The Little Snake Demon worked her miraculous touch, stroking the carp once. The fish immediately sprang back to life, thrashing about vigorously in the Sacred Pond, full of vim and vigor… Or so it seemed—impossible.
Yin Luan didn’t know how to heal or save lives. She only excelled at easing suffering.
She peered closely at the golden carp floating belly-up in the water, then dipped both hands in and scooped it into her palms. Slowly, she lifted it toward her mouth.
“Hey…”
The Eldest Young Lady’s mouth twitched.
“It’s fine. I’m not going to eat it. Just a lick.”
To save someone, she first needed to figure out exactly what was wrong with them.
Slurp—
No fishy taste. Fresh!
Yin Luan patted the fish’s head and gently returned it to the water.
“Wait here. I’ll go find something.”
Everyone—whether Ren Tan or the villagers—stared at her in stunned silence.
The moment she’d opened her mouth, it had looked like she was about to swallow the little carp whole…
Soon, a commotion erupted from outside the house.
“What are you doing? You want to pluck my leaves again? I grow fast, but not for you to use like this!”
“Nooo, I’m a delicate girl. Lilies are tender flowers… Ah!”
Moments later, the Little Snake Demon returned with a few leaves in hand.
She shredded the leaves into fine threads and fed them bit by bit to the little carp. Then she produced a Supreme Detoxification Pill, crushed it into powder, and stuffed it all into the fish’s mouth.
After a while, the golden little carp slowly righted itself. It still looked weak and listless, but at least it wasn’t floating belly-up anymore.
Now that was true miraculous healing.
“It’s alive, but not fully,” the Little Snake Demon said, wiping her hands. “I just gave it a temporary boost. It treats the symptoms, not the cause.”
“Excuse me, esteemed… immortal,” the Village Chief asked cautiously. “How can we fully save her?”
He knew full well that the seductive woman before them could ignore their pleas entirely. When they’d first met her, he and the others had hurled insults her way.
“No idea,” Yin Luan replied, pointing at the fish in the pond. “You’ll have to ask her yourself.”
“Ask… her herself?” The Village Chief blinked in confusion, then his face lit up with shock. A spark of hope returned to his aged eyes. “You mean she’s—she’s still alive?”
“Of course,” Yin Luan said. “She’s not human, as you all know perfectly well. Even beaten back to her original form, as long as her core remains, there’s hope for recovery.”
She didn’t mention the other possibility: not only reverting to original form, but having one’s spiritual intelligence shattered along with it. That meant total annihilation—no recovery, no matter how much time passed.
“Please, please help her. We—we…”
The elder was so overcome with emotion that he couldn’t even finish his sentence.
“I can’t,” Yin Luan said with a wave of her hand. “She can’t communicate normally with the outside world anymore. Only one person can hear her thoughts.”
“You mean…”
Exactly—the young maiden who had formed a “contract” with it.
This bond transcended words and superficial forms. If someone could assist through it, they could understand even a fish’s intentions perfectly.
As sprites themselves, Xiao Luo and Lily were naturally more familiar with such matters.
The Little Snake Demon fetched the two who had been waiting on the village outskirts.
Perhaps due to the little carp’s weakened state, they didn’t revert to their true forms this time. Though trembling, they managed to hold their humanoid shapes.
“Come on,” Yin Luan said, unable to watch any longer. “It’s just a fish demon. Is there any need to be this scared? Xiao Luo, you’ve even seen an earth louse, and you’re afraid of this?”
“You can’t judge demons by their type alone,” the Little Radish Spirit retorted. “A hundred-year-old mythical demon might not stand a chance against a thousand-year-old ordinary one. With enough cultivation base, even a radish spirit could destroy heaven and earth!”
“So you’re saying this little fish is powerful?”
“Isn’t that obvious? It can take human form—at the very least, it’s at the Great Demon Realm!”
Yin Luan pursed her lips.
She’d almost forgotten: demon transformation and sprite transformation weren’t the same thing at all…
Of course, sprites weren’t without their strengths.
They were harder to birth, fused more mysteriously with nature, and sometimes wielded unexpected abilities.
Like mental communication.
The young maiden bearing the Village Guardian Duty knelt before the stone platform. Xiao Luo and Lily each placed one hand in the water—touching the fish’s head and tail—while laying their other hands on the maiden’s shoulders.
Silence fell over the Ancestral Hall.
A faint green glow lit up around them, and the young maiden’s brow furrowed slightly.
The Golden Carp Spirit quietly remained there, utterly still. Yin Luan sensed that its fish eyes were fixed on the young maiden, faintly conveying a sense of reluctance.
This posture held for a long time.
It was only when the little carp finally swam away of its own accord that the two sprites withdrew their hands and offered deep bows toward the Sacred Pond.
“Understood, Senior!” “It’s just a few leaves—eat as many as you like!”
Sweat beaded clearly on their foreheads as they spoke, though no one knew what had transpired moments before.
“Ah Man,” the Village Chief asked the young maiden anxiously, “did the Goddess Lord tell you how we can help her?”
The girl named Ah Man kowtowed three times toward the Sacred Pond. She fell silent for a moment before replying.
“She said… she wants to go home.”
“Go… home?”
“Her life is bound to water,” Ah Man said softly. “Away from the waters of her homeland, her power cannot fully recover. It only dwindles bit by bit.”
“Where is her homeland?”
“Not far.” The young maiden pointed in a direction. “It’s in the Long River.”
Realization dawned on the Village Chief.
They had encountered and rescued her long ago in a tributary of the Long River, and her true form was that of a fish. Of course she was a creature native to the Long River.
All this time, they had followed the Goddess Lord’s wishes, never venturing out into the wider world and remaining confined to this village—which had, in truth, imprisoned her here as well.
“Goddess Lord, I… we…”
Facing the Sacred Pond, the Village Chief’s mind swirled with a thousand unspoken words, yet not a single one would come.
Why had it taken him so long to realize? For thirty years, the Goddess had poured nearly her entire life force into sustaining the village’s protective barrier, long after the demonic chaos had faded.
“She also wanted me to tell everyone,” Ah Man continued after a pause, “that she’s sorry. Her presence brought great trouble to the village. It’s time for her to leave.”
“No, it’s… it’s us… Ah!”
Such was the gulf between humans and demons.
Had someone been able to communicate with the Goddess after she reverted to her true form, had they explained everything clearly from the start, she would not have burned herself out. Nor would the village have endured this needless isolation for so long.
She had wanted to protect the village, and the villagers had honored their promise to her.
“Come on now,” the Little Snake Demon said, slithering forward with a sway of her hips to lighten the somber mood. “Things haven’t gone beyond saving yet, have they? Maybe our arrival here is fate at work?”
