Chapter 30

The Deep-Sea Serpent

A month later, Yin Ze finally sought me out on his own initiative. It was the coldest time of the year in Tian Shi City, with snow covering everything. He met me on the Bagua Peak and pointed to a deep cave below. I had heard him mention before that this was the cave where he kept his beloved fire kirin.

The cave was hundreds of meters deep, but even standing outside, we could still see sparks jumping out and heat rising, and we could hear the long, deep breaths of a giant beast. It was conceivable that this divine beast was truly a divine beast, and its true form would probably be as dazzling as the rising sun.

I really didn’t understand why Master, who controlled water, would go and get a fire beast. He wasn’t afraid that water and fire would be incompatible and harm each other. Of course, he couldn’t hear my inner thoughts. He simply said with a hint of regret, “My fire kirin seems to be unable to withstand the extreme cold of Fang Su, and it’s now sick. It needs medicine to heal.”

The medicine was the lotus seed of the Su Lian. Su Lian was the name I had given to the lotus cake I loved as a child. The Su Lian was actually a red-petaled, golden-hearted lotus that grew on an unnamed island in the East Sea. It was a magical plant that would naturally create a confusing water array to disturb the senses of those who approached, in order to protect itself.

So, I, who could manipulate water, was undoubtedly the first choice to lead the way. Knowing that I could help Master, I was overjoyed and followed a group of senior brothers to the unnamed island designated by Yin Ze. The heavy snow that had fallen from the sky also covered this deserted island.

Guided by my water manipulation technique, we quickly found the secluded pool in the center of the island. The air was cold, and the snow was swirling, but the pool water was hot. In the center of the pool, there was not only a glowing red lotus but also a huge white serpent wrapped around it.

The giant serpent stood up high, hissing at the Su Lian, its sharp fangs gleaming in the hazy snow.

One of the senior brothers said, “Oh no, this giant serpent definitely wants to eat the Su Lian, hurry and stop it!”

Then, the senior brothers all flew over and surrounded the snow serpent. The snow serpent was no match for them and was defeated in a few rounds, being driven back to the shore. A senior brother used his sword to block the snow serpent, while another quickly took the Su Lian seed and they all surrounded it, intending to kill the snow serpent and take its gall.

At this moment, the snow serpent looked at me with pitiful eyes, as if begging for help. I quickly stopped them, “Wait, senior brothers, don’t kill this serpent.”

“Why?”

“It’s a snake raised by Master, you can’t touch it. Let it go back to the forest.”

Mentioning Yin Ze, no one dared to object. They let go, and the snow serpent returned to the forest. I turned back and looked at the golden glowing Su Lian and said, “You have to go first, I have to stay behind and re-arrange the confusing water array to ensure the safety of the Su Lian.” They nodded and left first.

Then, I raised my eyebrows playfully and flew to the center of the pool, rolling up my sleeves, “There aren’t many sisters as knowledgeable about life as I am, Sister Su Lian. I’m sorry to trouble you.” With that, I pulled the lotus out of the water.

I had asked Master earlier if I could take the Su Lian with me, and he said that as long as I took the lotus seed, I could do whatever I wanted with the Su Lian. Such a beautiful flower, how could I not take it with me? I would plant it in the back garden of my room and carefully nurture it every day.

However, as soon as I carried the Su Lian back to the shore, I was wrapped around the waist by a cold skin, and I was pulled into the forest. I screamed, and the thing wrapped me tighter and tighter. When I looked back, it was actually the snow serpent.

“Beast! Beast! I saved your life, and you repay me like this? Truly, snakes and rats are all the same, not a good one among them!” I was so angry I couldn’t breathe.

Just as I was about to use magic to knock it down, the force of its embrace didn’t lessen, but the feeling changed completely. The snow serpent suddenly shrank, and the one hugging me tightly was a young man with flirtatious eyes.

He was dressed entirely in white, with a golden crown on his head, and his voice was light and floating, both gentle and dangerous. “Miss, you can misunderstand me, but it’s your fault to compare me to a rat.”

I said, “Oh, you can transform into a human! Let go of me, little prince, or my Master, Divine Lord Yin Ze, will descend from heaven and chop you into snake meat!”

He ran his thin tongue along my ear and licked it lightly. “By the time he comes, we will have already consummated our relationship. By then, you will have my child in your belly, and even the Divine Lord will not be able to save you.”

These were clearly flirtatious words, but I found myself wanting to laugh. I turned around and looked at him coldly, stretched out my hands, and slowly lifted them, using the “Rippling Tide” spell. Waves of water swirled around us, striking directly at his face. He cried out and was knocked back, falling to the ground.

I approached him step by step, and he retreated step by step, “Miss, I didn’t mean to offend you, it’s just that our snow serpent clan is born this way. When facing a savior, we have to offer ourselves. Please don’t misunderstand me, Miss, I sincerely want to have offspring with you...”

I said, “If you say one more word, I’ll cut you into pieces!”

“Yes, yes, yes, it’s my fault, it’s my fault. Miss, you’ve already saved me once, please don’t kill me this time, otherwise, my five hundred years of cultivation will be...”

I said, “What? You’ve been alive for five hundred years?”

The snow serpent said, “Not every demon can live so long. But I have a special talent, as long as I practice diligently, even if I’m chopped back into my original form, I’ll be a good snake again in five hundred years.”

“If you have any more bad ideas, I’ll really chop you up.” Seeing him nod repeatedly in begging, I glared at him fiercely, “I really can’t tell, a rogue demon like you can actually live for five hundred years.” For a demon who had cultivated for thousands of years, this number might not be so surprising, but for me, it was completely unattainable.

“Are you a fairy, Miss? Don’t fairies live longer?”

“Of course not, I’m a spirit.”

“I see. You spirits don’t live very long, no matter how much you cultivate, you will eventually return to your original form.” After saying that, he looked at the Su Lian that I had thrown on the shore, “And some spirits, when they return to their original form, are just as annoying as when they were human.”

Hearing him say this, I felt a little depressed. I was a water spirit, and I didn’t have any real form. If I died, I would just die. I said, “Yes, it’s good to be a demon, you can live so long.”

The snow serpent laughed, “Then why don’t you consider becoming a demon, Miss?”

“Become a demon?” These three words echoed in my mind like a spell, full of temptation.

“That’s right, your own power is already quite strong, it’s a waste to be just a spirit.”

“Shut up, I don’t want to become a demon.” I made a decisive decision, flew to the Su Lian, picked it up, and walked away without looking back.

“Miss, I live on this island, if you change your mind and want to have offspring with me, come find me anytime...”

When I returned to Tian Shi City, I planted the Su Lian in my backyard and found that its vitality was far stronger than I had imagined. Two days later, a rain and snow fell, and the new lotus bloomed like teardrops, growing vigorously in its new environment. I had read in books that the Su Lian was an immortal lotus, with an extremely long lifespan. If it grew well, it could live for thousands of years.

In the midst of the heavy snow, I sat by the carved window, looking at this lotus flower, and once again felt endless regret.

Even a plant had a longer lifespan than me, this world was really unfair. Compared to that, mortals were really lucky. Although they didn’t live long, they didn’t coexist with gods and demons in the same world. Without comparison, there was no pain, and they could live carefree and freely.

Xuan Yue, like me, really liked this luminous Su Lian and flew around it. One afternoon, Goddess Qing Wu passed by and was also attracted by this Su Lian, so she asked someone to contact Yin Ze, intending to take it away.

Hearing this news, I immediately rushed to the courtyard, only to see Yin Ze and Qing Wu there.

Yin Ze seemed to have just arrived, and when he saw me, he said, “This lotus doesn’t belong to me, it belongs to Luo Wei. If you want it, just buy it from her.”

Before Qing Wu could reply, I said, “I’m sorry, Goddess, I just got this flower, and I cherish it very much, I don’t plan to sell it.”

Qing Wu waved her hand and smiled, “Luo Wei, don’t misunderstand me, I just think this flower is beautiful, so I asked the Divine Lord about it. I didn’t mean to take it now. If you don’t mind, I can raise it for you in four or five hundred years.”

I was stunned. Four or five hundred years, she said it so casually...

Logically speaking, she was kind, but why did I feel so empty inside?

I forced a smile and said, “Okay, thank you, Goddess. I have many things around me that live much longer than me, like the flowers I grow, and this little tiger of mine, they can all live for thousands of years. If I die, I’m really worried that no one will take care of them...”

Hearing this, Qing Wu’s eyes lit up, “You’re worried about this little tiger? It’s okay, I can take care of it in the future. I really like small animals, and the Divine Realm often merges with the six realms with the strongest beast-taming grounds, so I can take it there, and maybe it can become a famous beast in the future.”

Xuan Yue looked at her, then at me, and suddenly burrowed into my arms, whining as if crying. I hugged it tightly and nodded, “That would be great. Thank you, Goddess.”

Yin Ze said, “Let’s talk about these things in two hundred years, it’s not that long anyway.”

Why keep emphasizing my short lifespan? It was so annoying! I was so angry that I didn’t want to look at him and turned to leave. If it weren’t for the conversation just now, I would have almost forgotten that Xuan Yue was a Qiongqi, with a thousand-year lifespan, and would live much longer than me.

It was so funny. In the Immortal Realm, even the mayflies in the pond could probably live for a hundred years. When would Master finally stop being angry with me? Perhaps because he lived so long, even his emotions lasted longer.

“If he’s angry with me once, I’ll feel like half my life is gone. If he’s angry with me twice, I might as well just die.”

Late one night, as the snow fell heavier and heavier, I put on a coat and knocked on Fu Chenzi’s door. He opened the door and looked at me in surprise, “Why, can’t you sleep?”

“Brother... Why are you so good to me?”

“Because I like you,” he replied quickly, as if he hadn’t even thought about it.

“What if I were a demon, would you still like me?”

“Yes.”

“What if I were a devil?”

He put his hands on my shoulders, “Weiwei, no matter what you are, even if you were a flower, bird, fish, insect, withered grass or dead tree, I would still like you. So, don’t ask these silly questions anymore, just go back to sleep.”

I was so moved that I couldn’t contain myself. After he sent me back to my room, I finally made my final decision.

The next day, I left a letter and took a great peng bird and left, returning to the unnamed island in the East Sea. Within half an hour, I found the snow serpent again and asked him about the method of transforming into a demon. Then, he took me to the seaside and introduced me to their elder.

The elder, along with a group of snake witches, made me drink something strange and performed a ritual for me all night, before sending me back into the water. As soon as I returned to the beach, my whole body felt like it was burning. The changes in my body were both unbearable and terrifyingly frightening.

I touched my face and said to the snow serpent, “Have I started to transform into a demon? Why? Why do I feel like my face has changed?”

The snow serpent said, “You’re too nervous, relax. Becoming a demon is a wonderful thing. Just sit here quietly and wait for yourself to become a water demon.”

“A water demon?!”

“Yes, you are a water spirit, if you become a demon, what else would you be?”

At that moment, unbearable memories flooded my mind. The Immortal Emperor Huang Dao and the Elder Ru Yue had come to Su Zhao, under the pretext of exterminating water demons. And I had actually made this decision, to become the thing I least wanted to become.

However, if asked if I regretted it, the answer was no.

I didn’t want to delve deeper into why I wanted to live longer.

Nor did I want to pursue why such a terrible desire would make me go to such lengths, even harming myself.

I only knew that I didn’t want to be so weak anymore. I didn’t want others to wait for me to die like they were waiting for a cup of tea to finish, taking away everything that belonged to me.

The pain spread to my hands, and when I looked down, I found that my skin had turned light blue, just like the color of my hair, and there were small scales on the back of my hands.

Something was wrong, I ran to the water’s edge to look at my reflection, and was startled by my own appearance: my entire face was covered in light blue scales, my eyes were golden and slightly protruding, and if you didn’t look closely, you couldn’t recognize me at all.

I couldn’t believe it, “What’s going on? Why did I become like this?” Even my voice had changed. It became hoarse and unpleasant, like a drowning duck.

The snow serpent said, “Miss Luo Wei, I know you love beauty, but you also have to think, you’re only fifty years old, and it’s almost impossible for a demon who has cultivated for fifty years to transform into a human. You can barely maintain your human form because your spiritual power is very high. Next, you need to work hard on your own. If you cultivate wholeheartedly, within two hundred years, you will become as beautiful as before. Don’t worry, even if you look so ugly now, I still like you very much and want to have offspring with you.”

He settled me on the beach and comforted me until nightfall, then returned to the unnamed island to rest. He would come to pick me up in seven days, because that was the day I would completely transform into a demon. During this time, I had to stay quiet and in the water. The demon body was very different from the spirit body.

My magical powers had weakened a lot, and I could still control water, but I could no longer fly. However, my physical strength became extraordinarily strong. No matter how much I ran, jumped, or swam, I hardly felt any fatigue. In terms of swimming, it was more like becoming a fish. I could breathe underwater without any problem, and I could also inhale water into my body and spray it out to attack.

This completely new and unfamiliar version of myself made me feel both fresh and regretful. For example, I didn’t want to see my reflection anymore.

The bottom of the sea at night was darker and colder than anywhere else. Merging with the water didn’t give me a sense of security. Instead, it left me with endless loneliness.

When the cold moon was over the sea, and the shadows stretched for thousands of miles, the sky often seemed exceptionally high and empty. In the far east where the clouds drifted away, there were seven stars connected together, and I counted them and found the middle one, which was the place where Tian Shi City was located. I could see the blue sky, the painted buildings, the Law-Abiding Cherry Orchard, and the Floating Pagoda Sea again in a hundred years. It would be a lie to say that I wasn’t sad.

But I didn’t regret it...

On the fifth day after my transformation, some immortals came to the seaside. They used magic to pull several unfinished water demons out of the water, and used thunderbolts to blast them to pieces, then shook their sleeves and left gracefully.

I hid behind a rock, breathing rapidly and holding onto the stone, my legs were so weak I could barely stand.

I thought I had escaped, but someone shouted, “Senior brother, look, there’s another water demon over there!”

I turned my head and saw several disciples from Cangying Gate flying in the air, one of them pointing at me and saying, “Demon! Still trying to hide? Come out and die!”

A ball of lightning rushed towards me, and I jumped up and sprayed water, freezing it and piercing the disciple’s hand several inches. Then I jumped into the sea.

When my body was immersed in the icy sea, I heard someone above say, “Senior brother, this demon is very powerful, and it’s in the sea, which is advantageous to it. I’m afraid we might not be its match. Let’s go back to Tian Shi City and report to Master.”

“Okay!” With that, the group of disciples returned to the Immortal Realm.

The Master they were talking about should be one of my senior uncles. I thought that since there were so many water demons and they were not a threat, they probably wouldn’t go to great lengths to come down to earth to eliminate them, so I waited anxiously for my final transformation.

But I was terribly wrong.

On the sixth night, as the last hour of the morning passed, and everything was about to become a certainty, at the most unexpected moment, I saw the person I least expected.

“Divine Lord, the water demon appeared nearby.”

“Alright. You all go back.” Yin Ze said indifferently.

Just looking at his back under the moonlight made my nose sour and I wanted to cry. However, I couldn’t see him, otherwise everything would be in vain. I hid behind a rock and waited quietly for him to leave. Strangely, even though I had transformed into a demon, I shouldn’t have been as weak as before.

But why did I feel that the distance between us was farther than before...

I shouldn’t think like that. Master didn’t have any prejudice against demons, as long as I could live longer, everything was possible.

I secretly peeked out from behind the rock, wanting to take one last look at Yin Ze, but I couldn’t see him anymore.

He was gone...

This farewell, I probably wouldn’t be able to see him again for over a hundred years.

Away from the water, under the moonlight, my unfinished body began to ache. I turned around, leaned against the rock, and looked up at the high night sky, towards the constellation of the Eastern Green Dragon, and even my chest ached so much that I couldn’t breathe. I took a deep breath and forced back my tears.

Just as I was about to return to the sea, I heard a voice behind me, “I couldn’t find you for so many days because I never thought you would choose to become a demon.”

I turned around sharply and found Yin Ze standing on the other side of me. I was stunned for a moment, covered my face and jumped into the sea, but was grabbed by a powerful force. Then, this force pulled me hard and threw me onto the shore. I rolled painfully on the ground, and not only did the pain not decrease, but I was bound even tighter.

Then, Yin Ze slowly descended from the sky and stopped in front of me, his black hair also floating down on his robe. “Look at my disciple, she’s so good, and she does things that make me even more appreciative. Luo Wei, I’ll give you a chance to explain. If you have a reason, I can consider breaking one of your legs.”

His tone was as stern as ever, and these words were not gentle at all, but like a demon-revealing mirror, they exposed my miserable state of the past few days.

I cried, “Master, please, let me go! I don’t want to be your disciple anymore!”

But he was very angry, bent down, grabbed my collar, and dragged me up from the ground, “Look at you, now not only are you ugly, but your voice is also extremely unpleasant.”

“If you dislike me, just let me go!” I struggled to escape.

However, I had been away from the water for too long, not only was my whole body uncomfortable, but my voice was also getting hoarse.

Yin Ze pressed my shoulders, “I’ll turn you back now, don’t move.”

“No! I want to become a demon!” I tried to push him away, but my hands were grabbed by him.

Yin Ze said angrily, “If I were to take a demon as my disciple, I would rather kill her.”

“Then kill me, Master! I don’t want to live so weakly! I would rather die than live like this!”

Hearing this, Yin Ze looked at me and couldn’t speak.

Finally unable to bear it any longer, I bit my lip and tears fell down my face, “Master, you know what I’m thinking. You don’t have to deny it. Disciple is not wrong, disciple was born poorly, I can’t become an immortal, I can’t become a god, so is it wrong for disciple to want to live a little longer...”

There were so many grievances that I couldn’t vent. Because of the separation from Master, the unspeakable bitterness in my heart couldn’t be explained in words. In the end, I covered my face and could only cry uncontrollably.

Yin Ze said softly, “I’ve been neglecting you for a while, and that’s my fault.”

I sobbed, “You just dislike your disciple...”

“No.”

“You just think that your disciple is ignorant and disobedient, and she has a short life, so you don’t want to waste time on her.”

“No.”

“You just look down on your disciple, and think that your disciple is not worthy to stand by your side.”

“No!”

Suddenly, Yin Ze hugged me tightly, “Weiwei, don’t cry.” He paused and tightened his grip, “Really, don’t cry.”