SQLJBFDTW Chapter 88

Chapter 88: Kirin (5) Good and Evil are Rewarded

Two hundred years ago, the deer demon was just an ordinary deer demon.

It had cultivated in the human realm for hundreds of years, never doing evil or harming anyone.

When it was young and ignorant, it was enlightened by its master, who told it that it could ascend to become an immortal as long as it completed nine hundred and ninety-nine good deeds.

The man who appeared with its master didn’t believe it could do it, but the master fondly stroked its newly grown antlers, saying that it was born pure and unparalleled, and could always do it as long as it had good intentions.

The deer demon deeply remembered its master’s teachings and diligently did good deeds.

In the forest, it helped many of its kind who hadn’t yet developed intelligence to avoid death. Later, it gradually became dissatisfied with staying only in the forest.

After completing one, two… ten… one hundred good deeds, the deer demon had the desire to go out and go to where humans were.

It seemed that someone had once told it to avoid people when doing good deeds.

Why? The deer demon didn’t understand. Helping anyone was helping, and besides, there were so many people, so many people in need of help. Wouldn’t it be able to complete its goal of nine hundred and ninety-nine good deeds faster outside?

As long as it was careful, nothing would happen, right?

The deer demon left the forest and transformed for the first time, becoming a small child.

The Juling Kingdom at the foot of the mountain was too poor.

Having just experienced war, the people of the country couldn’t even get enough to eat and were sighing constantly.

The deer demon thought, it had magic power, it could bring food from other places!

So, the small child distributed food to the crowd. Everything was fine. It silently counted in its heart. After reaching six hundred and sixty-six good deeds, suddenly one day, it was caught.

“He must have some treasure on him!”

“I saw it! The food appeared out of thin air from his hands!”

They were too hungry.

Even if it conjured food every day, its demon power wasn’t strong enough, and there would always be times when it ran out. Moreover, when conjuring food, it also had to consider whether the other side would have enough.

The small child was tied up, and the starving people who hadn’t received food had green eyes.

It was scared and took advantage of the darkness to run away in a puff of smoke.

It thought seriously. Since transforming into a human would get it caught, it might as well not transform.

The deer demon ran along the small road, but it was raining in the sky and the ground was muddy and difficult to walk on, so it had to hide in a dilapidated temple by the roadside to sleep.

While dozing off, it suddenly heard someone making a wish.

“Please, immortals, please save my life. I am willing to be a beast of burden to repay the immortals, to build statues for the immortals…”

The deer demon hid behind a mud statue of a land god that was so covered in mud that it was impossible to tell its shape. It saw a skinny young man dressed in rags making a wish. He was sallow and emaciated, but his belly was very large, like a wineskin. The deer demon knew that this was what people looked like when they were extremely hungry.

What’s more, this person was burning hot all over, and after being rained on, steam seemed to be rising from the top of his head.

After saying these words, he immediately fell to the ground unconscious.

Only then did the deer demon dare to come out and sniff the smell. Hmm, he was about to die.

It even smelled the cold aura of ghosts.

But luckily, he actually prayed to it.

Although the deer demon’s demon power wasn’t very strong, it had cultivated alone in the mountains for a hundred years and knew many spiritual herbs for saving people. It hurriedly braved the rain to fly back to the forest, found the herbs, chewed them up, and fed them into the mouth of the half-dead young man.

Then, it found some edible wild fruits and placed them in front of him.

After doing all this, it expectantly hid back behind the land god statue.

Everything depended on this person’s good fortune.

How lucky! This young man had enough good fortune and actually survived on the things it gave him. The deer demon was very happy. This became the six hundred and sixty-seventh good deed.

The young man actually kept his promise and wanted to be a beast of burden for the gods in the temple, so he stayed in this dilapidated temple.

After the famine passed, the young man repaired the roof of the temple, gratefully erected pillars, and voluntarily became a small Taoist priest in the temple.

The deer demon suddenly thought that it was actually not bad to just stay here.

One morning, the young man got up to sweep the fallen leaves and was surprised to see that the original mud statue of the land god had become a mud statue of a deer-headed human with horns on its head.

On the offering table, which had a broken leg that had been reattached, there was also a wild fruit that had saved his life that day.

The young man immediately understood that the one who had saved him that day was this god.

The story of a god appearing in the long-abandoned dilapidated temple spread far and wide. The deer demon enjoyed the offerings of the immortal. It no longer had to go out and find where help was needed. Opportunities to do good deeds were simply delivered to its door.

Moreover, gods have tempers. Some things it couldn’t do or didn’t want to do, and people would forgive it.

Gradually, the dilapidated temple became prosperous with incense.

The deer demon also found that since enjoying the offerings of the people, its power had grown stronger day by day. It could even truly save people who were on the verge of death. The food it conjured was no longer just basket after basket, but pond after pond, inexhaustible.

Its master was indeed right.

When it had done its eight hundredth good deed, it was extremely hot. One day, the young man who had been with it all along suddenly lit a stick of incense and said he wanted to go to the royal palace.

In these years, the young man had also made many wishes to it, and the deer demon thought that this man had shared weal and woe with it, so it fulfilled them all for him.

On this day, he said, “I heard that the neighboring country hasn’t had rain for several months, and the king is looking for a rain-summoning sorcerer. Can the immortal help me?”

Summoning rain… Summoning rain was difficult.

The deer demon was a little embarrassed.

But after all, the young man had been with it for a long time, and summoning rain was also a great good deed. If it succeeded, it would be the greatest good deed it had ever done.

With its current demon power… the deer demon thought for a while and finally let the burning incense draw a circle in the air, indicating its agreement.

The young man said, “This concerns my life. Please, immortal, be sure to summon rain!”

The deer demon sneered, this little human dared to underestimate it. With its demon power, now that it had received everyone’s offerings, it was no longer a small demon in the mountains.

Thinking so confidently, when the day for summoning rain really arrived, the deer demon soared into the air.

The young man was in the center of the altar specially built in the royal palace, waving his sword and praying for the heavens to send down rain.

The deer demon looked at the clear sky and used its demon power with all its might, but the sky didn’t change at all.

It’s over—

The deer demon began to worry. Was its demon power still not enough? Not enough to make the sky rain?

The young man on the ground was also extremely anxious.

If he couldn’t summon rain, the king would execute him as a sacrifice for rain.

He had sworn that he could definitely summon rain for the king!

Time gradually passed, and the king already had an impatient look on his face. The young man’s face turned ashen, staring at the intense sun above his head, his eyes about to be burned into two holes.

“Guards…” Drag him down and execute him.

The king’s disappointed words were only halfway through.

A drop.

Two drops.

Immediately afterwards, white rain like pearls, crackling, fell down in a tight and urgent rhythm.

The young man was pardoned, dancing and cheering, overjoyed: “It worked! It worked! It’s raining!”

The young man was henceforth revered as a national master.

In the temple on the border between the two countries, the deer demon limped back to its platform.

On a whim, it released half of its demon blood as a guide, exhausting its demon power. Fortunately, fortunately, it finally summoned rain.

It was too tired. It thought, I shouldn’t agree to such wishes anymore.

The young man didn’t return. The deer demon recovered its demon power and continued to do good deeds diligently.

However, it was said that the neighboring Juling Kingdom had become rich, and the people on the border had all run there. Fewer and fewer people came to its dilapidated temple.

After another three years of boredom, one day, a grand procession came to the gate of the temple.

The deer demon stared for a long time before recognizing that this middle-aged man dressed in gold and silver was the skinny young man who had almost starved to death in front of the mud statue.

He was now a national master.

The national master respectfully said to it: “Please, Kirin Immortal, come to Juling Kingdom.”

The deer demon thought that it was not a Kirin, but the national master told it in private that the people of the country were looking forward to the great immortal’s arrival.

Kirin… Kirin was very good, it made it sound so tall and mighty!

So a wisp of smoke drew a circle in the air again.

Everyone knelt down and said, “The Kirin Immortal has manifested!”

The deer demon was thus invited into the city, directly facing the direction of the royal palace.

The king had already ordered people to build a golden statue and, with the power of the entire country, to enshrine it.

The offerings of a country made its demon power reach its peak.

The national master came again to request it: “Please grant my country inexhaustible wealth!”

The deer demon vaguely felt that it was not good to use demon power to change the fate of a country.

But if it didn’t, there would be hunger in the country again. It didn’t want to see this place become the place of widespread starvation it had been a hundred years ago, so it conjured a mountain of gold.

The people were very happy, and the deer demon was also very happy.

At this time, it was already the nine hundred and ninetieth good deed.

Nine hundred and ninety-first good deed, the national master asked it to help resist foreign attacks.

Nine hundred and ninety-second good deed, the national master asked it to save a city from the plague.

Nine hundred and ninety-third good deed, the national master asked it to change the course of the flooded river.

…

Too much demon power was consumed, and it fell into a coma.

When it woke up, it was moved into the huge golden statue.

The country also changed its name because of it.

The national master, with already graying hair, came to it again and said, “I want the art of longevity. I beg the Kirin Immortal to bestow immortal grace.”

The art of longevity was something the deer demon couldn’t do.

It refused the national master for the first time, and the rising smoke didn’t turn into anything.

“No! You can definitely do it. You’ve done so much, it’s just to let me live longer!” The national master went mad, kneeling in front of it and kowtowing heavily again and again, blood flowing all over the ground.

The deer demon’s heart softened.

Okay, that was the nine hundred and ninety-seventh good deed.

It used its blood to prolong the life of the national master.

It fell into slumber again.

When it opened its eyes again, the king had changed. It was the little child who had been hiding behind the king back then. He had grown up, grown into a mighty middle-aged man.

The withered national master came to beg it again, wanting to offer longevity to his new king as well.

The deer demon didn’t want to do this anymore.

This request was too unreasonable. It didn’t want to do this anymore.

It decided to leave.

However, the national master brought many magical artifacts that caused it pain. All the sorcerers in the country combined to create a cage for it. This golden statue of the Kirin, the statue it had promised to build for itself in the first place, was now becoming this cage.

Its demon power had already regressed a lot in the previous few acts against the heavens, and now it was actually no match. It was forced out of its true form. In pain, the sorcerers cut off its horns, released its blood, and used its flesh and blood to make medicine for the king.

But the effect wasn’t that good.

The king thought it was unwilling, so he thought of human sacrifice.

The Kirin Great Immortal relieved suffering and couldn’t bear to see anyone die.

The little princess was secretly brought in and stabbed to death in front of it. If it wasn’t willing, there would be a second, a third… The king’s heart was very sincere. He was sacrificing his own daughter.

The deer demon couldn’t control the tears that streamed down its face. Someone took its golden tears and fed them to the king, and sure enough, the king immediately became several years younger.

The Kirin Great Immortal was indeed effective! The Kirin was auspicious and extraordinary!

However, the king wasn’t satisfied with this. To maintain eternal youth, he had to obtain more than the national master had obtained from the Kirin’s blood in the first place.

Since the Kirin had already helped the Kirin Kingdom so much, why couldn’t it help a little more?

The deer demon dragged its tired body.

Extracting tendons.

Pulling scales.

Being gouged out of the flesh of its heart…

Scales?

The deer demon lowered its head and looked at its body, not knowing when, it had become snow-white and pure all over, and smooth scales had grown on its chest.

Finally, it collapsed in a pool of blood, and the little princess’s body also fell in front of it.

It thought, she couldn’t die.

The little princess died because of it. Did this count as it doing evil?

Nine hundred and ninety-nine good deeds, doing one evil deed, all the good deeds were nullified.

She couldn’t die.

It fed its blood to the little princess. From then on, the ghost messengers of the underworld couldn’t take her away. Its phantom would block the ghost messengers and prevent her from dying.

The deer demon looked at the huge golden statue that imprisoned it, its blood drained, its tears exhausted.

It was very happy when it first came in, thinking that it had been rewarded for doing good deeds.

It turned out to be human greed, a cage for digging bones and sucking marrow.

Now, the golden statue was split in half, the magic that imprisoned it was all destroyed, and covered in scars, it rose into the sky, circled in the air, and knelt down deeply on its forelegs in front of Chao Jianxue.