Chapter 83: Folklore Horror (13)
“You are…” Jian Yuntai’s eyes were dazed as he stared at Fuzhu’s face, as if looking through him into emptiness. A murmured word escaped his throat as he leaned closer to the side of Fuzhu’s neck.
His eyes suddenly darkened. As he parted his lips, he bit down fiercely, his teeth piercing the skin instantly—
Fuzhu winced in pain and pressed his lips together.
Blood flowed from the wound, and the divine grace he had just gathered began to trickle from the tear in his neck. Yet he seemed completely unfazed. His crimson vertical-slit eyes shimmered with a dim halo as he turned his head slightly, focusing intently to listen.
Thump… thump…
Amid the sudden pounding of his heart, he heard a young, muffled voice from his neck: “Fuzhu… you’re Fuzhu…”
“…!”
It was as if a wave of immense joy had struck him all at once. Fuzhu’s heartbeat surged more violently than before.
He suddenly relaxed, almost unable to restrain the smile tugging at his lips. Though blood was quickly flowing away, his heart felt as though it was being filled with an invisible pleasure.
Jian Yuntai had not mistaken him!
Jian Yuntai had said he wouldn’t use him as a substitute—and now he truly wasn’t deceived, truly hadn’t lied!
All of Fuzhu’s lingering doubts vanished in an instant. His heart shone brightly, like snow at the doorstep melting into warmth, spring’s green leaves and red blossoms suddenly bursting forth.
In his excitement and euphoria, he didn’t even notice when Jian Yuntai slipped his fingers into Fuzhu’s hairline, curling them slightly and tugging—forcing Fuzhu to tilt his head back.
“Mm…”
Fuzhu didn’t resist at all, raising his head to the perfect angle, offering his neck for Jian Yuntai to draw his blood.
Minutes ticked by. Jian Yuntai held Fuzhu’s white hair with one hand, while the other pressed against his chest. Eventually, Jian Yuntai fully settled into Fuzhu’s embrace.
The closer they got, the more entwined they became.
The livestream chat nearly exploded:
“Damn! Why does this pose feel so… hot?!”
“My nosebleed is about to come out ahhhhhh, heart racing, hands trembling, I’m taking screenshots like crazy!”
“Sisters, close your eyes and just listen to Xintiandi*!!!”
Note: A song.
“I quietly turned the volume down, sob sob… I shouldn’t be watching outside. From now on, I’ll watch Jian Dadan’s stream in a private place, no social death, I can enjoy it alone qaq.”
About ten minutes later.
Jian Yuntai’s movements visibly paused. With a loud ‘bang,’ he quickly pushed Fuzhu away.
He staggered back nearly a meter.
“You… me?”
As if awakening from a dream, Jian Yuntai’s mind had never been so clear. He stared at Fuzhu, who had been pushed back, for several seconds, then suddenly snapped fully awake. Staggering forward a few steps, he crouched beside Fuzhu.
Raising his hand, he pressed it to the wound.
Blood ran through his fingers as Jian Yuntai’s face grew serious and he demanded, “Are you an idiot? Don’t you know you should push me away?!”
Fuzhu’s eyes gleamed, still smiling.
Jian Yuntai grew angrier. As he wiped the blood with his sleeve, he cursed: “You stupid fox!”
The room was empty, and his voice echoed. When the echo faded, Fuzhu spoke softly, pouting: “But you were hungry, and I couldn’t find food.”
Jian Yuntai was both exasperated and amused: “So you just decided to be my food yourself?”
“Is that not allowed?” Fuzhu’s eyes and brows curved in a smile, completely different from Cui Yu’s expression. There was no shadow, no pressure—just a pure little beast.
“Idiot. You’re the stupidest person I’ve ever met! No wonder you got lost from your clan back then. Any random person could’ve tricked you away with a few candies.” Jian Yuntai scolded while never stopping his movements.
On the first day in the instance, the Geological Survey Team had all been in short sleeves. But now, in the dead of winter, no matter how strong, no one wanted to endure the cold. Fatty had collected several jackets from the village committee. Jian Yuntai tore the lining of one jacket into a bundle to wipe away the blood.
Fortunately, Fuzhu was a demon, so the wound wouldn’t bleed continuously. Once the blood was cleaned, Jian Yuntai looked at the two tiny fang marks on Fuzhu’s neck and felt a pang of emotion.
Fuzhu was truly foolish.
If he died, he died. The master-servant contract didn’t die just because the demon hunter did. So why would Fuzhu be so good to him?
Jian Yuntai felt he didn’t deserve it.
But Fuzhu didn’t think that way. His gaze stayed fixed on Jian Yuntai, smiling with curved eyes: “The foxblood of our clan is precious.” He was still the young heir of the Nine-Tailed Celestial Fox clan. The future royal blood would be even more precious.
“Regret it?”
Jian Yuntai raised an eyebrow, his face unhappy: “If you knew it was precious, you should have just pushed me away earlier. When I’m hungry, I can’t control myself—two sips and I’m back to full strength. Couldn’t you control yourself too?”
Fuzhu shook his head frantically. After repeating several times that he didn’t regret it, he smiled and continued: “I mean, the bloodline of the Nine-Tailed Celestial Fox is precious. To preserve it, we cannot intermarry with outsiders. Within the clan, to maintain purity, they even bite each other during mating, drinking each other’s blood.”
When he was young, Fuzhu had thought it overly savage. And if you loved someone, how could you bear to bite them?
But now, Fuzhu only felt sweetness in his heart. He grabbed Jian Yuntai’s hand: “Does that mean we just mated?”
“…………”
Jian Yuntai hadn’t even had time to respond when the livestream viewers were already going wild:
“Ahhhhhhh yes! I want to jump through the screen and pry Jian Dadan’s mouth open—say it!!!”
“The little fox is so pure, sniff sniff… I want to share a few gigs from my cloud drive with him.”
“Slurp!! I love pure ones—wild instincts but innocent of the world, he doesn’t understand, Jian Dadan must teach him!”
“I’m such a fickle woman! Sorry Cui Yu, I fall in love with everyone I meet, sob sob…”
“In the end, they became canon anyway. This pairing hurts even more than before—when I met you, you already had a white moonlight in your heart. Only when I liked you did I realize I resembled your white moonlight.”
“Wuwuwu… From Fuzhu’s perspective, that White Moonlight might already be dead. How could a living person ever compare to a White Moonlight that’s gone? When your eyes look at me, who are you really seeing through me? Tenderly like you are simply the biggest tearjerker of my entire life, wuwuwuwu!”
“Sisters, don’t hurt yourselves! Sob sob sob, Jian Dadan is amazing. Luckily, he didn’t mistake him tat.”
In the past, Jian Yuntai hadn’t even noticed how crazy the chat could get. This time, he couldn’t ignore it.
Bookmarks, Likes, and Coins kept piling up.
He felt like he was heading down the wrong path. Did other streamers gain followers like this too?
“Although I’m not sure if the mating you mentioned is what I think…” Jian Yuntai forced himself, speaking like a tongue twister, “it must be different from how your clan sees it.”
Fuzhu tilted his head, puzzled, “Hm?”
Just as he was about to speak, muffled ‘thump thump thump’ sounds echoed from the room, like stones hitting the walls.
The two of them instantly became serious, alert.
Ever since they had entered this underground palace from the Mother Goddess Temple, they hadn’t seen another living person. All the noises around them had been self-made, so suddenly hearing extra sounds left them momentarily unprepared.
About half a minute later, Jian Yuntai finally stood up.
His body wavered slightly.
Fuzhu immediately supported him. “Still hungry?”
“No, no, not hungry!” Seeing Fuzhu gently tug at his collar, seemingly wanting to feed from him, Jian Yuntai quickly stopped him, saying, “I’m fine, just a bit dizzy.”
This time, it wasn’t hunger but the light injury buff causing the dizziness. Even so, Jian Yuntai’s condition was much better than before—at least he wouldn’t faint outright now.
After covering his mouth and coughing a few times, under Fuzhu’s worried gaze, Jian Yuntai moved toward the source of the sound.
The floor of the side chamber was a single massive stone slab. It was perfectly sealed, and the muffled sounds were coming from beneath it.
Kicking away some loose stones, Jian Yuntai leaned down and peered below. In the dim glow, he could make out a figure.
“There’s someone down there,” Jian Yuntai told Fuzhu, then crouched lower, eventually lying flat on the ground, raising his voice: “Who’s down there?”
“!!!” The tapping below grew more frantic. The faint voice was muffled under the stone slab, only a faint whimpering audible.
Jian Yuntai felt a pang of disappointment.
He had been hoping it might be Fatty, but the voice below belonged to an unfamiliar girl.
Could it be another female player?
Fuzhu stepped closer. His pale fingers gently pried the stones apart, creating a larger gap. The voice from below suddenly became clear: “Help me!”
Jian Yuntai asked, “Who are you?”
“There’s finally a living person! I thought I’d die down here.” The girl cried so hard she could barely speak, stammering “help me out” repeatedly before choking out, “My name is Nong Lingling… who are you?”
“……”
Jian Yuntai propped up his upper body slightly, his expression blank for a moment, then brightened with joy. “You’re Nong Lingling?”
“Yes…” Nong Lingling’s cries grew louder, as if all the frustration and pain of the past days had erupted at once. Her hoarse voice became wary: “Who are you really? You’re not from Mother Goddess Village! You’re not a demon here to catch me, are you?”
“Please… let me go… I want to go home… I just want to go home… please don’t scare me anymore…”
After letting her cry for a while, her voice gradually softened. Jian Yuntai finally spoke: “The demon hunter sect has discovered the demons in your village and sent fifty hunters to Mother Goddess Village. I’m not a demon—I’m here to save you.”
Nong Lingling remained cautious. “Can I trust you?”
Jian Yuntai said, “Believe me or not, you’ll follow me either way. If I wanted to harm you, it would’ve been done the moment I found you.”
Her sobs paused.
His words were harsh, but not untrue—if Jian Yuntai had been a demon, he would have gone through the floor and seized her immediately.
So Nong Lingling timidly said, “So there really is a demon hunter sect? I thought it was just rumors.” She paused a few seconds, then asked, “Can you really get me out? I’ve been trapped down here for almost a full day.”
Her voice was hoarse, like she hadn’t had a drop of water in days, and she looked ready to collapse at any moment.
“How do I get you out?”
“Feel the wall to your right. See if anything sticks out. I was captured by a demon before, escaped, then got caught again. While running in the underground palace, I got lost for several days. I leaned against the wall to rest, then I heard a ‘click’ behind me… I got scared, ran a few steps, and fell down.”
A mechanism.
The temple walls had mechanisms, and surprisingly, the underground palace was full of them too.
Jian Yuntai acknowledged with a nod, then walked to the right wall, panting as he touched it.
Fuzhu came over to help.
The side chamber lacked the faint light from murals, making it extremely dark. The wall was more than ten meters long, and finding a mechanism was a huge task, taking quite some time.
Jian Yuntai remained silent while searching, and Nong Lingling, apparently afraid to disturb him, stayed quiet too.
Fuzhu, however, spoke, his voice clear in the quiet chamber like a spring striking stone.
“What’s mating?”
“…..” Jian Yuntai’s fingers paused. He turned, shocked, looking at him. “You’re still thinking about that?”
Fuzhu wasn’t interested in Nong Lingling, and he had ignored the previous small incident. Still, unwilling to let it go, he said, “You drank my blood already—isn’t that mating?”
“No.” Jian Yuntai shook his head with a smile.
Curious, Fuzhu asked, “Then what counts as mating?”
“You’re too young; you’ll understand later,” Jian Yuntai replied.
“I’m not young,” Fuzhu said softly, “I’ve lived over a hundred years longer than you.”
“…..” Jian Yuntai twitched at the corner of his mouth. “Don’t compare your fox years to human years. Besides, why are you so concerned about mating?”
Fuzhu’s excitement was uncontrollable. In a high-pitched, delighted tone he said, “Because I want to mate with you!”
“…………”
The chamber was silent.
After a long moment, a sudden harsh cough came from Nong Lingling, as if she’d choked on her saliva.
Jian Yuntai’s expression remained unchanged. “But I don’t want to.”
Fuzhu’s eyes darkened briefly, then he followed Jian Yuntai a few steps, speaking in a bubbling, sour tone: “So… you only want to mate with Cui Yu?”
“???”
Jian Yuntai looked at him, baffled. Where did Cui Yu come into this?
“I don’t want to. I don’t want anyone,” Jian Yuntai shook his head, pursing his lips and smiling faintly. “Haven’t you heard the saying? Men only affect how fast I draw my sword.”
Note: he’s basically saying only men can get him hard if im not mistaken.
He was joking. With the little fox’s limited worldly understanding, Fuzhu hadn’t understood then. But seeing the faint smile on Jian Yuntai’s lips, he couldn’t help but smile too.
So happy.
For some reason, he felt incredibly happy.
Suppressing his laughter, Fuzhu continued, “Have you ever drunk Cui Yu’s blood?”
“No,” Jian Yuntai answered truthfully.
Fuzhu chuckled quietly again.
He had originally doubted that Jian Yuntai didn’t treat him as a substitute for Cui Yu—maybe it was because he wasn’t worthy.
But…
There was no need to dwell on this matter any longer. Earlier, when Jian Yuntai had examined the wound on Fuzhu’s neck, the anxiety on his face had been so vivid. The more Jian Yuntai scolded him, the happier Fuzhu became—it meant that Jian Yuntai cared about him.
It seemed he had been overthinking before.
Jian Yuntai was different from anyone else Fuzhu had ever met. Humans were usually full of lies, but Jian Yuntai was sincere with him. If he said he wouldn’t treat Fuzhu as a substitute, he would actually mean it.
As for Cui Yu?
Jian Yuntai hadn’t even drunk Cui Yu’s blood!
“Huh.” Fuzhu thought of Cui Yu and couldn’t help but snicker coldly. That person had never valued Jian Yuntai—and had caused him so much grief.
Once they escaped this underground palace and killed the Mother Goddess, Fuzhu planned to retrieve the inner core and then take revenge on Cui Yu for Jian Yuntai.
Thinking this, Fuzhu asked, “Where is Cui Yu now?”
Jian Yuntai replied casually, “He’s not in this world.”
“…..” Dead? Really dead?!
Fuzhu snorted again. Seeing Jian Yuntai glance at him, he quickly sighed: “What a pity.”
“…If you hadn’t said that with a smile, I might’ve felt even a little comfort,” Jian Yuntai said, exasperated, shaking his head. “Silly fox.”
No sooner had the words left his mouth than a ‘click’ sounded at his fingertips.
Then came a series of rumbling crashes. The floor of the side chamber suddenly lifted to the sides. Nong Lingling screamed, almost in tears of relief: “Quick! Pull me up! The floor’s going to close again!”
Jian Yuntai quickly stepped forward and reached out to lift her. In the past, he could have lifted her effortlessly—but he had forgotten the light injury buff this time, and he was yanked down instead.
“!!! Fuzhu!” Jian Yuntai shouted.
Chaos erupted before his eyes. He couldn’t even see clearly what had happened, when a tremendous force pressed against his waist, gently lifting him upward.
Then came a loud bang.
“Ow!” a scream rang out.
Nong Lingling had been thrown five meters away. The floor closed behind her, while Jian Yuntai remained standing in his original spot.
He turned his head in disbelief and glanced at Fuzhu.
Fuzhu looked confused. “What happened?”
Jian Yuntai twitched at the corner of his mouth. “She’s at least a girl, and you—” How are you even more hardcore than me?!
Fuzhu paused a few seconds before realizing that Jian Yuntai was referring to Nong Lingling.
The livestream chat went wild:
“Hahaha! In my lifetime, I finally get to see Jian Dadan roasting someone else. Didn’t Fatty always roast him before? Now he’s getting a taste of Fatty’s medicine hhhhhh.”
“These two are ruthless (not really). Even if Nong Lingling were a baby, judging by that scene, Jian Dadan would still cover her mouth to stop her crying, and the little fox wouldn’t hesitate to toss the baby.”
“The little fox is really double-standard hahaha, and he thinks it’s completely normal. He doesn’t even realize it.”
Under the viewers’ mixture of concern and amusement, Nong Lingling picked herself up.
Panting, she looked at Fuzhu. “Why do you have a tail?”
“He’s Fuzhu,” Jian Yuntai quickly interjected before Nong Lingling could step back in fear. “He’s my contracted demon beast.”
The words landed on Fuzhu’s heart like a bright red stamp, a plop right at the tip of his soul.
When young foxes were taught by the clan elders, they were warned: “Humans are mostly cunning, with very few exceptions. So if you meet a human, never trust them blindly.”
Fuzhu had scoffed at those words.
At least his demon hunter, Jian Yuntai, wasn’t cunning at all. He treated him well and even protected him in front of others.
Fuzhu felt incredibly lucky—to have met Jian Yuntai, to have been singled out from the abyss by him.
Truly lucky.
Meeting Jian Yuntai had used up all his luck. That was why he had gotten lost from his clan when he was young and why someone had dug out his inner core. Fortune and misfortune intertwined, and thinking about this made his heart feel sweet, like it had been smeared with honey.
Stepping out of the side chamber, under the faint light cast by the corridor murals, Jian Yuntai carefully examined Nong Lingling.
When the missing-person notice first went out, Fatty had said, “This girl’s actually kind of pretty.”
And he had been right.
Nong Lingling was only sixteen, her face plump with youthful collagen, wearing a long-sleeved sweater. Outwardly, she looked like a girl from an old magazine cover—sweet, country-style, smiling in a sunlit golden field, perhaps wearing an apron.
Only now, fear marred that sweetness. She glanced at Fuzhu several times but didn’t dare approach, asking, “Will you take me out?”
Her gaze settled on Jian Yuntai.
He nodded slightly. “How many days have you been trapped in this underground palace?”
“…I don’t know,” Nong Lingling said, distressed. “I just know I’ve been stuck in the cracks between the stones for about a day. Other times I’ve passed out or slept, so I can’t really tell.”
Jian Yuntai asked, “Have you seen anyone else?”
Nong Lingling obediently shook her head. “No. You’re the only living person I’ve met down here in this palace.”
After saying this, her eyes reddened. “Since you came to Mother Goddess Village after I went missing, have you seen my parents… or my younger sibling?”
Jian Yuntai nodded.
He knew about Xiao Liuliu disguising herself as a boy, but he didn’t elaborate on that.
“Your parents are okay. They miss you a lot.”
“And my younger brother?”
“……”
Jian Yuntai wanted to get Nong Lingling out of the palace quickly. The main quest required him to bring her to the high priest of Mother Goddess Village. He didn’t want to create extra trouble at this critical moment.
If Nong Lingling found out that Xiao Liuliu had also been captured, she might cry and refuse to leave.
That would be a disaster.
So Jian Yuntai concealed Xiao Liuliu’s disappearance, speaking vaguely: “She misses you too.”
Note: I’ve already left a note before about Chinese word pronunciation for he/she is the same unless written.
First, he had to get Nong Lingling out, then find the high priest, and together go fight the Mother Goddess.
By that time, he would rescue Fatty and Xiao Liuliu.
Jian Yuntai had carefully planned the rest of the route. He didn’t want to drag Nong Lingling along while facing the Mother Goddess.
Across from him, Nong Lingling stayed silent for nearly a minute before raising the back of her hand to wipe her tears, crying silently.
When she finished, she asked, “Do you know how to get out?”
Jian Yuntai: “……”
Crap. He had forgotten the most important point.
The underground palace stretched for miles. Its interior twisted and branched in repetitive patterns, every corridor seeming copy-and-pasted. Finding someone here was nearly impossible; not getting lost himself was already a feat.
Getting out? That was an even taller order.
Just as Jian Yuntai was feeling troubled, Nong Lingling hiccuped from crying and said, “I know.”
“Hm?”
“I have a good sense of direction. I wandered around the palace several times and roughly mapped some of the paths. There are multiple exits, but all are blocked by statues. I tried moving them before, but I couldn’t. Even just the exits I saw, there were four of them.”
“……” Jian Yuntai fell silent.
Not four—it was nine.
The goddess had crafted nine statues, extending her nine lives, hiding them in this underground palace. Who would have thought the statues were actually the key items blocking the exits?
Nong Lingling really was a story-critical character.
It was truly a relief that she knew the way!
Jian Yuntai couldn’t help exhaling a breath of relief, and reminded her, “After we get out, you’ll still need to meet the high priest.”
Nong Lingling’s expression hardened with determination. She nodded. “Even if you didn’t tell me, I would go see the high priest. The goddess our village has revered for generations has gone rogue! So many people have gone missing from the village, all because of her. When I meet the high priest, I’ll expose this. I know the paths through the palace. If the high priest doesn’t believe me, I’ll bring them to see it for themselves. The corpses throughout the palace will be proof!”
Her crisp, resolute voice rang out like a series of vows, etched into the dark halls of the palace. For a moment, only the echoes of her voice remained.
Things were going far smoother than Jian Yuntai had expected.
After meeting Nong Lingling, all difficulties and problems seemed to fall into place—but Jian Yuntai still couldn’t feel happy.
Setting aside side quests, there was Fuzhu’s vendetta over the stolen inner core.
The main quest seemed riddled with contradictions, like someone had erased all the key information, making the instance progress feel both easy and strange.
If this were an E-level instance—or even D-level—Jian Yuntai wouldn’t have had such doubts.
But folklore horror tales were a C-level instance.
This instance had opened only twice before. Last time, Young Master Xue started trapped by the Slit-Mouthed Woman, hiding the whole way. By the end, only seven of the fifty players had survived.
Those survivors scattered immediately after leaving the instance—they couldn’t be found.
That survival rate matched what a C-level instance should have, yet given the progress now, everyone might survive. Not nearly as many would die.
So why had the previous players perished?
Could it have been a side quest…?
Thinking this, Jian Yuntai glanced at Fuzhu, who looked at him curiously and smiled faintly.
“….”
Jian Yuntai immediately dismissed the thought.
No. It couldn’t possibly have been a side quest!
Side quests didn’t grant survival-time rewards—they only gave items. There was no way every player would go all out on a side quest and end up dying in the instance.
It had to be the main quest.
Yet the main quest now was far too simple. Jian Yuntai even felt like he could clear it tomorrow.
This was the true contradiction.
He couldn’t figure it out.
Forget it—focus on the matter at hand.
Nong Lingling really did know the way. With her guidance, Jian Yuntai finally stopped wandering the underground palace like a headless chicken. They decided to head to the nearest statue—the exit of the palace.
Though it was the closest, still…
Thud. Jian Yuntai dropped to the ground.
“Stop for a moment,” he said.
Nong Lingling froze, thinking of Jian Yuntai’s identity as a demon hunter. Her mind conjured all kinds of scenarios. She asked anxiously, “Did you hear something? Or smell demon energy?”
Jian Yuntai: “….”
No, he was just tired.
They set off again. Not even two hundred meters later, Jian Yuntai said again, “Stop.”
Nong Lingling was startled once more. “Is something wrong?”
This cycle repeated several times. Eventually, Nong Lingling seemed to get it. When Jian Yuntai stopped again, she didn’t speak. She glanced at him several times, as if to silently ask—how could a demon hunter’s stamina be worse than hers?
“….” Jian Yuntai avoided her gaze, breathing heavily.
In truth, he was already at his limit. If it had been Fatty instead, he might have collapsed from exhaustion.
Fuzhu, worried, pinched Jian Yuntai’s fingertips gently.
Not letting him carry anyone before, and now not even helping with his back.
Sometimes, being too strong as a human demon hunter wasn’t a good thing; even if a demon wanted to help, they couldn’t.
Just as Jian Yuntai’s panting grew heavier, a husky voice whispered nearby: “I really want to reclaim the demon core.”
“?!” Jian Yuntai froze, his heavy breaths stopping, slowly turning his head inch by inch. “You… said what?”
Fuzhu didn’t notice his reaction. He spoke with a heavy heart: “If I could get the demon core back, this underground palace—this palace—couldn’t trap me at all. I could take you out immediately.”
They wouldn’t have to suffer any longer.
Jian Yuntai let out an ah and instinctively avoided Fuzhu’s gaze.
He had never felt his emotions so tangled. Judging from the instance’s background, Fuzhu’s inner core was probably somewhere in his body. If Fuzhu found out…
Having his inner core taken would hit him with a heavy injury buff.
The light injury had already been this bad.
How terrifying would a heavy injury be?
Jian Yuntai couldn’t imagine.
But what made his emotions so complicated wasn’t that—it was that Fuzhu wanted to reclaim the inner core… for him.
This was simply… outrageous!
After walking for about half an hour, they finally reached the place Nong Lingling had mentioned. The ear chamber before them was unusually vast, reminiscent of an ancient Roman coliseum. In the center, a massive platform had been hollowed out, its interior shrouded in darkness.
Looking up, a statue towered ahead.
Unlike the statue built in Mother Goddess Village, which had been delicate and adorned in soft coverings, this statue embodied the true grace of a veiled woman. This statue perfectly matched Jian Yuntai’s own idea of what a “god” should feel like.
It didn’t need to sit on a lotus like Guanyin. It didn’t have to be as merciful to the world as Maitreya. It didn’t even have to stand independently in a temple like the martial, literary, or kitchen gods.
But it had to radiate the aura of divinity.
The statue was mostly hidden in shadow. Jian Yuntai could only see the hands slightly extended, palms outward, like a woman reaching for something. Her face froze in a mixture of grief and shock.
A faint, pearly white glow surrounded that hand. Though too dim to illuminate the chamber, it shone piercingly against the darkness.
The moment Jian Yuntai saw the light, the suffocating tightness in his chest eased considerably.
It felt as though divine grace had been poured into his spirit, washing away the exhaustion from the entire day.
But quickly, the feeling faded.
Jian Yuntai’s weakness returned.
“I’ve been curious before… what is that?” Nong Lingling asked, staring at the white halo.
Fuzhu stepped forward two paces, his gaze fixed on the statue.
“Divine grace.”
The Mother Goddess, in extending her nine lives, had split the divine grace that had revived her into nine portions, each infused into a separate statue.
Seeing Fuzhu about to move toward the divine grace, Jian Yuntai’s hairs stood on end—he couldn’t let Fuzhu absorb it!
His mind raced, solutions flashing before him. But before he could utter a word of warning, an extraordinary event unfolded in an instant.
Thump! Thump! Behind the three of them, the sound of rapid running echoed. Paper figures were extremely light, yet in her panic, the Mother Goddess’s steps struck the ground with shocking weight.
With each step, her expression grew more fearful, until she finally screamed in fury: “Don’t touch my divine grace!!!”
She seemed to have rushed from afar, and upon sensing something unusual about the statue, she paid no mind to anything else. The massive power gap between her and Fuzhu didn’t matter; she lunged at him like a moth to a flame.
Just as Fuzhu prepared to counter, the Mother Goddess suddenly regained clarity. Her expression hardened, and she abruptly changed direction in midair—
Straight toward Jian Yuntai!
—her goal: to grab Jian Yuntai, threatening Fuzhu, so she could protect her divine grace.
The idea was clever, but doomed to fail. The light injury buff affected Jian Yuntai’s body, not his brain. The instant the Mother Goddess charged into the ear chamber, Jian Yuntai had already grabbed Nong Lingling and retreated several meters.
They fell back behind Fuzhu.
Thus, the Mother Goddess hadn’t even reached Jian Yuntai before Fuzhu’s fox tail lashed out violently.
A scream echoed as she was struck back.
“You came at just the right time.” Seeing the Mother Goddess, Fuzhu’s heart lifted. His voice turned cold: “I have no interest in your divine grace. Tell me, what curse have you placed on my demon hunter?”
Fuzhu had been worried about Jian Yuntai’s condition and now had zero patience for the Mother Goddess. “Remove the curse on him, and I might spare you.”
“…………”
It took a long moment for the Mother Goddess to react. Hearing that Fuzhu had no interest in her divine grace, she finally exhaled in relief.
But confusion immediately filled her mind.
Curse? She hadn’t done anything to Jian Yuntai!
The scene grew increasingly strange. Though enemies, the Mother Goddess cast pleading eyes toward Jian Yuntai, seemingly trying to compel him to speak.
From the two black ink eyes of the paper bride, Jian Yuntai actually understood what she wanted to express.
After a silent moment, Jian Yuntai chose to play dead.
“???” The Mother Goddess withdrew her gaze and looked back at Fuzhu, now filled with regret—she should never have come!
She was like a lamb walking straight into a tiger’s den!
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t do anything,” she protested weakly.
Fuzhu didn’t believe her for a second. His eyes gleamed with a chilling light as he said sternly: “Speak, or I’ll destroy your statue!”
“?!” The Mother Goddess panicked. Jian Yuntai, for his part, was even more terrified. He couldn’t keep playing dead at a moment like this.
But Fuzhu seemed resolute. Without waiting for either of them to speak, he raised his arm.
Standing in front of the statue, a single gentle push from him would strike it as though it were hit by millions of tons.
Boom! Boom! Debris flew everywhere. The gold leaf covering the statue’s surface scattered through the air, crackling as it brushed past their ears.
Looking up, the statue had snapped in half at the waist.
With a tremendous crash, it toppled in the ear chamber, sending up a cloud of dust several meters high. The Mother Goddess was blown back several steps.
“Ahhhhhhh!” A terrified scream rang in their ears. Nong Lingling’s voice broke: “Isn’t he your demon beast?”
Jian Yuntai, sitting among the rubble, said: “Yes.”
Nong Lingling: “How is he this strong?!”
Jian Yuntai: “….”
This was exactly what Jian Yuntai was curious about. Since bringing Fuzhu out of the demon hunter sect, his power had grown day by day. Before, it hadn’t been obvious—but now, inside the underground palace, it was unmistakable.
Divine grace.
The nine strands of divine grace had lingered in the palace for a long time. Even the slightest leak of energy was enough to restore Fuzhu.
Yes, restore.
Fuzhu wasn’t growing stronger; he was recovering. As a Nine-Tailed Celestial Fox and the King of Ten Thousand Demons, and as a young heir whom all the royal family worshiped, his adult form should never have been this weak.
If it weren’t for the theft of his inner core…
Nong Lingling’s shrieks continued: “He’s just too terrifying…” Her voice was swallowed by the chaos of collapsing stone and dust.
Jian Yuntai frowned in displeasure. “You were captured by the Mother Goddess. You’re not afraid of her, yet you fear the other demons who came to save you?”
Nong Lingling hesitated. “…Because it’s just too terrifying!”
She wasn’t wrong. From an outsider’s perspective, the Mother Goddess was a demon beyond ordinary human ability to defeat. Yet, before Fuzhu, this demon was like a withered bamboo—toppled by the wind without any effort.
The stronger the demon beast, the weaker the demon hunter became under the Light Injury buff. One could imagine how dire Jian Yuntai’s current condition was.
“Cough, cough…cough, cough, cough…” Dust infiltrated his nostrils as Jian Yuntai coughed violently, and with every hack, Fuzhu grew more anxious.
His heart felt as if it were being seared over a furnace; he wished he could endure Jian Yuntai’s suffering in his place.
Looking again at the Mother Goddess, slumped on the ground, Fuzhu’s voice chilled to the bone: “I’ll ask you once more.”
He raised his hand, and divine grace appeared.
The pearly white halo erupted into thousands of shimmering streams of light, suddenly transforming from a soft glow into the brilliance of a full moon, racing forth from the shattered statue.
The statue had always held its hands as though reaching for something. At this moment, it coincidentally seemed as if it were reaching for the divine grace that had been taken.
The overwhelming light spread suddenly throughout the ear chamber.
It swirled around Fuzhu, lifting the white strands of hair at his waist, then cascading down weightlessly with a thunderous crash!
Lowering his gaze toward the panicked Mother Goddess, Fuzhu appeared truly divine for the first time. “Will you lift the curse or not?”
The Mother Goddess: “….” She hadn’t even placed a curse!
If the situation had allowed it, she might have burst into tears. Her eyes widened in disbelief as she watched Fuzhu’s gaze grow darker and more terrifying.
A faint, mocking smile curled at the corner of his lips.
“It’s fine.” Fuzhu’s voice was ice-cold as he looked down. “You have nine chances to hesitate. This is your first.”
With that, he reached toward the divine grace.
The divine grace was vast. As Fuzhu absorbed it, his mind filled with exhilaration and joy as immense as the Milky Way itself.
—He was going to grow stronger.
He had to grow stronger. Once he regained his inner core, he could protect Jian Yuntai in every detail.
No more would situations like the Mother Goddess’s curse happen. Once he became strong, Jian Yuntai would always be by his side, untouched by outside forces, unlike other demon hunters among their kin, whose lives were cut short mid-path.
With that thought, he no longer paid attention to the Mother Goddess. His fingers curled into claws, reaching for the scattered streams of radiant light throughout the chamber.
Even while doing this, Fuzhu cast a slight glance toward Jian Yuntai, offering a soft, gentle smile.
“…” Jian Yuntai’s face went pale, grief-stricken beyond measure.
It was over… it was truly over.
Gold leaf, rubble, streams of light… everything merged into a surreal spectacle, like some absurd dream.
Suddenly, the entire ear chamber blazed with light!
The intensity lasted about half a minute, long enough for Jian Yuntai to barely adjust to the blinding brilliance.
Fuzhu’s figure gradually became clear again: the loose white hair trailing down his back, the face identical to Cui Yu’s. He appeared like a moon-walking immortal, as though suddenly grown to adulthood overnight.
The divine grace was magnificent, awe-inspiring.
In the distant Nine-Tailed Celestial Fox clan, the entire tribe was shaken and astonished. The young heir of the foxes, missing for years with his fate unknown, had once again risen to lead his people.
“I heard our young heir’s call!!!”
Chaos erupted immediately. The vast tribe seemed turned upside-down. Some were reading ancient texts, some sweeping the steps outside, others… whatever they were doing, they instantly dropped it, pupils dilating as they bowed deeply.
Young heir!
Their young heir was finally returning!
Fuzhu knew none of this. At this moment, his eyes and heart were already filled entirely with Jian Yuntai.
He glanced down at his own palms.
Infinite power converged at his fingertips—this was the true bloodline power of the Nine-Tailed Celestial Fox clan!
With this, he would certainly sense where his inner core lay.
Recalling the years of bitterness and hardship, falling from heaven to a hell-like torment that had always surrounded him… all of it—he owed to the person who had forcibly stolen his inner core back then!
He vowed to find that person, to pull every sinew and bone from them, to roast them on the fiercest flames for days. Every cruel punishment imaginable would be inflicted, or his hatred could never be quenched.
Yet all of this had one prerequisite.
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