Inner Demons

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The Yin Family girl, Yin Xuerou.

When Li Yunxin first arrived in Weicheng, he painted a divine portrait for Old Daoist Liu's Dragon King Temple. As soon as the divine portrait appeared, the nearby residents believed it to be efficacious and often came to worship.

So, Yin Xuerou came too.

Yin Xuerou's uncle was Head Constable Yin Pingzhi.

When that girl used to come to the Dragon King Temple, she did not truly believe in the divine. She only gave away a lot of money every day just to talk to Li Yunxin.

Old Man Su brought her up now.

Li Yunxin's face was filled with a gentle smile. But if Old Daoist Liu were here, he would know that this was his most dangerous moment. Li Yunxin could laugh wildly, lightly, scornfully, or coldly, but this kind of smile was the brief drawing back before a venomous snake strikes.

Old Man Su did not understand his temper and seemed unconcerned about it either. Instead, he looked at him seriously, reached out, tapped the table, and said—

"Let this old man tell you, and you see if I'm right. In your initial arrangement and scheme, two people were the most important roles. One was the beggar you met on Long Gate Street, and the other was Head Constable Yin."

"You gave the treasure to the beggar, and the beggar was killed in the alley, and the treasure was taken. The person who killed him was Head Constable Yin. This Head Constable Yin stole your thing and also wanted to climb the social ladder, so he offered your painting to the Weicheng Prefect—your goal was for your painting to enter the Prefectural Office without arousing the suspicion of Liu Ling, that child, wasn't it? You wandered around Long Gate Street for many days, causing strange things to happen, all just to mislead people and lay the groundwork."

"The difficulty in this matter was how to make Head Constable Yin ruin your plan. Head Constable Yin had already been tamed by you before and intended to befriend you. What caused him to suddenly turn against you and become so utterly ruthless?"

The old man paused here.

Li Yunxin, meanwhile, let out a soft breath and smiled. He stared into Old Man Su's eyes and asked, "Who exactly are you? If I were to guess, I'd say you are the Painting Saint. Aren't you?"

Old Man Su only squeezed out a tiny smile, but it vanished instantly. "You are quite the imaginative child. But you guessed wrong. Don't worry about who this old man is, just know that you can't escape my grasp. I am not trying to harm you; I want to help you."

"You—are walking down the evil path. These days, I must teach you the righteous way of being a person."

Since his reincarnation, had anyone ever spoken such words to Li Yunxin? He was not a gentle person to begin with and usually hated authority the most. Hearing this, he sneered, "Being a person? Old Man, get it straight, I am a Demon now, not a person."

Old Man Su shook his head. "A person. It does not just refer to someone born of parents. The righteous way of being a person can be known by Demons too. But let's not talk about this first—sit down properly."

Li Yunxin had already intended to stand up, but Old Man Su waved his hand.

It was strange; a soft force immediately pressed down on him. It was as if there was another Li Yunxin on his body. He wanted to move, but that person did not want to move, opposing him in everything.

He was trapped sitting on the stool. It was not violence, just a refusal to let him rise.

Old Man Su then continued, "Sit and listen to me. Let's talk about why Head Constable Yin Pingzhi suddenly hated you so much? Because of a mirror."

"That night you went to the Yin Family to borrow a mirror—but you climbed over the wall and went to Yin Xuerou's boudoir to borrow it. Why did you borrow the mirror? You wanted to examine yourself closely. You perhaps needed to draw your appearance and vital energy, so the more detailed, the better. You don't have to frown. The Painting School, after all. It was a flourishing School once. This old man is not the Painting Saint, but he would not be ignorant of these things."

"It is just that you have this and that kind of divine power. Why did you insist on using a mirror? Even if you wanted to borrow a mirror, why did you have to borrow it from the Yin Family girl? You clearly knew that Young Master Nine was circling in the sky above Weicheng and might see you... yet you insisted on going."

The old man slightly shook his head and looked at Li Yunxin. "You actually led that Young Master Nine to the Yin Family and had him devour Yin Xuerou alive, didn't you? Head Constable Yin of the Yin Family deeply loved his niece, blamed you for this, and thus turned against you, killed the beggar, and sent that crucial painting into the Prefectural Office. Li Yunxin, is that not so?"

Li Yunxin did not speak, only smiled faintly at the old man—this seemed to be the only thing he could do for the moment.

Old Man Su sighed when he saw him remain silent.

"You think I want to accuse you of this—you are mistaken. What I want to ask you today is about your Heart Demon."

"Li Yunxin, you told the White Yama King by the Dongting Lake that you had no guilt about the things you did, that you only killed those who deserved to be killed, and that you were a Human Demon, not a natural Demon—do you truly have no guilt regarding this Yin Xuerou?"

"In your scheme, Yin Pingzhi was a difficult character to change, so he had to turn against you. If you were truly a Human Demon, a vicious character, you would have just gone to the Yin Family and killed Yin Xuerou. Why did you have to use Young Master Nine?"

After saying this, Li Yunxin finally frowned and let out a cold snort. "You are not the Painting Saint. Why do you care so much about my business? What difference is there between a Daoist Orthodoxy Cultivator and a Demon when killing common people? If they truly need to kill, they won't even blink—why don't you go lecture them? Do you think I am thin-skinned and soft-eared?!"

The old man stared straight at him. "Do you know the difference between you and them?"

He picked up a chopstick and gently tapped the edge of the wine cup. "Daoist Orthodoxy Cultivators are never soft-hearted when killing because there is no need to be soft-hearted. They Transcend Tribulations and forget emotions, so they simply don't care about the life and death of those mortals in their hearts. If they wanted to kill Yin Xuerou, they would just go and do it. Even if they didn't want others to know, they would naturally have other means and methods."

"But you—can you still remember what the exact scene was like back then?" Old Man Su tapped the edge of the cup heavily again. The cup was jade, and the chopstick was silver. The collision instantly produced a clear, metallic sound, as if dispersing all the mist over Dongting.

This sound, combined with his question, immediately made Li Yunxin freeze where he was, his eyes wide, unable to speak!

Watching him sit there blankly for a moment, Old Man Su sighed slightly. "You can't remember, can you? You know that incident happened, but you can't recall the details. That is because you used a mysterious method to hide that memory. You told yourself not to think about that matter, to bypass that matter—so as not to give rise to a Heart Demon!"

As soon as his voice fell, Li Yunxin suddenly became furious. Although he could not stand up and could only sit, it did not prevent him from doing other things.

The Wei River Dragon King slammed the table, and the tabletop instantly shattered into dust, and even the bowls, plates, and cups on it all turned into tiny fragments! A furious roar spewed from his mouth. "Where did this old scoundrel come from—why are you destroying my Dao cultivation?!"

As he roared that sentence, the next moment, his throat tasted sweet, and a mouthful of golden Dragon blood spat out, diffusing into a golden light in the air.

But his strike did not injure Old Man Su in the slightest. The old man calmly returned a palm strike, and the fragments scattered in the air immediately gathered back together, reforming a table of wine and dishes!

"Do you know you are digging your own grave?!" The old man sternly shouted at him. "You forcefully suppressed your Heart Demon and then became a Demon. Do you think that by becoming a Demon, you no longer need to undergo any tribulations? Humph. If you only want to stop at the Profound Realm, you can naturally do as you please. But if you want to pursue the Supreme Sentiment—sooner or later, you will need a Dao Heart and Transcending Tribulation! With your character, have you considered what the consequence will be once you reach the Profound Realm but your realm stops progressing, and then you have a hidden Heart Demon and cannot retreat?!"

Li Yunxin abruptly stood up—the restriction on his body had disappeared at some point.

He stood up, rolled up his sleeves, and looked as if he was about to brawl with Old Man Su like a hooligan in the marketplace. But after thinking for a moment, he seemed to know that he was no match for the old man at all. He simply kicked the stool in front of him, sending it spinning several times in the room before it burst through the paper window and flew outside.

Outside, Li Shan heard the noise and hurried over to ask, "Is there anything, Great King?" Li Yunxin immediately cursed, "Get lost!"

Li Shan immediately fell silent and ran away.

Then, Li Yunxin wildly kicked and punched things in the room for fifteen minutes before stopping. He suddenly turned his head, glaring at Old Man Su, and pointed at him. "Old Bastard, are you the White Yama King or the Black Yama King?! How else would you know these things!?"

Old Man Su remained unangered. He sat steadily at the table, watching Li Yunxin's fit. After exchanging glances with him for a while, he said, "You guessed wrong again."

"What exactly do you want?" Li Yunxin looked at him angrily. "To preach to me? I know plenty of principles; I don't need you to tell me."

The old man smiled faintly. "I know I have harmed your Dao cultivation for now. You felt guilty when you did that thing, but you merely suppressed it. Now that I've helped you unearth it, your mind is restless, your thoughts are impure, and your realm and cultivation are unstable. But you must know that there is no safer place in the world right now than Dongting. If you don't eliminate your Heart Demon now, will you have such a good opportunity again?"

"You feel guilty toward that Yin Xuerou, which means you still have feelings in your heart. But you also claim to be emotionless—in fact, you do not understand feelings. You pretend those feelings do not exist because you do not understand them. When you truly encountered an incident like Yin Xuerou's, you couldn't bring yourself to be ruthless."

"You look down on the people of the Daoist Orthodoxy. Well, you should realize now—the cultivation methods passed down by the Daoist Orthodoxy for thousands of generations have their own profound mysteries. You should also know why Human Cultivators are unwilling to become Yin Spirits—you are a perfect example. You became a Yin Spirit but still have a human heart. You can't learn the emotionlessness of the Daoist Orthodoxy, and you can't learn the emotionlessness of Demons—is there anyone more awkward than you in the world!"

Li Yunxin's chest rose and fell violently. He glared fiercely at Old Man Su like a furious lion. After the old man finished speaking, he took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down. "Fine, fine, fine. Even if everything you say is reasonable. Even if you are doing this for my own good—I won't ask who you are—what do you want me to do? Transcending Tribulation like those people in the Daoist Orthodoxy?"

He abruptly pointed to the west. "A bunch of bastards are guarding me outside the Dongting restriction, thinking I can break this restriction, but they just won't come in. Is this the time for me to Transcend Tribulation?"

"Then I'll undergo this tribulation and that tribulation—until I become just like that bunch of bastards." Li Yunxin spread his hands. "What's the difference between that and dying?"

The old man smiled when he heard this. "That's right. There is little difference. So, you don't want to Transcend Tribulation, and I don't want you to Transcend Tribulation either. Today, I am only teaching you the principle of being a person."

"You were a person before; now you are a Demon. But 'person,' to me, does not look at the physical body or the origin. Those with the Seven Emotions and Six Desires are people; those who lack or have too much are not truly people."

"Daoist Orthodoxy Cultivators are not people to me either—the 'being a person' I speak of is not the 'being a person' they speak of."

"It's good that you are cunning, willing to use your mind, and capable of acting decisively. But this old man hopes you will think about the future when you act. Most people in the world today do not like the righteous path. They speak of morality, benevolence, and righteousness, but their actions are a different story. In the mortal world, I also know—if you act uprightly and pedantically, naturally, opportunists will step on you. Do you want to say that the Way of Heaven is clear and retribution will eventually come? In today's world, that is nonsense."

"People believe in the Immortals of the Grotto-heaven School and the Celestial Beings of the Heavenly Court—but who knows what they are and what they do."

"But when it comes to cultivation, it is vastly different. The Way of Heaven does not exist in the mortal world, but it does exist for Cultivators." Old Man Su said these words and stood up. He paced to the window, turning his back to Li Yunxin, seemingly completely unconcerned about him suddenly attacking.

"For example, your incident. If you had killed Yin Xuerou like a Daoist Orthodoxy Cultivator or a Demon, and felt no guilt, that would be one thing. But you happen to feel guilty. Since you feel guilty, the Way of Heaven is in your heart. Therefore, the Way of Heaven will not forgive you—and you will have a Heart Demon."

"If your character truly intends to cultivate, you cannot learn the actions of Demons, nor can you learn the actions of Cultivators—you must have your own way of acting. If you feel guilty and uncomfortable in your heart, then do not do that thing. You can be unrestrained and indulge your nature, but only do it if you feel open and bright about it. Only then will the Way of Heaven be clear, and only then will it be possible for you to pursue the Supreme Sentiment."

Li Yunxin became even calmer after hearing all this. He stood with his hands behind his back in the moonlight, staring at Old Man Su's shoulder, and sneered slightly. "The Way of Heaven you speak of sounds no different from the situation in the mortal world. What if the Way of Heaven is in my heart? For instance, I and a Cultivator are about to kill the same person. I cannot bear it, so I spare him. The Cultivator has no compassion, kills him directly, takes a treasure, refines it into a Magical Treasure, and slays me—what use is the Way of Heaven in my heart? It only hastens my death."

"It would be better for me to bury my Heart Demon and move forward. Perhaps the clouds will part, and I will find a completely new horizon."

The old man turned around. His face was hidden in the shadows, only coated with a cold light from the moonlight behind him.

Li Yunxin heard his voice become even deeper. "You spoke about the principles of karma and retribution to the White Yama King by Jun Mountain outside Dongting. Do you truly believe there is no Way of Heaven in this world? If the Way of Heaven can be seen by you, what kind of Way of Heaven is it?"

"The Way of Heaven is formless. To call it some kind of thing, concept, doctrine, or even profound cause and effect is simply narrow. If you can articulate it and distinguish it clearly, then it is not the Dao. I am telling you all this today only so that you can act without guilt in the future. Whether you are genuinely guiltless or falsely guiltless—when the retribution of the cyclical Way of Heaven comes in the future, you will know that I truly wished to guide you today."

Li Yunxin suddenly frowned, keenly sensing a different, deeper meaning in the old man's words.

He did not even bother to be angry, only took a step forward, leaned in, and pressed him. "What do you mean? What is the retribution?"

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