Chapter 57 – Devil Venerable Also Wants to Know

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Chapter 57 – This Venerable permits you

Wenren È walked around to Yin Hanjiang’s front. Yin Hanjiang’s face was flushed, a handkerchief clutched in one hand. A jar of wine was set beside him, with the empty wine cup in his other hand and Wenren È’s robe in his lap.

“Sect Leader Yin, is your alcohol tolerance low?” Wenren È asked.

If a cultivator didn’t want to get drunk, they could use their spiritual essence to expel the alcohol. If one was drunk, either they hadn’t expelled the alcohol, or they were drinking spiritual wine.

Wenren È sniffed the wine jar. It was the spiritual wine he usually drank, made from the spiritual fruits growing in the back mountains. It couldn’t be considered particularly good wine and wasn’t strong enough to get drunk on.

Yin Hanjiang’s eyes were hazy, half his red robe having slipped off. He lazily raised his eyes to look at Wenren È, then poured himself another cup of wine and gulped it down. “Haven’t you switched to calling me Hanjiang by now? How come it’s back to Sect Leader Yin?”

“Hanjiang?” Wenren È repeated.

He had never seen Yin Hanjiang like this before. The Sect Leader Yin he remembered dressed in all black and was silent as a shadow. Though Wenren È knew he was good-looking, ordinarily, he was so reserved he was easy to overlook.

This Yin Hanjiang dressed in scarlet, his hair loose and fluttering in the breeze, a vicious spark in his eyes. Were he in a crowd, his figure would instantly draw one’s sight.

From what Wenren È remembered, Yin Hanjiang typically never drank, only secretly stealing a sip when Wenren È wasn’t looking. Wenren È never imagined he’d see him throwing back one cup after another.

“This jar and cup…” Wenren È raised an eyebrow, faintly remembering that these were the ones he had given him, after catching him drinking wine.

“The Venerable has drank from them.” The corner of Yin Hanjiang’s lips, pressed against the edge of the empty cup, showed a slight smile.

An odd feeling rose in Wenren È’s heart. He looked at the unfamiliar Yin Hanjiang before him, so eye-catching compared to his previous self.

“This Venerable assumed you didn’t like wine.” Wenren È also sat down on Yin Hanjiang’s left side. Things hadn’t developed the way he had expected, but he didn’t mind chatting with Yin Hanjiang for a bit.

“Right, I don’t like wine.” Yin Hanjiang looked toward his right and raised his cup toward empty air. “I like the wine that my Venerable has tasted. After he’s taken a sip, I’m willing to drink it.”

Wenren È: ?

Only now did he realize that every time Yin Hanjiang poured a cup, he first tipped it toward the empty air on his right side, spilling a drop, as if feeding it to someone.

After offering it to empty air, he then turned the cup, placing the side that had faced the air against his lips and slowly enjoying the wine.

“Sect Leader Yin, who are you giving the wine to?” Wenren È sensed something was wrong.

“What, do you want some too?” Yin Hanjiang looked toward Wenren È with hazy eyes. He lifted the wine jar, giving it a shake. “Too bad there’s no more.”

He held the jar in his arms, wiping away nonexistent dust with his sleeves. Pressing its cold surface against his cheek, he blissfully closed his eyes. “My Venerable gave me this jar and cup, that he drank from.”

He raised the handkerchief clenched in one hand. “This is the handkerchief my Venerable once used to wipe his hands. It had Protector Shu’s blood on it, but I washed it clean and kept it.”

Wenren È furrowed his brows. After a while, he finally remembered that Shu Yanyan had once thought he liked Baili Qingmiao and tried to tempt him with her. Wenren È had nearly cracked her skull with his hand as a warning, her blood being left on his fingertips. Yin Hanjiang, right behind him, handed over a handkerchief, which Wenren È had tossed away casually after wiping his fingers.

Yin Hanjiang rubbed his cheek with the handkerchief, a contented smile on his face. Finally, he carefully put the handkerchief, the wine jar, and the cup into a storage space. The Army Crushing Spike was left carelessly by his side.

The spike had been forged with Wenren È’s blood and soul, so he instantly recognized it as the Army Crushing Sword. “Is that your bonded weapon, Sect Leader Yin?” he couldn’t help asking. “Wasn’t it a sword? How come it looks like this now?”

“If the Venerable wants me to use the sword, I’ll use the sword. If the Venerable thinks I’m suited to being a sword cultivator, I’ll be a sword cultivator.” Yin Hanjiang held Wenren È’s robe in his arms, his eyes blurred. “If the Venerable doesn’t allow me to follow him in death, then I’ll live on.”

“Sect Leader Yin, this Venerable only made a suggestion. My ideas might not always suit you, and you don’t need to follow me in everything.” As Wenren È looked at Yin Hanjiang, he suddenly realized that he had never really seen this subordinate of his. The Yin Hanjiang he saw was an act in accordance to Wenren È’s expectations.

He thought he had expressed himself clearly, but Yin Hanjiang didn’t even look at him. Instead, he reached out a hand toward empty air, as if stroking someone’s face. He said in a low voice, “Does the Venerable like Baili Qingmiao? How about I send her to be with you?”

“This Venerable doesn’t like her,” Wenren È said.

Yin Hanjiang’s gaze finally turned toward Wenren È. He reached out and grabbed for Wenren È’s sleeve, but his hand passed through his body. Wenren È’s current body was condensed from primordial chaos, so couldn’t be touched.

“This Venerable…”

Wenren È wanted to explain his current condition, but Yin Hanjiang said, “False.”

His expression didn’t change, as if he had experienced this a thousand times already. He reached out toward his front, back, and right, grabbing nothing each time, and threw back his head in laughter. “False, all false.”

“Only this is real.” He clutched Wenren È’s robe to his chest, curling up on the ground by the spiritual spring, closing his eyes. He seemed to have fallen asleep.

“How many of me are you seeing?” At this point, Wenren È generally understood Yin Hanjiang’s condition.

Yin Hanjiang didn’t reply. He would speak to an illusion if he was lonely, but he mostly ignored them. He especially couldn’t reveal his weakness in front of other people.

Wenren È sat next to the sleeping Yin Hanjiang, thinking back to the Ghost Mask in Abusive Romance. Putting that together with the Sect Leader Yin before him, he seemed to finally understand something.

Yin Hanjiang hadn’t deviated and lost control. For Wenren È, he had been suppressing his true nature from the start.

After reading that book, he had kept telling Yin Hanjiang that what he needed wasn’t an obedient subordinate, but a companion who could fight alongside him. Ever since he had picked up that child and told him to practice the sword, Wenren È had been filling him with his own notions, but it hadn’t been what Yin Hanjiang wanted.

Wenren È thought Yin Hanjiang was suited for being a sword cultivator, so Yin Hanjiang became a sword cultivator. Wenren È thought Yin Hanjiang was his most loyal subordinate, so Yin Hanjiang changed his personality to one that would put Wenren È at ease. Wenren È thought that Yin Hanjiang would be able to take over Xuanyuan Sect in his absence, so Yin Hanjiang had done his best to live up to his expectations.

Every time Wenren È’s notions clashed with Yin Hanjiang’s own personality, he always chose Wenren È.

The Lord of Demons sat beside the spring, looking toward the full moon rising on the horizon. He took out a handful of water from his storage space using spiritual energy, letting it reflect the moon in the sky.

This was Yin Hanjiang’s favorite source of joy in his youth. After the Great Sect War, he had given it to Wenren È.

He seemed to see a scene where a young Yin Hanjiang smiled contentedly, watching the empty reflection of the moon on the water.

“This Venerable was wrong,” Wenren È said quietly, putting away that handful of water.

After taking in that child, he had raised him to be what he wanted him to be. He thought he had given him the best, but he had never considered whether they were things Yin Hanjiang wanted.

Inner demons didn’t form overnight. At the very beginning, Wenren È had planted their seeds into Yin Hanjiang’s heart.

He brought out the red stone, clutching it in one hand. “I’ll borrow this for a moment,” he said quietly.

With the stone in his hand, his body became solid, and the robe that had been created from chaos energy vanished. With a flick of his fingers, he had the robe in Yin Hanjiang’s arms fly onto his body, then sat by Yin Hanjiang’s side, lightly stroking his hair.

“Huh?” Yin Hanjiang’s spiritual sense was sharp and he woke instantly. On discovering the robe was gone, he became frantic, losing all his stubborn composure from before. He scrabbled around everywhere, looking for it.

Wenren È let his sleeve brush against Yin Hanjiang’s face. He grabbed the sleeve and said quietly, “Right here.”

Yin Hanjiang saw that the Wenren È before him was wearing his real robe. Grabbing his hand, he found it was solid.

“The inner demons are already so strong?” Yin Hanjiang shook his head in a daze. Though he believed it to be fake, he still held onto Wenren È’s hand.

“Sect Leader Yin, this Venerable is real. I’ve returned from the Blood Hell,” Wenren È said.

“Right, the Venerable has returned,” Yin Hanjiang said lightly, not really believing.

Wenren È didn’t mind if Yin Hanjiang thought he was fake. Seizing this opportunity, he began to speak. “The Wenren clan had been dedicated to the emperor and the people for generations, yet wound up executed to a man. Digging around in a mass grave, I dragged out one headless corpse after another. With each body I dug out, I hoped to find that it had a head, and the person was still alive, but I didn’t find a single one. Probably, ever since then, an obsession had taken root in my heart, a hope that even one member of the Wenren clan had survived.

“After many years passed, I believed that I had let go of attachments and escaped the chaos of the mortal world, traveling down the path of immortality without any connections to family. But this obsession still remained deep within me.

“When I picked you up in a mass grave, my first act was to touch your neck. From that moment onward, I took you as a survivor of the Wenren clan, and raised you to be a general.

“It was all my fault. It was my obsession that turned you into this.”

Wenren È pulled Yin Hanjiang into his lap. “From now, Yin Hanjiang need not live for Wenren È. You should use your own eyes and ears to decide. You don’t need a mask, and you don’t need to pretend. Do the things you want.”

Yin Hanjiang knew this was an inner demon, but the warm embrace, the gentle tone, and the words he had never heard before led him to willingly indulge in it.

“I want to take vengeance for my Venerable,” Yin Hanjiang said. “I’m a ruthless person and might ruin the plan my Venerable has set. I have to be patient. I can’t act out.”

“You can act out,” Wenren È said. “This Venerable permits you. Whatever you want to do, I’ll help you.”

“I want to destroy everything you love and offer them to you, so they can accompany you down there. Can I?” Yin Hanjiang lifted his head, looking expectantly at Wenren È.

” …I don’t like Baili Qingmiao. You don’t need to burn her.”

“How wonderful.” Yin Hanjiang sighed. “No wonder so many people are unable to escape the illusions of their inner demons, when it’s so perfect.”

“I’m not an inner demon.”

Yin Hanjiang didn’t listen to him. He pursed his lips and, after taking a deep breath, said, “What if this subordinate liked the Venerable? Can I?”

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Thank you for reading. If there are any mistakes, I hope my fellow cultivators will offer guidance.

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