How to Raise a Scheming Demon Lord - Chapter 2

I dozed inside the palace with my chin propped on my hand. It wasn’t until deep into the night that I heard a creak.

Someone had opened the door.

When I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was a black robe embroidered with subtle gold patterns. A black whip hung at the visitor’s left hip, a coldly gleaming curved saber at his right.

My gaze traveled up to a face as handsome as carved jade.

Xiuyan had grown from a youth into a man. His features were deeper and sharper now, his brow cut like a blade, his cool indifference suggesting little concern for whether anyone else lived or died.

As his former master, I honestly couldn’t decide whether to feel proud or terrified.

Proud, because my disciple was now the Demon Lord, gifted beyond measure and more beautiful than anyone in the world.

Terrified, because I had offended that disciple.

Badly.

I rubbed my chin, trying to think of something suitable to say.

Xiuyan, meanwhile, stared at my rounded belly, his gaze as deep and dark as an ancient well.

He came to stand before me. His voice betrayed neither pleasure nor anger.

“I hear you’re pregnant.”

My hand stopped.

“Yes.”

He lifted my chin and fixed his black eyes on my face.

“How long?”

I tossed out a lie. “Two hundred years, perhaps. You know how long immortals stay pregnant. Ha ha…”

Xiuyan raised his brows and gave a cold laugh.

“Really? Only two hundred years?”

“Of course. How long else would it be?”

For four hundred years, I hadn’t ventured out into the world. No one but me knew how long I had actually been carrying this child.

Besides, my body hardly showed a pregnancy.

If I said it had only been two hundred years, no one who saw me would have the slightest reason to doubt it.

His cold smile deepened.

“Whose child?”

I leaned back, trying to put some distance between our faces.

“Do you even need to ask? I’m the one carrying it. Obviously, it’s mine.”

“…”

Xiuyan only moved closer. He caught my wrist, his keen eyes missing not a flicker of expression on my face.

“Tell me. Who is the child’s father?”

I struggled to keep my composure.

“What, you think it’s yours?

“Which sounds more believable—that this is your child, or that I’m the Heavenly Emperor’s mother?”

Xiuyan pressed his lips together. Veins stood out faintly on his hand.

With a crack, the fine warm-jade cup in his grip shattered.

I admit that what happened back then was my fault.

That night, I was the one who had taken liberties with him.

I shouldn’t have gone down the mountain to buy wine. I shouldn’t have unsuspectingly drunk that drugged jar of it.

And when the young man who was worried about me flew onto the roof, took me in his arms, and carried me back to my room, I most certainly shouldn’t have rolled over and pinned him beneath me.

The innocent, inexperienced youth was bewildered. For the first time, a flush colored those usually clear, gentle eyes.

That red spread from the corners of his eyes to the tips of his jade-white ears.

His throat bobbed. He didn’t know what to do.

Lost in a haze of drugs and wine, I held down his uncertain hands, lowered my head, and kissed his lips.

Outside the window, the moon shone bright and the shadows of trees swayed.

For a moment, it was hard to say whose breathing had faltered.

Or whose still waters had been stirred.

…

When I woke, I immediately severed our relationship without giving him a say.

Now that we had met again, everything had changed.

Even when Xiuyan had been a gentle, obedient youth, he had been anything but easy to fool. As a man, he was steadier and more mature—and harder to deal with than ever.

Sure enough, his next words chilled me to the bone.

“Whether this child is mine will become clear once you give birth, Master.

“Until then, you’d best go nowhere. Stay here and rest.”

Xiuyan spoke against the shell of my ear, laughing softly. His tone was as gentle as it had been in the past.

Yet dangerous emotions surged like ink in his eyes.

I couldn’t help retreating a few steps.

He suddenly sat beside me, his gaze falling on my lower legs.

“Your feet are so small and pretty, Master. How about an anklet?”

As he spoke, his long fingers lifted my ankle and stroked it gently.

Demons were cold-blooded by nature, and Xiuyan’s fingers were icy.

I shivered and tried to draw my leg back, but his firm grip left me unable to move.

“An anklet would look lovely on you, Master.”

Something seemed to occur to him.

He chuckled again.

“And when it swings, it should sound even lovelier.”

My face burned. “No!”

Xiuyan tilted his head, suddenly all innocent smiles.

“It’s only an anklet. Why refuse, Master?”

“…”

The reason was too embarrassing to say.

I had always considered myself his elder. I simply couldn’t bring myself to say it aloud.

The next day, however, he brought a chain over without another word.

The anklet was black and gold, its little hollow-work bells exquisitely made.

The slightest movement sent them jingling.

It felt icy against my skin as Xiuyan fastened it around my left ankle.

When he finished, he studied it with an ever-deepening smile, evidently quite satisfied.

“As I thought. Anything looks beautiful on you, Master.”

“…”

I was becoming more and more certain that the sweet, gentle youth I had once known was gone.

After a century apart, Xiuyan had only grown madder.