When Li Jue came out of the room, Chu Jiuer was still watching television in the living room.
She hugged a pillow, her fair, tender, small feet bare as she sat cross-legged on the sofa, one hand still holding her treasured Burgundy.
“How late do you plan to watch?”
“What’s it to you? I’m not getting in the way of your business.”
“Xiao An is already asleep. Don’t turn the volume up too high. It’ll wake him.”
Li Jue sat down beside Chu Jiuer, snatched the wine bottle from her hand in one motion, glanced at the mouth of the bottle, pulled out a tissue to wipe it, and only then began drinking.
“Hey!”
“There’s a fishy smell.” Li Jue said lightly.
“You’re the one with the fishy smell, stinking fox.”
Li Jue could not be bothered to argue with her and continued drinking the remaining wine in the bottle.
Chu Jiuer glanced at her nightgown.
The loose collar revealed a large expanse of spring scenery.
Beneath the exquisite collarbones was full and plump flesh, the skin snow-white and delicate. “You’re wearing this in front of Xiao An? Isn’t it a bit unsuitable for children?”
“Guess what I came out for. Is the convenience store nearby still open? I want to go buy a few things.”
“You’re not thinking of buying…” Chu Jiuer paused for a moment and looked at Li Jue’s expression.
The other party curved her lips in a smile, as if acknowledging her guess.
“Have you gone mad? After being a good sister for several years, you can’t hold back anymore and want to make a move on Xiao An?”
“Just a joke.” Li Jue was amused into laughter by Chu Jiuer’s agitated reaction.
“It had better be. If you really do something like that, I’ll definitely publicize your great achievements thoroughly throughout the demon world.”
“Do you think I would care? I’m just not doing anything right now. Who knows, one day I might process Xiao An’s withdrawal from school, find a place to imprison him for two years, and when he’s let out he might not even recognize you anymore.”
Chu Jiuer looked at Li Jue’s playful eyes and in a daze felt she truly might do something like that.
Both of them had temperaments that liked to cause trouble, yet Li Jue had never possessed the same gentle and kind disposition as her—just like how the demon arts they were most skilled in were as different as water and fire.
She still remembered the year 321 CE, the end of the Jin Dynasty, during the period of the Five Barbarians’ Rebellion against China.
At that time the Secret Society had not yet been established.
When they were traveling through the human world, a certain Xianbei foot soldier had cursed them as “two-legged sheep.”
Chu Jiuer had originally wanted to step forward to teach him a lesson, yet Li Jue had moved first and burned him into ashes.
Afterward… she had watched Li Jue ignite a sky-burning great fire throughout that entire Xianbei camp.
Young and old alike wailed in agony within the flames.
Amid the thick smoke filling the sky there had been people who humbly begged them for mercy, yet the fire had only burned more and more fiercely.
“Since Xiao An calls me sister, if you really do something like that, I will definitely take him and escape.”
“Heh. When he was little he even called me Mama.”
“Then can you bear to imprison and harm your own child like that?” Chu Jiuer’s tone was very serious.
Li Jue still wore an expression of complete indifference, as if everything was destined to follow her thoughts.
The girl’s words sounded like nothing more than a joke to her.
“Who knows.”
***
“Monster! Get lost, hurry up and get lost!”
“You… you are a devil! You won’t die a good death!”
“A beast is a beast and will never have humanity!”
“I’ll kill you! Demon, even as a ghost I won’t let you go!”
…
Li Jue had already heard far too many such venomous words over several thousand years.
Curses, hatred, misunderstandings, prejudice.
Merely the identity of a demon was enough for her to be regarded by countless people as a terrifying alien.
She had had far too many enemies.
She had originally thought she had long grown accustomed to these vicious words, yet she still often saw those faces filled with anger or fear in her dreams.
Those people were all already dead.
The majority of them had been killed by her own hands.
She had never feared them.
It had been so in the past, and it was the same no matter how many times they appeared in her dreams.
The threats and intimidation of mice were nothing more than the ravings of madmen in the eyes of a tiger.
What was different now was that those people shared the same blood as the boy she was madly infatuated with and favored.
They were all humans.
She was a demon.
Like a piece of black ice that had remained unmelted for ten thousand ages, no matter how scorching the flames, they could not make even half a drop of water flow from it.
Yet once temperature appeared within its interior, melting was only a matter of time.
Li Jue had more than once thought that there would come a day when the boy would point at her viciously, curse her as a monster, and tell her to get lost.
That was the scene she least wished to see.
No matter how tragic or heroic a scene from history, none would make her heart ache as much as that.
Therefore when she heard Ying An imitate Chu Jiuer in cursing her, even if it was only a joke, she could not restrain her angry emotions.
She had to make him list this kind of thing in his heart as an absolute prohibition.
If that day truly arrived, what should she do?
She looked at Ying An’s obedient face as he slept soundly.
In the peach-blossom eyes, bottomless greed churned in the pupils.
Why should she fear such a thing… even if he hated her, loathed her, what of it?
No matter what, it could not change the fact that he was her possession, to be manipulated only by her.
Ying An slowly opened his eyes.
Sunlight spilled into the room from outside the window.
Li Jue’s nightgown was loose and slack, revealing a large expanse of snow-white, delicate skin, slender and beautiful collarbones, and round, full breasts.
He could not help flushing red as he looked. “Sister, why aren’t you wearing your clothes properly?”
“Xiao An untied them for Sister while he was asleep.”
“I would never do something like that…”
“Really never? Then why don’t you dare look at Sister?”
Li Jue stroked his cheek, warmer than the sunlight outside the house.
“You… your clothes aren’t worn properly.”
“Isn’t it that Xiao An has a guilty conscience?” She pressed the boy’s head against her chest.
Without the obstruction of clothing, the snow-smooth skin mixed with her body heat and fragrance infected the tip of his nose.
“Right now, what is Xiao An thinking in his heart again?”
“Sister…”
“Sleep a little longer. Let Sister… hold you a little longer. Xiao An, call me Mama one more time.” Li Jue said softly.
“You yourself didn’t let me call you that before.”
“Now I want to hear it. Call it once.” Li Jue rubbed Ying An’s small head.
“Mama.”
***
The man carried a fruit basket into the hospital ward.
The pure white curtain was pulled open halfway.
A faint medicinal smell hung in the air.
The patient sat at the edge of the bed, staring blankly at the blue sky outside the window.
“How is the recovery?”
Li Yunzhong set down the fruit basket and asked Li Gongyan, who was wearing a hospital gown.
“Almost. It doesn’t hurt anymore. The doctor said I can be discharged.”
“It’s still not too late to withdraw now. I can arrange a stable job for you when you go back, and you can live safely and peacefully from now on.”
“No. I want to stay in the Secret Society, still in the Execution Division.”
Li Gongyan stood up and turned to look at his father, his eyes resolute.
“The Execution Division… with your temperament, I can’t protect you thoroughly every time. If it weren’t for Li Jue, you and Wang Mang might both have died at the hands of that hyena.”
“There won’t be a second time…” Li Gongyan’s tone weakened.
He knew that for that operation he had to bear the primary responsibility.
It was his eagerness for merit that led him to act on his own, not knowing the height of the heavens or the depth of the earth, nearly throwing both his own life and his colleague’s in together.
“Have you truly thought it through? Then do you want to go to other regions? Shenchuan currently has two Level 6 great demons. If something happens with those two, you will truly… leave life and death to fate.”
“Still Shenchuan. I’ll go.”