Demon King – Chapter 623 – Chicken Soup for the Soul?

Scooping up a spoonful of soup, Yuki gently blew on it a few times to cool it down before reaching out and feeding it to his little girlfriend, who was sitting obediently on the chair.

“I can actually drink it myself…” Even though she looked a bit sulky, the little Demon Lord still behaved herself, opening her mouth and downing the chicken soup Yuki fed her in one go.

Not too cool, not too hot. The temperature was just right. One had to admit, it really was Yuki. Leaving aside the issue of taste, being able to precisely grasp the temperature range that this heat-sensitive, cat-tongued girl could accept was not something just anyone could pull off.

“Before you say that, take a look at how much strength your hand still has…”

Yuki shot Eiru a glance, feeling helpless as he looked at the heat pack cushioning her left arm.

‘You’re still trying to act tough even now? Sure, it’s just words, but your current condition is something you yourself know better than anyone, right? Otherwise you wouldn’t have asked me to bring you a heat pack in the first place.’

“Even if I don’t have much strength, I can still drive it with magic… and it doesn’t really hurt much right now, it’s just especially sore, and there’s always this feeling like something’s digging into it.”

“Just give it a rest. That ability of yours, forcing your body to move like you’re controlling a puppet, you really should use it less…”

Another spoonful was fed into her mouth. Slipping back into full-on mom mode, Yuki started lecturing her again.

“Even if you don’t say it outright, I can guess what you’re thinking. Since it doesn’t hurt, amplifying pain perception won’t help, right? But what gets amplified by that ability of yours isn’t just pain, is it? That soreness and weakness get amplified too, don’t they?”

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Thinking it through, Yuki now understood why sometimes in winter she couldn’t even lift her hand. It was just repeating the same cycle. Forcing movement while weak, side effects making it even weaker, then forcing it again. A vicious cycle. In the end, it all boiled down to this idiot girl pushing herself and wrecking her own body.

“Bleh. But I’ve got both arms intact. I can’t just be a useless person, right? If I can do something myself, there’s no need to trouble other people.”

Making a face, the mischievous girl clearly did not take this warning to heart at all, sending Yuki’s blood pressure soaring again.

“If you keep this up, sooner or later you’re going to wreck your body completely. And what do you mean, no need to trouble other people? Am I other people?”

“Huh?”

Hit with a sudden soul-searching question, Her Majesty the Demon Lord froze for a moment, then shyly looked away.

“You… you of course don’t count as other people.”

“Then why don’t you rely on me a bit more?”

Yuki asked with a teasing tone. Hearing that, Eiru immediately got a bit worked up and was just about to say something when another spoonful of soup was fed straight into her mouth, blocking her words.

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“I know what you want to say. I know you too well. You don’t want to be my burden. You want us to advance and retreat together, supporting each other, right? Then shouldn’t you take better care of your body first?”

“Mm… but I really don’t think there’s anything wrong with me. It’s not as serious as you think…”

“Your magic checks are more reliable than any hospital equipment. You know your own body best. But if you really mess yourself up, then you’ll truly become what you call a burden, you know?”

“No. Impossible. I don’t want that.”

She immediately fired off a triple denial. After imagining the scene Yuki described, the Demon Lord panicked. She absolutely did not want to become that kind of useless girl who could only lie in bed and rely on Yuki to take care of everything.

“Then behave yourself and properly nurse your body. Stop messing around. And maybe consider going to the hospital too? Or don’t you have any healing magic or something?”

“I don’t have anything like that. My abilities in that area are limited to transferring injuries and illnesses.”

Eiru shook her head.

“Usually I transfer them onto myself and rely on my self-healing ability to endure it.”

“I can also transfer someone else’s problem onto another person, but the magic consumption is greater, and more or less it still has to pass through my body and be borne by me.”

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“Then think about going to the hospital, okay? Or letting my dad find doctors to come here and check you out. You can only diagnose, not treat. We’re not professionals. Don’t be so stubborn.”

Yuki kept persuading her as he fed her, though to be honest, he wasn’t holding out much hope.

Sure enough, Eiru rejected his proposal. She could accept everything else, but she was still afraid of more people finding out about her non-human identity. She had once had nightmares about being captured and sliced up. That scene had become a shadow, lingering in her heart and refusing to fade.

“My dad knows people you can trust. And if something really happened, my dad could suppress it, right? Otherwise, if news of you being beaten got out, your parents would’ve been dragged in for questioning ages ago.”

Hearing those words, the little Demon Lord’s expression suddenly turned ugly. Seeing the change on her face, Yuki realized he had misspoken and hurriedly apologized, trying to salvage the situation.

“Ah, sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. Don’t think about those things anymore. From now on, just live together with us.”

“No, it’s fine… I don’t really mind. It just feels a bit uncomfortable.”

Shaking her head to show she was okay, the Demon Lord’s darkened expression wasn’t because Yuki had mentioned her awful parents. It was the last part of what he said that made her uncomfortable.

Eiru wasn’t some idiot who would smile even while getting beaten. After things had reached this point, the resentment that had built up in her heart for so long had already exploded. Saying she didn’t want to get some payback and see them suffer was naturally impossible.

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But no matter what, those two were still her biological parents. With moral issues and a special, complicated emotional foundation there, she couldn’t truly treat them as enemies and do something retaliatory.

Even if it was little, even if it could be described as sparse, the kindness they had once shown her was something Eiru remembered clearly. Even now, after everything had gone this far, the idea of having them thrown in jail was still something she couldn’t accept. And besides, who would take care of Eiya then?

So when the two sides were weighed against each other, the choice the little Demon Lord made was to ignore and shelve them. Forget revenge. From now on, everyone would go their separate ways, treating each other as mere passersby.

“That said, your family’s been desperately looking for you lately. They’ve been asking me and Jiaqi about you a lot, and they didn’t even spare Yunyue. Only now do they think to look for you and demand answers or whatever. It’s kind of laughable, honestly.”

“Maybe. But whether it’s confronting me or trying to make amends, it doesn’t really matter. He said things so decisively. Let them bear the responsibility themselves.”

As she said this, Her Majesty the Demon Lord’s tone was extremely calm and indifferent, like she was casually commenting on strangers.

Everyone had absolute minefields in their hearts. Some words could never be said lightly. And abandonment was such a minefield for Eiru.

Ei Yuan’s heartless words had already shattered her heart. Those words, no different from abandonment, were the final straw that broke her. From that moment on, the course of things could never return to what it once was.