Chapter 57: Demonic Breath Part 3

Only after Bo Xuenong obediently shut her mouth did Shen Yanting say, “Cultivate a bit later tonight. I have something to tell you.”

“Okay.” Bo Xuenong agreed readily. When Shen Yanting requested six rooms, she belatedly realized that it meant they wouldn’t share a room anymore. She couldn’t deny feeling disappointed. Her eyes blazed as she watched Feng Jin and Feng Yingbo take a single room token together.

Her thoughts kept changing.

Normally, she longed to grow strong enough to protect Bo Xuenong. Now, she wished she were a child who could cling to her master and sleep together.

She had truly been spoiled by Shen Yanting’s recent tolerance and gentleness.

She was growing greedier.

Bo Xuenong despised her own childish thoughts, spat at herself harshly, then hid alone in her room to reflect while waiting for Shen Yanting to summon her.

This was the best inn in Divine Moon City. The rooms were spacious and bright. The upper rooms even had special spirit stones placed inside, filling the air with a faint spiritual fragrance. The environment far surpassed the houses in Mistlongevity Village, yet Bo Xuenong still couldn’t help missing the small room there.

The small room could hold two people, but this large room only had her alone.

Bo Xuenong felt that staying in a place like this suited Shen Yanting’s status better, but here she couldn’t stay with Shen Yanting.

Clearly, back at the Imperial Serenity Sect, they had lived even farther apart.

Bo Xuenong bit her lip tightly in conflict, blaming herself over and over for her greed as she patiently waited for Shen Yanting to come reprimand her.

She waited a long time.

Until it wasn’t Shen Yanting who arrived, but Feng Jin, who sneaked in like a thief.

In a foul mood, Bo Xuenong glared at Feng Jin, who sat directly across from her. “You’d better have important business with me right now.”

Feng Jin sensed Bo Xuenong’s terrible mood. The heart voice that had been absent for so long suddenly reappeared.

【Dead System, do you think telling Eldest Senior Sister that Elder Shen told her to be a bit gentler with me would work…】

It would work.

Very much so.

Bo Xuenong forcibly raised a smile again, though strained. “Little Jin, instead of staying in your room to keep Shishu Feng company, what do you want from me?”

Clearly sensing the change in Bo Xuenong, Feng Jin relaxed.

She didn’t answer immediately. Instead, she looked around cautiously, tiptoed to close the door, then crept close to her conspiratorially. “Eldest Senior Sister, I have good news and bad news to share with you. Which do you want to hear first?”

“…” She didn’t want to hear either.

Bo Xuenong pursed her lips slightly. “The good one first.”

Feng Jin leaned in and whispered, “The system just prompted me: Elder Ye has no Otherworld Soul on her.”

None?

She was faking it?

Not only deceiving her, but also Shen Yanting?

Bo Xuenong narrowed her eyes slightly. Her already poor mood worsened. Right now, she wanted Ye Zhiyao dead even more than Ji Caiyan did.

Feng Jin sensed Bo Xuenong’s chilling aura intensify and nervously rubbed her hands. Without waiting for Bo Xuenong to ask further, she continued on her own. “The bad news is that what latched onto her is Demonic Breath.”

“Demonic Breath.”

Bo Xuenong knew exactly what Demonic Breath was, of course.

Her ancestral bloodline had gone wrong because of Demonic Breath. Simply put, it was a wisp of aberrant soul born from demonic bloodline. Demonic Breath could overlap and attach to the same person, gradually fusing with their bloodline.

Her Bo Clan ancestor had been entangled by too much Demonic Breath, polluting the bloodline and preventing a return to the Divine Realm.

Bo Xuenong’s bloodthirst and love of killing came from the Demonic Breath hidden in her bloodline.

Now Feng Jin was telling her.

That Ye Zhiyao had been ensnared by Demonic Breath.

This immediately made her think of herself. Her gaze grew colder and colder, her hands clenching into tight fists. “You all even attracted Demonic Breath.”

Though Demonic Breath could be considered a soul, it was merely an aberrant soul without complete thought or will—sometimes just a wisp. It could only influence the host, stirring up their inner malice, but it wasn’t a full soul.

She remembered Feng Jin saying only Otherworld Souls were attracted. She had thought only complete souls could come. Now she learned even soulless wisps like this could arrive, which meant remnant souls could too.

It was hard for cultivators to possess a complete soul, but leaving behind a wisp of remnant soul was all too easy.

Most vexing was that Demonic Breath had no consciousness, so no heart voice. Bo Xuenong couldn’t identify those possessed by it. The system’s prompts only triggered when the host was nearby and showed fluctuations of Otherworld power.

Bo Xuenong’s face looked awful—this was normal. Feng Jin had been devastated too when she first learned.

Feng Jin took a breath before cautiously saying, “Eldest Senior Sister, Demonic Breath has no consciousness. It can only attach to a host and slowly fuse with them. The forbidden technique gift packages and plot they get are incomplete. They don’t need to complete strategy conquest tasks either, so they won’t covet Elder Shen.”

If it were that simple, Feng Jin wouldn’t look like this.

Bo Xuenong guessed the crux immediately. “The system has no way to deal with Demonic Breath, does it?”

“Eldest Senior Sister, you’re so smart.”

Bo Xuenong didn’t want Feng Jin’s flattery. It wasn’t hard to guess. The system could only exchange for methods from this world. If Demonic Breath could be resolved, her ancestor would have returned to the Divine Realm long ago.

It was the root of her bloodline.

Bo Xuenong thought of Ye Zhiyao. “Will Shishu end up like me?”

“The system says no.” Feng Jin thought for a moment. “Demonic Breath amplifies the evil in one’s heart. Divine beasts are valiant and warlike, always proud of slaying demons. Beasts eat meat to begin with, so after bloodline erosion by Demonic Breath, it just magnified that, making her bloodthirsty, warlike, and cannibalistic.”

She pondered a bit more before saying, “Elder Ye’s ambitions probably don’t lie there.”

Ye Zhiyao’s amplified malice… Seizing others’ cultivation suited her. Ye Zhiyao had always been obsessed with cultivation, held back only by her talent. With greed and malice amplified, taking a crooked path to plunder others’ cultivation to bolster herself was reasonable.

Her not directly plundering Ji Caiyan at first, but using what seemed like dual cultivation but was actually stealing yin essence to humiliate her disciple, was harder to trace back to a specific greed.

Feng Jin was conflicted, scratching her head nonstop, still unable to figure it out.

Bo Xuenong thought for a moment, then suddenly asked very seriously, “Is she just overly fond of her disciple, or is she lustful?”

The difference between those two was huge.

If it was the latter, Ye Zhiyao might still set her sights on Shen Yanting.

Feng Jin had no way to answer that. She rubbed her forehead and sighed lightly. “This probably has to be asked of Shibo Ye. She likely still couldn’t answer us right now. She killed the demonic cultivator He Xin, so the demonic breath inside her body was probably even more eager to fuse with that power of the same origin… She would only be able to answer us after she fully fused with the demonic breath.”

Ye Zhiyao was not innocent.

Ji Caiyan was not pitiful either.

There was no otherworld soul at all. It was merely that the greed and malice in Ye Zhiyao’s heart had been amplified by the demonic breath, so it really was her who forcefully kissed Ji Caiyan… Ye Zhiyao had simply lost her memories temporarily. Once the demonic breath fused with He Xin’s power and merged with her soul, she would probably regain those memories.

“I guess it’s lustful.” Bo Xuenong pursed her lips. “To be safe, we should still kill her.”

“?” Feng Jin’s mouth fell slightly open as shock spilled out. “Senior Sister, she’s our Shishu. There’s only a wisp of demonic breath on her. At the start, when it first attaches, the malice will multiply, but once they fully fuse, Shibo Ye should be able to control it. She probably won’t obsess over Elder Shen.”

“I know she’s the Shishu, so I won’t kill her.” Bo Xuenong looked down at her fingers and muttered, “Let Ji Caiyan kill her. Doesn’t Ji Caiyan really want to kill the Shishu? We just won’t stop her.”

Feng Jin coughed twice. “Senior Sister, didn’t you say that Second Senior Sister should like Shibo Ye? What if she kills Shibo Ye and then commits suicide to follow her in death?”

“That’s pretty good.” Bo Xuenong’s tone was indifferent. “Committing suicide to follow her in death would be her good fortune.”

When she said the words “good fortune,” a flash of excitement appeared in her eyes.

Feng Jin thought of the plot in the original book and secretly sensed trouble. “Eldest Senior Sister, please dispel any thoughts of committing suicide to follow her in death as soon as possible.”

?

She had no such thoughts.

Shen Yanting wouldn’t even let her die, so she had long since lost any will to die.

That flash of excitement was because she felt that for Ye Zhiyao and Ji Caiyan to cause such a scene, it really would be Ji Caiyan’s good fortune if she could commit suicide to follow her in death.

If it had been her, after pushing Shen Yanting like that and even chasing her down to kill her, she would have long since atoned with her death.

In the end, Bo Xuenong simply couldn’t understand how there could be such a disobedient disciple who targeted her master everywhere.

After all, she had always been obedient and wished she could offer everything to Shen Yanting.

Before Bo Xuenong could deny it, a very cold inquiry suddenly came from outside the door. “Xuenong, who do you want to commit suicide to follow in death?”