Transmigrated as the Villain’s Sword - Chapter 24

Ling Chenyan gritted her teeth, cursing Mu Yunze furiously in her heart.

With that face, no matter how blind he was, it was impossible not to see the resemblance between the woman and Guan Luowei. Yet, even so, he had still destroyed the final remnant soul of this woman in the original timeline.

Ling Chenyan was fuming, thinking that once she got out, she would definitely grind that dog of a man, Mu Yunze, into ashes.

But for now, the woman stared at the two of them, her lips slowly curling into a bizarre arc as her voice rang out ice-cold: “Pass the trial, and you shall obtain the supreme treasure. Fail, and you must stay here to keep me company.”

“Ma… Madam,” Tong Di took two steps back and knelt before her. “It’s me, Di Di!”

“Di Di?” The woman paused for a second. A flash of clarity seemed to return to her eyes, but then her shrill voice rose slightly as her red lips curved upward: “Then you had better perform well.”

That split second of clarity did not escape Ling Chenyan’s eyes.

Just as the woman was about to make her move, a loud cry suddenly erupted from behind: “Mother!”

The woman’s body trembled. This address actually made her stop her spell. Seeing that it worked, Ling Chenyan seized the moment and continued to shout: “Mother! It’s me! Mother, I am Weiwei! I am your only daughter, Guan Luowei!”

Boom.

Ling Chenyan saw the woman turn around abruptly, the clarity in her eyes fully restored.

It really worked!

Ling Chenyan was about to continue her performance, but the woman only said one thing to her after turning around: “Run East!”

Immediately, her figure flashed as she sped off in the opposite direction.

Ling Chenyan was stunned for a moment, but instinctively, she scooped up the dazed Tong Di and used every ounce of her strength to fly toward the east.

The further east they went, the thinner the mist became. Ling Chenyan knew she had made the right gamble.

Tong Di finally snapped out of it, his eyes filled with excitement: “Madam! That was Madam! But why would she be here!”

Seeing that he still had the heart to think about other things, Ling Chenyan wanted to smack him with her blade twice. she roared angrily: “We’re running for our lives! Can’t you be a bit more serious?”

Reminded by her, Tong Di remembered they were still escaping. Judging by Madam’s appearance just now, she likely couldn’t hold on for long before she would “test” the two of them again.

Tong Di immediately stood up, grabbed the fast-moving silver sword, and said, “I’ll do it!”

Following that, shing! Ling Chenyan felt the wind around her turn into sharp knives. The piercing sound of a sonic boom reached her ears. This speed… it was countless times faster than her own.

Tong Di said triumphantly, “Escaping is my specialty.”

Ling Chenyan: “?” I can’t help but wonder what he’s been through before.

As their speed increased, the sound of breaking air soon came from behind. Ling Chenyan took a chance to look back and saw the woman already chasing them.

“Holy crap, put some more muscle into it!” Ling Chenyan shouted urgently.

Tong Di heard the noise behind them as well. Feeling the pressure, he increased his speed once more. “Then I’ll just have to use the speed I developed as a kid when I was chased for having a big mouth!”

Ling Chenyan: “…”

The speed Tong Di achieved was indeed significantly faster, leaving the woman a good distance behind. But right then, the woman did something, and her bone-chilling voice reached their ears: “You cannot escape!”

Tong Di immediately sealed his ear acupoints. “It’s a sonic attack! Seal your ears, quickly!”

As he spoke, he reached out to tap the silver sword’s “acupoints,” but his finger froze in mid-air, unsure where to tap a sword.

Ling Chenyan wasn’t particularly affected, but speaking of sonic attacks…

She decisively woke the Deceptive God Zither, plucked two notes at random, and asked, “How many seconds can you freeze her?”

“Five seconds, Sister,” Jinjin replied. “Her state is very strange. There is also a treasure protecting her.”

“Fine.” Ling Chenyan looked at the exit which was now within reach and gritted her teeth. “Five seconds then. Be quick.”

As the words fell, a golden light suddenly enveloped the woman, forcing her to halt. Ling Chenyan immediately shouted, “Go! Tong Di, faster!”

The woman watched the two run far away with a cold gaze. Once five seconds passed, she used some unknown method to appear instantly behind Tong Di. Just as her fingertip was about to touch his back, an invisible light suddenly struck her finger, causing her to scream and retreat back into the depths.

The boundary had been reached; they were finally safe.

Tong Di slumped to the ground, panting heavily. “Whew… hah… that… that really tired me out.”

Ling Chenyan also dropped to the ground. Watching the woman being dragged back into the thick forest, the entire sword lay limp. “That was way too close.”

After resting for a good while, Ling Chenyan jumped up. Looking at Tong Di, who was still like a puddle of mud, she asked, “How did you end up in a place like this?”

“I overdid it while cultivating here,” Tong Di said.

“Isn’t this a Forbidden Zone?”

“At night it is. During the day, it’s our Demon Race’s sacred cultivation ground.”

Ling Chenyan was confused. “What are you talking about?”

Tong Di sat up and explained, “Didn’t Her Highness tell you? This place is very peculiar. Cultivating here during the day can remove the stray thoughts in a demon’s heart, allowing cultivation to advance by leaps and bounds. But at night, it is strictly a Forbidden Zone. However, the situation just now… no one in our clan has ever encountered it before.”

Linking this to Tong Di’s earlier reaction, Ling Chenyan asked, “You mean… Madam has never appeared before, but she did today?”

“Yes,” Tong Di said. “Because this place is dangerous and it’s easy to lose track of time while cultivating, demon disciples are only allowed to come here once a month during the day. As soon as dusk falls, they must leave immediately. According to disciples who accidentally stayed inside before, they followed His Majesty’s instructions to seal their hearing and meditate for the night, and they returned unharmed.”

“And the others?”

“You mean those dragged into the inner circle?” Tong Di thought for a moment. “In the past, many disciples would go missing mysteriously. It was later confirmed they went inside to cultivate, forgot the time, and died.”

“Furthermore,” Tong Di added, “His Majesty only said that if you don’t seal your hearing in the outskirts, you’ll hear tempting voices. In the inner circle, sealing your hearing is useless; the voice strikes the soul directly. But His Majesty never mentioned that Madam was inside.”

Ling Chenyan felt she had stumbled upon a major secret, but only a corner of it had been revealed.

“By the way,” Ling Chenyan asked, “the ‘treasure’ Madam mentioned—do you know what it is?”

“It should be our Demon Race’s clan treasure—the Demon Pearl.” Tong Di finally recovered, stood up to stretch, and patted the silver sword. “Luckily you were here this time, otherwise I would have died at Madam’s hands.”

Mentioning Madam, Tong Di couldn’t help but sigh, murmuring to himself, “It’s a real pity. Madam was such a good, gentle person. How did she go mad a hundred years ago?”

Go mad?

Ling Chenyan’s eyes rolled as she asked, “Madam, she…”

Just then, the sound of someone breaking through the air came from the distance. Tong Di’s eyes lit up. “Her Highness is here!”

Ling Chenyan turned and indeed saw Guan Luowei. Her face was set and her expression indifferent, but Ling Chenyan could still see a trace of anxiety in her speed.

Before a word was said, Ling Chenyan already felt guilty. “Master, why are you here?”

Guan Luowei glanced at her briefly, then fixed her gaze on Tong Di. “What happened?”

Ling Chenyan coughed lightly, and Tong Di scratched his head, muttering vaguely, “Nothing. We didn’t get lost in the Forbidden Zone, and we didn’t meet Madam. We just… came here for a stroll.”

“…”

Ling Chenyan watched Guan Luowei’s expression shift and helplessly facepalmed. No wonder Guan Luowei asked Tong Di first whenever something happened; this guy couldn’t tell a lie to save his life.

“Mother is in the Forbidden Zone?” Guan Luowei’s breathing grew heavy as she asked.

Without waiting for Tong Di to deny it, she charged straight into the Forbidden Zone, leaving one sentence behind: “Stay here and don’t move. Wait for me to return.”

Ling Chenyan was dumbfounded. She turned to Tong Di angrily: “Tong Di, you… you, you…”

“Me?” Tong Di said quite gloomily. “I said I didn’t see Madam! How did Her Highness see through my lie in one glance?”

“…” Ling Chenyan said to the System in her heart with grief and indignation: [Sys, is there a pill that cures stupidity?]

[…No. This kid is beyond help. Don’t bother.]

Ling Chenyan shook her head. she thought that while Guan Luowei was away, she might as well try to squeeze some information about the events of a hundred years ago out of this guy.

“By the way,” Ling Chenyan said, “you mentioned just now that Madam suddenly went mad a hundred years ago? What happened?”

Tong Di, still feeling gloomy, replied: “I’m not entirely sure. I was only a few years old then, and my mind was a muddle during that time. Every day I just wanted to pick fights. Regarding a hundred years ago, I only know that the cultivation world suddenly besieged the Demon Race. We almost went extinct in that war. Madam—the Empress back then—went mad overnight and was later imprisoned in the Demon Jail by His Majesty. Not long after giving birth to Her Highness, she died. The reason for that war was never explained, and no one knows what happened to the Empress. Well, no—maybe someone knows, but most of those who did died in the siege. The few who survived were forbidden by His Majesty from speaking of it.”

Tong Di thought for a moment and added: “However, I think Her Highness should know what happened. If you want to know, you can ask her.”

The clues in Ling Chenyan’s mind began to link up. Combined with Guan Luowei’s subtle attitude toward her father, she felt she had grasped something, but the spark of insight vanished instantly.

Just then, Guan Luowei emerged from the zone. Her gaze was dim; it seemed she hadn’t seen her mother.

On the way back, Ling Chenyan was extremely quiet. Although she wanted to know about a hundred years ago, she knew it wasn’t a pleasant memory for Guan Luowei, so she didn’t ask.

Back at the Demon Palace, Guan Luowei set the silver sword aside and took out the half-jade pendant from her spatial bag.

Ling Chenyan watched her quietly from the side, not interrupting or making a sound.

After a long while, as Guan Luowei stared at the jade, she suddenly called out: “Yinye.”

“Yes,” Ling Chenyan replied quickly. “Master, I’m here.”

Guan Luowei asked in a very soft voice: “Did you see her?”

Ling Chenyan nodded nervously with a soft “Mm.”

“How many years has it been?” Guan Luowei whispered. “She has never appeared, yet today she did, and she wouldn’t see me.”

Hearing this, Ling Chenyan knew Guan Luowei hadn’t seen her mother. She opened her mouth and said, “Maybe it’s because she was out for too long today, so she went back to rest?”

Guan Luowei let out a soft chuckle, but then her expression flattened. Her long lashes cast a shadow under her eyes as she asked, “Was she… okay?”

“Yes,” Ling Chenyan said carefully. “She was great! When she saw me and Tong Di, she even smiled at us gently. She said she wanted to play a game with us and would give us a treasure if we won. But Tong Di and I thought, how could we take an elder’s things? So we politely declined and came out together.”

“Is that so?” A trace of a smile appeared at the corner of Guan Luowei’s eye. She finally put down the jade pendant and looked at the sword beside her. “Yinye, do you know why I hate that man so much?”

This was the first time Guan Luowei had expressed her hatred for that man. Ling Chenyan felt a lump in her throat and wanted to say she didn’t want to know, but Guan Luowei’s expression was exceptionally calm.

She said: “He is a traitor, and a thief.”

“The cause of the Great War a hundred years ago actually lay within our Demon Race…” With an indifferent expression, Guan Luowei began to tell her, word by word, the truth of the siege by the cultivation world a hundred years ago, and the hidden stories behind it that were unknown to outsiders.