The Little Peacock Raises a Snake (GL) Chapter 73

Night deepened. The crown prince’s bedchamber was guarded layer upon layer, but all spiritual power stopped outside the room and did not dare enter by even half a step.
Everyone in the crown prince’s residence knew that the one locked inside the bedchamber was the bird-clan little demon the crown prince had taken a liking to at first glance during the day.
That little demon was very good-looking, and his nature was weak and obedient. He was exactly the type the crown prince liked most. Anyone could see that the crown prince had not been this happy in a long time.
Langya knew the crown prince was pleased, so he cleaned the little demon up and threw him into the room. Later, when the crown prince came, he could enjoy himself properly.
No one dared break into the crown prince’s bedchamber. While no one was there, Fu Zhuochen carefully drew faint runes in every corner of the bedroom.
The crown prince’s residence was tightly guarded. If Chi Heng called for help when Fu Zhuochen attacked, then even if Fu Zhuochen could kill him, he himself would have no way to escape.
So he had to prepare everything in advance. When the time came, he would use a hidden thread of spiritual power while Chi Heng was not paying attention to activate the formation and completely cut off the inside of the room from the outside. The entire formation would need about half the time it took to drink a cup of tea to activate. Once the barrier rose, no matter what happened inside, the outside world would not sense a single sound or movement.
Only like this would he have the chance to wait until Qu Linyan woke Chu Yuebai and came to meet him.
When everything was prepared, Fu Zhuochen sat back at the table and let out a heavy breath.
A strand of spring wind came through the window, making his body feel a little cold.
Fu Zhuochen lowered his head and saw the thin layers of white gauze on his body, which could not even fully cover him. Shame and anger rose in him at once. Thinking of how that fellow had touched him during the day made disgust rise from the bottom of his heart.
Tonight, no matter what, he would chop off all ten fingers of that filthy-handed dog.
But before that, the play still had to go on.
Fu Zhuochen closed his eyes and took several deep breaths, trying hard to press down the urge to kill in his heart. When he opened his eyes again, he had changed into a harmless expression and quietly sat back by the bed.
The long wait made the night deepen even further.
Outside, Chi Heng’s soft voice could be heard dismissing the guards. Fu Zhuochen unconsciously wiped the cold sweat from his palm.
The moment Chi Heng pushed open the door, he saw Fu Zhuochen on the bed suddenly stand up with a restrained face. Fu Zhuochen turned and took several steps back until his back pressed against the wall and he had nowhere left to retreat.
Chi Heng saw this, closed the door behind him, and walked closer with a smile. “Did Langya not teach you what you should do tonight?”
“Replying to the crown prince, Lord Langya taught me…” Fu Zhuochen lowered his head, his small face flushing with shame.
The fingers hidden behind him drew out a thread of spiritual power so faint almost no one could sense it. Without making a sound, he guided it along the blind spots of Chi Heng’s sight, slowly flowing to several corners of the room and touching every rune he had drawn beforehand.
“Good that you know. Then I will not teach too much.” Chi Heng sensed nothing unusual. He took only a few steps to the bed, patted the empty space beside him, and gave Fu Zhuochen a look.
Fu Zhuochen did not react for a moment.
He did know what Chi Heng wanted to do tonight. But he had not expected Chi Heng to be so impatient that he did not even want to go through the process. He wanted to get straight to the matter.
Originally, Fu Zhuochen had wanted to chat a little first and delay more time, waiting for the barrier to form.
At this moment, that was likely impossible.
Seeing Fu Zhuochen stand unmoving for so long, Chi Heng could not help urging softly, “Come here. Do not be afraid.”
Fu Zhuochen carefully walked to Chi Heng’s side. He sat down with his gaze dodging. Under Chi Heng’s especially heated stare, he reached out with both hands and hesitantly touched the jade belt at Chi Heng’s waist. The words “resistance” were written fully in his eyes.
Over the years, if all the men Chi Heng had forced were counted, there might be hundreds or even a thousand.
Those who threw themselves at him too eagerly had never been what he liked.
If one asked what he liked, it was naturally this sort, someone who looked like it was his first time, clumsy and full of resistance.
“Why so slow? Not very skilled?” After Chi Heng spoke, he smiled and held Fu Zhuochen’s hands.
In that instant, he clearly felt the other person shudder. That rejection and fear from the heart made his mood wonderful.
Chi Heng pulled off the belt that had been half undone and tore open the already-too-thin gauze on Fu Zhuochen’s body, then pressed him hard onto the couch.
The clothing that already barely covered him was suddenly torn open, exposing a pale, thin chest and broad shoulders. Chi Heng pressed both hands tightly on Fu Zhuochen, lowered his head to his neck, and began tasting his newest plaything.
Fu Zhuochen was so shocked by Chi Heng’s hurried actions that his soul nearly flew away. He had never imagined Chi Heng could be this desperate, as if he had not touched a man in centuries. He was like a hungry wolf, and he even stuck out his tongue.
Fu Zhuochen wanted to push him away, but both hands were pinned tightly at the head of the bed. Unless he used spiritual power, he could not move at all. He could only twist his body to dodge.
But how could he dodge?
“Crown Prince… do not do this…” He glanced from the corner of his eye. The barrier was only half formed.
“You are already mine. You have to learn to get used to it.” As Chi Heng spoke, he became even more frenzied.
Chest, neck, then cheek. Fu Zhuochen was licked until his scalp went numb, and he even felt sick enough to vomit. For a moment, he no longer cared whether this would anger Chi Heng too early. He raised a little spiritual power, shook him off, and rose to escape.
Chi Heng reached out, grabbed Fu Zhuochen as he tried to get off the bed, pulled him back onto his lap, and pinched his waist hard. He laughed loudly. “You cannot escape my palm.”
“!!!” Fu Zhuochen’s heartbeat instantly raced to the extreme.
In the next second, he felt something touch him from behind. At once, he wanted to die. He gritted his teeth and stomped fiercely on Chi Heng’s foot.
Chi Heng cried out in pain and pressed Fu Zhuochen onto the bed again. Looking at the demon before him, whose face was red as if filled with blood, his eyes grew especially excited.
He liked those who resisted. The more they resisted, the more easily he grew excited.
“You are quite strong.” As Chi Heng spoke, he leaned forward again.
At that moment, the barrier fully formed.
“Get lost!” Fu Zhuochen used all his strength and kicked Chi Heng away, his eyes red from shame and fury.
Chi Heng gritted his teeth and tried to step forward again to restrain him, only to discover that the person’s skill and cultivation were far stronger than before. In only a few seconds, they had exchanged several moves.
After several moves, Fu Zhuochen even had the upper hand. When Chi Heng came back to himself, a red feather blade was already pressed against his neck.
He narrowed his eyes slightly and looked over the person before him again, whose clothes barely covered his body. Yet there was no fear in his gaze.
“You want to kill me?”
“What do you think?” Fu Zhuochen asked back through gritted teeth.
Chi Heng raised his brows. “With you?”
Fu Zhuochen was too lazy to waste more words with him. He pushed the spiritual power controlling the feather blade forward, wanting to cut Chi Heng’s throat directly. But he discovered that although the feather blade pressed against Chi Heng’s neck, no matter how hard he tried, it could not move forward even an inch. Not only that, it was slowly being pulled aside.
Fu Zhuochen could not help feeling shocked.
His hand seemed no longer to obey him.
“Why did you think I could not sense the barrier you set in my room?” Chi Heng smiled and lightly patted Fu Zhuochen’s cheek. His lips curved. “Little beauty, this crown prince will teach you a lesson today. Looking down on an enemy is the most fatal mistake in war.”
Fu Zhuochen’s brows tightened. He found that he had suddenly lost control over his body. Even moving a finger had become especially difficult.
Chi Heng tilted his head, stretched out all ten fingers, and flicked them up and down a few times. Fu Zhuochen’s ten fingers moved along with them.
Only then did Fu Zhuochen see that at some unknown time, extremely thin puppet strings had been tied onto his body.
“Are you very curious about when this happened?” Chi Heng laughed twice and placed Fu Zhuochen’s feather blade in his hand, playing with it.
Fu Zhuochen gritted his teeth. “You saw through me from the start?”
“No. Before you attacked me, I did not see through you.” Chi Heng raised his head and looked out the window, narrowing his eyes. “I only had a small suspicion, so I made a small preparation.”
Seeing Fu Zhuochen’s eyes filled with confusion, Chi Heng lifted his chin. “I do not mind telling you.”
“If puppet strings enter the body, one is only an ordinary puppet. Once the strings are cut, control is lost. But if blood from the heart is taken to make a blood gu, and a living puppet is refined by borrowing the blood gu’s power, that is completely different. As long as I wish, even without controlling it, I can share senses with it at any time.”
Chi Heng’s smile was cold. “Fu Zichu, you have such a pretty face, yet I had never heard your name. No matter how I thought about it, I could not feel at ease. But I truly wanted you… So, just in case, I opened shared senses with Chu Yuebai.”
“…”
“Is it not a coincidence? The little bird you saw under the crabapple tree that day later happened to appear outside Chu Yuebai’s window too.” Chi Heng smiled proudly. “I know this alone cannot prove anything. Perhaps it simply liked the tree in that courtyard.”
“But I could not put my worry down. So… I had Langya hide my puppet strings in the clothes he gave you after washing you, and I placed a small puppet in this room beforehand. The whole night, from far, far away, I controlled it and listened to every move you made.”
After Chi Heng finished, his finger moved slightly. A palm-sized cloth doll with a split mouth and big ears fell out of the wardrobe.
“Ah, I heard you drawing formation runes in the room. I am so sorry.” Chi Heng made an exaggerated expression as he spoke, then curved his brows and leaned closer to Fu Zhuochen. His eyes widened with excitement. “Let me guess your identity. Someone who would come to save Chu Yuebai must have some friendship with Qu Linyan. Three hundred years ago in Hundred Flowers Valley, someone joined hands with Qu Linyan and blocked one strike from the Fox King. By coincidence, that person was also a bird-clan demon, and by coincidence, he also had a beautiful face praised by everyone.”
Chi Heng leaned close to Fu Zhuochen’s ear and said each word softly. “It is you, is it not? Fu. Zhuo. Chen.”
“People who think themselves clever truly are both cute and laughable.” After speaking, Chi Heng suddenly laughed loudly. “You wanted to raise a barrier and kill me while I was not paying attention. In the same way, I used your carelessness and planted the puppet strings on you into your body without anyone knowing during the moments we touched each other.”
Fu Zhuochen calmed down and frowned. “I really underestimated you.”
“Unfortunately, your cultivation is too high. I do not dare let you go easily.” As Chi Heng spoke, greed filled his eyes. “But if I kill you, I cannot bear it. So I can only take blood from your heart and make you my second living puppet, letting you stay by my side forever like Chu Yuebai… Do not be afraid. I will treat you well in the future.”
As Chi Heng spoke, the five fingers of his right hand changed into devil wolf claws. The sharp fingertips pressed against the smooth skin before Fu Zhuochen’s chest.
Little by little, they pierced in.
Then he drew out several drops of blood.
The fresh blood was swallowed by a blood-colored black mist in the air. In the end, it slowly turned into a blood-red gu worm.
Chi Heng held the gu worm in his palm and played with it for a long time under Fu Zhuochen’s disgusted gaze. Finally, he dripped one drop of his own blood into it, opened his mouth, and swallowed it.
“Half a year. In half a year, you will be completely my puppet.”
After his pride, Chi Heng stretched out his ten fingers and tried to wash away Fu Zhuochen’s self-awareness.
But just as he was about to succeed, he heard a cold laugh.
Fu Zhuochen, who should have lost consciousness, suddenly opened his eyes and said coldly to him, “People who think themselves clever and are greedy beyond cure truly are hopeless.”
“How can you…” Before Chi Heng finished speaking, he felt the blood and qi in his body surge backward. His heart, lungs, and organs felt as if they had met fire.
“What did you do to me!” Chi Heng’s frightened eyes widened greatly, and even his voice turned hoarse and strange.
“Were you not very clever? Guess for yourself.” As Fu Zhuochen spoke, he broke free of the puppet strings on his body one by one.
With every puppet string that snapped, frightening blood marks appeared on both of them.
Yet he seemed to feel no pain. He reached out and grabbed Chi Heng’s neck. “With your cultivation, you want to form a blood contract with me? You truly are not afraid of backlash.”
“If you had not been so greedy, I would never have had a chance to turn the tables.” As Fu Zhuochen spoke, the feather blade was already in his hand.
With one hard slash, he cut off all ten of Chi Heng’s fingers. Blood instantly splashed everywhere.
Chi Heng screamed, but the sound was blocked layer upon layer by the barrier. No one outside could hear it, and naturally no one could come save him.
“What exactly… did you do to me…”
“I did nothing to you. Your own cultivation was not enough, so you suffered backlash.”
As Fu Zhuochen spoke, his fingers tightened and fiercely snapped Chi Heng’s neck.
In the moment before he lost consciousness, Chi Heng’s eyes were full of disbelief.
“Hard to believe, is it? Who would not find it hard to believe?” Fu Zhuochen muttered softly.
At the instant his awareness had been pulled away, Fu Zhuochen had truly thought his life was over. But no matter what, he had not expected that after Chi Heng used an evil art to forcefully form a blood contract with him, the demon poison in Fu Zhuochen’s body would backlash against Chi Heng and allow Fu Zhuochen to recover his own awareness and turn control back.
If not for this, he would almost have forgotten that every demon had demon poison in their body.
Demon poison could not be released outward. It only existed in the blood. Different races had different poison.
Because of that, unions between demons and humans often killed humans. Only when demons and devils, whose bodies were closer, joined together did this bit of demon poison become harmless.
Fu Zhuochen was born a mutation. The demon poison in his body was already an extremely powerful fire poison, not to mention that it had been cultivated for more than four thousand years.
When Chi Heng refined the blood gu and formed the blood contract, not only had he directly taken the heart blood with the deepest demon poison, he had even swallowed it in a death-seeking way. No wonder the aftereffect was so strong.
Everything had been dangerous but not fatal. Fu Zhuochen could not help letting out a breath.
He sat by the bed and thought for a moment. Then he suddenly frowned, could not stop himself, and leaned on the bed to vomit.
*
In the dead of night, Yun Su’s two little feet clutched a branch. Her half-open eyes suddenly closed for a moment.
The next second, she quickly startled awake, shook out her wings, and stood properly again.
She had heard maids passing by say that Fu Zhuochen had already been chosen by Chi Heng to serve in bed today. The plan would surely be carried out tonight. She had to guard Chu Yuebai.
But so much time had passed, and Chu Yuebai had not shown the slightest change.
Had Fu Zhuochen failed?
That could not be. If something had gone wrong, there should be some movement. How could it be this quiet?
The longer Yun Su waited, the more anxious she became, so anxious that every feather on her body seemed to grow worried along with her.
Just as she began to wonder whether she should go to the crown prince’s residence to check the situation, Chu Yuebai, who had already fallen asleep inside, suddenly turned over and sat up.
Yun Su quickly flew down from the branch to the window and looked inside curiously.
She saw Chu Yuebai’s face was deathly pale. In those eyes that had once been like dead water, fear and pain had actually appeared.
This counted as something unusual, right?
It counted, did it not? It must count!
Yun Su hopped anxiously on the window sill twice. In the end, she helplessly discovered that the spiritual net surrounded this entire place. No matter where she used magic, she would be discovered. There was nowhere to hide.
So to save time, she simply changed into human form and raised her left hand.
The next second, a white spiritual flower appeared in her left palm. Her right fingertip touched the flower core, and blue spiritual light instantly poured into it.
“Someone come! Someone has broken into the crown princess’s residence!”
A maid who happened to see her shouted loudly. Her body had already turned into wolf form, and she leaped toward Yun Su.
Yun Su easily dodged with one sidestep. She turned and kicked the maid to the ground, held the spiritual flower in her hand, flipped through the window into the room, spun once to pull in the hem of her robe that was dragging outside, and sealed several doors and windows with spiritual power.
At the same time, Qu Linyan and Ciyin both woke from the dream.
“Little Black! Hurry and look. Are the puppet strings broken?” Yun Su said as the movement outside grew louder and louder.
Qu Linyan touched two fingers to Chu Yuebai’s brow and found that although the puppet strings were still on her, the strings on the controller’s end had all broken.
“Xiaoba, block the people outside.”
“All right!”
“Little Flower God, lend me a hand.” As Qu Linyan spoke, the Tear Mark poison flowed from her fingertip.
“Devil Flower Tear Mark?!” Ciyin was shocked.
“Help me suppress the poison!” Qu Linyan frowned.
“Oh, oh!” Still shocked, Ciyin hurriedly used magic to ease the impact of the Tear Mark poison on Chu Yuebai.
Chu Yuebai had been controlled for a long time and had almost lost all her self-awareness.
Tear Mark was a deadly poison that could attack the heart and draw out hatred. It could very easily destroy a person’s mind.
But no matter how poisonous a devil flower was, it was still a flower.
As long as it was a flower, it belonged under the Flower God’s care.
First, use Tear Mark poison to wake Chu Yuebai’s past memories. Then borrow Ciyin’s half-trained Flower God power to reduce the harm Tear Mark caused Chu Yuebai as much as possible.
This was the best method Qu Linyan could think of.
Outside the room, the devil guards began gathering spiritual power to attack by force, trying to break the layer of protection Yun Su had set.
Under the merging of two strands of spiritual light, Chu Yuebai’s expression became incomparably pained.
…
“Yuebai, I am sorry. Mother will save your father. I surely will…”
“Before that, close your eyes first, all right? Mother promises you that when you open them, your father will be back…”
“Mother! No! Do not lock me away, Mother!”
“Please… do not lock me away! Please, I beg you…”
So cold. She should have been born five thousand years ago, yet she had been sealed alive for more than two thousand years by the black ice formation at the peak of the sky.
From the moment she had memories, her mother had been mad.
Mad for hundreds of years, only to search for a man whose soul had long since turned completely to ash, without even a remnant spirit left behind.
That man was her father.
She had never seen his face. She did not know his temperament. She did not even know the cause of his death.
She only knew that while she was still curled inside her mother’s womb, her father had already scattered to dust between heaven and earth.
Her mother refused to believe this truth and went completely mad.
Mad enough to believe that man would still return. Mad enough to hate that Chu Yuebai grew up little by little.
“If you become like this, what if your father cannot recognize you when he comes back? When he left that year, you were still in my belly… right here, here… He once pressed his ear here and listened to your voice…”
“Why did you become like this? He will not recognize you!”
Her mad mother brought the young her all the way to the forbidden land of the devil clan, the Peak of the Sky.
That place had once sealed the green lizard clan in ice for a full twenty thousand years.
“Father will not come back, Mother… Father can never come back again… Please, do not do this to me…”
She cried and begged desperately, but no matter what, she could not receive her mother’s mercy.
More than two thousand years frozen in ice. More than two thousand years of waiting.
The one who finally rescued her was a red-eyed blood wolf devil.
“Child, come with me. From now on, I will be your family…”
“Mother, Mother…”
“She… she went with your father. I promised her… I would take good care of you.”
How laughable.
Her only blood relative in this world had never given her even the smallest share of love or hate in that woman’s life…
After two thousand years sealed in ice, the one who raised her little by little was actually an extremely unfamiliar red-eyed blood wolf devil.
That devil gave her power below one and above ten thousand. He gave her affection greater than that of blood kin. From childhood to adulthood, he indulged and loved her in everything…
She knew some people said that it was only mutual use, yet they had also once given her full sincerity.
Because when he looked at her, aside from affection, his eyes held memory and regret.
When she was young, she sometimes wondered whether she should thank the mother who had never given her any warmth. At least before that woman left, she had left behind someone willing to care for her like this.
“Foster Father, how good would it be if you truly were my father?”
“If you marry my son, you can call me father.”
“Then I will marry. When I grow up, I will marry!”
“Of my two sons, whoever you like will be the future inheritor of the Devil Venerable’s seat. I promise you that you will always be the most honored woman in the devil realm.”
Unfortunately, promises were the most fragile things in this world.
Some people had never intended to lie, yet they could never fulfill the promises they once made.
“Must you and Qiong’er fight until one of you dies…”
“Foster Father, Big Brother forced me. From beginning to end, Big Brother forced me!”
This was fate. No one could resist it.
It was just like her. From birth, she had been destined to have thin family and friendship.
Even if she sank forever and became a puppet no longer worthy of having her own awareness… perhaps no one would come save her again, right?
That was fine. She could treat it as paying back the life she owed his son.