Shen Qinghe POV
The demon's blood was still under my fingernails when my office door slammed open.
I didn't look up from the stack of tax reports on my desk. My hands—hands that had crushed a shadow demon's throat three hours ago—carefully sorted papers like I was the most boring man in Willow Creek County.
"Magistrate Shen!" My servant's voice cracked with panic. "Miss Lin is here. Again."
My stomach dropped. Lin Yuehua. Of course she was.
"Tell her I'm busy," I said, rubbing my temples. The cut on my left arm from the demon's claw throbbed under my sleeve. I'd wrapped it poorly in the dark. If she got too close, she might smell the sulfur that clung to my skin despite three baths.
"I already told her that, sir. She said she'll wait all day if needed. She's very... determined."
That was a polite way of saying angry. Yuehua was always angry at me. Had been for three years, ever since her father died and I failed to catch his killers.
Failed. That's what she thought. She didn't know I'd tracked the real killer—a shape-shifting demon called Red Fang—for six months before finally burning it to ash. She didn't know her father died protecting a cursed artifact that would have destroyed the whole town. She couldn't know. If she knew demons were real, she'd be in more danger than ever.
"Send her in," I said quietly.
The servant hesitated. "Sir, you look exhausted. Maybe you should—"
"Now, please."
He bowed and left. I had maybe thirty seconds before the storm arrived. I used twenty of them to hide the jade talisman that was glowing faintly in my desk drawer—evidence I'd used cultivation powers last night. I used the remaining ten to arrange my face into the mask I wore every day: patient, gentle, completely powerless Magistrate Shen.
The man who couldn't even catch bandits.
The door burst open like Yuehua was kicking it, though she probably just pushed hard. She had that effect—making normal things feel violent.
She was beautiful in the way a thunderstorm was beautiful. Dark eyes that could cut through lies, long black hair pulled back for business, and a merchant's practical clothes that somehow made her look like a warrior. She'd been running her father's trading company since his death, and running it better than he ever had.
She looked at me the way most people looked at rotting vegetables.
"Three caravans," she said, not bothering with greetings. "Three of my caravans attacked in two weeks. Seventeen guards injured. Forty thousand silver pieces worth of silk destroyed."
I folded my hands on my desk, careful not to wince as my hidden cut pulled. "Miss Lin, I understand your frustration—"
"Frustration?" She laughed, sharp and cold. "This isn't frustration, Magistrate. This is me watching my business bleed to death while you sit here shuffling papers."
"We've increased patrols on the eastern road—"
"The attacks aren't on the eastern road!" She slammed both hands on my desk, leaning close enough that I could smell jasmine tea on her breath. "They're on the western route. Near the old forest. The same place my father died, in case you've forgotten."
I hadn't forgotten. I remembered every detail of that night. Her father's face when he realized the cursed artifact he'd bought was actually a demon's anchor to this world. The way he'd begged me to save his daughter if he didn't survive. The sound of Red Fang's laughter as it wore his face to escape into the forest.
I'd hunted that demon for half a year. I still had scars.
"I haven't forgotten," I said softly.
"Then do something!" Her voice cracked slightly, showing the pain under her anger. "Send soldiers. Set traps. Learn to fight yourself instead of being a useless flower vase who's only good for looking pretty at festivals!"
That nickname again. Flower Vase Magistrate. It had started as a joke among the town gossips—the handsome young magistrate who couldn't lift a sword—but Yuehua had turned it into a weapon.
If only she knew the sword I'd lifted last night had been forged from pure spiritual fire and had cut through three demons in two strikes.
"I'll personally investigate the western route," I promised.
"You?" She looked at me like I'd offered to fight a tiger with chopsticks. "What will you do, bore the bandits to death with tax law?"
Something in me cracked. Maybe it was the exhaustion. Maybe it was three years of taking her hatred without being able to defend myself. Maybe it was the cut on my arm burning like demon poison was still in it.
"What would you have me do, Miss Lin?" I stood up, and for just a moment, let some real emotion into my voice. "What do you want from me?"
She blinked, surprised. I never pushed back.
"I want you to care," she said quietly. "I want you to care that people are dying. That my people are dying. That my father—" She stopped, swallowing hard. "I want you to be better than you are."
The words hit harder than any demon's claw.
"I'm trying," I said, and it was the only completely honest thing I'd said to her in three years.
We stood there, staring at each other across my desk. For a heartbeat, something shifted in her expression—confusion, maybe, or the beginning of understanding that I wasn't what she thought.
Then my servant burst through the door without knocking, his face white with terror.
"Sir! Miss! You need to come quickly!"
"What's wrong?" Yuehua demanded.
"The merchant Zhou just arrived at the gates. The one who went to trade with the western villages." The servant's hands shook. "He says the villages are gone. All of them. Burned to the ground. And he found—he found—"
"Found what?" I asked, my voice deadly calm. My mind was already racing through possibilities. Demons didn't usually attack whole villages. Too risky. Too much attention.
Unless something had changed.
"Bodies, sir. Dozens of them. But they're not burned. They're..." He swallowed hard. "They're dried out. Like something drank all the water from inside them."
My blood turned to ice.
Soul-drinker demons. Upper level creatures. The kind that took entire cultivation sects to defeat.
"Take me to him now," I ordered.
As we rushed from my office, Yuehua grabbed my arm. The cut. I nearly gasped from the pain but swallowed it.
"What aren't you telling me?" she whispered, her merchant's instincts sharp as always. "You know something about this."
Our eyes met, and I saw her really looking at me for the first time in years. Not just seeing the useless magistrate she hated. Seeing something underneath.
"If I tell you," I said quietly, "everything you think you know about the world will be a lie."
"Try me."
Before I could answer, a scream erupted from the town gates.
We ran toward it, and my worst fear materialized in the morning sunlight. Merchant Zhou stood in the gateway, but something was wrong with his shadow. It moved against the light, writhing like it was alive.
Because it was.
The shadow peeled away from Zhou's feet and rose up behind him, forming into a creature of liquid darkness with too many teeth and eyes that glowed red as fresh blood.
Zhou collapsed, his body already drying out.
The demon's gaze swept across the gathering crowd and stopped on me. Its smile widened.
"Found you," it whispered in a voice like breaking bones. "The Faceless Sword. Master Wei sends his regards."
Then it lunged—not at me, but at Lin Yuehua standing frozen beside me.
Time slowed. I had one choice.
Save her and reveal everything I'd hidden for ten years.
Or let her die and keep my secret.
My body moved before my mind finished deciding.
Golden light exploded from my hands.