Chapter 4 In their past lives, she and he were separated by a debt of life and death, yet she refused to give up until her death...
Shu Qing was dumbfounded. She saw the little snake nod at her.
The movement was reserved, refined, and elegant, with a hint of disdain in her red eyes, as if to say, "Why do you even need to ask this?"
She's like a haughty young lady... or maybe a young master.
"Slow down, let me calm down..." She subconsciously rubbed her face, muttering incredulously, "Am I really that lucky? I just picked up a little snake demon on a whim?..."
It's like finding a lottery ticket worth hundreds of thousands or even millions out of thin air—what an incredibly low probability event that is!
"Don't slow down!" The viewers in the live stream had already recovered from the mental shock of "the snake demon unleashing its ultimate attack." Seeing that Shu Qing was still standing there, they were even more anxious than her and started spamming the chat with messages telling her to run.
"The little snake demon's superpowers won't last long."
"Run, streamer!"
As if waking from a dream, Shu Qing quickly followed the advice of the helpful people and took refuge in the stairwell.
However, this time the netizens misjudged the situation. Fifteen minutes later, when the police arrived at the scene and took them all to the police station, none of the three showed any sign of waking up from their hallucinations.
It was completely dark when she came out of the police station.
The statement was taken relatively smoothly—she started her live stream in time, filming the entire process of the housekeeper's illegal entry, the facts were clear, and the evidence was conclusive; after the apartment housekeeper was shaken off the illusion, he also admitted, trembling, his original motive for falsely reporting compensation and extortion.
As for the snake demon's illusionary attack, although it caused great psychological trauma, according to current legal principles, it cannot even constitute minor injury and is considered a standard act of self-defense.
The police asked her for her contact information and then let her go, only reminding her to "not forget to go to the abnormal biological management agency for a comprehensive test and registration."
Shu Qing found a hotel nearby to stay in. The electricity at home hadn't been repaired yet, so she wouldn't even be able to take a hot shower when she got back.
Once inside the air-conditioned room, she finally felt the reality of waking from a nightmare. Covered in dust from her journey, she plopped herself down on the soft sofa in the hotel.
The little snake demon crawled out of her sleeve. It had only been a day since it hatched, yet it had already been forced to go through so many messy and chaotic things. It was in a completely different environment, but it wasn't afraid at all. It leisurely wandered around, as if it were inspecting its territory.
Shu Qing reached out and grabbed it, examining every inch of its scales from head to tail. Apart from the dust on the outside, she found nothing amiss and breathed a sigh of relief.
She leaned over and gently kissed its head.
The little snake demon froze, then shuddered and began to thrash about, baring its fangs and claws. Its ability to control three burly men for half an hour seemed to have atrophied; it couldn't break free of the girl's soft hand no matter what it tried.
Based on this, Shu Qing judged that he was a fragile mage.
"Thank goodness for you..." she sighed to herself, patted its head, and said cheerfully, "Let's go take a bath~"
The hotel bathroom has a small bathtub. Soaking in it feels like being a curled-up dried flower, my whole body stretching out in the hot water.
The temperature was comfortable for humans, but it seemed less friendly to cold-blooded animals. The little snake demon huddled at the other end of the bathtub, refusing to go into the water, turning its head away from her, and covering its eyes tightly with its snake body.
Shu Qing thought to herself: Could it be that as a little monster that can understand human nature, it has progressed to the point that it can understand the human concept of "not looking at what is improper"?
She hadn't really thought that much about it. After all, the other person was just a small snake, not a person; and even if it were a person, a cub that had only been born less than a day ago, there was no question of manners. But now, she was finding herself embarrassed by the snake's reaction.
She quickly washed herself clean, changed her clothes, prepared a basin of warm water, and returned to wash the snake, looking impeccably dressed.
The little snake demon was soaking in the water. Shu Qing was afraid that it would be allergic to soap bubbles or the like, so she didn't dare to use any cleaning agents. She just gently washed it with her hands.
The snake scales are soft and cool, smooth and beautiful, without a single scratch, and feel wonderful to the touch.
"What should I name you?" Shu Qing was working, but her mind was racing as she pondered, "I can't keep calling you Little Snake, can I? But I'm terrible at naming things..."
She flicked the little snake's snow-white scales. "How about we name it Little White?"
"No good." Less than a second later, Shu Qing contradicted herself. "Any cat or dog can be called Xiaobai, it's so unrecognizable. You're a precious little snake demon..."
The little snake demon moved in her palm. It raised its head, its red eyes staring at her, the emotions in its eyes almost complex.
The next second, Shu Qing announced firmly, "So, I've decided to call you Xiao Hong!"
“…I’ve decided to call you Little Red!” Under the moonlit lake, with the campfire flickering, the girl in the green dress met the boy’s blood-red vertical pupils without fear and said logically, “Why didn’t you tell me your name? I can’t keep calling you a monster, that’s so impolite. My master never taught me to treat people like that.”
“I was going to call you Little White, but after thinking about it, I felt that this name was similar to the white-haired spirit pets I keep, and it wasn’t very respectful,” she said. “So I’ll call you Little Red instead. You have a pair of beautiful red eyes that are very unique.”
"Little Red?"
"Little Red".
"Little Red~"
Seventeen hundred years ago, the Demon King's fearsome reputation shook the Immortal Capital. People who spoke of his name were filled with hatred and resentment.
But in truth, all those years, he never wanted to be a fearsome demon king; he only wanted to be her little red...
"So, shall we call it that?" Shu Qing smiled self-deprecatingly when she saw that the little white snake didn't object. "Alright, although I know that Little Red isn't much better than Little White... but at least this name is easier to raise, and it's better than calling it Snake Arrogant Heaven."
She was washing near the snake's tail when her finger touched a particular scale on its belly. She slapped her forehead, realizing she had overlooked something important.
"Hey, are you a boy or a girl?" Shu Qing flipped the little snake demon over belly-up. "If you're a girl, naming you Xiao Hong is too common; you'd have to share the same name as an elementary school math problem every day. Don't move, let me see—"
"Smack!"
The little snake demon slapped her restless hand with its tail, forcibly stopping her overly curious exploration, splashing a large spray of water. It struggled free from Shu Qing's grasp, darted out of the bathroom door like a rocket, and landed perfectly on the clothes rack.
It quickly climbed to the very top of the clothes rack, bared its teeth at her, and revealed an inviolable and ferocious appearance.
“Okay, baby,” Shu Qing wiped the water off her face reluctantly and raised her hands in surrender, “I won’t look, I won’t look.”
The little snake demon remained unmoved; she tried to coax it for a long time, but it still refused to come down.
Shu Qing had no choice but to let it be, and she tightly closed all four doors and windows to prevent it from escaping.
She opened her phone and began to deal with the aftermath of the illegal intrusion incident—after several hours, the hashtag #LittleSnakeDemonDefendsMasterInDesperation# had become a trending topic, and even her former colleagues, who usually got off work at midnight, were taking every opportunity to discuss the newly discovered powerful monster in the group chat.
Although she was careful not to appear on camera during the live stream, she inevitably showed her face once when things got chaotic. Fortunately, the live stream had a built-in beauty filter that made her look like a heavily made-up monkey, and none of her former colleagues recognized her.
Looking at the trending topics, #JiajiaIllegalEntry# is also at the top of the trending list. Because it's related to the viral topic of "supernatural beings going berserk," the popularity can't be suppressed at all. The apartment management is frantically sending her private messages, hoping to get to the bottom of this matter with the housekeeper.
Do you want her to forgive you?
“Sure,” Shu Qing replied, “My daughter Xiao Hong damaged the furniture, so there’s no need for a waiver of compensation. I’ll pay for it myself at market price. So, please also compensate me for my emotional distress in full.”
"Furthermore, what are your standards for hiring property managers? Shouldn't you make them public? How do you guarantee the personal safety of female residents living alone in your apartment? Isn't there any explanation for that?"
The other party agreed to everything, assured her that a competent new housekeeper would be assigned to replace her, and quickly updated the letter with a substantial apology. After Shu Qing forwarded it, she finally felt somewhat satisfied.
However, the lingering heat on the internet cannot be contained and can only be cooled down by time.
The apartment was hoping for a quick drop in temperature, but Shu Qing wanted to strike while the iron was hot. She lay sprawled on the bed, staring at the little snake demon still coiled on the clothes rack, pondering what to film tomorrow.
The previous ideas are no longer usable. Now it's time to formally introduce her little snake to everyone.
She thought: Let's shoot a montage of a person—no, a demon—for it.
The first half focuses on being cute and adorable, while the second half turns brutal and intense, which really tests her editing skills!
Shu Qing sat up abruptly, found paper and pen, and began to doodle and create.
This time, the video had a remarkable "golden touch" effect on her. She worked on it all day, pushing herself to the limit until the wee hours of the morning, but her brain was still working. Inspiration and creativity poured out of her pen like a geyser, filling most of the notebook.
It wasn't until after 3 a.m. that her eyelids finally began to droop, and she fell asleep on her notebook. In her dream, the computer wasn't completely shut down; the pen tip would occasionally twitch, leaving behind a page full of random dots and circles.
The little snake demon, coiled high up, silently turned its head. It stared at her intently for a moment, then slowly swam towards the ground.
The snake's shadow on the wall suddenly lengthened. In an instant, what touched the ground was no longer a snake's tail, but a pair of frosty white bare feet.
He took a step forward, and pure white, chilling air swirled around him, weaving into a pair of silk shoes that could only be seen in museums; the snow-white hem then draped down, and the white-clad, silver-haired boy stood quietly beside Shu Qing, spotless from head to toe, so otherworldly that he seemed like a spirit emerging from the moonlight, completely unlike any human in this world.
The boy lowered his crimson eyes, brushed aside the messy hair that covered her face, and stared at her indifferently.
Starting in the afternoon, his demonic power recovered much faster than expected, and by midnight, he was already able to transform into human form.
If she were to wake up now and look up at him, would she recognize his face?
She was not a roommate living under the same roof as him, nor was she a gentle master and an untamed demonic pet.
She and he were separated by the bond of life and death, yet they refused to let go until their deaths.
The immortal demon king ultimately died from a poison pill painstakingly crafted by Lord Xiashan. Ironically, one was a goddess from the celestial capital, and the other was the new king of the demon race. Their identities, positions, and deep-seated hatreds weighed heavily on them, yet in the end, they couldn't extinguish the tangled threads of love and longing.
He always felt that status was status and affection was affection, and apart from their meeting on the battlefield, he had no reservations about her.
That's exactly what she promised back then. She said, "Why must immortals and demons be destined to be different? I just want you, is that not allowed?"
He believed it.
So he swallowed the pills she concocted for him without any precautions, and finally lost all his demonic power at the crucial moment, dying on the battlefield covering the rear.
She herself didn't fare well either; she found his burial place and then buried herself there as well.
How foolish! If you're unwilling to live together, why try to die together?
In their past lives, they were entangled, ultimately ending in mutual destruction and bloodshed. She killed him once and died once in return, which considered their relationship even. If he hadn't unexpectedly awakened in her home in this life, they would never have crossed paths again.
A snake can be ignorant and fearless; but a person should always learn from past mistakes.
The boy's gaze swept over the text message on Shu Qing's phone screen. Having wandered for over a thousand years, he could recognize most of the modern characters and understood that it was a warning message.
The inscription reads: “Relevant national laws and regulations,” “High-level unconventional organisms are generally not allowed to be privately raised,” and is signed by the “Unconventional Organism Administration Bureau.”
There is no longer a celestial capital, nor are there any demons left with nowhere to turn.
However, different paths are still different paths, and they cannot lead to the same destination simply because times have changed.
He thought silently: After paying off her debt, I will return to the mountains and become a snake demon without any ties.
The karma from past lives has vanished, and they must never repeat the same mistakes.
Shu Qing was completely unaware of what happened that night. She slept soundly and woke up to find herself lying in a large hotel bed.
If I remember correctly, she fell asleep while drawing her concept sketches last night. When did she get into bed, cover herself with a blanket, and tuck the corners in?
Shu Qing asked jokingly, "Did you bring me up here, Xiao Hong?"
The little snake demon curled up on the other side of the big bed, and glanced at her coldly when it heard the sound.
He wanted to clear his debts as quickly as possible. But watching her freeze to death in a cold, air-conditioned room while she was wearing short clothes and a short skirt was not an ideal way to pay off his debts.
"Okay, I know it's impossible." Shu Qing touched her nose, feeling that it was probably because she had picked up a little monster that her imagination had been running wild lately, and her mind was wandering wildly.
She turned on her phone to check the video data from this morning, but after unlocking the screen, she first saw three identical text messages:
"Hello Ms. Shu: The pet snake you shared on social media is suspected to be a supernatural creature of level 6 or above."
"To ensure the safety of citizens and their property, please contact our bureau immediately and bring your pet to our bureau for examination. In accordance with relevant national laws and regulations, high-level and extraordinary creatures are generally not allowed to be kept by private individuals. Thank you for your understanding."
"Thank you for your cooperation! [Supernatural Biology Bureau]"
A note from the author:
----------------------
1. The closing text message referenced the official text message from the tax bureau.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
