Transmigrating as the Heart Demon of the Ruthless Sword Venerable – Chapter 44
by Little PandaNascent Soul (Part 1)
Voluntarily Seeking Death
Yunzhongjun landed on the eaves, resting her chin in her hand as her gaze swept across the cluster of low-roofed buildings below. Her double pupils now glowed with a faint red light, laying bare every arrangement inside the wooden hut. She saw the people within, and she saw Yu Zhaoming imprisoned in the underground dungeon, surrounded by a lattice of curse runes.
“Hmm… these are runes to amplify a heart demon’s power…” Yunzhongjun’s lips curled into a smile of amused interest. “How fascinating. This is far more entertaining than watching a competition. That silly little heart demon has the help of a formation array — it just might manage to achieve possession… To be this lucky, truly, one can’t help but be envious.”
Yunzhongjun chuckled softly, then raised her eyes again. Her double pupils rotated, dark light flickering within them, taking in the city’s protective Great Formation above and every concealed array below in a single sweep. She let out a few unhinged sounds: “Interesting, interesting, truly interesting to the extreme. The Human Race really is a fascinating race.”
Stupid, greedy, with desires endless and bottomless — no wonder the Heavenly Demon had invaded this realm in the first place. A race like this was simply the finest flesh-and-blood soil for the birth of the Demon Race.
Yunzhongjun lightly licked her lips, revealing a wicked smile. “My apologies, little heart demon, but watching the show really is more fun. Still, as a fellow of the same kind, let this senior help you out a little.”
She hooked her finger, and without a sound, sent a wisp of qi down into the dungeon.
The dungeon’s occupants remained utterly unaware of Yunzhongjun’s intervention. Lamplight flickered in the pitch-black cell. The air carried the damp smell of the underground, mingled with the stench of blood and sweat.
“E-Eldest Senior Sister, you’re with them?”
The Medicine Valley disciple was named Zhou Yiming. He looked young, but days of torment had left him haggard and listless, and he watched Yu Zhaoming with wariness written across his face. Spiritual qi was limited in this place, yet Zhou Yiming’s fingers hung slightly low at his side, a poisoned needle already concealed between them.
His voice pulled Yu Zhaoming’s mind back to the present. She glanced at Zhou Yiming, her gaze dropping to his lowered hand. After a moment, Yu Zhaoming said, “You’re on guard against me. You know why I’m here. Who else was here before, and whom did they kill?”
Three questions in succession — by the last one, it was no longer a question but a certainty. Each one drilled deeper, and Tang Wenchun immediately understood Yu Zhaoming’s intent.
Since Zhou Yiming was this vigilant, his words carrying no trace of doubt, he must have seen something and known something.
Tang Wenchun went “wow.” “That’s impressive.”
The heart demon’s praise was sincere and enthusiastic, as always. Yu Zhaoming’s heart twitched slightly, and a sudden urge to sigh overcame her. Had Tang Wenchun never considered what choice Yu Zhaoming would make after learning the truth about her heart demon?
Yu Zhaoming frowned but said nothing. Zhou Yiming, after a long silence, wiped his face and spoke in a low voice: “There were several others here before. I watched them get sacrificed one by one, turned into tools for someone else’s cultivation. I was the only one kept behind… I thought it was because I was lucky.” He looked up at Yu Zhaoming. “Turns out I was reserved for you, Eldest Senior Sister.”
Yu Zhaoming had been stuck at Golden Core without a breakthrough — every sect surely knew this, and the evil cultivators lurking within those sects were no exception. From the look of things now, these people were not few in number. A single Thirteenth Young Master, kicked out of the Core Disciple ranks, couldn’t have orchestrated all of this alone.
“So it was prepared well in advance,” Yu Zhaoming said, her voice deep. They had laid a trap to catch the ones behind the scheme, never realizing that the enemy had already been watching her and dragging her into their snare.
How much of what she had done was someone else’s deliberate design, and how much was simply going with the flow?
Yu Zhaoming carefully recalled every person and event she had encountered, filtering through them one by one. Her eyes were lowered, but her hand gradually tightened.
This feeling of being held in someone else’s palm — she hadn’t felt it in a long time. Yu Zhaoming suddenly looked up, fixing her gaze on a specific spot. “Thirteenth Young Master, you’ve been watching all along, haven’t you?”
A neurotic voice drifted from the air: “Eldest Senior Sister is indeed Eldest Senior Sister, for you to figure it out. Don’t worry, I won’t do anything to you. I’m still waiting for you to join us. You’re my savior, so naturally I’ll repay you. Look how good I am to you — the sacrifices I selected for you were all carefully chosen, top-quality material.”
Zhou Yiming heard these words. He was one of the most outstanding disciples of his generation in Medicine Valley, yet in someone else’s mouth he was “top-quality material.” The disparity and humiliation ignited fury in his chest, but he clenched his jaw and said nothing, silently shifting farther away from Yu Zhaoming.
Yu Zhaoming narrowed her eyes, thinking carefully, and remained silent.
Thirteenth Young Master giggled: “Eldest Senior Sister, you needn’t worry about anything. Everything you do here will never be known to a third party, rest assured. As for the tails following you, we’ve already taken care of them. But our time is limited — only three days. Hehe, in three days, a new world welcomes you.”
His voice dripped with smugness, his giggling shrill and thin, as though he were not quite human.
Zhou Yiming couldn’t suppress a shudder. He stole a careful glance at Yu Zhaoming, then quietly edged even farther away.
“Three days…” Yu Zhaoming simply sat down cross-legged, saying nothing, thinking in silence. She was injured, so a direct assault was out of the question. How to get out would require a different plan.
She looked at Zhou Yiming: “Something else will happen after three days.”
Setting up such an elaborate trap, even deploying Demon Cultivators, just to lure her alone — clearly, it wasn’t worth the cost.
Zhou Yiming understood that Yu Zhaoming likely had no intention of using his life to boost her cultivation. His complexion improved slightly, though his brow furrowed again: “Eldest Senior Sister is right, but how do we get word out now?”
Yu Zhaoming didn’t answer. In her Sea of Consciousness, Tang Wenchun perked up at once: “I can do it! They don’t know I exist. I can go out!”
“If they even know about my tails, then clearly they have people inside the City Lord’s Mansion. No one can be trusted.” Yu Zhaoming’s expression was calm as she spoke. At her words, both Tang Wenchun and Zhou Yiming’s faces went pale.
Zhou Yiming in particular — as someone chosen to represent Medicine Valley in the Grand Sect Competition, he was naturally one of their top figures. When he had been alone earlier, he’d feared for his life, dreading that he would suffer the death of his body and the dissolution of his Dao right then and there.
Now that he knew Yu Zhaoming meant him no harm, the tension in his chest loosened, and his mind immediately began to turn. His hands trembled: “Then… even my capture might have been… might have been because someone leaked information…”
But who had leaked it — someone in the City Lord’s Mansion, or someone in his own sect, Medicine Valley?
He dared not say any more.
The Cultivation World revered cultivation above all. Every year, countless people stalled at their bottlenecks. Some rose to fame in their youth, brimming with talent, only to suddenly find further advancement impossible. For someone like Yu Zhaoming, stuck for four years without a single inch of progress, that was already considered a short time. But what of those who had been stuck at a certain step for a hundred years, or even a thousand?
Among the sects today, which Great Cultivator hadn’t been bottled up at a single realm for countless years, cultivating in seclusion, even entering death-seclusion, all for the sake of the tiniest sliver of progress?
If they learned of a forbidden art that could boost cultivation, would they not go mad for it, chasing the shortcut? What would this Cultivation World become?
Zhou Yiming dared not think too deeply. He felt only an icy chill, as though plunged into a frozen abyss.
If such methods spread, what difference would remain between this world and a demon realm? And asking himself honestly — if he hit a bottleneck and such a method existed, could he hold fast for ten or twenty years? Could he resist for a hundred years, a thousand? In that moment, his Dao Heart wavered, showing signs of instability.
“No need to worry. All forbidden arts have limitations.” Yu Zhaoming placed her hand on Zhou Yiming’s shoulder. Her voice was steady, infused with spiritual energy, each word landing in his ear like a sharp wake-up call1 that gathered his scattered mind once more.
“If there truly were no threshold, they wouldn’t need to be this secretive about it.”
Zhou Yiming blinked, then snapped back to his senses, shame coloring his face as he lowered his head: “Eldest Senior Sister is right. Then, our best course of action…”
“Our best course of action…” Yu Zhaoming looked up at the stone slabs overhead. At her current cultivation, she naturally couldn’t break out. Was she supposed to pin her hopes on that great cultivator hiding in the shadows?
And how could she be certain that great cultivator was truly willing to lend a hand? If that great cultivator also took interest in this forbidden art for boosting cultivation?
Relying on others was never as reliable as relying on oneself. And if she wanted to rely on herself, there was only one way.
Her thoughts sank rapidly, ultimately settling back into her Sea of Consciousness. Her heart demon watched her with a face full of worry, eyes slightly red: “Maybe you should still let me try going out.”
Yu Zhaoming replied: “Every time you manifest, you’re right beside me. Even if you come out, you’d still be inside this dungeon. What’s more, this place is covered with runes that block spiritual consciousness — you can’t extend your perception outside, so naturally you can’t get out either.”
“And right now, whether it’s the City Lord’s Mansion or anyone else, we can’t confirm who’s trustworthy.”
Tang Wenchun pressed her lips together, face scrunched in distress, racking her brain for a solution. In a novel, even if you couldn’t trust anyone, you could always trust the female lead. But at this point in time, the great cultivator secretly protecting them — Yunzhongjun — was a heart demon, and the future Young Pavilion Master of Treasure Gathering Pavilion was currently forced to rely on others’ goodwill.
The only person she could trust, whose character was guaranteed, was Yu Zhaoming alone. But the future Sword Venerable was, at this moment, merely a Golden Core cultivator who couldn’t even escape a dungeon. With her spiritual energy suppressed, she couldn’t even use the Sword Talisman that Shizun Xuanjiu had given her.
To escape the dungeon, there was only one way: for Yu Zhaoming to reach the Nascent Soul stage.
And Yu Zhaoming stood quietly behind Tang Wenchun, watching her. Her fingers curled slightly, the shadow of Cangfeng flickering in and out of view between her knuckles.
Yu Zhaoming was only a single step away from Nascent Soul. At first, she hadn’t understood why that single step felt as though it were separated by countless walls, nor had she understood what that sensation of loss and return was when Tang Wenchun came back to her Sea of Consciousness.
After hearing Thirteenth Young Master’s words, she finally understood.
Her heart demon fed on her spiritual qi, devouring the cultivation and spiritual qi that rightfully belonged to her. As the heart demon returned, the spiritual qi flowed back into place, and that once-unreachable step was now right before her eyes. It needed only the gentlest push to collapse entirely, letting her set foot upon the great path to the heavens.
Below Nascent Soul, all were ants. And ants could not accomplish what she needed to do.
Yu Zhaoming’s fingers lightly touched her forehead band, her gaze locked on Tang Wenchun.
Half-step Nascent Soul — just half a step forward. Just as in this moment, with Cangfeng in hand, she needed only to thrust forward, and everything before her would be resolved.
The great path to immortality was right before her eyes. She lifted her gaze slightly — a single strike, and all the mist would dissipate.
She took a step forward. Her fingers clamped tight. The leather-wrapped grip of Cangfeng pressed against the lines of her palm — the most familiar sensation in the world. Cangfeng trembled faintly, as if it too sensed its master’s killing intent.
At that moment, Tang Wenchun suddenly turned around. She bit her lower lip and looked at Yu Zhaoming: “There’s no other way. Yu Zhaoming, kill me.”
The step halted abruptly. Yu Zhaoming stared blankly at Tang Wenchun. It was the first time Tang Wenchun had seen such obvious astonishment on Yu Zhaoming’s face: “What?”
The author has something to say:
Yu Zhaoming: After thinking it over and over, between killing a fellow cultivator and killing a wife, she chose to kill a wife.
Tang Wenchun: You don’t need to do it! I’m volunteering to die!!
Yu Zhaoming: …Suddenly I can’t bring myself to do it…
Yunzhongjun is a heart demon. Heart demons are born from human dark obsessions. She… ah, no more spoilers…
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