Chapter 599: Chapter 550: Mother and the Little Beast

Those who had not yet transcended through their tribulations, regardless of demon, human spirit, or other beings, all needed food to sustain life.

The Enchanting Demon was born with a spiritual body, yet unable to assimilate it for personal use, their physical bodies frail and their martial prowess weak.

After the city’s fall and the suffering of war and tormenting of body and soul, coupled with the disruption of water and food supply, even the sturdiest of bodies could not endure.

Hong Zhuang had not been able to leave the prison cart with her companions and was forcibly famished for another night.

Just a few days earlier, she had been the cherished granddaughter of the Enchanting Demon Clan’s leader, never having experienced such hardship.

During the cold nights, as the fierce winds rose, and the hunger and cold took their toll over several evenings, she finally could no longer bear it, curling up in her mother’s embrace like a frail cat on its last breath, without even the energy to whimper, her extremities icy cold.

Her mother held Hong Zhuang tightly, with a gaze of desolate helplessness, and she couldn’t help but look toward Ning Feiyan with resentment in her cracked lips, “If not for your reckless actions, why would your sister have to suffer like this?”

Ning Feiyan didn’t speak in rebuttal, but a sneer of cold mockery arose in her heart. Both she and Hong Zhuang were of the purest Enchanting Demon lineage; the Hook Snake clan might allow others to die but could not bear to let the two of them rot away in a prison cart.

Right now, they were just being given a taste of suffering, barely unable to endure. If they were to reach the territories of the Hook Snakes, that would be the real onset of days akin to the Hell Abyss.

Baili An realized that the mother treated her two children with great disparity.

She cherished Hong Zhuang greatly but was indifferent and distant toward Ning Feiyan, a sentiment… it very much resembled Ning Feiyan’s attitude toward Hong Zhuang when they were in the Royal City of the Ming Continent.

Back then, Hong Zhuang’s appearance was still intact, whereas Ning Feiyan had a mark of dark ink on her face. Years later, Hong Zhuang’s visage was completely marred, and interestingly, the damaged half of her face was in the exact same location as the scar on Ning Feiyan’s face.

Seeing this, Baili An felt a vague discomfort in his heart.

Most of the Enchanting Demon women in the prison cart had disembarked, taken to secret locations by different Hook Snakes to exchange for food.

The mother, stroking her little daughter’s thin, skeletal frame, fought back sorrowful tears, her determined and stubborn gaze from the days prior crumbling gradually as she saw her daughter’s increasingly frail and haggard face.

She hugged Hong Zhuang tightly, kissing her hair gently, then pushed her into Ning Feiyan’s arms.

She looked at the equally thin Ning Feiyan, the tenderness in her eyes slowly fading into nothing but a harsh gloom, “Protect her.”

Ning Feiyan staggered backwards from the force of the push, staring blankly at the woman who tossed out a phrase, adjusted her skirt, and prepared to leave the prison cart.

The girl’s face was almost pale, and for a moment, she felt as though the myriad convictions in her chest were collapsing.

The woman, arranging her haggard appearance on top of the prison cart, smoothing her skirt, was about to jump off when her sleeve suddenly tightened. She frowned and turned to see the girl gripping her sleeve, refusing to let go.

“Please don’t go.” Her voice was abnormally hoarse, an infected and possibly festering wound visible on her wrist, a morbid flush on her pale cheeks, her whole being appearing feverish.

Facing the girl’s clear, black and white eyes, the woman felt a burning shame and hatred, complex emotions that seemed to consume her from the inside out. She never particularly liked her elder daughter.

The year of her birth, she had suffered a great loss of blood, almost giving her life to deliver the girl.

She felt from that moment that the child was a curse sent by the heavens to punish her; Ning Feiyan was born with a birthmark resembling a talisman, dark as ink on her face.

The Enchanting Demon Clan had always prided themselves on their beauty, with not a single instance of plainness ever occurring, let alone ugliness.

Ning Feiyan’s birth led to the clan’s Witch Spirits casting a divination just for her.

She still remembered the divinatory process of that day; the Spirit Banner ignited without fire, the Witch Spirit, while spitting blood, declared in shock, “The Emo Ancient Text, this child is born with the Emo Ancient Text, a sign of an Evil Demon!”

After that, the venerable and respected elderly Witch Spirit ended her lengthy career.

The Emo Ancient Text, a creation from ancient Evil Demons, was only occasionally treasured in the Monarch’s Treasury of successive Demon Lords, like a Taboo.

Ning Feiyan, branded with the name ‘Evil Demon’ at birth, naturally suffered the neglect and wariness of her clan and parents.

Later, during the war incited by the ancient demons of the Southern Wilderness, Ning Feiyan was sent by her father as a hostage to the Southern Wilderness in exchange for a brief decade of peace, only for a Demon General from the Ming Continent to wipe out the wilderness with bloodshed.

Ning Feiyan survived that massacre and was sent back to the Beiyuan Forest.

But when she returned to her homeland, her mother had already given birth to another daughter; the entire clan was harmonious and content.

Just when everyone had forgotten that unendurable past, unguarded, without the expectations of anyone, she came back… on her own terms.

In her mother’s eyes, Ning Feiyan’s return was like a stark and venomous barb, threatening to ruin her clan, her life.

But as it turned out, their Enchanting Demon Clan indeed fulfilled their oath, eventually stepping inexorably toward the path of extinction.

The mother already bore resentment in her heart; now with Ning Feiyan pulling at her sleeve, a surge of murderous anger rose in her brows; she backhanded Ning Feiyan across the face with a ruthless slap.

The strike, not holding back at all, flung Ning Feiyan onto the cart. She felt a warm, wet liquid flowing from her ears—her eardrum seemed to have burst—and she lay low, unable to stand up for quite some time.