Chapter 5: Her Master Must Be Gentle and Elegant
In the grey bear's four hundred years of life, it had never experienced such ups and downs in a single day. Yet from its beginnings as a lowly common beast to its rise as a half-step Returning to Origin Realm demon king, it had always seen itself as the main character of its own little world.
Hearing Chen Xingcai's soft, milky voice, panic surged inside it. But it forced itself to stay composed. Though its legs shook like a sieve, it feigned an innocent, blank look, its eyes once again turning clear…
"Pfft." Chen Xingcai laughed without hesitation. "Little Grey, if I hadn't interrupted you again and again earlier, do you think my dad would've chopped you into eight pieces?"
She patted the grey bear's furry head. "I don't know why, but my dad really hates the demon race."
With a thud, the grey bear dropped to its knees. "Little auntie, I was wrong. Spare my life, and in the future, if you tell me to go east, I'll never go west."
"Get up." Chen Xingcai nodded. "I'm not a demon myself — I was just teasing you."
She cupped her cheeks, her face slightly flushed, eyes full of longing. "It's nice having Daddy with me, but sometimes I want another person to play with."
Then she fixed her gaze back on the grey bear. "But even if we play together, I don't want to be deceived. Daddy says friends must always be honest with each other.
Right?"
"Yes! Yes! Yes!" The grey bear nodded frantically.
"But you're not my friend. You're just my pet."
The grey bear froze.
Just as its will completely crumbled, Chen Xingcai spoke faintly. "So I don't have to be honest with you, but you must always be honest with me. Understand?"
"Understood, understood." The grey bear finally realized that in matters of wit, she completely crushed him. That tiny bit of scheming in his heart vanished instantly.
Now, he just wanted to know what kind of environment could produce such a human-shaped demon.
He quickly found out.
Instead of taking him to see any newly planted fruit trees, she led him to the other side of the valley, to a cave entrance.
The dark cave seemed empty, yet the moment the grey bear saw it, a fear imprinted deep in his bloodline rose up, making him want to turn and flee.
What the hell is this girl's… master hiding in there? Why is it so terrifying?
Fighting the urge to run, he watched Chen Xingcai skip to the entrance and call out proudly, "Master Xiao Hei, come see — I've got a new pet."
After a moment, a small black snake slithered leisurely out of the cave. With a spring, it landed lightly on top of Chen Xingcai's head.
Its snake eyes swept over the grey bear once, and with just that one glance, the bear went weak. He plopped down on the ground, and a rank odor began to spread beneath him.
Today was truly the most miserable day of his life.
"Ugh, so stinky." Chen Xingcai quickly ran a few steps away, her face full of disgust. "Suddenly, I don't want this pet anymore. Master Xiao Hei, why don't you eat it?"
The light vanished from the grey bear's eyes.
From the snake's mouth came a clear, feminine voice: "Too dirty. I won't eat it."
The light returned at once. Rolling over and pressing himself flat to the ground, he dared not speak. He could tell — compared to the girl and her father, this one was the truly dangerous one.
The black snake gave him a look of disdain. "No need to be afraid. My true body is still in seclusion. This is just my external incarnation, only at the Returning to Origin Realm."
Listen to that — a true powerhouse. The realm I dream of, she says as if it's nothing.
The grey bear pressed his head even lower, afraid that moving the wrong foot first might get him killed.
"Alright, Master Xiao Hei, let's ignore this big dumb bear. I came mainly to get this." Chen Xingcai reached into a cat-head-shaped pouch at her waist and took out a book titled Tyrannical Saint Venerate Fell in Love with Me: Volume Two.
"Master Xiao Hei, I've finished reading Volume Two. Let's trade for Volume Three."
"So fast?" The black snake gave a gentle suck, and the book flew into her mouth. Then she spat out another — an obviously well-worn copy of Tyrannical Saint Venerate Fell in Love with Me: Volume Three — which landed in Chen Xingcai's hands.
"Thanks, Master Xiao Hei." Chen Xingcai beamed, tucking the book back into her pouch. Then she scratched her head, a troubled look on her face. "Oh, right, Master — no matter how much I try to hint, wheedle, or cry, Daddy still won't tell me who my mother is. What should I do next?"
"No rush. You're with your father every day. As long as you persist, he'll slip up eventually."
"Okay, Master!"
With her goal achieved, Chen Xingcai happily turned to leave. After a few steps, she frowned at the reeking grey bear. "Um… Big Grey, let's get you washed first. You really stink."
Feeling his name drop from "Little Grey" to "Big Grey," the grey bear suddenly sensed danger. He didn't dare imagine what would happen if it fell further, so he quickly stood and followed behind her.
It did not dare get too close, sensibly keeping a distance of four or five steps to ensure the other party would not catch the stench on its body.
Watching her disciple leave with that foolish bear spirit, the black snake's gaze was at first faintly gentle, but then, as if recalling something, it grew vacant.
This black snake was none other than the Demon Lord Bo Xun, who had returned to seclusion the moment she emerged from the mountains seventy years ago.
However, Bo Xun was only her title. She had another name—one known only to herself—her true name: Ji Hongli.
When she first returned to the Sealed Demon Valley, she quickly came to her senses. She had simply been alone for a hundred thousand years, and her mind had not adjusted.
To be able to fight her to a standstill could only mean one thing: it was not that she had grown weak. Once every other possibility was eliminated, the sole remaining answer—no matter how absurd—had to be the truth.
The human youth she had encountered, with a bone age of no more than five hundred years, was in fact a genuine peak Saint Realm expert.
And he was her neighbor.
At first, she thought his constant presence in the Sealed Demon Valley meant the human race had specifically sent him to deal with her.
But she soon realized she had been overthinking it.
After observing him for seventy years, she concluded that this human had no idea who she was.
Clearly formidable to an absurd degree, he still chose to live alone in seclusion, leading a life no different from that of an ordinary mortal. That alone stirred her intense curiosity.
In the Xuan Ying Continent, anyone who reached the Saint Realm was an influential figure in a top-tier power—let alone a peak Saint Realm expert.
When she had first emerged from the mountains, after a hundred thousand years of confinement, her heart had been filled with boundless rage and a desire for destruction. She truly had wanted to unleash a bloodstorm upon the Xuan Ying Continent, forcing all her enemies into the open so she could grind their bones to dust.
Yet after meeting that human youth and crossing blows with him, her pent-up emotions had been entirely released, and her heart finally calmed.
She remembered someone once telling her that heaven cherishes life.
So even though she was born a demon, she had never been one to kill recklessly. While seeing Chen Chang'an for the first time had stirred a snake's instinctive hunger, it was more because her mind had gone dull after so long in confinement.
In all her years, she had never harbored a genuine desire to eat humans.
As for slaughtering cities—it had been nothing more than idle fantasy.
After all, humans were not like the demon race. They did not live that long.
It had been a hundred thousand years. How could her enemies possibly still be alive?
Beyond that, watching the human's cultivation rise at a meteoric pace each day left her uncertain whether she could defeat him again if they fought a second time.
Thus Ji Hongli's desire to re-enter the world gradually faded. She decided instead to enter a closed-door cultivation, attempting to break through the Saint Realm and see what lay beyond.
Simply put, she was a woman whose heart had died, now turning to focus on her "career."
Still, after a hundred thousand years in confinement, finally regaining her freedom, she grew restless after only a year or two. She created an external incarnation to continue observing Chen Chang'an.
She had not expected that, in the short span of a year or two, Chen Chang'an would somehow have a daughter.
The key was, during her seventy years of observation, she had never seen any sign that he had a Dao companion.
Her curiosity only grew.
When Chen Xingcai began cultivating at the age of five, she could not resist approaching the child. And so, the two—both a little lonely and friendless—quickly became close.
Ji Hongli not only guided Chen Xingcai's cultivation, as Chen Chang'an himself had never cultivated and lacked knowledge of many finer details, but also shared her private collection of human novels and storybooks.
Over time, she successfully led the once-innocent Chen Xingcai far astray.
In one of their occasional conversations, Ji Hongli had inadvertently expressed her curiosity about Chen Chang'an's Dao companion. The six-year-old Chen Xingcai immediately thumped her flat chest in earnest, declaring that this matter could be left to her.
And so, the scene the gray bear had witnessed earlier came to be.
Am I being too nosy lately?
Thinking about how much she had concerned herself with her disciple's father's Dao companion, Ji Hongli felt her face warm slightly. Fortunately, her true body was that of a black snake, so nothing could be seen outwardly.
Bah, bah, bah. With a straight heart, I need fear no crooked shadows. I'm only caring for my little disciple.
Pushing the inexplicable thoughts from her mind, she lazily shifted her body and slowly slithered back toward the cave.