Chapter 22 The Scheming Disciple and the Charming Master 22

Chapter 22: The Scheming Disciple and the Charming Master 22

Watching Qin Du's face fall, looking more and more dejected, Lin Huaiqing's heart clenched painfully.

All he could do was watch Qin Du trudge back to his room, looking utterly dejected.

After that, Qin Du holed up in his room for days, and Lin Huaiqing didn't see him emerge once.

In the side hall of Qingming Hall, Qin Du simply sat in meditation, popping fasting pills whenever he got hungry.

He wanted to grow stronger; he wanted to break through to the Foundation Establishment Stage. He wanted Lin Huaiqing to look at him with respect.

The books Lin Huaiqing had told him to read sat in a dusty pile, untouched.

As night fell, Qin Du was just about to doze off when a dark shadow whisked past his window—way too fast to be Lin Huaiqing or Mu Yunting.

Could someone have snuck onto Lingxiao Peak to hurt Lin Huaiqing?

At the thought that Lin Huaiqing might be in danger, Qin Du shot up from his bed like a spring, ready to investigate outside.

Just as he was hesitating—

"Whoosh!" A streak of light burst through the window and slammed straight into his bedpost.

He turned toward the sound and saw an iron dart stuck in the bedpost, a note skewered on it.

Qin Du warily pulled the note off the dart.

But the moment his hand touched the dart, it dissolved into a wisp of black demonic qi right before his eyes and vanished into thin air.

Only high-ranking demons could condense demonic qi into a physical attack like that.

The note read, in bold letters: "Meet me at the back mountain of Lingxiao Peak."

If a demon wanted to see him, he had to go. No question about it. A demon that had managed to sneak into the Xuantian Sect? That was no small fry!

Qin Du torched the note with a fireball spell, then slipped out the door, careful as a cat.

Lingxiao Peak only had the three of them living there, so the back mountain at midnight was completely empty.

Lantern in hand, Qin Du spotted a man's silhouette in the distance, standing at the edge of the cliff.

The back view felt oddly familiar—it reminded him of his most trusted subordinate from his past life.

In the final great war between immortals and demons, Xiao Sha had died by Mu Yunting's sword, saving his life.

Xiao Sha was one of the few who had stayed loyal to him to the bitter end, never once turning his back.

If there was one person he'd trusted most in his past life, it was Xiao Sha, hands down.

Funny how they'd both died in the same place. Guess that was fate, or something.

"You're the one who called me here?!" Qin Du called out tentatively. The man turned, and in the pale moonlight, Qin Du recognized him instantly.

It truly was Xiao Sha.

Qin Du forced down his excitement, careful not to act too weird.

After all, in this life, they shouldn't know each other at all. So why had Xiao Sha come looking for him?

While Qin Du studied Xiao Sha, the demon was giving him the same once-over.

That face—he'd recognize it even if it were burned to ash.

Xiao Sha dropped to his knees with a thud, his voice shaking with emotion: "Xiao Sha greets his master!"

"Xiao Sha?!"

Qin Du quickly reached down and hauled Xiao Sha to his feet. "It's really you? How the hell did you find me?"

Seeing that his master still remembered him, Xiao Sha's icy, handsome face instantly thawed.

"So master was reborn too! This subordinate has been searching everywhere for you!"

"Get up, stop kneeling. And don't call me master anymore—just use my name."

Back then, he'd been the Demon Lord, and for some weird reason, he'd made Xiao Sha call him "master."

But now he was just a regular Foundation Establishment cultivator. Times had changed—if Xiao Sha kept calling him master, he'd be too embarrassed to show his face.

"Master is master. This subordinate wouldn't dare call you by name." And with that, Xiao Sha knelt again.

Qin Du had to yank him up off the ground again.

"I'm not the Demon Lord anymore. I'm just one of countless disciples at the Xuantian Sect."

Xiao Sha had his own spin on this change of identity.

"Master disguised himself as a cultivator and infiltrated the Xuantian Sect all these years, just waiting for the day to restore the demon race. Master's dedication is truly admirable!"

Honestly, when he first realized he'd been reborn, he was a total mess. He couldn't go back to the demon realm, and in the cultivation world, he could only hide and run.

Although he was a demon, he had grown up in the cultivation world. The two horns on his head—marks of his pure demon blood—made everyone treat him like a freak.

All he'd ever gotten from humans was contempt.

If it hadn't been for his master, those villagers would have burned him alive.

From that day on, he'd stuck by his master's side, serving as his right hand.

After being reborn, his one and only goal was to find his master.

If he could be reborn, why not his master too?

Once he realized that, he hunted for clues day and night. Five years later, he finally confirmed his master was at the Xuantian Sect.

But the Xuantian Sect wasn't exactly a place you could just stroll into.

No need to go into all the hardships he'd faced—now that he'd finally found his master, it had all been worth it!

"Master! Take me back to the demon realm! I've already broken the barrier, and the Old Demon Lord is at death's door. Taking back the throne would be a piece of cake for you!"

He'd planned it all out. To clear the path for his master, he'd even risked his life injecting pure demon blood into the spirit-suppressing stone.

The barrier was already weakened, so they could head back to the demon realm whenever they wanted.

"You're the one who broke the barrier?!" Qin Du was floored. No wonder Mu Yunting had suspected him—looked like this whole mess wasn't completely unrelated to him after all.

Qin Du hesitated, mulling it over.

"But in this life, I no longer wish to be the Demon Lord."

He had wrestled with this internally for a long time before finally deciding to say it out loud.

"Being the Demon Lord isn't all that great either. To climb to that position, I caused no shortage of bloodshed, and for the sake of the demon race's grand cause, I even cast aside my humanity. The humans and demons I killed are too many to count!

But what did it get us in the end? We still lost. We lost to Mu Yunting."

Seeing that Qin Du was actually thinking of giving up, Xiao Sha immediately knelt on the ground, begging without a shred of dignity:

"Master! Let's try again! What if we actually pull it off this time?! That Mu Yunting, if he hadn't suddenly broken through mid-fight with you, how could he have ever stood a chance against you?!"

"But that's precisely the issue. Why could he break through so suddenly, and why do even the heavens seem to side with him?

At first, I thought it was just luck on his part, but later I came to understand—it's because everything we did went against the heavens' will.

In this life, I don't want to kill anymore."

Hearing that, Xiao Sha finally went quiet.

The rumors he'd heard down at the foot of the mountain were all true.

His master had taken a human cultivator as a teacher. He wasn't infiltrating the Xuantian Sect undercover—he had genuinely become a cultivator.

But what was the point of being a cultivator? Constrained at every turn, having to obey his master without question.

The master who had grown accustomed to being the Demon Lord in his past life—was he really willing to serve someone else like this?!

What kind of power did this Lin Huaiqing possess, to have bewitched his master to such a degree?!

Not only was there no trace of his demonic nature left, but he'd even forgotten the bloodthirsty instinct that was ingrained in the demon race's very bones.