Heavenly Demon of the Huashan Sect - Chapter 59

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 59
‘If I die anyway, everything becomes meaningless. Perhaps I should offer myself…….’
She had mulled over the proposal carefully before laying it bare, and now she glanced sideways at Cheon Hui.
This was the grandest offer that Dan Mok Rin had to give.
‘Unlike the other Nine Great Sects, the Huashan Sect allows marriage if one doesn’t aspire to become Sect Leader, or so I’ve heard…….’
Her cheeks flushed faintly.
‘But will he accept me?’
It was the gamble of a lifetime.
His cultivation ran deep—he might harbor no interest in the opposite sex—and if, contrary to her expectations, he actually wanted the Sect Leader’s seat, then everything would be for nothing.
She waited, tense, for his answer, and at last his lips parted.
“Everything…… that works for me.”
But contrary to her anxiety, Cheon Hui’s response came tepidly.
He had never harbored great expectations in the first place.
What could she possibly give him that would amount to anything extraordinary?
He only needed one thing.
The name Dan Mok Clan—that was the military strength he would need should something befall the Huashan Sect during his absence.
‘If the daughter asks for help, the clan will come. I’ll get to see their family martial arts too.’
Unlike the convoluted thoughts churning through Dan Mok Rin’s mind, what Cheon Hui sought was something remarkably simple—something she had dismissed entirely.
For her part, having heard his affirmative answer, Dan Mok Rin’s expression grew complicated.
‘Just yesterday I was struggling to survive even a single day, and now I might be entering a betrothal…….’
The situation had unfolded with such dizzying speed in mere hours that she let out a thin laugh.
It was then that Cheon Hui spoke.
“Lie down on the floor.”
“Pardon?”
“You asked for help, didn’t you?”
“Ah, I understand.”
Dan Mok Rin answered hastily, removing her hat first.
Hair of mingled black and white cascaded down from beneath the cloth binding, revealing the delicate face of a girl no more than fourteen.
The clarity in her eyes and the high bridge of her nose were such that anyone could divine she would become a beauty in time.
‘Her growth must have stopped, I imagine.’
Yet Cheon Hui’s impression remained unmoved.
Having witnessed countless women at the Tianma Divine Sect who had sought to seduce him, he found Dan Mok Rin’s features far from striking.
A young girl. That was all.
Dan Mok Rin set the hat beside her and tilted her head up to gaze at him.
‘So utterly indifferent.’
She was startled by the light in his eyes.
Every man who had ever laid eyes on her before had worn either a thick veil of kindness or a glimmer of pity.
But Cheon Hui before her now?
There was no kindness, not even a trace of sympathy.
He looked at her the way one might regard a stone scattered across the ground—with no interest whatsoever.
Yet this brought her a strange relief.
‘If it’s him…….’
As her favor toward him deepened.
“Then I’ll begin.”
Cheon Hui crouched beside her, then slowly raised both hands to her Lower Dantian.
Whoosh——
As he stirred the Plum Blossom Divine Art, a formidable energy flowed forth, enveloping them both.
Having spread his perception, Cheon Hui fixed an intense gaze upon the prostrate Dan Mok Rin.
Caught in the current of the Plum Blossom Divine Art, she lay still with her eyes closed.
‘She’s fallen into the flow.’
The circulation of meridians beneath her skin—he could feel it.
Her body existed in a state both alien and chaotic.
Meridians far more fragile than in ordinary people, frozen muscles and bones, and a Lower Dantian hollow as an empty cavern.
It was plainly abnormal.
More like a corpse already claimed by death.
The Yin Energy that had infiltrated her body had, by all appearances, already spread to the marrow.
‘Death would be no surprise at any moment.’
As he examined her in meticulous detail, certainty crystallized.
At this rate, she would die soon.
Having confirmed the gravity of the situation, Cheon Hui began his examination of Dan Mok Rin with painstaking precision.
‘How many days would treatment take?’
A considerable amount of Internal Power in her Lower Dantian lay frozen by the biting Yin Energy, piercing her insides like sharp thorns.
‘At this level, she must have been in constant pain.’
As if to confirm his thought, tremors began flickering across the eyes of the woman lying before him.
Even her breathing had become labored and uneven.
Watching her chest heave heavily, Cheon Hui rushed Internal Power into her body.
The Internal Power of the Plum Blossom Divine Art flowed smoothly through her meridians and muscles and bones.
Thud!
Dan Mok Rin’s body convulsed violently.
The Yin Energy that had invaded her frame like a plague of rats suddenly recoiled, as if wary of his Internal Power.
‘Rejection?’
Recognizing the Yin Energy’s resistance against his own, Cheon Hui extended his index finger toward the source.
Crash!
The moment his fingertip touched her abdomen, the Yin Energy that had been clashing fiercely shattered like an illusion and dispersed rapidly.
‘If a single meridian holds this much power……’
Cheon Hui’s eyes deepened.
The energy contained in just one meridian was far too profound and intense to measure.
Just as he was about to address the Yin Energy elsewhere, what had seemed to vanish completely suddenly erupted in fury.
Screech!
There was no time to react.
The Yin Energy that had penetrated her body went berserk like an avalanche.
Crack-crack-crack—
The rampaging Yin Energy tore through her clothing and scattered in all directions, revealing its violence to Cheon Hui.
As if possessed of its own will, it froze everything around it, then transformed into a spear and shot toward Cheon Hui’s throat.
Cheon Hui’s eyes turned glacial.
‘Aiming for me?’
Mere Yin Energy daring to target him—it was contemptible.
He immediately infused his index finger with Internal Power.
Then he thrust it slowly toward the Yin Energy spear bearing down on him.
Shatter!
The remaining Yin Energy shattered like glass and scattered in all directions.
‘Where are you going?’
Cheon Hui drew the Yin Energy back toward him.
‘Now it’s mine.’
A smile played at the corner of his mouth.
The Yin Energy possessed by the Great Yin Energy Stagnation Body was purer and more potent than any miraculous elixir.
If he could absorb all of it.
He swallowed hard.
‘Heh, excellent.’
He began circulating the Plum Blossom Divine Art and drew all the surrounding Yin Energy toward himself.
After a brief moment, Cheon Hui finished his circulation with a satisfied smile.
‘Quite the harvest.’
As he contentedly observed the Internal Power accumulated in his Lower Dantian.
“Ah—is the treatment complete?”
Only then did he remember what he had just done, and he turned his gaze away.
Dan Mok Rin still lay there.
But her condition had changed markedly from before.
Her clothes hung in tatters, scattered and torn, leaving her bare body exposed.
Yet Cheon Hui’s gaze as he surveyed her pale, naked form remained perfectly calm.
He had seen enough of women’s bodies, and his discipline was far too advanced to be seduced by mere flesh.
“Mm.”
He examined her methodically from head to toe, then nodded.
“Good.”
Her face, which had been seized by mild convulsions, was now perfectly peaceful, and her breathing, once irregular, had become natural.
As if she were merely asleep.
Then her eyelids flickered.
“Mm……”
A soft moan escaped her as she stirred awake.
Upon waking, she began touching her body all over, murmuring in bewilderment.
“Ah—it doesn’t hurt.”
He approached her and spoke.
“You’re awake.”
“Dan Mok Rin?”
She stiffened as she sat up and the overcoat draped across her shoulders slipped away.
“Oh!”
With a sharp cry, she spun around hastily and clutched the front of her coat closed with urgent hands, as if terrified he might see.
Cheon Hui regarded her with something like pity.
‘All that fuss over something so trivial.’
He could not comprehend it.
His moral sensibility differed somewhat from that of others.
Watching her face flush crimson as a beet with embarrassment, he spoke without inflection.
“Then I’ll take my leave.”
* * *
Twenty days later, the carriage passed through Hubei Province and arrived in Wuhan.
“Thank you for taking us all the way to Wuhan.”
“Not at all.”
Dan Mok Jin Gang waved his hand dismissively as he spoke.
The long journey had drawn the two men closer, and they conversed with genuine warmth now.
“How could I leave halfway when you saved my sister’s life?”
Dan Mok Jin Gang glanced ahead briefly.
Seeing Dan Mok Rin sitting beside Cheon Hui, a smile played at his lips.
Originally, Dan Mok Rin had sat beside him, but that changed from the second day onward.
‘So she wanted to sit with him, did she.’
At Dan Mok Rin’s quiet request, he sat with Hyeon Do instead, and she subtly took her place beside Cheon Hui for the remainder of the journey.
When Dan Mok Rin first sat beside Cheon Hui, he had felt tension, but after twenty days it seemed as natural as breathing.
Watching the gap between Dan Mok Rin and Cheon Hui narrow steadily, he felt genuinely pleased.
‘Hmm. They suit each other well.’
Whatever his first impression of Cheon Hui had been, it was forgotten now—he mentally marked the young man as a fitting match for his sister and nodded approvingly.
‘Even if he becomes Sect Leader of Huashan or inherits a strict Sect Lineage, marriage can be arranged—unlike the other Nine Great Sects, Huashan is comparatively lenient about such things.’
Thinking of Huashan’s relatively liberal marriage customs, he smiled with satisfaction.
Judging from the fact that Cheon Hui had eaten meat and drunk wine on the day they first met, he was a man touched by the mundane world.
It seemed unlikely he would become Sect Leader or inherit a lineage bound by strict precepts.
“The Swift Sword is wielded like this.”
Dan Mok Rin extended her index and middle fingers before him, tracing an intricate pattern in the air.
A hand gesture—sharp and sudden, as if something were falling from above.
Yet for all its simplicity, the power contained within that gesture ran deep and subtle.
“A sword technique that severs muscles and bones.”
The moment Cheon Hui grasped the principles behind it, Dan Mok Rin smiled brightly.
“Exactly. The Yaksha Beast Soul Sword is a technique that cuts the opponent’s meridians and skeletal structure, rendering them immobile…….”
Cheon Hui watched her as she explained with growing enthusiasm.
‘Her character has changed so much.’
And not just her character.
Even her expression—once that of someone facing death—had transformed.
“It became famous when assassins who once terrorized the martial world used it.”
“What about the incantation?”
“The incantation is…….”
Dan Mok Rin recited the words.
‘Hmm. A killing technique then. And yet, belonging to the common schools as it does, it’s quite different from Daoist martial arts.’
As Cheon Hui fell into thought,
—swish—
Dan Mok Rin shifted her eyes secretly to steal a glance at his profile.
The sharp bridge of his nose. His bright, piercing gaze.
Usually indifferent to everything, he showed genuine interest when the subject turned to martial arts.
Delighted by his response, she revealed and explained all the techniques she knew.
‘He will be my husband, so I should build his favor and secure a betrothal…….’
Just as she began to blush at these thoughts of the future,
—screech—
the carriage lurched and came to a stop.
The driver pulled back the cloth partition between the driver’s seat and the carriage interior, calling out:
“We’ve arrived.”
“Already?”
Dan Mok Rin spoke with a sullen air.
She who had been conversing with such enthusiasm moments before now cast a sidelong glance at Dan Mok Jin Gang.
“It cannot be.”
Dan Mok Jin Gang spoke with finality.
The place they had just arrived at was as good as enemy territory—the very courtyard of the Martial Alliance.
If word spread here that they were of the Dan Mok Clan, they could find themselves in grave danger.
Dan Mok Rin spoke with a bitter expression.
“……It’s a shame.”
Cheon Hui met Dan Mok Rin’s gaze as she spoke of him, and he nodded.
“It truly is a shame.”
“Isn’t it?”
In that instant, Dan Mok Rin’s face brightened.
Thinking that Cheon Hui shared her regret at parting, her heart soared, and for some reason her mood lifted.
Yet Cheon Hui’s regret was altogether different from hers.
‘Pity. She seemed to know so many other martial arts—I’m sorry to miss the chance to learn more. And I still haven’t fully absorbed all the Yin Energy lingering in her body. Well, can’t be helped.’
As Dan Mok Jin Gang gazed contentedly at the two of them, Hyeon Do clasped his palms together and spoke a benediction.
“Infinite Buddha. Where there is meeting, there must be parting. It suffices to look forward to our next encounter.”
“Ha ha ha, truly spoken, venerable one.”
Dan Mok Jin Gang slowly performed a martial salute, bowing with proper respect.
“I shall await that future reunion.”
Dan Mok Rin bowed her head in turn.
“I too shall await it. And when that time comes…….”
She fixed her gaze steadily upon Cheon Hui.
“I will repay your kindness without fail.”
“You had better.”
Cheon Hui spoke as though to say that went without saying, when Dan Mok Jin Gang clasped his hands.
“Should anything arise, seek me out through Ha O Gate.”
“Ha O Gate? Where is that?”
“Ah. Ha O Gate is…….”
Dan Mok Jin Gang began to answer.
“There is no time.”
The coachman urged them on.
“You shall learn of it later.”
Dan Mok Jin Gang spoke urgently, and Hyeon Do and Cheon Hui hastily descended from the carriage.
Neigh—
The carriage at once set off again.
To Dan Mok Jin Gang, the interior of the carriage now felt strange and hollow in their absence.
For a moment he stood dazed, then shook his head sharply to clear his thoughts.
“The Sword of Huashan’s Divine Fire and Cheon Hui……. Could it be that he is not merely of Huashan, but of one of the Nine Great Sects?”
Dan Mok Jin Gang harbored goodwill toward the two, yet concern weighed upon him.
An absolute master had appeared in the Huashan Sect. A sage, too.
The emergence of two such figures, one after another across generations, was a matter that would stir the jianghu into turmoil.
“I must forge a lasting bond with the Huashan Sect.”
“Yes. That’s right.”
Dan Mok Rin answered at once, and Dan Mok Jin Gang let out a soft chuckle.
“Has the boy taken your fancy, Xiao Xie?”
Dan Mok Rin blushed, her cheeks turning rosy, and gave a small nod.
Was it because he had saved her life? Or was it the way he regarded her, so different from how others did?
She found herself drawn to Cheon Hui.
Dan Mok Jin Gang watched her, unable to tear his gaze from the window, and his lips curved upward.
“Though parting grieves me, let us postpone our reunion with them to another day. First, we must seek out a Divine Physician.”
Dan Mok Jin Gang reminded himself and Dan Mok Rin of their original purpose.
Before Cheon Hui departed, he had said her condition had improved, but that she still required treatment.
‘He said that recovering her strength at a nearby physician’s clinic would suffice.’
Yet Dan Mok Jin Gang had not pursued that course.
He had reasoned that it would be better still to seek out a Divine Physician.
“……I understand.”
Dan Mok Rin heard Dan Mok Jin Gang’s words and let them slip past, and with a listless reply she fixed her sharp gaze upon Cheon Hui’s receding figure as it dwindled in the distance beyond the window.
By nature, she had been bright and cheerful.
But these years had worn her down, left her hollowed out and resigned to the world’s cruelty.
‘Just days ago, my world was nothing but darkness—a place where light couldn’t reach.’
She hadn’t told Dan Mok Jin Gang, but her condition was dire.
Her Internal Power had already spiraled beyond her control, and even walking properly was becoming a struggle.
She was holding on by willpower alone, but even that had begun to fray at its edges.
More than once, she’d considered ending it herself.
Then light found its way into that darkness.
A light of fate, wearing the name Cheon Hui.
As she recalled him—those dangerous, viscous eyes—her blood-red lips parted slowly.
“……I’ll find you, no matter what.”
At that very moment, Cheon Hui—who had been making his way toward the Martial Alliance—stopped in his tracks.
‘What was that?’
A sudden chill raced down his spine, then vanished just as quickly.
He frowned, tilting his head slightly.
‘Who’s watching me?’

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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