Zhuang Sheng’s Dawn Dream, Bewitched by Butterflies, Part 2

The demonic flames surrounding her burned with excruciating intensity, the pain searing to her very bones.

Yun Yao’s body tensed in agony, but the demon’s flames stifled even her gasps, trapping her cries in her throat. Just as she thought she’d meet her end here, sacrificing herself for the Fate Palace, everything suddenly stilled.
Even the claw-like grip on her fragile neck loosened.

Yun Yao opened her eyes with difficulty.

The desk between them had long been reduced to ash by the demonic flames.

Now, the demon was inches away, his black robes nearly engulfing her.
He leaned down, his gaze a mix of fascination and disgust, surrender and restraint, as he stared at her features. Finally, he forced out a low, hoarse voice:

“They say in the immortal realm you control the Wheel of Reincarnation. Hand it over, and I’ll spare your life.”

“The Wheel… of Reincarnation?”

Yun Yao’s voice, strained from the choking, struggled to form words. Her expression was one of panic and confusion, her eyes meeting his with innocent bewilderment, as if she were an unwitting victim caught in his schemes.
But inwardly, she cursed the Wheel’s spirit eight hundred times.

She knew it! A demon with flames that could burn the heavens was clearly an enemy of the immortal realm, someone who’d face off against divine lords. How could it fall to a lowly scribe like her, a minor immortal who only wielded a pen?

Wheel of Reincarnation, look at the mess you’ve caused!

Her mind raged with complaints, but her face showed none of it. Feeling the grip on her neck loosen slightly, she cautiously raised a hand, sliding it along his trailing sleeve and giving a tentative poke—

“Great… Immortal,” Yun Yao pleaded weakly, “please let go first. I’m about to… die.”

The demon’s fingers were as cold as his snow-white hair, chilling to the bone, like the legendary Heavenly Cold Jade that could freeze an entire small world with a single piece.

“Great Immortal?”

He laughed lowly, his eyes glinting with icy, life-devouring flames. “Who told you I’m from your immortal realm?”

Yun Yao’s senses sharpened.

Not from the immortal realm, yet wreathed in demonic flames.
Could he be the most terrifying legend of all—a demon from beyond the realms?

“…*Gulp.*”

In the silence, the sound of her swallowing was painfully clear, drawing the demon’s attention.

Yun Yao froze. Unless she was mistaken, his look held… disdain?

As if to say, “How could you, with that face, do something so undignified?”

But he only glanced at her briefly before his feather-like lashes swept down lazily.
He released her neck, leaning back against a desk he’d summoned. Crossing his long legs, he propped his wrist on his knee, the intricate gold patterns on his sleeve cascading down. His cold, dangerous gaze lingered on every inch of her face, nostalgic yet brimming with malice.

Yun Yao instinctively shrank back.

“Speak,” he said after a pause, his voice languid.

“…Huh?” Yun Yao blinked, confused. “Speak what?”

He seemed to have looked his fill, lowering his eyes. “The Wheel of Reincarnation—is it with you?”

“…”

Here we go again.
Yun Yao gritted her teeth inwardly, wondering why he had to stare at her like he was about to roast her alive while asking about the Wheel. She almost thought these extraterrestrial demons fed on tender immortal maidens.

Cursing him a hundred times in her mind, she maintained a meek, obedient facade, bowing more humbly than she would before the Eight Divine Lords. “Great Immortal, how could it be? The Wheel is a sacred artifact. How could someone like me, barely ranking among the immortal realm’s ten thousand eight hundred classes, be entrusted with it?”

“…”

Silence stretched above her, a chilling aura spreading through the Fate Palace.
Just as Yun Yao’s back ached from bowing and she sneaked a glance to see if the demon had fallen asleep, a disdainful scoff sounded overhead.
“Smooth-tongued, cowardly as a mouse.”
“You disgrace a face so like hers.”

Yun Yao: “?”
“???”

What was with the personal attack?!

Fuming, she straightened—mostly because her back couldn’t take it anymore—but before she could argue with this unreasonable demon, his sleeve swept her up, carrying her outward.

“!”

Caught off guard, Yun Yao’s vision blurred as they soared above the immortal realm’s countless jade palaces, her heart pounding in panic.
With her meager cultivation, if this demon let go, she’d be reincarnating in the mortal realm on the spot. Without thinking, she clung tightly to his sword-sharp arm beneath his sleeve. “G-Great Immortal… I told you, the Wheel really isn’t with me… Please, let’s talk this out. I’ll serve you faithfully… but where are you taking me?”

“…”

He glanced down at her, his look clearly saying, “How can there be such a spineless immortal maiden?”
Survival trumped pride, so she ignored it.

“Great Immortal?”

“…”

He ignored her this time.
His chin lifted slightly, his sharp gaze rising, the blood-like demonic mark at his eye growing colder and more beguiling.

Say what you will, he was stunning.

After a few dazed moments, the gale that had torn her robes to tatters finally ceased.

Yun Yao, clutching her wind-stiffened neck, looked down.

Beneath them sprawled a majestic hall wreathed in purple mist. Had the surrounding immortal trees—once vibrant with auspicious clouds—not been scorched bald, Yun Yao would’ve found it familiar.
After all, the hall of the Green Wood Divine Lord, one of the Three Saints and Eight Divine Lords, was known for its purple mist and lush forests…

Before she could finish the thought, she was *dropped*.
She landed precisely before the hall’s main gate, on blackened jade steps scorched beyond recognition.
Looking up, her gaze swept over the ruined hall, catching the half-fallen plaque above the gate—

“Green Wood Divine Palace.”

Yun Yao: “…”

It really was.

Had the extraterrestrial demons staged a collective rebellion?
Why hadn’t she heard a whisper of this?

A figure in black robes and snow-white hair landed gracefully before her, his voice soft. His tall, elegant frame, with hair fluttering in the breeze, exuded an immortal’s poise beneath his wide sleeves.

Were it not for the blazing demonic flames at his hem, anyone might mistake him for a saint.

But now, seeing the raging flames around him and the clearly ravaged hall, which had endured a brutal battle, Yun Yao shuddered and stammered, “Did… Great Immortal do this?”

The demon turned slightly, his eyes tinged with cold weariness. “Still refusing to admit you control the Wheel of Reincarnation?”

Yun Yao’s bad feeling grew. “What does this have to do with the Green Wood Divine Palace?”

“I brought you here to confront them, naturally.”

“Great Immortal, I swear! I’m just an insignificant maiden from the Fate Palace, barely ranked, with negligible cultivation—”
Before she could finish, his sleeve swept her up again.
Her vision blurred, and she was dragged into the hall amid panicked cries of “He’s back!” before being pinned in place by his hand.

His long fingers on her shoulder felt like a thousand-jun weight.

Yun Yao held her breath, acutely aware of the demon standing behind her.

He pressed her shoulder slowly, his force increasing, his cold gaze sweeping unhurriedly over the hall, lingering on the fleeing or retreating immortal maidens and lords.
“Which one of them betrayed you from the Fate Palace… Pity, these ants all look the same. I’ve forgotten.”

Yun Yao quietly exhaled in relief, her face breaking into a flattering smile. “Great Immortal, you’re mistaken. The Fate Palace has hundreds, if not thousands, of maidens. Today just happened to be my unlucky shift… I mean, my honor to behold your presence. They couldn’t have meant me—”

“I have an idea.”

The demon, ignoring her entirely, let out a low chuckle above her head.
It was both amused and weary, sending chills through her bones.

Yun Yao couldn’t flee or move, only watch helplessly.

The demon leaned lazily behind her, his posture intimate yet controlling, his arm encircling her neck, pulling her into his embrace.

His sleeve, carrying a cold fragrance mixed with blood, draped over half her body. Before her eyes, he lazily raised a hand, revealing a pale wrist, and casually flicked his fingers—

From the cowering crowd in the hall’s corner, a hapless figure was yanked forward.
A beautiful maiden, her face tear-streaked like pear blossoms in rain.

She was dragged to a spot not far from Yun Yao.

Her neck was visibly tightening under tangible demonic flames, her lovely face turning red from the strain.

Yun Yao’s sense of dread grew heavier.
She gripped the demon’s arm around her neck, smiling cautiously. “Great Immortal, she’s far too beautiful. Standing so close, I’m too shy to even speak. Why don’t you let her go…”

“Oh, you don’t like her?”

Yun Yao forced a smile. “It’s not that I don’t—”

*Crack.*
A faint, almost negligible sound.

It silenced the entire hall.

Yun Yao’s face froze, not a trace of emotion left in her eyes. Her widened pupils reflected the maiden, whose eyes slowly dulled, collapsing to the ground.
Like a discarded object, a boneless piece of cloth.
No breath remained.

“Truly an ant,” the voice behind her ear remained magnetic, pleasing, yet utterly indifferent, without a ripple of emotion. He wiped a negligible speck of blood from his fingertip.
“Since you don’t like her, I killed her.”

He’d crushed her like an insect.

“…”

Yun Yao’s eyes trembled uncontrollably, her hands clenching beneath her sleeves.
Just as her aura surged to her fingertips, ready to fight—

“Let’s try another… No, let them line up.”

The demon casually waved, dragging the bloodied, disheveled immortal maidens and lords from the corner to the hall’s center.
Bound by dark, blood-tinged flames, they stood in a desperate, winding line before Yun Yao.

“One by one, confront her until I find the Wheel’s master.”
He pulled the nearest lord, eyes bloodshot, forward.
Summoning a chair, he sat beside the dead maiden’s body, utterly unconcerned, propping his face with one hand, lazily watching the trapped little immortal.

“Still won’t admit it?” He smiled coldly, cruelly. “Then they’ll confront you one by one.”

Blood seeped from Yun Yao’s clenched fingers.
She kept her head lowered.

Endure.
She had to endure.
The Wheel of Reincarnation was a creation artifact, still dormant, but if it fell into this demon’s hands, the immortal realm’s end would be imminent.
She *had* to endure.

Staring at the corpse at his feet, she stiffly raised her head, forcing a smile uglier than crying. “They’re terrified of you, so they’ll all say it’s me. Great Immortal, why not just kill me? At least it’d be quick, sparing me the torture—”

“If you say it’s not you, I’ll believe you. But…”
Mu Hanyuan pointed to the line of desperate, struggling immortals.
“Every time you deny it, one of them dies in your place.”

“—!”

The last trace of her smile shattered.

Endure, my ass.
She was just a nobody immortal. If she couldn’t save the people in front of her, how could she save the entire immortal realm?
Wasn’t that the job of the revered Three Saints and Five Lords?

With a force that nearly tore her sleeve, Yun Yao yanked it up.

The three-petaled golden mark on her wrist faced the demon in the chair.

The frail, groveling maiden now had reddened eyes, glaring with a ferocity that seemed ready to bite through his throat.

Mu Hanyuan’s shoulders tensed, his fingers instinctively gripping the chair’s armrest.
*Like her…*

*Thud.*

The jade hall’s steps rang as her knees hit the ground.

The stunned demon blinked his long lashes, looking down—
At the little immortal who’d knelt without hesitation.

She was practically kowtowing.

“Great Immortal, I swear! This thing just latched onto me out of nowhere. It changes hosts every millennium—faster than the most fickle immortal maiden changes lovers! If I had a choice, I’d hand it over right now, but it’s clingy as hell and won’t come out!”

Mu Hanyuan: “…”

The demon’s smile froze.
A faint vein pulsed at his temple.

The kneeling maiden, as if unaware of her impending doom, wiped tears and rambled, “If that’s how it is, Great Immortal, you’re bound to outlive me with your endless lifespan. Wait a thousand years, and when it emerges, it’ll surely recognize you as its master—”

“Shut up.”

The demon’s patience snapped.
His black robes and snow-white hair flared as he appeared before her in a flash, grabbing her fragile neck and yanking her up from the ground.

“I don’t want it. I want you to *use* it.”

His eyes glinted with cold, ruthless bloodlust.

“…”

Yun Yao nearly choked, the feigned emotions in her eyes crumbling, revealing a flicker of genuine confusion.

Mu Hanyuan snapped back, realizing he’d almost strangled this spineless, groveling maiden.
He released her quickly, then, realizing something, lowered his blood-marked eyes and turned away, avoiding the face that kept reminding him of someone long gone.

“Cough, cough, cough…”

Yun Yao clutched her neck, coughing violently.
While coughing, she frantically signaled the immortals, temporarily freed from the flames, to flee.
They scrambled out in a chaotic rush.

“—Great Immortal, you just want me to use it?”

Noticing the demon about to turn back, Yun Yao hurried to speak, pretending to trip over her robe and stumble forward.

He instinctively caught her.

At close range, the infuriatingly annoying maiden, wearing the face he cherished most, looked at him with innocent confusion. “How can I, with the Wheel, serve you?”

Mu Hanyuan pushed her away coldly.

The hall was empty now.
He’d noticed but didn’t care, only glancing disdainfully at the grimacing maiden on the ground.

“Can’t the Wheel revive the dead, restore flesh?”
His voice was low, hoarse.
“I want you to bring someone back for me.”