Chapter Text
If Shen Yuan had to transmigrate, couldn’t he transmigrate into a protagonist or a righteous cultivator? Why did it have to be this scum villain demon?
Especially since in the book Proud Immortal Cultivator Way, demons were supposed to be perpetually horny so the hero Luo Binghe could papapa with all the demon sisters! It was being an adolescent all over again! Everything was giving him an erection: swords, fans, suggestively shaped rocks!
And transmigrating into the scum villain Qingqiu Jun should have been useful for once! Crane demons were supposed to mate for life and once they mated couldn’t be aroused by anyone but their spouse. It was a reason for Luo Binghe to take pity on a crane demon (former) maiden and accept her as one of his wives despite his horrible memories of his abuse at the hands of Qingqiu Jun.
Who would have thought the scum villain was still a virgin? The fanfiction writers were convinced his lover was Yue Qi, the demon who served as his manservant and went berserk when after a fierce battle, Luo Binghe finally defeated Qingqiu Jun and reclaimed his mother’s, Xiyan Ji’s lands. Yue Qi would have been no threat to the great cultivator Luo Binghe if he wasn’t using a sword that drained his own life. If it weren’t for the hero quickly cutting open the demon’s body and swallowing the talisman that gave Qingqiu Jun the power of the slaughtered Qiu demon clan, he would have fallen under the assault even with his legendary sword, Zheng Yang. If one of Luo Binghe’s wives wasn’t Qiu Haitang, the only survivor of the slaughter and Qingqiu Jun’s former fiancée he wouldn’t have known about the talisman and… he still would have survived because of the protagonist halo.
Proud Immortal Cultivator Way was that kind of novel, a shameless stallion novel.
Reminded of the talisman, Shen Yuan glanced down at his belly. Its existence was another reason for Luo Binghe to kill him!
“Where is Luo Binghe?” he had asked Yue Qi as the servant fussed over him.
“In the woodshed, unless another demon has grabbed the boy to do his work.”
Ffffffff… “Bring him,” Qingqiu Jun commanded, and Yue Qi bowed and obeyed.
Luo Binghe was the son of the demon lady of the west, Xiyan Ji, and the righteous cultivator Su Tianlang, succeeding disciple of Huan Hua Palace Sect. Su Tianlang’s master rallied the sects to stand against Xiyan Ji after she seduced his heir and imprisoned father and son in the infamous Water Prison. Su Tianlang was able to escape with the infant Luo Binghe, but died of his wounds after reaching the borderlands.
Fortunately, Xiyan Ji’s old nurse, who had been waiting for the lady’s return, found the child and hurried with him back to Xiyan Ji’s palace, where she raised the boy as a young demon prince.
Then Luo Binghe’s eighth year was marked by tragedy: first the only mother he had ever known passed away, and then the treacherous Qingqiu Jun, who wasn’t true demon nobility but had given himself the title of Jun, took over his mother’s lands. In one night, Luo Binghe went from beloved prince to a mongrel, cast out of the palace, reduced to sleeping in the woodshed and doing the lowest of chores for scraps, his only friend the bamboo demon Ning Yingying.
He was allowed to live because the seal Huan Hua Palace put on him when he was a prisoner alongside his father meant he might never come into his true power as a Heavenly Demon and become a threat to Qingqiu Jun. Seeing that their prince was just a weak human, the demons who once obeyed his mother cowered before their new overlord, and were cruel to Luo Binghe to demonstrate their loyalty. It was this craven betrayal that would give Luo Binghe his hatred of demonkind.
Except for the sisters.
It was that kind of novel.
Shen Yuan read it for the plot, he swore! The plot that was left completely unresolved when the novel ended with the demon and human worlds being severed from each other, no explanation given for the mysterious assassinations and other goings-on. He died cursing this idiotic stallion novel.
Luo Binghe already had reason to hate him. So, he was lucky that at this age, Luo Binghe was a veritable white lotus! He had accepted the fact that among demons, the weak were the lowest. The only reason he had been treated as a prince was the kindness and loyalty of the old nurse – without her, it was natural that someone without a demon’s inborn level of cultivation would be the lowest of servants.
Shen Yuan’s reaction to this was that it was bullshit! If someone had made him a dogsbody and made him sleep in the shed, when he was born to a wealthy family and knew what a better standard of living was, and said he deserved it because he wasn’t of pure blood or something like that, it was obviously unfair, and the person was probably racist scum! But Luo Binghe was written to be sympathetic and the reader was meant to see him bearing up under hardship and want to take revenge for him. A resentful brat was not cute.
Cute!
This child, who looked about nine – good, so he hadn’t accumulated as many scars and offenses as he could have – that Yue Qi led into the receiving room was definitely cute! With his fluffy hair he resembled a lamb as he knelt before Qingqiu Jun and bowed his head. “You summoned me, Qingqiu Jun?” he asked in a piping voice that failed to conceal both shyness, because coming to Qingqiu Jun’s attention had never meant anything good, and a white lotus’ undimmed optimism and belief in people’s goodness.
This scum villain was grateful! From now on he will hug your thighs, so hopefully this white lotus will only mature into the legendary heavenly demon black lotus in body and not in spirit. “Luo Binghe. Your father was Su Tianlang, correct?”
“Yes, Qingqiu Jun.”
“A cultivator who surpassed the level of a demon saint.” Qingqiu Jun tapped one of his talons on the armrest of his chair. “Even though you show no sign of your mother’s heavenly demon blood, you still may grow up to be powerful. Not powerful enough to rank among demon nobility,” Bullshit! He would surpass all the Juns! “But powerful enough that your station would not be that of the lowest of servants. I thought your previous caretaker spoiled you, by teaching you to expect treatment above your station that would lead you to be discontent with your lot in life. However, with proper training in human-style cultivation, you might prove yourself worthy of how she cared for you. Yue Qi.”
“Yes, Qingqiu Jun?”
“Take some of my forces and raid a minor cultivation sect for cultivation manuals. Luo Binghe will be given a room in the palace and a month to study them.” Thank goodness he already knew how to read! “If he shows progress in his cultivation when I evaluate him at the end of the month, he will be allowed to remain in the palace as long as he continues to grow in strength. When he ceases to make progress,” as though the protagonist of a pandering stallion novel would! “Then I will determine his station in life and make proper arrangements.”
“Yes, my lord.” Yue Qi looked down at the child. “Thank Qingqiu Jun for the trouble he is taking on your account, boy.”
“Yes, Lord! Thank you!” The boy’s eyes shone with hope, excitement, and exploitable innocence.
Don’t thank me, just don’t chop off my arms, legs and wings!
Qingqiu Jun waved away his words. “You are dismissed. Wait, do you remember where your former rooms were?”
“Yes, Lord?”
“This demon lord has no offspring, so the nursery is vacant. Yue Qi, take him there and inform the staff.” He dismissed them with a wave of his taloned hand.
There, that was Luo Binghe dealt with for now. ON to the immediate emergency: protecting his chrysanthemum! The elegant crane demon had many admirers, and if Luo Binghe was not yet ten, then Qingge Jun was still alive!
In a stallion novel that pandered to the audience there was of course no gay content, only lesbians that were always happy to engage in a 3P if the 2 was the irresistible Luo Binghe. In a real world where he felt almost horny enough to hit anything that moved, he had to be worried about a challenger who would try to defeat Qingqiu Jun so many times before finally being killed with dirty tricks. Dirty tricks that Shen Yuan didn’t know how to pull!
Or would his next challenger be Qingqi Ji, known for pegging her male conquests (so that the succubus queen’s first taste of cock would be the protagonist’s)?
He needed to wrack his brain to remember Qingqiu Jun’s techniques from the novel, like forcing his spirit energy into his feathers to turn them into homing knives, and practice them until he could actually use them in real combat. Because as horny as he felt, he might just roll over for a demon that defeated him, the way the novel’s demon sisters did, and then he would be very literally screwed!
Meanwhile, he needed to project the air of a confident, elegant, powerful demon lord, or else challengers for his lands and station would sense weakness and attack!
It wasn’t as though he was reluctant to get to play around with cool techniques, but he had a very serious need to train just as hard as the studious Luo Binghe would for the next month.
Well… in the mornings he raided the library, telling himself it was to learn more techniques to use and studying his opponents, but really it was for the sweet, sweet worldbuilding. And a break from his training. It would help him pass as the wise Qingqiu Jun, he told himself, munching on pastries as he devoured another book, a scholar who always knew some useful trick. In the afternoons, feigning bad temper, he went into his private training grounds and rearranged the landscape at first, and then, when he was more confident, told Yue Qi that he wished to review the training of his troops.
With a Jun’s stolen power, it was fun to thrash them. He wished he had something to fiddle with for dramatic effect, showing off his nonchalance, as his sword and feathers tracked his practice dummies across the training grounds. A fan? Yes, that would help conceal his expression, so no one had a chance to notice surprise at something Qingqiu Jun should already know or something like that.
He needed to keep up the act – if the loyal Yue Qi suspected that his master was possessed or something, what was he supposed to do? He knew nothing about their shared backstory! The promised extra about how a common demon ascended to the rank of demon lord was never written due to lack of reader interest in anything that didn’t promise more papapa!
It wasn’t as though the sex scenes were any good! Airplane Shooting Towards The Sky was clearly a virgin, a virgin!
Qingqiu Jun waved away Yue Qi’s offered umbrella, preferring to spread his wings in the sunshine as Luo Binghe dug a hole.
It was the only test of cultivation aptitude in the book – how embarrassing it would be to crib a test from another series and find it didn’t work that way in this world? Airplane had a lot of things like mixing up cultivation stages and other errors that inside this universe were canon differences from typical cultivation novels’ worldbuilding!
The dirt was flying impressively. “Luo Binghe, make copies of all the books you want from what Yue Qi brought you. The originals will go to my library – you may check them out later, if you want them when you progress further. This demon lord is satisfied that your strength and endurance are superior to those of an ordinary human – you may stop now.”
“Yes, Lord!” The boy looked up and smiled brightly.
Cute!
Despite his month of studying, Qingqiu Jun knew more about the righteous sects’ human cultivation than he did about demon cultivation, thanks to the information in the novel. “You will attend me at lunch each day to report on your progress and ask me any questions you have about human cultivation and your training. When I have time, I will assign you a program of study.”
Qingqiu Jun was already fostering Ming Fan, a future demon saint cannon fodder, and other hostages against the good behavior of their parents. To keep them busy and maintain the fiction that they were here as students, he forced them to study as well as train.
These children would have become Luo Binghe’s tormentors, giving him many scars, when Ming Fan became attracted to Ning Yingying and jealous that she favored someone as weak as a human over him.
Ming Fan, you fellow victim of the protagonist! Be grateful to this demon lord for saving your ass!
Ning Yingying was the reason Luo Binghe grew up to hate almost all demons, but not the young-looking women who had feelings for him. Old women also escaped his wrath, for his nurse’s sake. If Ming Fan became a friend, perhaps Luo Binghe would not grow up to hate males so much, males like this demon lord!
Perhaps he could earn Luo Binghe’s gratitude by having Ning Yingying join the class – that way he wouldn’t be separated from his only friend.
Three months later, Qingqiu Jun was very grateful he had busted his ass – or rather, dragged his ass out of the library.
Qingge Jun was hot.
Too hot.
Hot damn!
It was no wonder when Qingge Jun’s sister was the most beautiful woman in the world, Mingyan Ji, and his aunt was the incubus (so called because she topped her lovers: Luo Binghe was the only one to not experience pegging) queen of the succubae, Qingqi Ji.
He wasn’t attracted to men in the past, he swore! So all demons were bisexual, or perhaps it was that the succubus Qingge Jun was as beautiful as woman, as well as enthrallingly powerful!
If Qingqiu Jun hadn’t read up on demon cultivation, and had that lucky breakthrough, he doubted his inexperienced self would have won against a heavenly demon descendent called the war god, golden finger talisman or no talisman!
“I’ve lost. Claim your forfeit,” Qingge Jun said, spread out below him with his clothing artistically disheveled.
It was Qingqiu’s own fault Qingge Jun was half naked and edible-looking, with his cutting feathers. He was just lucky this wasn’t the novel or Qingge Jun would be entirely naked and even harder to resist.
No, he had to be strong! Crane demons mated for life, he wasn’t marrying someone he’d just met, no matter how they made his mouth water! He wasn’t one of Luo Binghe’s wives!
His hands still itched to make grabbing motions at those pecs. “A fan,” he said. “Bring me a painted fan from the human world.”
Was there a flicker of disappointment in Qingge Jun’s steely eyes, before he got up?
Forgive me, Qing-ge! This demon lord didn’t mean to turn you on! Blame Great God Airplane for your biology.
“You didn’t use underhanded tricks,” Qingge Jun remarked, eyeing him closely.
Because I’m not sure I’m up to complex moves, and then there’s getting the timing down on when to actually use them. “This demon lord confesses that I was trying to make you think I was weak enough to need such things so that you would stop challenging me.” Was the only thing he could come up with for an excuse on short notice.
Qingge Jun gave him a grunt of acknowledgement, a considering look in his eyes, before turning and leaving the grounds.
His chrysanthemum was saved! But for how long?