Fellow Daoist Entrusts His Child: Immortality Begins with Nurturing a Demoness

Chapter 4 You still say you're not a demonic cultivator?
"Jingle Bell--"

Just as he was hesitating, the copper bell outside the courtyard rang loudly. Luo Fanchen was slightly startled, and his expression gradually became serious.

The waking bells he had set up outside the mansion beforehand had been triggered. These bells were simple to make and inexpensive consumables; one spirit dust could make more than fifty of them, and they would ring when touched by spiritual energy.

"It came so quickly."

Luo Fanchen murmured, glancing out of the corner of his eye at Ling Moxue, who scurried under the bed like a frightened little animal, her thin shoulders trembling.

He quickly grabbed Ling Moxue by the collar, took several steps back, and as they approached the entrance to the tunnel, ignoring the little demoness's pleading gaze, he shielded her in front of him.

The next moment, a cold light flashed, and three poisoned silver needles pierced through the window and attacked Luo Fanchen's dantian. Just as they were about to touch, Ling Moxue, who was protecting him, suddenly stopped and turned around, as if afraid of hurting his life.

"Hehe...we're kindred spirits."

His voice was hoarse and dry. The wooden door creaked open and burst in, and a thin, hunched old man walked in, stepping on the moonlight, leaving two lines of bloody footprints in his wake.

The old man stepped across the threshold, and the closed room immediately filled with the stench of blood. Luo Fanchen frowned slightly, recognizing the man's identity at a glance.

His features were aged and thin, and his prison guard's clothes were tattered and stained with blood. He was the old prison guard I had met once in the dungeon.

His eyes were empty, his old face lifeless, his three souls and seven spirits scattered, and he was actually turned into a blood puppet.

This method of puppet making is extremely vicious. It requires a person with a weak life soul to kill their own relatives. When the person's spirit collapses, the three souls and seven spirits are forcibly refined into the physical body, which can turn a mortal into a puppet with the combat power of the first level of Qi Refining, and be controlled by the master.

The person behind this insidious scheme must be a demonic cultivator.

"Are you the magistrate of Yanyun City?"

Luo Fanchen's eyes were icy cold. Hidden behind Ling Moxue's back, several low-level fireball spells were poised to be unleashed.

Ling Moxue's face was bitter, her thin body trembled like a leaf, and she glared angrily at Luo Fanchen out of the corner of her eye.

[You still say you're not a demonic cultivator?]

"My name is Ling Youdao, the magistrate of this city. May I ask your honorable name, my friend?"

Blood Puppet withdrew the silver needle from his finger, his blood-red eyes revealing barely concealed apprehension.

Luo Fanchen remained calm and did not explain his identity as a demonic cultivator, deliberately misleading the blood puppet into mistaking his true identity.

Demonic cultivators are far more dangerous than ordinary rogue cultivators; he wanted to make his opponents hesitate to act rashly.

"My surname is Cao, my given name is Mengde, and I am just an unknown rogue cultivator. Fellow Daoist, you have audacity to assassinate the city lord under the jurisdiction of Luoshen Pavilion and take his place."

"Brother Mengde, your insight is truly remarkable. I admire you. However, we demonic cultivators must risk our lives and fight against fate."

Blood Puppet sneered, his eyes blazing with murderous intent. His old face, wrinkled and layered, looked particularly ferocious in the flickering candlelight.

"If we follow the rules and regulations, what kind of demonic cultivation would we have? Right, Brother Mengde?"

"What brings you here uninvited, magistrate?"

Luo Fanchen snorted lightly, firmly maintaining the initiative while showing no kindness whatsoever.

Yanyun City is one of the thirty-six mortal cities under Feiyunfang, under the jurisdiction of Qinghe Sect, and is an annex of Luoshen Pavilion, one of the eight major sects.

The county magistrate is a rogue cultivator directly appointed by the Qinghe Sect, and is required to have a clean background; it is absolutely impossible for him to be a demonic cultivator.

Ling Youdao is most likely not this villain's real name. He either assassinated the original county magistrate and took his place, or he directly possessed the county magistrate's body.

This beast is truly audacious. If the stewards of Feiyun Workshop find out, they will surely extract its soul and refine its bones, making its life worse than death.

"Brother Mengde, you must be a close friend of my brother to have found this woman. Since we are both people of the demonic path, I will get straight to the point."

“This girl has a precious constitution, but she is not related to Brother Mengde by blood, so she is of no use to you. If Brother Mengde is willing to send my niece back safely, I am willing to give you five spirit stones and ten Qi Gathering Pills to thank you for protecting my niece.”

Ling Youdao spoke sincerely, but Luo Fanchen looked down at him and sneered.

"Does the county magistrate think I am ignorant? The Heavenly Demon Spirit Puppet is itself a top-quality demonic material, which can be sold for more than a hundred spirit stones on the black market."

Children with three or more spiritual roots are rare, and their upbringing is demanding and time-consuming.

Furthermore, not every demonic cultivator is ruthless enough to harm their own flesh and blood relatives.

Ling Moxue's spirit puppet, with its superior spiritual root and accumulated negative emotions over a long period, is priceless and can be used as one of the auxiliary materials for Foundation Establishment Pills.

"Brother Mengde, you are very knowledgeable and I admire you. Why don't you come to my county government to discuss this? I once obtained a few prescriptions and talismans, which I would like to share with you."

Ling Youdao took out several jade slips from his robes and tossed them to Luo Fanchen. The latter didn't touch them, but instead used his spiritual power to guide Ling Moxue to receive them. After observing them from a distance for a moment, Luo Fanchen confirmed that they were undoubtedly some kind of low-level pill formulas and talisman techniques.

Unfortunately, the jade slip was engraved with a restriction, so the details could not be clearly seen.

Luo Fanchen forced Ling Moxue to put it away, his expression softening slightly: "We're negotiating. The county magistrate won't kill me to silence me, will he?"

Upon hearing this, Ling Youdao grinned from ear to ear, revealing a mouthful of yellow teeth, his old face bearing a meaningful expression.

If he hadn't been unsure of this person's background and wary of the demonic cultivator's insidious methods, why would he have gone to such lengths?
"Since the county magistrate has extended such a generous invitation, it would be disrespectful of me to refuse. Tomorrow at midnight, I will definitely bring your niece to pay a visit."

"Tomorrow? Ha. Very well, I, your humble brother, will await your arrival, Brother Mengde."

Ling Youdao nodded sinisterly. He had already left a method on Ling Moxue, which allowed him to pinpoint her location by relying on her bloodline.

Now, Yanyun City is full of his spies. He is not worried about Luo Fanchen escaping. With more time, he can gather more information and prepare more methods to ensure that this demonic cultivator never returns.

“I heard that this puppet once offended Brother Mengde, so I gave it to you as compensation for today’s abruptness.”

Ling Youdao's murderous intent vanished in an instant, his withered hand held upright like a knife, piercing straight into his heart and exiting through his body.

Blood was flowing from his seven orifices, and he gave a sinister smile. When he looked at Luo Fanchen again, he was already clutching a bloody, mangled heart in his palm.

"Please help yourself, fellow Daoist."

"I'll take care of this filthy stuff on behalf of the county magistrate."

Luo Fanchen's eyes showed disgust, and his figure turned into a wisp of smoke in the blink of an eye, revealing himself to be an avatar.

By the time Ling Youdao came to his senses, Luo Fanchen had already appeared behind him.

The two stood back to back, and Luo Fanchen lightly swung his first-grade low-level sword, instantly separating the human puppet from its head.

"Such a fast escape technique, the Smoke and Cloud Escape? With such skill, you are at the late stage of Qi Refining?"

The incision was clean, and blood gushed out like a spring. Ling Youdao was shocked, his vision blurred, and his head rolled to Luo Fanchen's feet. In a short while, his blood-red eyes lost their light.

Fortunately, they managed to fool them.
Luo Fanchen's eyes flickered, and the urgency in his heart eased slightly.

The myriad laws of the Eight Desolations are profound and mysterious. Through the summarization of great masters throughout the ages, they can be roughly divided into four levels: wondrous laws, law scrolls, Taoist scriptures, and profound chapters.

As a rogue cultivator, he had poor cultivation aptitude and lacked magical weapons and methods of killing.

If you want to save your life, you must diligently practice escape techniques, even the lowly Smoke and Cloud Escape, until you master it.

In terms of his mastery of the Smoke and Cloud Escape Technique alone, he was no less skilled than a late-stage Qi Refining cultivator. Of course, a late-stage Qi Refining cultivator would look down on this escape technique.

"Get yourself cleaned up and then come see me."

In front of her, Ling Moxue was panting heavily. She angrily kicked the head on the ground, and when she heard Luo Fanchen's order, she dejectedly dragged the corpse away.

Her face was numb, but her movements were quite practiced, clearly indicating that this wasn't the first time she had cleaned up a corpse.

After a while, Ling Moxue dragged the body into the backyard, her face weary.

Her face fell, as if she had resigned herself to her fate. Was this man really going to hand her over to the demonic cultivator?

"Even if you hand me over, you won't get anything out of it. I can do laundry, cook, and do some farm work. I can also learn needlework."

Ling Moxue lowered her head, her earlobes turning bright red, as she made a final attempt to struggle.

Feigning compliance might at least allow them to negotiate for some time, but if they are handed over to demonic cultivators, they will surely die.

"I can serve you as a slave, can you let me stay?"

Ling Moxue's gaze was focused on her toes, her voice choked and broken, yet it never stopped until she revealed all her chips, at which point her voice gradually weakened and finally turned into faint sobs.

"I have my own plans."

Luo Fanchen finished the tea in front of him in one gulp, then stepped out the door and rearranged the wake-up bell.

Ling Moxue watched hope depart, then stood frozen in the pool of blood, her small, bruised hands clenched until they turned white, her thin figure appearing even more frail in the flickering candlelight.

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(End of this chapter)