My Master Raised a Demoness - Chapter 1

I was so hungry.

I’d almost got away, too.

The stones hitting me didn’t hurt at all.

Fortunes changed. My turn would come.

Once I took my tael of silver and got far away from here, I’d buy a few chickens and never have to beg again.

The other little beggars had been searching me for ages. They still hadn’t found the silver.

“Tell us! Where did you hide it?”

Idiots. As if I’d keep it on me.

They could beat me to death. I still wouldn’t tell.

My silence made them furious.

They called me a scheming little cheat for deliberately falling in front of a rich person’s startled horse.

What did they know?

It was called high risk, high reward.

A few more kicks landed.

“Still won’t talk? Don’t blame us for getting nasty!”

Whatever, whatever. Once they finished beating me, my good life could begin.

I wouldn’t be stuck begging like them.

Big chickens laid eggs. Eggs hatched into little chickens.

A house in a year, land in three. Then I’d be set for life.

They held my arms and legs while their leader lifted a rock much bigger than my head.

What the hell.

When he was begging, his hands always shook like a sieve.

“Are you going to talk or not?”

He spat on me.

Now, that was a question worth considering.

Did he think this would make me give in?

How many years of begging would it take to save a tael of silver? I wasn’t handing it over. If I got lucky and the rock didn’t kill me, I could start over.

Though luck had never really been my thing.

I squeezed my eyes shut.

If I died, the silver could be my offering to the local earth god. Please let me be born into a better life next time!

White light flashed. The pain never came.

The earth god must have heard my prayer.

Did earth gods wear white? This one was very handsome.

The underworld was quite nice, actually. I wasn’t hurting or hungry anymore, and I had fragrant clothes to wear.

If I’d known, I wouldn’t have struggled on for all those years.

When I opened my eyes, the earth god was standing in front of me.

He looked carved from ice and snow, his beauty almost otherworldly.

His expression was complicated as he watched me.

I watched his grip on his sword loosen, then tighten. Tighten, then loosen.

“Am I dead?” I asked.

“Soon. I’m going to kill you.”

“Oh,” I said, and asked if the earth god could give me a better life next time.

He said he wasn’t the earth god. He knew nothing about my next life, but I hadn’t been a good person in my last one.

He stared at me. “You killed many people. You had a great deal of blood on your hands. You were a demoness whom anyone had the right to slay.”

“That explains it,” I said. This life had been a little on the difficult side.

Silence fell. My stomach chose that moment to growl.

He went out and brought me a bowl of boiled eggs.

“This is all there is for now.”

My eyes lit up. “Thank you, Earth God.”

I’d only ever dared buy one egg at New Year. At least I could die with a full stomach.

He watched me wolf them down and repeated himself.

“I’m not the earth god.

“I’m Mei Zhexue, an elder of the Swordlight Sect. Have you heard of it?”

Beautiful people even had beautiful names.

I swallowed two eggs before I had time to answer.

“No.

“Does ‘elder’ mean you’re very old? You don’t look old.”

“I’m two hundred,” said Mei Zhexue. “Once you’ve finished eating, I’ll send you on your way.”

His snow-white blade slid from its sheath, dazzling me for a moment.

“All right,” I said.

What a good man. He was even letting me eat my fill.

After five or six eggs, tiny red spots began spreading over my hands. I scratched at them without thinking much of it.

The next moment, the bowl was knocked over, and the half-eaten egg was knocked from my hand too.

Mei Zhexue was frowning hard. “Eggs trigger your symptoms. Why didn’t you say anything?”

I swallowed the yolk still in my mouth. “What do you mean, trigger my symptoms?”

He produced a white pill from somewhere and held it out. “It means you can’t eat them. They don’t agree with you.”

Oh. I’d thought I was just too lowly to stomach good food.

I looked at his snow-white sword.

“Could you give me a rope instead? I don’t want to get it dirty.”

That sword looked very expensive.

His hand paused for an instant. Then he drew the sword as though nothing had happened. “No matter. I’ll give you half an incense stick’s time to run. If I can’t find you, I’ll let you go.”

“Oh.”

A full incense stick’s time later, Mei Zhexue opened the door and found me crouching outside it.

The autumn wind whistled past, cold enough to set my sleeves snapping.

I looked up, embarrassed.

“I don’t know where I could go.”