My name is Fu Pin.
I’m three years old this year.
Daughter of the Demon Lord.
Little princess of the Demon Realm.
Today, I was officially “returned” by my cheap dad:
The Demon Lord, Fu Xiao.
Right now, I’m sitting on the throne in the demon palace—the one with three big cracks in it.
I’m trying to use my three-year-old IQ to reason with the head honcho of the Demon Realm:
“Dad, yesterday I only ate two bowls of porridge, one Nether Fruit, and half a piece of dried meat!”
A flash of guilt crossed Fu Xiao’s handsome face—a face that once caused all the female cultivators in the immortal realm to suffer collective insomnia.
He squatted down.
He stared at me with those affectionate eyes that were said to hold “a ten-thousand-year gaze in a single look.”
His tone was as soft as if he were reciting love poetry:
“Pin’er, it’s not that your dad doesn’t want to raise you.”
“It’s just that we lost the war when we attacked the immortal realm before, and the reparations were so heavy we almost had to pawn our underpants.”
“The Demon Realm is really poor right now—so poor that one of the guardian stone lions at the palace gate ran away last month.”
I turned my head to look at the entrance~
Sure enough, the outline of the left stone lion was a bit blurry, looking like it had been hastily drawn with charcoal.
Fu Xiao pointed above our heads again: “Look at this palace. Last time it rained, I had to use the throne to catch the water.”
I looked up~
Indeed, this palace leaked absurdly bad, and fully two-thirds of the night-luminescent pearls on the ceiling were missing.
Last month, I saw Fu Xiao with my own eyes secretly prying one out to trade for food.
Fu Xiao continued playing the sympathy card, pointing toward the door: “And look at your brother! He’s a hundred and eight years old, yet he still has to lead a mining team every day to supplement the household income.”
I looked in the direction his finger pointed~
There was my unlucky older brother, Fu Yan, lazily leaning against the doorframe.
He was a hundred and five years older than me, but he still looked like a young youth.
He wore a patched black martial outfit, and his boots were worn almost to the point of having holes in them.
Anyone who didn’t know better would think the Demon Realm had changed careers to do performance art with the theme:
Fallen Aristocrat Style!
Fu Yan leaned against the doorframe and let out a yawn: “Dad, just say straight out that we can’t afford to keep little sister and want to send her to Mom’s place to leech off her. Why bother with all this buildup?”
Fu Xiao glared at him: “Shut up! What do you mean ‘leech off her’? This is called… a family visit!”
He turned back to me, trying his best to look kindly—though the effect was roughly equivalent to the Big Bad Wolf smiling at Little Red Riding Hood:
“Pin’er, listen to Dad.”
“Your mom is now the Sect Leader of the Qingyun Sect, a famous big billionaire in the cultivation world… ah, no, a formidable powerhouse! She has so many spirit stones they could fill up our Demon Realm’s lava river.”
“If you go to her place, you’ll eat spiritual rice every meal, munch on spiritual fruit every day, wear cloud-brocade robes, and sleep on a warm jade bed…”
I blinked at him: “Then why don’t you go?”
Fu Yan burst out laughing: “He doesn’t dare. He’s scared Mom will beat him up.”
“Last time he secretly loitered around the foot of the Qingyun Sect’s mountain trying to ‘coincidentally run into’ Mom, he ended up being chased and struck by her mountain-guarding array down three whole streets.”
Fu Xiao let out a tactical cough: “Nonsense! Your mom loves me to death! Hitting is affection, scolding is love, and chasing me down with lightning is just another deep expression of romance! What do you kids know?”
He patted my head, trying to change the subject: “Pin’er, well… Dad has to guard the Demon Realm. A demon realm cannot go a single day without its ruler, just as a outhouse cannot go a single day without paper…”
I kept blinking at him: “Then why doesn’t brother go?”
Fu Yan: “I’d love to go. But if I leave, who’s going to handle the construction of the Demon Realm? Your dad can’t even read a blueprint.”
Fu Xiao’s face stiffened in embarrassment: “Nonsense! I know how to write your mom’s name!”
Fu Yan rolled his eyes sky-high.
I suddenly understood: Oh~ so my dad is illiterate.
I jumped down from the throne—this action…
It was a bit dangerous, because one of the legs on the throne was already loose.
After standing firm, I patted off the nonexistent dust on my little dress: “Fine, I’ll go find Mom, but I have one condition.”
Fu Xiao immediately beamed with joy: “Name it! Never mind one, even a hundred conditions are fine!”
Me: “You have to miss me three times a day.”
Fu Xiao froze, and a hint of glinting tears actually flashed in those charming eyes.
He squatted down and hugged me: “Pin’er, your dad will miss you three hundred times a day!”
Fu Yan poured cold water on him from the side: “He’s just thinking about how many spirit stones you can leech off your mom.”
Fu Xiao glared at him: “Nobody asked you!”
Then he pulled out a pitch-black medallion from his robe: “This is the Demon Realm Pass. Keep it safe once you leave the Demon Realm, and don’t let anyone notice you’re from the demon race—even though you’re only half-blood.”
I took the pass and looked at it. On the back was a small line of print:
If lost, no replacement will be issued — Issued by the Demon Realm Ministry of Finance.
Then he whipped out a letter, on which was written in a crooked scrawl: To My Dearest Darling Wife.
I suspected this letter was dictated by my dad and transcribed by my brother, because I knew my dad’s handwriting looked like dancing earthworms.
Fu Xiao: “Give this to your mom. Just say… Dad misses her. Oh, and also that the harvest in the Demon Realm wasn’t good this year, so ask if she can lend us some spirit stones…”
I took the letter, feeling its heavy weight in my hand: “Dad, I get it. You’re sending me to go beg for food from Mom.”
“How can you call it begging?!” Fu Xiao said righteously. “This is normal financial mutual aid between loved ones! It’s the warm transmission of cross-realm family affection!”
I nodded, half-understanding, and then held out my hand: “Where’s my travel money?”
Fu Xiao’s expression froze for a moment. He began rummaging through his robes and pulled out three dull gray stones.
“Here,” he placed them solemnly in my palm. “These are three low-grade spirit stones! Buy whatever you want! If it’s not enough…”
He paused and spoke with deep earnestness: “Then spend it conservatively.”
I looked at the spirit stones in my hand, then at my dad’s serious eyes, and suddenly understood what people meant by:
A father’s love is as heavy as a mountain — so heavy it chokes you.
Fu Yan also walked over, squatted down, and rubbed my head: “Be careful on the road. If anyone picks on you, run as fast as you can! Don’t try to be tough—our family can’t afford medical bills right now.”
Me: “…Got it.”
And so, on a dreary night where even the moon wasn’t bright enough, I put on my little bundle and embarked on the journey to find my mom.
The guard at the demon palace was a one-eyed old demon. He watched me leave with his single good eye, wiping away nonexistent tears:
“The little princess has grown up, leaving home to go leech off people all by herself… Old Demon here is so touched…”
I ignored him.
He was caught by me yesterday secretly eating my Nether Fruit, and now he’s trying to act affectionate.
To get from the Demon Realm to the border of the Immortal Cultivation Realm, one has to cross the Nether Rift, Black Wind Valley, and a branch of the Forgotten River.
These are places where cultivators below the Nascent Soul realm are said to lose a layer of skin just passing through.
But I’m different. My dad is the Demon Lord, and my mom is a Sect Leader in the cultivation world—I have the blood of both sides running through me.
To put it simply, I can adapt to the terrain on both sides.
For instance, the biting shadows inside the Nether Rift.
When they drifted near me, they sniffed, and then swoosh—they darted right back, as if they had smelled a little ancestor they shouldn’t mess with.
I faintly heard them whispering among themselves:
— “Is that her?”
— “Looks like it. That scent… Demon Lord lineage, no mistake about it.”
— “Then what are we waiting for? Retreat! Last time some clueless guy bit her brother, the Demon Lord grabbed him and used him as a chamber pot for three months.”
— “What chamber pot?”
— “Literally is that…”
I didn’t listen any further, carrying my little bundle on my back as I continued forward.
Sometimes, relying on a powerful dad can indeed solve most of life’s problems.
…
The wind in Black Wind Valley was strong enough to blow a person’s bones apart, but my dad had taught me a simple wind-evasion technique:
Crawling.
Because the wind in Black Wind Valley blew horizontally, you’d be blown away if you walked standing up. But if you lied down and crawled, your surface area exposed to the wind was smaller, allowing you to slowly inch your way out.
I obediently followed his advice, moving forward in the gale on all fours like a little turtle.
As I crawled along, a cultivator suddenly appeared beside me.
He had a gleaming golden protective shield active, but he was still being tossed about by the wind, stumbling left and right.
When he saw me, his eyes widened: “Li—Little friend, how did you get in here?”
I answered truthfully: “By crawling in.”
The cultivator looked at me, then at his own crumbling shield. Gritting his teeth, he deactivated the shield, lied down to copy my posture, and said, “Take me with you!”
And so, one behind the other, the two of us crawled in Black Wind Valley for three whole hours.
By the time we crawled out, that cultivator’s clothes were in rags, and his hair was as messy as a bird’s nest.
Yet he was thrilled: “Little friend! This method of yours really works! It saved me at least fifty spirit stones’ worth of protection talismans!”
I blinked: “This method is only for emergencies, though. My dad said using it long-term is bad for your lumbar spine.”
The cultivator: “…”
Before the branch of the Forgotten River, we went our separate ways.
…
Crossing the branch of the Forgotten River was a hassle.
Because you had to take a boat, and taking a boat cost money.
The ferryman was a demon with ram horns on his head. He looked fierce and menacing, but his voice was surprisingly gentle: “Where to, kid?”
I tried hard to stand on tiptoe to make my voice sound a bit more mature: “The Cultivation Realm.”
The ferryman looked down at me, his horns nearly poking my head: “By yourself?”
“Mm.”
“What are you paying the fare with?”
I handed him an ore my brother had dug up: “Is this enough?”
The ferryman took it and weighed it in his hand: “Nether Iron Ore? And the lowest grade, at that… Not enough.”
I hesitated over whether to reveal my shiny title as Princess of the Demon Realm.
My dad had said not to expose my identity easily.
But if I didn’t say I was the Princess of the Demon Realm, I might not be able to cross the river.
If I couldn’t cross the river, I couldn’t reach the Cultivation Realm.
If I couldn’t reach the Cultivation Realm, I couldn’t find Mom.
If I couldn’t find Mom, I’d have to go back to the Demon Realm and keep eating porridge.
At the thought of porridge, I instantly made up my mind: “Actually, I am—!”
“Kid,” the ferryman suddenly interrupted me, his eyes showing a touch of sympathy. “You’re fleeing from the Demon Realm too, aren’t you?”
I froze for a moment, then nodded.
In a sense, I was indeed fleeing—well, fleeing from poverty.
The ferryman shook his head: “The Demon Realm is really done for now, when even a kid this tiny is running away. I heard the Demon Lord himself has started selling the night-luminescent pearls from the palace?”
Me: “…”
Bad news sure travels fast.
In the end, he accepted the ore and let me board his rickety little wooden boat, which looked as though it would fall apart at any second.
The boat swayed and drifted forward across the murky river surface.
When we reached the shore, he warned me: “Kid, once you leave the Demon Realm, never expose your demonic aura lightly. Be careful not to get caught by those cultivation sects and refined into pills.”
I nodded, pulled out another piece of ore, and handed it to him: “Thank you, here’s a tip.”
The ferryman was stunned for a moment, then burst out laughing: “Aren’t you polite?”
Stepping onto the shore and passing through the barrier, the surrounding scenery instantly changed.