Jing Lian, the greatest secret-realm weaver under heaven, is universally recognized as the shining light of the righteous immortal sects. She has turned down countless admirers and declared, "I won't take a cultivation partner until I've caught the demon king."
The great demon king, Zhu Zhao, is an outcast of the Vermilion Bird clan who fell into the Swamp Demon Lands and became its ruler. Cunning and arrogant, he is the target Jing Lian swears to eliminate with her own hands. So she lays a trap and gets herself stranded in the Swamp Demon Lands.
At last, she comes face-to-face with Zhu Zhao.
His phoenix eyes glitter, his features are bewitching, and his red robes are dazzling.
Too bad he has a nasty mouth.
"I hear the immortal lord swore she wouldn't take a cultivation partner until she met me. Could it be you have feelings for me?" he asks at their first meeting, wearing a teasing smile.
Jing Lian replies coldly, "In my eyes, you're not even as good as a quail."
Zhu Zhao scoffs and orders his men to take her back to the palace.
Jing Lian gradually realizes this bird might have something wrong with his head.
He transforms into a brilliant Vermilion Bird and flies past a shivering quail, then turns back to ask her, "Who's more beautiful, me or the quail?"
"The quail," she says, expressionless.
He lies drunk on a couch, and Jing Lian seizes her chance to assassinate him. Just as she is about to succeed, he half opens his drunken eyes, catches her, and asks, "Would it be all right if I turned into a quail?"
He's so close that Jing Lian's breath catches... but she still turns him down gently. "That really isn't necessary."
His phoenix eyes grow utterly despondent. He turns into a Vermilion Bird, buries his head under a pillow, and lets his fiery red tail feathers droop all over the floor.
He's the mighty demon king, yet he bullies her spirit-pet quail, bringing the poor little thing to tears several times.
Jing Lian is baffled. "Can you stop bullying it? It's still so little."
Zhu Zhao sneers. "No."
In fact, besides looking for a chance to capture the villain, Jing Lian has come here to find a foolish quail she caught as a child. Back then, she was hard at work practicing her self-created technique, but her sect dismissed it as worthless.
That quail had been born disabled. After she healed it, she used it to test her techniques. It bickered with her every day and was always trying to escape back to the Swamp Demon Lands.
When it saw how devastated she was, it hopped around beside her and said, "How can you stay in a sect with such short-sighted people?" It made her so angry she would get up, ready to smack it to death.
Then one day it disappeared, leaving behind a note: When you become the greatest weaver under heaven, I'll come back and defeat you.
She wanted to see it again and find out who would defeat whom, but she never found it.
The spirit-pet quail she raised later wasn't as clever or pretty, and wasn't half as annoying.
Then Jing Lian is ambushed and gravely wounded. As the final thunderous blow falls, her heart sinks. But when she looks up, she sees Zhu Zhao kneeling in front of her, taking the blow head-on.
Seeing her stunned, he endures the agony of his five internal organs being torn apart and insists on fixing his disheveled feather hairpin. He unleashes a dazzling Vermilion Bird soul technique. "You can't die before me... That won't do! I'm the only one allowed to defeat the greatest weaver under heaven!"
Jing Lian stares blankly, then covers her face. "Idiot."
· A cold-faced, upright immortal lord with terrible eyesight
· A repressed, proud great demon king, a Vermilion Bird showing off his plumage, unaware that she once mistook him for a quail
· A sweet romance
Theme: Stay true to your convictions, and never give up
