Humans in the Eyes of the Demons

Jin Qing smiled faintly, naturally sensing the hidden meaning in Chi Ji's words.

She mused thoughtfully, "Yes, waiting for dawn in the long night, only to find that when the sky finally brightened, it grew even darker."

Chi Ji did not respond. The light in her eyes flickered between dim and bright as she secretly observed the High Priestess out of the corner of her eye.

There was more strangeness than familiarity.

Though they had only met twice, Chi Ji had heard many stories about her. To Chi Ji, she was always separated by a veil—a mysterious, divine veil.

They had spoken the same words.

"The sky is bright, yet it has become darker."

To an outsider, there seemed to be no difference, but the two of them knew clearly that they were not talking about the same thing.

Chi Ji had originally thought that when dawn came, the sky would surely be bright, only to realize later that she was wrong.

Jin Qing, however, had been waiting all along. She thought that as long as the night passed, the sky would definitely be bright, but she waited and waited, only to be met with disappointment time and time again.

One was the shattering of a beautiful moment.

The other was the persistent failure of hope.

It was simply because she had lived longer than her, or perhaps, the burden on her shoulders was heavier.

Chi Ji stopped speaking and gazed quietly at the sky, involuntarily recalling the light from the other side of the Nether Pool.

She wondered if the heaven above the heavens, the human realm outside the abyss, was currently bathed in sunlight.

Jin Qing suddenly asked out of nowhere, "If you were me, what would you do?"

Chi Ji turned her head sharply, her face filled with confusion. "What?"

Jin Qing repeated patiently, "If you sat in the position of the High Priestess, what would you do?"

Chi Ji's throat moved as she swallowed, a self-deprecating smile on her face. "Your Eminence must be joking. How could I ever be as excellent as you?"

Jin Qing said warmly, "I said, what if?"

Chi Ji thought for a moment and spoke boldly, "If I could... hmm... I would want everyone in the Demon Abyss to be able to see that cleanest of colors."

To see the sun!

"Why?"

"Because that color is very beautiful and wonderful!" Chi Ji paused and deliberately emphasized, "At least, that is how I feel."

Jin Qing gazed deeply at Chi Ji.

Chi Ji averted her gaze, saying weakly, "Did I say something wrong?"

Jin Qing shook her head and smiled. "No, I just realized that you and I are truly very alike."

Chi Ji was stunned, not quite understanding.

How were they alike? Was it their thoughts or their appearance? She was a bit bewildered.

She said, "Chi Ji is foolish and does not understand."

Jin Qing narrowed her eyes slightly and explained, "Because what you hold in your heart is more than just the heavenly demon race."

Chi Ji felt even more dazed, even a bit uneasy. Was it a casual remark or a deliberate emphasis?

Was it a mindless comment or a test?

Jin Qing raised her hand and pointed toward the exit of the Nether River, speaking slowly, "That way is the east of the world, and it is also where the 'sun' you saw rises. The ancestors of my race once went there; they tried to conquer it."

"Humans live there... you know of humans, don't you?"

Chi Ji nodded heavily. In her mind, a face flashed, nearly overlapping with the figure of Bai Mang.

"I do!"

Jin Qing furrowed her long brows slightly and began to explain slowly, "Humans are a very peculiar species. They are different from us demons. They do not have a so-called bloodline hierarchy or racial status. They only distinguish between the strong and the weak. If you are powerful, even marquesses and princes fear you. If you are not, even a beggar dares to rob you."

"Their cultivation relies on spirit roots, but ordinary people can also give birth to peerless geniuses. By cultivating all the way, they too can stand at the peak of all living beings."

"Hmm... they call those stronger than them 'senior,' those similar to them 'daoist friend,' and those inferior to them 'ants'..."

"The human race is obsessed with the underdog's counterattack, the rise of the talentless, and mortals cultivating immortality. It's about a single person walking out of an unremarkable little mountain village and advancing triumphantly all the way..."

As she spoke, Jin Qing retracted her gaze and looked at her sideways, asking, "I wonder if you have heard of that sword cultivator named Xu Xian?"

Chi Ji listened intently and immediately replied when asked, "I heard my father mention him by chance. He is the Little Grand-Uncle of the Wendao Sword Sect, the junior brother of the Thunder Demon, and the youngest disciple of the Sword Demon. I heard he is very powerful; he manifested a divine sword at the Demon Suppression Abyss to help his senior brothers and sisters sweep through the East Desolation. My father also said that if he does not die, the Wendao Sword Sect can last for another ten thousand years."

Xu Xian was a name known to the whole world outside the Demon Abyss.

But inside the Demon Abyss, perhaps only the heavenly demon race knew of him.

And even then, only a few of the heavenly demon race knew a few scraps of information about him.

Yet the evaluation was extremely high.

Jin Qing's eyes grew dim as she spoke in a heavy voice with knitted brows, "You are right. He is very likely to become the second Sword Demon for the humans. I have heard that this person has an eccentric personality and strange ways of doing things. He never leaves a way out for others; it has always been that he either doesn't do it, or if he does, he does it thoroughly. Give him a thousand years..."

She suddenly changed her tune and corrected herself, "No, five hundred years. In just five hundred years, I fear our race won't even be able to see this grey sky anymore."

Her voice was very low, sounding like a balloon leaking air.

For a moment, Chi Ji saw the light in the eyes of this beautiful woman—eyes that were usually as bright as green waves—suddenly vanish.

In the Demon Abyss, everyone knew that long, long ago, High Priestess Jin Qing had accidentally gained enlightenment from a primordial demon art in the Demon Dao Pavilion.

She could deduce the future and use the constellations to divine fortune.

She was very accurate!

Although Chi Ji had never met the youth named Xu Xian and only knew bits and pieces about him, it was difficult for her to accept that a single genius could change the entire existing landscape in just five hundred years.

But since the High Priestess had said it, it certainly wasn't just a casual remark. Perhaps she really had seen something.

Chi Ji could not bring herself not to believe it.

She pondered for a moment and asked tentatively, "Is that why you want to open the Nether Gate?"

Opening the Nether Gate had always been a secret. In the entire Demon Abyss, no more than a hundred people knew about it.

Yet when Jin Qing heard Chi Ji speak of it so openly, she wasn't surprised at all.

Chi Ji was the only bloodline of the Crimson Demon after all, and after the events in the Ze Capital, it was not strange for her to know.

Clearly, however, she was unwilling to delve deeper into the matter of the Nether Gate. She smiled playfully and said, "That is a secret, you know. And we've gone off-topic."

Realizing she had said something she shouldn't have, Chi Ji hurriedly said, "I apologize. Please forgive me."

Jin Qing waved her hand and did not dwell on it, instead bringing the conversation back to before. She continued, "This sword cultivator named Xu Xian came out of an obscure little mountain village in the Northern Borders. His parents were also extremely ordinary mortals. I heard that before he appeared, that village had never produced a single immortal from ancient times to the present; they hadn't even seen a cultivator."

Chi Ji listened quietly.

Jin Qing lamented, "Incredible, isn't it? Ordinary humans, in just a short hundred years, produced such an extraordinary, monstrous genius."

Chi Ji nodded instinctively in agreement.

Jin Qing said, "In the outside world, among the human masses, similar things are everywhere. Xu Xian is not the first, and he certainly won't be the last. I think this is the fundamental reason why the demon, monster, and spirit races—despite having existed much longer, possessing stronger bloodline power, and living longer—were still overtaken by humans."

Chi Ji narrowed her eyes slightly and said, "People of my demon race take ten years of pregnancy to be born. Those powerful monster races take a century at every turn, and spirits are even more difficult. But the books say that humans are very good at procreating; it only takes ten months of pregnancy..."

She hit the nail on the head.

Although the probability of mortals giving birth to a genius was small, humans were simply too good at procreating. They relentlessly pushed that probability higher until the other three races could not even hope to catch up.

Jin Qing curled her lip. "Exactly."

Chi Ji gave a bitter smile.

Jin Qing leaned closer to her and lowered her voice, saying, "I also heard that humans are extremely open about their feelings. As long as they like each other, they can be together and produce offspring. There are all sorts of things like immortal-mortal romances, human-immortal romances, human-demon romances, and undying human-ghost love..."

It was as if Chi Ji had opened the door to a new world. Hearing such extraordinary things, her mouth fell open slightly.

"Ah!"