, yet Yun Heng still repeated the ritual every single day without fail, as though her weakness were merely his own illusion.
…
This was the ninth day of her failures.
Facing the rift that had closed once more, Yun Heng rose to her feet, and her vision blurred—she nearly collapsed to the ground.
It took her a long while to recover before color gradually returned to her vision.
Yun Heng didn’t know what had gone wrong. She had mastered the Ten Thousand Souls Demon Lord’s soul techniques, even risked entering the rift herself to search for Ah Que’s past soul—but the result had been nothing.
Could it be that the Demon Realm’s secret technique simply didn’t work? If so, she had only one last option left.
But that method… she had even less confidence in it.
She would try the Demon Realm’s method once more.
The exhaustion in her body had accumulated to its limit. Her clothes still bore unattended bloodstains. That Yun Heng had lasted until today without collapsing was entirely due to the depth of her obsession. She stumbled back to her room, intending to continue refining the Demon Lord’s soul techniques, but the moment she channeled her power, a tearing pain lanced through her mind.
In the next instant, she fell completely into darkness. In the pitch-black nightmare, she heard her shimei’s call—but in the nightmare, her shimei’s voice was unlike the gentleness of the past. Her shimei’s blood-choked accusations cut into her heart like knives.
【Shijie2, how much longer do you want me to wait?】
【Didn’t you promise to protect me?! Why didn’t you come?! When I needed you most, where were you?】
I’m sorry, I’m sorry… it’s my fault.
【Shijie, it hurts so much, and it’s so dark all around. Can you come be with me?】
Her shimei stood in her nightmare covered in blood. She reached out her hand—it was covered in wounds.
Tears slipped from the corners of the unconscious Yun Heng’s eyes. In the nightmare, she cradled her shimei’s hand and tried every method she could think of to heal her shimei’s wounds, but the scars on her shimei’s hand not only refused to heal—they grew more hideous and terrifying by the moment.
【Shijie, I know you did your best.】
“Wen Qiwu’s” voice suddenly turned gentle. She gently wiped away Yun Heng’s tears. 【I don’t blame you.】
Yun Heng’s voice carried a sob.
Ah Que, would you really forgive me?
【Of course. Look, I’ve even come to take you away.】 “Wen Qiwu” gripped Yun Heng’s hand tightly, trying to pull her deeper into the darkness.
Yun Heng stared at her “shimei’s” battered hand and froze for a moment. In the end, she couldn’t bring herself to let go.
They were swallowed by the darkness inch by inch. Somewhere in her subconscious, Yun Heng probably knew what the darkness ahead meant. But her reality held nothing but exhaustion and despair, so she couldn’t bear to release Wen Qiwu’s hand.
Nine consecutive days of failure had all but extinguished her hope. If she couldn’t revive Ah Que, she wouldn’t be able to endure the days ahead either. If she could depart together with her shimei, she would welcome it.
Chirp chirp!
Before the darkness could devour her entire consciousness, Yun Heng faintly heard the sound of a bird chirping.
“Wen Qiwu’s” expression distorted for a split second, and she quickened her pace, pulling Yun Heng along.
“Shijie!”
Faintly, Yun Heng suddenly heard a blurry call.
Ah Que?
She stopped, a dazed look on her face.
Was that Ah Que’s voice?
“Wen Qiwu’s” face grew darker still. She urged Yun Heng to hurry and come with her, but perhaps due to some special connection, Yun Heng actually released “Wen Qiwu’s” hand and turned toward the direction the voice had come from.
【Shijie, don’t waste time. If you don’t leave now, I won’t wait for you anymore.】 “Wen Qiwu’s” voice sounded annoyed.
Yun Heng was most afraid of Wen Qiwu growing angry and ignoring her. Just as she hurriedly tried to apologize, the blurry voice from before suddenly became a little clearer.
“Shijie…” Wen Qiwu’s voice carried a tearful edge. “Wake up, demon cultivators are coming!”
How similar this was to before…
Yun Heng’s hands trembled. The image of the sect bathed in blood a century ago resurfaced in her mind. All these years, she had always heard her shimei crying in her nightmares—her shimei saying demon cultivators were coming, saying…
“Shijie, save me.”
A sword intent that seemed capable of cleaving heaven and earth tore through the sky over Yunwu Mountain. The rats lured in by the Ten Thousand Souls Demon Lord died before they could so much as utter a single wail.
Yun Heng’s blood-red eyes snapped open. Killing intent locked onto every enemy. After unleashing her sword intent, she turned instinctively to her side and said, “Ah Que, don’t be afraid, Shijie will protect…”
But her side was empty. There was nothing there.
Of course. Her shimei was already gone.
Tears fell silently from Yun Heng’s eyes. The words she never finished dissolved into a single choked sob.
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