About three years ago, a rumor began circulating in Qilin Town.
If you were brave enough, on a moonless night during the midnight hour, in a pitch-black room, to take a brand new Lake Brush dipped in blood from between your eyebrows and draw a five-petaled plum blossom on the ring finger of your right hand, then the Blood Demon would appear and grant your wish.
Of course, the one summoning the Blood Demon had to be a woman, and the wish was to turn back youth and forever capture the heart of the one you loved.
The origin of this rumor was already untraceable; the only certainty was that someone had succeeded.
Almost everyone in town knew that there used to be a family on Changbai Lane. The mistress was called Yuan Fang, a middle-aged woman who had been divorced by her husband, the Tanhua scholar, with a single letter of divorce. Left alone to raise her son, her life was utterly miserable.
But after one moonless night, everything changed.
Her neighbors still remember that slightly chilly autumn morning.
Yuan Fang came knocking at their door, carrying a bundle, saying she was taking her child to the capital to find her unfaithful husband, and asked the neighbors to look after her house.
After just one night, the neighbor almost didn’t recognize the woman before them.
Her wrinkles were gone, her skin as smooth as freshly peeled egg whites, and her waist so slender it seemed one could encircle it with a single hand.
This woman seemed to have returned to her twenties, and with a flirtatious gleam in her eyes, she was a hundred times more enchanting and charming than in her youth.
The neighbor stood dumbfounded, only snapping back to reality long after she had left, and began gossiping all over town, repeatedly describing how the middle-aged woman had regained her youth overnight.
Then came the news that Yuan Fang had found her husband in the capital, and he, the prodigal son, had turned over a new leaf, divorcing his newly wedded beauty and reconciling with Yuan Fang, living wholeheartedly together.
What a perfect and miraculous example.
The rumor thus ceased to be a rumor and became a legend.
Everyone firmly believed that on that night, Yuan Fang must have summoned the Blood Demon and, from then on, regained her youth and her husband’s heart.
"Besides this Yuan Fang, has any other woman succeeded?"
In the town’s teahouse, Xuan Ye asked this after hearing the story.
The storyteller immediately shook his head, holding up five fingers, meaning that after that, five more women had summoned the Blood Demon, but all had failed, their deaths as gruesome and eerie as Xuan Ye and the others had witnessed.
Ban Xia raised her hand and interjected, "This Yuan Fang is suspicious. If we go to the capital and find her, we should be able to uncover clues."
Xuan Ye smiled, looking at her thoughtfully, "I don’t think it’s necessary."
His gaze was gentle and focused, but Ban Xia felt unnerved by his stare. She shot to her feet, "I have absolutely nothing to do with this, nothing at all!"
"Are you asking me to be bait to lure out that Blood Demon? If I don’t agree, will you refuse to treat my injuries?" After her outburst, she circled back to Xuan Ye, her voice rising an octave.
Xuan Ye continued to look at her, his eyes deep and calm, "I do want you to lure out that evil spirit, but it’s not a threat—it’s a request."
"If I don’t agree, will you still treat my injuries?"
"Yes."
"Then I definitely won’t agree. Taking risks without any benefit—only a fool would do that."
"There will be no risk."
"Why?"
"Because I’ll be there."
"You?" At this point in the conversation, Ban Xia began to sneer, "In the cave, you could barely handle a minor ghost, and now you expect me to trust you?""That was just an accident." Xuan Ye remained calm: "Do you remember that handsome bamboo, the fellow called You Huang?"
"What does this have to do with him?"
"There are three types of spirits. Vengeful spirits who must maintain their physical form through willpower, like that 'Half-person' you saw earlier. Ghost Spirits whose souls can move freely, visible only to those with spirit eyes, like the girl in the cave. And the final type - the Asuras, immortal and indestructible, possessing their own complete life."
"So what?"
"You Huang is the last Asura in this world." Xuan Ye's voice slowed, a sharp aura piercing from within him: "His spiritual power is beyond comparison to vengeful spirits and Ghost Spirits, yet you've heard him personally admit he's no match for me."
A moonless night, wind passing through the window lattice.
Ban Xia sat at the table, staring blankly at the candle before her.
She knew perfectly well why she had agreed to be bait.
It wasn't because she was easily persuaded or due to so-called justice - she simply detested, in the purest sense, how women like her were being violated, dying in such miserable states.
Before hiding, Xuan Ye had asked if she wanted to practice, because drawing a five-petaled plum blossom on a fingernail in complete darkness wasn't easy.
She said it wasn't necessary.
Now Xuan Ye was already hidden - she couldn't sense where, but it must be close.
The hour of midnight was approaching.
Ban Xia took a deep breath, held it in her chest for a long time, and finally exhaled, blowing out the candle with a "puff."
The room instantly plunged into darkness.
The Lake Brush was right beside her hand, the inkstone contained her freshly drawn blood from between her eyebrows, still warm.
Ban Xia lifted the brush, dipped it in blood by touch, then took out her secret weapon from her bosom.
The reason Xuan Ye thought drawing flowers on nails was difficult was because he didn't know there was something in this world called nail art tools.
Coincidentally, right before crossing over, she had just done her nails at the office, and after finishing, she had stuffed the entire set of tools into her pocket, including an unused stencil mold - five-petaled flower shaped.
With this thing, it was hard not to draw it perfectly.
In about three minutes, Ban Xia had finished, having drawn a five-petaled flower on her nail in the dark.
With the night breeze, she raised her nails and blew on them a few times.
Then came silence, an eerily chilling silence, beating in time with Ban Xia's pulse, thumping against her heart.
When it came to being thick-skinned, if Miss Ban claimed second place, probably no other woman would dare claim first.
But at this moment, Ban Xia still felt afraid, feeling her spine tingle, the wind around her slowly changing, as if carrying that sweet, evil scent.
Time ticked by, seeming to grow slower, every second filled with fear, making each moment difficult to bear.
Ban Xia closed her eyes, her heartbeat growing faster and faster. When it reached its limit, she could no longer restrain herself, taking out a flint from her bosom. After striking it several times, she lit the candle.
Midnight had passed - she was sure of this - that Blood Demon probably wasn't coming!
The reassuring soft yellow candlelight finally brightened, reflecting off the bronze mirror on the table, faintly illuminating her pale cheeks, and... an ambiguous dark shadow...
The night breeze swept past the candle, the flame flickering, but the shadow gradually became clearer, outlining a human form on the mirror surface.
Ban Xia stopped breathing, one hand pressing against her heart, barely controlling her trembling as she slowly turned around.Someone was indeed standing behind her—a silent, shadowy figure who had been lurking there for an unknown length of time.
The candlelight was too dim for Ban Xia to see his face clearly; she could only make out a pair of hands and a pear.
They were unmistakably a man’s hands—elegantly shaped, yet completely devoid of fingernails!
Now, those nail-less hands were holding a small knife, gracefully peeling a tiny pear.
A pear of a sickly green hue, faintly tinged with the color of blood!
That sinister fragrance wafted through the room once more—a scent both bloody and sweet, rich and bewitching.
The peeling finally finished. As the green, blood-stained skin fell away, the pear’s flesh inside was revealed to be snowy white and crystalline.
"The weather is dry—have a pear, young lady."
From the darkness, the man finally spoke, his voice slightly hoarse. With his nail-less right hand, he held out the snow-white pear, offering it directly to Ban Xia.
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