ATAVID CH3: Temptation

Jiang Qunyu stood deep within Wei Xun’s sea of consciousness, not knowing what expression to make for a moment.

He was still too kind-hearted.
To think he would actually believe the words of a lunatic.

Thinking of the feeling of having his neck snapped and his heart pierced by a sword fifteen minutes ago, Jiang Qunyu still couldn’t help but grind his teeth.
Phantom pain lingered on the back of his neck, and the chill of that sword seemed to still be lodged in his chest.
Even though he was a soul body, the sensation of pain was very real.
Which meant that every time he died, he would have to experience it entirely all over again.

Jiang Qunyu suddenly felt like throwing in the towel.
But since he had already taken this step, he wasn’t willing to admit defeat until he reached a dead end.

This time, Jiang Qunyu didn’t show himself as easily as the last time.
He transformed into a wisp of black mist and floated out from Wei Xun’s sea of consciousness.

The surrounding environment had already changed drastically; it was no longer the dark, damp water dungeon.
The sky was murky and dark, with a full moon hanging near the treetops in the distance. There was also a faint, thin mist vaguely present in the air.

Jiang Qunyu landed lightly on Wei Xun’s shoulder, looking around warily.
Wei Xun was standing on the stone steps outside the water dungeon. Now that he was “dead,” the so-called restrictions were practically non-existent to him.
The clear, cold moonlight slanted down, stretching his shadow on the ground thin and long until it almost blended into the depths of the night.

It was currently the dead of winter, and the bluestone-paved path was still covered with a shallow layer of white snow.
Wei Xun was dressed thinly; his plain white clothes made him look like a gorgeous ghost crawling out of the water. His jet-black hair was scattered behind him, and his pitch-black pupils stared straight at the water dungeon, which was dancing with ghostly blue flames.

The air was mixed with the intermittent wailing sounds of other demons in the water dungeon that hadn’t died yet, as well as an unspeakable smell, like some kind of scorched meat.
Even though Jiang Qunyu knew Wei Xun wasn’t a good person, the scene before him still made his stomach churn.
His heart was beating extremely fast, every thump feeling like it was going to leap out of his chest.

Perhaps because he was too focused on the tragic scene before him, Jiang Qunyu didn’t notice.
While he was utterly absorbed in looking at the raging fire, the unusually pitch-black eyes of Wei Xun beside him shifted extremely slowly toward his shoulder.

Wei Xun didn’t linger here for too long. He expressionlessly withdrew his gaze, turned around, and stepped into the night.
Jiang Qunyu knew that he was going to kill Rong Wangshu and Wei Miao.

Not long after they started walking, the man and the demon ran into the two disciples who had just returned from drinking wine.

“The Rong family’s Second Young Master really is beautiful. No wonder Junior Brother Wei Miao would rather bear the infamy of stealing his older brother’s fiancée just to form a Dao companion contract with him,” the blue-robed disciple stumbled as he mumbled with slurred speech.
The other disciple: “Isn’t that so? But you can’t blame Second Young Master Rong either. Even though Wei Xun was a rare prodigy, that was only in the past. Who doesn’t know that right now, Wei Xun is just a piece of trash with no cultivation? He’s probably not even as good as you or me.”

Hearing this, the blue-robed disciple also laughed out loud. “You’re right. If I were Second Young Master Rong, I would choose Junior Brother Wei Miao, too.”
The other disciple had perhaps drunk too much and sneered, “Nowadays, Wei Xun has nothing going for him except that face. He’s no different from a cripple; I don’t know what he’s being so aloof about. With that face of his, if… if he followed me, I naturally wouldn’t treat him poorly to the point of—”

Before his words even fell, a piercingly cold sword intent silently slashed across his neck.
In the next instant, that disciple’s head rolled off, spinning a few times on the ground. Bizarrely, there wasn’t a single drop of blood at the wound.

The blue-robed disciple mumbled, “Where did the wind come from?”
Half-opening his eyes, he didn’t know if he was seeing things, but he actually saw what looked like a massive fire not far away.
But the fire was truly eerie. It was a ghostly blue, and the flames danced as if someone were dancing within them.

His drunkenness vanished mostly in an instant.

“S-Senior Brother…” his voice trembled. “Look at the direction of the fire… isn’t that the water dungeon?”
He cast a sidelong glance, only to see a headless corpse standing ramrod straight in place, devoid of any signs of life.

The blue-robed disciple was stunned for a long while, then suddenly his legs gave out, and he collapsed directly onto the ground.
He was completely awake now.

A chill shot up from the soles of his feet, instantly crawling all over his back.
Somewhere in the unseen world, he felt a pair of cold eyes staring at him from the depths of the dark night.
That gaze felt almost tangible, choking his throat and breeding a near-instinctive urge to flee.

But before he could make a move, he saw a tall, slender figure slowly walking over from not far away.
The person held an extremely beautiful sword in his hand, its entire body glowing white like jade, but the blade was wreathed in thick black mist.
It was a cultivator who had fallen into the demonic path.

He didn’t walk fast, his ankle-length black hair swaying slightly in the wind.
But the blue-robed disciple felt as if he were nailed to the spot, unable to move even half a bit, trembling all over as he watched the figure draw nearer and nearer.

There was also a faint scent of plum blossoms in the wind. Under the bright moonlight, the blue-robed disciple finally saw the incoming person’s face clearly.
To think it was actually Wei Xun, whom they had just been carelessly discussing.

“J-Junior Brother Wei.” The blue-robed disciple’s Adam’s apple bobbed violently, his voice trembling uncontrollably. He fell to his knees, crawling and scrambling, and desperately kowtowed to Wei Xun, attempting to beg for a sliver of life.
“Junior Brother Wei, I was wrong… I shouldn’t have put snakes and bugs in your cell, I shouldn’t have deducted your food, I shouldn’t have…”

He repented incoherently, pouring out every evil deed he had done in the past. After talking for an unknown amount of time, he suddenly changed his tune, pushing all the blame away clean:
“It was all Junior Brother Wei Miao who told me to do it! It was all him! I wasn’t willing to! Back then, it was Junior Brother who saved my life; now, can Junior Brother spare my life once more?”

Snot and tears streamed down the blue-robed disciple’s face. As he thought back, he vaguely remembered the Junior Brother in his memories—outstandingly talented, yet pure and kind-hearted, gentle and polite to everyone.
During their trials in the secret realm, Wei Xun had saved his life from the mouths of fierce beasts more than once.

So he was still fantasizing, begging, hoping that Wei Xun wouldn’t hold it against him, praying that the person before him still retained half a bit of his former benevolence.
“Aren’t you also out alive now? Since you have already escaped, why can’t you let me go?” he asked in a trembling voice, a final trace of a fluke lingering in his eyes.

Right, why couldn’t he let him go?
Wei Xun lowered his eyes, his thick black eyelashes trembling lightly.
He turned his wrist slightly, and that glowing white ice sword silently pierced the blue-robed disciple’s chest, sinking in slowly, inch by inch.

Naturally, he couldn’t let him go.

Wei Xun remembered those gu bugs gnawing at his wounds. Every time they scabbed over, this disciple would release venomous insects into the dark dungeon again, sometimes snakes and ants, sometimes centipedes.
Those centipedes would crawl into his ears, those bugs and ants would burrow into his body.
The tips of the centipedes’ legs were as thin as needles, bringing a flurry of subtle, itchy sensations as they crawled over his auricle. Their hard shells rubbed against the ear canal walls, and panic swept over him like drowning.

Swarms of bugs and ants would gather around, burrowing into the crook of his neck along his collar, crawling over the hollow of his collarbone, and drilling into his flesh and blood. The skin would be pushed up into tiny bulges, then slowly flatten out again.

It hurt it hurt it hurt it hurt it hurt it hurt…
Why should he let them go?
He would kill them.

The blue-robed disciple had long since stopped breathing, his warm blood seeping into the pale snow and turning cold.
The faint scent of plum blossoms mixed with the smell of blood in the air, creating an indescribable weirdness.

Wei Xun retracted his natal sword into his body and walked down the mountain.

Excluding the time Wei Xun killed him, this was the first time Jiang Qunyu had seen a murder scene.
His face was deathly pale, and his heart was beating extremely fast.
But he wasn’t afraid.

After hearing that disciple’s near-confession, what surged up in his heart was a wave of chilling coldness.
The original book had only briefly mentioned a few lines about Wei Xun’s blackening, never detailing the specific torture and betrayal.
But those few words just now were enough for Jiang Qunyu to piece together a bloody, cruel trajectory in his mind.

After Wei Xun was dragged down from the altar, these people he had once saved with his own hands turned around and became his abusers.
They bullied him, humiliated him, mocked his origins, and trampled his past kindness into the mud.

Jiang Qunyu didn’t consider himself a saint, but no matter how much he disliked Wei Xun, he felt that these people truly deserved to die.
Rarely, he actually birthed a trace of understanding for Wei Xun.

“Aren’t you going to deal with their corpses?” Jiang Qunyu asked.
Wei Xun showed no surprise at the voice that suddenly appeared by his ear. He looked lethargic, his eyelids half-drooping. “Why should I deal with them?”
He paused, the corners of his lips curving into an extremely faint arc. “Don’t you think it’s beautiful like this?”

Jiang Qunyu: “…”
He really didn’t think so.
He thought Wei Xun was a psychopath.

Jiang Qunyu felt he should also do something an inner demon ought to do.
Jiang Qunyu recalled the male-oriented power fantasy novels he had read before, and the lines the inner demons usually said after the protagonist bred them.
So he floated to Wei Xun’s ear, laughed loudly a few times first, then said, “Then do you want to kill everyone who ever humiliated you? Do you want to possess supreme power?”

Jiang Qunyu tried his best to imitate that bewitching tone, pressing his voice low and slow.
Wei Xun raised an eyebrow, his gloomy face gaining a bit of lively expression. His tone was weird, his pitch-black eyes as deeply cold as a freezing pool. “If I wanted it, could you give it to me?”

Jiang Qunyu didn’t feel a shred of guilt. “Naturally.”

Wei Xun curled his lips. He hadn’t walked in a long time, so he was walking very slowly right now.
If Jiang Qunyu observed carefully, he would realize that Wei Xun’s entire being was abnormal right now.
He looked like he was just learning how to walk, his whole body very stiff, but his tone was so brisk it was almost jumping for joy: “Since you are an inner demon, what do you want to get from me?”

Jiang Qunyu took the opportunity to tempt him: “Your body. Lend your body to me for two days, and I will give you everything you seek.”
“If you want it, I will just give it to you,” Wei Xun laughed cheerfully.

Jiang Qunyu, however, froze.
He definitely didn’t want Wei Xun’s body!
He merely wanted to anger Wei Xun into killing him, that’s all.

Though he did want to negotiate with Wei Xun.
It was fine to kill him, but could he stab somewhere else? It hurt terribly.

“Why are you so agreeable?” Jiang Qunyu couldn’t resist asking.
Why didn’t this lunatic play by the rules?
When a normal person hears that they have to give their body to their inner demon, wouldn’t their first reaction be to refuse?
Something born out of their own desires, wanting their body.
This was fucking possession!

Wei Xun: “Since you are my inner demon, then you are me. You and I are both me; what difference does it make who controls the body?”

A hundred thousand percent not right.
Jiang Qunyu absolutely didn’t believe he truly thought this way.
If that was really the case, why would the original book set a rule that one had to kill their inner demon seven times to achieve great completion in the sword path? Not to mention, not long ago, Wei Xun was a bright and clear sect prodigy.
No matter how much he blackened later, the initial Wei Xun must have felt rejection and disgust towards the inner demons in his heart.
Even in the later stages, he was still trying to find a way to break his inner demon—that was the best proof.

Jiang Qunyu grew wary in his heart and stopped talking.

Wei Xun was still systematically guiding him, his mouth spouting words about giving his body to Jiang Qunyu.
Yet his hand reached around his back to his shoulder at an extremely twisted angle, violently dragging Jiang Qunyu down from his shoulder, his five fingers tightening, actually wanting to crush him alive.

Jiang Qunyu was speechless: “…”
He knew it!

However, before Wei Xun could crush Jiang Qunyu to death, Jiang Qunyu had already turned into a cloud of black mist and dispersed.
Not long after, he condensed back into a ball and continued clinging to Wei Xun’s shoulder.

A trace of regret and disgust flashed through the bottom of Wei Xun’s pitch-black eyes.
He turned his face away and couldn’t control himself from dry heaving twice again, as if he had touched something utterly filthy.

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