Chapter Nine: The Thousand-Faced Demon Lord, Savior

“Benefactor? He slaughtered over a hundred members of your Li family, and you still call him your benefactor? He even controlled your family’s corpses to kill the Wang family. If that’s not succumbing to demonic influence, what kind of madness is this?” Jun Yang remarked.

A young man sneered, “You believe whatever others say, but when I, Li Xiaoran, speak, no one believes me?”

“Go on,” You Xiyue replied calmly.

Her tone took Li Xiaoran aback; it wasn’t the usual mocking and ugly expression he was accustomed to.

Li Xiaoran thought for a moment, then decided to tell the truth. Even if he repeated it a thousand or ten thousand times and no one believed him, he still had to speak, for others and for himself.

“It was the Wang family who sent people to kill the hundred-plus members of our Li family. It wasn’t the Thousand-Faced Demon Lord, as they claim. The Wang family, the wealthiest in Anlin Town, used their riches to bully others. They wanted to force my sister to become a concubine for their useless son. When we refused, they placed a bounty and hired assassins to intimidate us, eventually slaughtering our entire family. I was only eight, hiding in a cupboard, not daring to move. When I finally emerged, corpses were strewn everywhere; my kin all dead.”

The memory tore at Li Xiaoran’s heart. He tried not to think about it, yet every day he heard people gossiping. Clenching his fists, he endured for a long while before continuing, “I lay beside my mother’s corpse, my face smeared with blood, guarding her for a day and a night. With such commotion, not a single neighbor dared come to help me. Then the Thousand-Faced Demon Lord arrived. He asked what had happened, whether I wanted revenge now or later. I said I wanted it now—I hated the Wang family and didn’t want them to live another day. He told me the Li family’s vengeance should be exacted by its own people. So, he controlled my entire family, led me to the Wang household. Though I was young, seeing my parents able to avenge themselves with their own hands, I felt neither fear nor cruelty.”

At this point Jun Yang interjected, “So the Thousand-Faced Demon Lord really is a good man?”

“He’s definitely a good man!” Li Xiaoran said, a little agitated. “He avenged me, buried my whole family, and found someone to take me in. He never asked me to do anything for him. If he isn’t a good person, then is that old man in the teahouse, full of lies, a good person? He knew nothing, yet slandered the benefactor of my family. Ridiculous, hateful.”

Jun Yang turned to You Xiyue, “Do you believe him?”

“Yes.” You Xiyue remained expressionless, calmly analyzing, “He isn’t influenced by demonic energy. You should know that if a corpse is tainted too heavily with demonic energy within three days of death, it will be deemed corrupted and not enter the cycle of reincarnation. Corpses tainted by demonic energy will always be enveloped by it, but those corpses weren’t. The Thousand-Faced Demon Lord didn’t harm them. The characters on the tombstone resemble a protective array; ordinary people can’t move the grave.”

“You…you believe what I said?” Li Xiaoran looked up in disbelief at You Xiyue. “You really trust he’s a good man?”

“I don’t know if he’s good or not, but what you said is the truth,” You Xiyue replied.

“Finally, someone believes me.” Li Xiaoran laughed and cried at once. For over a decade, those around him insisted the Thousand-Faced Demon Lord was an evil being, the culprit behind the Li family’s demise. No matter how he explained, they assumed he was delusional, refusing to believe him. In the end, it was a stranger who believed him.

Li Xiaoran looked up, wanting to say a few more words to You Xiyue, but she had already vanished from where she stood.

At that moment, You Xiyue was heading to the other side of the forest toward Anlin Town.

“Aren’t you going to ask him what the Thousand-Faced Demon Lord looks like?” Jun Yang asked.

---

You Xiyue glanced at the little snake perched on her shoulder. “Do you think knowing what the Thousand-Faced Demon Lord looks like, as described by Li Xiaoran, would be useful?”

Jun Yang habitually scratched his head with his tail, pondering, “Heh…probably not. What Li Xiaoran saw might not have been the true face. Who knows what form he takes now?”

You Xiyue fell silent once more.

Jun Yang asked, puzzled, “Then why are you heading to Anlin Town?”

“To see the corpses.”

“The corpses? Aren’t they…” Jun Yang suddenly realized, “You’re going to see the Wang family’s corpses?”

“Yes.”

As the two arrived above the city gates of Anlin Town, they noticed a mansion shrouded in demonic energy.

“Tsk.” Jun Yang shuddered involuntarily. “Quite a show of force. The Thousand-Faced Demon Lord’s hatred of evil is a bit excessive.”

You Xiyue extended her spiritual sense and discovered that Anlin Town was almost entirely deserted, reduced to a ghost city.

Jun Yang noticed as well. “Makes sense. With such dense demonic energy, it must have attracted plenty of monsters. If there were living people, that would be surprising.”

Together, the two soared to the roof of the mansion, looking down.

In front of the main gate, a fallen sign reading ‘Wang Residence’ remained conspicuous.

“The corpses are gone,” You Xiyue said.

Jun Yang looked around and confirmed, “Could they have been turned into puppets and taken away by the Thousand-Faced Demon Lord?”

You Xiyue closed her eyes, expanding her spiritual sense to the fullest, searching bit by bit. Eventually, she found a mound in the northwest mountains.

She brought Jun Yang to the mound, where they saw the same style of writing as at the Li family’s grave—just the character ‘Wang,’ not a tombstone, but written on a stone beside the mound.

---

“I underestimated the generosity of this Demon Lord,” Jun Yang exclaimed in admiration. “He didn’t leave any demonic energy on the Wang family’s corpses and allowed them to enter reincarnation. That’s mercy.”

“But why leave so much demonic energy in Anlin Town?” If he is kind-hearted, he should know that such energy attracts monsters, endangering the townsfolk. It’s contradictory, and You Xiyue couldn’t figure it out.

Jun Yang was equally perplexed. “I have no idea.”

Unable to make sense of it, You Xiyue began rummaging through her universe pouch.

“Are you searching for Heavenly Pepper Blossoms again?” Jun Yang was excited for a moment, but seeing the nearby demonic energy, his enthusiasm waned. “Eating amidst all this is a bit much. Let’s find somewhere else.”

You Xiyue ignored Jun Yang, continuing her search until she finally found the Jade of Two Aspects, Immortal and Demon. “Time to see if this thing works.”

With that, she tossed the jade toward the sky above the Wang residence.

Upon encountering the immense demonic energy, the jade swelled to several times its size, spinning incessantly in midair.

The intense black and white radiance pierced through the demonic energy, forming a natural array.

Demonic energy streamed into the array, gradually diminishing.

Jun Yang felt a surge of relief throughout his body.

Just as half the demonic energy was absorbed, another figure arrived in the sky above Anlin Town.

“Huh?” Jun Yang leapt from You Xiyue’s shoulder into the air. “Isn’t that the person we saw before? From the upper realm—what was his name?”

You Xiyue looked up as well, meeting the newcomer’s gaze.

“He’s not planning to steal the Jade of Two Aspects, is he?” Jun Yang watched warily.