Inner Demons Volume 1 Chapter 18

Li YunXin looked at Qiao JiaXin to make sure that she was really...dead.

The girl was lying in the bushes. She didn’t die in a beautiful position, even her eyes were not closed.

He sighed, and shook his head. Girls in the ancient times were not as pretty as those in his time, mostly. It was good to be natural without additional decorations, but it meant that their skins were not so fair, they didn’t smell so good, their hair was not so smooth, and the acne on their face wouldn’t be covered so well.

However, this Miss Qiao could be regarded as a beauty even in the modern times. She left Li YunXin with some really good impressions, but he didn’t expect that she died after less than one day since the first time they met.

As expected, a modern civilization, a society under the rule of law is superior.

At least people wouldn’t have died so easily.

However, he lamented for a moment. In his previous life, he had experienced many things, and had seen many dead people. Since he could accept things like time travel and the existence of demons, naturally he could accept some deaths.

Because of this, he soon turned back to the swordsman: “I’m afraid that if I said my name it would scare you to death.”

The swordsman was stunned. He frowned, and realized that this young man in white clothing in front of him was not normal.

No matter if he was from a family of merchants or officials, he couldn’t act so calmly when seeing dead people. He didn’t even look sad. Not to mention that he had showed some uncommon skills - He couldn’t be a simple commoner from the secular world.

Then...maybe he was related to the immortals.

They, the Six Ghosts of the River, used to be hunted by Ying JueRan the Black Blade, like homeless dogs[1]. Not until they met the immortal did they escaped from their trouble, so they knew that they should never mess with what kind of people - the 36 grottoes and the 72 schools were so far from them, like the clouds at the end of the sky, but now they knew how dangerous people who were related to them were.

The young man’s behaviors before, and his reaction now, plus his arrogant words, made the swordsman realize that he may have run into a th.o.r.n.y troublesome person.

He didn’t think that he should kill him.

...but he had already offended him. What if the young man remembered this, and was really from the grottoes or the schools...

How were the small fries like them ever gonna overcome this?

They were just kidnapping random people on the road, how did they get themselves into such a trouble?

The swordsman had thought about many things within a few seconds, and Li YunXin already understood all of them.

Therefore, he decided to take the risky way. Before, he didn’t call Lord Nine for help because he didn’t want him to kill innocents, but now Qiao JiaXin was already died, and the other innocents were probably also killed by the other swordsmen. He had nothing to worry about now.

Before the swordsman made his decision, Li YunXin held the portrait of Lord Nine in his sleeve with his fingers. By softly tapping the paper once, an illusion of Lord Nine would appear, and soon the brutal demon itself would follow.

However, right at this moment, a scolding sound filled with anger rang out in the forest. The voice seemed to be coming from all directions, and scared the birds which were resting between the branches away to the sky.

“Where are you bandits from? How dare you act so rudely in the palace of this G.o.ddess!?”

Li YunXin and the swordsman both froze.

One second after, Li YunXin started to run towards some short trees to the north.

According to what his parents said, painters are the most sensitive cultivators to the spirits. Li YunXin totally believed that. For example, when the voice appeared, he sensed a familiar kind of spiritual power, which was also sensed when the ghost showed up.

The female ghost disturbed the simple painting array which was created by him and Liu the old priest, but Li YunXin believed that the owner of this spiritual power didn’t mean to do harm, instead, it wanted to save him.

Last time, it scared the 6 swordsman, and this time, it created a chance for him.

The source of the spirits was behind the short trees to the north. He didn’t know whether it was a human, a ghost, a demon or an immortal, but he knew that at least it didn’t want to kill him for now.

Before, he stopped and told Qiao JiaXin “something’s wrong”, was also referring to this - He was sure that he had saw the same tree for a second time.

There was a ghost building walls[2].

It was probably this thing, which didn’t want him to go out of the forest - Maybe it wanted him to do something for it.

Li YunXin could largely guess what it wanted.

He rushed into the short trees. After more than 10 steps, he found himself in an open area behind the trees. A small ruined temple was standing at the middle, leaning on one side. Half of the temple had collapsed. The only reason it didn’t become a pile of roof tiles and bricks, was that an old tree was supporting it on the other side. The tree seemed to be growing from the inside of the temple, and had become the beam of the temple.

Long ago, there might have been people living in this forest, and the temple might have had plenty of incenses and candles[3]. That’s why so many years after, there was still a wide open area here. Before they paved the ground with stone planks, the ground went through a special process, which caused the lack of gra.s.s and tree growth which resulted in the wide open area around the big tree.

As the clear moon light fell from the sky, Li YunXin saw the broken plaque which had only one corner fixed to the lintel.

“The Temple of G.o.ddess SanHua[4]”.

What the h.e.l.l was that name? It doesn’t sound like a proper G.o.d at all.

It was more likely that, a long time ago, some stupid commoners built this temple for a demon who had some powers, and wors.h.i.+ped it as a real G.o.d.

After just one peek inside, Li YunXin rushed into the temple whose doors were missing.

It was surprising that the altar was still there. There was even a clay figure on the altar, but its surface was already weathered, so it was impossible to see its face clearly.  From its outline, he could tell that the clay sculpture on the altar was a mountain G.o.d or a G.o.d of the ground[5] in the shape of a human.

A shrine of a ground G.o.d.

“A temple again.” Li YunXin stopped, and then sighed.

If he was an ordinary person, he would have thought that he had come to a dead end, but he knew, it was his last chance to survive, without calling Lord Nine for help.

Since he found that there was some surprisingly active spiritual power on the ruined clay sculpture.

Thus he stopped from worrying about the swordsman who may catch up to him at any moment, calmed down, walked around the sculpture with his hands behind him, shook his head, and asked: “What are you? Why are you helping me?”

Then the faint female voice appeared in the ruined temple again: “...because you were meant to meet with this G.o.d. Why don’t you kneel before this G.o.d? Did you bring the three sacrifices with you? Em? Aya, you didn’t...”

“The three sacrifices...not bringing the three sacrifices, em? Nothing? Em?”

“Aya, my...emm...humph. Why don’t you kneel seeing this G.o.d, em? Are you a priest, em? A pigment priest?”

Li YunXin furrowed his eyebrows. He noticed that this thing was not as simple as he thought.

Since it knew the term “pigment priest”.

He knew this phrase, so did his parents, but other people, there should not be many.

KangCangZi and ChiSongZi knew it, but they seemed to be from the sword sect.

As for this one in front of him, it is probably a demon.

Translator’s notes:

[2]A ghost building walls鬼打墙: A kind of phenomenon, when it happened, people would lose their way and find them back to where they started after lots of walking.

[4]G.o.ddess SanHua三花娘娘:

Hua=Flower, pattern,

[5]A mountain G.o.d or a G.o.d of the ground山神土地:

G.o.d of the ground=A tutelary deity of a locality and the human communities. Their shrines widely exist in every places of China.

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Translator: Rienne
Editor:Dropped