Chapter 222
Chapter 222: Just Imagine—I’m a Snake Demon, and They Locked Me Up for Three Hundred Years to Study Me. I’m Going to Kill Them.
Jiang Tea Tea met his stare without flinching.
Up close, the damage was worse. Chains bit into both sides of his waist, blood seeping down the metal until it stained black-red. Below, his serpent body was scarred and uneven—missing scales in patches, each gap replaced by torn, ugly tissue, like someone had repeatedly dug the scales out along with the flesh beneath.
A chain pinned him exactly where it would hurt the most. More chains nailed down his tail.
Jiang Tea Tea drifted upward, leveling her eyes with his. “Before you interrogate me, shouldn’t you introduce yourself?”
The black-gold jiao threw back his head and laughed. “Why would I announce myself to a demon who came here to kill me?”
He’d recognized her. She’d recognized him.
Not human. Demon.
Good. The M31 star system really was full of surprises. It wasn’t just her.
Jiang Tea Tea clicked her tongue and swung the Flame Staff.
She didn’t hold back. Fire and magic power surged together, blasting the surrounding water away and leaving a dry space on the platform—a bubble carved from the river itself.
Pinned at the vital spot, the jiao couldn’t call on his magic power. He had nowhere to dodge, nowhere to run.
He shut his eyes, bracing for his skull to crack—
And instead, he heard a sharp snap.
Chains breaking.
His eyes flew open.
The chains embedded at his waist were severed. Then the chain pinning his vital spot caught multicolored flame and burned through. One after another, the row of chains binding his tail snapped and fell away.
For a heartbeat, he simply stared, shaking.
Free.
He was free.
“You…” His voice trembled. “You’re not here to kill me?”
Jiang Tea Tea rolled her eyes. “A jiao chained down in a riverbed, living off carrion—anyone can tell you’re not right in the head. Why would I bother killing you?”
She flicked her gaze over him. “Besides, if a great demon like me killed someone as pathetic as you, and the others found out, I’d never hear the end of it.”
The jiao straightened. His snake tail blurred and shifted into legs.
And he did it shamelessly, without even a thought for decency.
His third leg hung there in plain view, brazen and unguarded.
Jiang Tea Tea looked him over once, expression flat. “Even if it’s just the two of us down here, boundaries still matter. Cover yourself.”
The jiao surged closer anyway, inhaling sharply like he couldn’t help himself. “You smell incredible. You’re drenched in dragon scent. Is your lover a dragon?”
Smack.
Jiang Tea Tea backhanded him so hard his face snapped to the side. “You’re an elite among snake demons—something with the potential to become a dragon—and you let yourself get chained up and thrown under a river like trash. You disgrace the Demon Clan.”
Her eyes turned cold. “And instead of thinking about revenge, you’re disrespecting the benefactor who just saved your life.”
She leaned in slightly. “I can see why you ended up like this. Because you’re weak. Because you’re stupid.”
The jiao touched his face, staring at her with those mismatched eyes. After a long beat, he conjured a pair of pants with magic power and yanked them on. He dropped onto the platform with a heavy exhale.
“You should be grateful you saved me,” he muttered. “Otherwise, with that much dragon scent on you, I’d chase you anywhere and swallow you whole. It’d rebuild my cultivation and let me transform into a Dragon God.”
Jiang Tea Tea planted her Flame Staff beside him, the fire curling beautifully around it. “Whoever locked you up should’ve ripped out your gallbladder and eaten it. That alone would’ve been worth a thousand years.”
The jiao’s eyes slid to the staff, greedy. “That artifact is nice. The fire wrapped around it—good stuff.”
He reached toward it.
The moment his fingers neared the flame, he jerked back with a hiss. Even so, the fire kissed his skin, leaving a blackened patch.
Jiang Tea Tea kicked his leg away with her boot, then pulled a chair from her storage button and set it down in front of him. She sat, crossed one leg over the other, and folded her arms.
“My stuff is good. Don’t get ideas,” she said. “Now talk. How did you end up here looking like a corpse someone forgot to bury?”
The jiao bared his teeth. “They say when fellow townsmen meet fellow townsmen—”
Jiang Tea Tea lifted the Flame Staff, the tip aimed at his throat.
He stopped instantly, both hands rising. “All right, all right. Fellow townsman—easy. I’m injured. I can’t take that fire.”
The Flame Staff didn’t move away. It looped into a circle around him, caging him in.
“Stop wasting my time,” Jiang Tea Tea said.
He swallowed, then started. “My name is Jin Lin. I’m thirteen thous—”
Jiang Tea Tea’s gaze sharpened.
Jin Lin’s mouth twisted. He corrected himself instantly. “One thousand three hundred. I had good talent. In a thousand years, I cultivated from snake to python, python to boa. When I tried to break through into a jiao, I triggered a lightning tribulation.”
“The ninth strike hit, and it blasted me into a world I’d never seen.”
He spread his hands. “In this world, demons and humans coexist. Demons don’t have demonic aura, and they can walk around openly in demon form.”
“Even if I walked with a snake tail, no one found it strange. They even said I looked strong. Said my form was beautiful.”
He sounded almost proud. “I thought so too.”
“Then I met a dragon. He asked my age. I said I was a thousand. At first he didn’t believe me, so I showed him my magic power. He believed me after that, and he invited me to his cave dwelling.”
Jin Lin’s eyes burned with old rage. “I thought meeting a dragon was the luck of eight lifetimes. I thought my magic power being higher than a dragon’s meant this was my chance—my chance to become a dragon.”
“So I went.”
“He fed me fresh meat. I ate, I drank… then I woke up locked in a box filled with lightning.”
“If I struggled, if I tried to escape, lightning struck me. I couldn’t fight it. I couldn’t get out.”
He breathed out hard. “I counted by breaking off scales. From the moment I arrived here to the moment I was captured, it wasn’t even three hours. You’re the first demon I’ve smelled since.”
Jiang Tea Tea let out a short, incredulous laugh. “So before you hit a thousand years, you just cultivated in the deep mountains and never saw the world?”
Jin Lin nodded without shame. “Yes. I cultivated in the Human Realm, in Lao Ai Mountain. Mountains, water, fish, spiritual energy—perfect place.”
He’d been a lone demon, not even part of a clan. The only reason he’d survived was probably because he never left his mountain.
“No wonder you got caught that easily,” Jiang Tea Tea said dryly. “You really are stupid.”
Jin Lin bristled. “We’re fellow townsmen. You don’t have to be so harsh.”
“Talk,” she repeated.
Jin Lin exhaled and continued. “At first, I thought the dragon meant to eat me. But he didn’t.”
“He brought others to rip off my scales, draw my blood, cut my flesh. I didn’t know why.”
“Later, I learned something.” His voice turned bitter. “Demons in this world don’t live long. Five hundred, six hundred years at most. Seven hundred if they’re lucky.”
“And when they hit that age, they’re old and ugly. Not like us. We get stronger as we age. We look younger.”
“So they wanted strength. They wanted immortality. To them, my thousand years was immortality.”
“For three hundred years, they moved me from place to place, chained me down, pinned my vital spot, and kept me from using magic power.”
“They drew blood from me every month. Tore off scales. Cut flesh. I’m scarred everywhere. There isn’t a clean inch left.”
His voice roughened. “Then, three months ago, they stopped feeding me. They stopped cutting. They stopped drawing blood.”
“I didn’t understand. I just knew I was starving. I didn’t want to die.”
He bared his teeth. “So I ate whatever I could. Rotten corpses. Anything.”
Jiang Tea Tea snapped her fingers.
The Flame Staff unwound from around him and flowed back to her wrist, turning into a wooden bracelet. Firelight flickered across it, deceptively delicate.
Jin Lin stared like he’d been punched. “If I had that, I wouldn’t have been trapped for three hundred years.”
Jiang Tea Tea tapped him on the forehead. “Idiot. This isn’t the Demon Clan. You got it wrong.”
Pain flashed across Jin Lin’s face, but he ignored it. “If this isn’t a world where demons and humans coexist, then what is it?”
Jiang Tea Tea gave him a blunt explanation of the M31 star system—enough for him to understand the shape of reality.
When she finished, she asked, “Got it?”
Jin Lin’s eyes went feral. He surged to his feet, fury rippling through the water outside her barrier. “Damn it. I’m a jiao. A real jiao. And in this Beast World I got locked up for three hundred years by a dragon weaker than me.”
His voice turned murderous. “I’m going to find him. I’m going to kill him. I’m going to eat him. I’ll take back everything they stole from me.”