Chapter 20

Chapter 20: Don’t Want to Go

Before nightfall, the patrol elder from the Cinnabar Cloud Palace finally arrived.

At his order, the disciples moved like a practiced machine. Bodies were carried out of Withered Leaf Cottage one by one. Every last smear of devil qi had to be scrubbed away until the air stopped reeking of rot and iron, cleansing talismans burning through the residue like invisible flame.

The Yellow Springs Tree couldn’t stay here. They would have to uproot it and bring it back to the Cinnabar Cloud Palace.

And the Bai Family had suffered heavy losses. Their estate, the power vacuum left behind, the city’s future—everything required careful arrangements.

None of it mattered to Bai Meng Jin.

She sat beneath a single lamp and turned the Reincarnation Mirror over in her hands, inch by inch, as if she could peel the truth out of it.

Her spiritual power was completely drained, yet she could still sense the faint lingering trace—an echo that matched what she had seized in the Zi Wei Ruins.

So it was real.

Reversing time. Shifting fate. Moving mountains and seas.

If time could be forced backward, then seas turning to land and stars shifting in the sky were nothing at all. The dead could breathe again. What she had lost could return to her grasp. Every mistake could be undone.

Bai Meng Jin lifted her gaze to the mirror.

Fourteen. Soft-cheeked. Unscarred. A girl who still looked like she’d never been betrayed.

She smiled.

She had never liked running away. She’d never even let herself imagine what it would feel like if none of it had happened—if she didn’t have to swallow humiliation until it turned to poison, if she didn’t have to keep walking forward with knives at her back.

But now that fortune had dropped straight into her lap…

It felt intoxicating.

No more ugly faces to endure. No more pointless malice. No one chasing her through the streets, screaming that she was a great devil fiend.

What a beautiful life.

She’d disliked those so-called righteous cultivators for a long time—how they wrapped themselves in virtue while doing things dirtier than anyone they condemned.

Now it was her turn to wear the mask.

Bai Meng Jin set the mirror away and sat on the bed, sinking her consciousness inward to check her inner palace.

If all of this was real, then she couldn’t waste it.

In her last life, when she betrayed her sect, she shattered the foundation of her Dao arts. There had been no road left except the Devil Arts, and she clawed her way forward through hardships that still left a taste of blood in her throat.

This time was different.

A devil heart had practically fallen from the sky. Before she’d even truly trained, she was already a Golden Core cultivator.

Her dantian wasn’t damaged at all. With the Jade-Tempered Body supporting her, cultivating the Devil Arts would bring twice the results with half the effort.

And if the Jade-Tempered Body wasn’t corroded by devil qi…

Bai Meng Jin’s breath steadied.

She could open another inner palace and practice orthodox Dao arts as well.

Could it actually work?

The thought settled like a spark in dry grass.

She sent the Reincarnation Mirror back into her inner palace. After she activated it, the mirror recognized her as its master and hid there ever since. If she hadn’t absorbed that devil heart—if the sudden surge of cultivation hadn’t nourished it—she might not have noticed it until much later.

Outside, the estate stayed busy deep into the night.

Inside, Bai Meng Jin cultivated until dawn.

Early the next morning, a knock sounded.

“Sister, are you awake?” Bai Meng Lian’s voice came through the door.

Bai Meng Jin opened her eyes. After cultivating all night, she felt refreshed—light-boned, clear-headed, as if the world had washed itself clean.

She rose and opened the door.

Bai Meng Lian stood outside, bright-eyed despite the shadows under her lashes. Behind her, Bai Meng Xing hovered with a food box, looking like he’d been drafted into service at swordpoint.

“You’re awake.” Bai Meng Lian’s relief was immediate. “Good. Eat with us.”

Then she whipped her head around. “What are you staring at? Hurry up and set it out.”

Bai Meng Xing let out a long-suffering groan and did as ordered, all obedience and misery.

Bai Meng Jin laughed softly. “Why are you making Brother run errands himself? Couldn’t you call a maid?”

“How can we trust anyone right now?” Bai Meng Lian said without hesitation. “It’s safer if we do it ourselves.”

They sat together, the three of them boxed in by familiar walls and a silence none of them knew how to fill.

Bai Meng Lian peeled an egg with quick, practiced hands and pushed it into Bai Meng Jin’s palm. “Here. Eat more. You need to build yourself back up.”

“Thank you, Elder Sister.” Bai Meng Jin accepted it.

Bai Meng Xing watched with a frown, then blurted, “Elder Sister, isn’t this… kind of wrong? Sister’s a devil cultivator now. Isn’t eating spiritual food backwards?”

Bai Meng Lian froze, egg half-peeled. “That… makes sense. But there’s no such thing as devil food, is there? For a devil cultivator, the best nourishment is essence blood and souls. We can’t exactly grab someone off the street and—”

“Right?” Bai Meng Xing puffed up, delighted he’d landed a point for once. “Right!”

Bai Meng Jin couldn’t help smiling. “A devil cultivator can absorb spiritual qi too. It just has to be converted. Don’t worry—I can eat anything.”

Bai Meng Lian let out the breath she’d been holding. “Good.”

She kept peeling eggs anyway, as if her hands needed the work.

Her expression dimmed. “Uncle, Great-Aunt… Father and Mother too. They’re gone. From now on, the Bai Family is just the three of us. We have to rely on each other.”

Bai Meng Jin’s throat tightened—quietly, without permission. She nodded. “Brother, Elder Sister… please accept my condolences.”

Bai Meng Lian forced her lips into a smile, then turned her grief into sharpness and aimed it at Bai Meng Xing.

“Before, with Father and Mother here, I didn’t want to interfere too much.” Her voice hardened. “Now there’s only the three of us, and I’m the eldest. It’s my responsibility to discipline you. Don’t you dare mess around like before.”

Bai Meng Xing slumped. “Elder Sister, you only control me and not Sister—”

Wrong. So wrong.

Bai Meng Lian’s gaze turned lethal. “Sister doesn’t need controlling. Look at her—so well-behaved. And you?” She leaned in. “You really think you can compare yourself to Sister?”

Bai Meng Xing looked like he’d been struck in the heart.

Bai Meng Jin pressed her lips together to hide her smile.

In her last life, this never happened. Her brother stayed with the Bai Family the whole time and eventually died at Great-Uncle’s hands.

This time, he might actually live.

With Elder Sister watching him, he wouldn’t die young again. Not so easily.

Bai Meng Jin set her chopsticks down. “Has the Cinnabar Cloud Palace sent anyone?”

Bai Meng Lian nodded. “Perfected Chang Ling said the three of us are going to the Cinnabar Cloud Palace. There aren’t any Bai cultivators left to hold Azure Cloud City, so someone has to take over. Of course… the Bai Family’s remaining assets will still be given to us.”

Bai Meng Jin didn’t care about power. “Do you want to go to the Cinnabar Cloud Palace?”

Bai Meng Xing’s eyes lit up as if someone had tossed him a fireworks talisman. “I do! I do!”

If this hadn’t happened, with his talent, he might never have passed the exam. Now he would go anyway—misfortune turning into luck.

Bai Meng Lian sighed. “Before, I didn’t think too much. Every day I trained and hoped I’d pass the Cinnabar Cloud Palace’s exam.” Her gaze drifted, unfocused. “Now that Father and Mother are gone… it feels like there’s no road left except that one.”

Stay in Azure Cloud City?

She was still so young. Of course she wanted to go out and see the world.

Then she narrowed her eyes at Bai Meng Jin, suddenly alert. “Sister… you don’t have other ideas, do you?”

Bai Meng Jin paused.

“Don’t,” Bai Meng Lian said, voice dropping. “Even if you’ve practiced the Devil Arts, Perfected Chang Ling said you’re different from those devil cultivators. You don’t need to run to the Devil Domain.”

Devil cultivators were hunted by everyone, but they still clustered where they could. The Devil Domain in Bei Ming was one of those places—full of desperate outlaws.

Bai Meng Jin lifted both hands like a surrender. “No. I won’t go.”

She had already decided to play the part properly. There was no way she’d throw away a bright future on purpose.

But Bai Meng Lian kept looking at her, head tilted, reading between the cracks. “Then don’t tell me you don’t want to go to the Cinnabar Cloud Palace.”

“It’s not that.” Bai Meng Jin chose her words carefully. “I just… think my situation is special. The Cinnabar Cloud Palace’s arts might not suit me…”