Lin Baixi cleared the table, picked up Shen Yi’s discarded outer robe without a word, and went to the back courtyard.
The room settled into quiet.
Shen Yi took out the beast core — still faintly threaded with blood — and looked at the panel.
【Remaining Demon Lifespan: 226 years】
He closed his eyes, a low warmth moving through his thoughts.
Trouble and opportunity really did travel together. Without the predecessor’s particular brand of stupidity, he’d never have had easy access to Jade Liquid Realm cultivation methods.
What kind, though, was the question. An internal cultivation art would be ideal. A bladework would be second choice. Either way, the demon lifespan reserves were running thin again.
The demons who’d been thick as brothers with the predecessor had largely stopped reaching out. Out of sight, out of mind — the world was nothing if not practical.
As for going outside the walls to hunt—
Shen Yi had considered it occasionally. But Lin Baixi’s situation was a useful reminder. Baiyun County looked defenseless on the surface, but the Daqian Dynasty stood behind it, and demons with any sense of self-preservation didn’t advertise themselves. Quietly taking a person here and there was entirely different from openly overrunning a county seat. Provoking the court meant consequences no demon wanted.
But venture outside alone and run into something genuinely dangerous—
Shen Yi didn’t flatter himself that he’d end up sealed under someone’s floorboards with a generous host keeping him fed. Far more likely he’d be pulled apart, and whatever consumed him would give a satisfied nod at the quality of the meal.
He thought of Liu Qi’s remains and exhaled slowly, something crossing his eyes.
Then his arm registered something cold and moving.
In the span of a breath, the quiet reflection was gone — twelve apertures opened simultaneously, sharp qi flooding through him like a detonation.
He threw back the covers.
Two snakes, each as thick as a fist, moved with unhurried ease out of a gap between the bed and the wall — one coiling toward his thigh, the other draping across his left arm. Their forked tongues tasted the air.
Shen Yi’s eyes narrowed. His hand found the scabbard on the wall.
His senses at the Threshold Realm were finely tuned — he could detect demons several rooms away, track ordinary animals, register insects crossing a surface. These two had slid onto his bed without triggering a single warning.
The snake forms rippled and changed.
Two women — pale-skinned, full-figured, wearing little more than scattered scales across the places that mattered. One settled into the crook of his arm with a smile. The other wrapped an arm around his waist, a shapely leg pressing over his knee. They tilted their faces up, striking features carrying an edge of something not quite human.
One of them twirled a strand of hair around her finger, voice like small bells, breath fragrant. “Shen-lang — it has been a while. Have you missed us?”
With the human forms came their qi — and Shen Yi read it immediately.
Threshold Realm. Perfection. Both of them.
No hesitation. His right hand drew the blade.
In the candlelight, the silver was swallowed by deep crimson — the Blood-Corruption Bladework rising through the steel.
The cut aimed directly for the white snake woman’s throat. No warning. No restraint.
“Hss—!“
Her face went pale. She threw herself off the bed.
The dark-scaled woman released his waist, palm rising to intercept — her skin hardening instantly, black scales with a metallic sheen spreading across her hand and fingers.
She caught the blade.
Then surprise broke across her face.
Her scales — the ones she’d trusted without question for centuries — made a hissing sound the moment they touched the edge. They dissolved on contact. Dark red blood seeped between her fingers and ran down the blade in thin lines.
The white-scaled woman sat on the floor, one hand pressed to her throat, chest heaving. Fury and lingering shock moved through her eyes. “Have you lost your mind?!”
“We had heard Shen-lang’s temperament had changed.” The dark-scaled woman kept her grip on the blade, unhurried, and opened her other hand — a cascade of fine gold pieces falling onto the bed. “But we couldn’t understand why you’d give up the arrangement entirely. We were sent by our Lady — only asking you to bring the craftsmen from Caihui Pavilion up to the mountain. She wants some jewelry made.”
Cold sweat had formed at her temple.
This wasn’t a change of temperament. This was a different person wearing the same face.
That cut had looked simple. It was anything but — the technique refined past any visible technique, as if decades of practice had burned away everything unnecessary. Even someone with exceptional natural gifts would need the better part of a lifetime to reach that quality. And the qi behind it wasn’t weaker than her own cultivation built over centuries.
The two of them together might not be enough.
“If Shen-lang no longer wishes to handle these small errands, say so plainly. We will leave.”
She glanced sideways at her companion.
The white snake caught the look, resumed her serpent form, and then — wrapped in a sudden dense fog — simply ceased to be present in the room.
“…”
Shen Yi watched the white snake vanish, brow slightly furrowed.
These two were the most formidable demons he’d encountered. Taking one of his strikes wasn’t remarkable in itself.
But that technique — suppressing all qi signature to nothing — and that method of disappearing — those were things he’d never seen before. If he could understand them—
He looked at the dark-scaled woman still holding his blade, and something shifted in his eyes.
Under that particular attention, she had a moment of recognizing the look she’d seen on the predecessor’s face many times before. Then she realized it was aimed at entirely the wrong part of her.
She looked down at her own midsection.
Her jaw tightened.
This absolute scoundrel is looking at my beast core.
“I won’t fight you today, Shen Yi. But you wait. I’m going back to report to my Lady. If you have any courage, don’t hide.”
The dark snake resumed her true form, scales spreading, tongue flickering. As she turned, her peripheral vision caught something in the doorway to the back courtyard.
A tall figure in white stood quietly against the wall, face in profile, expression cool.
She had done nothing but glance over once.
The dark snake froze.
Her scales bristled. The words wouldn’t come.
So that’s how it is. The man suddenly has formidable cultivation and no respect at all for the Lady — because he’s found better backing and has no use for old connections.
“Enjoy it while it lasts!”
The dark snake coiled herself tightly, abandoning any mention of the Azure Scale Matriarch, wrapped herself in black mist — taking the gold pieces from the bed along with her — and vanished.
The room held two people.
Shen Yi looked at the doorway. A thread of something like disappointment crossed his face.
He’d run up against his own limitations after all. He could handle wild demons. But against creatures with real backing and real technique — he hadn’t even been able to follow what they were doing.
“…”
Lin Baixi lowered her hands and looked at him quietly, taking in his expression. The surprise faded into something that was almost exasperated amusement.
She’d thought Shen Yi was a deeply concealed practitioner, one nudge away from crossing the Threshold — and had been planning to use that as leverage. Two days of observation had already revised the estimate upward: he was clearly past the Threshold entirely.
What she hadn’t anticipated was finding out he’d reached a level where he could single-handedly intimidate two Threshold Perfection demons.
And he still wasn’t satisfied?
“Those two are the Azure Scale Matriarch’s most trusted attendants. Even a Demon Suppression Division Commander would want ten or more practitioners present and a demon-binding array prepared in advance before attempting to take them. Reliably.”
A pause.
“Or — were you disappointed that you didn’t get to enjoy their company for a bit longer?”
(End of Chapter)