Xu Baizhou finally could bear it no longer and collapsed to the ground, vomiting. The very next moment, the pair of brothers in red and green hauled him up from the floor and pressed a finger to their lips in a hushing gesture.
Xu Baizhou stared at the headless, deformed corpse facing him directly, along with the foul-smelling filth oozing out alongside it. He was in no better shape than Jia Liangping, who sat trembling and slumped on the ground.
Heavens above, open your eyes! What sins did I commit to be suffering like this here?
Xu Baizhou began to wonder if he had already died of illness that this wasn’t the Demonic Palace but hell, that all these people presenting birthday gifts were ghost soldiers, that he himself was some wretched wandering soul who had been dragged here, and that the figure seated on the dais wasn’t the Demon Venerable at all this was the King of Hell, plain and simple!
It made sense. It made perfect sense. Everything suddenly made sense! Xu Baizhou began recalling the sins he had committed over his twenty-some years of life, wondering whether, when his turn came, he might at least die a little more gracefully.
With his deed exposed, Jia Liangping sat slumped on the floor, his face ashen as he stared at what had spilled from the vase.
The guard captain then lifted his leg and kicked the second vase to pieces as well, revealing another headless corpse before the assembled crowd.
The two corpses’ limbs were curled and contorted, their bodies skin and bone. They looked human, yet not quite human bizarre and terrifying and they gave off wave after wave of an unbearable stench. Yet the guard captain seemed entirely unbothered. He stepped forward, examined them, and reported: “Your Excellency, still warm.”
Jia Wujie seemed somewhat discomforted by the stench as well. He waved a hand in front of his nose and said with disgust, “Warm? Warm what shit?”
“Corpses,” the guard captain replied.
“Hmph.” Jia Wujie turned his gaze to Jia Liangping. “Well, well, Jia Liangping. Presenting birthday gifts to this Venerable One while hiding things away, are we? What, were you planning to take those two heads home to steep in wine?”
Jia Wujie’s shout sent Jia Liangping collapsing flat to the ground, his rolls of fat spreading like a puddle of mud, and for a moment he couldn’t utter a single word.
The guard captain stepped forward and yanked open Jia Liangping’s clothing. Two round objects tumbled out from beneath his hem.
“Your Excellency, two human heads,” the guard captain said.
“I can see that. No need to report every little thing to me, this Venerable One isn’t blind!” Jia Wujie said.
The two human heads rolled out from Jia Liangping’s clothes. Unlike those two grotesque corpses, apart from their slightly twisted, horrifying expressions, these heads looked no different from ordinary people’s. One could even tell that they had belonged to two beautiful women.
“Mercy, Demon Venerable! Mercy, Demon Venerable!” Jia Liangping suddenly seemed to come to his senses, kowtowing repeatedly to Jia Wujie as he cried out.
“Ah…” Jia Wujie let out a sigh. “And what exactly is this supposed to mean? Could it be some sinister sorcery, meant to harm this Venerable One?” With that, Jia Wujie slammed his palm down hard on the armrest of his chair and actually snapped the seemingly solid armrest clean off!
Jia Liangping was by this time weeping uncontrollably. Kowtowing as he explained, he cried, “It’s not sorcery, it’s not sorcery, my lord! These were originally a pair of vase girls, twin girls raised inside vases from infancy, their heads growing slowly outside the vase’s mouth while their bodies remained stuck inside, unable to grow… This humble one intended to present this pair of vase girls to the Demon Venerable, but I, I was afraid! I saw that Gan Xin lost his life because his tribute failed to please the Demon Venerable, and I feared I would meet the same end. So I resorted to this desperate measure and cut off the vase girls’ heads, thinking that presenting two porcelain vases could not possibly go wrong…”
Whether he found the vase girls amusing or simply found Jia Liangping too stupid for words, Jia Wujie suddenly burst into laughter. But once the laughter faded, Jia Wujie looked down at Jia Liangping, kneeling on the hall floor between the two corpses and the mixture of blood and filth, his face showing pure disgust.
“Porcelain vases are fine enough, but your vases have dirtied my floor. How should I punish you?”
Jia Liangping immediately began wiping the floor with his wide sleeves, and the gorgeous garment was instantly smeared with filth, becoming utterly filthy.
“My lord, Demon Venerable, this humble one will clean it for you, I’ll wipe it clean right now!”
Jia Wujie watched coldly as the floor grew even filthier under Jia Liangping’s wiping, then suddenly called out, “Dang Ji.”
The captain of the guards stepped forward and saluted with clasped fists. “Your Excellency.”
“Cut off his head and make it into a mop. Mop this place clean.” Jia Wujie said this casually, as if assigning some trivial, unremarkable task.
At these words, Jia Liangping froze in place. His face turned an ashen blue, and he looked like a dead man already.
“Yes, Your Excellency.” Dang Ji accepted the order, drew his blade, and walked toward Jia Liangping.
But before Dang Ji could act, Jia Liangping suddenly lunged to the side! With astonishing speed, he snatched up a shard of broken porcelain and slashed it hard against his own throat!
In an instant, blood burst forth!
Xu Baizhou looked at Jia Liangping, lying sprawled on the ground not far away, convulsing. His eyes were bloodshot, his chest heaving like a fish stranded ashore. Slowly, he fell silent.
Xu Baizhou had been frail and sickly since childhood, spending years in and out of hospitals. He had witnessed much life and death and thought he had long since grown numb to it, yet in this moment he truly felt the terror of death.
What he had seen in hospitals was merely the helplessness of lives reaching their natural end. Here, what he saw was true despair.
The great hall was once again cleaned up.
With the first two birthday tributes having ended in complete disaster, Jia Wujie seemed somewhat impatient and began selecting from the gift list himself. He frowned as he paged through it for a long while then suddenly, as if he had discovered something novel, his eyes lit up. “This one! Where is this ancient divine beast, the Four-Unlikes!”
At that moment, a voice rang out from the crowd: “With a qilin’s head, a panther’s tail, a body like a dragon, its hooves tread auspicious light up to the ninth heaven. Demon Venerable, I, Chou Mingde of Lingsha Mountain, have come with the divine beast Four-Unlikes to offer birthday congratulations. May the Demon Venerable roam freely across the four seas and nine provinces, and traverse the three mountains and five peaks in an instant.”
The crowd parted, revealing a young man in white robes leading an enormous beast as he slowly walked toward the center of the hall.
The moment Jia Wujie saw the great beast, he rose to his feet, and upon getting a clear look at it, he clapped his hands in delight.
“Good, good! Truly the divine beast Four-Unlikes!”
The great beast stood as tall as a man, its face like a horse’s, its horns like a deer’s, its hooves like an ox’s, its tail like a donkey’s. Its whole body was pure white, covered in a layer of scales, looking exactly like the legendary divine beast, the Four-Unlikes.
The Four-Unlikes raised its head and let out a long cry upon seeing Jia Wujie.
Xu Baizhou was stunned.
Ever since he had arrived here, everything he had seen was evil, “Human-Hounds,” “Bottle Women,” and the like so he had assumed this place was steeped in filth.
But Xu Baizhou never expected that now, standing before him, would be a divine beast that existed only in legends, as noble and beautiful as a god.
The Four-Unlikes held its head high, phosphorescent light shimmering across its body, looking radiant and lovely amid the gloom and shadow of the Demonic Palace.
Jia Wujie showed unprecedented delight in this Four-Unlikes, even descending from the high platform. He walked up to it and reached out to stroke the white scales on its body.
“Demon Venerable, do you like this gift?” Chou Mingde asked.
Jia Wujie had been seated on the high platform before, so his features had been hard to make out. Now, standing in the hall, Xu Baizhou finally got a clear look at the Demon Venerable’s face and it surprised him greatly.
Jia Wujie was extremely tall, yet his figure was slender and well-proportioned.
The Four-Unlikes was much larger than an ordinary horse. Chou Mingde was already considered tall, yet he looked short beside it. But when Jia Wujie stood next to the Four-Unlikes, he made it seem no bigger than an ordinary horse. With a slight tilt of his head, he revealed his long neck and sharply defined jawline.
Jia Wujie is very handsome, Xu Baizhou thought, at least more handsome than anyone he had ever met.
Xu Baizhou himself was considered good-looking among men, with a fair, clean face, delicate features, and neatly combed short hair. But because he had been sickly since childhood, he was much thinner and weaker than most.
Jia Wujie, however, was an entirely different matter.
A high, straight nose, narrow elongated eyes, a towering frame, and that supremely arrogant smile.
It made Xu Baizhou’s head spin a little.
“It pleases me greatly, pleases me greatly! A reward! A grand reward!” Jia Wujie declared.
Jia Wujie took the reins from Chou Mingde’s hands and, with a flip, mounted the Four-Unlikes’ back.
Dang Ji stood to the side, seeming to want to say something, but after extending his hand slightly, he drew it back.
The Four-Unlikes let out a long cry and suddenly bolted.
The entire great hall of the Demonic Palace became its racetrack. It ran and leaped, at moments nearly taking flight! Jia Wujie, riding on its back, was thoroughly enjoying himself.
But the people in the hall suffered for it.
One kick of its front hooves swept away several low tables; a curl of its hind legs knocked over a row of innocent bystanders. In no time, the entire hall descended into chaos.
Just then, the Four-Unlikes flicked its dragon-like tail and actually threw Jia Wujie off its back onto the ground!
Seeing this, Chou Mingde rushed forward at once to subdue the maddened beast, while Jia Wujie was hauled up by the ghost-masked guards all around.
Thrown from the beast’s back such a great humiliation yet Jia Wujie seemed entirely unbothered. Supported by the ghost-masked guards, he returned to his seat on the platform, an excited smile still on his face.
“Demon Venerable, please do not be angered. This beast’s wild nature has not yet been tamed, and it is difficult to subdue for the moment. We beg the Demon Venerable’s forgiveness.” Chou Mingde knelt on the ground, yet his back remained perfectly straight. Though his words were those of a plea, his manner was neither servile nor arrogant, as if he were quite confident that the Demon Venerable would not turn against him.
“Hahaha! Who says this Venerable is angry? This Venerable is delighted! Someone, come bestow the demonic potion, bestow the Spirit Stones!” Jia Wujie said.
At once, several heavy chests were carried in and set down in the great hall.
Seeing this, Chou Mingde showed a hint of joy and immediately kowtowed in gratitude.
Jia Wujie nodded, appearing quite satisfied. Then he looked at the Four-Unlikes, which had only just calmed down, as if pondering something, and said, “It’s just that this Four-Unlikes cannot be tamed by this Venerable. I must think of a way to make use of it…”
Chou Mingde was just about to speak up with a suggestion when he heard Jia Wujie continue, “Why not cook it? This Venerable wishes to share the feast with you all!”
What? Xu Baizhou thought in shock.
Has this Demon Venerable gone mad? He wants to cook and eat an ancient divine beast!