Don't Laugh, You're Not Like Him Anymore

[Pitiful Substitute Top x Composed, Powerful Bottom]

[Short story, written for practice]

In the darkest part of the demon realm was a lump of turbid energy. It worked hard to devour filthy things, stubbornly eating and eating. After several hundred years, it finally became... a little monster shaped like a puddle of mud.

One day, strange phenomena appeared throughout the demon realm. Volcanoes erupted, hail poured down, and all kinds of dirty things came tumbling from the sky. As the little monster gobbled up its dirty meal, a fruit suddenly dropped into its mouth.

Chomp, chomp. So fragrant and sweet.

The little monster froze... It was delicious!

After eating the fruit, the little monster's cultivation surged, and it soon took human form.

Once it left the demon realm, it asked around to find out where it could get more of those fragrant, delicious fruits. After listening to it describe the fruit, people told it that it was a Soul-Calming Ice Pearl, something found only in the immortal sects. So it packed its things and set off for an immortal sect.

The immortal sect was holding its once-every-three-years newcomer selection. Everyone else had passed the aptitude test and was showing off their skills, but the little monster failed the very first test and was deemed inferior. Several cultivators grabbed it, ready to throw it out.

Just as it was losing hope, a cool voice came from the high steps in the distance:

"Leave him. I'll take him."

Xie Yunsi, the Immortal Venerable Yuhua, was the greatest cultivator of his age: handsome, graceful, highly skilled, and practically perfect.

That year, at the immortal sect's selection, Xie Yunsi took a dim-witted boy as his personal disciple.

Everyone said the boy was an unintelligent monster from the demon realm, but Xie Yunsi didn't mind at all.

Xie Yunsi treated the "little monster" wonderfully, with tenderness and affection, but never taught him any immortal arts or cultivation techniques. Instead, he taught him how to dress and groom himself, and how to speak and behave.

"From now on, I'll call you Nanping," Xie Yunsi said gently.

"Okay!" The little monster was happy to have a name.

"Wear fewer bright colors. You look better in plain clothes," Xie Yunsi patiently instructed.

"Okay, I'll remember." The little monster nodded.

"Try to smile less from now on, especially when you're with me." Xie Yunsi was occasionally displeased.

The little monster loved smiling most of all. Confused, he asked, "Why? I like Master. Seeing you makes me want to smile."

Xie Yunsi was silent for a moment, then said flatly, "It makes you look silly."

The little monster scratched his head. "Oh."

For five whole years, the little monster was molded into the sort of person Xie Yunsi wanted. On the day he came of age, Xie Yunsi held a wedding ceremony to make him his cultivation partner.

The little monster was overjoyed. He'd held back for so long, and had wanted to gobble Xie Yunsi up in one big bite, the way a monster would!

After becoming cultivation partners, they lived a peaceful, happy married life for ten years.

Everyone envied them, saying they were the most loving couple in the world. The little monster thought so too. Deep down, he vowed to love Xie Yunsi for a hundred, a thousand years more, growing old together and staying by his side for life.

In the eleventh year of their marriage, the little monster suddenly fell gravely ill and was on the verge of death.

But Xie Yunsi did not save him.

He overheard Xie Yunsi talking with other cultivators and learned that, when Xie Yunsi was young, he had had a deceased cultivation partner named Nanping.

Nanping liked wearing plain clothes and rarely smiled...

It turned out that the little monster had accidentally eaten Nanping's Soul-Calming Pearl, which was why the form he'd taken looked so much like Nanping.

Now that the twenty-year period for the soul to reform had passed, Xie Yunsi planned to kill him, extract Nanping's true soul, and bring his cultivation partner back to life.

So, from beginning to end, he had only ever been a substitute.

As he lay dying, he asked through his tears, "Xie Yunsi, did you ever truly love me...?"

Not Nanping, but him, the filthy monster who didn't even have a name.

"Even just for a moment...?"

-

Four hundred years after the little monster's death, a demon of supreme evil appeared in the world. He acted without reason and loved killing and bloodshed, striking terror into the Three Realms.

Nanping, a master of the immortal sects who had learned from the Immortal Venerable Yuhua himself, led several hundred disciples to quell the demonic unrest.

Unexpectedly, the demon's cultivation was so powerful that none of the disciples could stand against him, and even Nanping was defeated.

Xie Yunsi, the Immortal Venerable Yuhua, had spent years in seclusion, ignoring worldly affairs. He made an exception and left seclusion to go to the demon's lair and rescue his beloved disciple, Nanping.

But the moment he saw the demon, Xie Yunsi froze.

He still recognized those smiling eyes, even after four hundred years.

"Xie Yunsi," the demon said with a bright smile, looking at him from afar. "Why aren't you happy to see me?"

Xie Yunsi forced himself to stay calm, pointed his sword ahead, and said evenly, "Whatever grievances you have, take them out on me. Spare the innocent."

The demon's veins bulged as he grabbed Nanping, who was covered in blood, and pulled him close. "Getting worried? Let's make a deal."

Xie Yunsi: "What deal?"

The demon only smiled slightly and said, "It's simple. All you have to do is say one thing in front of him..."

"You love me."

Before you read:

1. The top is a monster whose way of thinking is different from a human's. After taking human form, he seems a little dim, but he's not intellectually disabled, just occasionally a bit silly. He will turn dark later on.

2. The "former cultivation partner" has a hidden story. The top and bottom actually love each other most, but the top is an extremely jealous maniac who never believes the bottom truly loves him and keeps losing control in all sorts of ways.

3. A short story written for fun. Everything serves the melodramatic tale of love and hate.

Theme: True love lasts forever