Chapter Forty-Eight: Phoenix Rebirth
What are you doing here?
The Demon Lord's crimson eyes were fixed on Ya Feiyu. Those features, so similar to his deceased wife's, pierced his heart like tiny needles, making him feel suffocated. He knew his wife had abandoned the entire Tianyu Clan to live in the Demon Realm. Now she was dead, and he had suffered a devastating blow. Ya Feiyu hadn't appeared for centuries; why had she suddenly reappeared?
Whatever he wanted to do, he wouldn't let Ya Feiyu take his deceased wife away from him. He had nothing left now.
Ya Feiyu looked at him calmly. The pupils of the Tianyu clan were all light in color, and the purer the bloodline, the less obvious the pupil color. Ya Feiyu was from the purest lineage, and his silvery-white eyes were cold, easily extinguishing the fire that had inexplicably risen in the Demon Lord's heart. He slowly said, "I just came to find my elder sister."
"What do you want with her?" the Demon Lord pressed aggressively.
"You want to save her, don't you?" Ya Feiyu was not afraid of him at all. The Tianyu Clan had a very long growth cycle. The hundred-year-old young master was now a head shorter than the adult Demon Lord, but his aura was in no way inferior, and even showed a tendency to overpower the Demon Lord. This was the pressure of a young man taking on the role of the clan leader. No wonder no one had dared to have any objections for so long. Upon hearing this, the Demon Lord fell silent.
Although Ya Feiyu had never met him before, he could discern his weakness from the few seconds they had spent together. Despite Ya Feiyu's current harmless demeanor, if he harbored hostility towards him, the Demon Lord knew in his current state that he would likely find it difficult to escape unscathed.
But he didn't care about all that. Once Ya Feiyu entered the Demon Palace, he couldn't help but ask, "If you say that, do you have a way?"
“I have a way.” Ya Feiyu walked ahead of him, as naturally as if he were the master of this demon palace. “I just need your cooperation.”
The Demon Lord lowered his crimson eyes. He had been driven mad for too long because of his wife's death. Now that he could be redeemed by someone, he would give everything he had. Thinking this, a bloodthirsty determination appeared in his eyes. "Of course I can cooperate. As long as she can be resurrected, I don't care what you ask me to give. But you can't lie to me."
"Otherwise, I'll make sure you die a horrible death."
He grinned, revealing his gleaming white teeth.
Ya Feiyu turned her head to look at him, her gaze fixed and silent, yet her expression revealed not a trace of fear or unease. The Demon Lord, who had used this to threaten others for years, was taken aback by his attitude, a slight displeasure creeping into his heart. But then again, his wife was not one to fear authority, and a girl raised in such an environment would likely have siblings with similar personalities.
However, compared to her, Ya Feiyu was still somewhat lacking in gentleness, the Demon Lord thought smugly.
Following the faint scent of demons in the air, Ya Feiyu navigated the intricately designed demon palace with ease, leaving the servants who had served the Demon Lord for hundreds of years in awe. They hadn't even figured out the layout of this place yet.
Soon, Ya Feiyu stopped in front of a heavily guarded gate. The Demon Lord opened the gate as a sign of his presence. As soon as they stepped inside, a biting cold hit them. Ya Feiyu frowned, but then returned to normal.
"After the Tianyu Clan dies, their corpses quickly reach extremely high temperatures. When the temperature reaches a certain threshold, the Tianyu Clan will undergo Nirvana." His cold voice echoed in the cramped space, and for a moment it was hard to tell whether the temperature here was colder or his voice was colder. "Unfortunately, under such circumstances, even if one is reborn, they will not retain the memories of their previous life. You used thousand-year-old Xuanbing to preserve them? Not bad."
The tone carried a hint of praise, but the Demon Lord felt a tightness in his chest.
Ya Feiyu's attitude... made him somewhat unhappy.
This man claimed to have come to "save his sister," but his words and actions revealed not a trace of his deep love for her. He even had the leisure to praise him for "doing a good job" in preserving the body. This was hardly the mindset of a good younger brother who had lost his sister. The more he thought about it, the angrier he became, but because Ya Feiyu said he could help him resurrect his wife, the usually hot-tempered Demon Lord was willing to endure it.
Anyway, if Ya Feiyu can't do it, he can still kill him.
Once inside the Demon Palace, it might not be so easy for Ya Feiyu to get out.
The aloof little phoenix seemed oblivious to his emotions, or perhaps even if it had, it simply wouldn't have bothered to acknowledge them, and it remained silent for the rest of the journey. Below was also a maze, and only the Demon Lord knew the secret passages that allowed for rapid progress, but he had no intention of telling Ya Feiyu. The two wandered through this maze, and the Demon Lord soon discovered—this maze couldn't hold Ya Feiyu back; every turn led to the correct exit, and they never reached a dead end.
The maze, which was originally expected to take at least three hours to exit, was evaded by Ya Feiyu in less than ten minutes.
“My sister and I are compatriots, and our shared loyalty can resonate with each other,” he said softly. “I know where my sister is.”
These words struck the Demon Lord like a thunderbolt. He finally couldn't hold back any longer. He rushed forward, grabbed Ya Feiyu by the collar, lifted the thin boy, who was a head shorter than him, and glared at him, saying, "Since you knew where Ayou was, why didn't you save her?! She didn't have to die!"
Ayou is Yafeiyu's older sister, Yafeiyou.
Ya Feiyu's long eyelashes, like tiny fans, fluttered slightly. His words remained indifferent, as if Ya Feiyou's death could not shake him in the slightest: "How can I save him?"
"You clearly have a way—"
"You want me to abandon the entire Tianyu Clan to save a traitor far away in the Demon Realm?"
"you!"
Ya Feiyu's gaze was as cold as quenched ice, even more penetrating than a thousand-year-old ice. The Demon Lord was slightly taken aback, his anger seemed to freeze, and his body, which had just been hot from the surge of blood, suddenly cooled down, even his fingertips were cold. He felt that he was no different from Ya Feiyu's corpse.
"So the Demon Lord doesn't remember?" Ya Feiyu said coldly. "Your millions of demon generals besieged my Tianyu Clan's territory, causing heavy casualties among us. I had no choice but to stay on the battlefield and fight to defend my Tianyu territory."
"How can I extricate myself to help?"
The Demon Lord suddenly felt his blood freeze along with Ya Feiyu's words—it was so cold. He had only chosen to plunder the rich mineral and spiritual resources of the Tianyu Clan's territory, but in the end… in the end… he had ruined his own wife? What a joke!
"The demon and monster races have always been enemies. Ya Feiyou gave up her status as a princess of the Tianyu race and was willing to elope with you to the Demon Realm. She has long been kicked out of the Tianyu race. Apart from blood ties, she should have no connection with me. I have no obligation to save a traitor who has already defected a hundred years ago."
"Or is it that the Demon Lord is so forgetful that he has not included her as one of the demons?" He cast a pitying glance at her and said sarcastically, "I thought that you two were already married and that she should be considered one of your demons."
"In that case, the life or death of a demon is of no concern to me."
The Demon Lord stared in astonishment, ultimately speechless. The demon race lived long lives, and their behavior was relatively indifferent. As Ya Feiyu said, the moment Ya Feiyou defected, she was no longer a member of the Tianyu clan. Apart from the unbreakable blood ties, there was no other connection between them.
The demon race values blood ties the least. As far as Ya Feiyu was concerned, not ordering a manhunt for Ya Feiyou when he defected was the greatest act of tolerance he could show towards their brotherhood.
Doing any more would make it too obvious.
The Demon Lord felt a dryness in his throat, swallowed hard, and said, "If that's the case, why did you come here? She has nothing to do with you anymore, so her life or death should have nothing to do with you either."
Would Ya Feiyu lie to him? It's said that demons have no heart, would Ya Feiyu cruelly deceive him?
The man remained silent for a long time, not answering immediately. Those few minutes of silence were the most agonizing minutes of the Demon Lord's life. After what seemed like years, Ya Feiyu spoke softly: "Because I need your help."
The Demon Lord was taken aback: "You need something from me?"
“Phoenixes have no hearts.” Ya Feiyu sneered. “I need your help.”
The Demon Lord stared intently at him, seemingly trying to determine whether what he said was true or false. But as Ya Feiyu had said, the phoenix had no heart, so how could he possibly understand the emotions in this man's eyes? He pursed his lips and said, "...Speak, what is it?"
"I need you to help me achieve Nirvana."
"To help you achieve nirvana?"
Barring a major calamity, the Tianyu Clan's millennium-long Nirvana is virtually inevitable, neither brought forward nor delayed. They will certainly undergo Nirvana and be reborn when the time comes. Ya Feiyu is only a little over a hundred years old, considered young even among the demon race, let alone the Tianyu Clan. Phoenixes undergo Nirvana once every thousand years, yet he's already thinking of Nirvana at just one-tenth of his age. It's obvious he's doomed to fail.
However, this is under the condition that no major calamity occurs. In certain specific circumstances, the time of Nirvana for the Celestial Feather Clan may be brought forward.
Just like Ya Feiyou, who died before reaching the age of a thousand, he would be reborn within a few years after his death, or enter a state of severe injury and near death. If there were clansmen around to catalyze his rebirth, he might be reborn earlier, thus alleviating the suffering of this life.
But without a doubt, they all need to enter a state of impending death.
The Demon Lord briefly went through the process in his mind, then stared wide-eyed at Ya Feiyu in disbelief. He truly couldn't see through this young man; in all his thousand years of life, he had rarely encountered someone who could instill such a sense of unease in him.
Why did you attain Nirvana?
In the end, he only asked one question.
Ya Feiyu smiled faintly, put his index finger to his lips, and said mysteriously, "Heaven has decreed."
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