TDSDE 23

23. The Consequences of Provoking Me

The Left Protector of the Demonic Sect was a mystery.

Some in the jianghu speculated that the sect deliberately kept his background a secret to ensure that his unparalleled martial arts could truly remain “one of a kind under heaven.”

But what they didn’t know was that even within the sect, the Left Protector’s origins were shrouded in mystery. Aside from the Sect Leader, others only knew the tip of the iceberg.

That included Bai Yuanxiu. Even before he joined the sect, he had heard about how the Demonic Sect Leader had brought back a fourteen-year-old boy and treated him with remarkable care. The boy was so highly regarded that even the Master of the Azure Dragon Hall had to personally attend to his meals and daily needs—earning him no small amount of envy.

Many assumed the boy was the young master of the Demonic Sect. Given the Sect Leader’s reputation in his youth, they guessed the boy would soon make some earth-shaking move of his own.

“They weren’t completely wrong,” Xiao Qing murmured, his gaze lowered toward the cup on the table. “It was quite a shocking display.”

At sixteen, the boy had gone alone to the perilous Thirteen Dens of Xiao Lian, and in a single night, he had slaughtered every one of the hundreds who lived there.

They all died from massive internal bleeding due to organ damage. But anyone who had seen the bodies dared not speak, because their deaths were so grotesquely terrifying.

Bai Yuanxiu had heard rumors too. They said the corpses’ bones were crushed into pulp, their chests sunken in. When the handlers tried to lift one, the body crumbled into a pile of bloody mush.

As Xiao Qing held the teacup, steaming liquid poured to the brim, his pale fingers gripped the porcelain steadily, as if the scalding heat didn’t bother him at all.

Bai Yuanxiu reached out and took that cold hand, carefully prying open each finger. As expected, the fingertips were already turning red.

He lifted Xiao Qing’s hand and gently blew on it, casting him a reproachful glance. “What are you doing? It’s not like you can’t feel pain.”

Just that one line instantly dispersed the icy aura that had begun to rise around Xiao Qing.

Silence settled between them. After a moment, Xiao Qing slowly blinked and looked at him. “You’re not going to keep asking?”

Bai Yuanxiu didn’t even look up as he took out a small box of translucent medicinal salve and gently applied it to the swollen fingertips. “If you’re willing to talk, you will. If not, I’ll keep waiting.”

He added, “I’ve already waited two years for you. What’s a little longer?”

Bai Yuanxiu had always known Xiao Qing carried secrets. After all, when they first met, Xiao Qing had seemed utterly incapable of martial arts, with nothing to rely on in the jianghu. By all logic, a noble young lord like him had no business wandering the wilderness alone.

But since he couldn’t figure it out, Bai Yuanxiu simply chose not to dwell on it. Instead, he did his best to close the distance between them, patiently waiting for Xiao Qing to tell him the truth.

He had never been able to bring himself to push Xiao Qing—and even now, he didn’t.

As Bai Yuanxiu idly thought that the ointment wasn’t as miraculous as Ye Nanxun claimed, the pale hand resting loosely in his suddenly flipped over and clutched his hand tightly.

“Ah—” Bai Yuanxiu was about to tell him not to move when he looked up and saw Xiao Qing staring straight at him.

That the Left Protector had “no desires, no wants” was practically an accepted fact in the Demonic Sect. Even in the past two years, when “Ah Qing” had been so close to Bai Yuanxiu, he had never looked at him like this.

It was the look of a predator—like a snake locking onto its prey.

Bai Yuanxiu’s martial instincts kicked in, and a wave of goosebumps rose across his skin. He forcibly pushed down the unease and glared. “What’s with that look? Why so fierce all of a sudden?”

Xiao Qing only narrowed his eyes slightly. “Bai Yuanxiu, do you know what happens when you provoke me?”

Of course Bai Yuanxiu knew. The Left Protector of the Demonic Sect was infamous in the jianghu—anyone who crossed him never ended well. He heard the words, turned them over in his head, and suddenly realized what Xiao Qing really meant.

His eyes widened. “You don’t seriously think… that now I know who you really are, I’m going to abandon you?”

Xiao Qing didn’t answer—but his silence said it all.

A sudden, overwhelming emotion surged into Bai Yuanxiu’s head. He instantly felt heartbroken.

His nose stung, his eyes burned. He was the kind of person who couldn’t control his emotions once they flared up. So he quickly bowed his head, trying to hide his pathetic state from Xiao Qing.

And that’s when he heard Xiao Qing say, “If you do, I’ll cripple your martial arts. Cut off your hands and feet.”

Bai Yuanxiu felt even worse.

It was bad enough that Xiao Qing didn’t trust his feelings—turns out he hated him enough to make him a cripple too?

“Oh.” Bai Yuanxiu gave a muffled response, his voice heavy with congestion.

He was so caught up in his emotions that whatever Xiao Qing said next didn’t even register. All he could think about was how Xiao Qing used to sweetly call him “Yuanxiu” while holding his hand. That wave of grievance just kept rising.

So when a pair of cold hands cupped his cheeks, his eyes blinked—and two tears rolled down.

Xiao Qing froze. “What’s wrong?”

That one question broke the dam of Bai Yuanxiu’s bottled-up frustration. He shoved Xiao Qing’s hands away and turned his back. “I don’t need you to care.”

Once the tears started, they wouldn’t stop. He kept rubbing his eyes with his sleeve, getting more and more annoyed as his vision blurred.

Then suddenly, a white figure appeared in front of him.

Bai Yuanxiu blinked away two more tears and saw Xiao Qing crouched before him, hands on his knees, gazing up at him with an innocent, almost obedient expression.

Xiao Qing was so close that the two fresh tears landed right on his startlingly pale face. Bai Yuanxiu instinctively reached out to wipe them away with his knuckle—but midway, he froze as something seemed to occur to him and quickly tried to pull back.

But he didn’t make it.

Xiao Qing was faster.

He caught Bai Yuanxiu’s hand, leaned forward, and pressed his cheek into the palm—saying nothing, just quietly gazing into his eyes.

Bai Yuanxiu burst out laughing. “You’re just pretending to be good.”

Xiao Qing let out a soft “Mm,” keeping a straight, expressionless face. “But you like it.”

There was no way Bai Yuanxiu could lie and say he didn’t. So when Xiao Qing gently asked again why he’d cried, he hesitated for a long time before finally revealing the thoughts and feelings he’d been hiding.

His cheeks flushed red. “I really didn’t mean to cry.”

Seeing such a rare expression on Bai Yuanxiu’s face, Xiao Qing’s hand, still resting lightly on his knee, unconsciously rubbed in place a couple of times. His pitch-black eyes were like a net, or a prison with no way out.

But in the end, he merely stood up and sat beside Bai Yuanxiu, poured himself a cup of tea and sipped it as if nothing had happened. “So… you didn’t catch anything I said after that?”

“Not exactly,” Bai Yuanxiu admitted. “I heard you mention those people were connected to your former master. After that… not much.”

Xiao Qing didn’t say anything. He simply poured out the cold tea in Bai Yuanxiu’s cup, refilled it, and pushed it back to him, like nothing had just happened. Then he calmly began recounting what he had said before.

The “Thirteen Dens of Xiao Lian” was actually a general term. Many undocumented people lived there, mostly engaged in shady dealings.

Bai Yuanxiu had heard the name when he was just a child. He’d learned later that it was tied to many criminal cases. Still, he always figured the people there were just desperate souls forced into their circumstances—his heart leaned more toward sympathy than condemnation.

Many of the roaming heroes in the martial world thought the same, which was why no one had ever made a serious attempt to wipe out the place in the name of justice.

But that wasn’t the truth.

The Thirteen Dens of Xiao Lian was a true den of evil. Even a child raised there found joy in torturing small animals. It had nothing to do with being “driven by circumstance.”

This was the terrifying reality of “evil bloodlines.”

And the man those people served—was someone named Du Gujue.

This world was full of legends, and Du Gujue was one of them.

It was said he was born with incredible talent, and after barely surviving a devastating ordeal in his youth, he stumbled upon a mysterious martial legacy.

With those skills and his daring mind, he ventured through countless perilous lands, encountering one fortuitous event after another, until he became the strongest martial artist in the world.

Back then, there was still a Martial Alliance in the martial world, and only someone with unmatched strength and reputation could become its leader. Naturally, that title fell to Du Gujue.

But once power and desire intertwine, it’s only a matter of time before a person’s true nature begins to change.

He had once roamed the martial world with nothing but a burning passion for justice, never seeking fame or praise. But once he became the Martial Alliance leader, he started entertaining the idea of unifying the entire martial world under his rule.

He’d already brought all the Central Plains sects under the Alliance’s control. But the world was bigger than the Central Plains, and bigger than the Dajing Dynasty.

The Alliance began manufacturing reasons to challenge sects beyond their borders—strong-arming and coaxing them into submission. But these tactics only worked on small, weak sects. Before long, Du Gujue hit a wall.

That wall—was the Sanxing Sect of the Western Regions.

The Western Regions were mostly desert. There were scorching, bone-dry days, and quiet, beautiful starry nights.

The Sanxing Sect worshipped the stars and moon, and its members were known for their skill in assassination and stealth. It was considered the top sect outside the Dajing.

Du Gujue, used to smooth sailing and inflated by hubris, charged into the Western Regions under the banner of “purging foreign heretics.” But he was soundly defeated by the Sanxing Sect Leader.

That Sect Leader was a mysterious, powerful figure—merciful and compassionate. He spared the lives of the Martial Alliance’s forces and drove them away.

But that single act of mercy would prove to be a tiger returned to the mountain—the beginning of a great tragedy.