Chapter 19: The Little White Snake Seems to Have Discovered Something

"Waaah! Waaah!"

Feng Xue awoke from his meditation, not because he had achieved a great breakthrough or was overcome by hunger, but because of the incessant wailing ringing in his ears.

Unable to find peace, Feng Xue sighed. He turned his head toward the window, picked up the ring, and asked, "What are you crying about? What happened now?"

"I'm not pure anymore! Waaahhhhh!"

"What the hell?" Hearing the little white snake suddenly blurt that out, Feng Xue immediately looked out the window with vigilance, only to realize that his room was on the top floor of the inn.

"It’s not like anyone could be peeing through the window from above. A bird? But would a wild animal like you even care about something like that?"

Feng Xue couldn't grasp the white snake's logic, but upon hearing him, the snake wept even harder.

"It's all your fault! All your fault! Who cultivates like you do? While I was absorbing the moonlight, I accidentally inhaled your vital energy! Waaah! It's over! My Taiyin Body! Waaah..."

The little white snake's emotions were so intense that the string of exclamation points could barely contain them. Feng Xue, a complete novice, didn't understand the situation at all and could only offer a dry, unhelpful suggestion: "Can't you just spit it out if you inhaled the wrong thing?"

"It’s already mixed in! How am I supposed to spit it out?" The little white snake was so infuriated by Feng Xue's remark that her sobbing stopped abruptly. Resigned to her fate, she said, "I’m not a demon by nature; I can only cultivate by absorbing Taiyin lunar essence. Ever since I became a demon, I’ve only absorbed lunar essence, giving me a 'Taiyin Body,' which provides the best efficiency for both cultivation and practice. Now that your vital energy has mixed in, my demonic energy has become 'Shaoyin.' The efficiency of absorbing lunar essence will be halved, and my peak cultivation time will shift from night to dusk—a time when the lunar essence hasn't even descended yet! Unless I can find a technique that cultivates twilight energy or use human essence to practice, I won't even get a quarter of the results no matter how hard I train. I’ll even be worse off than others if I die and try to cultivate into a Demon Immortal. Waaah, my life is ruined! No, it was ruined the moment I met you! I shouldn't have looked at you in the first place, and after seeing you, I shouldn't have thought about begging for a conferment. If I hadn't begged for that conferment, I wouldn't have..."

Seeing that the little white snake was about to turn into a tragic, rambling mess, Feng Xue suddenly displayed a stroke of world-shaking wisdom: "Then why don't you just scrap your cultivation?"

"Gah!" The little white snake's crying ceased instantly. She shrieked in terror, "H-how could it be that easy? If I disperse my demonic energy, I’ll die! I’ll really die! Don't mess around, don't you dare!"

Listening to the little white snake’s panicked screeching, Feng Xue chuckled. In truth, he had been waiting for an opportunity to test this ability. It wasn't to torment her, but simply to let her know that he possessed such power; otherwise, how could he convince a snake with mere empty words?

He hadn't used it before because he lacked the right moment, and doing so randomly would have felt like creating an enemy. But now, since "scrapping her cultivation" was actually aiding her progress, how could he let this chance slip by?

Feng Xue placed the ring on the table, pointed a finger at it, and shouted, "I see you as a beast!"

"Poof!"

A flash of white light erupted, and a massive surge of cold, yin energy dissipated, instantly clearing away the vital energy that had filled the room from Feng Xue's own self-pressurization. If the two malicious ghosts who had been "freeloading" earlier could see this, they would likely have evolved into red-eyed fiends—though whether it was from the vital energy, the yin energy, or the frustration of wasted life force, who could say?

Feng Xue didn't care. He waited quietly for the transformation smoke to clear and saw the little white snake lying limply on the table.

"Waaah! I spent forty years cultivating! Forty years! And you just scrapped it! Waaah..."

"You can still talk? But your lifespan... let me calculate. Holy crap? You still have over eighty years? Oh! I see. You only lose the cultivation and the lifespan/traits associated with it. Passive abilities granted by the 'conferment,' like having refined your throat bone and the ability to speak, remain." Feng Xue nodded thoughtfully and pointed his finger again. "I see you as a human!"

"Poof!"

"Have you had enough yet?!"

The little white snake, who could practically be considered the embodiment of Feng Xue's personal preferences, lay on the table, staring daggers at him. To be honest, it was a bit obscene; he was getting a reaction.

*Ahem.*

"It's not a game. You said your demonic energy was tainted, so I helped you scrap it. It's only forty years of demon cultivation, right? You can just cultivate it back!"

The little white snake lay there, looking utterly defeated. She said weakly, "It's not that easy! I originally relied on... wait? Huh? Huh? Huh?"

Mid-sentence, the little white snake gasped, her eyes widening in disbelief. "My god! How is this possible? This... this..."

Before she could finish, the little white snake’s stunningly beautiful face crumpled. She looked at Feng Xue with teary eyes and whispered timidly, "Um, you haven't finished dispersing your vital energy..."

"Oh~" Feng Xue made a drawn-out, amused sound. The little white snake wanted nothing more than to bury her face in the ground, but demons clearly understood the principle that the strong rule better than humans. She immediately scrambled up from the table and leaned toward Feng Xue ingratiatingly. "So, uh, could you scrap me again?"

"But you'll have to be insulted!" Feng Xue raised an eyebrow, putting on an "I'm the good guy" persona. The little white snake gritted her teeth but forced an obsequious expression. "It's fine! It's just two insults! I’m a snake, aren't I? Go ahead, insult me all you want!"

"And in the future?" Feng Xue raised a brow, sporting a cocky, "Madam, you wouldn't want..." attitude. Seeing this, the little white snake gritted her teeth and said, "I'll listen to you. Aside from that... um... the 'aiding your cultivation' part, you can use me however you like!"

"You're quite stubborn, aren't you?" Feng Xue found it strange. It was just acting as a cultivation dictionary for him; why was she more resistant to that than to death?

Thinking of the Fox Immortal Granny she had mentioned earlier, he suspected it might be related. Perhaps the Fox Immortal had taught her something that strictly forbade it from being shared?

With that thought, he stopped dwelling on it. After all, she hadn't refused to answer when he asked before; if she didn't want to say something later, he just wouldn't press her.

He pointed his finger and said, "I see you as a beast!"

"Poof!"

"I see you as a human!"

"Poof!"

Before the smoke could even settle, the little white snake wanted to try cultivating immediately, but Feng Xue pressed her down. "What are you doing? Getting addicted now? Wait until the vital energy dissipates before you practice!"

"Oh..." The little white snake retreated obediently to the corner of the window, but she couldn't help herself and secretly took a breath of air from outside.

"Wow! It's really true! My aptitude has improved again! One night of cultivation now probably equals months of hard work before! If you calculate it like that, I’ll have my cultivation back in less than half a year! No wonder everyone wants a conferment; this is amazing!"

Just as the little white snake was whispering to herself, she heard Feng Xue’s voice from behind her again.

"You're being distracting. I see you as a ring!"

"Poof!"