To Be a Demon - Chapter 5

Granted.

Fu Chen was no longer that bed-wetting child. He was Heavenly Venerable Wujie now, high above the world, and I was looking up at him from the ground like an ant.

We had once been evenly matched.

But I could feel how much stronger he had grown in fifty years. He was like the greatest whirlpool in the ocean, depths impossible to gauge. Fair enough. People kept improving.

Only I had gone backward.

Not really my fault.

I hadn’t exactly been a person for the past fifty years.

I blinked. That almost imperceptible wisp of demonic energy between his brows vanished. I wondered if I had imagined it. Somewhere deep down, I simply couldn’t believe Fu Chen would fall to the demonic path.

Just as on the day we broke with each other.

He had looked at me coldly. “If you choose to debase yourself and follow that wicked path today, then from now on we are strangers. Should we meet in battle, I will show you no mercy.”

I remembered laughing in the rain and saying only, “Fine.”

He had hated even my choice to cultivate that way. How could a man as disciplined as him do it himself?

…Forget it.

Whatever had become of Fu Chen was none of my business. I hadn’t come to reminisce. I was working for my future freedom.

Become Fu Chen’s disciple?

I would call a pig Master if I had to.

Exclamations from the crowd interrupted my thoughts. I came back to myself and found Fu Chen standing right before me.

He stared silently, as though trying to see something beneath this skin. This time I saw it clearly: a faint wisp of demonic energy drifted between his brows.

He was suppressing something.

“Is it you?” he asked softly.

Cold shot down my spine. Sweat broke out all over my back.

Perhaps.

Perhaps he only meant… Are you the one making trouble here?

Or: that old bastard Venerable Tuofeng sent a spiritual message saying his long-lost granddaughter was coming to Yunyan for me to look after. Is that you?

My brain offered endless possibilities.

But instinct told me otherwise.

No.

What Fu Chen wanted to ask was surely:

“Yan Beibei. Is it you?”

His cultivation was terrifyingly advanced, and he was tainted with demonic energy. Maybe he could spot something wrong with me.

Even my palms were sweating. Sweat soaked into the hole through the center of my hand, and I sucked in a sharp breath. I hadn’t felt pain like this in fifty years. This body wasn’t especially good at handling it either.

Fu Chen’s brows drew together slightly.

Suddenly I understood. Whatever he had noticed, he was asking a question. If he knew for certain I was Yan Beibei, why bother?

Maybe he was probing, hoping I would panic and give myself away.

That would explain his frown when I gasped over the hole in my hand.

The old Yan Beibei wouldn’t have blinked with seven or eight holes through her body.

Got it.

Whatever Yan Beibei would do, I needed to do the opposite.

Yan Beibei hated weakness, for example.

So I let my eyes redden and began to sob.

“Yes, it’s me! I’m Wang Xiangyun!” That was my alias now. “Boo-hoo, it hurts, it hurts! Heavenly Venerable, they… they bullied me! Look at my hand… Look what they’ve done! You have to avenge me!”

Silence fell again.

They were probably gossiping inwardly: shocking news! Unknown girl surnamed Wang has connections with the famous Heavenly Venerable Wujie!

Just then, someone arrived to clear it up. A group flew down from the sky, sweating and flustered. Their leader, a man in blue-green robes, scolded me even as he landed.

“How dare you! An outsider of no standing, presuming to ask the Heavenly Venerable to settle your petty grievances! We haven’t even called you to account for making trouble outside Yunyan today. How have you the nerve? Get off this mountain!”

Without even pausing, he led the others to kneel before Fu Chen.

“Your emergence from seclusion was unexpected, Heavenly Venerable. Forgive us for being late to greet you.”

“We welcome the Heavenly Venerable’s successful return from seclusion!”

The cry rang to the heavens.

Everyone around us knelt too, roaring in unison, “We welcome the Heavenly Venerable’s successful return from seclusion!”

Was this contagious?

Yan Beibei would definitely have laughed. There was something deeply brainless about this spectacle.

So I swallowed my laughter and kept sobbing as I hid behind Fu Chen. “Heavenly Venerable, they’re so loud. Yunyun is a little scared.”

Fu Chen glanced at me indifferently.

He must have stopped suspecting me. He was no longer staring holes through me; he could barely be bothered to look.

I relaxed.

The man in blue-green grew furious again. “Not only are you shameless, your intentions are corrupt! Keep clinging to the Heavenly Venerable and you’ll make an enemy of the entire Yunyan Sect!”

The fat Changting boy I had hit with the silver staggered upright too, pointing at me. “Heavenly Venerable, don’t let this witch deceive you! She… Look what she did to me! She wasn’t this weak then!”

Yan Beibei would have beaten both of them up.

I merely blinked innocently. “Grandpa said the Heavenly Venerable is someone we can trust. I can let down my guard around him.”

“And…” I looked at the fat boy. “Grandpa also said I don’t need to be polite to people who bully me. If I can’t handle them, the Heavenly Venerable will deal with them for me!”

I needed some sort of connection to Fu Chen.

I still had to become his disciple.

The blue-green-robed man looked close to exploding. “Who is your grandfather? What sect is he from? Sending you to Yunyan to cling to the Heavenly Venerable—does he think we have no one here? I’ll demand an explanation!”

The Yunyan disciples behind him glared daggers at me.

I shrank another half step behind Fu Chen, pretending to be scared.

“I… I don’t know what sect Grandpa belongs to,” I said. “He said he has connections in Yunyan and knows the Heavenly Venerable. That’s why he sent me.”

I took the old man’s letter from my bag.

“Oh, right. Grandpa’s name is Wang Tuofeng.”

Silence.

One sentence from me, and the whole place went silent.

My grandpa, the former sect leader.