Why is the Demon Venerable Like That? - Chapter 16

“At first, I did not know whom I should hate.”

“I hated Shen Qiuxin because she forced you to marry Lu Yuan. I hated Lu Yuan because she once again snatched away what belonged to me.” Lu Mingzhu laughed and cried shrilly, her facial features melting away before their eyes.

By the time her features were covered in thick, bloody grime, her throat was already clogged with blood, and she could only emit a constant, blood-gurgling sound.

“That day I went to Jizhao Temple and prayed that you would marry me, but I saw…” Lu Mingzhu pointed at Ling Chuandu with hatred. “I saw you boating on the lake with Grand Tutor Li’s daughter. You pinned up her hair and drew her brows, whispering intimately with her. I do not know what you said to her, but I am afraid it was just another deceptive promise of romance.”

“I understand now. Without Lu Yuan, there would have been someone else. You would never marry someone like me, born of a concubine.”

“What am I? An excuse to rebel against your mother? A display of your scholarly elegance? You think I am just… a joke, a docile confidante you fooled, a pastime to escape the pressure of your family.” Lu Mingzhu pursed her lips, but there was still pride on her face. “But you are wrong. I never considered myself humble. I cherish my appearance because I love you, so I treasure it. I hate Lu Yuan because I love you and feel you have been wronged.”

“But I do not love you anymore, because I should not be an object for you to pick and choose. At ten, I could compose poetry; at fifteen, I excelled in painting; my calligraphy followed the masters. Without you, there are countless others who would pursue me. And you, you are not worthy of my affection.”

From her face, which had lost all discernible features, an even more intense black mist erupted. “So I realized, who I should hate is… you!”

“Lin Chuan, you said you would marry me. But you broke your word!” She let out a shrill cry and, regardless of anything else, reached out and lunged directly at Ling Chuandu. Her dark red skirt trailed a deadly arc in the night.

Lu Mingzhu’s finger joints became longer and sharper; to take a hit would surely mean being pierced through. Her voice became hoarse and aged. “So I returned to Jizhao Temple, and I prayed to the Double-Faced Buddha. I said I wanted Prince Yongkang’s son, Lin Chuan, to die without a burial place. I want every cold-hearted, lying, untrustworthy cheater in the world to die!”

Ling Chuandu stood where he was, half his body bathed in blood, his face cold.

He did not dodge or parry, but raised his hand indifferently. With a single instant, he could crush Lu Mingzhu’s throat.

Lu Mingzhu flashed aside to avoid him, turning to lunge again. She was like a gorgeous red butterfly, flipping in the air.

Lu Yuan sighed. He felt that since he had been living in this body, the thing he did most often was sigh.

“Lu Mingzhu.” He held his sword horizontally in front of Ling Chuandu, his expression showing a flash of unbearable pity. “Stop.”

…This woman was melting away.

Every time Lu Mingzhu used the power of the black mist, her body pushed further toward decay.

“You are still protecting him.” Lu Mingzhu’s lips trembled, and on her blurred face, there was a strong sense of resentment at his failure to live up to her expectations.

Lu Mingzhu’s feet were about to turn into a heap of rotting mud. Losing her support, she collapsed suddenly. “I must kill him. I must… kill him.” Lu Mingzhu crawled with difficulty on the ground, dragging a trail of dark red behind her.

At this moment, she had a delusional hope that someone would pull her up.

Lu Mingzhu looked up and saw the unconscious Lu father and Zhang Yiniang. In this vast Lu mansion, the only person left awake who shared her blood was Lu Yuan.

Lu Yuan leaned over and reached out a hand to her, but Lu Mingzhu slapped it away.

Her expression was arrogant and stubborn. “I do not want your pity.”

Lu Mingzhu’s face had become terrifying and distorted, and her once-beautiful black hair was falling out in patches.

Lu Yuan had no choice but to bring a chair and place it in front of her, saying in a low voice, “You would not want to look so unsightly in front of Lin Chuan and let him laugh at you.”

With withered bones, Lu Mingzhu struggled to pull herself onto the chair.

Her voice became increasingly hoarse, as her vocal cords had reached the limit of collapse.

“I have wanted to see you for the past few months. I wanted to tell you that Lin Chuan is not a good man.” Lu Mingzhu’s hollow eye sockets stared at the sky; she could barely see the stars anymore. “But you would not see me, so I had to have Xuewei call Lin Chuan out, knowing you would follow him.”

She suddenly asked, “If I kill him, will you hate me?” She laughed self-deprecatingly. “Ha, what am I saying? It is as if we were such loving sisters.”

Lu Yuan did not know what to say; he only held her hand. “You are a good girl.” At least your heart was not bad; your sarcasm just became a protective color between you and Lu Yuan at some point.

“What is happening… so uncomfortable, so painful…” Lu Mingzhu clutched her chest, frowning in confusion.

Through her tattered gauze dress and her stark white ribs, Lu Yuan saw that Lu Mingzhu’s heart had slowly stopped pumping blood.

Lu Mingzhu muttered incoherently, “It hurts so much. I… I did not mean to. Everyone turning out like this is my fault. I was too willful… my chest hurts. Am I dying? I want to live…”

A strange light flashed in her hollow eye sockets. She grabbed Lu Yuan’s hand. “Sister… I do not want to die… I have not even raised a rabbit yet…”

That promise Father made when she was a child had never been fulfilled to this day.

Lu Mingzhu’s hand, gripping Lu Yuan’s, went still.

Her corpse slowly turned into a pool of flesh and blood, flowing off the chair.

Only the black heart remained where it fell. [Find Lu Mingzhu: 0.5/1]

Lu Yuan’s face was grim. He was overwhelmed by the potential regret and sorrow of Lu Yuan herself, and a surge of anger rushed through him.

He looked up at Ling Chuandu. “Are you alright?”

Ling Chuandu held his left shoulder and did not answer, only asking, “What are you going to do?”

“Kill someone.” Lu Yuan smiled grimly, which, in this room filled with the scent of blood, looked even more murderous.

His features were naturally sharp, and now he looked more like a vengeful ghost or an Asura.

Lu Yuan took the heart that belonged to half of Lu Mingzhu’s body. “Let us go. Did she not want the cheaters to die?”

“Now it is time to find that cheater at Jizhao Temple.”

Ling Chuandu knew that Lu Yuan was enraged to the extreme. He clutched his wound, feeling somewhat dizzy from blood loss, but he was not accustomed to showing weakness in front of others. “We are here to investigate the plague, not to seek justice for Lu Mingzhu.”

Lu Yuan smiled half-heartedly. “Do you think I am blinded by Lu Yuan’s influence? A woman would not look for someone just to say she has a cold; she chose a plague that had not ravaged Tiandu City for hundreds of years. She must have heard it from somewhere recently.”

“She went to Jizhao Temple to pray, but she did not pray to the common Three Saints of Saha. Yet she believed in Him so firmly, it must have been introduced to her by someone she was familiar with.” Lu Yuan’s tall, slender figure stood in the night. The gloomy and violent expression from moments ago had vanished; now he looked more like a calm, sorrowless Buddha.

Ling Chuandu’s eyelids trembled. The death energy Lu Mingzhu had left on him slithered through his meridians like a small snake, tearing and biting.

“What is wrong with you?”

Lu Yuan’s voice sounded as if it came from far away, drifting gently past his ears without leaving a trace.

Ling Chuandu staggered back a step, and a warm body pressed against his cold skin.

Lu Yuan lowered his head, helpless. “If something is wrong, just say it. It is not like I have to drag that Double-Faced Buddha off its lotus pedestal today.”

So annoying.

In his past life, prying his junior brother’s mouth open was difficult enough, and now it was even harder.

Ling Chuandu pushed him away, stiff-lipped. “This lord is perfectly fine.”

If his cultivation had not been suppressed, he would not have been left in such a disheveled state.

Lu Yuan stared at Ling Chuandu expressionlessly.

This man’s mouth was harder than the leftover pancakes he ate.

Lu Yuan stiffened his face. “I am tired. I am going back to rest first.”

He sounded completely unshakable, as if the sharp-edged person who had wanted to cut his way to Jizhao Temple just moments ago was not him.

Lu Yuan looked at the unconscious Lu father and Zhang Yiniang; he still had to get these two living people out.

After Lu Mingzhu died, the whole manor regained its brightness, but it became even more foul-smelling, with all kinds of strange-looking people lying about.

After pushing open the gate, the sedan chair was still waiting for them outside.

When the servants saw the blood-soaked pair, especially Ling Chuandu, whose face looked terrible and lips were pale, they rushed over in a panic. “Young Master, what happened to you!”

Lu Yuan: “Hurry and get a doctor to check him. Also, my father and Zhang Yiniang are still inside. Get a few people to carry them out. Remember to wear a face covering and cover your nose and mouth. It is not… very pretty inside.”

The servants did not understand what “not very pretty” meant, but they followed Lu Yuan’s orders, carrying the sedan and calling for help.

Ling Chuandu’s excessive blood loss made his face look deathly pale. Worst of all, the black death energy was gradually spreading from his shoulder to his jaw.

[He looks like he is going to die.] The system glanced at Lu Yuan’s face and whispered cautiously.

Lu Yuan curled his lips. “He will not.”

When he had supported Ling Chuandu just now, he had cut his own fingertip and injected his divine blood into the other’s wound.

Although it was not as effective as drinking it directly, it was more than enough to suppress the death energy.

“It will just be a little painful to endure.” Lu Yuan’s smile carried a fury he did not realize himself. “Let him learn a lesson.”

He was not a child learning to speak, was he? If it hurts, can he not just say so?

The system chose to shut up for a while.

[Sect Leader Lu, we have met Lu Mingzhu, but why does the task show we only found half of her?]

“Like Steward Wang, she was inevitably split in two, it is just that her fake body had completely detached from her original one.” Lu Yuan’s shoulders sank. He lowered his eyelashes and looked at the unconscious Ling Chuandu.

The golden blood was burning the black mist at Ling Chuandu’s wound. If he were awake, he would surely recognize this as the work of his senior brother.

But his brows were tightly knit, looking very uneasy even in his coma.

Ling Chuandu clung tightly to the nearest source of heat, whispering softly, “…Senior Brother.”

He spoke very unclearly, but at this moment, he really did look like a child learning to speak.

Suddenly, Lu Yuan looked at him and smiled.

This was a smile without any negative emotions. He gently smoothed Ling Chuandu’s hair and said leisurely, “You look much better when you are obedient.”

System: […]

Ahhhhh! Host, why do you sound like a suspicious villain!