The Demon Lord is My Dark Moonlight [Transmigration Novel] - Chapter 31

The string of system notifications hit Gu Jinli like a bombardment, leaving her dizzy. By the time she managed to claw back some sanity, Shen Chigui was standing right in front of her.

With a relaxed expression and a smile on her face, the lead looked like she was in a great mood—yet Gu Jinli felt a primal sense of danger, like being stared down by a predator.

“Big Sister~” Shen Chigui scanned her from head to toe, then smirked. “Do you have nothing you want to say to me?”

Say what?! Gu Jinli hadn’t even processed what happened in the illusion yet. How was she supposed to comment?

“Gu Jinli! Shen Chigui! You two!” Nangong Jinyao finally clawed her way out of her memory-fog, her face flushing crimson with rage. Look at what these two did to me! In the illusion, “Xiao Qi” had made her life a misery, and Gu Jinli wasn’t any better—eating the fruit Jinyao worked for while sticking to Shen Chigui’s side without a thought for Jinyao’s feelings.

These two were truly hateful!

“You’re both shameless!” Nangong Jinyao drew her bone whip, looking like an enraged lioness. The way she looked at Gu Jinli suggested she wanted to devour her whole. She was furious! Two mere servants had treated her, the Young Mistress, like a common maid! Even if it was just an illusion, it was unforgivable!

“Calm down!” Gu Jinli’s face puckered like a bitter melon. Honestly, she didn’t know they would end up on the same floor! She didn’t want to be with them either!

“Calm? Shen Chigui aside, you kept your memories in that illusion!” Jinyao found the smoking gun. “You knew who you were, yet you joined her in ignoring me! You’re just my maid—how dare you?!”

Great! The memory thing is out too! Why were both of them so terrifyingly sharp?! Gu Jinli wanted to weep.

“Nangong Jinyao.”

This was perhaps the first time Shen Chigui had addressed the Young Mistress so seriously. When she spoke, both the sobbing Gu Jinli and the whip-wielding Jinyao froze and turned to look at her.

“What do you want to say?” Jinyao asked. For some reason, facing this girl felt wrong. She hated to admit it, but she was wary of Shen Chigui—both inside and outside the tower.

“You’re too noisy.”

Shen Chigui’s lips flattened; she was clearly displeased. Perhaps influenced by her emotions, or perhaps she just stopped caring about the act. After that illusion, her temper had sharpened. She raised her hand in a simple grasping motion and caught Nangong Jinyao by the throat.

She looked casual, even lazy, yet she radiated a violent, lethal aura.

It sent a chill down Gu Jinli’s spine.

“Wait, Shen Chigui!”

She couldn’t help but call out to stop her, though she didn’t even know why she was doing it. Her sixth sense told her that if she didn’t act now, she would live to regret it.

“Is Big Sister going to lecture me for the sake of this person?”

The Ghost Qi constricting Nangong Jinyao didn’t loosen even slightly. After enduring the illusion, Shen Chigui’s sharp edges were becoming impossible to hide. Her mastery over Ghost Qi had grown so refined that even the Young Mistress, raised in the heart of Gu City, couldn’t find a way to break free.

“L-l-let… go!”

Her soft neck was being squeezed tight by something invisible. The sensation of suffocation was agonizing. Nangong Jinyao clawed at the air around her throat, but her fingers simply passed through the misty energy and landed on her own skin. It was useless. Ghost Qi wasn’t something humans could touch; it was the “cheat” ability Gu Jinli had bestowed upon her creation. Neither Nangong Jinyao nor the City Lord himself could defend against it.

“I’m not trying to lecture you!”

How would I even dare! Gu Jinli bit her lip, looking frantically between Jinyao and Shen Chigui. “Just let her go first! She’s going to suffocate!”

Ghost Qi was invincible precisely because it was as intangible as air. As long as the master didn’t let go, the victim had no hope of escape.

“Big Sister still hasn’t answered my question from before. I’m quite unhappy.”

The pressure didn’t relent. Shen Chigui had a smile on her lips, but her eyes were void of anything but cold indifference.

“…”

What question? What did she ask?!

At a time like this, Gu Jinli was both anxious and furious. Her eyes looked ready to spit fire at Shen Chigui. Again and again—it was always like this! This girl always chose the worst possible moments to torment her! Even back in the illusion, at the most critical second, she hadn’t run for her life—she’d stayed behind to mutter questions.

Do you trust me?

Right. That must be it.

“I trust you! I trust you!” Gu Jinli shouted, her voice trembling with urgency. “I will trust you, I won’t betray you, and I wasn’t lecturing you! Just let her go, quickly!”

Nangong Jinyao’s face was already turning a terrifying shade of crimson.

“I see.”

Finally hearing the answer she wanted, Shen Chigui’s expression smoothed out instantly. But she didn’t stop. Instead, the moment the words left Gu Jinli’s mouth, she applied a final, brutal surge of force.

—Snap.

The crisp sound of a breaking bone was the last thing Nangong Jinyao ever heard.

Gu Jinli’s eyes widened in disbelief. Her lips quivered, but she couldn’t make a sound for a long time.

This person…

She killed Nangong Jinyao?!

She actually did it!

“But I’m still very unhappy.”

The words floated down lightly as Shen Chigui finally let go. As she did, the girl whose face was flushed and eyes nearly bulging from their sockets fell like a withered leaf. Until the very end, Nangong Jinyao never believed Shen Chigui would truly kill her. Her eyes remained open, even in death.

[Target Favorability: +25, -25…]

[Target Favorability: -33]

[Current Favorability: -33]

“Why.”

Why did she do it? Is Jinyao really dead?

Gu Jinli practically crawled over, cradling the girl on the ground. She placed a shaking finger beneath the girl’s nose.

Nothing. Not a trace of breath.

She was really gone. Nangong Jinyao was dead.

“WHY?! WHY DID YOU DO IT?!”

“Why did you kill her?! Are you insane?!”

“You’re absolutely irrational!!!”

Gu Jinli shook the body in her arms, unable to believe that a living, breathing person could be snuffed out so easily. Just moments ago, they were talking. They had navigated the illusion together; they had survived together. And yet, she died here, at the hands of the protagonist.

Gu Jinli didn’t understand. She truly didn’t understand! Her mental state shattered in an instant.

“What if I said there was no reason?” Shen Chigui watched her breakdown and let out a soft laugh. “Is Big Sister going to kill me now?”

“How heartbreaking~ Is Big Sister really this sad over just one person? I’m almost getting jealous~”

[Favorability: -10]

“GO TO HELL!!!”

Her mind could no longer process the logic of the situation, and the system’s constant pings couldn’t stop her emotions. Gu Jinli scrambled up and lunged at Shen Chigui, grabbing her collar and screaming in her face: “Go to hell! Just go to hell, Shen Chigui!”

“How can there be someone like you! How can you be like this!”

This is too much! This is pure evil! What did she think human life was? How could she do this? They were just together in the illusion! How could she pull the trigger?

“You have no heart! You don’t have a soul! You aren’t even human!”

“You’re a monster! You’re worse than the monsters in the village!”

The repeated insults, paired with Gu Jinli’s frantic shaking, caused Shen Chigui’s expression to slowly darken. She stood there silently, watching the other girl’s hysterics like a detached observer. As if she wasn’t the one who caused it.

“How could you be my protagonist!”

Gu Jinli felt a visceral wave of regret. Doing whatever she wanted, killing whoever she pleased—first it was Gu Jinli herself, now it was Jinyao. Who would be next?

This was the character she had written. This was the being she had created. Was there anything more agonizing than that? At this moment, Gu Jinli truly wished she had never written this person into existence.

“If I could, I wish I had never—”

“Gu Jinli!”

The detached expression finally broke. Shen Chigui’s calm vanished, replaced by a terrifying intensity. “What are you trying to say?! Are you going to deny my existence?!”

She had lived through countless cycles, and no one had ever dared to deny her existence. Even the Task-takers, even those people—they never denied that Shen Chigui was a living, breathing person.

But this person! This Creator! She kept trying to deny her…

She couldn’t accept it. Not this.

“So what! I created you, of course I—”

In the heat of the moment, Gu Jinli stopped thinking. She just wanted to vent her fury and demand some justice for Nangong Jinyao. She forgot who she was facing. She forgot how terrifying Shen Chigui truly was.

She knew this character better than anyone. But in this moment, that knowledge felt as thin and fragile as paper in a storm.

“Ugh!”

The unfinished words died in her throat. Shen Chigui, pushed beyond her limits by her Creator’s rejection, didn’t hesitate. She seized the Creator’s neck, hoisting her up like a helpless chick.

She had killed Nangong Jinyao, and now she could kill her, too. Her Ghost Qi flared without needing a moment of preparation. Pushed to the brink of rage, Shen Chigui had lost her reason.

She was going to kill this person! Kill Gu Jinli!

“Why do you have to provoke me?”

She is my Creator! Yet she is always against me! She could handle anyone else saying those words, but not Gu Jinli!

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