It hurt a hundred times more than she had expected.
What was burning was not just the blood flowing out, it was more like a force pouring out from the wound she had cut, taking the flesh and blood underneath as soil where the roots could grow frantically, almost tearing open the entire palm.
“Wanqing!” Feng Yaoqing was the first to react, but she couldn’t get even half a step close to her.
The flames wrapped Shen Wanqing into a circle, entwining her tightly.
“This is bad.” Ji Feichen also discovered something was wrong, ignoring the Painted Skin Ghost in front of him, he drew his sword against a yellow talisman and tried to suppress the spiritual energy spreading around Shen Wanqing, shouting, “She has lost control of her power.”
In the middle of the flames, Shen Wanqing felt her spiritual mind gradually withdraw from the body, reaching a place of emptiness and softness.
Suddenly, a white light blinded her eyes, and countless images overlapped and flashed by.
There were screams surrounding a woman whose face had been burned beyond recognition and being pushed into a bonfire.
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Mbkp kp……
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Gv vbkp xsxldv, Fbld Eydikdt pllxle vs qllz vbl taswde pbyjl.
The blazing flame instantly enveloped her body, as if it were about to swallow her spiritual consciousness forcibly.
“Boom.”
Suddenly, a spiritual energy accumulated and rushed in.
It soaked her whole body like a hot spring. The comfortable temperature and warmth that soothed her soul allowed her to withdraw from the pain in an instant.
At the same time, the surrounding scenes changed.
She was shrouded in a thick blood colour, paired with a gloomy shadow.
Shen Wanqing turned her head and found a woman dressed as a nun standing in front of her.
The woman was holding a boy.
The boy looked like he was seven or eight years old, with black hair and red eyes, ragged clothes and chains on his feet, the friction causing lines and lines of blood scars.
Even though he was in such a shabby state, the boy’s expression remained calm.
It was a sort of numbness that seemed to not care about life or death, almost like he didn’t have a soul.
The woman led the boy forward and went straight through Shen Wanqing’s body.
……wait.
Whose memory was this?
The scene in front of her flickered violently.
Many fragments quickly poured in, overlapped, and became chaotic.
However, Shen Wanqing could still vaguely recognize some of the scenes.
The boy was locked up all over with chains and had scars over his whole body. His jaw was pinched and a bowl of fresh blood was forcefully poured into his mouth, the person squeezing his cheeks to force him to swallow it.
Numerous chains and charms bounded the boy’s whole body as he went to fight to the death with evil and fierce under-worldly monsters, until there was not a single bit of unwounded flesh remaining, yet, he was still required to stand up straight, doing so with a lot of effort.
The last scene was a sword furnace that was burning fiercely, circled by flames.
Dressed in white robes, the cultivators had an upright and righteous expression, as they all watched from the sidelines with serious faces.
The woman led the boy forward, and finally stopped in front of the sword furnace.
“Jump in,” the woman said.
The boy did not move.
The woman suddenly grabbed his hair like she was crazy, and pulled him towards the sword furnace: “Jump in!”
Without knowing why, Shen Wanqing stretched out her hand, trying to grab the boy’s arm.
But it was obvious that this was in vain.
The ground rocked and the mountains shook, the flames ignited again in an instant.
The boy was pushed down like this.
He had no superfluous expression, no sadness or joy, no fear or anger.
Shen Wanqing’s pupils shrunk slightly.
She was too familiar with such eyes.
At that moment, she suddenly understood who these memories belonged to.
Xie Wuyan.
Only Xie Wuyan would show such an expression in front of death.
But why couldn’t she see his spiritual consciousness?
An inch of darkness wrapped around her.
Before she could think about it, Shen Wanqing felt her spiritual consciousness being pulled back into her physical body.
What followed was a deep wave of fatigue, completely engulfing her consciousness.
“Wanqing!”
Ji Feichen strode forward, clasping Shen Wanqing’s shoulders, and then slowly squatted down to let her lean in his arms.
Seeing Shen Wanqing unconscious, he furrowed his brow but still didn’t forget to raise his head to thank Xie Wuyan, “Thank you, Master Xie.” He hesitated, but then said, “Your hand…”
Xie Wuyan glanced at his right hand that had been burned till his flesh was black, raised his eyebrows, and said quietly, “It’s okay.”
Just now, he didn’t know why Shen Wanqing’s spiritual power had suddenly gotten out of control. Even if Ji Feichen had exerted all his strength, he could barely suppress less than one-third of the power.
The group of spiritual flames burned vigorously, and if it were to continue like that, he was afraid that her whole body would be burned to dust.
When there was no other way, Xie Wuyan put away his sword and approached the fire.
He then stretched out his hand, went straight through the spiritual fire that was entangling her, held Shen Wanqing’s wrist, clasped her palm that was bloody, and passed his own spiritual energy into it.
This way, the powerful force that had almost burst out of her body was suppressed.
Xie Wuyan didn’t care about these injuries.
He had experienced even more pain than this before. His physique was special, and his flesh and blood would recover more quickly than others after being destroyed.
The only thing he cared about was —
Xie Wuyan turned his head and looked at Shen Wanqing who was leaning against Ji Feichen’s shoulder, her eyes closed tightly with a painful expression on her face.
Blood oozed out from the corner of her mouth, a beautiful little face like that was such a sickly pale white color.
The Blood Burning Technique.
This kind of secret technique was rarely known, and since a long time ago, very few people could possess such an ability.
Others didn’t know, but Xie Wuyan knew best.
It looked like the blood was being burned
But in fact, it was the soul of the cultivator.
This was a very terrifying force. The more severe the injury and the more close to death, the more this force could be used to its extreme.
Shen Wanqing obviously knew nothing about this.
Otherwise, she wouldn’t have used such a secret technique so rashly without having practiced it enough.
But she went to such an extent just to help him conceal his identity.
Why?
—
[Villainess System:
System Prompt – the hidden task has been triggered [Xie Wuyan’s Past].
The host is requested to complete the task as soon as possible to fill in the gaps in the original novel.]
When Shen Wanqing, who had just awoken from a coma, heard such a sound in her head, she was so angry that she wanted to jump up, grab the system’s neck and die with it.
This was the stereotypical heartless boss in her times.
Your employees are all lying in bed with oxygen masks, yet you still don’t forget to supervise them to complete their KPI1.
Shen Wanqing took a deep breath, gritted her teeth, and opened her eyes with difficulty.
She thought of getting up but found that her body was too heavy to move, as if it had been filled with lead.
“Be careful.” Ji Feichen, whose eyes had been closed to rest his mind, was awakened by the sound. He immediately reached out to support Shen Wanqing, poured her a glass of water, and fed her a sip. “Don’t rush, the Painted Skin Ghost has been destroyed, your injuries are too severe, you need to rest for a few more days before you can move your body.”
Shen Wanqing drank a few sips of water and then laid down again.
She thought for a while and asked: “What happened to me?”
“That I have to ask you,” Ji Feichen asked in a gentle voice, “When did you learn such a secret technique?”
“I don’t really know.” Shen Wanqing said, “I was attacked by the Painted Skin Ghost last time, that’s when I accidentally discovered that I have such an ability.”
Ji Feichen pondered for a moment, then stretched out his hand and covered her with the quilt without saying a word: “It doesn’t matter, you just need to take a good rest. Don’t mention this matter to anyone, I will find out the reasoning behind this for you.”
Speaking of this, he raised his eyebrows and reminded: “But you have to promise me that if it is not a life-and-death situation, you must never use such powers again.”
Shen Wanqing obediently nodded.
One cannot decide what one encounters, but let’s just say yes first.
During the few days when Shen Wanqing was in a coma, Ji Feichen and Feng Yaoqing had reached a consensus.
Although they didn’t know why Shen Wanqing knew such a secret technique, it was obvious that this may be somewhat related to her origins. However, once this news was discovered by others, or even the elders of the big sects and clans, they would definitely not let her off the hook easily.
Ji Feichen was unwilling to let his sister become a weapon for these clans to help them enhance their abilities.
What’s more, he didn’t know at all, if she continued to use such a power, how much wear and tear it would cause to her body.
Feng Yaoqing agreed with Ji Feichen’s point of view, and specifically instructed Zeng Ziyun to keep this matter a secret.
“Alright,” Ji Feichen stood up, “You take a good rest first, I’ll tell the cook to make you some porridge.”
“Hey, wait—”
Seeing that he was about to leave, Shen Wanqing got up and hurriedly called him to a halt.
Upon seeing this, Ji Feichen sat back down helplessly: “What’s the matter?”
“Well… I have not been able to sleep well these days because of the Painted Skin Ghost, so I want to hear about the situation with the Demon Lord.” Shen Wanqing organized her words and prepared to start and understand the situation from him first, “I see those elders are making this a very big deal, is the Demon Lord really so scary? What if…he is easy to get along with?”
Ji Feichen gave her a strange look, then shook his head: “No, it’s impossible.”
“Why?”
“In fact, the Demon Lord is not a simple demon cultivator, but a child born from a human cultivator and a demon cultivator in the Heavenly Dao Palace.” Ji Feichen said, “Originally, the Heavenly Dao Palace nurtured him with the other cultivators, in hopes that he could get rid of his demonic nature running through his blood. However, they didn’t imagine that they would raise the enemy. Although he was still a child, his violence was difficult to control, and he almost slaughtered a whole branch of the Heavenly Dao Palace with just himself alone.”
Shen Wanqing lowered her eyes: “Really?”
“Wanqing, I know that your mind is pure.” Ji Feichen stretched out his hand and patted her head. “But neither the Human Realm nor the Demon Realm can tolerate such a person. If he is not re-sealed again, it will definitely lead to the destruction of all life.”
After Ji Feichen left, Shen Wanqing leaned on the edge of the bed and carefully recalled what she had seen, that memory related to Xie Wuyan.
The Heavenly Dao Palace.
It turned out that those cultivators who were wearing luxurious robes, watching him being pushed down into the furnace, driving him to endless bloody battles, were disciples of the Heavenly Dao Palace.
For rumours like this, the only information you received would always be what the original spreaders wanted you to know.
However, the memory she had touched with her spiritual consciousness could not lie to her.
For Xie Wuyan, that was not a “kind” sort of nurturing.
He was taken in as a weapon that was filled with lethality, as another method for them to use for murder.
They had used the cruellest way possible to force him to grow up quickly.
They wanted to control him to slaughter the under-worldly demons who carried a similar blood-type.
Finally, they would then give him as a sacrifice to the sword.
From the very beginning, Xie Wuyan was destined to be killed.
At that time, the reason was not whether he wanted to be a great Demon Lord who caused the destruction of all life, but whether he had the ability to become such a person.
—
[Translator’s note: Aiya, my heart begins to ache for our ML too, who else wants to give our FL and ML a big hug!! By the way, I want to give the biggest shout-out to my first Ko-fi supporter who kindly donated to me! Thank you so much kuroneko_chan! I will keep doing my best translating! Love you all!]
