Chapter 44
Chapter 44: Blood Pact
After everything that had happened, Shao Heng should have been exhausted.
She was.
But exhaustion didn’t mean safety.
Even with no one chasing her for now, she didn’t dare relax. Whenever her power refilled, she drove Three-Thousand-Li Moon to flee faster. Whenever it ran dry, she swallowed an Origin-Restoring Pill and ran on foot.
She repeated the cycle until, after two hours, the familiar mountain gate finally rose ahead.
“Whew.”
Shao Heng canceled Face-Changing Art, returning to her own face, then cast a Dust-Cleansing Technique to strip away travel grime and lingering aura.
She handed over her disciple token. The gate disciple verified her identity and waved her through.
She should have gone straight back to her room—to rest, to recover, to treat the injuries Yin Liu’s pressure had left behind.
Instead, her expression tightened.
She turned and headed for the spirit fields.
“If I could recognize Jiang Yun Jiang that easily,” she thought, pace quickening, “then even with a disguise, she probably realized it was me in the mist.”
“And that dirty thing on her has divine sense. Face-Changing Art won’t fool it.”
Worse—she had used the Thousand-Strike Bow.
Jiang Yun Jiang was sharp and cautious. Once she returned to the sect, she would investigate where Shao Heng’s spirit stones came from.
Shao Heng broke into a run.
When she reached the spirit fields and stepped through the fog barrier, a golden-furred little monkey immediately squealed in delight. It launched itself into her arms, chattering as it burrowed close.
“Good Duo Bao,” Shao Heng murmured, stroking its head once. “Tell me.”
“Since the last time I replenished spirit liquid, has anyone come to this plot?”
“Eek eek.”
Duo Bao nodded, then cocked its head as if confused why she was asking.
Shao Heng’s shoulders eased for the first time in hours.
She looked over the spirit field.
Duo Bao had been trained into a diligent little monkey. Every day at sunrise, it carried well water, mixed in Azure Emperor spirit liquid, and watered the seedlings. The spot checks Shao Heng had done proved it—never lazy, never sloppy.
Now it was afternoon. The white jade spirit rice sprouts stood thick and green, having already been watered a second time today. To fully mature, they would still need a third.
About four months had passed since Shao Heng accepted this third-class task. White Jade Spirit Rice ripened once every four months, and the field was nearly ready to head and set grain. Normal. There was no need to pull and replant.
Still, Shao Heng formed a hand seal and used Wind-Blowing Technique with fine control, sweeping away the Thick Earth Pill powder scattered throughout the field. Then she called Spirit Rain Technique to wash the last traces clean.
Only then did she feel truly steadier.
“Duo Bao,” she said gently, “come back to the disciple courtyard with me.”
“For a while, you don’t need to tend the field. I’ll give you Beast Spirit Pill. Be good—go into seclusion for a bit. Work hard and break through to mid First Realm, all right?”
Duo Bao’s spirit intelligence had awakened long ago. After taking Azure Emperor spirit liquid, it had grown even smarter. It nodded without hesitation, eyes bright with trust.
Shao Heng pulled on a yellow robe, ready to hide the little monkey beneath it—
And a sharp pain flared in her left forearm.
She lifted her sleeve.
Little Dragon had latched onto her and bitten down.
Shao Heng’s eyes went flat. “Two hours without a beating and your skin starts itching again, huh?”
She drove death qi into the hatchling without mercy. Life drained, pain surged, and instinct forced its jaw to loosen.
Duo Bao, tucked against her chest, froze.
“Eek eek?”
It cried softly, frightened, shrinking tighter against her. Even with shallow cultivation, an ancient heavenly demon was extraordinary to ordinary demon beasts. Duo Bao couldn’t withstand the pressure of that bloodline.
Shao Heng snapped her left hand like a crane, gripping the hatchling’s head. Her right hand swung twice.
The slaps were crisp. Final.
Little Dragon’s eyes went watery, pride shattered again.
“On my turf,” Shao Heng said, voice cold, “you still dare act wild?”
The hatchling had only been out of the egg for a few days. Clever, yes. Cruel, yes. But it couldn’t possibly contact True Dragon kind directly and summon rescue.
The Northern Domain was where ten thousand demons gathered. True Dragons lived there, tens of millions of li away from the Eastern Domain where Human Clan immortal sects stood. And any time a great demon entered the domain, Human Clan great experts would sense it immediately.
No one was coming for this little thing.
And it still dared bite her.
“You’ve got nerve.”
Little Dragon’s voice came out hoarse, dizzy from pain. “Waa… I’m hungry.”
Shao Heng didn’t even blink. “Got it. Stay hungry.”
A hatchling might be fragile. A True Dragon body was not. It wasn’t going to starve from missing a few meals.
The hatchling bared its teeth, anger trembling under the fear. “Aren’t you afraid I’ll start yelling everywhere…? I-I’ll make sure you can’t get my body!”
“Oh.” Shao Heng adjusted the little monkey beneath her robe, voice lazy as if they were discussing the weather. “You know better than anyone.”
“Being in my hands is far better than being in the hands of a high-level cultivator.”
Even if everyone wanted to squeeze profit from it, Shao Heng’s cultivation was low and her experience shallow. She lacked “good methods.”
If the hatchling fell into the hands of cultivators who had lived for hundreds of years—people with strange arts and stranger appetites—they could scrape it 10 times a day and call it mercy.
Little Dragon went quiet.
In its heart it muttered, bitter and venomous: You’re not a good thing either.
Smack.
Shao Heng slapped it again, expression unchanged.
“I know you’re cursing me.”
Tears squeezed out, involuntary. Shao Heng didn’t waste them. She caught them with fast hands, bottling them as easily as she breathed.
When the spirit field was settled, Shao Heng returned to the disciple courtyard and slipped into her room.
She activated the formation and finally collapsed onto her cushion, letting her limbs go loose.
Everything lately had been too wild—True Dragon cub, the dirty thing on Jiang Yun Jiang, the Flying Immortal Token, White Jade Capital, Yin Liu…
Shao Heng drew a deep breath.
She pulled Little Dragon off her forearm and examined the six willow-wrapped bangles around its claws and neck.
Then something changed.
The bangles came undone at once.
Six silver willow branches uncoiled and twisted together, forming a sharp awl that shot straight toward Shao Heng’s brow.
Shao Heng jolted, instinct screaming to dodge.
She stopped herself.
No.
Yin Liu was a Seventh Realm Venerable. She could have killed Shao Heng with a glance. If she had let her walk away earlier, why set a trap now?
And even if Shao Heng tried to evade, what would it change? Yin Liu’s methods were beyond her.
So Shao Heng held still, teeth clenched.
The willow awl pierced her brow and drew a single drop of brow blood.
Between the brows lay the Mud Palace, where essence, qi, spirit, and soul were stored. For a Human Clan cultivator, this blood was second only to heart blood.
Shao Heng’s face went deathly pale.
Duo Bao squealed, terrified, and tried to leap at the willow branches, tiny body shaking with courage it couldn’t afford.
Shao Heng pressed it down gently. “Don’t.”
Beside her, Little Dragon snickered—thin, nasty, delighted.
“Hee hee. Hehe.”
“You’re still laughing?” Shao Heng clicked her tongue. “I’ll deal with you in a second.”
The silver willow branches, stained with her blood, began to grow at lightning speed. They wrapped around the hatchling in a blur.
Little Dragon’s roar tore out—then turned into a strangled, stunned sound as the branches drilled into its brow, piercing the core and binding its dragon soul.
When the willow branches vanished completely, the Blood Pact was complete.
The hierarchy was unmistakable.
Shao Heng could sense everything about the hatchling at a glance—its pain, its fear, its hatred. As long as she wished, she could crush its dragon soul into nothing.
She exhaled, shaking.
“Yin Liu…” The name tasted bitter.
This Blood Pact was a gift and a restraint.
The silver willows were now her weapon to suppress the hatchling. But if the pact’s true master—Yin Liu—chose to detonate it, Shao Heng would take the blow instantly.
A sword hung over her head, ready to fall whenever its owner grew bored.
“We only met by chance,” Shao Heng whispered, nausea rising. “I’m Qi Induction Realm—an ant in her eyes—yet she spent effort on me.”
Her fingers curled against her palm until her nails bit skin.
“What kind of place is White Jade Capital?”
“How can it make a Seventh Realm Venerable bother with me at all?”
There was no joy in controlling the hatchling. Only a sick, queasy disgust.
She hated this feeling—being shoved off her path, out of control, treated like a chess piece moved at someone else’s whim.
Shao Heng raised her eyes, gaze steadying into something hard.
“White Jade Capital… whether it’s a land of fortune or a killing trap where I’d die 10 times out of 10, that’s for me to decide!”