Chapter 76: Folklore Horror (6)
Cross-dressing was absolutely not happening.
If the Mother Goddess had even a shred of human intelligence, she wouldn’t be fooled into mistaking a man for a woman just because of a change of clothes. So no matter how much Fatty tried to persuade him, Jian Yuntai scoffed at the idea.
“I said it’s impossible. That means it’s impossible.”
Though disappointed, Fatty didn’t push further and instead asked, “Do you think Deng Ran will disappear tonight?”
“I don’t know.”
Jian Yuntai cupped his hand around a match and lit the kerosene lamp. After giving the match a light shake to extinguish it, he stared at the flickering flame inside the lamp, the faint glow dancing like sparks in his eyes.
It was already dark outside.
The temperature difference between day and night at the mountaintop was extreme. Almost the moment the sky dimmed, a biting wind swept across the peak.
The wind howled endlessly outside the door.
Sun Bin, terrified, propped a chair against the door and somehow found a long wooden stick, clutching it tightly in his arms as if it could give him a sense of security.
“It feels even colder than yesterday,” he said, rubbing his arms and shivering. “People disappeared even during the day. Bosses, can we just stay put tonight?”
“If you block the door with a chair, how are we supposed to open it when a demon knocks?” Fatty dragged the chair away from the door, grumbling. “We still haven’t found the Slit-Mouthed Woman, and Jian Dadan’s little fox hasn’t even taken human form yet. And you’re talking about staying put?”
Sun Bin’s vision darkened. He stared at Fatty in shock, then turned an incredulous look toward Jian Yuntai.
“You’re going out again tonight?!”
Jian Yuntai gave a simple “Mm,” with no intention of elaborating.
Sun Bin sat there in a daze for quite a while, his expression shifting several times within minutes. After a fierce internal struggle, he ultimately decided being a shut-in was safer.
He quietly wrapped himself in a small blanket and returned to his room.
Though he was back in his room, his heart remained in the living room. He strained his ears nervously, afraid a demon might knock at the door.
About half an hour later—
Knock, knock—
Knock, knock, knock—
Someone knocked.
The environment tonight was much quieter than the previous night. The noisy, celebratory atmosphere had faded, replaced by a deathly stillness and chill, like a cult steeped in evil.
In that atmosphere, the knocking sounded especially terrifying.
Sun Bin hadn’t fallen asleep at all. He shot upright in bed, slipped down in a flash, and hid behind his bedroom door, trembling.
“Is it a demon?” he whispered.
The two in the living room ignored him. Jian Yuntai stood behind the door and asked, “Who is it?”
Xiao Liuliu’s voice came from outside. “It’s me!”
“…?” Jian Yuntai and Fatty exchanged puzzled looks before opening the door. Jian Yuntai raised an eyebrow. “What are you here for?”
The sky outside hadn’t gone fully dark yet, suspended in that hazy boundary between light and night. By the faint glow of the kerosene lamp, they could see Xiao Liuliu’s flushed face as she shot Fatty a glare.
“Shameless!” she snapped, still remembering how he had almost pulled down her pants earlier. The more she thought about it, the angrier she became, cursing him repeatedly.
Fatty, in the wrong, let her scold him for quite a while before awkwardly asking, “You didn’t come all this way just to yell at me, did you?”
“Of course not.” Xiao Liuliu stepped right into the house as if she belonged there and picked up the kerosene lamp. “Follow me.”
She fixed her gaze unblinkingly on Jian Yuntai.
“I know where the Slit-Mouthed Woman is.”
※※※
Rustle.
Rustle.
The cold wind lifted the firecracker scraps and ribbons off the ground. The colorful streamers swirled in the air like brilliant, multicolored lanterns, stark against the dark, damp gray rooftops.
After catching Fatty sneaking glances at her for the nth time, Xiao Liuliu finally couldn’t take it anymore. “I didn’t lie to you.”
Seeing Jian Yuntai also looking over, she puffed out her cheeks, her childish face stern. “Mother Goddess Village has so many evil things. Only an idiot would pick the middle of the night to prank you. I overheard you talking about the Slit-Mouthed Woman during the day and came to lead you out of kindness.”
Each of her steps landed heavily.
She seemed a little angry.
“She likes you.” The little fox’s ears twitched as a clear yet slightly hoarse voice sounded.
Fuzhu’s tone was thick with jealousy. “Is this the kind of liking you once said was different from liking grapes?”
The voice of a contracted demon beast could only be heard by the demon hunters.
Xiao Liuliu walked ahead, completely unaware that Jian Yuntai’s steps faltered for a split second.
“Who likes me?” Jian Yuntai lowered his voice.
“The little girl in front,” Fuzhu replied.
“…………” Jian Yuntai’s mouth twitched helplessly. “She’s not even half my age.”
Fuzhu sounded puzzled. “You don’t like those younger than you?”
Jian Yuntai suddenly felt a headache coming on. “That’s not it! She—she’s far too young. Even if she shows goodwill, it’s not the kind of liking I meant before.”
At most, she had grown up in a secluded mountain village, seeing nothing but the same patch of sky her entire life. Suddenly, a group of outsiders appeared—speaking unfamiliar words, behaving mysteriously.
They naturally carried a certain dangerous allure.
And if among them there happened to be a particularly striking older brother, it would be all too easy for a young girl to become dazzled.
That was what Jian Yuntai had meant to say.
But the way demons thought was always different from humans.
After a long silence, Fuzhu suddenly realized. “So you like people older than you.”
Jian Yuntai: “…”
He was tired. Let the world end.
While Jian Yuntai stood there expressionless, Fatty sidled up and grinned at Fuzhu. “Jian Dadan’s incredible—appeals to all ages and both genders. Not just little girls seven or eight years old—even thousand-year-old immortals—”
“Ahem.” Jian Yuntai coughed in warning.
Fatty immediately shut up, scolding himself internally. He had gotten carried away and almost forgotten that Jian Yuntai’s failed “first love” was a sensitive topic.
For one, mentioning it would make fans sad. For another, Jian Yuntai himself hadn’t quite let it go.
Fatty wisely kept quiet, but Fuzhu wasn’t willing to let the topic drop.
His fluffy ears perked up. “What thousand-year-old immortal?”
Jian Yuntai lowered his eyes. “There was no immortal. Fatty was just talking nonsense.”
Fatty hurried to back him up. “Right, right! My mouth just runs without my brain sometimes. Don’t take it seriously.”
“Oh…” Fuzhu drew out the word, his tone unreadable. No one knew what he was thinking.
The livestream viewers’ hearts shattered at the sight:
“Wuwuwuwu Jian Dadan admitted he once ‘loved’ someone—Cui Yu, my beautiful Cui Yu, did you hear that?”
“I wonder how Cui Yu is doing now. We can’t enter the King of Hell’s Wedding instance anymore. He’ll never see Jian Dadan again.”
“Sigh… if Cui Yu weren’t an NPC, they would’ve been perfect together. In the last instance, Cui Yu paid such a huge price to warm Jian Dadan’s heart, and Jian Dadan paid just as much to pull Cui Yu out of his childhood abyss. If not for being separated by instances, they would definitely have ended up together!”
“There’s no use saying this now. We can only keep watching the replay of that instance. Whenever we miss beautiful Cui Yu, we rewatch it. Eventually this CP will become a tiny Arctic fandom qaq.”
“The CP I shipped is just gone like that…?”
While the old viewers lamented, confused comments from new viewers occasionally popped up:
“Is this Cui Yu really that good?”
“With Jian Dadan’s personality, he doesn’t look like someone who’d fall in love easily. Hahaha, maybe you guys just got played by him.”
“Sounds like fan imagination to me.”
After walking a few more meters, Xiao Liuliu suddenly crouched low and turned back, hushing Jian Yuntai.
Beside them stood a low, single-story house.
A kerosene lamp still burned inside, its light slipping through the cracks of the door and stretching their shadows long.
The sound of snoring drifted out from within.
“This is my house,” Xiao Liuliu whispered. “My parents don’t know I snuck out. Don’t get caught. Crouch down! Walk crouched!”
Xiao Liuliu looked at Jian Yuntai and deliberately picked a fight. “Why are you so tall? Bend your waist down!”
Was being tall a fault too?
Jian Yuntai found it amusing. From this angle, the people inside the house couldn’t see them at all. At most, Xiao Liuliu was just feeling guilty herself. Even taking a step back—if the people inside really could see them—judging by the loud snoring, the husband and wife were fast asleep.
Still, he bent slightly at the waist.
The group crept past the single-story house on tiptoe. Fatty didn’t even dare to breathe. Only after they had circled around the front entrance did he finally let out a long breath. “You snuck out behind your parents’ backs. Won’t you get scolded when you go back?”
Xiao Liuliu replied matter-of-factly, “What, do you think I’m stupid? As long as they don’t find out, it’ll be fine.”
Fatty asked again, “Do you really know where the Slit-Mouthed Woman is?”
“You don’t believe me!” Xiao Liuliu snapped, speaking rapidly. “I heard during the day that you two were asking around about her. You’re both idiots—only asking your teammates from the Geological Survey Team. What the hell would they know? They only came to the village a couple of days ago too. If you want information, you should ask the villagers.”
Fatty complained bitterly, “I was planning to ask the villagers! But as soon as they saw me, they acted like they’d seen a ghost. I hadn’t even gotten close before they detoured around me.”
“You mean the villagers are avoiding you?” Xiao Liuliu’s expression suddenly turned strange, as if she had thought of something.
But very quickly her face returned to normal, and she let out a snort. “Maybe they just find you annoying and don’t want to talk to you. So next time you have questions, you might as well just ask me directly.”
After saying that, she looked back smugly. “Did you hear that, surname Jian—”
She stopped mid-sentence.
Huh? Where did he go?
While Xiao Liuliu and Fatty had been talking, they had already walked thirty or forty meters. Only when she turned around did she realize that Jian Yuntai was still standing in front of that single-story house.
Moonlight slanted down, intertwining with the candlelight shining from inside. The red glow of the candle and the pale white of the moonlight both stained the tips of his brows.
Jian Yuntai’s face had turned slightly pale. Without blinking, he stared at a newly built house on the side of the single-story building. Turning his eyes, he asked Xiao Liuliu, who had hurried back, “Is this your house too?”
Xiao Liuliu had come back to urge him to hurry up and leave. But when she heard that question, her entire body stiffened.
Her lips flattened, her eyes reddened. “No. That’s the bridal house my parents built for my older sister. It was finished years ago. They were just waiting for her to fall in love and get married in grand style. Later… later my sister went missing, and the bridal house was turned into a chicken coop.”
Xiao Liuliu’s older sister was Nong Lingling.
It was obvious that the couple had already believed Nong Lingling could never be found. Xiao Liuliu was still too young, and leaving the bridal house unused would only waste it. It was better to put it to use for something else.
Who knew what kind of intense inner struggle the couple had gone through before making such a decision?
Fatty sighed repeatedly and patted Xiao Liuliu on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. Even if your parents have given up, Lord Fatty will help you look. In a few days, your sister will definitely come back.”
“I don’t need your help to find her!” Xiao Liuliu seemed like an overinflated balloon that had just been pricked by a needle, on the verge of exploding. “I know you’re definitely not really from the Geological Survey Team. What kind of survey team enters a village and does nothing but eat and sleep? No matter what your purpose is for coming here—once you see the Slit-Mouthed Woman, that should satisfy you, right? After you see her, hurry up and leave!”
Fatty gave an amused snort. “Oh ho, quite the temper.”
Xiao Liuliu, restraining her anger, said, “I’m not joking with you. If you stay here any longer, you’ll regret it.”
Regret?
Fatty looked at her in confusion.
Wasn’t it just that the Mother Goddess was a demon?
Seeing the Slit-Mouthed Woman was one thing; seeing the Mother Goddess was another. Why was Xiao Liuliu not afraid of the Slit-Mouthed Woman, but so afraid of the Mother Goddess? Was the Mother Goddess really that powerful?
A warning bell rang in Fatty’s heart, reminding himself not to be careless, lest last night’s tragedy repeat itself.
While the two were talking, those buzzing sounds entered the little fox’s left ear and exited from the right.
With his tail hanging down, the little fox crouched on a half-height wall, his glossy vertical pupils fixed steadily on the chicken coop.
“Cluck cluck cluck… cluck cluck!” A speckled hen ran past, and when it flapped into the air, a few feathers drifted down lightly.
The little fox’s pupils followed the hen. Wherever the chicken ran, his gaze followed.
Gulp—he swallowed.
He was tempted. He wanted to eat.
Resisting again and again, Fuzhu nearly lunged forward several times to indulge his appetite, but he forcibly suppressed his demonic instincts.
He was now a fox with a master!
Whatever he did, he had to ask his master first.
Thinking this, Fuzhu immediately turned to look at Jian Yuntai. “I want to—”
Before he could finish, he suddenly paused and tilted his head, looking Jian Yuntai up and down several times. “What’s wrong with you?”
As if he hadn’t heard Fuzhu at all, Jian Yuntai’s pupils trembled slightly as he stared at the entrance to the chicken coop.
Originally, this had been a bridal house.
So on the door were posted a pair of wedding couplets—
“A match of mandarin ducks bound in harmony; A blessed union lasting a hundred years.”
Looking at the festive red background with bold black characters, Jian Yuntai’s face grew paler and paler. The fingers hanging at his sides curled into his palms, pressing deep crescent marks into his skin.
Now not only Fuzhu, but even Xiao Liuliu—who had been eager to leave—noticed something was wrong.
In the short two days she had known Jian Yuntai, she had never once seen any obvious joy, anger, sorrow, or happiness on his face. He had always seemed calm and composed, as if nothing could break the firm resilience hidden deep within his eyes.
But now… Jian Yuntai’s eyes were slightly red, reflecting the cold and desolate moonlight.
Xiao Liuliu quietly edged closer to Fatty and asked worriedly, “Why does he look like that?”
Fatty didn’t respond to her.
He walked forward and gently patted Jian Yuntai on the shoulder, wanting to comfort him, yet suddenly not knowing what to say.
In the end, he only sighed. “It’s all in the past.”
Jian Yuntai’s body trembled slightly. He lowered his eyes in silence and let out a self-mocking laugh. “Chief Judge’s residence had couplets like this too. He wrote them himself… I could never understand his handwriting, only recognize the words ‘hundred years.’ I used to wonder what was written there. I never thought—I never thought…”
He had never thought he would find out under circumstances like this.
“A match of mandarin ducks bound in harmony; A blessed union lasting a hundred years.”
The soul-bound marriage contract had been a destiny ordained by heaven. Cui Yu had written all his hopes and expectations for the future into that pair of couplets.
Later, Cui Yu’s hopes had been shattered by Jian Yuntai’s own hands.
Looking at the couplets again now, he only felt that everything had changed.
The livestream viewers had originally been confused, but hearing Jian Yuntai say this, they immediately understood.
“F*ck! So those were the two lines written on that couplet? A blade across two worlds just stabbed straight into my heart—I cried so damn hard, 5555555.”
“Wuwuwu, Cui Yu had written that couplet before, and all of us forgot. But Jian Dadan still remembered.”
“Looks like Cui Yu was really going to become a thorn in Jian Dadan’s heart. He left the instance so abruptly, without clarity, cut off just like that. Their heart’s blood never even fused together. Cui Yu probably still thought, to this day, that Jian Dadan had never loved him at all.”
“When Jian Dadan left the instance, he said during the livestream that he had loved Cui Yu. Maybe that was just his way of trying to make up for the regret in his heart?”
“Oh my god! What a knife, what a knife! How did I get stabbed in the heart by angst in a horror urban legend instance? This is too tragic!”
While the fans wailed and cried, the new viewers remained confused for a long while, only gradually piecing together the full story from the scrolling comments.
Before, they had thought the fans had simply been fooled by Jian Yuntai, that perhaps he had only been putting on an act.
But at this very moment, the shattered glimmer in Jian Yuntai’s eyes on the screen made it impossible not to empathize.
Even the new viewers couldn’t help but tear up. “Wuwuwu, even though I don’t know what happened in the last instance, seeing Jian Dadan like this makes me feel so awful.”
“When this livestream ends, I’m going back to watch the previous instance. Even if I know it’s a bad ending, I still want to see it, 5555555.”
“I saw on Weibo before that Cui Yu shot to the top of the trending searches just based on his looks. I didn’t click in to watch at the time. Ahhh, I regret it so much. I’ll never get to see that vivid, white-haired beauty again, 555555.”
Xiao Liuliu stepped forward and tugged at Jian Yuntai’s sleeve, asking carefully, “Does your heart hurt a lot?”
“……” Jian Yuntai didn’t speak.
Instead, Fatty stepped up and pulled Xiao Liuliu away. “He’s about to cry, and you still have the nerve to ask whether he feels bad. Are you missing a screw in your head?”
Normally, Xiao Liuliu would have retorted indignantly at those words. But when her gaze landed on Jian Yuntai’s slightly pale, delicate face, she suddenly felt uncomfortable too.
Lowering her voice, she asked, “Who made him this sad? If he can’t bear to part with them, couldn’t he just go and win them back?”
“You can’t win someone back,” Jian Yuntai said at last. He gave the couplet one final look, composed himself, and walked forward. “It was me… I was the one who gave him up.”
Fatty and Xiao Liuliu hurried after him.
Only Fuzhu remained by the low wall.
—There could be thousands of bunches of grapes, but you could only like one person. So when we usually talk about liking someone, it didn’t mean liking grapes. It meant… it meant something deeper.
—What did that mean? I didn’t understand what you were talking about. What did it truly mean to like someone?
Last night’s conversation seemed to echo faintly in his ears. Fuzhu looked at the couplet, then at the speckled hens inside the chicken coop.
Just moments ago, he had been craving that hen. But now, watching the hens fluttering about, he only felt irritated.
He hadn’t understood back then.
Now, he seemed to understand.
There was someone hidden in Jian Yuntai’s heart. The way he liked that person was not like “liking grapes.”
That was what real liking was.
Fuzhu’s ears drooped. His pale vertical pupils were filled with restlessness and discomfort.
He didn’t know what had suddenly come over him.
He only felt sour all over, as if he had been soaked in a vat of vinegar, even the tip of his nose tinged with a sharp, acidic scent.
He lifted his eyes to look at the chicken coop again.
Suddenly, the chickens inside no longer smelled appetizing.
With a light tap of his toes, he nimbly jumped into the low wall. Raising his fluffy white paw, the little fox slashed down with a “rip—”
He shredded the couplet into pieces.
As if that still wasn’t enough to vent his anger, he picked up the torn fragments in his mouth and flung them into the chicken trough in a fit of spite.
Only then did he shake out his white fur and leave, looking refreshed.
※※※
The sky had grown completely dark, returning to that state where you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. A gray-black shadow seemed to cover all three of their faces. They could only struggle forward under the faint light of the moon.
Sizzle—
The kerosene lamp went out.
After passing the same tree four times, Jian Yuntai finally asked, “Are you lost?”
“……” Xiao Liuliu stubbornly replied, “No!”
Fatty truly couldn’t walk anymore. He waved his hands frantically, panting as he sat down, leaning back on his arms. “Let’s rest for a bit. I’m about to die of exhaustion.”
Xiao Liuliu shot him a mocking glance and sneered, “City people really are different. Walk a few steps and you’re tired like a dead dog. We villagers go up and down the mountain on the stone plank path all the time. Walking from dawn till dusk is completely normal.”
Fatty rolled his eyes. “Cut the damn regional slander. By your logic, Jian Dadan counts as a city person too. Isn’t he doing just fine?”
Xiao Liuliu glanced at Jian Yuntai and muttered, “Fine, I admit his stamina’s not bad. Just a tiny bit worse than mine.”
Jian Yuntai truly didn’t feel tired, but he didn’t want to waste time wandering aimlessly.
So he asked, “Where exactly is the Slit-Mouthed Woman?”
His tone had already grown somewhat sharp, and there was a trace of impatience in his eyes. Xiao Liuliu immediately widened her eyes and said aggrievedly, “I really didn’t lie to you! The Slit-Mouthed Woman’s route always followed a pattern. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays she was on this street; on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays she was on the other one. Today she was definitely on this side.”
Fatty focused on something else entirely. “Then where was she on Sundays?”
Xiao Liuliu said, “She didn’t come out on Sundays.”
Fatty gave a surprised chuckle. “She even gave herself a day off? That’s pretty humane.”
While the two were talking, Jian Yuntai stepped closer to the tree and took a look. There was a mark on it that they had made an hour earlier.
He didn’t suspect that Xiao Liuliu was lying, because the situation was already obvious—
They had encountered a ghost wall.
He remembered that during Young Master Xue’s livestream, they had encountered the same phenomenon. After circling the same place a few times, they had immediately run into the Slit-Mouthed Woman. It hadn’t dragged on like this for so long.
Why had it turned out like this?
Jian Yuntai’s eyes flickered slightly. As he turned back, he asked Xiao Liuliu, “Are you sure the Slit-Mouthed Woman is nearby?”
Xiao Liuliu answered firmly, “I’m sure. Under normal circumstances, if you circle these two streets, you’ll run into her.”
Jian Yuntai nodded and said calmly, “Then the two of you sit here and rest. Don’t wander off.”
“…………”
The two across from him were stunned for a long moment. Fatty looked up blankly. “What about you?”
Jian Yuntai shifted his gaze toward the pitch-black end of the road.
“I’m going to walk this road alone.”
After saying that, he didn’t wait for them to respond. He stepped forward directly and walked ahead without looking back.
Xiao Liuliu immediately panicked and moved to chase after him. She hadn’t even taken a few steps before Fatty grabbed her and pulled her back. She turned around angrily. “What are you doing? It’s very dangerous to be alone in Mother Goddess Village!”
Fatty asked, “Exactly how is it dangerous?”
Xiao Liuliu’s breathing hitched. “It’s just dangerous! When many demons see a group of people, they’re smart—they won’t come up to fight you. But once they see someone alone, they’ll swarm over and take turns tricking you into dying.”
“That’s exactly why we walked for so long and never ran into the Slit-Mouthed Woman,” Fatty said leisurely, knocking Xiao Liuliu lightly on the head. “Relax. If Jian Dadan’s doing this, it means he has a plan. In this kind of situation, we just wait for him.”
“!!!”
Xiao Liuliu refused to listen. She struggled angrily for a long time. By the time her feet were firmly back on the ground, she looked ahead again—
There was no sign of Jian Yuntai anymore.
Only pitch-black darkness stretched before them.
“You idiot! You’re both idiots!” Xiao Liuliu could only curse in place a few times before finally sitting down resentfully. “If something happens to him later, let’s see what you’ll do!”
……
……
With Fatty and Xiao Liuliu’s noisy chatter gone, the surroundings suddenly became silent.
Only the steady sound of footsteps remained—tap, tap.
The doors of the single-story houses on both sides were tightly shut. From time to time, a cold wind blew past outside, rattling plastic bottles and bags on the ground.
Clang, clang—the noise echoed continuously.
As he passed through the long street, at some point the temperature suddenly dropped. The chilly air felt like ice, slipping down his collar and burrowing into his body.
“Aren’t you cold?” Jian Yuntai looked down at Fuzhu on the ground. When he spoke, white breath puffed from his mouth.
“…Huh?”
The Nine-Tailed Celestial Fox clan had never feared the cold. Their kind possessed the warmest fur in the world.
Fuzhu flicked his tail and said disdainfully, “I’m not cold.”
Jian Yuntai gave an “oh” and said, “I was going to say, if you’re cold, you can come into my arms. It’ll be warmer if I hold you.”
“…………”
Fuzhu stumbled.
A few seconds later, with a serious expression, he jumped into Jian Yuntai’s arms. Under Jian Yuntai’s puzzled gaze, Fuzhu spoke in an extremely solemn tone, “My clan fears the cold the most.”
Jian Yuntai said, “Didn’t you just say you weren’t cold?”
Fuzhu emphasized, “My clan fears the cold the most.”
Jian Yuntai nodded thoughtfully. “Looks like fox-fur coats are a scam. Even if I have money in the future, I won’t buy one.”
Fuzhu: “……”
My apologies, members of the Nine-Tailed Celestial Fox clan.
As the young heir, he had ruined the clan’s reputation.
Jian Yuntai had no idea what Fuzhu was thinking. In truth, he had only asked because he himself felt cold.
With the fluffy little fox nestled in his arms, that large tail wrapped tightly around Jian Yuntai’s waist like a plush blanket. The warmth almost seeped through his clothes.
His arms felt a faint ticklish sensation too. As he adjusted Fuzhu slightly upward, the pair of pointed white ears trembled gently with each step, looking soft and springy.
Watching him, Jian Yuntai couldn’t help but recall that Fuzhu’s true form had nine tails. If Fuzhu retrieved his inner core, would he grow nine tails?
If he were wrapped up in nine tails—
Wouldn’t that be unbelievably warm!
At the thought, Jian Yuntai let out a soft laugh.
Fuzhu asked in confusion, “What are you laughing at?”
Jian Yuntai was about to answer when his smile suddenly froze. His gaze fixed on the streetlight ahead.
Under the broken streetlamp, there had been nothing at first.
Tap—
Tap—
He had clearly stopped walking, yet the faint rustling footsteps ahead continued.
A dim yellow light fell upon the pale stone bricks. It illuminated almost nothing, only the small patch beneath the streetlamp—but it was better than nothing.
In that faint glow, a long-haired woman wearing a mask stepped out.
A red coat. A brown scarf.
And that—
Large pair of scissors.
“Ahhhh!” The livestream viewers instantly turned into frantic hamsters, screaming wildly in the comments.
“The Slit-Mouthed Woman! He really ran into her after going alone!”
“Damn… what do we do now?”
“Wuwuwu, Wife, you should’ve brought Jinjin with you! How can our weak little Wife fight the Slit-Mouthed Woman!”
“Don’t panic, don’t panic—Fuzhu’s still there.”
Jian Yuntai had no idea the livestream had already descended into chaos. His gaze darkened as he stared straight ahead.
The Slit-Mouthed Woman paced closer, walking right up to him, and in a hoarse voice asked, “Am I beautiful?”
“…” Jian Yuntai stared at the face before him.
Her deathly pale complexion and the whites showing above and below her pupils gave her an eerie look. Even though the lower half of her face was hidden behind a mask, a chilling, ghostly aura still seeped out.
To be honest, she was not beautiful.
But demons had their routines. So Jian Yuntai nodded and said, “Beautiful.”
The little fox in his arms shifted restlessly. He glanced at the Slit-Mouthed Woman, then looked up at Jian Yuntai.
…So Jian Yuntai liked this kind?
Fuzhu thought to himself that if that was the case, then he would transform into something like this too.
Across from them—
The Slit-Mouthed Woman seemed pleased, yet her gaze grew even more sinister. A fierce cold wind swept through her black hair, which swirled behind her like a web of spiders before settling down.
Slowly, she raised her hand and removed her mask.
Two massive bloody gashes split across her pallid face. The flesh was peeled open, pink meat turned outward. Yet there was no blood—just two enormous red wounds clinging to her face like grotesque centipedes, like a bloated corpse floating up from the depths of a lake.
That face alone was enough to make anyone’s scalp prickle.
Many of the livestream viewers were so frightened that they covered their eyes. Faced with something so inhumanly terrifying, they felt like they were watching a horror movie, only daring to peek through their fingers at the screen.
“Then… what about now? Am I beautiful?”
The Slit-Mouthed Woman asked again, staring excitedly at Jian Yuntai. A dim green glow flickered in her pupils.
If he answered “beautiful,” then what an honest child he was—she would cut open his face and make him as beautiful as herself.
If he answered “not beautiful,” she would cut open his entire body!
She tightened her grip on the scissors, as if already prepared.
But this time, Jian Yuntai refused to follow the script. After pondering for a moment, he spread his hands and said, “You’re not as beautiful as I am.”
With a sharp snip, the Slit-Mouthed Woman had already raised her scissors high, yet her hand froze midair.
She hesitated and looked at Jian Yuntai.
After a full several seconds of silence, she asked again, “Am I beautiful?”
Jian Yuntai replied in confusion, “Didn’t I just say? You’re not as beautiful as I am.”
“…” The expression on her face seemed as though it might split apart as well. She held her breath for a moment before asking again, “Am I beautiful or not?”
She had not grown impatient yet—but Jian Yuntai had.
“Are you hard of hearing?”
The Slit-Mouthed Woman: “…………”
The horror-filled atmosphere shattered instantly. The livestream viewers burst into laughter.
“Hahahahaha, this was absolutely not the scene I expected… Jian Dadan really had the right to say that.”
“He had the right to say that in front of ninety-nine percent of people. Miss Slit-Mouthed Woman, you kicked an iron plate this time, hahaha.”
“I’m dying of laughter. I can practically hear her little heart cracking through the screen. Slit-Mouthed Woman: I shouldn’t be called Slit-Mouthed Woman—I should be called Split Open (doge).”
“Jian Dadan really didn’t play by the rules. I was actually curious before—what would she do if someone just refused to answer?”
That was a question Jian Yuntai had been curious about as well.
After standing there in a daze for nearly a minute, the Slit-Mouthed Woman suddenly revealed a vicious expression, as if she intended to charge forward directly.
“Heh.” Fuzhu let out a cold laugh.
The Slit-Mouthed Woman’s steps halted immediately. She hesitated and glanced at Fuzhu in Jian Yuntai’s arms.
Something was wrong…
This fox did not seem ordinary.
She stood stiffly before them for a long moment, then said resentfully, “Forget it! I’ll let you off this—” luck.
Before she could even finish speaking, everything happened in a flash. Not only the Slit-Mouthed Woman, but even the livestream viewers failed to react in time.
They only saw Jian Yuntai suddenly stride forward several steps. In the blink of an eye, he twisted around and snatched the large scissors from her hand.
He weighed them in his palm twice, then said with disdain, “This is it?”
The Slit-Mouthed Woman: “???”
The livestream viewers: “???”
Jian Yuntai truly could not understand. “Young Master Xue became the sole survivor of a B-level instance, yet you still managed to cut open his face.” The world was full of strange things indeed. He clicked his tongue several times, then suddenly lifted his eyes to look at her.
With a gentle smile, he said, “Weren’t you just asking me whether you were beautiful?”
As he spoke, he stepped half a pace closer.
“Y-yes…” The Slit-Mouthed Woman instinctively stepped back half a pace, her expression stiff beyond belief. “Wh-what about it?”
The scene became extremely strange.
Under the incredulous gazes of the livestream viewers, Jian Yuntai advanced step by step, while the Slit-Mouthed Woman retreated step by step.
“I think you’re not beautiful.”
Jian Yuntai hooked his index finger into the groove of the scissors and spun them leisurely. The smile on his face deepened abruptly, excitement flashing in his eyes.
“How about… I help you become a little more beautiful?”
“…………” The Slit-Mouthed Woman: “!!!”
She instinctively turned to run, but Fuzhu had already blocked her escape route. The overwhelming pressure unique to the Nine-Tailed Fox clan descended upon her—how could the King of All Demons’ aura be something a minor demon like the Slit-Mouthed Woman could endure?
After running only a few steps, she no longer dared to continue. Almost inch by inch, she turned her head back, staring at Jian Yuntai in extreme terror.
Tap—
Tap—
In the pitch-black night beneath the dim yellow streetlight, Jian Yuntai walked as if strolling leisurely through a courtyard. Yet beneath that ease lay an immense sense of oppression—especially when paired with the gentle smile on his face.
In that instant, countless words surged through the Slit-Mouthed Woman’s mind. A thousand curses and the feeling of having utterly miscalculated were plainly written across her face. In the end, they condensed into one sentence of absolute terror—
—Ahhhhhhh! Don’t come any closer!
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