Ch 205: The Cannon Fodder Won’t Play Along Anymore [QT]

Cat demon: “…”

He was furious: “It was your despicable and shameless ancestor who made the contract with me!”

His gaze was cold as he stared at Mu Xing: “This year is the time for me to collect my payment again. Whoever holds the Black Jade Qilin, their life belongs to me. This is the retribution your Mu family deserves!”

Mu Xing frowned.

Listening to the cat demon’s tone, he probably wasn’t lying.

What he had thought was just the ordinary favoritism of wealthy parents in a family feud had now turned into ancestral karma, with demons and monsters involved?

He felt things were not so simple.

Sitting on the sofa, he asked the cat demon: “So tonight, you came to take my life?”

The cat demon sneered: “Of course. Every fifty years, your Mu family must offer up one descendant to appease my wrath!”

“I see.” He looked at the Black Jade Qilin thoughtfully. “So, as long as a Mu family member holds the Black Jade Qilin, you’ll take their life?”

The cat demon said coldly: “Of course! Isn’t that what the Mu family and I agreed upon?”

So that’s how it was.

Mu Xing finally understood: Mu Rong definitely knew about this.

He knew, and maybe had known long ago, that the cat demon would come to claim a life.

He gave the Black Jade Qilin to the original owner, which clearly meant he had directly abandoned his youngest son’s life.

And when the original body was killed by the cat demon, the cause of death would only appear to be an accident.

By then, the Mu family would still have an heir to inherit the family business, while the curse would have been blocked by the original body.

No one would ever suspect him.

Mu Xing only felt a chill in his heart—not from fear, but from disgust.

Why would there be such a selfish and cold-blooded father in this world?

Looking at the cat demon before him, after their conversation, he found that this monster wasn’t as cruel and evil as he had imagined.

So he said in a negotiating tone: “How about this—since you can’t take my life anyway, why don’t we sit down and have a proper talk? You can tell me what grudge you have with the Mu family. Maybe I can even help you.”

The cat demon’s resentment surged at those words.

“I won’t listen!” He glared at Mu Xing warily. “All Mu family people are rotten to the core! Treacherous! I won’t fall for your tricks again!”

Clearly, he had already been tricked by the Mu family before.

Mu Xing looked at him with a sincere expression: “I’m not the same as them. Don’t I look like I’m filled with righteous energy? I’m a very upright person. Otherwise, if I weren’t, then why would all your demonic tricks be useless against me, even though I’m not from the mystical sects?”

When the cat demon stayed silent, he sighed: “And to be honest, I’m also a victim here.”

He pointed at the Black Jade Qilin, speaking indignantly: “I didn’t even know this thing was life-threatening. I was abandoned by the Mu family. My father gave me this Black Jade Qilin, saying it was our family heirloom. Think about it—what kind of father gives his son a death sentence? Is there anything more outrageous in this world?”

The cat demon hesitated upon hearing this.

Then he sneered: “So that father of yours does indeed have the true style of the Mu family.”

He spat with venom: “The Mu family—all deserve death!”

Mu Xing pondered, still not knowing exactly what the Mu family ancestor had done to him that caused such deep hatred.

But then the cat demon stared fixedly at him for a long while and suddenly changed his mind: “Since you want to know, I’ll tell you.”

He didn’t even know why—this person was clearly an abominable Mu family member, yet he felt an odd sense of trust toward him. He couldn’t help but believe his words, faintly feeling that he really was different, not a bad person.

So he was actually willing to speak.

Mu Xing was stunned. In his heart, he thought: this cat demon really isn’t very shrewd—he looks full of resentment, but at his core, he’s still quite simple.

With such a personality, if the Mu family ancestor had been someone like Mu Rong, wouldn’t he have been tricked into selling himself and still counted the money for them?

The cat demon began telling his story.

His name was Ling Nu. Five hundred years ago, he was a pet cat of a young lady from a wealthy household. He was pampered and much beloved.

Unlike ordinary cats, by then he was already two hundred years old, with intelligence, though he couldn’t yet transform into human form or use magical powers.

His household was later falsely accused by treacherous officials, and the entire family was executed and confiscated.

The young masters and young ladies who treated him so well—some were exiled, others sold as slave officials. Amidst the chaos, he escaped.

His mistress, the young daughter of the family, had been pampered since childhood. Before long, she grew gravely ill and was near death.

Ling Nu was devastated. Later, in the mountains, he encountered the ancestor of the Mu family.

The Mu family ancestor was a mystic cultivator. Ling Nu begged him for help.

He was willing to sacrifice a hundred years of cultivation to save his mistress’s life. After extracting a spirit pill formed from his cultivation, he would be terribly weakened, so he begged the ancestor to help save her.

The Mu family ancestor agreed at once.

But when Ling Nu finally recovered from weakness a month later and went to check on his mistress, he learned that she had already died over a month earlier.

Furious, he sought out the Taoist, but the man turned hostile immediately, striking him down with grievous wounds. He fell off a cliff, but luckily survived, rescued by an old monk.

While recovering with the monk, he listened daily to Buddhist teachings. With his bit of spiritual potential, within just twenty years he managed to cultivate into human form.

The first thing he did was to return to the human world to search for any surviving members of his mistress’s family. But after twenty years, those exiled, enslaved, and sold—most had already died from suffering.

The remaining few, he used some means to save them.

After settling the old master’s family, he went to seek revenge on the Mu family.

Unexpectedly, that Mu ancestor had some cultivation skills, and calculated that the cat demon had not died, and would surely come for revenge.

He prepared a formation in advance, waiting for Ling Nu to fall into the trap, and captured him alive.

Originally, such a thing was nothing more than the simple story of a demon encountering a vicious Daoist: the cat demon, once in the Daoist’s hands, would either be slain or forced into servitude.

The problem was that Ling Nu was a demon enlightened by a high monk to achieve transformation.

He also carried a rare treasure gifted by that old monk — the black jade qilin.

The Mu ancestor coveted the spiritual energy and great fortune on Ling Nu’s body, and also foresaw that, having committed such a misdeed, he had damaged his Dao heart and would inevitably implicate his descendants.

So he went all the way and committed an extremely cruel act.

He extracted Ling Nu’s soul and sealed it within the black jade qilin, while suppressing his flesh and bones with secret arts at a chosen burial site.

From then on, all of Ling Nu’s cultivation, fortune, and destiny were transferred to the Mu family.

This matter became the Mu family’s hidden secret, known only to the patriarch of each generation.

Ling Nu’s body was suppressed, his soul sealed in the black jade qilin, enduring pain day after day, his resentment growing stronger with each passing day, until even such a treasure could no longer fully contain it.

The Mu family feared that one day he would break free, bringing disaster upon their descendants, so they added another seal and curse onto the black jade qilin. The price was that every fifty years, one direct descendant of the Mu bloodline had to die.

To vent the cat demon’s hatred.

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