The Endless Ache of Parting - Chapter 1

The young lord who loved provoking the celestial court had suddenly declared a truce.

For once, peace reigned in both the celestial and demon realms.

I woke from a haze. The sticky feeling all over my body told me I had reverted to my true form.

Instantly alert, I scrambled for anything I could use to cover myself.

Instead, I caught a pair of warm hands and met a pair of clear eyes.

They belonged to a man wearing a strange mask.

He sat by the bed. Harsh sunlight fell across his neck, making the veins beneath his skin almost visible. I swallowed.

I was so weak. I could smell the powerful life pulsing through those veins.

I was no immortal. My true form was hideous. Everyone who saw me feared and loathed me.

Misshapen feelers, a fox’s tail, a merfolk’s scales—I didn’t even know what kind of thing I was.

To my surprise, there was no disgust in his eyes, only hope and worry.

He might have been only the second person in this world who wasn’t afraid of me. The first was my master.

I didn’t know what expression Master had worn when he first saw me.

I hadn’t grown eyes yet. I had no idea how long I had wandered alone in the dark.

Master gave me my first pair of eyes.

He stayed with me, always saying, “I’m the only person in this world you can rely on.”

“We must stay together, life after life.”

But Master broke his promise.

He began to care more about my junior disciple-sister.

It seemed he didn’t want me anymore. Was it because my true form was disgusting?

“Do you think I’m disgusting?”

I couldn’t help asking the masked man, trying to keep my feelers from touching him.

“No. Your eyes are beautiful. They look like my mother’s.”

He looked at me with utter sincerity and took off his mask.

His eyes were deep and bright.

There was no denying he was handsome. Unfortunately, his face was covered in scars, fierce and frightening.

Of course, he had a long way to go before he looked as bad as my true form.

A faint smile curved his lips. He pointed at his face as if it were nothing and tucked me back under the covers.

“My name is Yin Li.”

So this was Yin Li.

I did know of him. Master had told me about him.

The young lord of the demon realm. The only fire qilin in heaven or earth. His parents had vanished under mysterious circumstances.

They were probably dead, but he still refused to ascend the throne as Demon Sovereign, content to remain the young lord.

Yin Li learned that I had fallen from the Immortal-Execution Terrace and was very curious about what I had done wrong.

I lied and said I had stolen some immortal peaches to eat.

He looked at me with deep pity, his long lashes lowering slightly.

“Damn it. Those ancient bastards in heaven are stingy.”

“How much could a delicate little thing like you possibly eat?”

I looked at my terrifying reflection in the mirror and began to suspect something was wrong with his eyes.

The next day, I heard that the young lord of the demon realm had raided the celestial palace and dug up half the immortal peach trees in its imperial garden.

I rarely ate immortal peaches. My junior disciple-sister, Yuheng, liked them, and Master had once given her a whole peach tree.

Immortal peaches took a hundred years to blossom and a thousand to bear fruit. Brimming with spiritual energy, they were a great help in cultivation.

Now I had a courtyard full of the trees.

Yin Li transplanted every peach tree he had seized into my courtyard.

“Are you sure we won’t get in trouble for stealing immortal peaches?”

“Stealing? I’m the young lord of the demon realm! This is clearly borrowing.” He had no shame at all.

He also said that if he had brought enough men, he would have dug up the lot and left those stingy immortals without a single tree.

The courtyard was filled with the sweet scent of peaches. I watched Yin Li picking through the fruit up in a tree.

Clearing my throat, I shouted, “Yin Li! My name is Tiaotiao!”

“What? You want a peach?” Yin Li dug at his ear.

“Hang on! I’ll find you a big one!”

Oh dear. His hearing wasn’t very good either.

Perhaps it was fellow feeling between two ugly creatures. Yin Li took especially good care of me.

Tonics poured into my room every day, but I recovered slowly.

I was a monster that devoured flesh and blood. Lingzhi and immortal peaches did little for me.

Master normally fed me the inner cores of immortal cultivators and the beast cores of supernatural creatures.

The more of those disgusting things I ate, the more disgusting my true form became.

But I had no choice. I had to use my blood to sustain Yuheng’s heart meridians.

Master had given me my life. He said Yuheng had given him his. So surely my life ought to belong to Yuheng too.

This time, though, I had failed to protect her. Perhaps a century of depletion had taken too much out of me.

The power in my blood was no longer strong enough. A tiny, fine line appeared on Yuheng’s face.

Then I fell from the Immortal-Execution Terrace.

I didn’t understand. Only the day before, Master had said he wanted me to live for millions upon millions of years.

He had even given me a piece of luminous white jade. I treasured it too much to wear it.

Master said I wasn’t an immortal, so the Immortal-Execution Terrace couldn’t truly harm me. At worst, I would suffer a little bodily pain.

How laughable. My bodily pain mattered less than a fine line on a dying person’s face.