Mistaken Era – Chapter 11
Soon, Cui Xiaoxiao felt like her body was being tightly enveloped by some viscous liquid, continuously sinking deeper and deeper…When she could no longer move at all, Cui Xiaoxiao’s heart calmed down instead.
She quickly closed her eyes and opened them again fiercely.
The supernatural ability she had awakened since childhood allowed her to not be misled by illusions, but rather see everything around her clearly.
In a sea of blood and filth, she saw a pair of cold, bizarre red-black eyes staring straight at her through the bloody mist.
Cui Xiaoxiao tried to negotiate: “May I ask the full courtesy name of this hero? If you have any requests, feel free to state them first. We can have a fair trade and make a win-win deal!”
Those eyes radiating intense killing intent seemed unprepared for this little girl to be so daring. And in this long period of time, she was the first person who could see it…
Cui Xiaoxiao’s words seemed to have an effect, as the force tightly coiling around her like a giant python loosened slightly.
Then a deep voice with a blood-curdling, murderous tone rang in her ears: “You…can see me?”
Seeing that this monster wrapped in dense blood seemed reasonable, Cui Xiaoxiao hurriedly said, “Yes, I’ve had some spiritual powers since childhood that allow me to see things ordinary people can’t.”
At this moment, a large palm seemed to condense from the blood sea pervading the entire cave, dripping thick black droplets of blood.
It grabbed Cui Xiaoxiao’s chin and those eyes seemed to move closer, sizing her up with disdain before coldly sneering, “Qin Lingxiao actually fancies trash like you…”
Cui Xiaoxiao never expected this mysterious blood demon to know about Qin Lingxiao’s intention to take her as his wife.
But from its tone, the blood demon, like Qin Lingxiao himself, looked down on her talent immensely.
So she gave a wry laugh and said, “I know my talents are shallow and unworthy of being Lord Qin’s wife…”
She thought the blood demon looked down on her and lamented on Qin Lingxiao’s behalf, so she just went along with the conversation.
But unexpectedly, this time the blood demon didn’t let her finish before forcefully gripping her chin tighter, its tone laced with killing intent: “Lord of the Qin Sect? He’s not worthy either!”
The sudden force painfully made Cui Xiaoxiao squint.
The little red mole at the corner of her eye trembled slightly under the shadow of her long lashes.
After the blood demon’s outburst, its bloody, muddy body transformed into a slithering serpentine shape.
It slowly coiled up to Cui Xiaoxiao’s ear, accompanied by the dripping sound, and deliberately lowered its voice menacingly: “Today, you suffered enough humiliation in front of that brat Qin Lingxiao, didn’t you? The way he looked at you was like looking at pig shit! You must be furious, angry that he disrespected your master and even more angry at your own lack of ability…Don’t worry, I’ll give you a chance. As long as you listen to me, I’ll make you incredibly powerful…powerful enough that everyone will have to kneel at your feet…”
As it spoke, its bloody, hot breath bored directly into Cui Xiaoxiao’s ears with a hoarse, magnetic tone that made her blood vessels pulsate…
For a moment, it seemed like something burst open in Cui Xiaoxiao’s heart. The helpless grievances from being sold as a child and drifting around, the humiliation and anger of being caught stealing on the streets and beaten – it all surged into her mind at once.
That’s right, she was too weak!
If she were as powerful as Qin Lingxiao and could kill those who humiliated her at will, how wonderful that would be…
As she thought this, she didn’t realize that the black blood coiling around her was becoming more and more dense and viscous, eventually forming a bloody cocoon enveloping her completely.
In that entrancing voice, Cui Xiaoxiao slowly closed her eyes…
So tired, and the surroundings were so warm and comfortable.
If only she could sleep for a while… But she still couldn’t settle into the warmth around her, always feeling like she had forgotten something important.
Just as she was about to sink into oblivion, a stinging pain came from her palm.
It turned out that earlier, Cui Xiaoxiao had pulled out the thin blade from her wristguard and grasped it in her palm – an ultimate skill she and her con-man adopted father practiced on the streets.
By pinching the thin blade between two fingers, one could instantly slice open a passerby’s money pouch or pack in the blink of an eye.
This had been Cui Xiaoxiao’s self-defense weapon in dangerous situations since childhood.
Her drifting life from a young age exposed her to all kinds of people. Once they saw she was a girl, there was no shortage of scumbags with ill intentions.
The repeated brushes with danger made Cui Xiaoxiao highly vigilant, and she would never easily trust those coaxing words.
So when the blood demon approached, she had already tightly gripped the blade in her hand.
Her drifter’s life had conditioned her body to make judgments before her mind could.
As a result, just as she was about to lose consciousness, the pain from the blade wound finally jolted her awake!
What was going on? How could she have been so easily swayed by an invisible monster and nearly fallen into a daze?
Could it be…this blood demon’s words had the effect of provoking one’s inner demons?
Cui Xiaoxiao remembered her demon exorcising experience at the silkworm farm and how the wife from the Bai family also became demonically possessed due to her inner demons, causing her to not even remember what happened after turning demonic.
It seemed this blood demon was trying to reenact that, making her the next Bai family wife!
Cui Xiaoxiao realized: she had to break free from the blood demon’s control as soon as possible – no way could she let it dominate her.
Although her talisman drawing wasn’t very effective, with the addition of her yin-yang blood, it seemed to have some use.
Thinking of this, she forcefully pulled out a talisman from her sleeve with her cut hand – it was the water dissolution talisman she had drawn earlier.
After soaking the talisman with her fresh blood, she suddenly flung it towards the blood demon while silently reciting an incantation, intending to use water to disperse the viscous blood binding her body.
But after several recitations, instead of the rushing of water, a hot flow like a slithering snake emerged from her cut wound.
Cui Xiaoxiao inwardly cursed – her sloppy incantation didn’t summon water, but was drawing out her own blood instead.
At this rate, she would bleed to death before the blood demon could make a move.
But to her disbelief, when the talisman led the threads of blood flowing from Cui Xiaoxiao’s palm to entwine around the blood demon’s body like vines, the blood demon suddenly widened its eyes in disbelief and let out an agonized groan before instantly flinging Cui Xiaoxiao away.
The incredulous blood demon muttered, “I can’t control you! What secrets lie in your blood? I don’t believe it! Aside from him, there’s actually a second person in this world who can escape my domination…”
Cui Xiaoxiao didn’t understand what it was rambling about. With her arm free, she cut another wound on her palm and continued guiding her blood while reciting incantations.
This time, Cui Xiaoxiao grasped the technique and could simultaneously summon two blood threads like spirit snakes to attack the blood demon.
The blood demon seemed to dread Cui Xiaoxiao’s blood and didn’t dare engage, only letting out an enraged roar before concealing itself in the depths of the cave with its bloody viscosity.
Cui Xiaoxiao couldn’t hear its final words.
At the same time the blood demon vanished, a counterforce rapidly propelled Cui Xiaoxiao upwards. As she was about to land, the feeling of weightlessness made her cry out in alarm.
But when she opened her eyes again, the drenched Cui Xiaoxiao found herself still sitting on her meditation mat, surrounded by a gentle breeze, the gurgling stream under the moonlight, and the campfire still burning nearby
The other three fellow disciples in meditation were startled by her outcry and opened their eyes towards her.
Ji Wuqi spoke harshly, “Instead of meditating properly, what are you screaming about? Hah, you must have dozed off and had a nightmare, didn’t you?”
Cui Xiaoxiao wiped the sweat from her forehead and stared hard at her surroundings, confirming she was indeed still meditating by the stream. Everything from before…seemed to really be just a dream.
But then, Jiang Nanmu widened her eyes looking at Cui Xiaoxiao’s chin: “Xiaoxiao, why is your chin red?”
Cui Xiaoxiao stood up and went to the stream, using the campfire’s faint light to examine her face.
There were indeed several red marks on her pointed chin.
She slowly reached out and touched those red marks – they were imprints from a large hand gripping, exactly like the spot the blood demon grabbed her chin in her dream!
So…was it really just a dream?
Moreover, in her right palm…she was still clutching the thin blade she kept hidden in her wristguard, the blood from her cut still dripping.
She suddenly became alert and quickly turned to look for her dog Jixiang, but it wasn’t by her side. When she called out, a familiar bark came from a nearby bush.
When they went over, they found the barking was coming from a cave hidden by the bush. Cui Xiaoxiao, recalling her dream, felt a chill down her spine. But the cave looked ordinary, not the eerie, ominous skeletal scene from her dream.
Jixiang’s barks also sounded pitiful. Not caring about anything else, Cui Xiaoxiao raised her torch, calling out to Jixiang as she tentatively entered.
Once inside, Cui Xiaoxiao let out a slight sigh of relief. It turned out Jixiang had gotten stuck in a narrow crevice while hunting rats, the faint squeaking indicating it had wedged itself in the rock crevice while catching rodents.
As the spirit dog of Lingshan Talisman Sect, it still needed to exhibit its own rat-catching abilities to earn meat.
Cui Xiaoxiao went over to dislodge the rock, allowing Jixiang to come out. But in the moment she pushed the rock away, the entire stone wall suddenly crumbled open, revealing what seemed to be a bronze casket in the crevice.
A’Yi, following behind, brushed off the dust and revealed the relief sculpture on the bronze casket.
Jiang Nanmu squinted her eyes in the firelight to make out the pattern and suddenly gasped loudly: “Don’t touch it!”
Cui Xiaoxiao also made out the pattern – at first glance it looked like a nine-petal curved lotus flower, very similar to the lotus brand on the foreheads of Qin Lingxiao’s Nine Mystic Sword Sect disciples.
However, this lotus was not red but an inky blackish-red, like polluted blood. Staring at it too long gave an unsettling feeling, as if one’s soul would be drawn into it.
“Second Senior Sister, could this be the emblem of the Nine Mystic Sword Sect?”
Jiang Nanmu said gravely, “If I’m not mistaken, this nine-curved black lotus is the demonic crest of the Demon Sovereign Wei Jie from two hundred years ago, who nearly upended the heavens and earth.”
Although Qin Lingxiao’s righteous Nine Mystic Sword Sect originated from the demonic cultivation of Wei Jie, the patterns of their attainment were similar. But this black lotus from two centuries ago brought bloody storms and ominous winds, making people pale at the sight of it.
Cui Xiaoxiao looked thoughtfully at the black lotus, suddenly recalling having seen it before.
That’s right, it was on the hilt of that old sword Qin Lingxiao used when slaying demons at the silkworm farm. So it turned out that when the rogue disciple Qin Ni exorcised demons without full mastery, he simply used the sword once belonging to his master Wei Jie.
But Qin Lingxiao seemed unwilling to let others see any connection between him and the master he personally killed, deliberately covering the hilt with a white cloth, which was rather suspicious…
