Extra two

He couldn't go on like this any longer, Wen Xun thought.

As the King of the Chī, his power was at its peak. He should have left Du'e City long ago, leaving behind this barren land of endless slaughter that had remained unchanged for forty years.

Don't linger.

For the last time, Wen Xun lit a lamp, holding onto a heart as cold as ice, only to find proof that he did not love Qiu Yining.

The lamp flared to life in an instant, and the past became clear before his eyes once more.

Those forgotten memories, those he had buried deep within him—whose sincerity did they truly belong to?

For the first time, Wen Xun realized that he understood Qiu Yining more than he had ever imagined.

He knew she was born in White Pear Village, that her birthday was in October, and that there was a small red mole on her earlobe.

She had once pointed it out to him. "My mother and grandmother always said that having a cinnabar mole here is a great blessing—it means I will always get what I wish for in life."

Wen Xun had scoffed at that.

After all, marrying him was never a blessing. And Qiu Yining had never truly gained anything—she was always losing.

Wen Xun knew she liked to save up spirit stones. As a child, she had her mother and grandmother to care for, so she had started exorcising spirits in the village at a young age.

A little girl walking miles upon miles, enduring hardship without complaint—never once did she see it as suffering.

Before she married him, she had extorted a hefty sum from Lady Qiu, which led many to whisper behind her back, calling her greedy.

But all the wealth she had painstakingly saved was spent each winter, on every cold day, to buy medicinal herbs to ease his chronic ailments.

Wen Xun remembered that she loved to laugh.

She would lean against the window, and even if his spirit bird merely plucked a fruit for her, she would burst into giggles.

When he was flustered and angry, she would run far away, then peek her head out, her eyes still filled with laughter.

Qiu Yining was alive—vibrant. She had family, a past, and even a physician neighbor.

His name was Qi Zijun.

It wasn't until the following winter, when Wen Xun was barely able to stand, that he learned where Qiu Yining had gotten his prescriptions.

That man, dressed in a simple blue robe, had traveled through the heavy snow from White Pear Village to the Wen estate just to bring Qiu Yining some holiday goods from their hometown.

The young girl had perched at Wen Xun's bedside, chattering away, noisier than even his spirit bird.

"This is a winter coat my mother made for me. Do you think it looks nice?"

Wen Xun had grown accustomed to her chatter. After two years, their relationship had softened, and at times, he would even respond. "Mm."

"These are pastries from White Pear Village. They're called 'Fortune Buns.' Try one, Wen Xun."

Qiu Yining shoved one into his mouth without waiting for a reply.

Wen Xun frowned. Too sweet.

She had a sweet tooth. He could tell at once that her mother had made them. Though she had never lived a life of abundance, it was clear that her mother and grandmother cherished her deeply.

She was someone's precious treasure.

"Well? Do you like it?"

Wen Xun didn't care for sweets, but he swallowed it down. Seeing the brightness in her eyes, he didn't disappoint her. "Not bad."

Her joy grew, and she continued rummaging through her small bundle of gifts.

Finally, she pulled out a string of red beads, made from an herb called "coral seeds." Strung together, they gleamed like a coral bracelet.

"This must be Qi Zijun's work," she said. "He was fortunate enough to study under a renowned master when he was young. Don't be fooled by the fact that he's always in our tiny White Pear Village—I'd wager there are few physicians in the world as skilled as he is."

She attempted to fasten the coral beads around Wen Xun's wrist.

"They ward off evil."

This time, Wen Xun coldly withdrew his hand. "I don't need it."

Qiu Yining blinked in confusion, unable to understand why he was suddenly angry. Back then, Wen Xun himself didn't understand either.

The next day, a real coral bracelet appeared at Qiu Yining's bedside.

For the first time, Wen Xun found fate laughable. He scoured his memories, desperately searching for proof that he did not love Qiu Yining.

Only to realize the answer had always been there.

Wen Xun knew—no matter how hard he tried, he would never leave Du'e City.

He could not abandon her, not beneath this cold and lonely blood moon.

For a long time, Wen Xun allowed himself to dream.

In his dreams, it was sometimes winter. The girl buried a jar of wine in the courtyard, brimming with hope. "Next year, we'll dig it up and drink it."

She labored tirelessly for half a month, only for the wine to spoil due to improper sealing.

Wen Xun sighed, had Ah Jiu dig it up, and bought new wine to replace it.

When Qiu Yining opened the jar again, she was overjoyed. "I'm amazing! My wine tastes even better than the shop's!"

Wen Xun lowered his gaze, smiling as he continued reviewing documents.

Other times, he dreamt of White Pear Village, where pear blossoms drifted down like snow. Under a tree stood the young girl and her mother. Her mother anxiously touched her belly.

"It's been six years… Why is there still no news?"

Qiu Yining's face flushed red. She cast a resentful glance at Wen Xun.

Her mother misunderstood and let out a deep sigh.

After that, Wen Xun was forced to drink nourishing tonics for three whole days in White Pear Village.

He endured it with a grim face, unable to scold an elder, while Qiu Yining laughed so hard she pounded the bed.

Living a life like that—wasn't it also a kind of happiness?

But fate is cruel. It was merciless to humans, and it remained merciless to creatures of darkness.

Wen Xun lost count of how many days and nights he spent beneath the lamp. The evil energy within him faded, his cultivation withered.

On the day his estate was attacked by other Kings of the Chī, every one of them sought to devour him.

The lamp shattered.

Wen Xun stared at the shards on the ground. The blood moon stretched his shadow long and thin.

He saw what he had become—no longer Wen Xun, but a monstrous, terrifying creature.

Silence filled the room. The creatures of darkness sensed something was wrong—even the Kings of the Chī began to flee.

Why? Why was he not even allowed the luxury of self-deception?

Wen Xun did not know how many demons and Kings of the Chī he slaughtered that night.

Purple blood covered the entire city of Du'e. He did not devour a single fiend—he merely tore them all apart.

The last surviving fiend fled into a residence.

It looked around and realized that this house had been abandoned for a long time. The small pond inside had dried up, though faint traces of koi fish remained.

Clothes belonging to a man and a woman still hung in the courtyard, fluttering in the night wind, as if the owners had left in a hurry, never to return.

There had never been such a house in Du'e City—one with flowers, with trees.

Even though only withered branches and desolation remained, traces of its past warmth could still be seen. One could imagine how much effort the people who lived here had poured into nurturing this place, how the fiend king had guarded it with all his heart.

Which fiend king, the little fiend wondered, had grown a heart too soft for a demon?

Shivering, the little fiend looked toward the doorway.

Standing outside was the most terrifying fiend in Du'e City. No one knew his real name. Everyone called him the King of Lu Cun.

Tonight, the little fiend had joined the crowd, hoping to get a share of the spoils when they besieged him. But in the blink of an eye, everyone else had been slaughtered.

It thought it had no chance of survival—until it saw that the most feared existence in Du'e City had stopped outside the residence, not daring to enter.

Wen Xun stood motionless, staring at the house.

Large purple tears of blood rolled down from his eyes.

It was the first time in the little fiend's life that it had seen a fiend king weep.

It did not know that it had stumbled into the one place on earth that Wen Xun could never bring himself to step into.

This was his home.

The shattering of the dream lamp had torn apart his carefully fabricated past.

Wen Xun recalled that he had never truly been kind to her.

Greed, anger, obsession, resentment—these were the essence of every fiend.

Fiends could not love. They only harbored hatred and fixation.

His heart no longer beat within his chest. He had even forgotten who he had died for.

In the first two years of becoming a fiend, Wen Xun had uncovered the truth—his spiritual core had been gouged out, he had been murdered.

For countless days and nights, he had wished to tear apart his father and younger brother, to devour their flesh and blood. He longed to take revenge for the humiliation that followed his downfall.

Occasionally, he would remember Qiu Jingshu—the fiancée who had been stolen from him. Later, his father and the Qiu family had sent another girl to mock him in his disgrace.

And amid his raging demonic energy, that girl—the very symbol of his humiliation—had fallen asleep at his side.

Qiu Yinong had tied their wrists together.

In his memories, he had never loved her. Because of Qiu Jingshu, he loathed her. He refused to share a bed with her. The only time they consummated their marriage was a drunken accident.

He hated her liveliness. When he could no longer tolerate it, he had sealed her lips with a silence talisman. Once, he had nearly strangled her to death.

He had even cast her out, telling her never to return.

But somehow, every time, she would always find her way back to him.

And now, beneath this lonely moon, his eyes burned red with hunger, his chest filled with an unquenchable thirst for slaughter, an endless sea of hatred.

He had broken free of all restraints, surrendering to his instincts—to devour.

That night, Qiu Yinong had chased him through the city. Perhaps for the first time, she realized that fate could not be defied.

Under the blood moon, she was a tear-streaked mess.

"Don't eat them. If you devour them, you'll never be able to return!"

"I'll help you raise your sword. I'll make you strong again!"

"You can go back. Didn't you always love Qiu Jingshu? Qiu Jingshu would never love a fiend!"

"Wen Xun." At last, she broke down into sobs. "I'm exhausted. I can't keep up with you, I can't save you, I—hic, hic—"

Wen Xun turned back and saw her tear-streaked face, crying so hard it seemed her soul would shatter.

He was silent for a long time.

This was the second time he had seen her cry like this.

The first time was the day he died.

Expressionless, he spat out the fiend's flesh from his mouth and returned to his human form.

How irritating.

He wouldn't eat today.

But how difficult was it, really, to keep a fiend from losing its mind?

Again and again, Qiu Yinong drained her spiritual energy to nourish his sword, the pain in her core worsening each time.

Every time Wen Xun climbed to Jianhuan Tower, staring at the place that had once been his obsession, she would always show up to take him home.

"Fiends don't taste good anyway. There's xunling soup at home. Why not try some? I spent a long time making it."

He would glare at her coldly.

No fiend enjoyed xunling soup—it was a suppressant for demonic energy.

Whenever he tired of her words, when the darkness in his heart became too strong, she would always bring up "Qiu Jingshu."

That was, after all, Wen Xun's only regret from his human life. His last lingering attachment.

And when he finally calmed, Qiu Yinong would pout.

Yet sometimes… in moments when he wasn't watching, she would sit in silence, her eyes turning red, on the verge of tears.

Day by day, life carried on.

Wen Xun was not the strongest fiend in Du'e City, but he managed to survive.

Gradually, the house he had claimed became filled with things—arranged just like a spiritual domain.

He was often wounded, nearly torn apart by other fiends.

Qiu Yinong's tears grew more frequent.

"If you could become a spiritual cultivator again, you could do whatever you want," she would say, gently touching the half of his face that had been devoured. "It's okay if you still love her. As long as you live."

A good man.

A sword cultivator who had died to protect the people.

He should not have to live in such agony.

If a fiend's malice and hatred could fade, they could still hold on to their true selves.

Until that spring.

Lord Wen sent a letter to the Crown Prince's consort:

He was not dead.

He had become a fiend.

Now that she was about to be queen, she would not want him to emerge alive.

Enclosed was a piece of fiend's flesh.

"Make him eat it, even just a little. I know you have a way."

"After his mother was killed by a fiend, it was you who passed by and gave her a proper burial. That's why, all these years, Wen Xun has treated you so well. What else have you hidden from her relics?"

Fiends were creatures of plunder and slaughter. They often forgot their memories of life, and without memories, there was no hatred. If Wen Xun forgot, he would never seek them out again.

With a pale face, Qiu Jingshu slowly picked up the sealed piece of flesh.

And so, that spring, Wen Xun received a letter.

Along with it came a small pastry—one from his long-dead mother, buried deep in his memory.

There were many things in life that one did not wish to recall.

The last time Wen Xun ascended Jianhuan Tower, his mind was empty.

The day he became a fiend king, he lost all reason. He forgot the little house, forgot Qiu Yinong.

He killed countless people, wandering the lands until storms raged at his presence. Yet never once did he think of returning.

Just as he had never once tasted Qiu Yinong's xunling soup in all these years.

He forgot that, with his own life, he had once protected that girl and her family.

The power to command wind and rain consumed him. He no longer remembered the way home.

He forgot… what Du'e City meant to a spirit tamer.

And when he thought he was breaking free, the jade pendant on his body slipped to the ground and shattered into pieces.

It was Qiu Yinong's life jade.

A bond of two souls, a vow of eternity.

Why had he kept it on him for so many years, from life to death?

That day, a throng of followers trailed behind him.

For the first time, Wen Xun turned back.

The road home was so long.

So long that by the time he finally returned, she was already gone.

In the courtyard, her freshly washed clothes still hung.

The xunling soup, meant to purify fiendish energy, had long since turned rancid. No fiend would step into this house.

Amid the suffocating demonic aura, he searched madly.

Finally, in a corner, he found a dried stain of red—spirit tamer's blood.

The path she had taken to find him, to bring him home.

Wen Xun stood there for a long time.

But fiends did not understand sorrow.

For the next ten years, Wen Xun devoured more and more fiends, refusing to think of her again.

He thought he had forgotten. He even convinced himself.

Yet every time he slaughtered, every time he consumed fiends across the city, he always kept his distance from that house.

On the tenth year, he obtained the Hundred-Kill Record.

He sacrificed half his cultivation and wrote down three names—his father, his younger brother, and Qiu Jingshu.

By next year, they would all be dead.

The spirit tamers who came to kill him found him still perched atop Jianhuan Tower.

He did not know what he was waiting for.

But he knew that he could never leave Du'e City.

This place held everything most precious to him.

Finally, on the night the blood moon rose, someone approached him, carrying his life-bound sword.

She wore a stranger's face.

Yet the moment he laid eyes on her, Wen Xun recognized her.

Struggling, he shifted back into his old self.

The fiend king knew she had come to kill him.

He also knew he could no longer control his thirst for blood.

He was no longer the Wen Xun of the past.

And yet, he still stepped toward her, welcoming her sword.

Blood tears welled in his eyes, yet his heart brimmed with joy and tenderness.

That long-overdue meal.

The person who had waited for him through countless years.

At last, he could hold her hand once more.

"Yinong, let's go home."