Silence.
A gulp.
What sets the Demon Suppression Department apart from the Ministry of Justice and the Court of Judicial Review lies within its dungeons.
Three narrow passageways, like three major branches of a tree, extend downward, connecting the entire underground complex.
The deeper one goes, the more one senses something strange—an illusion arises as if the path beneath is slowly writhing, as though the entire space is a colossal living creature, swallowing everything whole.
The same subtle transformation was happening to the bone knife in Su Lingxi’s hand.
Its blade, once finger-length, had unconsciously extended to three inches, now fitting snugly against most of her palm.
Its thickness increased, and the once glassy sheen had dulled.
When Su Lingxi arrived at one of the dungeons, everything had already been prepared.
The dim blue glow from the ghost-fire lamps barely lit the space, casting eerie shadows across the vaulted stone walls, which were built using glutinous rice ash mixed with cinnabar.
Bronze beast heads flanked the sides, each biting a ring, with tiny script from the Diamond Sutra engraved into them.
Various torture instruments were displayed nearby.
This was a solitary confinement cell.
Tied to the wall was Chen Shang, heir to the Duke of Xuan.
Hearing the copper door open and close again, he couldn’t help but raise his swollen eyelids.
Seeing Su Lingxi, he was momentarily stunned, then suddenly agitated: “You—”
The night before, Su Lingxi had worn a veil, and he had cursed without restraint.
But now, facing her in person, he choked after just one word.
The rest of his insults rolled furiously in his throat but never came out.
He lacked the courage of his forebears and, after all, was on Su Lingxi’s turf.
He knew his grandfather would never leave him to suffer.
By rights, the Demon Suppression Department wouldn’t dare do anything to him—but he had indeed been beaten, tortured.
That was undeniable.
As a noble heir, he had never endured such torment in his life.
His eyes were swollen as he gritted his teeth and said, “…Your subordinates are useless. Torture didn’t work, so now the Imperial Preceptor has to step in personally?”
Su Lingxi merely glanced at him.
As if she were looking at a corpse.
Chen Shang noticed the bone knife in her hand and immediately stiffened, swallowing his sarcasm.
Enduring the pain that radiated from his very bones, he asked, “You’ve interrogated me, you’ve beaten me—when can I leave?”
No one answered.
A moment later, Xi Liu leaned in to whisper in Su Lingxi’s ear:
“The remaining prison cells are full. Only the Twenty-Eight Constellation Formation in this one is still unoccupied.”
Su Lingxi lowered her gaze.
Her voice was low, but the damp, confined space echoed everything.
A few words fell into Chen Shang’s ears.
Before he could grasp their meaning, he saw the female official beckon.
Before long, a group of armored guards brought something in.
The dim light flickered.
Chen Shang’s sore eyes twitched violently as his pupils contracted in shock.
These were not ordinary guards—they were from the Demon Execution Squad.
The armor they wore truly glowed, and what they were dragging in was not human.
It was a demon.
No mistake—it was a demon!
Chen Shang’s heart pounded, his ears rang, and blood rushed to his eyes.
A flood of terrible thoughts surged through his mind.
What was Su Lingxi trying to do?
Had the Duke’s Manor offended her?
Was the Demon Suppression Department going to use some sinister method on him—was this demon going to possess him?
She couldn’t execute him outright in the dungeon, but if a demon was found inside his body, he wouldn’t survive outside either.
The Duke’s Manor would never harbor a monster.
The common folk wouldn’t accept his survival.
Not even his grandfather could save him then.
And Su Lingxi—she was only going to be punished?
No.
If the possession yielded some discovery, her crime would be offset.
It would be called a necessary sacrifice.
She might even be honored.
There was nothing Su Lingxi couldn’t do.
Chen Shang thought of all the people who had died at her hands.
Every hair on his arms stood on end.
The primal fear flooded his mouth with bitter saliva.
Cold sweat dripped from his forehead to his eyelids and into his eyes.
He couldn’t speak.
He could only stare, frozen, as the demon was dragged closer.
The stink of blood and slime filled his nose.
Then it passed him—and moved farther away.
The female official turned a switch on the wall.
A curtain of blue light fell, sealing the demon within a formation.
Only then did the squad members leave, releasing the demon from its bindings.
The creature, which had been feigning death, instantly sensed freedom.
It sprang up into the air, ferociously pouncing.
Only then did the demon’s true form come into view.
It was massive—equivalent to two or three strong adult men.
Its feet were bare, webbed, with rotting skin and blistered pustules.
Its body barely resembled a human’s—but its face was pure horror.
A giant head, with three enormous eyes dominating its face like glowing lanterns.
A Three-Eyed Toad.
Su Lingxi gave it a cursory glance and asked the squad, “Can it talk yet?”
“Just learned,” someone replied.
She nodded faintly, then with a flick of her bone knife, sliced through the rippling light of the formation and stepped inside.
Chen Shang stared at her, his blood heating and cooling in waves.
He dared not look away.
Su Lingxi, after all, came from Fuyu—a lineage known for their power.
Years ago, she was unstoppable.
If not, she would never have risen above the three major sects.
But no one had seen her in action for years.
Rumors said she was no longer what she once was.
The Three-Eyed Toad’s eyes swiveled, thick with malicious intent. Su Lingxi said nothing.
Stepping onto its knee, she attacked it without a word.
She moved so quickly that within moments, screams—neither human nor beast—echoed from the formation.
The bone knife in her hand moved like a hurricane, as sharp as thunder.
It pierced both of the toad’s feet.
Blood gushed.
Though the blade had been withdrawn, the toad seemed pinned in place, unable to move.
The knife dripped with blood and some unknown slime.
Su Lingxi didn’t turn it again, but stood upright and said to it:
“I’m going to ask you a few questions.”
Long ago, when demons were first discovered, the vast world had enough space for mortals, cultivators, even those from Fuyu.
It wasn’t that there wasn’t room for a new race.
The issue was that these beings were born of endless malice and spiritual filth.
With animal bodies and no moral compass, they had no understanding of good or evil.
Killing and chaos were their nature.
One of the oldest palace tomes stated they were a cosmic anomaly—leftover things the world couldn’t digest.
Because of this, after demons ran rampant for a time, the Door of Fuyu appeared—an eternal gate.
Once it appeared, all the demons causing mayhem were suddenly and completely sealed within demon cabinets, never to emerge again.
Afterward, a rumor spread that the gate of Fuyu was a divine rule of Heaven, possessing supreme power.
It foresaw all.
It protected humanity.
Its will was never questioned.
All revered it as law.
Su Lingxi forced herself not to think about the Door.
That memory brought a blank space in her mind—followed quickly by splitting headaches.
What she needed now was to know why the demon cabinets, sealed and secure for so many years, had suddenly gone awry.
Who had interfered?
This was the fifteenth year.
And Su Lingxi was particularly sensitive to that number—so sensitive that her long-tempered nerves unconsciously tensed.
The Three-Eyed Toad’s three eyes turned in unison.
Demons, born of chaos, were notoriously hard to handle because their origins granted them unique powers.
They had vicious claws and immense strength, could tear humans apart with ease, wield strange and deadly skills, even move mountains and summon storms.
When they gained intelligence and speech, they also gained domains.
A domain allowed them to claim vast areas—dozens, even hundreds of miles—as their own.
Within their domain, they were the absolute masters.
While it was active, all their powers surged even higher.
Many of the Demon Execution Squad’s casualties came from battles within such domains.
Capturing a demon alive and intact was no easy feat.
That’s what the squad had been doing these past few days.
“Defeated in one move, bleeding in two, and now unable to move its legs—any toad with half a brain would know it can’t win.”
The three-eyed toad stared at Su Lingxi with all three of its eyes.
After a long silence, it finally opened its mouth—drool dripping uncontrollably.
“You… you’re not going to kill me?”
“That won’t do,” Su Lingxi replied. “What kind of face would I have if a demon walked out of the Demon Suppression Bureau alive?”
“???”
Then why even ask??
Only an idiot would answer!
Knowing what it was thinking, Su Lingxi casually walked two steps closer.
She didn’t mind the stench or the oozing slime.
Tapping its swollen face with the cold blade of her knife, she said,
“A quick death or a slow one, a clean cut or a drawn-out torture—you can choose.”
The three-eyed toad roared in rage.
“First question.” Su Lingxi’s expression turned completely cold. Staring into its middle eye, she asked, “On the day the demon cabinet broke, what did you see? Did someone let you out?”
The toad tensed up but wouldn’t look at her.
Su Lingxi wasn’t angry.
Patiently, she used the freezing blade to smack it until it was right in front of her.
Only when all three eyes looked directly at her did she ease the force slightly.
“Was there someone?”
She closely observed its microexpressions.
One of the toad’s eyes twitched, one stayed still, and the last stared back at her.
After a moment, Su Lingxi asked again:
“Or was there no one?”
The toad remained silent.
It may have only recently gained intelligence and speech, but it wasn’t stupid enough to hand intel to the enemy.
Su Lingxi studied it for a while.
When serious, her gaze was sharper than a blade.
Being stared at by her made it hard to breathe.
At first, the toad endured it, but then it couldn’t anymore, drooling heavily.
Eventually, Su Lingxi straightened up, her tone unchanged, but her expression darkened:
“Looks like you don’t know.”
The three-eyed toad, secretly gathering strength to leap and bite her head off when it opened its domain, glared at her, suspecting it had given itself away.
“Second question,” Su Lingxi said.
“Among the top twenty ranked demons, did any sneak into Chang’an?”
This time, none of the toad’s eyes moved.
It even managed to stop the drooling.
Watching this, Su Lingxi smirked coldly:
“So, they did get in.”
The toad froze, then went berserk, but invisible threads from its wounded legs held it in place.
“Alright. Final question.”
Su Lingxi looked it over from head to toe, her gaze brushing over its shifting foot as if she hadn’t noticed anything.
She leaned in close, warm breath by its ear:
“Are your demon cores really usable?”
She saw the toad’s grotesque, twitching face—layers of wrinkled flesh and warts stacked atop one another.
Su Lingxi pulled back her blade and nodded.
“Got it.”
Got what!?
It hadn’t said a word!
Just then, the toad roared to the sky, broke the restraining threads in its wounds, and activated its domain.
Invisible ripples clashed with the formation. It lunged, flinging its tongue at Su Lingxi’s head.
Its chest heaved.
“You… humans go too far!”
Su Lingxi curved her lips slightly and deftly dodged, slicing the tongue mid-air.
“You? Human? Where?”
It all happened in a flash.
Su Lingxi leapt into the air with the toad, threw her bone knife skyward, then used both hands to grip its shoulders.
With incredible strength from her flexible body, she flipped backwards, slamming the massive toad into the ground.
Cracking bones echoed loud and clear.
Outside the constellation formation, Xi Liu suddenly remembered something and cried out,
“My lady! A message from the palace says to leave this demon alive—”
Too late.
At that very moment, the bone knife fell.
Su Lingxi kicked it mid-air, piercing the toad’s chest, out the back, and caught it again.
Mortally wounded, the toad’s domain began to collapse.
It thrashed wildly, but Su Lingxi grabbed its weed-like hair and drove the blade into its eye socket.
Eyes were the core of domain maintenance.
Once destroyed, the domain became fragile as paper.
The blade pierced through easily.
But it wasn’t over—surging forward, the blade tore through the domain and burst through the formation, shooting straight toward Chen Shang.Chen Shang couldn’t move.
He felt a force graze his cheek and embed itself in the wooden stake beside him, splinters flying.
The blade’s tail wiggled a little at the end.
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