Ancient Kingdom of a Hundred Demons:
Deep in the peach forest, inside a wooden hut on a bamboo bed, Yun Mu suddenly awoke.
He woke up feeling rather disoriented.
He felt an itching sensation on his upper body, and instinctively tried to reach up to touch himself, only to find his hands and feet were still bound, unable to move.
“Strange… I remember I was still wearing clothes before entering the ‘Stellar Path’, wasn’t I? Why is my upper body naked now? Could it be my power went berserk and tore my clothes apart?”
That was about the only reasonable explanation he could come up with, since he really couldn’t imagine his master, Eleven, taking off his clothes, no matter the reason.
He tried to break free from the ropes, but no matter how much brute strength or finesse he used, it didn’t work.
The more he struggled, the tighter the ropes became.
“Of course, the ropes Master Eleven uses aren’t ordinary things. Looks like I’ll need to rely on some external force after all.”
Pausing for a moment, he tried to sense the remnants of power he had cultivated earlier in his body.
But just as he was about to use his star force, he discovered something extremely bizarre:
He found at least five distinct powers inside his body that didn’t belong to him.
And these powers were darting around inside his body at high speed, seemingly on the verge of bursting out of him.
To use a somewhat inappropriate analogy, he felt like a porcelain vessel filled with sharp stones, liable to shatter at any moment due to the instability of these forces.
“These star dumplings may seem orderly amidst chaos, but each of them could destroy my meridians…”
As he spoke, Yun Mu subconsciously asked himself, “So, how exactly am I still alive?”
But before he could figure out the answer, his curiosity began to drive him to analyze the source of these powers.
This group of dark green, life-tinged but somewhat frenzied energy—this must have been injected into his body when Miss Luo Yi cut him with a dagger earlier.
He recognized Qin Luoyi’s star force at a glance.
After all, he’d used this power himself before when he helped kill Shangguan Ce.
The memory was still vivid.
These blood-red ones… so familiar.
It seemed to be the remnant from when Sister Xun Yi lost control and bit him.
He hadn’t felt it at the time, but now that he sensed it carefully, it was thick with killing intent.
Muttering, he gently prodded this power, finding it alive and swimming through his blood.
“Huh? What a strange little guy. Although it’s also red like my blood, it’s much brighter and more vivid? But… the shape is a bit like a Moon Festival Dumpling. Kind of cute…”
Yun Mu really had no resistance to these little things.
After admiring how these little fellows rampaged through his meridians for a while, he finally focused his attention on the other three differently colored forces.
“Milky white, cherry pink, and… black with a touch of gold, all so dazzling…”
Muttering to himself, he quickly recalled the origins of the first two powers—the milky white from Empress Tu Shan, and the cherry pink from Tu Shan Huai Zheng.
He remembered both mother and daughter had, at different times, infused their power into him.
“But this black one…”
He looked at the last force, frowning slightly as faces flashed through his mind, even Hu Delu, but he still couldn’t find the answer.
“Whose power is this again? Black with gold…”
“Ah, that’s my power. What do you think? Isn’t it beautiful?”
“Oh… So it’s yours, Master Eleven. I was wondering who… Hmm!?”
He answered instinctively, then suddenly gasped in surprise.
“What’s wrong, little Mu? Why so startled all of a sudden?”
“Don’t tell me you’ve been sitting there all this time?”
“Yes, I was just resting… Heheh… Good morning, little Mu.”
“Ah, good morning… Wait, that’s not right!”
Yun Mu was about to answer politely when he suddenly changed his tone, “If you’ve been here all along, doesn’t that mean you heard everything I was just muttering to myself?”
“Probably, yes. Is that a problem?”
“Uh… Well, Master Eleven, even so, I still deserve a bit of privacy… right?”
“…Hoo…”
The woman didn’t answer.
She simply stood up, glanced at his upper body—covered in filth but otherwise bare—and yawned.
“Privacy or not, what matters is that I should congratulate you for breaking free from those previous star forces.”
As she spoke, Eleven’s footsteps turned toward a nearby washbasin.
“Actually, Master Eleven, to be honest, rather than breaking free, it’s more like they abandoned me.”
“Abandoned you? You mean they didn’t want you?”
“Yeah, and I can feel it. Except for a few star clusters, all the others seem reluctant to get close to me.”
Yun Mu recalled how those star forces had fled as if they’d seen a ghost the moment they encountered him, and his expression turned odd.
He had no idea what he’d done to provoke them.
“Master Eleven, could it be that the Celestial Calamity Lone Star reputation has already spread among them?”
“The Celestial Calamity Lone Star rumor? Hardly. Most of these star forces aren’t even conscious; they just act on instinct.”
Eleven explained as she took a pre-warmed cloth from the washbasin and returned to his side.
“Maybe they’re afraid you’ll eat them.”
“Eat them? Uh…!”
Before he could ask further, Eleven started gently wiping the grime from his body left behind by his healing wounds.
The sudden touch made Yun Mu shudder, his face turning inexplicably red as he stammered.
“Master Eleven, why don’t you untie me first? I can wash myself, I… Mmm…”
Before he could finish, his mouth was covered.
“Don’t talk. Focus on the changes in your body.”
“Ah, alright!”
Sensing the sternness in her voice, he immediately sobered up, no longer fussing over the physical contact, and began to concentrate on himself.
As Eleven continued, the initial itching disappeared, replaced by a deep, inward pain.
“Ngh…”
A powerful force entered his body, like a predator, surging toward the other rampaging forces.
Except for the black one, the other colors immediately halted their motion.
Then, in just an instant, as if by some unspoken signal, they collectively reversed direction, fleeing toward his Dan Tian.
He couldn’t control his limbs from curling up to ease the pain, and the ropes binding him began to shake violently.
Though soft, the ropes now creaked against the bed, making sharp snapping sounds.
His movements grew more frenzied, the pain like his soul was burning, rampaging through his body.
Other than helpless moans, Yun Mu bit down so hard that his mouth filled with blood, but he never cried out in pain.
Yun Mu felt that if he gave in to this agony, he would surely regret it.
“Good. Now, try to lock these forces that have been driven into your Dan Tian. Don’t worry about failing; I’ll back you up.”
Eleven watched him with downcast eyes, her movements still gentle.
Unlike before, there was now a clearly visible Mosuo Lian connecting them.
He was frantically, willingly absorbing her power, harnessing it for himself.
The pain kept rising, but his once empty Dan Tian gradually filled, like a dried-up lake finally meeting blessed rain, soaking up the water at last.
Death and life intertwined—milky white and pink swirled like fireflies, while black wrapped around his entire Dan Tian like a membrane, tightly confining the other forces, letting nothing escape.
As the powers stabilized and his breathing calmed, Eleven sensed the changes inside Yun Mu.
A faint smile curled beneath her mask as she withdrew her hand from his body, tossing the filthy cloth into a bamboo basket, her gaze lowering slightly.
“Star force or demon force—it can all be absorbed and used, even my own power… I’ve never seen anything like this. Oh, you’re becoming more and more interesting, my little disciple…”
Murmuring to herself, she waved her hand, untying his ropes and conjuring a robe of black and white with her power, dressing him.
“So, compared to before, does your body feel clearer?”
She didn’t probe further about his physical state.
“Mm, all my senses feel sharper. Master Eleven, is this the improvement method you spoke of?”
“Not exactly. This is a method I tailored just for you, based on your body and my own cultivation experience—opening your meridians and stepping onto the path of cultivation. Enhanced senses are just a natural result.”
“But this is only the first step. There’s more ahead, and much pain to endure. I hope… you can bear it.”
For Eleven, taking Yun Mu as a disciple was a wholly new experience in her countless years of existence.
According to what she knew of humans—‘Once a teacher, forever a parent’ seemed the most fitting principle.
Though she was a woman and couldn’t claim to be his father, at the very least, her heart told her that from the moment she agreed to take this boy as her disciple, she’d taken on the duty of being his elder.
With no other kin left, she didn’t mind pouring all her care and affection into him.
So, rather than rushing to solve the mystery of Yun Mu’s strange body, she preferred to take things slow.
After all—the time the two of them would spend together in the future might well be measured in millennia.
“Your race? I thought you were a demon in the Ancient Kingdom of a Hundred Demons.”
Unfortunately, Yun Mu was a curious child, so compared to cultivation, he cared more about this mysterious subject.
“Demon? Why would you think that? Have I ever shown you a demonic side?”
“Uh… well… it’s just my one-sided guess, but before, you…”
Without thinking, he blurted out how, in the peach blossom forest, she’d wrapped him up with her tail—how it was strong yet soft, smooth yet a little rough.
He even listed the last time she fed him as a reason.
Listening to this, Eleven almost smacked him on the head.
“So, you took me for a snake demon?”
“No, no!”
Yun Mu shook his head quickly.
“A Wenlong! Much stronger than a snake demon!”
Eleven couldn’t help but smack him anyway.
“Don’t lump me in with such lowly creatures. Even a Jiao Dragon isn’t fit to carry my shoes as your master.”
That was truly intolerable.
“Jiao Dragon… not even fit to carry shoes… So, you’re actually… mmph…!”
Just as Yun Mu suddenly recalled some ancient records about a certain legendary being, Eleven covered his mouth.
“No need to rush to conclusions. Once you get closer to me, you’ll understand.”
“Mm… okay…”
Get closer?
Yun Mu nodded as he answered, but didn’t really understand what she meant.
He truly couldn’t figure out how he could ever become an existence like Eleven.