[To Become a River of Stars] Dong Xiange - Chapter 5

A blood moon hung low over the mountain forest, its crimson glow pressing down on the jagged, sword-like tips of dark branches. Nearby, torches blazed, their flames devouring half the night sky, growing wilder and more arrogant in the wind.

The youth sat astride his horse, his peach-blossom eyes slightly upturned. Moonlight flowed within them, and even in such a moment, Shiliu couldn’t help but spare a thought to marvel—this person is truly beautiful.

She sighed inwardly. Perhaps it’s because beauty is a feast for the eyes, and I love to eat—that’s why I’m so hopelessly captivated.

But the arrow was already on the string, and it was no longer up to her. Shiliu could only steel herself and reply, “Very well. But you’ve pursued this thing all this way—you must know how cunning it is. I can’t do it alone. I need one more person.”

“Then choose another from the Taoists behind you,” the youth replied languidly, unconcerned with such details.

“They won’t do,” Shiliu said, staring directly into his eyes. “I need you.”

For the first time since his appearance, the perpetually indifferent youth paused, caught off guard. Then, the corners of his upturned eyes narrowed slightly. He tilted his head, studying the scrawny little Taoist before him.

“I underestimated you,” he murmured, his voice deceptively soft as a ghost of a smile touched his lips. Yet the razor-sharp danger beneath his words intensified, sending an icy tremor down the spine of even the most oblivious Wang Jie.

He Chong’s anxiety spiked. He knew Shiliu wasn’t deliberately provoking the dangerous noble—she was simply taciturn to the point of bluntness, her words often flowing as straightforward and uncurving as a single intestine. In her mind, she was stating facts; to a prideful aristocrat, it sounded like unforgivable defiance.

Shiliu belatedly sensed something amiss, but her face remained its usual salt-fish expression, She blundered on, “No, no—not ‘need you’ in that way. I need your blood.”

Behind her, suppressed gasps were audible. Shiliu resisted the urge to turn and see her fellow disciples’ expressions. What did I say wrong this time?

Forget it—might as well see it through.

“The arrow earlier was coated with your blood, wasn’t it? The flames gleamed with gold and could ward off evil—clearly, it’s pure Yang blood. Such blood is feared by all evil entities, which is why you can dispel demons even without cultivating spiritual techniques.”

“Blood like this is what evil fears most. But fortune and misfortune intertwine; Yin and Yang give rise to each other. If obtained skillfully, pure Yang blood can greatly benefit a monster’s cultivation. So, your blood is the key to luring that creature out.”

Shiliu was poor at drawing talismans, worse at sword dances, and couldn’t even hold a horse stance. But besides eating and cooking, she had one other skill: memorization. She’d been forced to copy virtually all the books in the Zhenyi Sect’s Qing Shan Zitong Library so many times that she’d absorbed all sorts of bizarre knowledge—and now it was finally useful.

Silence fell, broken only by the faint red moonlight flowing through the night.

“Fine,” the youth agreed brightly. In an instant, he drew his sword and sliced the pad of his middle finger.

“Master!” A man in light armor behind him called out urgently, but the youth on horseback raised a hand slightly, instantly silencing him. The youth’s bright red blood slid down his pale, slender finger to his wrist—drip— falling onto a blade of grass, stirring a faint ripple.

Shiliu stiffened slightly, inwardly grumbling. That was too fast—I hadn’t even said how to collect the blood yet. What a waste.

Wordlessly, she stepped forward, stopping beneath the tall horse. She looked up at the rider and extended her hand.

Her hand was small, held steadily in the air. The youth raised an eyebrow, his gaze scraping over this reckless little Taoist under the moonlight, as if weighing how much his bones were worth.

But Shiliu paid no mind. Her arm was growing tired. Does he want to catch the monster or not? His hand is still dripping blood, and he’s still putting on airs.

Finally, the youth condescended to place his hand in hers—but kept it an inch away, not quite making contact.

Shiliu resisted the urge to frown. She bit her own middle finger to draw blood and mixed it with the blood on his fingertip. With her other hand, she pulled out a blank talisman and began drawing a spell in crooked strokes.

Both the dog-scratch-like talisman and her act of mixing in her own blood made the youth raise an eyebrow, faint displeasure evident.

“I thought you needed pure Yang blood. Why this?” The pity in his tone was unmistakable.

But Shiliu couldn’t bluntly say, Because your pure Yang blood is too potent, and I’m a woman—I need Yin as a medium to balance the blood’s Yin and Yang for the lure-trap talisman to work. So she said prefunctionally, “Your blood is extremely Yang—too intimidating. It needs to be mixed with someone else’s blood as a catalyst.”

Hopefully, he probably doesn’t understand Daoist techniques anyway.

His eyes narrowed slightly, the moonlight catching the cold edge in his gaze. “A catalyst?” he repeated, the words dripping with skepticism. “And you presume your blood is worthy to temper mine?”

The air grew heavier, the silence stretching taut between them. Shiliu held her breath, acutely aware of the crossbows still trained on her fellow disciples. She had gambled on his arrogance—hoping he would dismiss her as beneath his notice rather than question her logic.

But the prince was not so easily placated. He leaned forward, his voice dropping to a venomous whisper. “Speak carefully, little Taoist. If this… dilution fails, it will not be the monster that tastes your blood first.”

Shiliu ignored his threatening.

Once the talisman was drawn, Shiliu looked up to see the youth still eyeing her work with a raised brow. She glanced down at it too—it was ugly, lacking immortal grace, but as long as it wasn’t too crooked and worked, shouldn’t that be enough?

Her talismans were poor because sect evaluations always included an “aesthetics” criterion—to better impress nobles and fool commoners… Ahem! To pursue perfection! But purely in terms of efficacy, she wasn’t bad.

Shiliu turned and placed the talisman on the open ground ahead. She raised her sword and began drawing intricate patterns around it, her expression solemn and profound. Finally, she stepped into the center of the formation, silently recited an incantation, raised her sword tip high, and thrust the talisman into the soil.

The talisman ignited, burning with a golden light that intensified before suddenly shifting to red, then deepening to crimson. Like countless threads, winding and stretching from the soil, spreading outward.

“Extinguish the lights!” Shiliu shouted.

The man in light armor looked toward the youth, who gave a slight nod. Immediately, the order was relayed, and all torches in the group were snuffed out in an instant— disciplined and seamless.

Darkness crept in silently. No one spoke; only the occasional snort of a horse broke the stillness. Time ticked by, and the air grew heavy.

Shiliu’s face remained calm in the darkness, but inwardly, she grew anxious. The principles are sound, the talisman is correct, the formation is right, the incantation is accurate…

Master, you can’t let me down now! Your disciple faithfully memorized all those books she copied! I don’t want to die as a wronged ghost!

Just as restlessness began to simmer among the crowd, the distant tree shadows stirred. The blood moon’s glow cast dark, sharp claws that crept gradually toward the faintly burning light.

As the shadow drew closer, it gained substance—first like tree shadows, then like a dense fog. The fog gradually took a vague shape, with something like wings flapping on a curved spine.

It approached cautiously, trembling incessantly, yet the fire seemed a fatal lure, drawing the monster like a moth to flame.

As it neared, it trembled even more violently, as if scalded by the light, even emitting painful howls. Its steps halted, refusing to advance further.

Shiliu’s focus was entirely on it. Whether I get hung upside down and drained depends on this!

In that instant, she couldn’t care less. She grabbed the youth’s hand, brought it to her mouth, and ran her tongue over his wound. She teased open the barely closed cut, sucked hard, and filled her mouth with his blood.

Then she turned to her own finger, drew blood, and spat toward the formation’s center—a spray of blood mist. The mist seemed to react with the formation: the red threads buried in the soil shot upward, connecting with the blood mist in the air, forming an intricate cage.

Shiliu watched intently, completely unaware of how cold the eyes of the youth behind her had become— colder than the blood moon at his back, more terrifying than the creature before them.

The monster seemed trapped in the cage, struggling like a cornered animal. Each time it touched the red threads, it recoiled in agony, its dense fog dispersing slightly.

After several attempts, it lay there motionlessly.

“It’s done,” Shiliu finally exhaled, a faint smile touching her lips. She turned to look—and was startled by the youth’s icy expression.

She worried briefly—is he going to go back on his word?—when suddenly, a fierce wind rose from the forest. Black clouds swallowed the blood moon, and a piercing screech made the very ground tremble.

“No! This thing has a pair!” Shiliu raised her sword, her entire body snapping back to alertness.