HPLFK 10

Chapter – 10

Oh No, Your Wife Says You Don’t Taste Good

Wu Zhu’s eyes were bloodshot, and he wished he could swallow A-Shang right then and there to satisfy his craving.

But he knew he couldn’t. He was too hungry—she was barely a mouthful and wouldn’t fill his stomach at all. Eating her would only make him hungrier.

He had waited over ten thousand years. Finally, a living person had come who could help him break the seal.

As long as the seal was broken, he could get out!

With that thought, a gleam of excitement flashed in Wu Zhu’s eyes, and the force of his grip around A-Shang’s neck tightened involuntarily.

“Woman, I’ll give you a chance. Pull out that sword up there, and I won’t kill you. Otherwise, I’ll swallow you alive right now.” Wu Zhu put on a fierce front.

A-Shang stared at his crimson eyes for a moment, then let out a laugh.

Hearing her suddenly laugh, Wu Zhu looked at her as if he’d seen a ghost. “What are you laughing at?”

“If you want to swallow me, then go ahead.” A-Shang closed her eyes, looking as if she were ready to die.

Wu Zhu: “?”

This was the first time he’d ever seen someone so eager to die. He’d been trapped here for over ten thousand years—had the outside world really developed to the point where people were like this now?

“Do you really think I wouldn’t dare swallow you in one gulp?” Wu Zhu said, opening his mouth wide as if to devour her whole, but in the end, he stopped.

Just as A-Shang had expected, he didn’t eat her.

A-Shang knew that if he truly wanted to eat her, he wouldn’t have kept her alive until now, nor would he have saved her when she fell off the cliff—as if he were terrified she might die here.

A-Shang could sense that her meridians had been repaired by someone. She had been wondering why, since they were strangers, he would bother to save her.

Now, looking at the sword suspended above the man’s head, she understood.

He must have been sealed here for many, many years. From being fiercely unyielding at the start, to slowly having his spine bent by the passage of time—that was why he had pinned all his hopes on her, who had suddenly fallen into this place.

Neither knew how much time passed as they remained at an impasse. Then, suddenly, the man spoke in a low voice: “Please.”

A-Shang was taken aback. “What?”

“Please!” The man suddenly raised his voice, threw his arms around A-Shang’s thighs, and wailed, “Please, sister—good sister—my benefactor, my kind savior—please let me out! It’s been over ten thousand years! I’ve been locked up here for over ten thousand years, all alone, nothing else, dead silent…”

Perhaps suddenly reminded of the unbearable, endless loneliness of those millennia, the man tore his own hair into a messy bird’s nest and sobbed loudly:

“Please, please let me out! If you set me free, I’ll do anything—I’ll be your ox, your horse, anything at all! I beg you! Dear sister! Waaahhh…”

A-Shang watched him clinging to her thighs, wailing hysterically. After a moment of thought, she asked, “Why were you imprisoned here?”

Hearing that, the man’s wailing paused for a moment. Then he said in a flat tone, “My name is Wu Zhu. The books you cultivators study should have records of my deeds.”

Wu Zhu.

A-Shang thought carefully. The ancient ferocious beast Wu Zhu—savage by nature, fond of eating humans, who once turned the Three Realms upside down and brought calamity to the mortal world. Later, he was subdued by the Heavenly Emperor, who scattered his remains across the eight desolate regions.

Wu Zhu could tell from A-Shang’s expression that she must have read about his past deeds.

Seeing that she would not help him break the seal, Wu Zhu slowly released his grip on her skirt.

In a tone that betrayed no emotion, Wu Zhu said, “It’s been over ten thousand years. You cultivators always talk about compassion and mercy—that it’s never too late to mend one’s ways. I’ve been imprisoned for over ten thousand years. Isn’t that enough to atone for my sins?”

A-Shang stared at him for a moment, then corrected him: “Compassion and mercy—that’s what monks talk about.”

Wu Zhu: “…”

A-Shang had never planned to break the seal for him. Now that she knew he was the ancient ferocious beast who had once brought chaos to the world, she absolutely could not release him.

“Leave.” Wu Zhu said.

A-Shang was somewhat surprised.

Wu Zhu: “I’ve already undone the formations. Keep walking straight ahead and you’ll find your way out. If you have any conscience at all, after you get out, could you come back and visit me sometime? I want to eat something—anything edible will do. If you could bring roast chicken, roast duck, or suckling pig, that would be even better.”

He had been hungry for over ten thousand years.

Even though he wouldn’t starve to death, the agony of being forever hungry yet never dying was truly unbearable.

After Wu Zhu finished speaking, he heard the sound of the girl turning and walking away.

He listened to her footsteps gradually fade into the distance, until they disappeared completely.

The surroundings fell silent once more. The endless, suffocating loneliness of the darkness without a shred of hope crept back over him.

He was alone again…

He should have been used to it by now, shouldn’t he?

Through ten thousand years of solitude, he had always endured it this way.

“Tap, tap…”

The footsteps that had faded away suddenly drew nearer again. Wu Zhu, who had been hanging his head low, snapped his eyes open and looked up. Then he saw the girl who should have left—she had turned back.

The sword-light that he had once loathed so much rained down from above her head, and yet, within that hated radiance, he actually saw something that resembled hope.

Wu Zhu: “You…”

“Give me one reason.” A-Shang’s gaze fixed on him, and she spoke each word clearly: “One reason to make me believe that after I break the seal for you, you won’t bring calamity upon the mortal world again.”

Wu Zhu stared into her eyes, thought seriously for a moment, and said, “I can become your bond-spirit. From now on, I will obey only you.”

A demon that forms a bond-spirit contract must wholeheartedly serve its contract master, belonging wholly to its master, with no room for disloyalty. If it violates this, it will be reduced to ashes.

A-Shang: “Alright.”

The bonding ritual was very simple. Moreover, Wu Zhu truly wanted to become her bond-spirit. He knelt before the girl, unhesitatingly extracted his demon core, and offered it up with both hands.

A-Shang cut her own hand and let a single drop of her blood fall onto his demon core.

After the crimson blood landed on the golden demon core, it was quickly absorbed. Then, the golden core sank into A-Shang’s body.

Wu Zhu bowed his head devoutly and spoke two words to A-Shang: “Master.”

“All I have to do is pull it out, right?” A-Shang said, reaching out to withdraw the golden sword suspended above Wu Zhu’s head. The moment she pulled it free, the red talismanic runes around them shattered completely and dissolved into nothingness in the air.

The golden sword, having fulfilled its ten-thousand-year mission, also crumbled into a wisp of fragmented light and vanished.

“Done… it’s done?” Wu Zhu watched the runes that had suppressed him for ten thousand years disappear, along with the oppressive sense of confinement that had weighed on him all this time.

A-Shang nodded. “Done.”

The next second, his arms tightened around her waist, and he suddenly scooped her up and shot straight out.

“Hahahaha, hahahaha—I’m out, I’m finally out! Hahahaha! Ten thousand years! Ten thousand years!” Wu Zhu, carrying A-Shang, sped through every bustling corner of the world at breakneck speed.

The naked eye couldn’t even catch him. People he passed by only felt a sudden gust of wind sweep past their faces, and by the time they reacted, all the food in their hands had already been stuffed into Wu Zhu’s mouth.

To A-Shang, it felt like only the blink of an eye. By the time she came to her senses, she was already back at the cliff where she had originally fallen.

Beside her, Wu Zhu patted his round, bulging belly as he lay on the ground, letting out a satisfied belch.

“So full.”

At some point, he had transformed into human form—but he wasn’t wearing any clothes. He just lay there sprawled out, completely bare, right in front of A-Shang.

A-Shang: “…”

Just as A-Shang was about to tell him to put some clothes on, she suddenly noticed a white figure not far away.

He stood there—no one knew for how long.

Wu Zhu noticed A-Shang’s gaze and followed her line of sight. In an instant, he spotted Xie Hengyu, who was radiating an alluring fragrance from head to toe.

Having been starving for over ten thousand years, even though Wu Zhu had just eaten his fill, he still couldn’t help but let his eyes gleam. He licked his lips and murmured:

“He smells so good—he looks delicious.”

Hearing this, A-Shang stepped on his foot, stopping him from crawling over to devour Xie Hengyu.

That person… does not taste good.