Chapter 11: A Drunken Confession and a New Alliance

Bai Jiujiu’s sudden inquiry instantly cast a chill over the dining table.

Tong Qiu, seated opposite her, now regarded her with undisguised hostility.

“There’s no need to be so tense,” Bai Jiujiu said. “I’ve lived in the mountains my entire life, oblivious to the affairs of the human world. Just tell me what any average human or demon would know.”

Bai Jiujiu added a few more pickled vegetables to Tong Qiu’s bowl, then lifted the pot lid to refill her own.

She carried her bowl of white porridge back to the table, settling across from Tong Qiu, and tilted her head slightly, offering a serene smile.

Tong Qiu stared directly at Bai Jiujiu, then glanced towards the Binding Demon Rope, its coiled head peeking from the stove.

‘Forget it,’ she thought. ‘Even if I don’t tell her, she’ll just abduct a few cultivators or ask some petty demons disguised among humans later.’

‘It’s better to do her a favor now than to jeopardize our cooperation.’

“Spark, Materialization, Soul Seeding, Yin God, Demon Manor, Six Revolutions, Heavenly Meridian. These are the seven realms humans have assigned to demons, and they also represent the seven Heavenly Tribulations you demons must face.”

“Seven Heavenly Tribulations?”

“Don’t tell me I have to explain even the most basic things about your own kind?”

Bai Jiujiu shook her head. She knew that demons had to overcome Heavenly Tribulations to grow stronger, and she had personally protected her disciples during their tribulations.

Yet, her own tribulations had always occurred in her sleep. She would simply wake to find her home struck by lightning, while she remained unharmed.

She truly had no idea how many tribulations she had endured.

Tong Qiu, of course, didn’t believe her, assuming the demon was merely playing tricks.

“I know about Heavenly Tribulations, but I wasn’t aware there were seven of them.”

“Based on our human research into demons, we’ve discovered that each tribulation is a near-fatal ordeal. Even those mythical, ancient fierce beasts often fell during their eighth tribulation.”

“That’s why we humans use seven realms to denote the seven Heavenly Tribulations you pass.”

“I see…”

Bai Jiujiu roughly calculated the tribulations she had faced. It had been about eight thousand years since she transmigrated.

Including the lightning strike she endured right after arriving, she had already passed five tribulations.

By human standards, that indeed placed her in the Demon Manor Realm.

The Demon Suppression Division, without even meeting her, had accurately deduced her strength and realm. Truly terrifying!

Bai Jiujiu was now immensely glad she hadn’t become overly arrogant.

“What about Su Ling’er? What exactly did that unruly disciple of mine do?”

“I’m not entirely clear on the specifics. My orders were simply to apprehend the fox demon Su Ling’er. The headquarters only provided us with her appearance, gleaned through a scrying mirror.”

“As for what she did…” Tong Qiu fell silent, contemplating whether to disclose the information to Bai Jiujiu. While the details were similar to the common tales circulating among the populace, they were considered classified by the Great Chu Kingdom and shared with the Demon Suppression Division.

Noticing her hesitation, Bai Jiujiu retrieved a gold ingot from her robes and placed it on the table.

This constable seemed to be the type who was quite short on money. Although she wasn’t sure of the gold ingot’s purchasing power in the human world, she assumed it carried significant weight.

Tong Qiu’s eyes widened, fixed on the gleaming gold ingot.

Bai Jiujiu called her name twice, but received no response. She took a mouthful of porridge, mumbling to herself.

‘This constable’s salary seems quite good, yet Tong Qiu refuses to speak now. When I used one at the inn yesterday, the owner nearly treated me like their own mother.’

‘Later, I asked the waiter about it and exchanged some for silver coins.’

Bai Jiujiu had once discovered an entire cave filled with gold ingots in the mountain cave where she found the incomplete human cultivation manual.

That cave had become her personal treasury, forbidden to all. She vaguely recalled her fourth disciple, the Nekomata Xiao Qiang, and her fifth disciple, the fox demon Su Ling’er, attempting to sneak in and pilfer.

However, they were reported by her eldest disciple, Nine Heavens, and the two little rascals ended up with red bottoms, punished to clean toilets for a month.

Therefore, she never worried about money. Nevertheless, she had only brought three gold ingots when she hastily descended the mountain.

One had been used at the inn, yielding eight thousand silver coins. Silver coins were the common currency in this world, available in both coin and paper note forms, with larger denominations primarily being paper.

Bai Jiujiu realized she probably couldn’t buy the information she wanted with money alone and decided not to push her luck.

She placed her hand on the gold ingot, ready to withdraw it, when Tong Qiu’s face suddenly crumpled in misery, tears even welling in the corners of her eyes.

‘??? ‘

Bai Jiujiu slid the gold ingot towards Tong Qiu, and instantly, a smile returned to the constable’s face.

What a rapid change of expression!

As Bai Jiujiu moved the ingot left, Tong Qiu’s eyes followed. The same happened when she moved it right.

Up, down, left, right—Tong Qiu’s gaze tracked Bai Jiujiu’s movements perfectly.

‘So, it wasn’t a righteous refusal after all, but rather her eyes being completely captivated by money?’

After an internal struggle, Tong Qiu closed her eyes and accepted the gold ingot. She then grabbed the wine gourd from her waist and took a long, deep swig.

This was her habit: every time she earned a gold ingot, she would drain her wine gourd of its finest vintage and spend the entire day blissfully drunk.

“Anyway, there’s no harm in telling you. According to what we know, after Su Ling’er arrived in Yingdu, the capital of the Great Chu Kingdom, she first defaced the Chu King’s statue with graffiti.”

“Then she impersonated a ghost, causing chaos and unrest in the Chu King’s harem. After that, she spread rumors throughout the capital about the Chu King secretly meeting courtesans at brothels.”

“Finally, she infiltrated the Chu Kingdom’s treasury. She took nothing else, only the nation’s most treasured artifact: the Azure Water Pearl.”

Tong Qiu was fine as long as she didn’t touch alcohol, but once she emptied her wine gourd, her mouth moved faster than her brain, spitting out everything that had been stuck in her throat in one breath.

“She didn’t hurt anyone, didn’t harm anyone. What she did to that high and mighty dog emperor was incredibly satisfying!”

“It’s because of his useless subordinates, yet all the anger is directed at our Demon Suppression Division. The pressure trickles down from layer to layer, and it all lands on us. This fox demon, too, why did she cause trouble in Chu King City like she was sick?”

“We constables are different from those rogue cultivators who take bounties; we have performance metrics. If we don’t meet them, our pay gets docked!”

“Waaah! My gold ingots! Aaaah! My salary!”

Pfft… Pfft-haha!

Bai Jiujiu watched the drunken Tong Qiu, clutching the gold ingot and weeping profusely, and couldn’t help but spray out white rice grains as she burst into laughter.

“Hahahaha, I can’t, hahahaha, I can’t… This is indeed something Ling’er would do… Cough, cough! I’m choking! I’m choking! This demon is going to die!”

However, hearing Tong Qiu’s account, Su Ling’er hadn’t committed any truly heinous acts, which allowed Bai Jiujiu to breathe a sigh of relief.

She had diligently instilled the spirit of virtue, wisdom, physical fitness, aesthetics, labor, and red ideology in her five disciples since childhood. If she had raised five wanted criminals, she would be utterly speechless.

‘It was purely because Bai Jiujiu lacked proper knowledge, so she could only spout such platitudes to them.’

“What about your human cultivation? Uh… just tell me what ordinary demons would know. I already understand about spiritual energy, so there’s no need to elaborate on that.”

The human cultivation manual she found in the cave was incomplete, revealing nothing about the realms or stages.

Bai Jiujiu had initially thought her disciple had secretly torn out crucial pages to make paper airplanes, but it turned out the unscrupulous author simply hadn’t written them.

“That’s nothing special. We humans, like you demons, also have seven realms: Qi Condensation, Spirit Movement, Illumination, Core Formation, Soul Refining, Body Tempering, and Void Return. However, we don’t need to undergo tribulations. We just need to cultivate the corresponding energy circulation techniques to a bottleneck, then enter seclusion to overcome our inner demons.”

“By the way, I’m in the Illumination Realm. My talent is mediocre, so I can only rely on magical artifacts.”

“If it weren’t for spending all my money raising those little ones, there’s no way I’d still only be in the Illumination Realm by now.”

Tong Qiu, thoroughly caught up in her drunken monologue, spilled her own secrets, punctuating her words with hiccups.

‘Raising those little ones?’

Bai Jiujiu gleaned a useful piece of information from that; it might explain why the constable was so desperate for money.

However, with the constable now utterly drunk, wouldn’t she agree to any terms Bai Jiujiu proposed? If not, the Binding Demon Rope, still coiled menacingly behind Tong Qiu, would instantly bind her at Bai Jiujiu’s command.

Bai Jiujiu picked up the fire tongs leaning against the wall and carefully tucked the Binding Demon Rope back into the stove.

She was absolutely not seeking revenge, absolutely not retaliating for last night’s events, absolutely not.

Bai Jiujiu’s lips stretched into a wide grin. She clapped her hands, sat back down, and addressed Tong Qiu with a serious expression.

“Well, then. We can now discuss the details of our cooperation.”

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