Chapter 309

Chapter 309: Immortal Maiden Azure Luan’s Past

Half a day later, Immortal Maiden Azure Luan woke.

Grabbing Shen Sang Ruo’s hand, she asked in a rush with a trembling voice: “How long was I out of control? Did I hurt anyone? How many?”

Shen Sang Ruo calmed her: “Do not worry, Immortal Maiden. You lost control for less than half a day and did not hurt anyone before you fainted.”

Only then did Immortal Maiden Azure Luan relax.

Immortal Lord Chang Li hurried in from outside and said with joy: “Azure Luan, you are awake?!”

She raised her chin and went back to her usual proud look, though softer than before. She was grateful to Immortal Lord Chang Li but could not lower her pride. She was much more at ease around Shen Sang Ruo.

Immortal Lord Chang Li did not care about such small things. He was only happy she was safe.

Immortal Maiden Azure Luan set her face and asked: “What was that sudden Devil Qi in me? It did not seem like the work of that old thing in Shadowmist Ravine.” She did not try to hide her tie to Shadowmist Ravine in front of Shen Sang Ruo. This girl was sharp and had likely guessed already.

After another round of explanation, Immortal Maiden Azure Luan clenched her fists and snorted: “She dared to set her sights on me. She must be tired of living!”

Shen Sang Ruo said: “If not for the Heart-Link Pearl letting us arrive in time and the black mist purifying the Devil Qi, Bai Mu Mu might have gotten what she wanted.” No matter how many dirty tricks Bai Mu Mu had, good would beat evil in the end.

Since Bai Mu Mu had made such a big move, the Malevolent Spirit’s power must be in a gap. It was the right time to strike and catch her off guard. Master and disciple kept quiet and did not tell Immortal Maiden Azure Luan that they planned to go early to Flying Cloud Sect. Otherwise, with her temper, she would ignore her injuries and insist on going along to finish Bai Mu Mu.

After venting, Immortal Maiden Azure Luan thought for a moment and changed the topic to her connection with Shadowmist Ravine: “I should make my history with Shadowmist Ravine clear.”

She could not accept being lumped together with those filthy Devil Cultivators. She needed to explain it now. The turn was a bit sudden, but it was important, and it might even point to a way out of the Cultivation World’s crisis.

Shen Sang Ruo sat a little straighter and listened carefully.

Immortal Maiden Azure Luan spoke in a calm voice, one word at a time: “I am not a demon. My parents and my clan are proper members of the Azure Luan Clan. They have nothing to do with Devil Cultivators.” Her eyes still showed deep disgust toward Devil Cultivators.

When she was newly formed, she had nothing to do with Devil Cultivators or Shadowmist Ravine. The Azure Luan Clan had not seen such a gifted descendant for a long time. Blue totems covered her shell. The clan was overjoyed. Though she still needed to hatch, they used the clan’s name to give her a name.

Later, an accident struck the Azure Luan Clan. While still an egg, she was lost and picked up by two Devil Cultivators of the Radical Faction, who took her back to Shadowmist Ravine. They were the same two who had spoken to her before.

Those Devil Cultivators were badly hurt. When they picked her up, their blood stained her shell and merged into her bones and blood. From then on, a trace of devil blood was in her body.

At first they wanted to refine her into a tool. Seeing she carried Devil Qi, they thought of a better plan and began constant experiments to turn her fully into a Demon Beast.

Even as an egg, she had some memory. She did not want to be changed and fought with all her will. In the end, they half succeeded. Under the stain of Devil Qi, she would change into a Devil Cultivator and then lose control.

The two Devil Cultivators treated her like a treasure. They patiently hatched her, raised her, and even cared for her like their own child a little. They thought that with a few more years she would be a complete Demon Beast, and then their standing in Shadowmist Ravine would rise.

But Immortal Maiden Azure Luan always wanted to return to her clan. The Azure Luan Clan was also searching for her everywhere.

As she grew, her power rose fast. Those two Devil Cultivators were only bottom-rung members of the Radical Faction in Shadowmist Ravine, still injured and living on her blood to keep going. She seized a chance when they were not guarding her and escaped Shadowmist Ravine to return to her clan.

She told the truth about her past. The clan accepted her and helped suppress the Devil Qi inside her.

At the start, any touch of Devil Qi made her lose control. As her cultivation rose, her resistance grew. Unless someone forced Devil Qi into her, she would not lose control.

For the next thousand years she cultivated with Spiritual Power like a normal person. During that time she met Immortal Lord Chang Li by chance.

Devil Cultivators came to make trouble more than once, trying to take her back to Shadowmist Ravine, but the Azure Luan Clan was not easy to bully and drove them off again and again.

They shouted at her: “You are a demon. You stayed in Shadowmist Ravine for decades and still dream of being normal. Impossible. Just wait. One day you will regret it and crawl back.”

She did not care. Later they came less and less, until she almost forgot they existed.

Her talent proved true. She soon became the strongest in the Azure Luan Clan. She thought everything was over, but one day she lost control again.

This time was fiercer than any before. When she woke, rivers of blood lay before her, a living hell.

The Azure Luan Clan had been slaughtered by her own hands.

At that time, Heretic Cultivators and Devil Cultivators had joined forces and were trying to take the Cultivation World, so she did not know what had happened to Ninghua Sect or Immortal Lord Chang Li. Her mind held only endless blood-red.

Numb, she buried her people’s bodies.

She sat there with empty eyes for more than ten days.

The two Devil Cultivators showed up again and took the broken, dazed her back to Shadowmist Ravine: “We told you. You were already a demon. Sooner or later you would hurt others, but you would not listen.”

Immortal Maiden Azure Luan shut herself off for hundreds of years before she recovered her senses. They thought she would now stay obediently in Shadowmist Ravine, but she spent every day thinking of killing them. She did not care about her life. She only wanted to die together with them. They could block her once or twice, but not forever.

That period was misery for the Radical Faction. Outside, they had to fight the Cultivators of Taichu Sect. Back in Shadowmist Ravine, they suffered Immortal Maiden Azure Luan’s attacks on everyone without distinction.

After she gravely wounded them yet again, the two Devil Cultivators finally understood that the blade named Azure Luan was not one they could hold.

They made a deal with her, took part of her cultivation both to heal their wounds and to secure their standing in Shadowmist Ravine, and then let her go.