Chapter Twenty-One: The Principles of the Demon Path
The dungeon of the Water Moon Sect was located in the back mountains.
To get from the main hall to the back mountains, one had to make a long detour down, taking a secluded mountain path.
Yan Rouwan silently followed a few male and female disciples.
Her expression was vacant, and her beautiful eyes lacked any spark.
When they reached an uninhabited grove at the foot of the mountain, the leading disciples suddenly stopped.
“Almost there.”
Yan Rouwan slowly raised her head.
“Yan shimei, if we go further, we’ll be at the dungeon.”
The leading male disciple chirped with a grin, “Just came out of the demon prison, and now you’re walking into our sect’s dungeon. I wonder how Yan shimei feels about that?”
Yan Rouwan didn’t respond.
She just tilted her head slightly, as if pondering why they had stopped.
Seeing that Yan Rouwan was silent, the male disciples thought she had been so scared that she had gone dumb, and they burst into laughter.
“Ha ha, looks like Yan shimei’s brain is fried.”
“Anyway, once you enter the sect’s dungeon, there’s basically no chance of coming back out.”
“Why not negotiate some terms with your shixiong?”
He leered at Yan Rouwan before chuckling, “Since shimei has probably served quite a few people in the demon sect, why not do one last good deed before entering the dungeon?”
A female disciple beside them pouted in annoyance:
“Shixiong~ Didn’t we agree to just throw this sl*t out into the wild to die? Why keep her? I’m way prettier than her!”
“Hey, I know shimei can serve people well; this is just giving that sl*t a bit of value before she’s kicked out.”
“Once shixiong has had his fun, just like you wanted, we’ll toss her into the woods for the wolves.”
That female disciple cheerfully agreed, turning to stare at Yan Rouwan with pride and disdain in her eyes.
Yan Rouwan still showed no emotional reaction and calmly countered, “Aren’t you afraid the sect leader will blame you?”
“Blame? Ha ha, what can they do?”
One male disciple laughed, “We’ll just say you tried to escape halfway, and we had no choice but to take you out.”
“In a place where it’s known only to heaven and earth, who cares what the truth is?”
“Did you ever think that after being so high and mighty in the sect, riding high on my little darling’s head, you’d end up like this today?”
Yan Rouwan indeed hadn’t thought of that.
She only felt that everything that had happened in these past few days was like a dream.
From being the center of attention, a shining disciple of the Water Moon Sect,
she had plummeted to the status of a despised traitor.
She slowly bowed her head, her beautiful eyes swirling with an indescribable emotion.
“……I see.”
“Hmm?” The male disciples looked at her in confusion.
“I remembered the first day I was captured by the demon sect. I asked the demon cultivator who interrogated me one question.”
……Why did you betray the sect?
……I forgot.
“Right.” She suddenly let out a self-deprecating chuckle, “I see now; he must have experienced a similar kind of despair.”
“At that time, I only vaguely felt he was being bullied but didn’t pay it any attention, nor did I lend a helping hand.”
“Now that it’s happened to me, I guess it’s deserved that I’m all alone, with no one to help me.”
“This must be karma.”
The disciples exchanged looks, thinking Yan Rouwan had lost her mind.
But in the next moment, a surge of spiritual power slowly rose from her body.
As that power grew, the previously jovial expressions of the disciples gradually turned to shock, disbelief.
Finally, they stumbled back in terror, exclaiming:
“You, when did your cultivation reach the Transformation stage?!”
Yan Rouwan lightly floated up, her disheveled hair dancing in the air.
She tilted her head thoughtfully, then replied seriously:
“Just now.”
It really was just now.
It was as if the moment that thought appeared in her mind,
a mysterious and profound sensation arose from her dantian to her nascent soul. It flooded her limbs and bones, making her feel enveloped in a warm and comfortable sensation.
The long-unbroken shackles of her cultivation also surged forth effortlessly.
From nascent soul directly jumping to a major stage.
Stepping into Transformation.
She didn’t know why.
But it didn’t seem to matter.
“Demoness… demon cultivator!”
The disciples shouted in terror as they scrambled away: “She’s definitely practiced demon techniques, she’s a demon cultivator!”
But they wouldn’t make it far.
Yan Rouwan’s delicate hand had already pierced through the chest of the one speaking, her palm covered in blood as she extracted his heart.
She crushed it mercilessly.
Blood and screams splattered across the face of the female disciple who was frozen in shock on the ground.
In the blink of an eye, there were already four warm bodies lying on the ground.
A few drops of crimson stained Yan Rouwan’s pale face as she turned her enchanting eyes toward the remaining female disciple.
“Whoa!”
The female disciple became scared to the point of feeling hot in her lower half, trembling uncontrollably and unable to move.
Until Yan Rouwan’s delicate hand gently gripped her throat, lifting her slowly.
“Mmm… no…”
The female disciple gasped out a painful plea: “Shijie… spare me…”
Yan Rouwan tilted her head and thought for a moment before asking her:
“If I had begged you just now…”
“Would you have spared me?”
The female disciple frantically nodded.
Yan Rouwan smiled sweetly.
Then she crushed her throat with great force.
As the female disciple’s head tilted and fell limp to the ground,
silence returned to the forest path.
Yan Rouwan stared blankly at the bodies for a while, unsure of what to think.
Behind her, another voice suddenly rang out:
“Congratulations. You’ve taken the first step toward becoming a demon cultivator.”
“How does it feel to personally slaughter your own fellow disciples?”
Yan Rouwan didn’t turn to look at Sang Zhe, who had arrived at some point, but seriously pondered, then said:
“I thought I would feel a lot of guilt.”
“But surprisingly, I don’t feel any at all.”
“……It feels great.” She muttered to herself.
Sang Zhe nodded, “That means they truly deserved to die.”
“Now, there’s no turning back to the sect for you.”
“How’s that?” He chuckled like a salesman, “Our company really needs talents like you.”
“And our benefits are fantastic. Five insurances and one fund, double weekends, plus various perks during holidays…”
Yan Rouwan wasn’t interested in any of that.
She asked, “Will the demon path be different from the sect?”
Sang Zhe thought for a moment and answered seriously: “Not much better, but a little better.”
“At least in the demon path, you can do whatever you want and no one will be hypocritical with you.”
“In the demon path, even if it’s killing and arson, if you want to do it, just go ahead. Nobody will care.”
“But likewise, if you end up being hunted down and killed because of it, no one will save you either.”
“To do what you want to do and be responsible for your actions — that’s the principle of the demon path.”
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