There was not the slightest trace of spiritual power, yet these things were even more wondrous than the enchanted artifacts and treasures he knew.
This world was strange and marvelous, filled with things that could not be explained by anything he had understood before.
“Baby, do you want to watch television?” Seeing that the child’s gaze remained fixed on the liquid-crystal television, Dad Su finally put down the pellet drum and switched it on. A wildlife documentary was playing.
The moment Su Li saw the black screen light up, his attention immediately shifted toward it.
It was too strange. How could it display such extraordinary images without using any spiritual power at all?
Dad Su saw that the television had captured the child’s attention. He waited for a while, but Baby simply watched the program obediently without any other reaction…
Still, today’s reaction seemed a little different.
Was he imagining it? Why did it seem that the little one was much more interested in television today than usual?
He had actually been staring at it for several whole minutes!!!
“Dad, the light in the room is broken.” Su Yu’s voice came from inside. A moment later, he walked out wearing a T-shirt and shorts. The only unusual thing about him was the little trail of blue flame following behind him.
Dad Su turned around, saw the small wisp of demon fire behind Su Yu, and immediately glared at him.
Su Yu hurriedly extinguished the demon fire and said somewhat guiltily, “Remember to get someone to fix it tomorrow. This is seriously affecting my study efficiency.”
Their household had one explicit rule: no demon arts or spiritual power were to be used in front of Su Li. Doing so might make the child notice how different he was from the rest of his family and develop feelings of inferiority. Dad Su had reached this conclusion after extensively studying The Guide to Raising Human Young. Thus, whenever Su Li was present, everyone in the family was forbidden from using demon arts.
Su Li had no particular reaction to hearing his older brother’s voice, so naturally he also failed to notice the demon fire that had been quietly put away.
After examining the strange liquid-crystal television, he turned his attention to the other furnishings and household objects, matching each one with the muddled memories of the past two years: sofa, air conditioner…
The more he observed, the more astonished he became.
None of these things showed any sign of spiritual power circulating through them, yet they were even more precise and ingenious than objects powered by spiritual energy. It was as though they could function freely without anyone controlling them. In the past, if he wanted to control an enchanted artifact in this manner, he would still have needed to divide part of his attention to operate it. The shock this world gave him was simply too great.
Did spiritual power truly not exist here? Then what was the phoenix divine power inside him? Why could he not sense any fluctuations from the outside world?
On the other side of the room, his older brother Su Yu came out carrying his basketball shoes. “A classmate asked me to play ball. I’m heading to the gym.”
“Don’t bother. I saw the gym doors shut when I came back. Didn’t you check the weather forecast?”
“The weather forecast?” Su Yu frowned and took out his phone to check the city weather. Before he could even open the app, he saw a message from his classmate saying they would reschedule the gym plan. He muttered, “Reschedule for when? Can he at least lend me those study notes first? My exams are coming up.”
Dad Su said, “What notes do you need? Did you ever properly read the notes I brought you before?”
Su Yu replied, “How is that the same? My classmate is borrowing the academic genius’s notes for me.”
How could notes written by demons compare with notes written by humans? They did not even mark the same key points.
A child’s field of vision was completely different, and from his angle it was difficult to see the whole room. After looking around for a while, Su Li shifted his attention to the conversation between father and son. Their manner of speaking was different from what he knew, but if he concentrated he could understand most of it. It seemed they were saying that rain would soon fall outside.
Su Li disliked rainy days. Thick, lingering rain beating against his feathers always left him with a damp, bone-chilling discomfort. At the thought, he lowered his eyes and looked at his plump little palm. He wondered how much of his phoenix divine power remained now.
Dad Su noticed the child’s mood and asked gently, “Baby, what’s wrong? Are you sleepy?”
When the child did not respond, Dad Su lowered the television volume and held him more securely. Seeing the little one’s fist slightly curled, he sighed and carefully loosened it. “Baby, if you squeeze too tightly, your hand will hurt.”
A congenitally disabled child with delayed awareness could sometimes hurt himself without realizing it. Dad Su was accustomed to gently opening the child’s hand and even softly massaged his finger joints afterward.
Su Li watched this small gesture and paused slightly.
—
A faint whooshing wind rose. Deep in the forest, demonic spirits suddenly scattered at tremendous speed, overturning the surrounding grass and trees and leaving a spiraling ring of open ground. This place was a famous demon mountain, also known as Resting Spirit Mountain. It was said to have once been the territory of a great demon in ancient times. For tens of millions of years, spiritual energy had remained rich here, demonic spirits abundant, and countless demons had gathered in the region.
“Everyone, run!! The wind demon is undergoing another tribulation!”
“Hasn’t he already tried several times? He fails every single time.”
“I heard about him attempting tribulations hundreds of years ago.”
Amid the startled cries of the lesser demons, groups of mountain demons poured from the dense forest and caves below. Their thunderous flight made the lingering tremors across Resting Spirit Mountain even more chaotic. At the center of all the discussion, the wind demon stood on a massive boulder deep in the mountain. Blades of violent wind struck the stone pillars around him one after another, carving deep scratches over marks already layered countless times. The wind demon had already returned to his true form. Unlike ordinary weak demons, he was a spirit-being formed from the pure elemental essence of wind between heaven and earth. He had been born in human form, wore the wind itself as clothing, possessed long ears and wings, and resembled an elf from a human fairy tale.
At that moment, he raised his eyes and stared upward. Directly above him floated a fragment glowing with deep crimson fire. Powerful pressure and demonic spiritual force wrapped around it. The wind demon had tried repeatedly to touch it, but every attempt had failed. Instead, the fragment had cut him until wounds covered his entire body.
A thousand years earlier, he had come to Resting Spirit Mountain because a powerful expert who could peer into the workings of heaven and already had one foot in the immortal realm had granted him a piece of guidance, saying that the opportunity for his tribulation would be found on Resting Spirit Mountain.
As spirit-beings condensed from the spiritual power of heaven and earth, creatures like him were greatly favored by natural spiritual energy. At the same time, however, the tribulations they faced when advancing were a hundred times more difficult than those of other demons. Since ancient times, wind demons who successfully crossed tribulations had been exceedingly rare, and every attempt meant gambling with one’s life. After receiving that guidance, he had hurried to Resting Spirit Mountain, where chance led him to this strange fragment.
It resembled a shard broken from some divine weapon, yet it carried an extremely peculiar aura. Only by drawing close and carefully probing it could one sense the immense divine power compressed within. The shard had been sealed deep inside Resting Spirit Mountain and had gone undiscovered until the wind demon happened upon it. He therefore believed it was the opportunity connected to his tribulation.
Reality seemed to prove that the shard truly was related to his tribulations. After finding it, he had undergone sixteen of them. This was the seventeenth, and from the look of things, he seemed destined to fail again.
The wind demon grew unwilling as he thought about it. Staring at the fragment, he murmured, “That divine light never appeared before… Could this be my final chance?” He gathered his power and pushed forward, striking the fragment overhead with pure wind-demon energy. A dazzling burst of red light exploded outward.
The overwhelming divine power forced him backward step after step until he finally crashed to the ground.
He jerked his head up. The fragment in the sky behaved strangely, and just before its divine power dispersed, it pointed toward a nearby mountain peak. Then the power vanished into heaven and earth.
“That direction…” The wind demon frowned tightly. “Isn’t that the Su family’s mountain?”