Lin Xue felt extremely unwell.
Vaguely, she seemed to return to her childhood.
She lay in her tiny little room, with her Grandmother taking care of her by the bedside.
She couldn’t see anything, and her whole body ached terribly.
“Grandmother, it hurts so much…” she said, aggrieved.
Grandmother sat by the bed, held her hand, and said something, but she couldn’t hear clearly.
She suddenly remembered that Grandmother had already passed away a year ago from lung disease.
She still remembered the day Grandmother died; she cried her heart out.
Her only relative in the world had left her behind.
From then on, she was all alone, living by herself in an empty house.
“Grandmother, don’t go, don’t leave little Xue behind…”
She gripped Grandmother’s hand tightly, unwilling to let go.
……
In the forest, Zhang Zongnian sat beside Lin Xue.
He watched her remain unconscious and had no idea what to do.
He was at a complete loss, burning with anxiety.
He considered whether he should take her into town to find a doctor, but he didn’t know the way and wasn’t sure which direction to go.
In his panic, he noticed Lin Xue’s body suddenly began to undergo some changes.
Her lower half actually turned into a long snake’s tail, and pale scales appeared on her fair face, giving her a strange, bewitching beauty.
She had actually revealed her demon form.
That notion of taking her to see a doctor was instantly banished to the farthest reaches of his mind.
Looking like this, she’d be lucky not to frighten the doctor away on the spot.
Lin Xue’s injuries were too severe. Her Serpent Core was dissolving and releasing Demon Aura to repair her body.
Because the released Demon Aura was so abundant, her Serpent Core kept shrinking, reverting from a solid state back into liquid.
Her cultivation level also fell from late Body Tempering to mid-stage Body Tempering.
She hovered right at the threshold between mid and early Body Tempering, which affected the stability of her Transformation Technique and caused parts of her Beast Body to appear.
Zhang Zongnian stared blankly at Lin Xue’s current appearance.
Her half-human, half-snake state made him suddenly, deeply realize that she was a Zhujing Yaojing, not a human being.
Previously, Lin Xue had always taken human form, and he had almost forgotten about her true identity as a Zhujing Yaojing.
His gaze lingered on Lin Xue’s snake tail and the scales on her face, a trace of hesitation and withdrawal flickering across his face.
Miss Lin, she really is a demon.
Humans and demons truly walk different paths.
Should I leave her?
But then, shame flooded his face, and he slapped himself hard.
Zhang Zongnian, wasn’t it for your sake that Miss Lin Xue ended up like this?
She could have left, but she risked coming back to help you save your mother, and now you want to abandon her just because she’s in her demon form—what kind of person does that make you?!
Are you going to become an ungrateful beast?!
Zhang Zongnian was full of remorse and berated himself harshly in his heart.
He leaned in close to Lin Xue to check her current condition.
Lin Xue’s breathing had stabilized considerably, and overall she seemed to be improving.
Zhang Zongnian breathed a sigh of relief.
He was just about to take out a medicine bottle from his Storage Pouch and feed Lin Xue another Sevenfold Resurrection Pill when he noticed her frowning, her lips moving, whispering something softly.
He leaned in to listen.
He heard Lin Xue say, “Grandmother, it hurts so much…”
Her voice was faint, her face full of pain and grievance. Zhang Zongnian couldn’t help but feel his heart ache as he listened.
He reached out his left hand, held Lin Xue’s cold little hand, and comforted her, “Miss Lin, hang in there, take some more medicine and you’ll feel better.”
He tried to withdraw his hand to get the medicine, but Lin Xue held on tightly and wouldn’t let go.
From her tightly closed eyes, two sparkling tears streamed down her cheeks, her face full of sorrow as she choked out, “Grandmother, don’t go, don’t leave little Xue behind…”
“If you leave, there’ll only be little Xue left at home, all cold and empty, and little Xue will be so lonely.”
“During the New Year, little Xue was home alone, listening to the sound of firecrackers from other houses, crying the whole night…”
“Grandmother, little Xue misses you so much…”
Listening to Lin Xue’s sobs and seeing the desolation on her face, Zhang Zongnian’s heart nearly broke.
So Miss Lin also had family.
It sounded like her Grandmother had already passed away.
Now, she was the only one left at home.
Zhang Zongnian squeezed Lin Xue’s hand and kept promising her, “Alright, alright, I won’t go. I won’t leave.”
“I’ll stay with you, I won’t let you be alone.”
As he comforted Lin Xue, Zhang Zongnian was reminded that he too had lost his mother.
He no longer had any family either.
He sighed, tears falling from his eyes, and shared in Lin Xue’s sorrow.
……
Unconsciously, half an hour passed.
Lin Xue gradually began to wake.
Thanks to the Great Return Pill, the powerful effects of the Sevenfold Resurrection Pill, and the self-repair from her Serpent Core, her injuries were now basically healed.
She opened her eyes.
The sunlight streaming through the leaves above her head, the calls of birds and beasts all around, and the fresh scent of trees and grass clearly told her she was lying in a forest.
Lin Xue was dazed for a moment, thinking she was still that little white snake who had just crossed over, struggling to survive in the forest and searching everywhere for bird eggs to eat.
She rolled over and realized her hand was being held tightly by a large one.
That hand belonged to Zhang Zongnian, who was sitting beside her, eyes vacant as he gazed into the distance, lost in thought.
Seeing Zhang Zongnian, Lin Xue instantly recalled what had happened to her.
She remembered being wounded by the Ancestor in Foundation Establishment from the Yang Family, and at the critical moment, used the Chuanyin Fashu on her ring to teleport herself and Zhang Zongnian to safety.
Thinking back on that terrifying strike, her heart still raced with lingering fear and relief.
Cultivators at the Foundation Establishment stage really were formidable.
Good thing she had that teleportation technique.
She’d almost failed to escape.
Zhang Zongnian noticed her movement and turned his head, his haggard face lighting up in delight.
“Miss Lin, you’re awake. Are you feeling better?”
Lin Xue checked her own body and found that the injuries which nearly cost her half her life had completely healed. She marveled inwardly.
A demon’s recovery ability really is astonishing.
She nodded. “I feel much better.”
Then, without making a fuss, she slipped her hand from Zhang Zongnian’s grasp and climbed up from the ground.
She sensed a strange feeling in her lower half, as if her legs were bound together.
She looked down and realized her legs had turned back into a snake’s body.
Lin Xue was stunned for a moment, then glanced sheepishly at Zhang Zongnian before hastily channeling her demon power to run the Heavenly Demon Transformation Art, trying to change her snake tail back into human legs.
She felt a bit uneasy revealing her Beast Body in front of Zhang Zongnian.
But she discovered that her demon power had been greatly diminished, and at this moment she could barely maintain a human upper body, with her lower half unable to revert to human form.
Startled, she looked inward at her dantian and discovered her Serpent Core had shrunk dramatically, returning to the liquid state of mid-stage Body Tempering.
Her cultivation had fallen.
Lin Xue immediately guessed it was due to her injuries.
The reason she’d recovered so quickly was because the portion of her Serpent Core that disappeared had contributed to her healing.
So, it really was true that if a demon was gravely injured, their cultivation could fall.
Lin Xue sighed, heart aching for her lost cultivation.
But it was fine. After all, that cultivation was mostly gained for free by eating that Demon Pill from Yang Yuxiang’s Storage Pouch. Losing it didn’t matter.
She still had the Beast Refinement Codex. She could just eat her way back in the future.
Standing on the ground with her snake body, Lin Xue paced around shyly, feeling just like the Snake Spirit from Calabash Brothers.