I Took You as My Disciple, Not My Husband - Chapter 2

His soft, pleading tone swept me straight back into the illusion.

He had called me Master like that then, over and over.

Inside the illusion, I wasn’t a revered elder of an immortal cultivation sect. I was the Demon Lord everyone outside our realm said deserved to die—the demons’ new ruler.

As for Lou Qi, he was a beautiful young man I had happened to pick up.

I had only just taken charge of the demons when I came across him during my travels through a purple bamboo grove.

He lay there quietly, fallen bamboo leaves covering half his body. There was no expression on his face, as though even the fact that he was dying could stir nothing in him.

At the time, I remembered nothing else. My mind held only the memories the illusion beast had woven for me.

I was a demoness. I didn’t slaughter innocents, but that hardly made me a good person.

If I found someone half dead and refrained from finishing them off, that already counted as kindness on my part. Saving them was out of the question.

And yet things had a way of going awry.

Perhaps the desire to save others, buried beneath the illusion, had stirred a little compassion. Perhaps his calm, untroubled eyes had moved me. Either way, I changed my mind.

He was badly injured. Almost every meridian in his body had been severed, and saving him would take some work.

Even if I made the effort, he would never be able to pursue immortal cultivation again. To live, he would have to follow the demonic path.

I hesitated for a couple of seconds, then told him who I was in a tone meant to frighten him.

I could save him, I said, but from then on he would have to become a demon and serve me.

I expected him to be afraid. People had always seemed prejudiced against demons.

Our reputation had never been good. Since I had taken over, it had only grown worse.

The world claimed the new Demon Lord slaughtered people without blinking, liked eating human flesh and drinking human blood… Along with every other atrocity they could dream up: murdering people for their cultivation cores, tearing out their tendons, draining their blood.

Honestly.

I had been speechless. I had been angry. I had tried to set the record straight. Nobody believed me.

After the self-proclaimed righteous declared they would cut me into a thousand pieces, I stopped caring. Let them say what they wanted.

There was no changing prejudice.

They didn’t even know their new Demon Lord was a woman. They would be shouting about cutting me to pieces, then earnestly warn me to take care as I walked past and offer to protect me.

I wasn’t interested in arguing with fools. Once I had secretly investigated the truth, I had even less desire to get involved in the sordid dealings of those supposedly righteous sects.

I was only taking the blame. The sect members murdering one another in secret were losing their actual lives.

But once I stopped responding, the rumors grew even more ridiculous. Major incidents, minor incidents, even scandalous affairs—all of them were pinned on me.

After revealing my identity, I thought Lou Qi would cry in terror or refuse my help. Plenty of people frightened unruly children into obedience with “The Demon Lord is coming,” after all.

He did neither.

He wasn’t crying, and he wasn’t afraid. He simply looked at me intently, as though considering the offer.

Before long, he agreed. “I’m willing to follow the demonic path. And I’m willing to serve you.”

I always kept my word. Once he agreed, I used demonic energy to mend his severed meridians and taught him some basic demonic cultivation techniques. He was clever and learned quickly.

After that, he stayed with me.

The sight of him at our first meeting—gravely wounded, so detached that life and death seemed to mean nothing to him—had left a deep impression. I always thought he must have suffered terrible bullying, with no one to rely on.

Moved by compassion, I took him as my disciple, had him call me Master, and taught him my techniques.

I treated him the way ordinary families raised their children. I cared for him, looked after him, and taught him how a person ought to live. I thought he would grow into someone decent and upright.

But…

Somewhere along the way, something went wrong. He still turned out all wrong.

Once Lou Qi had grown capable, I handed all the demons’ affairs over to him and began traveling from place to place. Then I heard a rumor.

The Demon Lord had brutally murdered a genius from an immortal cultivation sect. Outraged, the cultivators believed the demons were growing ever more brazen. After conferring, the major sects had decided to launch a campaign against us.

Excuse me?

For one moment, I seriously wondered whether I had been keeping too low a profile. Was that why they found it so easy to slander me and make me take the blame?

Then I remembered the clues I had uncovered over my years of travel and felt quite calm again. Certain people must have been getting desperate.

After disguising myself as an ordinary disciple and asking around, I returned to the Demon Realm. I had been gone only a few short years, but it had changed dramatically.

Before I left, the demons had lived more or less as they pleased. Now everything was remarkably orderly. I was surprised, but mostly pleased.

As his master, I was proud that Lou Qi had come so far in such a short time.

That pride turned to fury when he imprisoned me.

He caught me off guard, drugged me unconscious, and shut me in my old room. A long chain shackled my ankle. Apparently afraid I might escape, he had also lit incense in the room.

I couldn’t use a single spell. For the moment, I really was helpless.

I tried to give orders to the other demons, but during my years away, Lou Qi had taken complete control. Every demon obeyed him unquestioningly and turned a deaf ear to me.

I was furious at first, but soon calmed down.

I was his master, after all. I couldn’t believe he would turn against me and disgrace everything I had taught him.