Langmuir’s decline had already begun to show in this winter.
The most obvious sign was his severe fear of the cold.
When the Holy Monarch first arrived in the abyss that winter, he endured hunger and cold like a common slave, barely surviving.
Later, he was sent to the slave shed, where he managed to survive for nearly two months in an environment that was utterly impossible for humans to live in.
But by the fifth year, before the real harsh winter had even arrived, Langmuir had already started showing symptoms. There were several times when Hun Yao saw him huddled by the fire stone stove, his lips pale and trembling.
Then came the illnesses, recurring over and over again.
Hun Yao couldn’t bear the heartache.
He was convinced that the tortures of the past two years had ruined Langmuir’s health, so every time he thought of the past, he regretted it.
He started having nightmares. Sometimes he dreamt of the days when Langmuir suffered in the past, and sometimes he dreamt of Langmuir turning into a snow-white flower, swaying on the edge of the barrier.
But the abyss had no sunlight, and even the rain and dew contained miasma. Even though the flower tried hard to stretch its branches and leaves, it still withered bit by bit, and finally broke off in the wind, shriveled.
Hun Yao began to collect precious medicinal herbs, but the medicinal soup couldn’t solve the problem of the cold.
Later, he braved the snow, carrying his iron bow alone to hunt in the Frost Horn Mountains.
The hunted beasts were skinned, and the fur was layered on the brick floor of the palace.
At first, Langmuir didn’t think much of it–he had heard early on that Hun Yao was good at horse riding and hunting from a young age, and had a strange collection habit for prey–he just thought it was the Demon King’s personal hobby.
But as Hun Yao became increasingly obsessed with going into the mountains, returning injured every now and then, Langmuir began to disapprove. He started to frown, picking up those furs with a pretense look of disgust, hinting openly and subtly for Hun Yao to rein in his heart, but the latter remained the same.
That winter, Hun Yao went hunting in the mountains for the last time and encountered a blizzard.
Three full days had passed, and the demons of the royal court were all anxious, but their king did not return.
In theory, given Hun Yao’s familiarity with the snowy mountain, even in harsh weather, it shouldn’t have been too difficult to turn back immediately.
But now there was no trace of him, something unusual must have happened.
Langmuir hadn’t prayed to the Goddess for many, many years, but during those pitch-black nights, the sharp wind made people’s eardrums ache.
He sat alone on the empty bed, his eyebrows lowered and his eyes closed, not knowing when his hands were clasped in front of his chest, so hard that his knuckles turned white.
It wasn’t until the fourth day that Hun Yao returned with his prey.
Langmuir rushed over when he heard the news, and the first thing he saw was the Demon King sitting in the witch doctor’s small tent, with wounds crisscrossing his right arm and chest, with frozen blood.
Duogu was sweating profusely, picking out the fragments of scale armor that had pierced into his flesh.
Langmuir was both angry and heartbroken, he gritted his teeth and walked step by step closer, glaring at him. “My King!”
Hun Yao looked terrible, his scales were dull and bleeding, as if they had been burned dry. But his spirits were high, he pointed to the giant beast corpse next to him, which was almost three times the height of a human, and wagged his tail proudly.
“Shh, don’t shout. Langmuir, you don’t know what this is. A hundred-year-old Fire Fox King, one of the most ferocious beasts in the abyss, only appears in snowy weather. Until today, no demon has ever successfully hunted a Fire Fox King…”
Langmuir was stunned. When he reacted, he felt that the Demon King was simply crazy.
“You didn’t come back just to hunt this thing!?”
Hun Yao ignored him, his smile couldn’t be concealed, and his tail, covered in scars, was still happily wagging on the ground.
“Don’t you know how serious your old injuries are, what if you get sick in the snowy mountain, don’t you want to live!?”
Hun Yao was still indifferent.
Langmuir: “My King!”
Hun Yao: “Hmm, I’m here.”
“You…!”
Langmuir was originally very angry and had prepared a bellyful of words to scold him.
But seeing Hun Yao so excited, and not fighting back when questioned, he was momentarily at a loss for words.
To be honest, he seemed to have never seen Hun Yao so happy. He was no longer like a cold-blooded Demon King, but more like a passionate child.
Langmuir frowned and kept his face straight, several times he wanted to speak but stopped, he still didn’t have the heart to continue spoiling the mood.
He thought to himself: Forget it, Hun Yao is not the kind of demon who loses his ambition over playthings, maybe he just encountered a rare prey and couldn’t suppress his competitive spirit and desire to conquer.
Besides, hunting beasts was originally a way to show off one’s martial prowess in the abyss, maybe the Demon King had his own considerations?
So in the end, Langmuir just put on a stern face and asked Hun Yao to promise—
“Please swear, my King, that this winter, this will be the last time.”
Hun Yao suddenly laughed out loud, he glanced at Langmuir with a sidelong glance and said, “Alright, it’s the last time.”
……
After hunting the Fire Fox King, Hun Yao’s interest in hunting seemed to fade quickly.
He readily made a promise to Langmuir not to go into the mountains again, and began to focus on preparing for the Extreme Cold Festival ceremony.
The prey that the Demon King had hunted in the blizzard was quickly sent to the most skilled craftsmen. After five or six days, it was made into a gorgeous red fox fur blanket.
The item was placed on a large tray and brought in by two demon attendants.
As soon as Langmuir touched it, he couldn’t help but exclaim, “Oh my.”
Hun Yao tilted his head, propped up his chin, and said with interest, “Put it on, let me see.”
So, Langmuir placed his pale knuckles on the fiery red fur blanket, shook off its heavy weight, and draped it over his shoulders like a cloak.
The body of the Fire Fox King was indeed large. After processing and sewing the fur into a blanket, it could not only wrap the human entirely, but also drag a bright red trail on the ground.
It was hard to imagine how Hun Yao had fought such a huge creature in the howling snowy mountain.
Hun Yao: “How does it feel?”
Langmuir: “Hmm…very warm?”
Hun Yao was satisfied.
He stood up, walked towards his slave, and picked up a corner of the blanket from behind, rudely wrapping Langmuir’s head in it.
The human let out a small exclamation of “uh” and floundered inside the blanket for a moment. The Demon King then picked him up, blanket and all, and carried him all the way to the bed.
The blanket spread out, Langmuir’s silver-gray hair was messy, and he lay helplessly in a pile of softness.
Hun Yao: “Not bad, very suitable, this blanket will be kept in the palace from now on. You can use it if you like.”
Langmuir was surprised. “Aren’t you going to hang it in the treasury?”
Hun Yao casually looked away. “The Fire Fox’s tooth has already been hung up. The fur is too big, it just takes up space.”
Langmuir actually really liked this beautiful, soft, and warm fur blanket, and immediately pressed half of his face into the fluffy fur.
Hun Yao curved the corner of his mouth.
Like discovering some childish but interesting game, the Demon King once again grabbed a corner of the blanket and buried Langmuir in it.
…In their fifth year together, he still often found his slave adorable.
That year’s Extreme Cold Festival, the Demon King still personally endured the cold.
Langmuir wanted to go with Hun Yao, but was not allowed. The Demon King brought out excuses like “humans are not worthy” and “you wish”, and locked the slave in the palace with the fire stone stove burning.
Langmuir could only stand in the old place – in front of that window, watching Hun Yao’s figure walking in the snow.
The Demon King still returned at dawn the next day. Langmuir shook open the Fire Fox fur blanket and wrapped it around Hun Yao. He ordered the attendants to bring the food and the hot wine on the stove that he had prepared for him.
After Hun Yao felt a little better, Langmuir suddenly tilted his head and asked.
“Speaking of which, why does my King sing the sacrificial song?”
To this day, Langmuir indeed knew: it turns out that demon kings in general or leaders really wouldn’t sing the sacrificial song themselves.
Hun Yao sat cross-legged on the beast skin, untied the braids he had tied up, and said in his mouth, “There’s no reason. Back in the day when I was down and out, without my own priest, didn’t I have to sing it myself? This song is not difficult.”
Langmuir moved closer, helped him remove the small icicles that hadn’t melted from his hair, and used his hand to touch the frozen broken horn, asking, “Cold?”
The Demon King’s deep red eyes flickered, “There’s no reason to be.”
Langmuir: “You just don’t want to tell me.”
“…”
Hun Yao’s Adam’s apple moved, he was playing with the bone bell that had just been taken off in his palm.
After a long time, he slowly opened his mouth, “I still remember the first time I was cold.”
That might have been the most humiliating and desperate winter of his life, Hun Yao thought.
Shot by the son of god and broke his right horn, he turned from the young king of the demons into a loser overnight, from the hope of the abyss into a disgrace.
Abandoned by his relatives, he was seriously injured in the pursuit and fell into a nearly incomplete disease.
He seemed to have been wasted. Anyone who saw him would shake their heads and sigh.
That winter, there was a heavy snowfall.
The Broken Horn Demon King, with one foot deep and one foot shallow, walked on the vast snowy field, and under the dying old tree, he saw a pair of overlapping skeletons.
A small bone, tightly holding another large bone.
That was the dead son holding the dead father.
Just like that, drowned in the heavy snow, silently destroyed.
Hun Yao stopped, the cold wind blew through his black hair, and the broken horn was faintly visible. He stared at this pair of skeletons, and a white mist came out of his tightly clenched teeth.
Endless sorrow, endless humiliation, and endless unwillingness… at this moment, it rushed up his throat like a gushing magma.
Why.
The demons just wanted to live, just wanted to return to that homeland where the sun and moon revolved.
But that blond boy, whose name and surname no one knew, destroyed all of him with a light arrow.
The high and mighty humans wanted to cut off the hope of the demons, as easy as cutting off the roots of a weed that didn’t fit their eyes.
The snow blurred his vision.
Hun Yao picked up the small child’s skull buried in the snow. He held it in his arms, held it tightly, and when he looked up again, a tear fell from his fierce eyes.
He opened his hoarse throat and sang the sacrificial song of the demons.
He walked into the snow in hunger and cold, he walked into the snow with scars all over his body, as if he had truly completed the soul unity with those ancestors who died in winter.
Keep walking, keep walking, walk to the edge of the barrier.
With a gaze full of hatred, he stared at the barrier above his head.
He won’t lose, he won’t die.
He will survive, he will win back.
One day, he would tear open this ruthless Cliff Moon with his own hands and ruthlessly trample that blond boy into the mud.
Since then, every Extreme Cold Festival, the Demon King would personally endure the cold.
Until he had his own priests, his own subjects, and a well-polished skull for sacrifice. Many years passed like this…but that winter, the father and son who died overlapping on the snowy field were still chasing his soul.
Perhaps, only when the snow and wind of the abyss completely stopped, could he walk out of this cold. But how could that be possible? How could it…
“Can you teach me to sing?”
When Hun Yao came out of his memories, Langmuir was still sitting obediently in front of him.
The Demon King grinned, pinched the human’s cheek. “Langmuir, did I tell my story for nothing? You, are to be trampled into the mud by me…”
Langmuir: “After trampling, can you teach me to sing?”
Hun Yao hummed and squinted his eyes.
In the fifth year, he no longer threatened the human to swallow fire stones.
The Demon King shook open that fox fur blanket and draped it over Langmuir’s shoulders, saying, “I will only teach once.”
That’s what he said, but when Hun Yao actually started teaching, he was much more patient than he looked.
Langmuir’s musical talent was so good it was frightening, and he quickly found the tune. In the open and quiet palace, the demon and the human began to sing short songs one after another.
When Langmuir got tired of singing, he suddenly said, “When spring comes…”
He was wrapped in the glowing red fox fur blanket, nestled in the Demon King’s arms, “I want to plant some flowers on the barrier cliff.”
“Flowers? What flowers?”
“I brought seeds from the human world.”
Hun Yao scoffed, “Don’t dream, the abyss never blooms human flowers.”
Langmuir insisted, “It doesn’t matter to try, what if it really blooms?”
“What if the flowers bloom?”
“When the flowers bloom,” Langmuir said solemnly, “my King can see them.”
“Don’t you want to see what it looks like when human flowers bloom in the abyss?”
