Her sudden question brought Huo Wei Hu back to his trial as his mind traveled to the distant past…

Under the thick canopy of leaves, silvery moonlight illuminated a woman’s lithe silhouette. She exuded elegance and confident. Her face composed and graceful as a fond smile spread on her face when she saw me. Her long, inky black hair swayed in the wind like delicate wings, bursting with new life.

Droplets of glowing light from the moon reflected upon the grass, revealing an illustrative celestial beauty under the tree. Magnificent nine red tails waved mesmerizingly behind her grand figure. She was the empress of the demonic realm — my beautiful mother. And she looked exactly like how I remembered her in my heart.

She raised one of her slim, slender arm and beckoned me to go closer. Two brilliant night pearls scrutinized me from head to toe as multiple rays of different emotions rippled across her eyes.

“It’s good that you are well my son,” she nodded her head. “But you should never underestimate your enemies dear. When clearing away wilted weeds, one must pull the roots out completely to avoid future complications.”

Her voice was soft and harmonious, like a zither string being gently played. It been too many years to count since I’ve last heard her musical voice. Hundreds of years ago, when I was no more than a pup, she had spoken those same words to me. At that time, I was still too young to fully understand her warning.

It wasn’t until she died by the hands of her scheming blood-related sister, did I comprehended the complexity of a demon’s heart was no different from mortals. Both treacherous and wicked, corrupted by insatiable greed.

“I understand, Mother” I replied curtly.

I was taken aback by the tone of my own voice. Although, this was how I would normally sound, I had never treated her with such callous attitude when she was still alive. Was it a habit developed after years of experience that expunged all my emotions, or was it the resentment I felt toward my mother for leaving me behind to fight alone in a den of predators?

A beautiful face of another woman I recently encountered in the pagoda surfaced in my mind. An involuntarily roguish smile appeared at the corner of my lips. The human girl had resuscitated life back into my dead heart — an organ I didn’t even knew I still have.

I glanced at my mother’s downcast face, the languid moonlight waltzed along her eyelashes. It seemed to be the latter, I hadn’t forgiven my mother.Years ago, if this was still the old younger version of me, I would have jumped with joy at our reunion and comforted her with heartfelt words.

But a lifetime spent on the battlefield of blood, the empire built upon countless of sacrifices from the bones of our people, and the hundreds of years spent in solitude, vigilant and cautious even against my most trusted advisers, had shriveled away any compassion left in me — until I met her.

The coldness in my eyes soften with a thread of warmth as my mind drifted to her. I jerked out of my reminiscence when I noticed the distortion in the passage of time inside the mirror world.

My once noble mother now laid weakly on the bed, her skin paled and face lacked of color. There was no sign of the beautiful nine-tailed fox woman she used to be. Her viscera and bowels were badly injured and her spiritual core highly unstable. Her chaotic breathing was close to whisking her off to greet the lord of the underworld, except for demons like us, there was no such thing as reincarnation for our kind. We were not granted with such privilege.

Her dim eyes stared at me as her dry, thin lips quivered. “Wei Hu…” she called faintly, her voice almost inaudible. “Remember, when clearing away wilted weeds, one must pull the roots out completely to avoid future complications.”

With those departing words, she left. Gone.

My hands gingerly reached out and gently closed her eyes. The rage, the resentment, and hatred were sizzling like fireworks, waiting to explode. And when they do, the results would be so thunderous and deafening, even the nine heavens would be disrupted.

I exhaled deeply. All of this for what? For power? To sit on the throne that governs over the entire demonic realm?

A sweet sickening laughter wafted into my ears. My body recoiled in disgust as goose bumps appeared on my skin over that voice. Exactly which part of that did father found seductive?

The woman dressed in a luxurious robe made of fine silk entered the room and stood by my mother’s bedside. “Sister,” she called out with false sweetness. “How unfortunate for you to leave the world just like that.”

A mocking smiled bloomed on her face as she sneered down at my deceased mother. Black lines protruded on my forehead and my dark eyes exposed an ominous glint as I glared at her. Before, my strength couldn’t compare to hers, but now after hundred years of training, my strength was more than sufficient.

My hand reached out to circle around her neck, preparing to strangle her first so she can suffocate painfully before I kill her, but it went right through her. An illusion? But I clearly felt my mother’s touch. I narrowed my eyes dangerously.

“Pagoda, you have the audacity to thwart my path! Since when can you decide for this lord who or what I can interact with?” I threatened, my voice dangerously low.

Of course, the only thing I received in reply was the cold silence of wind and the repulsing voice of the woman speaking to my dead mother.

“Don’t worry, from today onward, I will properly take care of our husband. It must have been painful to be killed by hands of the man you loved. Since you’re gone, I’ll be taking over the legal wife position as the new empress of demonic realm.” She laughed deliriously.

I scoffed at her in my heart. How ridiculous!

This woman, Huli, was his aunt, the blood-related sister of his paternal mother. Jealous of my mother’s position, she somehow managed to seduce my father into accepting her as his concubine. Her charms and beauty were below my mother, but her schemes were far more elaborated and ruthless.

The first few years after she crossed over the threshold and entered our family, she had maintained an amiable and respectful front toward my mother. But reality was often cruel. The ones we hold most dear in our hearts, the people closest to us, are often the ones to plot against you. Lurking in the dark as they await the perfect opportunity to stab you in the back.

Gradually, my father stopped visiting mother’s chamber at night. Instead he attended to Huli more and more regularly as she whispered continuous vile words of my mother in his ears every night with that wicked tongue. Her ill-intended rumors sullied the intimacy between my parents.

I found my mother to be a foolish woman. Persistently enduring the relationship between her husband and her sister. Their concept of love led to the inner destruction of our household, and eventually the death of my father—lord of the demonic realm.