I Just Want to be a Throwaway Character - Chapter 31

Chapter 31: The Tearful Farewell

The Demon Lord’s hand froze. He teleported in front of Ji Wan, his face etched with emotion. “What did you just call me?” he asked, his voice filled with urgency. His eyes were red-rimmed. For all the years he had lost his child, there was no resentment or disgust, only love. This was the first time she had called him “Father.”

Lin Morou, still on the ground, and Du Gu’nuo and Ye Ning, who had just arrived, were all stunned. What did Ji Wan just call the Demon Lord? Father?

Ji Wan didn’t have time to care about her excited “old man.” She quickly ran to Lin Morou and helped her up, her voice urgent and on the verge of tears. “Lin Morou, are you okay? Does it still hurt? I’ll get you some medicine.”

But Lin Morou just looked at Ji Wan with a complex expression and pulled her arm out of Ji Wan’s grip. “You’re his daughter?” Her voice trembled with a mix of uncontrollable love and hate. She sounded in disbelief, and her gaze held a hint of distance.

Ji Wan’s heart ached. Lin Morou was treating her like an enemy. Realizing this, Ji Wan’s eyes turned red, and tears welled up, but she held them back. Without another word, she took a deep look at Lin Morou and walked toward Du Gu’nuo, not sparing Lin Morou another glance.

Seeing the hurt in Ji Wan’s eyes, Lin Morou’s hands clenched into fists, a wave of regret surging through her. She wanted to stop Ji Wan but was frozen in place.

Now, Ji Wan had no choice. Her identity as the Demon Lord’s daughter was exposed. There was only one path left for her. She had to leave.

Ji Wan walked up to Du Gu’nuo. Ye Ning instinctively stepped in front of her, but Du Gu’nuo pushed her away and shook her head, gesturing for her to give them space. Ji Wan stopped in front of Du Gu’nuo, wiping away her tears. She buried herself in Du Gu’nuo’s arms, just like she did when she was a child. Her voice was filled with sobs and reluctance. “Master, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…”

“You did nothing wrong. What are you sorry for?” Du Gu’nuo said softly, stroking Ji Wan’s head.

“If nothing unexpected happens, this will be the last time I call you Master.” The sadness exploded, and Ji Wan’s tears finally flowed.

“Don’t be silly. No matter if you’re a demon or an immortal, you’re still my disciple, Du Gu’nuo’s disciple.” Du Gu’nuo’s eyes were also red-rimmed. She gently wiped away Ji Wan’s tears. She knew Ji Wan was saying goodbye and that they might never see each other again.

The two cried in each other’s arms. For a moment, no one stopped them. Lin Morou watched Ji Wan’s body tremble with quiet sobs, and her heart was filled with a mix of pain and anxiety. The Demon Lord also watched the woman who had raised his daughter.

“Master, I have to go,” Ji Wan said after a long time, pulling away from Du Gu’nuo’s warm embrace.

“If it’s your decision, I will support you.” Du Gu’nuo’s voice remained gentle, without a trace of her usual playful demeanor.

“But I don’t want to tarnish your name,” Ji Wan said, giving Du Gu’nuo a small smile before stepping back. Spiritual energy began to gather in her palm.

Seeing Ji Wan’s smile, Du Gu’nuo’s expression turned to panic. As Ji Wan’s master for so many years, she knew what she was about to do. Lin Morou also looked terrified, channeling the last of her spiritual energy to move toward Ji Wan.

“No, Wanwan!”

“Ji Wan, don’t!”

Du Gu’nuo and Lin Morou’s panicked voices rang out at the same time, but it was too late. Ji Wan smiled and slammed her palm into her own dantian. A mouthful of blood instantly gushed from her throat. Ji Wan didn’t ask System 111 to activate pain-free mode; she let the pain wash over her, hoping it would cover the ache in her heart. The intense pain made it difficult to stand, but she gritted her teeth and held on. Her dantian was completely shattered. This meant she was no longer a cultivator. She was no longer Du Gu’nuo’s disciple, and she was completely unrelated to Lin Morou.

The spiritual energy on her body vanished instantly, replaced by a newly awakened demonic energy. Because her demonic power was hard to control, Ji Wan’s aura was unstable, but she forced herself to look at Du Gu’nuo. “Master, from now on, there is no more first disciple of Frozen Feather, Ji Wan. There is only the demon, Ji Wan.”

With that, all her strength left her. She took one last look at Lin Morou, whose eyes were filled with pained conflict, and with her last bit of strength, she said, “You and I are, after all, not on the same path.”

Ji Wan then fell to the ground, unconscious. The out-of-control demonic energy made her cat ears reappear. The girl’s vulnerability made Lin Morou’s heart twist in pain. Lin Morou rushed to catch Ji Wan. She’s so ruthless to herself. She was clearly defining their relationship and cutting ties with her.

Ignoring Lin Morou’s look of despair, the Demon Lord teleported to Ji Wan first, catching her soft, unconscious body. He looked at Du Gu’nuo deeply, his cold voice now holding a hint of respect. “Thank you. The Demon Realm will treat Frozen Feather as our honored guests.” It was a simple statement but the greatest honor and respect he could offer Du Gu’nuo. But it was bought with Ji Wan’s suffering.

Du Gu’nuo’s tears flooded her eyes, and she almost collapsed. She fell into Ye Ning’s embrace, completely helpless.

“Let her go!” Lin Morou forced herself to stand, her voice icy, her eyes fixated on the unconscious Ji Wan in the Demon Lord’s arms. Forgetting her hatred, her eyes only saw the weak girl. Lin Morou realized in agony that Ji Wan was leaving and cutting her out of her life. No. She wouldn’t allow it.

“Give her back to me,” Lin Morou pleaded in a futile struggle.

The Demon Lord looked down at his weak daughter, who in her unconscious state was still pleading for Lin Morou, her hand clutching his clothes. He gave Lin Morou’s desperate eyes a warning look. “My daughter will never be with you. It’s impossible between you two.” His voice was cold and absolute. With that, he took Ji Wan and left. Lin Morou could only watch helplessly as Ji Wan disappeared. Her hands clenched into fists, her nails digging into her flesh.

I have to become stronger. I have to become powerful. The red light appeared in Lin Morou’s eyes again. Only then can I have her.

Ye Ning held the sobbing Du Gu’nuo, gently patting her back to comfort her. But her eyes were on Lin Morou, filled with a mix of appraisal and awe. This girl’s talent and demeanor were truly exceptional. She might be the cultivation world’s last hope against the Demon Lord.

…

In the two years that followed, the conflict between the Demon Realm and the cultivation world escalated, with constant skirmishes along their borders. But to those in power, it was nothing more than a minor disturbance. The real war had yet to begin.

The cultivation world quickly assembled an army in two years, a force of their best and brightest. This army was the cultivation world’s final hand. At a meeting, the army’s leaders were gathered.

“This time, the demons and the demon beasts have been in frequent contact. I’m worried there might be some kind of change,” a middle-aged man at the Body Integration stage reported.

“Not just the demon beasts, but some rogue cultivators who have fallen to the demonic path have also joined the demons,” another high-level elder said worriedly.

“What’s there to be afraid of? Let’s just wipe them all out at once,” a burly, dark-skinned man said impatiently.

“Hmph, foolish,” a young-looking woman at the advanced Nascent Soul stage scoffed.

“You wench, who are you calling foolish?” the burly man asked angrily.

But the woman just gave him a cold look, and he immediately went quiet. In this place, strength was everything.

“Frontline intelligence reports that the demon beast princess will arrive at the Demon Realm soon. There could be complications,” a calm-looking man said.

The person at the head of the table remained silent. She sat there with a calm, expressionless face, watching the heated discussion. Her hands gently played with a teacup, lost in thought.

“I wonder what the demons are planning,” the elder said, stroking his white beard.

“Heh, I heard the Demon Lord’s daughter is of marriageable age now,” the woman said, wrapping a strand of her hair around her finger, the meaning of her words clear.

The hand of the person playing with the teacup froze. Her gaze became profound.

“Hmph, so mysterious. Why don’t we just capture his daughter and use her to threaten him?” the impatient man said, slamming his hand on the table, proud of his suggestion.

“Absolutely not. The Demon Lord’s daughter is personally protected by three of the ten great demon generals. She also lives deep inside the Demon Palace and has never appeared in public,” the elder explained.

“Heh, she’s just a woman. Once we destroy the Demon Realm, she’ll be ours to deal with anyway,” a man said with disdain.

“The demons’ recent behavior is hard to understand. They might be planning something,” the middle-aged man said gravely.

The others turned their gaze to the most powerful person in the room, their eyes filled with a mix of fear and respect.

“Wait for the right moment,” Lin Morou said calmly. No one in the room had an objection, or rather, no one dared to. After all, this person was a true powerhouse who had reached the Grand Ascension stage in ten years. She was the only one with the power to fight the Demon Lord. She also possessed a divine power, as if she were a god who had ascended from the Upper Realm.

Meanwhile, in the Demon Palace, Ji Wan, in a red dress, lay languidly on a couch in her courtyard. Her fair skin was ethereal, and a magical blood-red demonic tattoo was on her forehead. Her body had been severely damaged from shattering her own dantian two years ago, leaving her weak and sickly. She was often pale and coughed from time to time, looking like a fragile, sickly beauty. Her only mission now was to stay alive, so she rarely left her home.

But Ji Wan wasn’t idle; she was holding a stack of official documents. She rubbed her temples with a headache. Three demon generals, disguised as maids, were beside her, pouring her tea, fanning her, and giving her massages. The service was impeccable.

The Demon Realm didn’t originally have such a troublesome thing as paperwork, but it did once Ji Wan arrived. Although this was the kind of thing human emperors did, the Demon Lord was, in a way, the Emperor of the Demon Realm. So Ji Wan just called all the reports “paperwork.”

Although the Demon Realm was constantly shrouded in darkness, Ji Wan had explored the demon city and knew that besides their appearance and environment, they were not much different from humans. However, the Demon Realm was poor in resources and couldn’t support so many demons. When Ji Wan arrived, a large number of demons could only survive by plundering the human world for food. The law of the jungle was the only rule.

Although she knew her power was not enough to help the Demon Realm, a war was on the horizon, and Ji Wan had to find a way to solve the demons’ survival problem. She taught some smart demons how to transform into human form and use modern business methods to trade with humans. She taught the demon women and children how to make simple fabrics and tools to increase production.

All these methods were found by System 111. The Demon Lord doted on Ji Wan and agreed to anything she wanted. Although Ji Wan’s ideas were often fantastical, the results were always excellent. As a result, Ji Wan’s status in the Demon Realm was second only to the Demon Lord, and she was beloved by the demon people.

With Ji Wan’s help, many demons no longer felt the need to plunder. Some even wanted to trade with humans. But the Demon Lord coldly said, “Humans are a race that can never be trusted.” And so, the war was still going to happen.

After two years of asking, Ji Wan finally understood the truth of what happened years ago from her father’s vague words and the plots System 111 slowly pieced together. But the truth was cruel.

Her father was young and rebellious, unwilling to live a life of eternal darkness in the Demon Realm. He disguised himself and came to the human world, hoping to make something of himself. But he knew nothing and became a laughingstock. Then he met her mother. It was a simple but extraordinary love story, and Ji Wan was the result of their love. At that time, demons were not as brazen as they were now and could only live within the Demon Realm. But one day, her father accidentally revealed his identity.

Lin Morou’s father, the head of the Lin family, a self-proclaimed righteous man, had an outwardly amiable face. Under the pretense of “peaceful coexistence between humans and demons,” he tricked Ji Wan’s mother into his home and imprisoned her. He used her child to force her to be bait to help them kill demons, to show off the righteousness of the Lin family.

Ji Wan’s father was enraged. He had never done anything to harm anyone, yet he was targeted just because he was a demon. Ji Wan’s mother refused to help and was eventually forced to her death in the Lin family’s home, and her child went missing. When Ji Wan’s father was tricked into breaking his own meridians and was completely defenseless, he only found his wife’s cold body and no trace of his child.

He looked at the ugly, righteous faces of the Lin family. His hatred was immense, but he had no power. He could only endure, retreating to the Demon Realm. He spent twelve years planning his revenge to wipe out the Lin family. No one knew what he went through during those twelve years.

He had also been practicing a forbidden demonic art. The immense backlash would soon make him lose his sanity and turn him into a monster who knew no one. He didn’t have much time left. He had planned to give a final blow to the hateful humans and pave a new path for the demons. But then he found out that his daughter was still alive and had been raised by the cultivation world. He was overjoyed to see the child who was once in his arms had grown up, but his time was running out. He couldn’t be sure if everyone was good to his daughter. He had to prepare a path for her in his last days. The war with the cultivation world was a show of force, so his daughter would never be looked down upon or bullied again!