“Where have you been all this time? Didn’t you say you’d help me? I’ve been the only one putting in the effort!”
“…My disciple. Since you took his place in Cang Lan Sect, he naturally needed to find another path in life. This past month, I’ve been handling his matters and ensuring his enemies are no longer a threat.”
So, he’d been off resolving his disciple’s grudges…
“You really treat your disciple well.” I mulled this over, and a sense of dissatisfaction suddenly welled up. “But speaking of disciples, why do you treat me so differently?”
The Demon Lord hesitated briefly, but before he could answer, I cut him off. “Wait, you’re here, and Mu Xuan’s over there. Weren’t you the one who said you can’t stay too close to your past self? We should stand farther apart!”
“No matter,” he replied. “As long as we don’t meet face-to-face, I’ve learned to suppress the discomfort caused by our proximity.”
After a pause, he added, “I had thought today would be more troublesome… Your ability to decipher my signal was unexpected and saved me a lot of trouble.”
His tone was almost complimentary, though the words themselves made me roll my eyes internally. That’s not praise! It’s just a backhanded insult to my intelligence! I waved it off. “Let’s focus. Demon Lord, over this past month, I’ve…”
“Yes, I know everything.”
I froze. “You know everything?”
“Every interaction between you and my past self appears in my mind.”
My jaw dropped. Of course—Mu Xuan and the Demon Lord were the same person, so everything Mu Xuan experienced would naturally become part of the Demon Lord’s memories. That was logical, but…
“You mean you know how I weaseled my way into becoming your disciple by shamelessly pestering you?”
He nodded.
“And how I tried to seduce you by playing the flute, only to be humiliated?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“And how I followed you to the cold spring, got caught, and was thrown into the water?”
“All of it.”
A sudden and overwhelming urge to silence him for good surged within me.
Logically, I knew that the Demon Lord and Mu Xuan were technically the same person. But still! In reality, they were two distinct individuals. All the embarrassing things I’d done to achieve my goals—fine, let “Mu Xuan” know about them. But now the “Demon Lord” knew too? What was I supposed to do with that?
I’d been planning to paint myself as a clever and resourceful schemer who had been thwarted only by circumstance, but now…
Sighing, I rubbed my forehead.
“Alright,” I said, steadying myself and returning to the main topic. “Since you already know all that, I’ll skip the details. Tell me this—what does Mu Xuan think of me now? Has he lowered his guard at all? Better yet, does he like me even a little?”
I looked at the Demon Lord with wide, hopeful eyes, like a student awaiting exam results with eager anticipation.
The Demon Lord gazed back at me. For a brief moment—perhaps it was just my imagination—I thought I saw an imperceptible flicker in his eyes, as if he were either embarrassed or amused.
“Keep working on it,” he said, offering just four words.
Though I had expected an answer along those lines, hearing it from the Demon Lord himself still left me feeling deflated. After the disappointment, irritation followed. “What kind of girl do you like, anyway? I’ve been throwing everything I’ve got at you, and it’s still not working…”
The corner of the Demon Lord’s lips quirked upward in the faintest hint of a smile, though it quickly disappeared. “There is an opportunity ahead that might earn his trust.”
My eyes lit up. “Tell me! What is it?”
“This trip to Jing Mountain—there will be an ambush by the demon clan.”
I gasped. An ambush by the demon clan?
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