The Demon Lord Always Tries to Hinder My Promotion - Chapter 3

The next day dawned clear and bright, with the morning breeze carrying the fragrance of bamboo the perfect weather for an outing.

Qi An had not expected the demons to enjoy spring outings and flower viewing just like mortals. What she couldn’t understand, however, was why, with the Demon Realm being so vast, they all had to crowd into Jianglian Pool.

Facing the magnificent spectacle of a sea of demons, Qi An hesitated, looking toward Mo Qing at her side. “Are they all here to play?”

Mo Qing replied, “Some are here to pluck the Moon-Fire Snow Lotus; the rest are here to watch the show.”

Qi An was puzzled. “Watch what show?”

Mo Qing smiled without answering. He brought her flying into mid-air, sweeping over the crowd of demons, and drifted gracefully to the very front of the gathering.

The noisy, clamorous Jianglian Pool instantly fell silent.

Among the Six Realms, the Heavenly, Demon, and Spirit realms each had their own customs regarding attire. The gods of the Heavenly Realm favored pale, simple colors, their every movement exuding an elegant, otherworldly grace; the spirits favored bright, vivid colors to accentuate their alluring charm; while the Demon Realm revered dark colors—partly to avoid similarity with the other realms, and partly because they believed dark colors represented power.

Thus, demons all wore dark clothing, mostly black.

There was only one exception in the vast Demon Realm: the Demon Lord Mo Qing. It was well known that he preferred white.

Therefore, the moment Mo Qing appeared, even though most of the demons had never seen the Demon Lord’s true face, they easily identified him by his attire and overwhelming presence. They immediately went silent and, with tacit understanding, retreated slightly to clear a spacious area for him and Qi An.

Once they were further away, a few daring demons couldn’t suppress their curiosity and began to whisper.

“With such heaven-defying demonic energy, he is truly the Lord. I wonder if we’ll have a chance to speak to him later.”

“Look at the woman beside the Lord. Her aura is that of an immortal. What are immortals doing here?”

“Haven’t immortals been coming to propose marriage lately, wanting to marry the Princess? Perhaps she’s here to retrieve the Moon-Fire Snow Lotus?”

“But she…”

Mo Qing turned his head abruptly. The smile he had worn while speaking with Qi An still lingered on his lips, yet his eyes swept toward the gossiping demons like blades of steel.

Their legs went soft instantly, and they didn’t dare utter another word.

Mo Qing withdrew his gaze and pointed toward the flowers blooming in the center of the pool. “Those are the Moon-Fire Snow Lotuses.”

Qi An looked in the direction he pointed and saw seven or eight leafless lotuses rising from the pool water.

From the stems to the leaves, they were as clear and transparent as glazed glass. Around the layered petals burned pale, moonlight-white flames. The flames swayed with the breeze but never went out.

Qi An couldn’t help but exclaim, “How beautiful.”

“Beautiful, yet difficult to obtain.”

Mo Qing tilted his chin, signaling her to look at a spot in the pool.

Qi An shifted her gaze and peered into the distance. She saw a demon on the other side of Jianglian Pool enter the water, seemingly trying to reach for the lotus.

At first, he proceeded smoothly, but halfway there, his body suddenly stiffened. A moment later, more than a dozen women appeared beside him all different in appearance and posture, yet each stunningly beautiful.

These women moved lightly, floating on the water’s surface. They did not seem like mortals, yet they possessed no magic, nor did they bear the aura of the other five realms.

“Who are they?” Qi An asked, confused.

“Illusions,” Mo Qing explained gently. “To obtain the Moon-Fire Snow Lotus, one must cross the pool and pluck it by hand without using magic. During the process, Jianglian Pool will release illusions based on the plucker’s preferences. Only by not being misled, and by finding one’s true beloved among a crowd of illusions, can one emerge from the illusion and pluck the lotus.”

Qi An nodded in realization and continued to watch the lotus-plucker.

The demon had become lost in the hallucination. At first, he would call out his beloved’s name to steady his heart, but he didn’t last long; soon, his eyes held only a beautiful girl.

He followed the illusionary girl without pause, stripping off his clothes as he walked. Before long, he was bare-chested, and then he actually reached out toward the illusion, intending to engage in “cloud and rain” (intimacy) in public.

The spectators sneered, forgetting the fear they had felt just moments before under the Demon Lord’s gaze, and began to point and tease the demon and the illusions with great excitement.

Qi An finally understood what it meant to “watch a show.”

As a Heavenly immortal official, she naturally had to maintain the elegant, ascetic, and otherworldly temperament of a god. Facing this heart-pounding scene, she quite properly raised her sleeve to cover her face, though she left her left eye half-exposed, darting it around to stare intently at the amorous demon.

She had been born for over a hundred years but had never experienced such things, and if nothing went wrong, she likely wouldn’t in the future either.

Since she was destined to be apart from such matters, watching others and gaining some “life experience” and knowledge probably didn’t count as going too far.

Unfortunately, the “show” did not go as one might hope.

The demon never actually touched an illusion; for every step he took, they retreated one. The illusionary girl led him step by step into the deeper, darker reaches of the pool.

When he first stepped into Jianglian Pool, the water only reached his thighs; now, the water was about to submerge his neck.

The demons around them seemed used to such scenes; not a single one felt worried, and all simply watched with cold eyes.

Qi An felt a sense of urgency. “At this rate, he’ll lose his life. Why is no one saving him?”

“Jianglian Pool absorbs magic. If they were to cast spells, their magic would only become nourishment for the pool to feed the Moon-Fire Snow Lotus. If they don’t cast spells, they will end up in the same predicament as him; even if they could break through the illusion, there wouldn’t be time to save him.”

Hearing this, Qi An knew the demon could not be saved.

She couldn’t help but frown and sigh. Seeing this, Mo Qing asked, “Do you want to save him?”

Qi An nodded fiercely; ultimately, she couldn’t bear to see someone lose their life right in front of her.

Mo Qing said blandly, “Although Jianglian Pool absorbs magic, it cannot handle magic that is too powerful.”

“But I am very weak.” Qi An had only been an immortal for a hundred years, and her magic was average. She knew she had no ability to subdue Jianglian Pool.

“But I am very strong.” Mo Qing chuckled and leaned forward, bringing his face close to Qi An’s. “If you ask me, Qi An, I can save him.”

Feeling Mo Qing’s breath swirling around her face, Qi An blushed furiously.

Her thoughts became a chaotic mess. One moment she was thinking that the Demon Lord was too lacking in boundaries when interacting with others; the next, she was bewildered as to why she, a small immortal official here on business, had to beg the Demon Lord to save his own kind.

As if seeing through her thoughts, Mo Qing straightened up and said with indifferent detachment, “Everyone must accept the results of their own choices, good or bad. In the end, even if he loses his life today, it is because he lacks self-awareness, has an unsteady heart, and made the wrong choice. This has nothing to do with me.”

Though his words were cold, they were the truth.

But even so, Qi An couldn’t bear to stand by and watch.

She glanced at the demon again and saw the water had already passed his nose; she couldn’t wait any longer.

She no longer hesitated. She pinched the corner of Mo Qing’s sleeve with both hands, swaying them slightly, and looked at him innocently with her almond eyes. “Please, hurry and save him, won’t you?”

This “coy pleading” tactic was something she had learned from her colleagues before coming to the Demon Realm. It was originally intended to help her escape General Giant-Hammer; she hadn’t expected to use it on the Demon Lord.

Qi An was very confident in her performance; whether it was the angle of her head, the control of her eyes, or the tone of her voice, she felt she had perfectly achieved the “highest standard” her colleagues had described.

But for some reason, when she dragged out the last word of her plea, Mo Qing seemed to lose his composure, his smile freezing.

She asked blankly, “Is that not how one begs?”

Could it be that the Demon Realm had a different set of rules for begging?

“No, you did very well.” Mo Qing lowered his voice, as if suppressing something.

Before Qi An could ponder the emotions he was deliberately hiding, he had already turned his back. With a gentle flick of his fingers toward the demon nearly submerged in the pool, the demon flew out of the water in the blink of an eye and landed straight on the shore.

Qi An praised him, half-flattering and half-sincere: “Truly worthy of being Mo Qing—you are amazing!”

“That goes without saying.”

Mo Qing’s expression returned to normal. He accepted her praise without false modesty and then looked at her with a beaming smile, his tone light and cheerful. “Since you begged me once today, I will save one. You can save as many as you like.”

And so, under Qi An’s repeated entreaties, Mo Qing, in a great mood, saved three more demons in succession.

When the fourth demon was tossed onto the shore, Qi An said in a soft, dainty voice: “I am ready to pluck the lotus. You must save me later, please…”

Before she could finish, Mo Qing interrupted: “No need to beg me; I will save you naturally.”

For some reason, Qi An felt Mo Qing’s gaze was scorching when he said this; for a moment, she found it difficult to meet his eyes.

She nodded dumbly, muttered a thank you, and wanted to pluck the lotus while no one else was challenging it.

She had only taken two steps when she suddenly remembered something and turned back to ask, “What happens if one has no beloved?”

Mo Qing looked at her fixedly and said slowly, “If you have none, you will be lost in the illusion forever.”

Qi An was slightly stunned, but only for an instant. She turned back and continued walking into the pool water.

The moment she stepped into Jianglian Pool, Qi An felt a warm current flow from the soles of her feet into her limbs it was warm and slightly itchy, and inexplicably comfortable.

She continued walking, and after about twenty steps, she noticed a change in her senses.

All sounds vanished abruptly. The shore, which had been packed with spectators, was now completely empty. In an instant, she felt as if she were the only person left in this vast world.

Her heart panicked, but before the fear could multiply, the scenery changed suddenly; the Jianglian Pool transformed into a pleasure house—and one populated entirely by male courtesans.

When she had watched others fall under the illusion’s spell, she had thought it strange—they were just a few illusions, so why did they lose their minds and forget their current situation?

Now, facing a dozen handsome, elegant young men, she finally understood the state of mind of those who had been trapped in the pool. Especially when they whispered in her ear from time to time, or touched her hand in an elusive, brushing way, that sense of reality was truly capable of stealing one’s soul.

She tried to close her eyes, but the sound of their deep or clear laughter echoed in her ears; in the darkness, it only made her imagination run wild.

She knew that the longer she stayed, the faster she would lose her reason, and in the end, she would be like the demons before her forgetting herself and drowning in this false world.

After reciting the “Heart-Clearing Mantra” silently a few times, she opened her eyes again, discarded her distracting thoughts, and viewed these people with the calmest gaze possible.

She glided past the male courtesans. Every time she couldn’t help but want to stop for them, she would think of the summons of the immortal official register; in this way, she could steady her mind temporarily.

For Qi An, the most important thing right now was to become a formal immortal official of the Hehe Immortal Palace; even a beauty, in the face of this, had to be put aside.

Relying on her obsession with the register, she successfully ignored the crowd of handsome men. After some time, there was finally only one person left in front of her.

She looked up at the youth in black robes and smiled. “Long time no see, Shang Ziliu.”