Turns Out I'm the Real Monster?!

Seeing Jiang Mu remain silent, Ling Ye stopped walking.

She turned and stared into the eyes of the man before her, trying to catch a glimpse of his true feelings.

"Do you want me to show her mercy, or... kill her?"

Jiang Mu met her gaze and said calmly, "I don’t want you to get hurt."

Ling Ye hadn’t expected that answer.

A faint blush crept onto her pretty face, and she turned her head away, a little unnaturally. Her tone, however, remained stiff. "She’s no match for me. You... Never mind. I’m sure you don’t want her to die."

Jiang Mu didn’t argue directly, only offering a more tactful response.

"I heard that when the Demon-slaying Bureau was hunting her before, she managed to escape multiple times without ever harming anyone. That part is indeed a little strange."

Ling Ye fell silent for a moment, the hem of her robes fluttering gently in the night wind.

"If I manage to capture her, I’ll find out the truth. If she really is the one who murdered your family, I’ll bring her to you myself so you can have your revenge."

’This woman is so rigid.’

Unsure if she was still testing his stance, Jiang Mu decided to just keep his mouth shut and say no more.

"Go back," Ling Ye said softly.

Jiang Mu smiled. "It’s fine. I’ll walk with you a bit further. I ate too much just now; a walk will help with digestion."

Ling Ye didn’t refuse.

The two of them walked on side by side, crossing the long street.

The lights on both sides stretched their shadows long, yet a faint, almost imperceptible distance always remained between them.

After a while, Ling Ye suddenly spoke.

"Xiaojiang, I want to ask you something. How do you think... one can tell if someone is a Demon Fiend or a human?"

Jiang Mu was taken aback. After a moment of thought, he said:

"If you can’t tell with the naked eye and can’t sense it with Star Power, then you can only rely on Magical Treasures like demon-revealing mirrors."

Ling Ye shook her head, the moonlight tracing a soft, silver edge along her cold profile.

"You don’t understand what I mean."

Jiang Mu turned to look at her. "Then what do you mean...?"

Ling Ye stopped walking again. Her gaze drifted toward the brilliant lights of the bustling street ahead, a desolate look in her eyes. Her voice was hauntingly quiet.

"Eleven years ago, in the deep mountains somewhere in Hailing Province, there was a Demon. Whenever hunters or woodcutters accidentally ran into ferocious beasts, it would save them.

If villagers occasionally got lost in the mountains, it would secretly escort them out, ensuring their safety.

Then one year, a famine struck the nearby villages, and the fields were littered with the starved. The Demon secretly left the Spirit Fruits and wild game it had gathered at the doors of the poor, never asking for anything in return.

It did this because when it was young, its mother had been saved by a member of the Human Race. It wanted to repay that kindness."

As she spoke, a bitter smile touched Ling Ye’s lips.

"Later, a Cultivator from a famous and righteous sect passed through. Sensing demonic energy in the mountains, he killed the Demon.

He thought the villagers would be eternally grateful and see him as a hero, but instead... the entire village cursed him.

The Cultivator flew into a rage out of humiliation. To refine a Magical Treasure, he set up a grand formation in his fury and sacrificed all the villagers from the surrounding hamlets in a blood ritual.

Afterward, he pinned the blame for this bloody debt on the dead Demon. He, on the other hand, took the Magical Treasure he had forged and became a great hero who slayed demons, admired by thousands."

She turned her head, her eyes crystal clear in the moonlight.

"To this day, in the eyes of many, he is still a good man who slays demons."

’It seems this person’s status and Cultivation Level are very high now,’ Jiang Mu thought. ’Otherwise, with Ling Ye’s personality, she probably would have dealt with him long ago.’

Ling Ye looked at Jiang Mu, the night wind stirring the hair at her temples. "Now you tell me. Which one was the Demon Fiend?"

Jiang Mu was silent.

He understood what Ling Ye meant.

One was a Demon Fiend in form, the other a Demon Fiend in heart.

Sometimes, the so-called "demons and monsters" aren’t a literal species, but a representation of an evil that devours humanity.

In a situation where black and white are so blurred, how is one to draw their sword?

How is one to tell the difference?

Ling Ye didn’t wait for his answer. She turned and continued walking, her voice sounding somewhat desolate in the night wind.

"I’ve been in the Demon-slaying Bureau for about a decade now. Back then, I had no choice. I chose to become a Patrol Envoy, constantly traveling, for a bit more freedom.

At first, I liked this life, because I truly hated Demon Fiends to the bone.

But gradually, the more Demon Fiends I killed and the more people I met, the more I couldn’t tell the difference.

I started to grow weary and became very cynical for a time. Sometimes, I wouldn’t even act when I saw a Demon Fiend. I was afraid of killing the wrong one."

Ling Ye gently kicked a small stone out of her path.

"Later, I met a very old Patrol Envoy. He was almost eighty.

He told me that in this line of work, you either throw away your brain and stop thinking—then you’ll feel like what you’re doing is right. Or, you turn yourself into a Demon Fiend, and then you won’t feel any guilt."

She paused and gave a self-deprecating smile.

"I asked him, how do you turn yourself into a Demon Fiend? He said it’s simple: just throw away your ’morality’."

Jiang Mu spoke slowly, "There’s some truth to that, but not much. In fact, the moment we embarked on the path of cultivation, we all became Demon Fiends in a sense."

Ling Ye sighed softly and looked up at the pitch-black night sky.

"Yes... The higher you climb, the more humanity you must discard, the colder you must become. Only the solitary path leads to long life."

"Only the solitary path leads to long life..."

Jiang Mu mulled over these words, and for a moment, the night wind felt a little colder.

The wind blew fallen leaves, lanterns under the eaves swayed gently, and the faint sound of string and bamboo instruments from a distant tavern drifted through the night...

The clamor of the world seemed to be muffled by a film, growing distant and indistinct.