Watching the Mountain

Chapter 224: Chapter 153: The Choice

Time passed, bit by bit. Jiang Xiaohui’s convulsions slowly stopped, and his breathing, though faint, gradually steadied. His life was saved, for the time being.

Jiang Ling’Er sat slumped on the ground, staring blankly at her own hands—corroded by the poisoned earth, a mangled mess of flesh and caked in filthy blood. Her hands throbbed with pain, but her heart was just a numb, empty void.

She slowly raised her head and looked toward the few Snake Race Demon Cultivators in the distance, their faces a mixture of shock and uncertainty.

In the vision, her eyes had changed.

The light in her eyes that had once held panic, sorrow, and a yearning for approval was extinguished, bit by bit. Like firewood burned to nothing, all that remained was a layer of cold ash.

She didn’t cry or curse. She simply spoke to herself in a voice so soft it made Xu Ran’s heart sink:

”I was wrong.”

She wasn’t admitting her mistake to her enemies.

”From now on,” she said, slowly hugging Jiang Xiaohui close as she staggered to her feet. Her filthy, blood-caked hands gripped the shortsword she rarely used. ”The rules... I’ll be the one to set them.”

The moment she gripped her sword, stood tall, and met her enemies’ gazes head-on for the first time, the Jiang Ling’Er who yearned for praise and trusted others so easily was gone—buried by her own hands beneath this foul, poisoned earth.

Standing in her place was a survivor who had clawed her way out of despair, her eyes holding nothing but the will to protect and a deep-seated wariness.

Here, the memory-vision slowly faded to black.

After watching the contents of the memory-vision, his expression immediately darkened.

His eyes grew indifferent, his aura chilling.

Her world, it seemed, was gray.

When Xu Ran saw the Jiang Ling’Er in that vision, he felt a sudden, violent pang in his heart, as if someone had grabbed it and squeezed.

He simply couldn’t reconcile the person in the vision with the timid, clear-eyed, and naive apprentice who was now in the Scripture Pavilion.

Xu Ran’s expression was incredibly grim. The reason for all of this went back to the Dog Race inheritance that Jiang Xiaohui had accepted.

The Dog Race’s inheritance consisted of two main parts: an inheritance of knowledge, and an inheritance of Demon Essence.

The two were passed down simultaneously. That is to say, one had to accept the inheritance of Demon Essence at the same time as the inheritance of knowledge.

This Demon Essence was not the same as a Cultivator’s Spiritual Power. Instead, it was the most refined portion left after a fallen Demon Cultivator’s Essence, Qi, and Spirit had undergone a transformation.

However, to accept this Demon Essence, one also had to pass a trial—the Evil Qi.

It was the most dangerous element for any member of the Demon Race undergoing the inheritance. Failure to withstand the corrosion from the overwhelming Evil Qi would be fatal.

In the Dog Race, after a Demon Cultivator received the inheritance, they would need a very long time to expel the Evil Qi, bit by bit, before they could continue the process.

After Jiang Xiaohui’s first inheritance session, he was accidentally overcome by the Evil Qi while trying to expel it. Unable to bear seeing him in such agony, Jiang Ling’Er acted out of desperation and absorbed the Evil Qi from his body into herself.

Then, for some unknown reason, she actually managed to refine the Evil Qi and even increased her Cultivation in the process.

Both Jiang Xiaohui and Jiang Ling’Er were completely baffled, having no idea what was going on.

Later, they experimented a few times and confirmed she could indeed refine the Evil Qi, though the process was extremely perilous. However, word of her ability got out.

Everyone in the Dog Race found out that Jiang Ling’Er could refine Evil Qi, and soon, word spread to the neighboring Demon Cultivators. To accelerate their own inheritances, they began to scheme against her...

Xu Ran couldn’t understand what that girl had been thinking. ’A full hundred times... how could she be willing to be deceived a hundred times and still choose to believe again?’

Every single time was an incredibly perilous process for her. One misstep could have been fatal. The Demon Cultivators who tricked her didn’t care whether she lived or died—they just wanted to use her to refine Evil Qi.

Then came the one hundred and first time. It was a tribe from the Snake Race, and they decided to make a move on Jiang Xiaohui in order to control Jiang Ling’Er completely.

That time, Jiang Xiaohui’s life hung by a thread. A moment’s delay, and Jiang Ling’Er would have lost him for good.

Fortunately, Jiang Xiaohui was saved. But in the process, Jiang Ling’Er lost all trust in the world.

Xu Ran wasn’t sure what had changed about his Cultivation Technique in Jiang Ling’Er’s hands; perhaps even she couldn’t explain it.

Both Evil Qi and Demon Essence were incredibly potent supplements that allowed her to grow with astonishing speed. At the same time, this made her a must-have prize for Demon Cultivators, who hunted her relentlessly.

Xu Ran’s face was dark as he clenched his fists. ’My apprentice, who was as innocent as a blank sheet of paper, went to the Demon Race’s lands and was turned into... this.’

’A hundred times in just two short years... How could they have the heart to keep deceiving such a naive, innocent girl?’

Jiang Xiaohui said there was a month left.

’Perhaps it’s time for me to make a choice, too.’