To Be a Demon - Chapter 3

The old sect leader kept sighing.

He said he knew Fu Chen very well. All the man cared about was wiping out demonic cultivators; he had no interest in anything else, much less the thankless work of taking a disciple.

Sounded right to me.

Besides, if he discovered who I was, he wouldn’t take me as a disciple. He would send me straight back to the grave.

A bleak future indeed.

I asked the old man for ideas.

After a long think, he slapped his palm. “Everything happens step by step. You need a first step before a second.”

I nodded. Sensible.

“First, Fu Chen needs to meet you and become familiar with you. Second, he needs to see your potential and ability. Only then will he consider taking you as a disciple.”

“But at best, you’ll enter Yunyan as an inner disciple. How are we to make him notice you…” He scratched his head, then brightened. “I’ve got it!”

He produced brush and ink and started a letter. “I’ll say you’re my long-lost granddaughter and ask him to look after you.”

Excuse me? Helping himself to a promotion in the family tree, was he?

I smelled a trap. I reached out and stopped his writing hand. “Helping me this much when we’ve only just met… Are you…”

I had worked it out.

“Hoping I’ll look after you in your old age?”

He burst out laughing again. “Hahahahaha!”

He rolled about on the ground like a beggar.

Eventually he straightened. “I’m not quite that useless. When I die, I’ll be a handful of earth. I won’t need anyone looking after me. But you’re not wrong. I do have my own reasons for helping you.”

“You remind me of someone.”

Now he was trying to claim a connection.

I wasn’t buying it. “And?”

“Someone who could make Fu Chen happy.” Whoever he was remembering, it put a bitter smile on his face.

Old age must have ruined his eyesight. I had no idea who he thought I resembled, but of all the people in the world, I was the best at making Fu Chen unhappy.

I was also the person he most wanted dead.

“Oh, right,” I said vaguely. Whoever it was, fulfilling this body’s last wish was a win. Once I was free, who cared about Fu Chen?

The old man came back to himself and looked at me with sudden respect. “Still, you’re the first person I’ve ever met who actually wants to get close to that madman. Such courage. I bow to you.”

There were two other sentiments in his eyes.

One was: good luck to you.

The other: you’re the one jumping into the fire. Who else am I supposed to throw in? Hee-hee.

My future still looked bleak.

I arrived at the Yunyan Sect with the old man’s letter certifying my status as his granddaughter and the recommendation letter that had belonged to this body.

They happened to be recruiting. The queue stretched from the foot of the mountain all the way to the summit. Everyone wanted to rise above the rest.

“The two great powers in the cultivation world today are Yunyan Sect and Liuqing Mountain,” a know-it-all ahead of me was explaining. “But do you know why Yunyan is more popular?”

Heads shook all around him.

“Venerable Wujie, of course!” He was in his element. “The greatest cultivator alive! No one can rival his talent or power. By now, he must be close to ascension.”

What?

Who?

I scratched my head. Never heard of him.

“Wow!” Everyone looked awestruck.

“Demonic cultivators are retreating on every front. The great forces that once committed such atrocities are already in decline, their leaders dead or wounded. Whose achievement do you think that is?”

“Venerable Wujie’s!” This time everyone knew.

“Exactly! Venerable Wujie! He’s so much stronger than those demons!” The know-it-all grew excited. “My grandfather told me that fifty years ago, there was a great demon with three heads and ten eyes. Couldn’t be killed. Every sect was tearing its hair out. Wujie was only twenty at the time, and he killed that demon with one strike. One!”

“Venerable Wujie is a born god!”

His passionate speech drew a chorus of agreement.

I stood there thinking.

An unkillable demon fifty years ago…

Wasn’t that me?

Since when did I have three heads and ten eyes? People used to call me a beauty in the street.

So this Venerable Wujie was Fu Chen all along. Quite the reputation he’d made for himself.

And to think he used to wet the bed when he lived at my house.