Volume One, Chapter Sixty-Three: The Nine-Tailed Fox

The person in charge hadn’t expected Su Beibei and Li Yuanyuan to visit the site that evening, so he hadn’t notified them. By then, the dark energy had grown so dense that it was visible to the naked eye—a massive cloud of pitch-black gloom, its strength vastly increased from before, though no one knew what it had experienced.

“So what? Those guys think they’re hot stuff?” Lu Shuai rolled up his sleeves defiantly, his voice gruff as he shouted.

Jiang Xinyi lifted the floral cloth from the basket and found it filled with eggs—chicken and duck alike. There were dozens, and atop them lay a beautifully embroidered purse.

Heng Yuanxing’s mouth gaped wide, spewing blood, anger and unwillingness blazing in his eyes, tinged with despair.

“You still don’t know you’re the younger sister,” Jiang Yulang replied, picking up the broken fan beside him and fanning the charcoal he’d just lit.

Beside Liu Yu sat an incense burner bowl, in which he’d placed several sticks of incense. He set the burner before me, holding a bowl of water, and began circling me, step by step.

As an AI, she could never truly fit into the world of real players, nor could she genuinely communicate or understand them.

Suddenly, my heart clenched. I was reminded of the scene last year when my grandmother passed away; my family had gathered just the same.

Yet I noticed something odd: last night it felt as though we’d walked for ages, and the woods seemed vast. But when we returned today, we found the building quickly, the journey not even half as long as the night before.

The candles had only just been extinguished when something else came to mind. Groping in the dark, I rose and went to the outer room, calling Sanqi in. I instructed her to keep watch outside for the night, and told the kitchen staff not to let the stove go out, for Xia Xia might need food at any moment.

“Regarding what you saw before, do you have any questions or uncertainties?” I’d thought he would ask me to stay and cultivate as well, but he surprised me with his words.

Thus, even in the underground black market, the services available to the wealthy have expanded accordingly.

Perhaps it was the years spent as a psychiatrist, but every time his cultivation reached a certain stage, he sought ways to manifest that power tangibly.

Mizuha Ye spoke only a single sentence before being surrounded by Kiwaki Shiro and He Xin, both anxiously questioning her—where had she seen it, and had she brought the item back?

Scholar Zhou, who was registering new students, suddenly felt a chill invade him, causing him to shiver several times.

He gritted his teeth and said, “It’s true we get to see the treasure blossom here, but that snow lotus is so precious—who wouldn’t want to pluck it? Every year people fight to the death for it.”

“No, first of all, your screen blocks the path here. Second, we thought it was made of cloth.”

The key was that Lingxi had to supervise everyone, ensuring no prohibited items appeared in the real world.

He reached out to Ning Siling. Ning Siling’s wide eyes studied Qin Chen, but try as she might, she couldn’t recall where she’d seen him before.

Li Er fell silent, for his nightmare was truly terrifying—he’d slept like the dead, hearing nothing at all.

Soon he returned, followed by several maids and old women; even some servants from Yunyin Court had joined the procession.

In truth, I should have died on the journey, for one morning I awoke feeling weak and drained, and pus and sores appeared on my arm—signs of plague infection.

He reversed the tide when all seemed lost, propped up the collapsing house, and led Wu Ding Temple to unprecedented glory, burying past filth in the sands of time. No one would ever know his dark history. Just as he’d planned, he became the hero of Wu Ding Temple.