Chapter 29: Hello, My Heart Demon
The ancient, heavy city walls were covered in greenery—moss, vines, and a red-haired kid bouncing on the wall.
The kid moved skillfully, swinging from the vines like a little wild monkey.
Getting closer to the ground, he jumped straight down. But instead of landing steadily as usual, his back collar was grabbed by a hand. Yelping “Wah-ya!”, his vision spun, and a figure appeared before him.
The kid stared at the person who suddenly appeared.
First glance: This person’s clothes are so clean, with landscape patterns.
Second glance: This person is so tall, face so white—whiter than Sister Tianxing. Did he plaster flour on his face?
Third glance: Black hair? An outsider!
The kid immediately grinned, baring his teeth like a demonstrating wolf cub, shouting fiercely: “Outsider! Let me go! Careful I don’t eat you!”
As soon as Yun Wuxiang entered the city, he heard rustling sounds overhead. Turning to look up, he saw this kid climbing vines on the wall. After watching for a while, he caught him when the kid jumped.
The kid was covered in green leaves over his hemp clothes, hair messy like a chicken coop. Yun Wuxiang’s gaze landed on the kid’s red hair and asked: “Where are your parents?”
The kid’s eyes went blank for a moment, then exploded like a lit firecracker: “None of your business! Let go of me!”
While speaking, his eyes sized up Yun Wuxiang’s arm, revealing a ferocity as if he would take a bite out of the flesh in the next second.
In fact, he did exactly that. Thrusting his head forward, mouth wide open, he was suddenly spun around by a force lifting him.
After the spin, the kid’s eyes lost their fierceness. His small face crumpled, eyes instantly filling with moisture, hands covering his mouth as if about to cry.
Yun Wuxiang watched his actions and guessed: “Bit your tongue?”
“Yao ni guan (None of your business).” The kid pouted. His tone was tough, but pronunciation slurred—standard tongue-injury voice.
Suddenly, the kid sniffed, eyes widening. He said to Yun Wuxiang: “Run! The hunters are back!”
Yun Wuxiang: “Hunters?”
“Go! If you want to die, your grandpa here hasn’t lived enough! Those animals… dammit, they even eat their fellow villagers!”
When the kid cursed “animals,” his eyes held no anger, only fear. He probably learned the curse words from somewhere.
The sound of many footsteps and conversations grew louder. The kid struggled more violently, tone anxious but afraid to shout loud: “Let go! Die if you want, don’t drag me with you!”
Focused on his panic, the kid missed the flash of red in Yun Wuxiang’s brownish-black eyes when he said “even eat their fellow villagers.”
Voices and footsteps were already at their ears. A group appeared behind the city gate, holding bloodstained clubs and spades. On their shoulders, they carried a wooden pole. Skewered on the pole was a person with hands and feet tied together. The binding method was identical to tying a wild boar, but it was a human—or rather, a corpse—being carried.
Seeing Yun Wuxiang, these people froze first, then joy appeared on their faces—the joy of food delivering itself to the door.
“An outsider actually delivered himself!”
“Those clothes look nice. Careful when you act, don’t tear them.”
“I want the clothes too. How do we split?”
“I’ll give you ten catties of meat, clothes are mine.”
“Deal.”
“Stop laughing. Watch out, there’s something wrong with this guy.”
The leader, a middle-aged man with graying hair, saw Yun Wuxiang standing still and felt wary.
Some others realized things were odd; some didn’t care.
“Uncle Shiqiao, he’s an outsider. Entering the city means he’s half dead. What’s there to fear?”
“Exactly. Being careful outside is one thing, but this guy dared to enter the city. Hahaha, isn’t he rushing to add a meal for us grandpas?”
Shiqiao looked at that back. The more he looked, the more familiar it felt. An uncontrollable tremor rose from the bottom of his heart.
“Who are you?”
Yun Wuxiang turned around. His gaze swept over Shiqiao’s weathered face and the dripping human corpse skewered on the pole behind him.
“Why?”
Seeing his face clearly, Shiqiao’s eyes widened. His whole body froze as if iced.
Hearing that “Why,” he shouted with red eyes: “You ask me why? Because I want to live!”
Shiqiao grabbed his hair, facial muscles twitching hideously: “Look at my hair! Ever since drinking that bowl of lousy medicine from you, my hair turned like this! Everywhere I go, people stare at me strangely!”
“They said I eat people. So I’ll eat for them to see!”
“That’s not what I asked.” Yun Wuxiang’s flat tone and expression tightened Shiqiao’s heart.
“What do you want to ask?”
Yun Wuxiang: “Why aren’t you dead?”
Shiqiao was enraged, losing control completely and roaring: “Must I die? Why? Why are so many evil people alive in the world? Why must I die just because I ate a few mouthfuls of meat?”
“Yun Wuxiang! You survived by eating people too! You’re no different from the people in this city. Why?! What right do you have to decide our life and death!”
The kid in Yun Wuxiang’s hand and the people behind Shiqiao were shocked by Shiqiao’s words.
In the hunting team, people recognized Yun Wuxiang one after another, faces turning pale instantly: “He’s back.”
Clang. Someone dropped their weapon and ran. Just two steps later, their body halted violently, pitching forward onto the ground.
Everyone watched the person fall, neck stiffly turning to look at Yun Wuxiang standing meters away. A golden long sword had appeared in his hand at some point.
The sword tip raised, leveling with Shiqiao’s throat. The golden sword turned crimson, a color that instantly made Shiqiao recall that day thirteen years ago.
Shiqiao didn’t move. He knew if Yun Wuxiang wanted to act, he couldn’t run. But he didn’t understand: “You’ve been gone thirteen years. Why come back?”
The blade pierced Shiqiao’s heart. Yun Wuxiang looked at the much-aged face and said: “I didn’t expect to see you here before I came.”
Heart pierced, the weakness from blood loss left Shiqiao speechless. At the end of his consciousness, he gave Yun Wuxiang a complicated look. Then his eyes slowly closed. His final expression was calm, his brows even holding a sense of relief.
“Run!”
The hunting team scattered like frightened birds.
Yun Wuxiang pulled the sword from Shiqiao’s chest, flicking the blood off the blade.
Looking up at the frantically fleeing people, the blood baleful aura locked onto prey like a hawk, piercing through several bodies in a flash.
A trembling came from his hand, along with a weak, quiet crying: “Don’t kill me, don’t kill me. I haven’t eaten meat. Boohoo, don’t kill me.”
Yun Wuxiang looked down and asked: “You haven’t eaten meat?”
The kid had lost his initial wild arrogance, tears falling drop by drop, sobbing: “No. Sister won’t let me.”
Yun Wuxiang: “Your sister doesn’t eat meat either?”
The kid nodded: “People in the Farmers’ Gang don’t eat meat.”
Yun Wuxiang said: “Take me to the Farmers’ Gang.”
The kid shook his head desperately, face full of tragic determination: “Kill me. I will never betray the Farmers’ Gang!”
Yun Wuxiang’s dark mood from killing was amused for a moment by the kid’s childish face and words. He let go and said to the kid: “Go then. Tell them a person named Yun Wuxiang is at the city gate. Let them decide if they want to see me.”
“I won’t kill those born after the Great Disaster who haven’t eaten people. But from now on, anyone leaving this city, I will consider guilty and kill them all.”
The kid shivered, scrambling away on short legs, looking back occasionally to see if Yun Wuxiang followed. Seeing him standing still, he ran toward the Farmers’ Gang.
【Ah Yun, you’ve been here before?】
Yun Wuxiang summoned four talismans. They flew to the four corners of Yuan’an City—southeast, northwest—setting up a barrier. Taking out the bronze mirror, he scanned the sentence and said: “Did I allow you to call me that?”
【Calling you Guanzhu is too distant. Ah Yun sounds closer. Ah Yun, Ah Yun~】
Yun Wuxiang ignored Song Yilou’s address, bending down to close Shiqiao’s eyes.
【Ah Yun’s aversion to blood is because of the great drought twenty years ago? A bunch of dead bones. As long as Ah Yun becomes a Gu, you won’t be troubled by these people anymore.】
“I want to live as a human.” Yun Wuxiang’s tone wasn’t heavy, but contained extreme stubbornness.
“Song Yilou, I will never become your kind. If you want a companion, find someone else early.”
【But I feel Ah Yun is the most suitable person to become my kind.】
【Do you really care that much about these people’s lives? Ah Yun, look in the mirror. Your eyes when killing are no different from mine.】
“Who looks in the mirror while killing?”
Saying so, Yun Wuxiang glanced at the mirror surface. He saw a pair of slightly reddened eyes, baleful aura accumulated, cold and ruthless, like a sentient weapon, dotted with blood.
This was him now.
Bearing no resemblance to his modern self.
Blood flowed from the corpses, quickly forming large red patches on the ground. The dazzling red made Yun Wuxiang frown slightly.
With a wave, intense flames scattered over the corpses. Bodies and blood were incinerated in moments, leaving only scorched earth.
“Brother Yun, is that you?”
Yun Wuxiang looked sideways to see a girl with red hair braided into a plait watching him from not far away.
Scanning her features, Yun Wuxiang fell into memory. Familiar, but who?
Fortunately, the girl quickly identified herself. Lifting the hair on her forehead to reveal a floral dark purple mark: “It’s me, Man Tianxing. Brother Yun helped name me.”
Through that birthmark, Yun Wuxiang merged the girl before him with a little girl crying that she wanted to be a star: “Little Xing?”
“It’s me. Brother Yun, did you come back for something?”
Hearing the familiar address, Man Tianxing felt the person before her was closer than before, yet still dared not approach, asking from a distance.
“I came to find something.”
Yun Wuxiang showed her the mirror: “My bronze mirror lost a piece. Someone told me that fragment is here.”
As he spoke, he saw Man Tianxing’s expression looking at the mirror turn strange.
Turning the mirror around, the writing on it vanished rapidly. But with Yun Wuxiang’s eyesight, he caught the content before it disappeared.
【Hello, I am your Brother Yun’s partner. His mind is a bit strange right now. Never let him get that fragment. Once the fragments are gathered, something terrible will happen!】
“…”
Yun Wuxiang looked up to see Man Tianxing smiling awkwardly with a hint of wariness and probing, one leg quietly taking a small step back.
Yun Wuxiang said expressionlessly: “As you saw, a malicious ghost lives in this mirror. Only by completing the mirror can I kill him.”
“If you’re afraid, you can throw the fragment outside the city. I’ll get it myself.”
Man Tianxing shook her head hurriedly: “No, of course I trust Brother Yun. But the fragment isn’t with us. It’s with Shiqiao from the hunting team.”
Yun Wuxiang looked down at the scorched earth beneath his feet.
Acted too fast just now.
“He’s dead. The bronze piece isn’t on him. It should be at his place. Can you lead the way?”
Man Tianxing nodded: “Okay, Brother Yun.”
“Shiqiao lives where the hunters live. They are still continuing the old… Will Brother Yun kill them?”
Man Tianxing looked at Yun Wuxiang and heard a non-committal “Mhm.”
Approaching the hunters’ residence, Yun Wuxiang told Man Tianxing to stay behind.
“A girl shouldn’t watch killing scenes.”
Man Tianxing was dazed, suddenly recalling that many years ago, she seemed to have heard this sentence from this person.
Less than a day after that sentence, of the tens of thousands of refugees in Yuan’an City, less than a thousand remained.
Those people lived until now, leaving over six hundred. After today, how many would remain?
…
In Shiqiao’s room, Yun Wuxiang took the last bronze mirror fragment and completed the puzzle.
【Ah Yun, can I atone for my crimes to save my life?】
【There’s another ‘me’ beside Prince Li. Why don’t you go kill that ‘me’ first?】
Yun Wuxiang said without surprise: “I know.”
Without confidence, would Prince Li actively break up with his little disciple, the life-saving medicine?
Who else could give him this confidence? Only Song Yilou knew if the poison was still in Prince Li.
With a piece of Song Yilou beside Prince Li, any other messy things would be killed by this poisonous Gu. Fighting poison with poison—he had faith in Song Yilou’s toxicity.
The bronze mirror Song Yilou protested: 【What? Why keep him and not me? What value does he have? I can replace him! I’m definitely more obedient than him.】
Yun Wuxiang glanced at the bronze mirror: “Why fight for first or last? You’ll all die anyway.”
At this glance, the mirror no longer showed Song Yilou’s nonsense, but a familiar yet strange face.
After being pieced together, the bronze mirror finally performed its basic function—reflecting faces. What appeared now was Yun Wuxiang’s face, just slightly different.
The person in the mirror had refreshing modern short hair, clear brownish-black eyes, brows showing some gloom but a clean, comfortable temperament, carrying a quiet bookish air.
The mirror reflection smiled slightly, tone full of polite friendliness like a university student: “Hello, I am Yun Wuxiang.”
“Can you return the body to me?”
“My Heart Demon.”
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