Chapter 89: Enter My Sect and Become My Disciple

Wen Jinge considered herself poor.

At the very least, that was what she believed.

“Where exactly is it not poor?”

“Nowhere... nowhere at all...” The little boy spoke with an air of solemn composure. Though he was young, he had a weary, battle-worn look about him, as if he had already endured much.

“How so?”

He did not answer. His throat hurt too badly to speak.

The strange woman beside him said nothing more and did not rise. When the boy, puzzled, looked over at her again, he found that she had already fallen asleep.

A strange woman indeed.

He muttered the thought again in his heart.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!

A sword flew back, cutting through layer after layer of obstruction to return to Wen Jinge’s side. The boy’s eyes lit up at the sight of the purple blade, and he wondered whether he should wake this strange woman.

But just then, the sword drifted toward him. One person and one sword stared at each other, and the little boy could not understand why, when he looked at that blade, it felt as though an eye were fixed upon him.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!

The sword slashed sideways at him. Wen Jinge rolled over in her sleep, and the demonic zither went rigid in the air, stopping just a breath away from the boy.

Seeing that Wen Jinge still had not awakened, the demonic zither continued. Terrified, the boy clutched the dirt in his hands and did not dare call out to Wen Jinge. He had already been frightened witless.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!

A cool sensation spread across his body. In a daze, he seemed to realize something and nearly screamed, only to fear that Wen Jinge would see him without clothes. He wanted to flee, but his legs were ruined, and he could not even crawl.

This bizarre demonic sword, freed from restraint while its master slept, indulged in mischief to its heart’s content. Perhaps even it did not know why it had taken to toying with a child.

It rose high into the air, its demonic aura thick and surging. Freshly stained with blood, it carried traces of the children’s bodies, already warped by strange changes. Its master had said the demonic aura was for Ah Cai, but Ah Cai knew nothing of that!

It whirled in a flourish of swordlight, wrapping itself in demonic energy. A blade of slaughter gradually awakening intelligence was already something Heaven could not tolerate. Even in a long-drought desert, should it disturb the balance of fate, thunder would come.

If it usually kept a low profile, Heaven, though displeased, would at most turn a blind eye and let it pass. But now the demonic zither had followed its master and learned to provoke.

Rumble, rumble! Rumble, rumble!

Before long, its whereabouts were discovered.

Rumble, rumble!

The boy looked at the falling sword and the descending thunder, trembling so hard he shook all over with fear.

Drip, drip!

The demonic zither darted off elsewhere to dance. It was nimble and swift, moving with ease through the thunderclouds, as free and content as a fish in running water.

Drip!

Rain fell upon the boy.

Drip!

Rain struck Wen Jinge and splashed onto him.

Drip!

A faint lavender glow appeared over Wen Jinge’s body; it was the barrier the demonic zither had left behind when it departed. Not a single drop touched her.

Instead, the boy, drenched by the downpour, turned red all over, revealing his true skin color and the scars beneath.

He propped himself up and sat on the ground, but rain blurred his eyes so badly that the world seemed even less distinct.

He wiped at his face and, using the rain, began to scrub his body clean.

Wen Jinge blinked once, then shut her eyes.

Yes, she must have opened them the wrong way.

What had she just seen?

A thin, pale, sickly boy sitting naked beside her, using, using rainwater to bathe?

She closed her eyes again.

Slowly relaxing, she told herself it had to be an illusion from having slept too soundly.

She had been in this world for so long, always busy. Only in the early days, when she had been slaughtering her way through everything with abandon, had she ever been idle. After that, she had grown busy again.

Today had been a rare good sleep. In a place like this, she even found herself thinking it had been a good sleep.

Even Wen Jinge found it unbelievable.

As if she ought to have been born for scenes like this; battlefields... such flying, shattered chaos seemed more like her true home. Yet the self she remembered should have loathed war.

What felt most wrong was that only when she slept with earth and bones beneath her head did she rest soundly.

She opened her eyes again.

The boy was still scrubbing himself. This rain seemed to have made him feel much younger in spirit, as though he were rather fond of it.

“Child.”

Wen Jinge’s sudden voice startled him. He hurriedly covered the important parts and glared at her, his nose reddening, his breath quick with indignation.

“Your sword is a lecher!”

Wen Jinge: ...

She looked up at the sky, rubbed her slightly aching head, and when she realized that a thin layer of demonic energy had been draped over her body, she felt a little helpless. This sword really was not easy to control.

She had a rough guess as to the former owner of the demonic zither sword. It ought to be the Lord of Herself who had already faded from the mind, or perhaps her own self from long ago.

The Lord of Herself, once fully aware and restored, had already departed because obsession had been relinquished and dissolved of its own accord.

If even that “nonexistent” departure had already happened, how far away could the rest be?

The demonic zither must have thought its old master had returned, and so its behavior had grown a great deal more unrestrained. In front of her, it had once again become the demonic zither of old, no longer a wood-chopping axe, a kitchen cleaver, or a shovel for digging pits.

In other words, it had swollen with confidence and found the courage to be reckless.

“How is it lecherous?”

“It stripped my clothes off!”

The boy gnashed his teeth as he spoke. Then he blushed. The rosy cloud that rose over his fair face was strikingly lovely—if only he were neatly dressed at this moment, it would be even better.

“And it wanted to strike me with thunder!”

When the thunderclouds descended, he had truly thought he was done for. Thankfully, the sword had finally flown elsewhere.

“And, and it made the rain fall on me!”

He was not afraid of rain; in fact, he liked this kind of rain that could wash away all heaviness and gloom. But his legs were injured, and his upper body had suffered various internal wounds.

This rain could very well cost him his life.

Though, he did not know why he had begun wanting to live again.

“Oh.” The strange woman gave a faint reply.

He felt his body lighten, as though he had been taken into someone’s arms. The outer robe was large, carrying the cool fragrance that rose from the strange woman’s body, wrapping him tightly within it.

The strange woman lifted his lower leg and examined it, a faint smile on her lips.

“Child, are you hungry?”

Gurgle, gurgle.

His stomach answered at just the right moment.

The boy flushed with embarrassment. “I...”

“I happen to be short one disciple. Come under my roof, be my disciple, and I shall see that you never want for food or drink. How about it?”

As she spoke, she drew a jug of hundred-flower honey wine from her sleeve and handed it to the boy.

“Drink this. It will make speaking less painful, and your throat will feel better.”

The boy pressed his lips together and looked at the strange woman before him.

Though the sweet fragrance of honeyed flowers made him want to drink it, he still did not dare touch it, because he did not trust her.

“Why won’t you drink?” Wen Jinge found him deeply interesting. She did not know why, but the voice in her heart had vanished.

So this child before her—he should be the one she was seeking, should he not?

“They used to fool me like that too.”

“How did they fool you?” Wen Jinge did not ask who “they” were.

Everyone had secrets of their own. When a scar was opened, a secret might be nothing more than a thorn lodged in the heart.

“They gave me a flatbread and said I was their god. If I went with them, they said, I’d never go hungry or thirsty again.”

“And then the god lost his power?” Wen Jinge did not know why, but after meeting this child, she had found herself unusually relaxed.

“Is a god without power still a god?”