Sword Sect Little Demon Child, Three and a Half Years Old and Extremely Fierce

Over there in the main hall.

The atmosphere was more somber than in the cafeteria.

The sect leader and three elders sat together.

There was no braised pork on the table, only a pot of cold tea and a lamp that was about to go out.

Wen Zhiya was the first to speak.

"Those old fogies suddenly coming back to life, it can't just be for 'taking charge,' right?"

Jing Yuan nodded, still fiddling with an unfinished pill in his hand.

"They didn't even come out when their grandson died, but this time they're all running around faster than anyone else, more enthusiastic than going to a market. Have they been so bored at home they've grown mushrooms?"

Wangji recited a Buddhist chant.

"Amitabha. When things are abnormal, there must be something sinister; when people act abnormally, there must be a knife."

Wei Cangxuan leaned back in his chair, crossed his legs, and took a sip of cold tea.

He sipped his tea very slowly, as if he was preparing something.

"They're not letting me participate in the investigation, aren't they just afraid it will lead back to them?"

The three elders exchanged a glance, their eyes rolling in unison, as if they had rehearsed.

Wen Zhiya leaned forward, lowering his voice:

"Sect Master, what do you know?"

As he spoke, Wen Zhiya pulled out a tender cucumber that he had just picked from the back mountain.

I took a bite, and it was crunchy.

Then sit up straight and wait for the exclusive inside scoop.

Wei Cangxuan remained silent.

I took another sip of herbal tea.

Then I put down the cup and decided to start from the beginning.

"The planners started making moves more than a hundred years ago."

The three elders' ears perked up simultaneously.

"You know that Qingmeng disappeared several years ago, right?"

The three nodded.

This incident caused quite a stir back then.

The successor of the Qingyun Sect mysteriously disappeared, causing a huge uproar within the sect, which nearly blew the roof off the main hall.

Some say she was murdered.

Some people say she betrayed us.

Some say she was carried away by a monster.

Some people even said she eloped with someone.

The last guess was the closest, but nobody believed it.

Wen Zhiya said, "Back then, I heard that the Qingyun Sect had been arguing for seven whole years over the position of successor."

Wei Cangxuan lowered his voice, so much so that the three elders had to lean closer.

"Do you know that at that time, a major event also happened in the Demon Realm: the Demon Lord also disappeared."

Jing Yuan slapped his thigh:

"Yes! I heard that there was a period when the Demon Realm was indeed leaderless, and the nobles were fighting for power, almost tearing down the Demon Palace. During that time, news from the Demon Realm couldn't get in, and we thought they were preparing some big move, but it turned out they were just fighting for the throne."

Wangji chimed in, "So both sides disappeared at the same time? That's no coincidence."

"Of course it's not a coincidence." Wei Cangxuan smiled knowingly.

That kind of laughter wasn't the kind that said, "I knew it."

Instead, it was a laugh that said, "I saw it with my own eyes."

His eyes also held a smug look that said, "You'll never guess what I'm going to say next."

"Because the mastermind used forbidden techniques to seal an ancient secret realm, trapping the two most likely troublemakers inside."

The three exchanged a glance, their expressions changing from "Oh" to "Hmm?"

Wen Zhiya raised his hand to interrupt:

"Wait, the Demon Lord and Qingmeng? Qingmeng, little girl?"

Wei Cangxuan nodded:

"Yes. It's her. She stayed with the Demon Lord in the secret realm for several years, and they had a child together."

The hall fell silent.

It was so quiet you could hear the cucumber being bitten into.

Jing Yuan was the first to react, his mouth agape wide enough to fit the lid of a pill furnace.

"So... Young Master Fu and Xiao Pin'er are Qing Meng's children?"

Wei Cangxuan nodded: "That's right! Congratulations, you got it right. Although there's no prize."

The three elders looked at each other in bewilderment.

The expression changed from "Hmm?" to "Huh?"

It turned into "Oh~~", and finally settled on "I see".

Elder Wangji chanted a Buddhist prayer, which took a rather long time.

It's like giving myself some time to process it.

"No wonder, Qingmeng was often nowhere to be seen after she returned. I heard that she went to the mortal realm to undergo a love tribulation, and only returned to the sect to succeed her after her mortal partner died. But no one has ever heard of her having a child, nor has anyone suspected that she had a child."

Jing Yuan added from the side, "'Dead' means they went back to the Demon Realm. That's a pretty easy lie to tell."

Wangji nodded: "There's no need to explain where my Daoist partner went, nor where the child came from."

Wei Cangxuan glanced at the three of them.

"Her Daoist partner didn't die. She has a child. It's just that her partner returned to the Demon Realm, and I took the child in."

He paused, then continued:

"You don't know, the day I picked up Fu Yan, I could tell at a glance that he was the child of the Demon Lord and Qing Meng."

"Back then, the Demon Lord became a father in the secret realm and was overjoyed. He boasted to the monsters in the secret realm about 'my son.' The spirit beasts couldn't understand, but he kept saying it anyway."

"After talking to the monsters, he talked to the birds in the trees. During that time, the monsters in the secret realm would run away whenever they saw him."

"Although Fu Yan has grown up and changed, his eyes are exactly the same as the Demon Lord's, and his spiritual root and temperament... there's no mistake."

"It's like when you take a bite of a steamed bun, you know it was steamed by Yan Chuan, and no one else can steam it with this taste."

Wen Zhiya felt increasingly uneasy as he listened, and frowned.

"Sect Master, how do you know so much?"

Jing Yuan also realized what was happening:

"Yeah, even the person who orchestrated this might not know this much, right?"

Elder Wangji remained silent for a moment, then asked the most crucial question:

"Sect Master, were you hiding under someone's bed?"

Wei Cangxuan almost spat out his tea.

"...I was also in the secret realm at that time."

The three elders were collectively petrified.

"I was being chased, so I just happened to hide inside." Wei Cangxuan waved his hand, his tone as if he were telling an embarrassing story.

"After hiding inside, we found we couldn't get out, so we were trapped with them for several years."

"I've got nothing better to do. I might as well watch these weirdos date to kill time."

"The secret realm is vast. They live on the east side, and I live on the west side, separated by several mountains, not counting under the bed."

"But I have high cultivation and good hearing, so I can hear whatever I want."

"I didn't listen to it intentionally," he emphasized. "It just drifted over with the wind. My ears had to close themselves off on their own, and I couldn't stop them."

"It's like you don't want to eat cucumbers, but the cucumbers are right in front of you. Can you resist eating them?"

The three elders fell silent.

That silence contained two complex emotions: "You're eavesdropping" and "We dare not speak."

Then Wen Zhiya took out another cucumber from his pocket.

It was given to Jingyuan.

Jingyuan took it and took a bite without expression.

It was then given to Wangji.

Wangji took it, chanted a Buddhist prayer, and then took a bite without any expression.

Three middle-aged men sat in a row, eating cucumbers.

The scene is both eerie and harmonious.

Wen Zhiya chewed on a cucumber: "Sect Leader, is it interesting to be in love?"

Wei Cangxuan thought for a moment.

"nice."

"It's better than a storybook."

"Storybooks are all fictional, but this is based on real events, and it's free."

"The Demon Lord may not be very bright, but he's incredibly serious when he's pursuing someone."

"He cooked for Qingmeng for three years, and it was all mushy."

"Various kinds of pastes—spirit rice paste, spirit wheat paste, mixed grain paste, wild vegetable paste, mushroom paste, tree bark paste..."

"Even though I tried different methods, it was all just a paste."

"Qingmeng initially disliked it, but later got used to it, and then couldn't sleep without eating."

Jing Yuan interjected, "What about Qing Meng? What was her reaction?"

"Her," Wei Cangxuan's lips curled up slightly, "was the one who taught the Demon Lord to read."

"The Demon Lord's handwriting looks like an earthworm dancing on paper, neither horizontal nor vertical, he can even misspell his own name."

"Qingmeng taught him for three years, and he finally learned to write the two characters 'Qingmeng' correctly."

"Then Qingmeng said, 'Not bad, you've improved,' and he was so happy that he did three somersaults on the spot."

Wangji chanted a Buddhist prayer: "...The Demon Lord is doing a somersault?"

Wei Cangxuan nodded: "Yes, he did three. One forward roll, one backward roll, and one side roll. His movements were standard, and his landing was steady. He's definitely trained."

The three elders fell silent again.

This time the silence lasted even longer.

It's like they're trying to process the image of "the Demon Lord doing somersaults".