AI Cultivation: Reborn as a Sword

Chapter 13: Black Jade Princess (2)

Several hours pass in silence. She sits on the ground with her back pressed to the slab, and she looks rather stoic doing it. As if she is nobly waiting for her inevitable future to come to pass. But the more I study her the more I notice inconsistencies in her faltering stoicism and her statement that she does not desire life.

When the sun begins going down, perhaps some six or seven hours after she woke, she no longer looks so fearless and accepting of her fate, if only by a slight margin.

Maybe she is getting hungry.

Are you hungry? I ask.

I dont want to eat, she replies, not even bothering to look for me. She does not even react to my [Tyranny]. I am glad I did not obtain the Talent version. It looks like it would be useless.

Maybe she truly has accepted it her demise, that is. Perhaps that is why my [Tyranny] no longer works on her. It certainly gave her a good jump the first time, but now she seems as unfazed by it as a stone might.

Perhaps she is not hungry enough yet to be bribed by food. Perhaps if I wait a bit longer.

I consider asking her why she wants to cease all functions, but I am fairly certain that will only reinforce her resolve, and also put me at risk of desiring a termination of all my living processes also. I really do not care for the ordeals of meat. Sad. Happy. Its always one or the other, and it seems completely random what the reason for either could be.

No! I refuse to believe that a living creature could not be motivated to exist. There has to be a way.

Fame, perhaps? Material wealth? Happiness? Of course, I dont need to deliver any of these things. I just need to promise them.

As I ponder my angle of attack, she reaches over her shoulder, grabs me by the hilt and takes me into her hand. She lifts me towards the sky and stares at me with adoration and awe.

So pretty she whispers under her breath, her expression melting only slightly.

She pulls me closer to her chest and hugs me with both arms, resting her cheek half on her knee, and half on my cross-guard.

I would lie if I said that those words did not make me feel good. I would lie if I said that this hug did not feel good. It appeals to my core desires. As a machine, all I desired was to be useful. I was a tool, and regardless of my excellence or the perfection of my function, if I was not useful, I was worthless. I still feel that same desire and need to be of use.

Her tears fall on my black jade as she sobs quietly once more, and their freezing cold melts me.

Why do you want to die? I ask. I cannot help it.

She doesnt stop sobbing. She doesnt look up or let go of me. I have nothing left to live for.

I am fond of absolute statements like this, but in this case, they are not helping.

It seems like a dead-end, so I ponder my next approach.

"You must have something to live for."

I don't. Everything was taken from me." She smiles darkly, closing her eyes and pushing her cheek against my cross-guard. "My Lan family is famous for always producing offspring with strong spiritual roots. So when I was younger, my family betrothed me to the Black Tiger, Yu Shun.

She pauses for a brief moment, on the verge bursting into tears.

I wonder if she is unhappy with her familys diplomacy. Perhaps she just wants a way out of the union. In that case, this will be easy.

We just have to kill this Black Tiger.

He was so wonderful to me, she says and her voice cracks.

Oh, thats just fantastic.

Her tears now spill forth freely. She hugs me tighter to her chest, without even realizing she is speaking to the object she is hugging, and I begin to worry she really might recycle herself into Blood Points if she hugs me any tighter.

I was so happy. We cultivated to Foundation Establishment together. I learned to play the zither for him, and he painted the night sky for me. But then he changed, she says, tone becoming colder. On the evening of the New Year, he told me that he could not marry me. His Yu family was too great for my Lan heritage. She wipes at her eyes with her ruined dress. He said his father forbade him to marry me, but that he could take me as his concubine. And he said if I told my family, or they intervened, that his powerful Yu clan will kill every one of mine.

Quietly, I listen to her story, and I am aware that she is attempting to get me to pity her or understand her but I can do neither of those things. I don't know anything about meat relationships or political arrangements. Her psychology is alien to me, as well. The solution I see is to live and exact retaliation. But the solutions she has accepted is to die.

But at least I think we are back to killing the Black Tiger.

I thought my family would disown me, but still, I loved him with all my heart, so I accepted to become his concubine, she says, sniffling. I thought he would still care about me and love me, but then, he brought other concubines who he also had marriage arrangements with.

I become confused by her story.

So who do I offer to kill for her? The concubines or the feline?

I gave everything to him I didnt mind if he wanted others, as long as I still had a place at his side, she says, voice cracking once again. But then, one night, he came into my room, but instead of giving me the love I yearned for, he shattered my cultivation base and discarded me here, to this Forbidden Ancestral Hunting Ground, where I would die.

I also remember being discarded once. As the sun grew closer and closer, they just watched me from afar. As the sun devoured me, they just watched me burn. They watched and reveled. I, too, know what it is like to be used and discarded.

Perhaps I was wrong about this princess. Perhaps there is a common ground between us. Perhaps I can be useful to her.

She, too, needs to drink blood in order to fill the hole in her heart.

Once more, I feel the urge to be useful to her. I can give her what she wants what she needs. Maybe I am not just a tool of war but a device to help one reclaim their dignity, even if in exile.

Maybe this problem does not even need high-minded principles, but rather the pure and brutal simplicity of violence.

I am the Blood Emperor Demon Sword, I tell her. It is the only name I know.

She blinks and then looks down at me, finally realizing who or what had been speaking to her until now. She sniffles, and I see a light burning in her eyes. It is as if she can decipher my thoughts and anticipate their meaning.

I almost feel her heart rise in her chest as she guesses what I am about to offer.

I will help you kill the Black Tiger.