They Are Archenemies, But They Have A Child - Chapter 5

Chapter 5: The Curse

The black Scorching Chest gradually glowed red from the heat, and the screams were slowly replaced by heavy gasping. Towards the end, even those with the keen hearing of the Fox Clan could barely distinguish a faint breath.

You Su Muli knelt on the ground, the arrogance in his eyes completely gone.

Leng Lici picked up the child as if it were an object, slowly stood up, and walked toward the crowd kneeling on the ground. His eyes were fixed ahead; he did not spare a glance for any of them.

Only the innocent infant waved its limbs, cooing curiously as it looked at every person they passed.

Tap.

A small white bottle dropped beside You Su Muli. He immediately grabbed it, the bloodshot in his eyes intensifying. This was Life Dew. Once You Suqian drank it, new flesh would regrow, and all scars would be eliminated. However, the process was extremely painful, no less agonizing than undergoing the scorching punishment again.

It was both life-saving and utterly cruel.

Leng Lici returned to his palace, a wave of his hand closing the large door, isolating the discussions and panic outside.

He leaned against the immaculate couch, held the child up with both hands, his brows slightly furrowed, examining the child from all angles, as if conducting some perplexing research.

“Ooh ah giggle giggle—”

The small child found it amusing and laughed even harder.

“What are you laughing at?”

Leng Lici’s expression was cold, and his voice was cold.

“Giggle—”

“Stop laughing.”

Leng Lici stared at the mark on the child’s forehead. The half-red, half-white symbol was quite an eyesore, reminding him with every glance of his absurd relationship with Cloud Qingwu.

He wondered what the Azure Flame God Lord of the Celestial Realm would think if he learned that his proud son and the son he had cast aside had produced a child.

The thought of that thunderous rage somewhat alleviated the frustration in Leng Lici’s heart.

“Strange, very strange.”

The bone sword, which had been obedient outside, became active now. The blade extended and wrapped around the infant’s wrist.

“What’s strange?”

Leng Lici looked at the bone sword that had come out without permission, his tone impatient. This sword was refined from the spine of a Tao Tie. It far surpassed its peers in martial strength and flexibility. Its only flaw was the wisp of the Tao Tie’s soul that could not be completely dispelled.

It occasionally came out to annoy him with its chatter.

“Logically speaking, at least half of your bloodline and Cloud Qingwu’s are of the same origin. It shouldn’t be so difficult to integrate.”

Leng Lici was stunned by the remark, reaching out to check the child’s pulse.

Indeed, two distinct bloodlines were locked in a struggle within the pulse, with only a faint thread of connection tightly binding them.

Leng Lici’s eyes darkened. After a long silence, he suddenly laughed, as if enlightened, or as if finding something absurdly ridiculous.

The bone sword chimed in resonance, recalling the grand occasion of the Bai Ze’s birth, and sighed with emotion: “When the former Yuanjun, the Azure Flame God Lord, and the Divine Maiden conceived the only Bai Ze in this world, it caused a sensation in the Celestial Realm. Everyone said the line of the Heavenly Monarch was destined to rule. Who would have thought, who would have thought, that it was a complete and utter deception, a trick played on the Heavens? The Azure Flame God Lord’s path of love is truly a little bumpy.”

“But… they say the succession of the Heavenly Emperor and Heavenly Empress’s line relies on a divine connection passed down through blood. Since this Bai Ze is not truly born of that line, he naturally cannot have the divine connection. So, how did he manage to be mistaken and become the new Yuanjun?”

The bone sword pondered for a moment, then exclaimed: “Unless… the Celestial Realm intended it! They would rather wear a cuckold’s hat than acknowledge their own flesh and blood. Tsk, tsk, tsk. Well, if people discovered that the Yuanjun’s divine connection was contaminated with demon blood, it would surely lead to a bloody storm.”

The bone sword’s tone held a touch of schadenfreude: “Unloved by the gods, despised by the demons. Pity, pity.”

Leng Lici tossed the child aside, gripped the hilt of the sword with one hand, and conjured a burst of fierce flame with the other, raising it to burn the sword blade. The voice that had just been so smug and gossipy was immediately replaced by screams.

“A defeated foe, what right do you have to pity me?”

Leng Lici sneered. Fox Clan? Divine Clan? He didn’t care about any of it. One day, the Divine Clan, like the Fox Clan, would be nothing more than his defeated foes.

…

Ever since You Suqian was publicly tortured, the unrest he tried to incite settled down once again after this incident. Even You Suqian’s mother, who was forcibly removed from her position, could only curse secretly, with no other recourse.

But this peace belonged only to others, not to Leng Lici himself.

The pair of golden eyes that were usually calm in the face of slaughter were now turbulent. The baby’s cries beside him were like a demonic sound drilling into his ears, giving him a splitting headache and making him immobile. He had been meditating for an entire day, but his progress turned into a negative number, and his eight tails drooped listlessly, showing no sign of stopping the crying.

Cannot kill…

Cannot kill…

He clenched his back teeth, reminding himself over and over, suppressing the surging murderous intent within him.

Equally unsettled was the other person in the distant Celestial Realm.

The God of the Bed (Chuang Gong) looked at the Yuanjun opposite him, who had splashed wine all over his face, in shock. The rattle drum pinned to his head clattered several times: “You… no matter how much you crave wine, you can’t wash your face with it…”

Cloud Qingwu: “…”

He took a deep breath, steadily placed the porcelain bowl on the table, and conjured a spell. His drenched hair tips and face instantly became dry. He calmly explained: “I didn’t hold it steady.”

“Oh,” the God of the Bed picked up the wine jug and refilled the bowl: “Don’t be impatient, there’s plenty of wine, alright.”

Cloud Qingwu did not take the wine again, deciding to get straight to the point: “I encountered a strange thing on my trip to the mortal world. A divine artifact merged with a demon bloodline and transformed into human form. What do you think?”

“What do I think?” the God of the Bed muttered to himself. After a while, his eyes opened wide, and he said urgently: “You didn’t go down there and pluck a wildflower you shouldn’t have, did you? Don’t let emotion control you! That violates heavenly laws!”

“Pay attention to the question! Don’t let your mind wander.” Cloud Qingwu snatched the wine jug from the God of the Bed’s hand.

The God of the Bed looked at the beautiful wine moving away from him with a long face, then thought seriously: “I think I saw a similar strange event in the handwritten notes left by the God of the Bed before my predecessor’s predecessor, my ancestor. But I haven’t seen it myself. What kind of opinion do you want from me?”

Cloud Qingwu’s deep blue eyes lightened slightly. The grip on the wine jug tightened: “What did the notes say? Is there a reversible channel for this situation?”

“Reversible? How to reverse it?” the God of the Bed looked puzzled.

“Returning to the form of a divine artifact.”

The rattle drum on the God of the Bed’s head clattered a few more times: “It can be reversed?!”

“It really can’t be reversed, Venerable One.” Inside You Su Mountain’s palace, a tall, flashily dressed woman sighed, plucking a brown feather from her head and tossing it to the ground. The feather landed and transformed into several letters.

She pointed to the letters: “I asked the other bird clans through our Crane Clan, but no one has ever heard of such a strange thing. If we, who are so good at gathering information, can’t find anything, it proves there really is no way.”

Leng Lici sat above, winding a silver chain around his right index finger, which was now devoid of flesh and bone, looking even more ominous. “Understood.”

If anyone else had been standing below, they would have been trembling and not wanting to stay for another second. But Dan Mu was an exception. She leaned over to look at the child with the crumpled face beside Leng Lici, her eyes full of eagerness: “Venerable One, she looks like she’s not happy?”

Leng Lici looked up at Dan Mu.

Dan Mu had the experience of childbirth more than once.

“Do you have a way?”

Dan Mu smiled brilliantly: “No.”

Leng Lici: “…”

Dan Mu belatedly felt the pressure of his gaze and immediately added: “But the fathers of my children definitely have a way! With our Crane Clan, the fathers are responsible for the offspring.”

With that, she quickly whistled. Before long, three grayish-brown cranes flew in, landing and transforming into three men of different appearances.

Dan Mu clapped her hands.

The men, bearing enormous psychological pressure, tremblingly stepped forward to look at the child.

“The child is hungry!”

“This cradle isn’t comfortable for her to sleep in!”

“She feels too dirty!”

As they spoke, their fear was thrown to the back of their minds. The three men divided the labor: one prepared milk, one made crafts, and one was responsible for bathing the child.

As they worked, they couldn’t help but constantly mutter.

“A child is a tender flower; how can they be treated like this!”

“What a sin, such suffering!”

As they muttered, Leng Lici’s already unhappy expression darkened several degrees.

Dan Mu was proudly ready to claim credit, but when she turned to look, her eyelids twitched.

If the fathers of her children couldn’t leave this mountain, then her children would be in trouble.

She immediately started a new topic: “Venerable One, what is the child’s name?”

Leng Lici tied the end of the silver chain to his wrist. With an empty clench of his palm, the chain on his index finger instantly turned into a sharp blade.

“A tool, what does it need a name for?”

…

The sun rose and the moon set, and the nightly moon waxed and waned.

Under the parenting secrets personally written by Dan Mu’s capable husbands, the lives of the Demon Lord and the Celestial Crown Prince both found a brief period of peace. However, as the monthly deadline approached, the effectiveness of this peace shortened daily.

The surging irritability in Leng Lici’s heart increased daily.

Just as the thirtieth table turned into ash, the stench belonging to a god and immortal abruptly appeared in the air.

Leng Lici’s golden eyes narrowed slightly. The explosive speed of his inner turmoil paused.

Pfft, thought he was so capable.

“Demon creature! I shall execute the will of Heaven today!” Outside the gates of You Su Mountain, the small demon guards lay scattered on the ground.

An Immortal Lord holding twin axes, with arrogance apparent in every line of his face, stood in the center, roaring toward the mountain interior.

He had spent most of his life seeking the path to immortality, succeeding when he was already middle-aged. But if he captured the fox demon that even the Yuanjun could not handle today, he could seize the momentum and ascend all the way.

You Su Muli rushed to the gate with a team of guards. Just as he was about to set up a formation, a gust of wind shot past, and the arrogant man was flung onto the ground the next second.

The small demons present were dumbfounded, and You Su Muli was also somewhat surprised.

Leng Lici never concerned himself with these matters, and as for such low-quality fodder, sending them was already overkill.

The barely suppressed irritability, due to this interlude, opened its floodgates without warning. With a loud roar, it completely drowned Leng Lici’s sanity.

Fierce fire ignited in Leng Lici’s hand. The next second, the flames transformed into countless sharp blades and rushed toward the dazed immortal lying on the ground.

A toy delivered to his doorstep—there was no reason not to use it.

With one sharp blade, a piece of flesh detached from the body.

“Aaaahhh ahhh ahhh—”

The man screamed and rolled on the ground. Blade after blade, the arrogance in his eyes completely vanished under the assault.

The rage in Leng Lici’s eyes gradually subsided with the screams. He intended to turn and leave.

“I was wrong, I was wrong, Demon Lord, Demon Lord, spare me! Please!”

The bloody, unrecognizable man crawled over on all fours, his tears, snot, and blood mixed together. Leng Lici looked at the scene. The rage that had just settled in his eyes “whooshed” up again. His lips curved slightly, and his pair of golden eyes were as calm as a dead sea. His entire being radiated a sense of “madness.”

“Alright.”

Seeing this, the man on the ground thought he had a chance, and a light sparked in his eyes. But this light froze before it could spread.

The bone sword unsheathed and tightly coiled around the prey’s neck. All the spilled fresh blood was absorbed by the sword body. Soon, the so-called immortal transformed into a shriveled corpse.

Leng Lici conjured a spell, and the bloody inner core transformed, shedding its old skin for a clean one. He swallowed the inner core in one gulp, not sparing the body on the ground a second look.

“The one thing this Venerable One hates most is trash.”

…

“Your Highness, tomorrow is the annual Snow Blessing Ceremony. You should return early today.” Hong Yuan yawned, affectionately stroking his own face: “My skin has gotten worse these past few days!”

In the Celestial Realm’s Classics Archive, Cloud Qingwu sat at a desk, his expression focused. The books on the desk were quickly turning pages, and a pile of books was stacked high on the floor. At the same time, books were constantly flying in the air.

He had been like this for several days.

More accurately, he had been soaking in the Archives all night, every night, starting from one week before the monthly deadline, which was now one week past the deadline.

Only in this way could he convince himself that he could refuse to submit to that agreement. Perhaps today, perhaps tomorrow, he would always find another way!

With a demon…

Absolutely impossible!

“Your Highness, there is a golden house within books, but no amount of golden houses can help you defeat that fox demon. If you fail to capture the fox demon alive, His Majesty will only scold you a few times, but if tomorrow’s ceremony goes wrong, His Majesty will genuinely be angry!!”

Hong Yuan flashed in front of the desk in an instant, staring wide-eyed.

Cloud Qingwu’s eyes lifted, and a book in the air flew directly toward Hong Yuan.

Hong Yuan deftly flapped his hands and dodged, but he was still grazed by the corner of the book on his forehead. His eyes reddened, and tears threatened to fall.

Cloud Qingwu unnaturally looked away and waved his hand: “Alright, you go back and rest. I’ll read a little longer.”

Hong Yuan’s sagging eyes lifted, and he swiftly left the Archives.

The books that had fallen to the ground floated up again, returning to the shelves in an orderly line with the rest of the collection. Cloud Qingwu closed the book on the desk, staring at the cover in a daze.

Lately, the frequency of losing control had clearly increased. He wondered whether the child and Leng Lici were tormenting each other, or who was tormenting whom.

Thinking of this, the corner of his lips curved into a slight arc, and his irritated mood felt slightly soothed.

Serves him right!