Chapter 1426: Choose the Lesser of Two Evils

Night lay deep beneath a vast sky of stars.

To receive news from Xi Haitang in time, and more importantly to receive the antidote quickly, the group did not dare travel too far. They merely left the small town behind and found a secluded ravine deep in the mountains.

While they waited in the valley, Niu Youdao sat on a rock beneath a cliff and never once let go of Yin’er.

In truth, it was not easy to let go.

He had to keep helping Yin’er balance the aberrant demon qi inside her, preventing her from losing control and transforming.

If she truly caused a disturbance now, no one knew what sort of trouble it might attract.

Yin’er likewise kept both arms tightly around his neck and refused to release him. She was in terrible pain and needed something to cling to. Holding Niu Youdao at least gave her a measure of peace.

Her ten fingers, however, were no longer under her control. She had already clawed Niu Youdao’s back raw.

Returning to human form did not mean she had become completely powerless. Although Niu Youdao used spiritual power to protect himself, after enough time her scratching still tore his clothes apart and left his back bloody and mangled.

Niu Youdao did not blame her at all. He showed no sign of resentment, not even much of a reaction.

He simply continued holding her, neck pressed against hers as the two clung tightly together, murmuring from time to time beside her ear, “Yin’er, it’s all right.”

He remained there with her. He kept giving her the sound of his reassurance.

For Yin’er, enduring such pain, it truly helped.

When Yuan Gang saw what Yin’er had done to Niu Youdao’s back, he stepped in and offered to take over. His skin was thick and his body tough. He could endure it better.

But Yin’er did not want him.

Especially in the midst of such agony, the moment someone tried to separate her from Niu Youdao, she began murmuring, “Dao-Dao...” Her consciousness was already close to slipping into a half-coma.

Niu Youdao could only give up the idea. He told Yuan Gang it was fine, then continued soothing Yin’er at her ear like a child. “It’s all right. I’m here. Don’t be afraid.”

Yuan Gang had no choice but to leave it.

Yun Ji saw that Niu Youdao’s back had been clawed until the flesh was torn open and bone was nearly visible. She was about to use spiritual power to restrain Yin’er’s hands when Niu Youdao shook his head.

“Don’t restrain her. She’s suffering badly. Let her vent it somehow.”

Yun Ji could only fall silent and step back.

Like Yuan Gang, she kept glancing at the sky from time to time with the same thought in mind.

Why had the antidote still not arrived?

Lü Wushuang had naturally witnessed the gruesome state of Niu Youdao’s back as well. She could smell the blood. Unable to restrain her curiosity, she moved closer to Yun Ji and Yuan Gang and asked Yun Ji, “Are Niu Youdao and the Holy Rakshasa lovers?”

Yun Ji gave her a sidelong look.

The so-called Sacred Venerable did not seem much different from an ordinary woman after all.

“You’re imagining things.”

Yuan Gang could not resist adding, “Do you think everyone is like you, with nothing in their head but matters between men and women?”

That retort was harsh enough.

Lü Wushuang was no gentle soul herself. She replied indifferently, “In your eyes, Yuan Gang, I certainly don’t count as a good person. But at least I’m better than certain people who get mixed up in sordid affairs with another man’s wife, then insist on pretending to be upright gentlemen after doing the deed. Ridiculous.”

She was plainly referring to Yuan Gang and Feng Guan’er.

Yuan Gang’s eyes instantly blazed with anger.

Lü Wushuang lifted her chin and chest. “It isn’t too late to regret your promise. It’s not as if you’ve never broken your word before. You can always discard me once I’ve served my purpose and kill me!”

Yuan Gang’s fist clenched sharply.

Yun Ji reached out and pressed down on his arm, giving a small shake of her head. “Settle it after we get back.”

This was not the time to kill Lü Wushuang.

They still had use for her. Her appearance alone had played an enormous role in driving away the people surrounding Yin’er.

If they intended to oppose the Six Sacred Venerables, then when it came to understanding those six, there was probably no one clearer than Lü Wushuang.

Capturing someone like her was an opportunity one could only encounter by chance.

There was an old saying when enemies faced one another: know yourself and know your enemy, and you can win a hundred battles.

Niu Youdao understood that principle, and Yuan Gang could hardly fail to understand it. Otherwise, back in the Fifth Domain, he would never have spared Lü Wushuang beneath his blade simply because of one sentence from her.

Without Niu Youdao’s permission, Yuan Gang truly could not act recklessly. Teeth clenched, he turned away and walked to the side, his mood visibly disturbed.

They waited and waited.

At last, a Goldenwing descended from the sky.

Xi Haitang’s reply had finally arrived, along with the antidote.

A short secret letter accompanied it, identifying the poison. There truly was an antidote, and Xi Haitang had managed to obtain it. He had sent enough for several people.

Naturally, what Xi Haitang cared about most was one question: what exactly was going on with Lü Wushuang?

Niu Youdao could decide later how much to explain about that.

At the moment, he had no attention to spare for anything else. The most important thing was curing Yin’er.

Most of the antidote meant for several people was forced into Yin’er in a single dose. Yun Ji then used spiritual power to accelerate the medicine’s effects.

When the antidote began to work and Yin’er gradually eased out of her torment, proving the medicine effective, Niu Youdao and the other two finally breathed a sigh of relief.

Once she quieted down, Yin’er was utterly exhausted and fell into a deep sleep.

Niu Youdao carefully pried her away from himself. After confirming that her condition would not flare up again, he finally dissolved all the remaining aberrant demon qi inside her.

Yun Ji hurried behind him and began applying medicine to the ghastly wounds across his back. As she treated him, she sighed. “There really was no need to let it get this bad. Why put yourself through that?”

Niu Youdao remained calm and said nothing.

Lü Wushuang, however, watched with considerable interest from the side.

After her earlier questioning, she now knew that Niu Youdao and Yin’er did not share that sort of special relationship. Precisely because of that, she found the scene intriguing.

Before, she had only found Yuan Gang interesting. Now she was discovering that Niu Youdao seemed rather interesting as well.

One burned with open, blazing intensity.

The other was deep and restrained.

Yuan Gang took Yin’er from Niu Youdao’s arms and laid her flat on the ground. Only then did he move close to Niu Youdao and ask quietly, “What do we do now? Yin’er is straightforward by nature. We can’t keep her buried underground forever. If she’s unhappy, she’s unhappy. We might confine her for a while, but not indefinitely. If we take her back, I’m afraid no one will be able to control her. Should we send her back to the Butterfly Dream Illusory Realm?”

That was indeed a problem.

Saving someone was not easy, but deciding what to do with them afterward could be just as troublesome. Niu Youdao felt a headache coming on.

As Yuan Gang had said, taking her back was problematic.

This demon was like a little tail that followed him everywhere. Wherever Niu Youdao went, she had always wanted to go too. Leave her unsupervised for a single day and she might throw a fit.

When this seemingly innocent girl lost her temper, it was nothing like an ordinary person losing theirs. Once truly enraged, she recognized neither kin nor friend. If gods blocked her path, she killed gods; if Buddhas blocked her path, she killed Buddhas.

Niu Youdao had too many matters to handle and often needed to go out.

If he were absent and she caused trouble, good heavens, she could destroy years of his painstaking work in a single outburst. Even if his people were not killed by Yin’er herself, she could still drag the whole lot of them into disaster.

The real problem was that there was no reasoning with this sort of “child.”

Keeping her at his side would let him control her, but he could not actually take her around with him.

The moment an outsider saw her, they would think: Isn’t that the glutton who used to follow Niu Youdao around?

And if the girl opened her mouth and called him “Dao-Dao,” that would truly be a joke beyond repair.

After thinking it through again and again, Niu Youdao sighed. “Sending her back to the Butterfly Dream Illusory Realm probably won’t work. She’s in human form now and remembers what happened as a human. If we send her back and she transforms into the Holy Rakshasa, she’ll immediately forget the human side and remember being attacked by the five Sacred Venerables. Then she’ll run out again.”

“We can save her once. We can’t keep saving her over and over forever, doing nothing else with our time. We don’t have that ability either. Lü Wushuang’s usefulness worked once. It may not work a second time.”

He could already imagine what would happen after the Six Sacred Venerables learned of this. They would certainly notify Misty Pavilion that Lü Wushuang’s orders were no longer to be obeyed.

In other words, by saving Yin’er, they had already spent one particular use of the Lü Wushuang card.

At least against Misty Pavilion, that card would no longer work.

“Take her back?” Yuan Gang had to remind him. “With the way she acts up, bringing her back could cause trouble.”

Niu Youdao sighed. “What else can we do? We put in this much effort to save her. We can’t simply throw her aside afterward. What difference would that make from not saving her at all?”

“Bring her back. Let the Commandery Princess watch her. She’ll listen to the Commandery Princess. Wasn’t it always like that before? Whenever I wasn’t around, I could leave her with the Commandery Princess and she would behave. The Commandery Princess can keep her under control.”

“The Commandery Princess?” Yuan Gang began, then stopped. “Aren’t you afraid...”

“Of two harms, choose the lesser.” Niu Youdao waved a hand, unwilling to say more. He stood. “Since the antidote works, there’s no need to stay here any longer. The people Misty Pavilion mobilized may still be heading this way, and the Six Sacred Venerables may arrive tomorrow. This place is not safe. We return immediately!”

Once the decision was made, they did not delay. The group departed urgently through the night.

...

Shouque Villa.

Luo Qiu stood with his hands clasped behind his back at the railing of the eastern pavilion. He wore a green robe, his frame lean, and the slightest movement of his gaze carried the air of a man looking down upon all beneath Heaven.

Wu Chang stood quietly on the western pavilion with his hands hanging at his sides, bare-chested, his long hair falling over his shoulders and occasionally lifting in the wind.

On the covered bridge between the two pavilions, Granny Xue leaned on her cane and paced back and forth from time to time. Every so often, her eyes drifted toward Luo Qiu.

On the open ground below, Du Wuxu and Lan Daolin also occasionally glanced up toward the pavilion.

Luo Qiu did not know whether he was imagining it, but he felt as though those four kept studying him. It made him secretly wary, and he began wondering whether the message he had received might conceal some trap.

The Six Sacred Venerables had all begun receiving urgent messages from Misty Pavilion.

The Holy Rakshasa had broken into the mortal world.

This was no small matter, and it was urgent enough that they had no choice but to act personally. They ruled beneath Heaven, and at certain times that authority carried responsibility with it.

At a moment like this, how could they sit by and allow the Holy Rakshasa to bring calamity upon the mortal world and disrupt the order under their control?

For this reason, they had set aside every other matter and placed this one above all else.

Those who had arrived were waiting for the rest to gather.

This was unlike ordinary business. Zhangsun Mi and Mu Lianze’s deaths stood as warnings before them. None of the others would go alone to deal with the Holy Rakshasa. Naturally, they intended to wait until everyone was present and act together.

With these figures gathered here, the entire Shouque Villa had fallen silent. Everyone from top to bottom moved with their tails tucked between their legs.

A plump figure came breaking through the air.

As usual, Yuan Se was fashionably late. After landing, he cheerfully cupped his hands toward the others. “Late, late. My apologies to everyone!”

Whether they forgave him hardly mattered.

What truly caught everyone’s attention was his eye.

The blind eye had been restored.

Granny Xue flashed down and landed beside him. After studying him for a moment, she gave a slight nod. “You look quite pleased with it. Seems Hei Li’s medical skill really is extraordinary.”

Du Wuxu strolled over. “He’s pleased enough. I imagine the woman who sleeps beside him is less pleased. Normally she already has to endure that kind of weight pressing down on her, and when something happens, he even digs out her eye. Truly a case of meeting the wrong man.”

Lan Daolin ambled over as well and joined the teasing. “Last time the Holy Rakshasa clawed out one of your eyes. Now you’re about to face her again. Maybe she’ll claw out another. But no matter. That woman Consort Yuan still has one eye left, doesn’t she? Enough for you.”

The teasing drew suppressed smiles from most of them.

But when the subject turned to gouging out eyes, Luo Qiu could not laugh.

His thoughts drifted elsewhere.

[End of Chapter 1426]