The Substitute Female Supporting Character Sees the Bullet Screen

Chapter 10

[That damn Elder is making me so angry! The female lead is already badly injured, yet they still want to use her as bait. She's suffering too much!]

[Xiao Ling is just being used as a tool now. Damn it! What was the point of her returning to the sect, just to be treated like this? She would've been better off not coming back!]

[I want to drag Doge Sang's corpse out and whip it. You died quickly enough, but now all the blame is being pushed onto our poor girl!]

[What a trash sect! Nie Yinzhi, you better step up and whisper some sweet words to that demon lord, get him to destroy them all.]

[When nothing's happening, the female supporting character dies. When something's up, she rises to the occasion. How shameless is that? What kind of people are watching this show?]

[I've only ever cursed that dog of a man, never Nie Yinzhi, thank you very much.]

[Now that Doge Sang is dead, someone needs to take his place. The current characters like Meng Jin and Jing Chongshan aren't up to par. Zhu Yan is an ancient fierce beast, shouldn't it be able to match Gu Jiang in battle?]

[I'm worried the female lead is too straightforward, just like in the original novel, driving away our cute little Zhu Yan for the greater good, not letting it leave the abyss.]

[Feng Hanying was actually a good ship in the original novel, their love-hate relationship was very shippable. Too bad Ling Ling doesn't have that bloodline anymore, making things difficult now.]

[I'd rather see the demon lord pair up with the female supporting character.]

[Hilarious, the supporting character's fans are dreaming again, how disgusting.]

[Laughing out loud, who's really dreaming here? Look who the great demon lord is holding right now. Give this man and woman a few more days alone together, and who knows, they might end up cultivating day and night for all to see.]

[Day and night cultivation? You're asking too much of our demon lord. She'd have to do all the work herself.]

[The great demon lord might not even bother getting hard.]

[Damn! Stop it, I'm getting mental images!]

Nie Yinzhi also wanted to scream - stop it, she really was getting mental images!

"Why is your face all scrunched up like a dishrag? Does it hurt that much?"

Nie Yinzhi was at a loss for words. She rubbed her face, her dark eyes rolling slightly before extending both hands toward Gu Jiang. "My spiritual consciousness was stabbed several times, my head really hurts. I'll have to trouble the Demon Lord to carry me back to my room."

One standing, one sitting, they stared at each other in silence.

Nie Yinzhi's arms were getting tired from holding them up when Gu Jiang finally bent down to carry her, walking slowly toward the courtyard.

"You smell so nice," Nie Yinzhi rubbed her nose.

"And whose fault is that?" The black begonia's fragrance had practically marinated him.

Nie Yinzhi remembered her handiwork and laughed awkwardly, "It's fragrant, smells quite good."

Gu Jiang snorted through his nose and asked, "Are you that eager to leave?"

"If I say yes, can we leave?" Nie Yinzhi's eyes lit up.

Gu Jiang: "We can leave anytime."

Nie Yinzhi found it hard to believe, thinking Gu Jiang shouldn't be this compliant.

Sure enough, she heard him continue lazily: "As long as you can break through the seal."

Nie Yinzhi: ...What nonsense was he spouting?

She wrapped her arms around Gu Jiang's neck, playing with a strand of his hair between her fingers. "I just want to retrieve my sword energy. Since I've betrayed my sect, I naturally want to take everything that belongs to me."

Gu Jiang was very tolerant of her fidgeting, so Nie Yinzhi pushed her luck further, tugging at his hair. "Of course I want to leave too. The spiritual energy here is scarce and I can't cultivate. I'm going to die of boredom."

She pouted, then added worriedly: "However, now that I'm inseparable from you, a demon lord, if we go out, we'll definitely be hunted down by righteous cultivators. That doesn't seem much better."

Gu Jiang nodded: "You make a good point."

Nie Yinzhi had nearly tangled that strand of hair into knots, persistently trying to persuade him, saying enthusiastically: "If the great Demon Lord could restore his former glory and kill a few capable figureheads to make an example, intimidating everyone, things would be different."

Gu Jiang laughed once, showing little interest, "Nie Yinzhi, your suggestion sounds very tiresome."

"I knew you'd say that." Nie Yinzhi deflated immediately, hanging her head dejectedly, "It seems all the rumors were lies."

Gu Jiang tossed her onto a soft couch in the courtyard, "What rumors?"

All the black begonias in the courtyard were gone, the flowers crushed to powder and mixed with soil. The fragrance had dissipated considerably, no longer so dense and overwhelming. Nie Yinzhi pretended not to notice, "They say that a thousand years ago, you nearly wiped out both the righteous and demonic paths single-handedly, making everyone in the world tremble in fear, living in constant dread. Even crying children would quiet down at the mention of your name."

She had read this from the bullet comments and added her own embellishments.

Gu Jiang collapsed on the other side, seeing Nie Yinzhi staring at him expectantly, and responded: "This lord has laid down his butcher's knife and achieved enlightenment."

He had indeed once cultivated day and night without rest, pursuing the peak of power, reaching the ultimate path in cultivation, experiencing ninety-nine Heaven's Tribulations. When about to ascend, he cut off his path to ascension with one slash, falling into demonhood.

Nie Yinzhi's eyes, black as ebony, rolled as she studied him, "So the rumors were all true?"

"Are you afraid?" Gu Jiang looked back at her.

Nie Yinzhi snorted with laughter, raising her wrist fearlessly: "I'll be afraid when you figure out how to break this Symbiosis Curse."

Gu Jiang remained silent, reaching into his wide sleeve and rummaging around for quite a while before releasing a cloud of demonic energy, revealing a mountain of scrolls and books on the ground. "These are all classics I've collected before. The solution should be in there somewhere. You can study them."

Nie Yinzhi was half-skeptical, randomly pulling out a classic, only to be shocked by the title on the cover - the Salvation True Scripture.

She pulled out another scroll - the Ten Extinction Formation.

It was even the complete version; most existing copies were only fragments. Nie Yinzhi believed him now; there should be texts about breaking the Symbiosis Curse among this pile.

"So you've known how to break it all along?" Nie Yinzhi's eyes widened, suddenly feeling her safety was at risk.

"No," Gu Jiang yawned, magically summoning a food box from the preservation storage. When the lid opened, the aroma of meat and steam wafted out together. "These things are too complicated. This lord has never been interested in these formations and curses."

It was too absurd; Nie Yinzhi didn't quite believe his words: "Then why did you collect these classics?"

"When I killed people, I picked up some things as souvenirs." Gu Jiang took out braised pork, steamed ham, candied sweet potatoes, and a bowl of vegetable soup from the food box, arranging them on the wooden table.

Nie Yinzhi: "..." She fell silent for a moment before shamelessly accepting all the classics.

Gu Jiang took out a small bowl of rice and bamboo chopsticks from the bottom layer of the food box, scooped half into his empty plate before placing it in front of Nie Yinzhi.

"You stored far too little food," Gu Jiang criticized her.

The mention of this made Nie Yinzhi angry, "If it were just me eating, it would last a month!"

She had previously tried to force the demon lord out by sneaking into the storage room at night, intending to destroy all the food and snacks. But when she saw how hard the kitchen maid had worked to prepare everything for her, with date tags hanging on each food box, she couldn't bring herself to do it.

She couldn't eat it all in one night either, and while she was hesitating, Gu Jiang discovered her. Now she didn't even have the right to enter or leave the preservation storage.

Gu Jiang reached out and patted her head, comforting her: "Getting angry while eating leads to early death."

Nie Yinzhi felt like he was treating her like a child, but considering the demon lord's thousand-plus years of age, she wasn't even as old as a fraction of his life.

Was this why he was so indulgent with her? Nie Yinzhi thought it unlikely. Age meant little in the cultivation world; everything depended on cultivation level, talent, and background.

Gu Jiang probably just didn't care.

Such a deeply cultivated old demon lord who cared about nothing was too difficult to handle.

She needed to truly become his weakness before she could control him.

Nie Yinzhi pierced her finger with her hairpin, squeezing out a round, bright drop of blood, and held it before him, "This is my thanks for saving me from the sword formation today, and for all those cultivation manuals."

Gu Jiang didn't refuse, drawing out a strand of demonic energy.

Nie Yinzhi twisted her wrist, avoiding the demonic energy, and directly pressed her jade-white fingertip to his lips, the blood drop spreading across his lips like applied rouge.

The old demon lord was truly beautiful.

Nie Yinzhi withdrew her hand with an unchanged expression, "I remember you've tasted my blood before."

Gu Jiang paused slightly, licking away the sweet-metallic blood from his lips. His eyes weren't blind; he could see the mischief bubbling up in her bright eyes, but he simply didn't care.

After the meal, Nie Yinzhi took a walk around the courtyard before slipping into the study.

Her soul was wounded and needed healing. Due to the insufficient spiritual energy on Pill-Forming Peak, she had no choice but to take out her belongings, placing two boxes of spirit stones beside her to absorb their spiritual energy while meditating to recover.

This was essentially like cultivating with pure gold and silver, but fortunately, Nie Yinzhi didn't lack such wealth.

When she awoke from her meditation three days later, the two boxes of spirit stones had crumbled to fine powder. Nie Yinzhi summoned a wisp of wind to scatter the spirit stone powder into the garden, attempting to revive the sparse vegetation in the courtyard.

After finishing this, Nie Yinzhi went to look for someone in the house but didn't find the familiar figure on the couch. She wandered to the bath chamber and called out from behind the screen, "Gu Jiang?"

There was no response from inside. She peeked in but found no one there either.

"Is he avoiding me again?" Nie Yinzhi muttered to herself. She often pestered the demon lord, and sometimes Gu Jiang would get annoyed and go sleep in the side chamber.

With her spiritual sense injured, Nie Yinzhi couldn't extend it outward. She could only search room by room, pushing open doors everywhere, checking the main courtyard before moving to the side quarters.

Finally growing frustrated with the search, she simply pricked her finger.

Demonic energy emerged from the void, wrapping around her finger as the demon-sealing inscription on her head began to glow. Nie Yinzhi grabbed that strand of demonic energy and asked, "Where are you?"

The demonic energy twisted and turned in her hand. When Nie Yinzhi released her finger, that strand of demonic energy slithered forward like a snake, leading her through the courtyard corridors to the lotus lake behind Pill-Forming Peak.

The lake wasn't large and had been artificially carved. There was a pavilion in the center where Nie Yinzhi liked to take afternoon naps in summer. Now all the lotus flowers had withered, leaving only half-yellow, half-green leaves floating on the water's surface.

Through the gauze curtains, she could see Gu Jiang's silhouette, occupying her usual reclining chair in the pavilion.

Nie Yinzhi flew through the air into the pavilion, took out a meditation cushion from her storage ring, and sat down on the other side, pulling out the texts Gu Jiang had given her to study.

Among this large collection of cultivation manuals and classics were texts from orthodox immortal sects, demon clan writings, and even a few folk story collections.

Nie Yinzhi sorted the scrolls and books by category, glanced at the demon lord who was resting with his eyes closed, and began searching for information related to the Symbiosis Curse.