Inner Demons

Chapter 209: The Man in the Lake

Lady Hong stood in the shadows, her face slightly turned towards Li Yunxin. She gave him a mischievous smile. "Didn't I tell Young Master Li before? Lord Father refined the Jianmu Tree into my body, and now I can sense the Dongting Lake barrier. This means I am the Formation Core of this barrier."

"But even though I am the Formation Core, I honestly don't know how to get out of this barrier. Lord Father must have a way, but he didn't tell me."

She paused, then reached out and plucked a small red flower from a nearby branch, tucking it into her hair. She then turned and walked towards the main hall. "But a smart person like Young Master Li must know there's another way to break the barrier—by destroying the Formation Core."

"Lord Father spent a great deal of effort to refine the Formation Core into my body. In the past, destroying the Formation Core was harder than destroying the formation itself. But now, if Young Master Li wants to get out…"

She tilted her head. "You can just kill me."

With that, the only daughter of the Lord of Dongting, Lady Hong—who was so deeply in love with Li Yunxin due to her obsession—turned and disappeared through the moon gate to the west of the main hall, concealed by a cluster of flowers and plants.

Li Yunxin stood on the white sandy beach of Jun Mountain, stunned for a long time, before he realized he was about to face yet another choice.

He wasn't sure he could make the right one.

The Lord of Dongting had deliberately done this—that old monster. Kun Wuzi had tried to use words and the general situation to persuade him to side with the Daoist Orthodoxy. The Lord of Dongting had done the same thing, but in a more direct and brutal way.

Killing Lady Hong would allow him to leave Dongting.But for him, that would also mean destroying the humanity within his heart.

Did Li Yunxin need humanity?

Did he even still have humanity in his heart?

He had often asked himself these two questions, but he hadn't expected to have to confront them so soon.

He looked up at the sun, which was rising higher and higher. For the first time, he felt a bit of irritation.

Not far away, he heard the sound of churning waves, likely the Vicious Flood Dragon at the bottom of the lake rising to the surface. But Dongting Lake was vast, not a small pond. He saw the flood dragon carrying a gust of wind as it shot into the sky and flew away into the distance.

If he needed a long time to make a decision, he should first figure out what Dongting Lake was like.

In this era, any reliable maps were forbidden items. The few circulating among the populace were considered treasures, even though they looked like a child's scribbles to him. To understand the state of the waters he temporarily controlled, he couldn't rely on those. He had to see for himself.

Dongting Lake was hundreds of times larger than Weicheng…

Surely Lady Hong wasn't the only intelligent Yin Spirit he could talk to here, was she?

So, he began to "patrol" this large body of water where he might be staying for a long time.

He didn't expect it to take a full six days.

Initially, he wanted to check the hydrography and topography along the shore, so he paid close attention. Before, the farthest he had gone was South Mountain. This time, he simply flew along the coast, not missing the scenery. Outside the barrier, everything was sealed by a thick fog, but there was still a yard-wide strip of land along the shore. That strip was either covered in flowers and trees, a shallow beach, or a small pier.

The first day, it still felt new, but he didn't find anyone. By the second day, it had become boring. The most interesting thing in the world was people. But here, people were scarce, and the lakeside was just endless stretches of shallow beaches and groves of trees. With a troubled mind, he wasn't in the mood to appreciate nature or scenery. After a full day of looking, he was already tired of it.

So on the second day, he sped up. The scenery whizzed by beneath him, a strong wind whipping at his face. As he took in the sights in a blur, his mind was still occupied with his troubles.

Even so, it took him four full days to circle the entirety of Dongting Lake. He was flying at a breakneck speed, so fast that a regular person traveling on foot would have taken half a year to cover the same distance.

But he didn't seem to have gained anything.

Actually, on the first day, after passing South Mountain, he had already left the borders of Wei River Prefecture by evening. Over the next few days, he had passed through roughly six prefectures and two provinces. Logically, Dongting Lake was so vast that every prefecture and province along its shores should have a dock. It was always more convenient to transport goods by water.

But because of Kun Wuzi's magic, all Li Yunxin saw were the remains of a few lakeside docks. There were no people to be seen. He figured they had all died.

The barrier on the lake's edge was still shrouded in fog. The people living along the shore must have been in a state of panic, not knowing what had happened. He also wondered how many fishermen and boatmen who relied on Dongting Lake for their livelihood were now out of a living.

By the fourth day, he finally saw the faint outline of Jun Mountain in the distance—he had circled back to where he started.

It was then that he realized looking only at the shore was just a tiny fraction of Dongting Lake. If there were any unexpected people or events, they would surely be on the islands in the middle of the lake.

Jun Mountain was a large island, big enough to house several thousand families if people were to move there. But even Jun Mountain was nothing more than a sesame seed on a large pancake in the middle of Dongting Lake—just a pinprick.

There were undoubtedly many other islands like it in Dongting Lake. Who knew, maybe a surprise was hiding somewhere.

Or maybe a shock, or a scare.

So he spent another two days flying in circles around Jun Mountain. The experience was like flying over the ocean—everywhere he looked was indigo water; he couldn't even see the fog from the barrier. He used the sun as a reference point, but it wasn't very accurate. In the end, he wasted two days, only finding a single rocky island protruding from the water. He didn't want to continue.

He finally understood just how big Dongting Lake was.

One or two hundred Dongting Lakes would fill the entire Qing Kingdom, right?!

He spent six full days on this "futile" task, but the frown on his face never eased.

He still hadn't made a decision.

However, something unexpected happened on the seventh day.

He found another island. This island must have been uninhabited before because it was in the heart of Dongting Lake, and the water around it was very deep—it looked like a pillar rising from the bottom of the lake, standing alone above the water.

It was hard to build a dock around such a deep-water island, there were no fish shoals, and it was far from the shore. In this day and age, it was destined to be desolate.

The island's trees were lush and green, looking like a meticulously carved piece of jade under the bright sun on the seventh day. Seeing this, Li Yunxin's inner irritation inexplicably dissipated by a third. This surprised him.

He had been indulging in his sense of unease and enjoying the morbid pleasure it brought him. But now his spirits lifted. He figured his subconscious mind had decided he couldn't continue like this.

There were people waiting for him outside. The Ghost Emperor was in Weicheng, and his demonic disciples were outside. The Old Daoist Liu was said to have escaped with them, but he didn't know if they were safe.

He agreed with his subconscious's decision and decided to run away for just one more day. After seven days, he would return to the kind of fighting life where every nerve was constantly on edge.

Life was a battle. Comfort meant death.

Having made this decision, he carried the clouds and mist and landed on the island. On the shore, he saw a broken boat—a large one.

This meant the boat must have been a sizable pleasure boat or a large riverboat owned by a wealthy family. Now, it lay dilapidated on the shore, with only its keel remaining, the hull scattered and broken by the force of the water.

He walked around the boat and saw a line of footprints.

He followed the footprints into the woods. They disappeared on a grassy clearing, but something else remained—some scattered seashells in the grass, as if someone had been walking and eating, carelessly discarding them. The island had no beach, so Li Yunxin figured they were likely the barnacles that had been attached to the remains of the boat.

He followed the trail of seashells and found a large rock in the forest.

It was about three or four stories tall, surrounded by a large cluster of trees. It was one single large bluestone, but the bottom was hollow. A fire was burning inside, and a person was sitting next to it.

Li Yunxin looked around, not finding anything unusual. So he walked over and stood at the entrance of the rock cave to take a look.

The fire had been burning for some time and was now about to go out. An elderly man with white hair was lying on his side on the ground. His clothes were still intact. Based on his attire, he didn't look like a fisherman but a man of wealth, likely a passenger from the boat.

Just then, the old man woke up. He propped himself up and looked towards the cave entrance, squinting, as if the sunlight outside was piercing his eyes. He then rubbed his eyes and sat up straight, staring intently at Li Yunxin. "Oh… you're a young man who also fell into misfortune here?" he said in a hoarse voice.

Li Yunxin didn't speak. He slowly walked in and looked around the cave. It was less of a cave and more of a wide fissure in the rock. The firelight and sunlight illuminated only a part of it, with more hidden in the shadows. The outside was a scorching day, but inside the cave, it was cool.

The old man didn't find his behavior strange and simply laughed. "I thought our ship was the only one that met with a mishap, but I didn't expect anyone else to be here. I guess we must have angered the Dragon King yesterday—that pouring rain."

Li Yunxin walked over and sat down opposite him, his eyes narrowed. "Who are you?"

The old man just hummed in response.

"An ordinary person in this situation shouldn't be as calm as you are right now," Li Yunxin said slowly. "This place is very far from the shore, and you must know that fishermen are unlikely to come here. An old man like you would die after a few days here. But you look so composed and relaxed."

The old man finally laughed at that. The wrinkles on his face bunched up when he laughed, making him look kind and amiable. He narrowed his eyes, looking at Li Yunxin through the slits. "Ah, you young people, sigh... what's so scary about dying? People say I'm an old man of great longevity because I've lived to be sixty-eight. But this old man of great longevity was tricked onto this boat by his children and sent here to the lake for a 'pleasure trip'... in reality, they drilled a hole in the bottom of the boat."

"My old servant protected me and got me to shore. My children returned on a small boat. Who knew it would suddenly start pouring rain… I survived in this rock fissure, but my children died in the lake. Since that's the case, what is there to be afraid of about dying?"

Li Yunxin thought about it, picked up a bluestone from beside the fire pit, and sat down. He casually picked up a dry branch from the ground and threw it into the fire. "So you're not from a regular family. It must be a family of great wealth or nobility, right? Were you a nobleman from the government or a swordsman from the martial arts world?"

The old man laughed. "Let's not talk about it. But I can see that you, young master, are also an extraordinary person. Where do you come from?"

"I'm from the great Tang of the east," Li Yunxin answered casually and indifferently. "If you're going to stay on this island for a while, what will you eat? I saw seashells when I arrived. It seems you've eaten all of them now. What will you do from now on? Hunt for a living? Your body doesn't look very strong."

The old man laughed. "This old man doesn't like the smell of seafood. I don't eat fish or shellfish on a regular day—it's been decades. It's not good to ruin my integrity in my old age. The seashells you saw on the way weren't leftovers from eating; they were for use. But they weren't convenient, so I threw them away."

"As for food, I have an old servant—I mentioned him before. He protected me and got me to shore. With him, I haven't had to worry about food these past few days."

Li Yunxin looked at the old man. "He went hunting?"

"I said he's an old servant," the old man said, standing up. His stomach rumbled twice. In his opinion, this should have been rude, but he didn't care now. He slowly walked towards a part of the rock fissure that was covered in shadows. It was cold and damp there, with water slowly dripping down. Perhaps in a million years, a stalactite would form.

"Since he's an old servant, and he doesn't have any tools, where would he go hunting?" The old man stopped and sighed. "He's been with me for forty years, and he always said his life was mine. In the end, his life truly became mine."

He reached his hand into the shadows and fumbled for a while. Li Yunxin heard the clear clinking sound again—he thought it was the sound of seashells hitting rock. Then he heard the sound of slow, cutting.

Then the old man turned around.

Li Yunxin saw he was holding a bloody piece of meat—dark, white skin was still attached to it.

The old man looked at him for a moment and then fell silent. He walked over to the fire and placed the meat on a stone slab. With his other hand, he held a sharp-edged seashell and began to meticulously cut the meat. As he cut, he spoke. "In the world of beasts, either you eat me, or I eat you. In the human world, it's actually the same. It's just that humans eat in a more pleasant way—they don't eat your flesh; they eat your spirit. But a pleasant way is a good thing. If they eat your spirit, you're still alive. As long as you don't die, you can always recover."

"But some people, after living in the human world for so long, forget what humans were like when they were still beasts. They not only eat your spirit but also your flesh. They say there's no justice or fairness in the human world. But where in this world is there truly any justice or fairness? The human world is already much better than the world of beasts."

"We should make it better, not worse." The old man cut off a piece of meat, shakily threaded it onto a small twig, and roasted it over the fire. After a while, he looked up at Li Yunxin. "Tell me, if a person chooses not to be a human but to be a beast, what is that person thinking?"