Chapter 18: The Illiterate Exorcist and the Cat Demon’s Tale

Click.

The door to the inn room clicked shut, sealing away the clamor and chill of the outside world.

Lu Hongzhuang carried Su Qinghan on her back, her movements as delicate as if she were transporting a piece of fragile porcelain. She carefully lowered the woman from her back onto the bed, struck by how astonishingly light she felt.

In the dim, yellow candlelight, she saw Su Qinghan’s face, so pale it was utterly devoid of color. Even in sleep, her brows were knitted together, betraying a deep, unshakeable exhaustion.

A wave of tenderness washed over Lu Hongzhuang unexpectedly.

After a moment’s hesitation, she reached out and, a bit clumsily, removed Su Qinghan’s dew-dampened outer coat and shoes. Then she pulled the quilt up, tucking it snugly around her.

Only after all this was done did she let out a long sigh of relief and take a seat at the table.

She drew the booklet from her robes—the one she had retrieved from beneath the corpse in the Demon Prison. A faint, foul stench of decay still clung to it.

Lu Hongzhuang’s brow furrowed as she opened the booklet.

The script inside was delicate and graceful.

The dreamscape was a boundless, unending darkness.

Su Qinghan felt trapped in a cramped space, her limbs heavy, her body covered in fur.

She glanced down and saw a pair of snow-white fox paws.

‘Have I turned into a fox?’

Before she could even process this, a blinding crimson light ripped through the darkness.

Lu Hongzhuang stood before her, clad in red. Her face, usually a picture of stubbornness and innocence, was now a mask of cold resentment and grim resolve.

In her hand, she clutched a long, jet-black whip.

“Crack!”

The whip tore through the air, striking the ground before Su Qinghan with tremendous force and sending dust flying!

The sound was deafening, a shock that made her very soul tremble.

“Why did you lie to me!”

Lu Hongzhuang’s voice was a hiss, forced through clenched teeth and brimming with the agony of betrayal.

‘Why… what did I lie about?’

Su Qinghan tried to explain, but all that escaped her throat was a mournful whimper.

“Bang!”

A powerful force suddenly jolted her from the nightmare!

Su Qinghan’s eyes flew open with a start.

An enormous face, etched with both anxiety and excitement, was hovering so close it nearly touched the tip of her nose.

“Holy moly! What do you think you’re doing!”

Terrified, she instinctively recoiled.

Lu Hongzhuang paid her panicked cry no mind, instead thrusting the foul-smelling booklet right before her eyes.

“Quick, look! You have to see this!”

Dizzy from being shaken, Su Qinghan struggled to focus her gaze.

The pages were filled with dense script, a veritable sea of incomprehensible scribbles.

She blinked, turning an innocent gaze upon Lu Hongzhuang.

“I’m illiterate, you fool.”

The air instantly froze.

Lu Hongzhuang’s hand, still holding the booklet aloft, froze in midair. Her expression shifted from excitement to astonishment, and finally, to utter disbelief.

This woman, who could draw talismans, ring bells, and perform all manner of bizarre arts…

Was actually completely illiterate. Back at the carpenter’s house, she’d thought Su Qinghan was just being modest.

“You…” Lu Hongzhuang felt a breath catch in her chest, leaving her speechless for a moment. “You’re impossible!”

She stomped her foot in frustration.

“Once we catch the culprit, I’m sending you to a proper school for some intensive tutoring!”

“Alright, alright,” Su Qinghan said with a dismissive wave, rubbing her spinning head. “Tell me, my great scholar, what sort of demonic script is in that book to get you so worked up?”

Only then did Lu Hongzhuang remember the matter at hand.

She sat on the edge of the bed, her expression growing complex and grave, her voice dropping to a low murmur.

“The body in the Demon Prison… it was Luo Li.”

‘Luo Li?’ Su Qinghan searched her memory. ‘Right, the quiet, introverted demon exorcist Lu Hongzhuang had mentioned was missing.’

“This booklet… it’s her final letter.”

Her voice trembling slightly, Lu Hongzhuang began to recount the bizarre and tragic story recorded within its pages.

Luo Li was someone who barely registered at the Demon Exorcism Division, tasked with guarding the Demon Prison. In the endless gloom and solitude, she fell in love with an imprisoned cat demon.

The cat demon was also a woman, innocent and full of life, who yearned for the world outside.

Luo Li was moved by a selfish desire.

She wanted her beloved to see the free and beautiful world the cat demon so often described.

And so, she devised a desperate plan.

“She had the cat demon take her face and her clothes, allowing her to go outside in her guise.”

Lu Hongzhuang’s voice grew strained as she explained.

“With this skin-swapping technique, the one who gives up their face will die within a week. They made a pact: the cat demon could go out for five days, but she had to return and give the face back.”

This arrangement continued, back and forth, for half a year.

Each time, the cat demon kept her promise, returning punctually with trinkets and tales of the strange and wonderful things in the outside world.

Luo Li wrote in her journal: ‘I want to take her home. I want to spend the rest of my life with her. I don’t care if it means I can never be a demon exorcist again.’

“The last time she left, the cat demon said she was going to find a way to capture another demon to take her place, so they could finally be together forever.”

Lu Hongzhuang paused, her voice tinged with sorrow.

“And then… the cat demon never came back.”

Luo Li never knew what happened to her out there—if she had forgotten their pact, or if she had met with some terrible fate.

She only knew that her own life was drawing to a close.

She was afraid—afraid that the innocent cat demon might one day return to find her cold body, and that she would be consumed by guilt and grief, perhaps even doing something drastic.

That was why she left the journal.

Lu Hongzhuang closed the booklet and softly recited the final line.

“I have always been an insignificant person in this world, but if someone can see it for me using my face, then I have no regrets. My little cat demon, the world is a beautiful place, but it is not for me… It’s just that, in the end, I never even learned your name.”

The room fell into a deathly silence.

Even the sound of the wind outside seemed to carry a note of desolation.

After a long moment, Su Qinghan suddenly sat up.

She threw back the covers, heedless of her disheveled clothes, and began rummaging within her wide sleeves.

A moment later, she produced a small pair of scissors and a stack of white paper, made from some unknown material that glowed with a soft, pearlescent sheen.

She sat cross-legged on the bed and began to snip away at the paper.

Lu Hongzhuang watched, completely dumbfounded.

Her sorrow was quickly supplanted by an intense curiosity. She leaned in closer, peering at what Su Qinghan was doing.

“Where… where are you pulling all this stuff from?”

As she spoke, her hand drifted unconsciously toward Su Qinghan’s open collar, as if to investigate the secrets of this ‘bag of holding’ herself.

“Smack!”

A hand shot out like lightning, seizing her errant wrist with unerring precision.

Su Qinghan didn’t even look up as she chided, “Sometimes I can’t tell if you’re genuinely dense or just pretending to be. That was rather forward of you, Heroine Lu.”

Lu Hongzhuang’s face instantly flushed crimson, as if set ablaze. She snatched her hand back and whipped her head away.

“I-I was just curious! Your robes are like a bottomless bag!”

Su Qinghan paid her no mind, her hands never ceasing their work.

Soon, a lifelike paper effigy took shape in her hands.

She examined the paper figure, a confident smile playing on her lips.

“I’ve got a lead.”

She held the paper effigy in her palm, letting it dance in the candlelight.

“And now, we just need our main subject to make an appearance.”

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