Will you marry her?

Taotie’s stomach suddenly ballooned, churning as though something were stirring rebellion inside his guts. The beast’s face distorted, yanked left, then tugged right; the illusion of a human visage warped like clay beneath an invisible kneading hand. Within that abdomen, a sphere of golden light expanded, straining to tear through skin and bone and burst free.

Lin Qianshuang swung her foot in a perfect arc and delivered a ruthlessly clear kick to that smug human mask. Taotie crashed to the floor, clutching his belly as it convulsed in piercing pain.

She crouched beside him and spoke silently into his mind: “I told you, one thing for one person. You never listen. Trying to digest a Shard of an Upper Realm God? Even if you’re a Malignant Beast listed since antiquity, your mere flesh-and-blood stomach can’t handle the divine.”

Lin Qianshuang lowered herself to the ground, eyes empty. Taotie had swallowed Mu Xiaochi; the shard from an Upper Realm God was awakening inside him. That should have satisfied her, after all, keeping her target alive had always been the mission.

But whenever she recalled the look Mu Xiaochi had given her at the very end, her chest tightened.

She could have caught the girl when Taotie’s coils swept her away; instead she had let the chance slip.

“Xiaochi…”

Mu Weiyin’s sword pressed to Taotie’s neck. The cold stone mask split from the brow downward, and regret bled through the fissures.

She had misjudged, trusting that Lin Qianshuang would snatch her sister back. Now the child was dead and Shuangshuang herself dangled in peril.

Restored to his true form, Taotie had wound his body around Lin Qianshuang and lifted her level with his beast eyes. She had been sitting; now she hung in mid-air, helpless to move. The play had to go on, and she would play it to the finish.

Lin Qianshuang let her demonic qi stream out, and her irises regained their clear sky blue. Mu Weiyin’s heart had already wavered; she only needed a few more sparks. Of course every move had to begin with staying alive.

She lifted a hand, sent a fire talisman floating above her palm, and burned the silk handkerchief hidden behind her back to ash. Then she made her face quiver with fear while she stared, unblinking, at the claws resting against her throat.

Taotie dared not kill her. He had mistaken her for someone of his own era and would obviously treat her with caution, especially now when his wits were scattered.

Mu Weiyin’s gaze settled on her. What held her back was not only Taotie’s threat, but also the life-death pact that bound the two of them.

Taotie’s claws left Lin Qianshuang’s shoulder; every scale on his body shone with dazzling gold. He hopped in frantic circles, clutching his aching belly, longing to tear apart every object in sight, barely resisting the urge to rip the delicious-looking woman in front of him to pieces. “My stomach is about to burst! Little Bai, we once swore brotherhood, don’t just watch me die!”

Lin Qianshuang clicked her tongue. If Mu Xiaochi were easier to digest, she would be next on the menu. Did the beast really think she hadn’t seen through his little scheme?

Mu Weiyin’s sword hand trembled; fear that Taotie might turn on her kept her motionless.

Lin Qianshuang frowned. This deadlock had to be broken. Drive the beast to panic and there was no telling what it might do.

She pried one scaled claw away from her throat and spoke in a private thread of mind transmission. “I’m not abandoning you. If it hurts, just spit it out. Problem solved.”

Inside Taotie’s gut the egg sized lump of golden light alternately swelled and shrank. The creature’s misery was plain, yet he showed no sign of yielding Mu Xiaochi’s remains.

Lin Qianshuang crooked a finger, blinking innocently. “I’ve another trick. Lean closer and I’ll whisper it. I can’t run anywhere, so relax.”

Taotie pressed the talon tips to her windpipe, half trusting, and lowered his snout. The moment his head was within reach, Qianshuang coiled her demonic qi into a rope round his neck. At the same instant she drew the top grade Binding Immortal Cord from her storage jade and lashed his human form, shoving the trussed beast clear of her.

Lin Qianshuang’s stunt drove Taotie berserk.

Binding a divine beast of legend with the coarse hemp rope mortals used for oxen was an insult he could not swallow.

He exploded into his true, mountain sized form. The Binding Immortal Cord snapped like rotten thread. One thunderous stamp of his foreclaw cracked the earth into a crater, and his sky-shaking roar rolled out as he whipped his colossal tail overhead, gathering a sphere of black turbid qi that he hurled straight at her.

“Look out!”

Mu Weiyin flashed in front of Qianshuang and slashed the black sphere apart, but when she reached back to pull her to safety she found the girl already gone. Qianshuang had slipped through the gap, sailing over the scattered globs of dark energy, Thousand Rain Sword in hand. Demonic qi coated the blade as she carved along his rugged scales, each stroke shattering arm-thick plates that burst into the air like stone petals.

“If you won’t cough it up, I’ll carve it out of you!”

Lin Qianshuang clamped one foot around the long spike of Taotie’s scale armor to steady herself, raised the Thousand Rain Sword, and drove it into his gut. A crescent of silver-blue sword-light shot through the huge body and flashed across half the sky. A wail followed. From between the beast’s dripping fangs a golden ball burst free.

The blow to his stomach made Taotie belch a torrent of acid. Snapping his tail in reflex, he whipped it straight at Qianshuang.

The Shard of the Upper Realm God had appeared.

Qianshuang pulled her gaze from the mid-air globe. Ahead, black mist rolled into writhing clouds that ate at her demonic qi and lunged for her. The poison orbs seemed to drift in slow motion; she could have sidestepped them, but she chose to guard her heart and ram them head-on with a three-point sword blast.

As the black sphere swallowed her, she glanced at Mu Weiyin, whose face was slipping from composure. A smile touched her lips. Time for a bit of self-sacrifice. Time for the City Lord’s mirror.

The corrosive fog crept closer. Just as she prepared to strike, the golden ball Taotie had spat out, still spinning playfully, plummeted with a shriek and hovered before her eyes. A golden lotus bloomed above her head; warm light poured over her body.

Mu Xiaochi stepped from the golden light, her cold, detached gaze landing on Lin Qianshuang with a flicker of surprise, as though astonished to find her alive.

Qianshuang sensed the change. When the child’s body had shattered, Mu Xiaochi had died; the figure before her now was only the Shard of the Upper Realm God.

She rose from the ground and watched the girl warily. In the original story the shard had once subdued Taotie, yet that mercy had been meant for Taotie alone. To everyone else, especially to an outright demon cultivator like herself, its intentions were anything but kind.

Mu Weiyin rammed her elbow into the black mist. The hazy mass, airy yet solid as rock, split open; she plunged through the breach and was soon wrapped in the poisonous fog that poured out.

“Shuangshuang.”

When Mu Weiyin saw Lin Qianshuang standing unharmed, she exhaled in relief. Yet the radiant, half-transparent figure beside her made her stare. “Xiaochi?”

Mu Weiyin quickly sensed the difference. “That’s not her.”

A thick glob of slime splattered across her cheek.

Lin Qianshuang looked up. Taotie’s jagged fangs brushed her temple; its colossal head loomed over her.

Her heart lurched. So fast! she hadn’t braced herself at all.

Taotie snarled, baring every tooth, and pinched her body between its claws like a tiny rag doll. “Dare to trick me? I’ll swallow you whole!”

Taotie tossed Lin Qianshuang into its maw. The jagged teeth sliced like shears; she dodged two snaps, wedged her sword upright between the upper and lower rows of fang, and sparks flew as steel grated on ivory.

The beast’s breath came in ragged gusts. Lin Qianshuang felt herself plunging; Taotie had lowered its head.

The clenched jaws sprang open. She shot out of the black gullet, tumbling across the sand.

She landed hard on sun-baked earth. The sky whirled above her like a crazed kaleidoscope. A hot throb pulsed at her temple; she had clipped a stone and blood threaded down her forehead.

“Heaven and Earth, mysterious ancestor; the ten-thousand qi return to the root.

Through countless kalpas I cultivate, to prove my divine art.”

…

“Hidden thunder within, the Thunder God’s name concealed.

Radiant wisdom pervades, the five qi surge on high.” ¹

The chant drifted from the horizon like music of the spheres, each syllable pure as jade striking a mountain spring.

It was the Golden Light Incantation; every cultivator first learns it to banish fiends and guard the Dao, yet it remains one of the world’s deepest incantations. Its realm is boundless, its might limited only by the caster’s insight and awakening.

Only those of profound attainment can draw forth its true power.

Lin Qianshuang already had the answer in her heart; she lifted a sleeve to block the suddenly piercing sunlight and, narrowing her eyes slightly, looked toward Taotie. The malignant beast had been so arrogant moments ago, and now he was in for misfortune.

Taotie, shrunken and sickly, lay on the ground like an obedient watchdog. His huge round eyes peeked furtively upward at intervals, stealing glances at the hazy figure bathed in seven-colored radiance, clearly pleading for leniency.

“Hm, so now you remember how to behave?”

A pair of plain-white shoes touched the ground with feather-light grace. Pale, bluish-green gauze, delicate and almost translucent, floated around her ankles and folded back a faint glimmer of light. Even seen only from behind, her presence carried the moist, spring-green composure of fresh bamboo; that quiet elegance drifted through her cloud-soft sleeves. When she smiled, she seemed a crystal stream beneath a pine: flawless, lucid, carrying the gentle stillness of flawless jade.

Taotie stared at the indistinct beauty before him in baleful resentment. She was smiling, yet nothing about it struck him as amusing. “Don’t push your luck. Who do you hope to frighten, dressing yourself in all that dainty sweetness? I saw you crawl out of the Primal Chaos. You might fool Little Bai with this act, but you won’t fool—”

“Oh?”

At the crooked arc of those demon eyes, Taotie saw a smile of killing intent that sank straight into his marrow. No matter how heaven-stopping that face might be, the beast tucked his tail and bolted.

He had barely begun to flee when slim white-jade fingers hooked his horn and lifted him bodily.

The flawless, heart-freezing beauty looked down at him. Fine brows lifted like ink strokes; clear eyes slid to the side. “The matter is not finished. You harmed my person. Apologise.”

The mere thought of another long imprisonment made Taotie crumple to the ground in despair. “God-Emperor Taiqing, spare this humble god. Don’t seal me again. I’ll apologise. Right now!”

From where she stood, Lin Qianshuang glimpsed the hazy figure; the Upper God never turned around. Taotie, however, scrambled toward her, trailing snot, tears and self-pity. With round, blood-red beast eyes widened pitifully, he imitated the cute antics of a mortal pet, abandoning all his former greed and savagery.

Lin Qianshuang narrowed her eyes as the beast clutched her sleeve. She drew Thousand Rain Sword. “What else do you want?”

Taotie let out a plaintive growl. “Little Bai, go and put in a good word for me. You two were once a pair.”

Lin Qianshuang stared speechlessly at the beast’s goofy attempt to act adorable. She tugged at her sleeve, half laughing, half in tears, and turned toward the Upper Realm God who still faced away. “Senior, how should we deal with an ancient malignant beast responsible for so many lives?”

“My time here is brief, but it is enough for a temporary sealing.”

The figure extended a slender hand. A spinning seal rune rose from a palm pale as moonlight. With two fingers she tapped the air above Taotie’s brow; a drop-shaped divine seal settled over its demonic mark. The beast, no longer shrunken, swelled to its true colossal form and sank into a deep slumber.

“The time I may remain is short, so I have cast a ten-year sleep spell. When that span ends, a sacrificial offering must be placed before the seal can become eternal.”

Lin Qianshuang bowed respectfully to the back still turned toward her. “Thank you for your guidance, Senior.”

“There is no need to thank me. Between us, there are no distinctions.”

A sheet of cyan light skimmed across the ground and vanished; Mu Weiyin collapsed sideways. Lin Qianshuang sprang forward, caught her, and cradled her gently.

The system’s “Target Completed” prompt and the favorability interface popped up together, giving a soft, staccato trill.

“City Lord, City Lord? Ah Yin?”

She patted Mu Weiyin’s cheek, but the woman did not stir. A sudden shimmer of silver pooled in her own palm, and the Tianshu Mirror lay quietly within it. Startled, she pressed two fingers to Mu Weiyin’s spiritual pulse; the meridians were fractured, the unmistakable sign of a rogue cultivator.

A frigid sword point settled against her chest.

Lin Qianshuang came back to her senses. The Taotie was being carried away by a dozen cultivators working together, while demons and monsters outside Tianshu City kept scrambling in without pause.

Xiao Lanle’s sword tip aimed straight at her, voice icy. “The Lord of Tianshu City is the author of this Taotie calamity. The whole world saw how she consorted with that fierce beast and calmly subdued it. I advise you to release her. Considering that a witch misled you, if you surrender and let yourself be locked in the Immortal Alliance dungeon, you may keep your life for now.”