Chapter 297: Demon Moon

"The wind and rain are about to come..."

Taking one last look at the low-hanging black clouds on the horizon, Chu Hairen, with his back to the crowd behind him, revealed a mysterious and inscrutable smile.

"Heh heh, come, let them all come!"

"Only when the world is in chaos can I find an opportunity..."

His gaze was cold and profound; his mouth opened and closed silently, cursing viciously, looking forward to the situation becoming even worse.

"Everything is for the sake of achieving my goal."

"For this, even if there is more sacrifice, it is worth it."

"Mother, wait for me! I will definitely let you walk before people in the light..."

While Chu Hairen was gazing silently, a person standing behind him took a step forward, deliberately letting their foot make a sound as it landed.

Tap.

After attracting Chu Hairen's attention, that person bowed to his back and said respectfully:

"Young Master, it is getting late; you should cultivate."

At this moment, the person standing behind Chu Hairen was not Chu Yiping, who had led the team last time, but a middle-aged man who looked somewhat similar to Chu Yiping.

Chu Hairen did not turn his head, but still spoke with a smile:

"Many thanks for the reminder, Uncle Yitai. I will watch for a while longer and leave immediately."

His voice was full of worry, and he lowered it to say:

"Uncle Yitai, does the clan not know about the situation here?"

Chu Yitai shook his head, his voice calm and unruffled as he replied:

"The Patriarch overlooks the world; the clan naturally has known for a long time. It is merely some Demon Race that cannot amount to anything, so it does not count as any danger."

"Furthermore, Young Master, this is not a problem you should be considering right now. Once you become the Patriarch, everything will be clear."

Patriarch?

Heh.

Chu Hairen sneered incessantly in his heart, wishing he could laugh out loud.

Once I sit in that position, will I really be the Patriarch then?

Or just a puppet in your hands?

But in the end, Chu Hairen did not expose himself and nodded slowly:

"Uncle Yitai's words are very true; these matters are still too far from me. I believe the clan will certainly be able to handle them properly."

A faint smile appeared on Chu Yitai's stern face, and he bowed again:

"It is best that you can understand."

Chu Hairen took one last deep look at the opposite side, turned around without any attachment, and strode toward the city wall.

"I hope you can bring me some surprises."

And just as Chu Hairen was gazing at the ruins of the Ten Thousand Beasts Sect, feeling that the black clouds were pressing down on the city, the depths of Death Valley were brightly lit.

Although Death Valley is named for being a valley, it is actually a deep, downward-sloping cave, rumored to be two thousand miles deep, though no one has ever reached the deepest part of the cave.

The Ten Thousand Beasts Sect used this place as a natural cage to raise Demon Beasts, letting them breed here generation after generation.

In the past, Death Valley was a true land of death, filled with miasma and corpse poison, with ghastly skeletons everywhere—the poor Demon Beasts that had been eliminated and executed during generations of selective breeding.

But now, the entrance remains the same, with hundreds of Demon Beasts patrolling and wandering about, not letting any suspicious creatures approach.

But if one goes past the entrance and continues deeper, gradually, one will see a different kind of scenery.

After one hundred miles, fluorescent plants and ores were artificially moved onto the walls and dome to add light to the pitch-black tunnel.

In this section, all that wandered were low-end Demon Beasts without developed intelligence, with scattered Great Demons of the Earth Realm patrolling back and forth.

Once reaching five hundred miles, simple settlements similar to markets would appear, displaying various unknown meats, ores, and Spirit Plants.

Past seven hundred miles, newly born young Demon Beasts would appear, playing and chasing each other, filled with all kinds of hissing and roaring.

Arriving at one thousand miles deep, all the noise disappeared, replaced by strange plants that looked like bamboo and glowed with a soft light in the darkness.

Deep within this endless fluorescent bamboo forest, a human-sized Zhulu appeared.

It is hard to imagine that there would be such a quiet and elegant scene in Death Valley, where Demon Beasts are everywhere.

However, at this moment, splashing blood ruined the mood of the place.

A white-haired girl with the lower half of her face covered by a veil sat on a bamboo swing, propping her chin up, swaying back and forth, nimbly bouncing a small ball with her toes.

No, that was not a small ball.

It was a crimson heart that was still beating and had not yet completely lost its vitality.

"Heh heh~"

The girl chuckled innocently, making this bloody scene even more bizarre.

"Don't worry~ you won't die for a short while."

"As long as you tell the truth, I will help you press your heart back in, and you can still go on living!"

"You had better think it over! Will you heroically sacrifice yourself to keep secrets for your master? Or will you tell the truth for the sake of your own life?"

"What did you come here to do?"

After the girl finished asking, she tilted her head curiously, wondering:

"Come to think of it, you look really strange! Why don't you have a heart?"

Cough...

The man whose heart had been gouged out coughed up a mouthful of blood in pain, feeling his life slipping away rapidly.

His Spirit Transformation cultivation, which he had only managed to break through to after years of bitter practice, could not even offer the slightest resistance!

Before he was injured, he hadn't even perceived the slightest bit of danger.

Is this what a Great Demon of the Heaven Realm is?

But, but!

Swish!

He gripped the soil mixed with blood beneath him tightly, bracing himself with one last breath, and rasped:

"We! We were clearly cooperating just fine before, weren't we? Why suddenly..."

Why suddenly break the agreement and ambush me?

"The past is the past~ The present is the present~"

Yet, to his questioning, the girl's smile remained the same, swinging on the swing with a beaming face.

"I was in seclusion before, which is why you were able to fool that big idiot who can't even tell friend from foe and sneak in."

"But now that I have come out of seclusion, do you really expect me to be unable to tell whether you are Human Race or Demon Race?"

"Isn't that a bit too wishful? Little boy of the Human Race~"

"I... cough, cough!"

Cough, cough, cough!

The man kneeling on the ground hadn't said two sentences before he coughed up mouthfuls of blood; the blood spraying out now was no longer the bright red from before, but had streaks of black in it.

"A reminder, your time is running out."

"If you don't speak now, you really won't have another chance!"

To live in disgrace? Or to die a heroic death?

Regarding this eternal question, the man did not struggle for long.

"I... will speak!"

Before this, he also believed he would be a tough man who viewed death as returning home, a hero who could face death calmly.

But when he truly faced death, as it approached step by step, he still felt fear uncontrollably.

I don't want to die.

I really don't want to die!

Family?

Can my family keep me from dying?

In order to survive, he decisively chose to betray his family.

"A smart choice~"

Whoosh—

The Heart Star that had been kicked for a long time was kicked back, landing perfectly back into the man's chest.

Thump-thump!

The wound did not heal, but the moment the Heart Star returned, it immediately began to beat, restoring a trace of color to the man's face.

I survived...

Although his injuries were severe at this moment, they were no longer fatal for a cultivator of the Transformation Realm; as long as he used his cultivation to sustain himself, he could hold on until the wound healed.

Having become a person with a Heart Star again, the man relaxed, let out a long breath, and bowed his head, kneeling:

"Many thanks, my lord! I am willing to submit to the Demon Race!"

Perhaps the beginning of everything is the hardest; since he had already taken the most difficult first step, the rest became easy.

The man straightened up and spoke respectfully:

"Reporting to my lord, I came here with two goals. The first is to purchase raw materials here at a low price to bring back to my clan."

The Demon Beast market in Death Valley is very crude and is still in the stage of barter, having not yet produced a general equivalent like currency.

Yet, Demon Beast materials that are incomparably precious in the outside world are worthless here, not even comparable to some fabrics and food that are considered useless in the outside world.

The man was just here to be a middleman, using low-priced materials from the outside to buy high-priced goods here, and finally selling them at a high price in the outside world.

"The second matter is an emergency mission temporarily issued by the clan, ordering me to leave a Token deep within Death Valley."

The man took half a Jade Pendant from his Storage Bag, shuffled forward on his knees, and held it up with both hands to the ground in front of the swing.

"This is the Token. As long as one holds the other half of the Jade Pendant, one can sense the location of this object and lead the other party to a designated place."

As the swing moved past, the girl hooked her toes and flicked it directly into her hand, examining it for a moment.

"Oh? You lead them over here, what is it you want to do?"

"Reporting to my lord, I do not know the specific intentions of my clan, but it is likely to entrap the holder of the other half of the Token, because the clan ordered me to bring the Token five hundred miles into Death Valley, preparing to coordinate with clansmen to attack from both inside and outside."

"Oh?"

Seeing that the girl seemed to have perked up, the man knew he had bet correctly.

She was very interested in this group of guys preparing to sneak into Death Valley.

He knew very well that since he had chosen to surrender, he had to prove his value.

The man straightened up, smiled at the girl, and said with a sincere face:

"If my lord is interested in them, this matter can be left to me. I can lead them to a deeper place, and then..."

Ssh—

Thud.

Accompanied by a flash of silver light, the man's fawning head fell to the ground, and a pillar of blood sprayed from his neck.

However, perhaps because of the excessive blood loss earlier, this pillar of blood seemed wilted and was not powerful at all.

The swing stopped, and the mysterious girl squinted at the pillar of blood, letting the splashing blood fall onto her white hair and veil.

She turned her head and complained toward the depths of the bamboo forest:

"Oh my, didn't I agree with him that I would spare his life? By doing this, aren't you making me break my word?"

"What's the rush! Didn't he say something quite interesting? It actually sounded quite useful!"

Slight footsteps rang out, followed by a low, hoarse voice:

"The experience of our ancestors tells us that we must never trust the Human Race!"

A figure with their upper face obscured by a pitch-black hood walked out from the depths of the bamboo forest and said in a deep voice:

"This is the Human Race; not only have they never abandoned the idea of harming the Demon Race, but they will also strike at their own kind without hesitation."

"Do you still not understand? The Human Race is the most despicable and greedy race!"

The person walked up to the small cottage and stopped, locking eyes with the white-haired girl on the swing.

The girl stared for a while, then revealed a smile, began to swing again, and said in a sweet voice:

"Okay, Cang Lanlan~"

Crack.

The person in black stepped on a dead branch underfoot, breaking their composure on the spot, and shouted angrily:

"Yaoyue!!!"

"I will say this one last time! My name is not Cang Lanlan! My name is Cang Lan!"

The girl whom Cang Lan called Yaoyue giggled as she watched her angry appearance and said slowly:

"Okay Cang Lanlan~ Understood Cang Lanlan~ I will definitely call you Cang Lanlan next time~"

"Ahhh!!!"

"Awoo!!!"

Cang Lan angrily tore off her hood, threw it on the ground in a fit of helpless rage, and let out a long howl toward the sky.

At this moment, Cang Lan had changed significantly from her wolf-headed, human-bodied appearance back in Demon Emperor City; apart from the silver-gray wolf ears on her head, there was no difference from an ordinary human.

Cang Lan howled at the sky for a long time, then glared angrily at the girl and snapped:

"Yaoyue! As the Demon God's Child, you need to return to Demon Emperor City with me, instead of wasting your time here!"

Cang Lan never imagined that the Demon God's Child, whom she had gone through so much trouble to find, would actually be in such a slack state.

"Oh my, I'm not going~"

Yaoyue curled her lips in disdain, not intimidated by Cang Lan's aura at all: "I'm staying here just fine, I'm not going anywhere! Besides, I've already said I'm not the Demon God's Child you speak of, why are you still obsessing over it!"

"You are!"

"I am not!"

"You are!!!"

"I am not!!! Well, forget it, stay here if you want, I'm not going anywhere anyway~"

Yaoyue snorted coldly, then put away the half of the Jade Pendant she had been toying with, jumped off the swing, and walked into the cottage.

A scene like this had already happened many times, and Cang Lan knew that even if she continued to argue, there would be no result.

But she didn't want to make the relationship too stiff, so she asked instead:

"Yaoyue, what are you going to do with that Token?"

"Do? Didn't you hear what he said before he died?"

The girl turned her head back, her flower-like smile looking even more enchanting beneath the blood-stained veil, her light purple eyes filled with pleasure.

She said:

"Someone else is coming~"

……

……

On the way to meet up with Chu Hairen at Wanshou City, although Gongsun Changshou appeared to be resting with her eyes closed, she was actually secretly observing Ren Yidao.

Not with her eyes, but silently sensing him with her spiritual power.

For a cultivator, appearance can be disguised and aura can be hidden, but the essence of the soul is very difficult to change.

Regarding this fellow Daoist from the Divine Path Sect, Gongsun Changshou's feelings were somewhat complex.

A bit suspicious, a bit unable to believe it.

This person reminded her of an old friend...

Ren Yidao was aware of Gongsun Changshou's prying, but he did not deliberately stop it.

The other party had no malice, and had always been very measured in not crossing the line, keeping it at a subtle level that was slightly overstepping but not excessive.

After hiding his own important secrets, Ren Yidao let her investigate.

This was the Eastern Wasteland, and it was rare to meet someone from his hometown; he hoped that their relationship would be one of friends, not enemies.

And the most important reason was that the feeling the other party gave him was very subtle.

She seemed... to be suspecting something?