Volume One: Hidden in the Azure Depths Chapter Thirty-One

Jin Li had been unconscious for a month before she awakened once again. It was only at sunset, when the golden glow poured into the room, casting light on the window lattice and climbing up the black lacquered round table, that she slowly opened her eyes. Wisps of smoke curled outside the corridor, and the air was filled with a faint aroma of herbs.

She quietly gazed at the canopy above her bed for a long time, until the door opened and the herbal scent grew stronger, causing her to frown ever so slightly.

Sang Li entered, carrying medicine. Upon seeing Jin Li awake, the fatigue on his face melted into a gentle smile. “Ali, you’re awake. Are you feeling any discomfort?”

A glimmer of disbelief flashed through Jin Li’s eyes before it softened into a faint smile. “Sang Li.”

Could it be that Sang Li was the one who saved her?

Sang Li set the medicine on the table beside her and checked her pulse, a smile tugging at his lips. “The residual poison has been cleared.”

Yet Jin Li still felt her body limp and weak, unable even to lift her hand. Sang Li spoke slowly, “Though the serpent’s venom is gone, your body has not fully recovered. You’re still quite frail. You’ll need time to regain your strength.”

Jin Li smiled and then asked, “Was it you who rescued me?”

Sang Li’s hand paused on the spoon, his eyes uncertain. After a moment, he replied, “No. I found you in the pharmacy.”

Jin Li’s expression froze; her mind lingered on the hem of a robe traced with starlit patterns.

After Sang Li fed her the medicine, he left.

Jin Li watched as the lingering glow on the floor gradually faded. When the sky deepened to indigo, she rose, opened the door, and stepped outside.

A bit of fresh air would do her good. She lifted her hand and calculated—Bai Wanting had ten years left in her tribulation.

Time was running out, and her own fate drew nearer.

Sang Li sat alone by the medicine pot, the fire in the hearth long extinguished. His silhouette was tinged with loneliness and carried a hint of world-weariness.

“Sang Li.”

He stiffened when he heard her voice, his shoulders twitching ever so slightly, then rose to turn and face her. “What’s wrong? Why are you out here?”

He walked toward Jin Li. Beneath the moonlight and the shadows of bamboo, the distance between their figures stretched far across the ground. Though they smiled at each other, their voices tender, nothing could return them to the days when they trained side by side, sharing fruit.

Jin Li stood on the veranda; Sang Li, below.

The young woman’s black hair half spilled over her shoulders, a green ribbon loosely entwined through her locks, her wide celestial robe accentuating her gentle beauty.

“It’s been so long since I returned. I just wanted to feel the breeze.”

She smiled calmly. This was the secret place Jin Li had discovered during their cultivation days, known only to the two of them. Back then, after being scolded by her master, Jin Li had fled here in anger—her master couldn’t find her, and it was Sang Li who finally brought her home, carrying her up a hundred thousand steps as she nursed her grievances.

It hadn’t been her fault—she’d simply argued with someone out of youthful pride. That person struck first, and Jin Li retaliated, but in the end it was she who was punished. Perhaps only Sang Li truly understood her.

Sang Li smiled, “Yes, it’s been so long. I wonder how much time has passed?”

Seventy-six thousand five hundred and twenty years.

Sang Li silently counted in his heart.

Jin Li lifted her skirt and slowly descended, then asked, “Did you descend to the mortal realm this time because of the Demon God’s evil?”

Sang Li nodded.

There was nothing else left for them to say.

Jin Li sat down. “The cave I entered was infested with a Dream Fiend. This creature devours its own kind to increase its power, can peer into others’ dreams, and transform into any form—very difficult for ordinary people to detect. Have you encountered it?”

Sang Li recalled the demonic energy he’d seen above Spring County, then nodded. “But when I arrived, the serpent demon was gone. All I saw were tens of thousands of snakes slithering out of the town, then vanishing.”

“And Spring County?”

“There wasn’t a soul left inside. Only in a hidden room of an inn did I find a statue of a snake goddess and a dried corpse.”

Jin Li frowned at his words. She remembered seeing people in the inn the day before; why had they all vanished overnight?

“What’s most baffling is that every household had a secret chamber worshipping the snake goddess. The placement was always in places of extreme cold and darkness—very ominous.”

Blood as sustenance, statues of the snake goddess, missing townsfolk, a drained corpse...

Among the Demon God’s six children was a Demon Lord with a serpent’s body and human head, winged and fanged, capable of draining human blood and transforming them into monsters.

If that was the case, all those missing people might have already been mutated by the Demon Lord. The Demon Lord had likely been born and knew everything—most likely beneath the Weak Water, where the Demon God’s seal lay, or where the Evil Bone was being nurtured.

“Sang Li, how is the barrier at Weak Water?”

“No anomaly detected.”

Jin Li pondered—if the Demon God wasn’t the Demon Lord’s target, then only the Evil Bone remained. But perhaps it was a diversion, a ploy to lure them away. The Evil Bone’s whereabouts were still unknown; they didn’t need to go to such lengths unless...

Perhaps the Demon Lord was injured.