To Be a Demon - Chapter 1

Just before I died, though, I forced a kiss on him. To my surprise, he brought me back to life.

Apparently, I had died too easily.

He wanted to kill me again.

Nothing less would soothe this old virgin’s fury at having his first kiss stolen.

I thought I knew what to do.

Before he could kill me, I tossed out, “I love you.”

He froze.

Exactly the reaction I wanted. While he stood there stunned, I licked the blood from the scratch I had left on his face. Hilarious, really. Killing me had been so easy for him, and all I had managed in the end was one tiny cut on his cheek.

I gathered every last scrap of strength and cast a spell on myself.

Then I even managed to pull my lips into a smile, just to disgust him one last time. “Lied to you, Fu Chen.”

The most notorious demon of her generation was finally going to die.

Not at the hands of her nemesis Fu Chen, that shining beacon of righteousness, but by severing her own meridians.

Poor little me.

Had you fooled, didn’t I? All an act.

I died. And yet I didn’t.

Here’s how it worked.

I had learned a spell that could keep the soul alive even after the body died.

It had three requirements. First, you had to sever your own meridians on the brink of death.

Check.

Second, enough time and a powerful enough body to cast it.

The time Fu Chen spent standing there stunned was more than enough. I had been born with barely any spiritual power; sheer physical toughness was the only reason I had cultivated as far as I had. That certainly counted as a powerful body.

Third, the blood of a virgin from the Yang Sword lineage.

That one had nearly finished me off all by itself.

For three generations, the Yang Sword lineage had produced only one heir apiece. Its current heir, Fu Chen, was outrageously gifted. Despite his youth, he was already making his way toward the very pinnacle of the cultivation world. Getting him to bleed was no easy task.

Besides.

I had assumed he was no longer a virgin.

But that kiss before my death had left such lingering shock in his eyes.

A woman’s intuition told me: definitely his first.

Originally, I had only meant to make one desperate attempt at licking the blood on his face. Unfortunately, pain had left me dizzy and half blind. I missed.

Licked Fu Chen’s lips instead.

Classic me.

Such a lucky girl.

I had even infuriated him enough to use some unknown technique to drag me back from death.

He meant to kill me again.

I wasn’t giving him the chance. I wanted to live.

Even if only my soul survived.

Living as a soul was incredibly boring.

And since I had been born with so little spiritual power, my soul was naturally feeble too.

All I could do was circle endlessly within the same five chi of air where I had died.

Fu Chen came back a few times.

Always just stood there staring into space. So rude.

What, did the spot where I died fill him with peace and delight?

Fifty years passed that way.

One particularly dark night, a girl with a braid died there. Her lover killed her for the recommendation letter to the Yunyan Sect tucked inside her clothes.

The chance to cultivate toward immortality was rare enough. A place in the Yunyan Sect, one of the cultivation world’s foremost sects, was rarer still.

She died at nineteen, the same age I had been. Even the birth signs of her year, month, day, and hour matched mine. Fate intervened without warning.

I had a new body.

After fifty years, I opened my eyes.

The man who had stolen the letter hadn’t gone far. Greedy laughter escaped his mouth, impossible to contain.

I brushed the dirt off myself.

Perhaps the sound was too conspicuous in the silent night. He shuddered and turned, stiff and slow. His pupils snapped into focus on me just as I stood up and stretched.

“A gh… ghost!” he screamed, trying to flee.

Who was he looking down on?

Fifty years ago, I had ruled a whole territory.

This body was nowhere near as good as my old one, but it was more than enough to kill a useless piece of trash.

No feelings involved. Pure technique.

In the space of a few breaths, I was in front of him. I poured spiritual power into a leaf I had picked up, turning it into a razor.

“A ghost?” I pulled the letter from his hand. He had already wet himself. “Ghosts aren’t half as frightening as people.”

With a flick of my thumb, the weightless leaf passed through his throat.

He died without another sound.

As for why I took the letter…

Sigh.

The girl had left a wish: to become a personal disciple of the Yunyan Sect’s leader.

If I failed to fulfill it within a year, I would be a soul again, drifting around this spot in mind-numbing boredom.

The old man who led Yunyan was stiff and tedious. He had annoyed me to death back in the day.

I wouldn’t even have taken him as my disciple.

So annoying. So, so annoying.

A poor, weak little demonic cultivator like me, going into a place full of those sanctimonious Yunyan types? A tiger straight into the sheep’s jaws.