After My Paranoid Act to Woo My Cold Master Failed - Chapter 28

The girl in red suddenly turned her head and smiled at Shen Shuheng, revealing a row of bright white teeth. Shen Shuheng was instantly reminded of exposed bleached bones, and a chill surged from the soles of her feet.

Shen Shuheng tugged at Fu Xueke’s sleeve and whispered, “Master, she looks very strange.”

Fu Xueke had noticed it too. She knew the girl likely harbored ill intentions; it was unclear why she had lured them here. The girl might be related to the Evil Entity, making her a potential breakthrough for their investigation.

The girl sat up abruptly, the bells on her ankles and wrists clashing loudly. Her snowy-white feet hovered just above the ground. Shen Shuheng’s eyes widened; she noticed the girl was cradling a wooden puppet in her right arm.

Had it been just a puppet, she wouldn’t have been so surprised. The craftsmanship of the carving was extremely crude, with only a rough outline of a face. However, the eyes were exceptionally life like exactly like a living person’s, shimmering with light.

“You’ve been staring at it for so long; you also think Master’s eyes are beautiful,” the girl said with a playful smile before looking down to kiss the puppet’s eyes. “I love Master’s eyes most of all. When I ate her, I made sure to save this pair…”

She gazed at the puppet with satisfaction, unable to resist kissing its mouth. Suddenly, her brow furrowed and her expression turned manic. “Too ugly! It looks nothing like Master! Putting Master’s beautiful eyes on this thing is such a waste!”

She hooked her hand into a claw, making a move to gouge the eyes out, but stopped the moment she touched them. “It’s my fault for being clumsy, I could only carve it like this. But…”

“I’ll be able to make a new body for Master soon—one that belongs to me alone,” she said, her gaze sweeping over every part of their bodies.

Shen Shuheng felt her skin crawl under that gaze. The way the girl looked at them was like a cold knife measuring them up, searching for the best place to make a cut.

The girl’s feelings toward her “Master” were very strange. If she hated someone to the extreme, why would she carve a puppet of them, kiss it, and hold it so dearly? But if she loved them, why would she eat them?

The more Shen Shuheng thought about it, the weirder it felt. She couldn’t help but ask, “Why did you eat your Master?”

“Because I hate her,” the girl replied, her smile freezing. Her flirtatious peach-blossom eyes were filled with malice.

“Is it only hate?” Yue Bai suddenly interjected, having recognized the bells on the girl. “She’s wearing the ‘Lunar Scroll Bells.’ These can only control low-level demons. There are two bells in a set—one for the demon and one for the controller. But she is wearing both.”

Yue Bai continued in a low voice, “Demons loathe those who enslave them. Once they escape control, they always destroy these symbols of their past humiliation, let alone wear them. The fact that you still wear them… I suspect it’s not as simple as hate.”

The girl wasn’t bothered by her secret being discovered. “Because this was the first thing Master ever gave me,” she said, gently stroking the bell on her left wrist. The malice in her eyes vanished, replaced by a deep, aching tenderness.

The dim yellow light draped over the girl as she gazed at the bells. She seemed lost in a beautiful memory, immersed so deeply she didn’t want to come out. She would always remember that day—the heavy snow, the world a blanket of white. She had been trapped in a cage, shivering, when a woman appeared. The woman knelt down, reached out a hand, and looked at her tenderly: “Are you willing to follow me from now on?”

She had nodded, and the woman had fastened the bells on her. Later, the woman gave her a name, taught her to read and write, and ensured she was fed and clothed. The woman always forbade her from calling her “Master,” insisting she use her name instead. But she was her Master; why couldn’t she call her that? It was only much later that she understood why.

At this thought, a shadow fell over the girl’s watery eyes. She shattered the memories in her mind and looked up.

“Let me guess. You loved her, but that love turned to hate,” Yue Bai said. “But she didn’t love you.” She said this to the girl, but her eyes remained fixed on Ye Changzhen.

Shen Shuheng’s curiosity was piqued; she watched the girl intently, waiting for more.

Stung by the truth, the girl didn’t get angry. Instead, she began to laugh louder and louder until cold liquid slid down her face. “Master shouldn’t have let me find out that I was just a replacement. Everything I received was meant for someone else. In her eyes, I was just a lowly demon. If it weren’t for this face, she wouldn’t have even wanted to touch me.”

“The day I learned the truth, I killed her with my own hands. Then I ate her, bit by bit, leaving only her eyes. I wanted those eyes to look at me and only me forever,” she said, placing a devout kiss on the puppet’s eyes.

Shen Shuheng found it more terrifying the more she heard. If she loved someone and they didn’t love her back, she could never go to such lengths. However, she still didn’t quite know what it felt like to love someone.

She peeked at Fu Xueke beside her and made a hypothetical: if Master’s kindness to her was only because of someone else, she would surely break down and be incredibly sad too. At this thought, Shen Shuheng looked a bit dejected.

Sensing the shift, a soft hand gently stroked her head. The familiar, elegant cold fragrance reached her nose as Master rubbed her hair consolingly. Fu Xueke could always immediately sense her disciple’s mood swings; no tiny detail escaped her. Her disciple loved to let her thoughts wander in her heart without speaking, so all she could do was provide her with a sense of security.

The girl in red walked over, cradling the puppet. “Having heard my story, do you sisters pity me now?” she snickered, as if the heartbroken person from a moment ago wasn’t her.

“Could I borrow your head? You look very much like my Master. I need to make her a new body,” the girl said, pointing at Fu Xueke with an earnest look.

Fu Xueke’s expression was icy as she stared at the girl. She reached out and pulled Shen Shuheng closer, shielding her behind her back.

“Can I borrow your arms and legs too? Having heard my story, you sisters should leave something behind,” the girl said righteously. Ignoring their expressions, she continued as if talking to herself, “The Sovereign promised me that he would gather Master’s scattered soul. I just need to make a body, and he will help me create a Master who only likes me, who belongs only to me.”

“Won’t you sisters help me with this small favor? If you agree, I can make your deaths less painful,” she laughed heartily. “The Sovereign instructed me that if I kill you, he will do this for me.”

An absolute dark red light flared around the girl, and nine snowy-white fox tails appeared behind her. “The Sovereign is truly a god of foresight; he knew you would come here.” The tails behind her suddenly lengthened, lashing out toward them.

The group dodged quickly. A loud BOOM echoed as the solid stone floor shattered, kicking up a cloud of old dust. Shen Shuheng coughed from the grit. “Is the ‘Sovereign’ you mentioned the Penglai Ancestor?” she asked, not forgetting to fish for information even now.

“That old man isn’t worthy,” the girl replied. A fan appeared in her hand, its handle made of bleached bone. She swung it, unleashing waves of eerie red blades toward them.

Fu Xueke raised her sword to block for Shen Shuheng. The snowy-white sword qi flared, its brilliant light overpowering the dim lamps.

“Then who is the Sovereign? The Evil Entity?” Shen Shuheng pressed.

“The Sovereign is the Sovereign,” the girl replied, the sound of her bells ringing with her voice. Earlier, she had been willing to tell everything; now, she wouldn’t say a word.

“Why involve these ordinary people? Why disregard their lives?”

“I’m not the one disregarding their lives. Their own kin traded them for wealth and status. They said it was well worth trading ‘useless’ daughters and wives for endless gold. If you want to blame someone, blame their husbands and fathers.”

“However, I loathe such heartless people most of all. I’ve already fed those men to the Evil Entity; they were the perfect nourishment.”

Shen Shuheng felt those men were indeed loathsome—pushing their own families into a fire for wealth. “But their wives and daughters are truly innocent,” she said.

“What does innocence matter? How many innocents in this world are killed or humiliated? I don’t see you lot out there enforcing justice for them!” the girl snapped. “The big fish eat the small fish, and the small fish eat the shrimp. That’s what your human race taught me.”

“When I was locked in a cage for people to gawp at and play with, I learned one truth: those without power will always be stepped on. Their lives are as cheap as grass. I would rather be the one stepping on others than the one being stepped on!”

Shen Shuheng sighed. She felt it shouldn’t be this way, but she knew the girl was right about many cultivators—the strong bullied the weak, and the weak bullied those even weaker. She herself had once been one of the bullied.

But was it right just because it had always been this way? She refused to be a bully. “As you say, there are indeed many such injustices in the world. I alone cannot flatten every unfairness under heaven, but as long as I encounter it, I will use the sword in my hand to sever it.”

Shen Shuheng stepped out from behind Fu Xueke. Her gaze was resolute, her sword humming with a majestic and freezing sword qi.

“As you wish. Regardless, everyone—including those disgusting people—will die here today.”

Dark red light swirled, and the ethereal sound of bells rang out. The girl suddenly split into five clones. Usually, clones weaken the original’s strength, but for a Nine-Tailed Celestial Fox, there were no such restrictions; the clones and the original were identical in power.