Chapter 3: Saintess Ji, the Haughty Little Girl

“You shameless bastard!”

Ji Wuyue could not hold back her angry rebuke.

What was this supposed to be?

Even if he was escorting a prisoner, this was not how anyone did it, was it?

Was he treating her like a pet? Or a slave?

She was the daughter of the Haoran Sect’s sect master!

Never in her life had she suffered such humiliation.

Who in the sect had not doted on her?

Who had not treasured her like the apple of their eye?

And yet now, a little brat about her own age was treating her like this.

How could she possibly endure it?

He had even sealed her cultivation. How was she supposed to run away now?

The moment her voice rang out, both Old Wu and Xue Tu’s eyes lit up.

Neither of them had expected such a plain-looking girl to have such a lovely voice.

Her voice was like birdsong, melodious and flowing, clear and pleasant to the ear.

The faint anger in her tone only lent it another sort of beauty.

Even Xue Tu could not help glancing at her a few more times.

But the moment he saw her utterly ordinary face, disgust reappeared on his own.

What a pity. Such a beautiful voice had gone to waste...

Old Wu, however, looked at Jiang Xie with a face full of admiration.

He had already guessed that this woman was no simple person.

As expected of the Young Master’s judgment.

Everything the Young Master did must have its reason!

If Jiang Xie had known what he was imagining, he would have said only one thing: What would I know about that?!

I really do not know who this woman is!

The only reason he had sought her out was because of the palace in his mind.

Now he was even more certain that she was the person he had been looking for.

Because he could feel the spot between his brows growing faintly warm.

That was the sign that the palace was reacting.

The closer he was to this woman, the hotter it became.

The palace in his mind was the very foundation that would allow him to roam this world unchallenged.

Naturally, he would never let anything connected to it slip away.

He still remembered how, at the age of twelve, he had discovered the palace in his mind for the first time and, by a strange twist of fate, entered it.

There he had seen the twelve majestic statues within.

That was the first time he had felt the palace calling to him.

The one calling to him had been the third statue from the left.

What it had been calling to was a jade pendant on his person.

He had picked up that jade pendant by chance while following his father on an outing.

It had looked rather ancient and unadorned, so he had kept it.

He had never imagined that it would resonate with the statue.

At the time, he had not hesitated in the slightest before placing the jade pendant upon that statue.

And it was at that moment that he learned the statue’s name.

Undying.

It was also then that he obtained his first ability: Undying.

To be more precise, calling it deathless healing would have been more appropriate.

Recovery would not have been wrong either.

No matter what, as long as any part of his body remained, he could recover endlessly.

At first, he did not believe it.

Not until he had encountered several life-and-death crises, and wounds that should have killed him had failed to do so.

Only then had he understood that it was real.

So...

To prevent himself from one day being obliterated so thoroughly that not even ashes remained, he drew a little blood every day, sealed it away in a special container, and hid it.

That way, even if he were destroyed so completely that nothing was left behind, he would still be able to revive.

But although he could not die, the pain of being injured still remained. And that pain was real.

So even after gaining that ability, Jiang Xie was still afraid of being hurt.

That was why, despite having no cultivation talent, he had still managed to survive safely until now in a perilous place like the demonic path.

And that was also why, even after learning that he had no talent for cultivation, he had still remained full of hope for this world.

From that point onward, he had kept searching for objects that could awaken the power of the statues.

As for why, after obtaining such an ability, he still continued to struggle instead of simply enjoying life, the answer was very simple.

Although this ability was called Eternal Life, it could not truly grant him eternal life.

He would still die of old age, so if he wanted to live longer, he could only keep striving.

Even if he had no talent for cultivation, he could simply take it slowly. Besides, there were still eleven statues left.

What kind of powers they contained was what interested him most of all.

And yet for seven whole years, he had not found a single other object capable of awakening the power of a statue.

Not until the day before yesterday, when a reaction had suddenly come from his brow...

“Young Master? Young Master?”

The voice in his ear interrupted his thoughts.

Jiang Xie came back to himself, only to find the little girl glaring at him furiously.

Jiang Xie smiled faintly and said, “Let us go, Old Wu. We are heading home.”

And so Ji Wuyue was taken away by the two of them.

Watching their departing figures, Xue Tu frowned.

He felt that something was not quite right, yet he could not put his finger on what.

“How strange, how very strange. What exactly is Young Master Jiang plotting? Is it really just lust? With his status, what beautiful women could he possibly lack? Has he simply grown tired of delicacies and decided to try a different flavor?”

...

“Villain! Let go of me this instant!”

“Are you treating me like a pet? How dare you treat me like this!”

“If you let me go now, I can still forgive you!”

“Do you even know who I am? If I told you, I would scare you to death!”

...

On a desolate path somewhere, Ji Wuyue kept her face drawn tight as she threatened Jiang Xie all the way.

Jiang Xie acted as though he heard nothing and merely held one end of the chain in one hand.

Old Wu, however, had grown impatient. A ferocious expression appeared on his face as he said, “Young Master, this little girl has been chattering the entire way. Should I just kill her?”

Ji Wuyue’s face turned deathly pale with fright.

“Oh, come now, Old Wu. Did I not tell you? We must be messengers of justice and win people over through virtue. How can we kill people so casually?”

“Yes, yes, yes!”

Ji Wuyue’s eyes lit up at once, and she nodded so rapidly that she looked like a woodpecker.

“But, Young Master, we are members of the demonic path...” Old Wu scratched his head, his voice weak.

“And what of that? Does belonging to the demonic path mean we cannot be messengers of justice? Who made such a rule?” Jiang Xie shook his head slightly, then abruptly halted.

Suddenly, he leaned his face close to Ji Wuyue’s and said with a smile, “What do you think, little one?”

Ji Wuyue took one look at that ferocious mask and jumped in fright.

She hurriedly lifted a hand and patted her flat chest.

Inwardly, she fumed: What kind of taste does this boy have? Wearing such an ugly mask nearly scared me to death.

Then she heard him call her little one, and her temper flared again.

He was just as small himself, and yet he still had the nerve to call her little one!

Jiang Xie then said pointedly, “Your chest is flat as a board. If that does not make you a little one, what does?”

Ji Wuyue’s small face flushed red as she snapped, “You are the little one! Your whole family are little ones! I am still just a little girl, so what if I am small? And you... at your age, you are already staring at... at that part of a girl…”

“As expected of a devil. My father was right. There are no good people in demonic factions. Even the children are the same!”

Jiang Xie was not angry in the slightest.

Instead, he put on a solemn expression and asked, “Did you not just say your background is quite formidable? Then may I ask who you are?”

“Of course. I am a member of the righteous—” Ji Wuyue stopped halfway through the sentence.

Jiang Xie looked at her teasingly and smiled. “Go on. Why did you stop?”

“You!” Ji Wuyue’s eyes shifted, and she said smugly, “Did you think I was stupid?”

“Oh, so you are not stupid. How strange. If you are not stupid, then why have you failed to understand your current situation?”

Jiang Xie looked thoughtful.

Ji Wuyue’s face flushed red again with anger.

She glared at Jiang Xie, yet could not find a single word to say.

This fellow was clearly insulting her in circles!

Old Wu silently gave Jiang Xie a thumbs-up.

At the same time, he made a mental note of it.

So this was how one should insult people: by taking the long way around.

“All right, let us continue on. We are about to enter the premium segment.”

“The premium segment?”

Old Wu and Ji Wuyue were both stunned.

Neither of them understood what that meant.

“Ahem.” Jiang Xie coughed lightly and did not explain much. He merely said, “I will explain later... later on...”

Although Ji Wuyue could not understand what he meant, her instincts told her that whatever Jiang Xie was saying, it was definitely nothing good.

That only intensified her desire to escape.

At once, she began struggling with all her strength.

But she had clearly forgotten that her cultivation had been sealed.

No matter how much she struggled, she could not break free of the chain around her neck.

Let alone run away.

Immediately, she wilted like an eggplant struck by frost, her entire person drooping in utter dejection, as though all hope in life had vanished.

And so she allowed Jiang Xie to lead her along.

After they walked for a while, Jiang Xie actually began to feel somewhat unaccustomed to the silence.

There was a certain lack of constant chattering.