Chapter 37
Even more outrageous than Ye Xiyao saying he would take responsibility for Xing Xu was that he also said he’d make a good meal to nourish him.
So, the energetic, lively, and full-of-life Xing Xu was invited to sit on the sofa by the shaky, staggering Ye Xiyao, who was out of breath after every few steps.
Xing Xu was confused for a moment, then followed him, naturally wrapping his arms around Ye Xiyao from behind. He kissed Ye Xiyao’s ear, then moved down to kiss his chin, whispering, “Take a break.”
Just as he was about to turn Ye Xiyao’s face to kiss his lips, Ye Xiyao pushed him away without mercy.
A tall man, almost 6’3″, stood dumbfounded in front of Ye Xiyao, the aura around him fading, leaving him looking innocent and pitiful as he gazed at Ye Xiyao. “If I can’t kiss you, can I at least hold you?”
“No,” Ye Xiyao took a large step back and said seriously, “From now on, you’d better stay away from me.”
Xing Xu looked at him for a moment, his tone darkening: “…Why?”
Ye Xiyao lowered his head, his expression complicated: “Give me some time.”
Naturally, Xing Xu assumed “give me some time” meant that Ye Xiyao wasn’t ready to deal with their current, ambiguous relationship.
After all, things had progressed too quickly, everything was unclear. It was reasonable for Ye Xiyao to need some time.
So, Xing Xu remained silent for a moment, then nodded, “Okay.”
He took two steps back, giving Ye Xiyao enough space, and added, “Whatever issues we have, we’ll solve them here today. Don’t even think about running.”
“…” Ye Xiyao was at a loss for words.
Just now, he had indeed been tempted to sneak away.
He had promised to take responsibility for Xing Xu, and he meant it. If, because of him, Xing Xu became unable to take care of himself in the future, Ye Xiyao was ready to look after him for the rest of his life.
But that was after the fact. Last night, they had been so entangled that it was impossible to separate them. That level of intensity would inevitably have damaged a human soul.
So now, every time Xing Xu came near him, Ye Xiyao felt like he was “murdering” him.
It was a deeply conflicting situation.
To make up for the harm he caused Xing Xu, Ye Xiyao had to stay by his side and take care of him.
But staying with Xing Xu might cause even more harm.
Ye Xiyao needed time to figure out how to handle the situation without causing further damage.
But he couldn’t come up with a solution.
For a moment, the room fell into silence.
Ye Xiyao busied himself in the kitchen, trying to distract himself with tasks, although it was clear he was only using it as an excuse to keep himself occupied.
Meanwhile, Xing Xu sat on the sofa, equally unsettled.
In fact, if Xing Xu thought about it a little, he could understand why Ye Xiyao was acting this way.
From Ye Xiyao’s perspective, Xing Xu was just a normal person. After what happened last night, under normal circumstances, Xing Xu should probably be in the ICU like Wen Jisheng.
Of course, Ye Xiyao wouldn’t dare to get close to Xing Xu again, afraid of causing him more harm.
But Xing Xu wasn’t a normal person.
Ye Xiyao’s worries were unnecessary.
This issue needed to be clarified sooner or later.
Should he explain it now?
Would Ye Xiyao accept it?
The timing felt… dangerous.
Before yesterday, their conflicts were mostly about the clash of their different positions. Xing Xu had the security bureau and the alliance weighing on him, bearing the responsibility for humanity’s fate. Whatever decisions he made weren’t really his own. If Ye Xiyao got mad at him, Xing Xu could excuse himself by saying it was beyond his control.
But today, things couldn’t be explained away like that.
The security bureau hadn’t told him to observe a demon by bringing him into bed.
Once Ye Xiyao knew the truth, he wouldn’t be able to blame the alliance or the security bureau. The blame would fall entirely on Xing Xu. After all, he had lost control and acted without explaining anything first.
Now, he didn’t have many options left.
As long as Ye Xiyao refused to accept, it was over. There was no middle ground.
Just thinking about it gave Xing Xu a headache and heartache. What seemed like such a simple sentence was now stuck in his throat. He attributed it to the fact that he was too far away from Ye Xiyao.
Yes, that must be it.
Because of the distance, it always felt like he couldn’t grasp him, afraid that if he ran, he’d lose him, so he didn’t dare to say anything.
All he needed to do was get a little closer, hold him in his arms, grab his thin wrist, circle his soft waist, and even if he got angry, he wouldn’t be able to run away.
With that thought, Xing Xu acted on it.
He got up from the sofa, took a few strides toward Ye Xiyao, and hugged him tightly, gently rubbing his face against Ye Xiyao’s cheek. “Let me cook the meal, and you can keep me company and talk for a while…”
Before he could finish, there was a loud thud as a dull knife, not sharp enough, chopped down. The entire room echoed with the sound of bones shattering.
“?”
Xing Xu looked toward the source of the noise, startled. It was the pork bone on the kitchen counter, originally intended for soup, now shattered into pieces.
At the same time, the delicate eyebrows in his arms raised slightly. Ye Xiyao looked at Xing Xu and sincerely asked, “Could you step away a little? This is dangerous.”
Xing Xu released him and replied, “It is a bit dangerous.”
The shattered pork bone on the cutting board was a reminder that Xing Xu had probably just had a brush with death.
Ye Xiyao continued working, not looking up again.
Xing Xu felt utterly defeated and sighed, “I’ll go outside for a bit. Call me if you need anything.”
“Hmm?” Ye Xiyao finally reacted a little.
But Xing Xu had already walked to the entrance and left.
Ye Xiyao didn’t quite understand why Xing Xu had to leave. Actually, it would’ve been fine even if he stayed in the room.
As long as he didn’t keep hugging and kissing him, it should be okay.
He just needed some time to think about what to do next. It wasn’t like he wanted Xing Xu to leave.
As soon as Xing Xu left, the room felt empty. Ye Xiyao suddenly lost the energy to keep cooking, and stood there, gazing in the direction Xing Xu had gone, frozen in place for quite some time.
When Xing Xu was around, Ye Xiyao didn’t feel his presence was obtrusive. It seemed like he was supposed to be there, within his sight.
But precisely because he was used to it, Xing Xu’s sudden departure, even with just a door between them, left Ye Xiyao feeling unexpectedly lost.
He didn’t want Xing Xu to leave.
Even though he had said for Xing Xu to stay away, deep down, what he really meant was: don’t go too far.
Ye Xiyao realized something belatedly.
From the moment he started hoping to find a way to balance everything, he had already made up his mind: He never intended to solve the problem at the cost of losing Xing Xu.
It was because he couldn’t find a way to resolve everything that he panicked, became afraid, and reacted so strongly when Xing Xu hugged him.
But what he was afraid of all along wasn’t the secret being exposed, it was hurting Xing Xu.
A moment later, Ye Xiyao seemed to come to a decision. He put down the knife, turned on the tap, and washed his face with cold water.
He decided to come clean and leave the choice to Xing Xu.
If Xing Xu was afraid of him, he would leave. If Xing Xu wasn’t afraid, he would stay.
That was what he really wanted to do.
—
When he opened the door, Ye Xiyao was surprised to find that Xing Xu wasn’t standing there.
He couldn’t describe the feeling in that moment.
Xing Xu had left. Xing Xu had disappeared. Xing Xu was gone from his life. A deep sense of unease and loss enveloped him. It was as if he had been thrown back into that lonely, repetitive existence, with no one in front of or behind him.
But something didn’t feel right.
He hadn’t even told Xing Xu the truth yet. Why would Xing Xu run away?
Ye Xiyao snapped out of it, and suddenly, he smelled smoke.
Following the smell, he walked to the emergency stairwell and pushed open the tightly shut door. Sure enough, Xing Xu was leaning in the corner.
Even in the absence of light, the heavy, stern look on his face was still visible.
“You smoke?”
Ye Xiyao was surprised.
Because ever since he had known Xing Xu, he had never seen him smoke.
On the other hand, people like Qiao Linchuan, Lu Kou, Xu Xingyang, and Qin Zai often gathered on the rooftop to smoke. When the work pressure built up, they’d exchange a glance:
“Go?”
“Go.”
Ye Xiyao had a sharp sense of smell, so he was certain that Xing Xu never usually smelled like smoke.
That’s exactly why this scene was so unbelievable to him now.
When Xing Xu saw him push open the door, he froze for a moment, like waking from a dream, and then hastily stubbed out the cigarette he’d just lit between his fingers. In a clumsy attempt to cover it up, he said, “No, I don’t smoke.”
Realizing how unconvincing that sounded, he quickly added, “Occasionally… very rarely… really.”
What he didn’t explain was that he didn’t smoke for the nicotine addiction—it was just something he mimicked from watching his mother smoke when he was young.
In the month before his mother, Xue Min, passed away, she smoked the most—locked in her room, going through two or three packs a day, so much that her eyes could barely stay open from the smoke.
Xue Qiao often reminded her that smoking was bad for her health, that it could lead to this disease or that cancer.
Xue Min would just laugh and say, “I won’t live long enough to get cancer.”
As a teenager, Xing Xu always thought cigarette smoke was disgusting. He hated that smell. But after Xue Min died, he somehow picked up this bad habit.
He wasn’t addicted, but whenever he felt like he was about to die, he’d light one up.
And once the cigarette burned out, if he still hadn’t died, he’d take a shower and continue living, carrying the mindset that death would come sooner or later.
“I won’t smoke again. I’ll quit,” Xing Xu said, waving his hand to disperse the cloud of smoke in the air. He then squeezed the just-opened pack of cigarettes, crumpling both the box and the cigarettes inside, and tossed it into the nearby trash can. “Sorry.”
His expression looked unusually tense.
Not at all like his usual self.
He was afraid Ye Xiyao would be disgusted by him.
But in reality, Ye Xiyao wasn’t fixated on this. He was tense for his own reasons.
The two of them were locked in their own internal battles.
On the surface, they both seemed calm, but their thoughts were anything but.
Neither could say who spoke first, but somehow they both seemed to say something at the same time.
“I want to tell you something.”
After speaking, they both looked up and met each other’s gaze.
Their expressions were awkward, their eyes dodging each other, and their lips trembled as if they were on the verge of uttering the words they found hardest to say.
“I’ll go first,” Ye Xiyao said. “I know it might have been better to keep this from you, but it’s come to this point. If I don’t say anything, it won’t be fair to you. Xing Xu, what I’m about to say—you might not believe it, and you might even find it frightening. No matter how you react, I’ve already prepared myself.”
As he spoke, Ye Xiyao slowly began to release his demonic energy.
Unlike when he used his powers to obliterate demon seeds, the energy he was releasing now was non-aggressive. It was simply a sign of him lowering his defenses and shedding his disguise. Since leaving the orphanage and living on his own, he had never done this.
Although his body was naturally born this way, as he grew up, it gradually started to reveal certain characteristics of a succubus. Especially after he absorbed Xing Xu’s power, his soul grew stronger, and naturally, his succubus traits intensified as well.
To hide these attributes, he had to completely suppress all the demonic energy within his body.
Once released, Ye Xiyao couldn’t guarantee what he might turn into.
The demonic markings were just one of the uncontrollable aspects, but there were also other changes like his hair color, eye color, and even internal transformations.
However, when a small, slender tail started to grow out behind him, both he and Xing Xu were stunned.
Xing Xu’s mind went blank, and without thinking, he reached out and pinched the little heart-shaped tip at the end of the tail. “What is this?”
“Hey, wait a second…” Ye Xiyao hurriedly grabbed his tail back, covering his butt. “Don’t look, don’t look! This wasn’t part of the plan. Stop looking and close your eyes!”
Wait, when did this tail even grow?
His original intention in releasing his demonic energy was just to show Xing Xu his hair first.
Like the demonic markings, the tail is actually a common feature of all succubi, especially as their powers mature, the more pronounced these traits become.
Normally, once someone becomes a succubus, they grow the horns and tail that symbolize a demon.
Ye Xiyao hadn’t had them before today. He was certain of that.
There was no turning back now. Ye Xiyao wasn’t planning to retract his words, but if anyone else saw him in this state, it would be a big problem.
He grabbed Xing Xu’s hand, and the two of them quickly ran back home from the stairwell.
As soon as the door closed, Ye Xiyao licked his dry lips, ready to continue his confession to Xing Xu.
But when he looked up, he froze.
His little tail had wrapped itself around Xing Xu’s arm, clinging to it as if it couldn’t bear to let go.
Xing Xu gently petted the tail, full of affection. “Good boy.”
The tip of the tail twitched slightly, almost as if it were shy, and nudged itself into Xing Xu’s palm. Xing Xu stroked the fine fur on the tail’s tip, increasingly absorbed in the act, running his hand along the length of the tail.
Ye Xiyao’s face heated up. “No, stop playing with it. I still have something to say.”
“Okay, go ahead,” Xing Xu replied. He already knew what Ye Xiyao wanted to say, especially after the tail appeared. But he couldn’t help teasing it.
“You…” Ye Xiyao glared at him. “Aren’t you scared? This is a tail, you know.”
“Mm-hmm,” Xing Xu said, taking advantage of Ye Xiyao’s distraction to lean in and peck him on the lips. “It’s a very cute tail, just like you. I really like it. Anything else?”
Ye Xiyao: “?”
Ye Xiyao stared at Xing Xu in disbelief.
All the mental preparation he had done fell apart because Xing Xu’s reaction was completely outside of his expectations.
Where was the fear, the terror? What was this look of pure joy?
“Xing Xu, actually…” Ye Xiyao didn’t care anymore. The words were already at the tip of his tongue, so he had to say them. “I’m a succubus.”
At the same time, Xing Xu opened his mouth, following Ye Xiyao’s words: “Actually, I already knew, but it doesn’t matter. I—”
Xing Xu: “Hmm?”
Ye Xiyao, thinking Xing Xu didn’t believe him, said again: “I really am a succubus. You might find it hard to believe, but I’m not joking. The reason I’m telling you the truth is because… after what happened last night, I might have caused serious damage to your soul. I want to make it up to you. No matter what conditions you ask for, I’ll agree.”
Ye Xiyao’s tail trembled uncontrollably in Xing Xu’s hand, fully exposing his inner anxiety.
Xing Xu remained silent for a long time.
He was too shocked to speak.
Ye Xiyao studied his expression, not seeing any sign of rejection, so he cautiously asked, “What about you?”
Xing Xu, still dazed, replied, “Hmm?”
Seeing that Xing Xu hadn’t run away, Ye Xiyao knew that he wasn’t afraid of him. That alone made him feel a huge sense of relief. “Didn’t you say you had something to tell me too?”
Xing Xu: “Oh, right.”
Ye Xiyao: “What is it?”
Xing Xu’s mind was still swirling with thoughts like, “Is it really the succubus I think it is?” and “Do succubi count as demons?” All these flashy, chaotic questions made him forget the speech he had prepared.
After a brief pause, he suddenly swapped positions with Ye Xiyao and stood behind the door.
He locked it.
Ye Xiyao: “?”
Xing Xu: “I’ll say this first. No matter what I tell you, you’re not allowed to run.”
Ye Xiyao chuckled. “You didn’t run, so why would I? I’m a succubus, after all.”
Xing Xu: “I’m an exorcist.”
Ye Xiyao: “…”
“Wait, hold on…” Ye Xiyao immediately turned and dashed toward the window. His movements were swift, without a moment of hesitation, as if it were purely a reflex.
An exorcist, what does that mean?!
They’re the group of humans who hate demons the most, and the only ones with the ability to kill them.
Ye Xiyao was about to jump out of the window in a desperate escape.
Xing Xu hurriedly chased after him. “Baby, baby, calm down. This is the 20th floor. Jumping out could kill you.”
“Staying here will also kill me.” Ye Xiyao was on the verge of tears, clinging to the window.
Xing Xu wrapped his arms around Ye Xiyao’s waist. “I won’t kill you, sweetie. Come down first.”
Ye Xiyao still refused to let go, his upper body hanging halfway out of the window. His voice trembled as he asked, “Why… why are you an exorcist?”
Xing Xu answered honestly, without hiding anything: “I was born this way. I didn’t have a choice.”
In fact, only a few people knew this.
Many people saw how mercilessly Xing Xu slaughtered demons, assuming he had a deep-seated hatred for them, or that he was just a ruthless, bloodthirsty tyrant.
But they didn’t realize that he didn’t enjoy exorcism from the beginning.
The world only knew that those with the Demon-Slaying Formation were powerful, a nemesis to demons. People admired them, but also envied them, both worshipping and resenting them. What they didn’t know was the heavy price that came with using the Demon-Slaying Formation.
Before the age of fifteen, Xing Xu had tried to avoid following in his mother Xue Min’s footsteps, hoping to live a normal, peaceful life as an ordinary person.
But then his father became possessed by a demon.
Had Xing Xu not suppressed the bloodline of the Demon-Slaying Formation, he might have noticed his father, Xing Chao’an, was possessed much sooner.
But he didn’t notice.
By the time the demon devoured Xing Chao’an’s soul, Xing Xu had continued living with him for months, not noticing any signs.
It wasn’t until the demon tried to possess Xing Xu’s body that he realized his father had long become an empty shell. But it was too late.
In the end, Xing Xu activated the Demon-Slaying Formation and killed the demon.
But to outsiders and even to himself, it looked like he had killed his own father.
From that moment on, the Demon-Slaying Formation could no longer be sealed.
It wasn’t just that he couldn’t control the power anymore. More than that, his own beliefs had changed beyond repair.
He accepted his fate.
He would become an exorcist.
The more demons Xing Xu killed, the closer he came to his own death. But he had no choice because he inherited this power, as if bound by unbreakable rules.
Over the years, Xing Xu showed no mercy toward demons, no matter how much Luo Yiji and Xue Qiao tried to persuade him otherwise. He never stopped. To others, he appeared like a hero sacrificing his life to protect humanity.
But only he knew the truth: he wasn’t that noble.
He simply… lost all enthusiasm for a future that seemed so predictable after accepting that his life would follow this path.
What he was doing now was just replicating Xue Min’s life.
The sooner he exhausted his life force, the sooner he could be freed.
He had long given up on any other possibilities — until he met Ye Xiyao.
At first, when Xing Xu discovered that Ye Xiyao could ease the backlash from the Demon-Slaying Formation, he wasn’t particularly excited, unlike Luo Yiji, who saw an opportunity to use the demon to save himself.
Because he didn’t really care about living.
Xing Xu was simply curious at the time. He thought to himself, “Why doesn’t this demon seem like a demon at all?”
Curiosity led him to take a few more looks.
And because of those few extra glances, they arrived at this point.
Now that everything had been said, Xing Xu, still holding Ye Xiyao, decided to confess everything else too — including his identity, how he approached Ye Xiyao with a mission, and how he had extracted a sample of Ye Xiyao’s demonic energy recently.
“I’ve told you everything.” After a while, not hearing any response from Ye Xiyao, Xing Xu grew nervous and blurted out, “Are you really mad? If you want, you can come down, and I’ll jump instead.”
Ye Xiyao, still sulking, lay on the windowsill. “Why would you jump…”
“Living is pointless.” Xing Xu rested his face against Ye Xiyao’s back. “I’m afraid you hate me.”
Ye Xiyao asked in return, “Why would I hate you?”
Xing Xu: “Hmm?”
Ye Xiyao: “You didn’t really do anything wrong. If I truly were some vicious demon, it would’ve been smart to be cautious.”
Xing Xu didn’t even dare to breathe, trying to figure out if Ye Xiyao was being serious or sarcastic.
A few minutes later, Ye Xiyao climbed down from the windowsill and sat cross-legged on the floor.
Xing Xu immediately sat down next to him.
Ye Xiyao glanced at him instinctively, and Xing Xu immediately went from sitting to kneeling.
Ye Xiyao: “Why are you kneeling?”
Xing Xu: “I deserve it.”
Ye Xiyao didn’t say anything, just quietly sat there in a daze for a while.
Xing Xu was feeling uncertain, but he didn’t dare to speak. Despite his tall stature, he tried to make himself as small and unnoticeable as possible, giving Ye Xiyao space to process everything.
Xing Xu felt that whatever Ye Xiyao chose to do right now would be completely understandable.
If he wanted to yell at him, hit him, or blame him for lying, or even take out a kitchen knife and chop him, Xing Xu felt he deserved it.
“Xing Xu, are you sure my feeding on your soul didn’t cause any harm?”
After a long silence, Ye Xiyao asked this question.
Xing Xu nodded. “What you took was just the demonic energy that I had sealed in my body.”
He extended his hand, showing Ye Xiyao the Demon-Slaying Formation on his palm. But because much of the demonic energy had already dissipated, the formation’s center wasn’t very clear anymore.
Ye Xiyao pressed his hand against Xing Xu’s palm, sensing it. His eyes widened slightly. “It’s true… I can feel the demonic energy flowing in here.”
“Yes.” Xing Xu, without making a fuss, took the opportunity to intertwine their fingers, preventing Ye Xiyao from pulling his hand away. “I’ve been exorcising demons since I was fifteen. It’s been twelve or thirteen years now, and I’ve suppressed at least eighty, if not a hundred, demons.”
He leaned closer to Ye Xiyao, pecking him on the lips, and said, “There’s still a lot of restless demonic energy in my body. Do you want to take it away?”
For the fourth time, Ye Xiyao pulled his lively little tail back from Xing Xu’s hand, his expression calm as he said, “No, I’m full.”
Xing Xu felt a little disappointed but didn’t press the matter. He knew this wasn’t the time for anything else.
Although Ye Xiyao hadn’t gotten angry, his expression was unnervingly calm.
He no longer had that lively, adorable smile he used to show Xing Xu; instead, his calmness seemed almost unnatural, which made Xing Xu feel uneasy.
After thinking for a moment, Xing Xu finally asked the question he feared the most: “I lied to you. Do you hate me?”
Ye Xiyao responded honestly: “I understand you and the Safety Bureau, so I don’t hate you. And since you trust me enough to tell me everything voluntarily, I have no reason to hate you.”
Xing Xu finally let out a sigh of relief. “So you’re not going to break up with me?”
Ye Xiyao blinked, looking a bit confused. “Why would I break up with you? We’re not even dating.”
Xing Xu raised his eyebrows in an awkward, almost choking moment.
He’d never had any intimate experience with anyone except Ye Xiyao. In his mind, once you’ve done that kind of thing, it automatically meant you were in a relationship.
But Ye Xiyao didn’t seem to think the same way.
Forcing a smile, Xing Xu tried to act casual. “Baby, then what was last night?”
Ye Xiyao thought about it seriously for a moment and then told Xing Xu in all earnestness: “I guess I owe you a favor.”
