Master, Your Salted Fish Has Arrived - Chapter 42
Liao Tingyan alternated between playing dead and acting coquettish, finally softening her half-crazed ancestor’s resolve.
For a long moment, he fixed her with that terrifyingly intense gaze, his brows twitching almost imperceptibly, before bending down to lift her into his arms. Only then did she know he had abandoned the idea of forcing her to take revenge with her own hands. She exhaled shakily, resting a palm against her stomach. The sharp stab of pain reminded her this part, at least, wasn’t feigned.
In this world, perhaps one day desperation would corner her, forcing her to kill to survive. But under these circumstances—her hand guided by his—she would not comply.
Of course, part of her courage came from who it was. He was someone she was… intimate with, someone she knew would never truly harm her. That safety gave her room to feign weakness, to act spoiled and coquettish.
She wasn’t particularly skilled at it, but clearly, it worked.
Sima Jiao carried her closer to where Yue Chuhui knelt trembling. Panic twisted Yue Chuhui’s face as she cried out:
“Spare me! Don’t kill me! I’m the Young Mistress of the Moon Palace! If you let me go, my mother will reward you—Heaven-grade techniques, weapons, elixirs, anything you want!”
But Sima Jiao’s power pinned her in place. She could only watch helplessly as death loomed nearer. The fear shattered her pride; her voice broke into sobs. For years she had been adored, obeyed, exalted. Never had she imagined that punishing a “lowly” woman would provoke such calamity.
Even now, she didn’t know who her executioner was.
Sima Jiao had no interest in answering. He lifted his boot and coldly pressed it to her face.
Yue Chuhui screamed miserably, thrashing uselessly. “If you kill me, you’ll make an enemy of the Moon Palace! My mother won’t forgive you! Spare me and I’ll forget everything—I’ll even help raise your Night Wandering Palace! Yong Lingchun, plead for me!”
But Liao Tingyan buried her face against Sima Jiao’s chest, unwilling to watch the rest. She had no intention of imposing her morals here—this was his world, his rules, and Yue Chuhui had harmed her. Why should she beg for mercy?
A wet crunch split the air.
Like a melon bursting.
Sima Jiao’s foot came down, crushing Yue Chuhui’s skull in one blow, obliterating even her escaping soul.
Liao Tingyan didn’t lift her head as he carried her out of Cloud Terrace Palace. She knew the halls were painted in blood, corpses littering the way. Just one glimpse would haunt her sleep.
Outside, the great black snake awaited. It stared at the carnage with its jaws half-open, visibly conflicted. Once, it had been trained to devour corpses, a living disposal system for its master’s killings. But ever since Liao Tingyan started feeding it treats more delicious than corpses, the habit disgusted it. Still, if it refused, its master might be displeased.
When Sima Jiao arrived, the snake quickly submitted, opening its gaping maw.
“Stop eating filth,” Sima Jiao snapped.
The snake froze, stunned. That wasn’t what he used to say. Still—relief flickered in its reptilian eyes.
Back in their quarters, Liao Tingyan finally had her wish: a hot bath, a soft bed, the ache in her body easing. While she washed, Sima Jiao vanished, only to return with a handful of gleaming pills—no doubt stolen casually from Gengchen Immortal Mansion’s treasure vaults, as if he were plucking fruit from his own garden.
She swallowed two of the white pills. Warmth coursed through her veins as the invasive lightning energy in her wounds dissolved. The pain dulled at once.
Earlier, Yue Chuhui had ordered a Lightning Cultivator to lash her, forcing volatile lightning into her flesh. Each strike had seared her meridians, leaving wounds that screamed even now. Another henchman, a squat Earth Cultivator, had kicked her abdomen with such force her organs nearly ruptured.
When Sima Jiao lifted her robes to examine the bruise blooming black across her stomach, his face turned stormy. “I dealt with them too simply. If I’d known they touched you like this, I’d have given them deaths far worse.”
Liao Tingyan thought miserably: Weren’t their deaths already horrific enough?
She tried not to remember—the lightning user’s brain shattered, veins bursting; the earth cultivator’s belly torn open, intestines dragged out and used to strangle his brother. The memory turned her stomach.
Now the same blood-stained hands stroked her wounds with chilling care. The contradiction made her skin prickle.
Perhaps sensing her tension, he narrowed his eyes, pressing a cold palm over her bruised abdomen. His voice dropped, dangerously calm. “Are you afraid?”
Her instincts screamed that answering wrongly could cost her life. She forced a steady voice: “No. I’m not afraid.”
He studied her. “Even now, you don’t know fear.”
The calmness was worse than fury. She instantly regretted her answer.
His hand shifted to the gash on her face. “You should be punished.”
Her stomach dropped. Punished—how? Disembowelment? Skinning?
But instead, her clothes slipped away.
For a beat, she lay frozen, bewildered. If that’s what you meant, she thought weakly, you could have said so instead of scaring me half to death.
“You don’t seem inclined to resist,” he murmured.
“I… if you need me to, I can try,” she stammered, wiggling half-heartedly. “Don’t… don’t do this, stop right now.”
The absurd act nearly pulled a laugh from him. His lips twisted, but he restrained it, pinching her cheek instead. “Don’t try to amuse me.”
When his mouth pressed to her stomach wounds, she flinched—the strange blend of pain and heat made her struggle. His grip on her waist held her still.
“Your face is very red,” he observed, brushing her cheek with his thumb before kissing her again.
For all his savagery, his actions were gentle. Too gentle for a man like him.
Yet Liao Tingyan understood why he called it punishment.
Her body burned from within, as if consumed by fire. Her arms locked around his neck, voice breaking: “Do all women suffer like this with the men of the Sima family?!”
Her skin flushed crimson. She shoved her head against his chin, gasping incoherently. “I’m burning alive!”
The Sima blood carried the essence of sacred fire, unbearable for outsiders. If she hadn’t drunk his blood before, she’d never have endured.
His voice was hoarse when he kissed her brow. “I hadn’t wanted you to suffer like this. But you angered me, so this time—this is your punishment.”
Tears pricked her eyes.
He bit her cheek, licked away the blood, soothing and tormenting in equal measure. A beast’s affection, brutal and raw.
“Don’t be afraid. No one will ever hurt you again.”
“This pain—you won’t feel it again.”
“Cry to me. Don’t hold it in.”
“Never make me hurt again.”
Each vow cut like a knife, as though he hated her even as he loved her.
“If there’s a next time, I’ll kill you.”
Only Sima Jiao could make a death threat sound like a lover’s whisper.
Through their spiritual communion, she felt the truth of it: he meant every word. Her heart trembled. She should have been terrified. Instead, her nose burned, her eyes damp.
The communion deepened. Love blossomed like wildflowers in both their souls—unexpected, unstoppable.
Her inner world, once a clear sky, now brimmed with flowers where his spirit often lingered. His wasteland of a soul, scorched and barren, now held a patch of pure land where blossoms drank in the sun.
When she finally collapsed into sleep, he touched her forehead, watching the changes within her body. Her recovery would be swifter now—stronger than ordinary cultivators.
The irony wasn’t lost on him. The more powerful the Sima bloodline, the harder their own wounds healed. Yet they could grant others the gift of rapid recovery.
Sima Jiao fetched the pheasant cage outside and released its captives. The Yong siblings blinked awake in human form, stripped of memory, their borrowed identities crumbling.
All evidence of what had happened here would vanish with them.
It was time to leave.