After Killing His Sinful Disciple with His Own Hands, the Immortal Venerable Went Mad - Chapter 1

Fine, biting threads of rain snaked down the window lattice, tapping out a fragmented rhythm on the glazed tiles.

Wen Pinglan knelt on the cold, blue brick floor, his fingertips digging deeply into his palms. His white hem was already soaked through with cold sweat, leaving dark stains where it touched his knees. The parched heat (surging) in his throat gnawed at his meridians like a venomous snake; he bit his lower lip hard, the taste of blood spreading between his teeth.

On the bed, Ling Rong propped himself up on his elbows. His black robe slipped off his shoulder, revealing a half-length of collarbone as smooth as congealed fat. He sat up, his bare feet pressing into the brocade quilt. As he moved, the quilt embroidered with gold-threaded tangled lotus flowers slid down to his waist. His peach-blossom eyes shimmered with watery light, and the cinnabar mole at the corner of his eye looked all the more vivid against his pale skin: “Master, how much longer do you intend to hold out?”

Wen Pinglan snapped his head up, crashing into that affectionate gaze. His Adam’s apple rolled uncontrollably. The Wangshu Immortal Venerable, who had always been cold and self-restrained, now had disheveled forehead hair, his wet eyelashes trembling incessantly: “Sinful… sinful disciple…”

He was startled by his own hoarse voice before he had even finished speaking, feeling the “poison of desire” surging even more violently within him.

Hearing this, Ling Rong struck a seductive pose, his affectionate peach-blossom eyes revealing a glimmer of persistence: “Master, those afflicted with this poison must engage in intimate union within an hour, or they will bleed from their seven orifices…”

Wen Pinglan’s eyes grew dark and unfathomable. Perhaps from fear of death, or perhaps for some other reason, the string of reason in Wen Pinglan’s mind snapped completely. He leaned forward.

A bolt of lightning exploded outside the window, and Wen Pinglan trembled at the scorching body heat in his embrace. Looking at the gorgeous face inches away, in his trance, he saw his sixteen-year-old disciple smiling up at him under a peach blossom tree.

The poison burned his reason; he finally raised his hand to clasp the back of the other’s neck, kissing those ceaseless words into his lips.

Afterward.

Ling Rong lay limp on the brocade couch, his sweat-dampened black hair clinging to his pale cheeks. The force with which Wen Pinglan had gripped his neck in his ferocity still left him struggling for breath.

“Master truly hates me to the core.” A self-deprecating smile tugged at the corner of Ling Rong’s mouth. Just a moment ago, it was as if Wen Pinglan had wanted to crush him to dust. Yet, even so, Ling Rong greedily savored the warmth left on his body by the other even if that warmth was filled with bone-piercing hatred.

Outside the window came the whistling of the strange, haunting wind unique to the Demon Palace. Ling Rong curled his body up, memories surging in his mind.

On a snowy night when he was sixteen, he had been at the foot of the Immortal Mountain, dying of cold. It was Wen Pinglan who carried him back to the Immortal Gate. At that time, his Master’s white robes were cleaner than snow; when his fingertips brushed over his frozen cheeks, Ling Rong had thought in a daze that he was seeing a god. Or perhaps, his Master was a god to begin with.

His Master, Wen Pinglan, would teach him swordplay and magic hand-in-hand, and would scold the other disciples when they looked down on him or bullied him. Sometimes, when he was feeling despondent, his Master would comfort him, and when he stroked the top of his head, he would inexplicably think of the line: “An immortal brushes the top of my head, knotting my hair for eternal life.”

But his Master was an immortal.

Immortals and demons were destined to stand in opposition.

At eighteen, his Master was wounded by the Demon Race, left hanging by a thread. To save his Master, Ling Rong ran into the Immortal Gate’s forbidden grounds to steal the study of forbidden arts, but as a result, he became tainted with demonic energy.

When his Master learned of this, in front of numerous disciples, he sent Ling Rong to the execution platform, pierced his chest with a single sword, and discarded him in the mass grave while he was on the brink of death.

The carrion of the mass grave gnawed at his wounds, yet he stubbornly clutched the blood-stained jade pendant. That was the birthday gift Wen Pinglan had bestowed upon him.

After Ling Rong crawled out of the mass grave, he fell completely into the demonic path, then stepped by step, he climbed to his current position as the Demon Venerable. Now, he had finally fulfilled his wish to imprison Wen Pinglan by his side, but what he got in return was an even deeper hatred.

But Wen Pinglan never knew from start to finish that Ling Rong had fallen into the demonic path for his sake. He didn’t even know that his own life had been saved by Ling Rong.

The night wind rolled with the light ringing of copper bells.

After his thoughts returned, Ling Rong moved his gaze toward the person beside his pillow, his expression motionless. Wen Pinglan was already asleep.

Ling Rong curled his red-stained fingers and tucked the slipped brocade quilt back over Wen Pinglan’s shoulders. The candlelight cast his thin silhouette on the window paper, his trembling fingertips hovering over the other’s brow bone, ultimately daring not to fall and touch that face, both familiar and strange.

Memories of the past retreated like the tide, and only the long, rhythmic breathing of the person beside him caused a pain to stir in his chest.

Digging his nails deeply into his palms, Ling Rong turned his face away. He was afraid that if he kept looking, he wouldn’t be able to resist kissing away the faint crease between Wen Pinglan’s brows—a mark left by his Master’s perennial coldness, yet one that always softened in sleep.

When a hot liquid suddenly dropped onto his wrist, he realized he was already covered in tears.

His trembling hand reached under the pillow; the cold jade pendant was within reach. The edges of the pendant had already been rubbed smooth. Moonlight flowed through the window lattice, dancing over the winding carving on the inner side of the jade pendant: the five words “Gift to beloved disciple Ling Rong” flickered in the shadows, like a rusted dagger gouging his heart.

“Master, do you still remember…” Ling Rong pressed the jade pendant to his chest, a suppressed sob overflowing from his throat. Remember that you once said you would protect your disciple forever… Remember you said you would never abandon your disciple…

Moments later, the sound of wooden clappers from the Demon Palace guards changing shifts in the distance startled the sleeper.

He hurriedly shoved the jade pendant back under the pillow, only to see Wen Pinglan frown and roll over, his arm resting across his waist unconsciously.

Ling Rong went rigid all over; he even forgot to breathe. The warm body temperature came through his thin inner robe, and in a daze, his memory returned to the morning on the mountain behind the Immortal Gate several years ago, when Wen Pinglan had also held him like this to teach him sword control, the heat of his palm making him blush and his heart beat wildly.

“Master, I have never hated you.” Ling Rong whispered to the sleeping man. “Even if you pushed me into the abyss with your own hands, I am still waiting for you to turn back, to turn back and look at me just once.”

Ling Rong knew clearly in his heart that his Master hated him to the marrow. Hatred was like a bottomless abyss, stretching between them. Therefore, he knew well that his Master would never turn back. Even a glimpse of half an afterglow would be like a pipe dream.

Perhaps because he was too exhausted, Ling Rong’s consciousness gradually blurred, his eyelids grew heavier, and he soon fell into a deep sleep.

Just as Ling Rong slept, Wen Pinglan, beside him on the couch, suddenly felt his dense eyelashes tremble.

Immediately afterward, he snapped his eyes open, cold, clear light flickering in his pupils. As his gaze landed on the sleeping Ling Rong beside him, his already deep eyes darkened by another fraction.

The moment he saw Ling Rong, Wen Pinglan’s mind involuntarily conjured up the unbearable events that had just transpired—Ling Rong had actually poisoned him and then forced him to commit such shameful acts.

Remembering this, Wen Pinglan felt a wave of nausea. He was the high-and-mighty, untainted, and revered Wangshu Immortal Venerable! In this world of cultivation, no one had ever dared to covet him; even a mere lingering gaze would be seen as blasphemy. And now, he had been defiled in such a way. Moreover, the person who had tarnished him was the universally despised Demon Venerable…

Thinking of this, the hatred in Wen Pinglan’s heart intensified; the veins on his hands bulged like winding snakes. He slowly rose, extended his slender hand, and like claws, clamped them around Ling Rong’s neck, saying in a cold voice: “Die.”

Yes, he wanted Ling Rong to die. Even if Ling Rong had once been his most prized disciple.