As a noble Nine-tailed Heavenly Fox, Yun Qi couldn’t bear being treated like an abandoned dog, locked away in a dungeon to suffer endless humiliation.
When he saw the real Princess Ji Wan had returned, the last sliver of hope in his heart shattered completely.
To him, life and death had long since lost all aning.
Rather than being controlled like a plaything in soone’s hands, it was better to find complete release.
It was just that the one regret in his heart would forever remain unfulfilled...
His consciousness was growing dim and hazy when he heard a voice call out to him. Imdiately, he was pulled into a tight embrace. The familiar warmth and softness jolted his mind back to awareness.
Yun Qi struggled to open his heavy eyelids. He stared at the girl who had left and now returned, his ink-black eyes still holding a flicker of vigilance and confusion.
Sang Luo reached out and cupped his face. The corners of her eyes were red, and tears began to fall.
They dripped onto his face.
Wet... warm...
"Your Highness, is it you?"
Clarity returned to the young man’s gaze.
"It’s ."
Sang Luo had made many preparations before coming this ti. She had used the power of her true form to create nurous Talismans, just in case.
Upon arriving at the cell, she imdiately set up a Shielding Array to block all sound. After stealing the guards’ keys, she tried them one by one until, with a few sharp CLICKS, the interlocking chains sprang open.
Without the support of the chains, the young man crumpled as if boneless, collapsing toward the ground.
Sang Luo quickly caught Yun Qi, letting him fall into her arms.
Yun Qi said softly, "Your Highness, you shouldn’t have co back."
Sang Luo saw his gaunt, sunken face and bloodless lips. Even through the layers of cloth, she could feel his sharp, jutting ribs. Her heart ached with pity and burned with anger. "If I hadn’t co back, was I supposed to wait for them to torture you to death, or for you to kill yourself?"
"I’m sorry you had to see in such a wretched state, Your Highness. I must be... hideous..."
"Is it any worse than the state you were in when I first t you?" Sang Luo leaned in and pressed her lips to his. Yun Qi’s gaze trembled, and his heart lted.
No matter how deep their feelings were at this reunion, a thousand words wouldn’t be enough to express them. But Sang Luo knew this was no ti for romance. After comforting her little fox, she broke out of the dungeon with him in tow.
Hundreds, even thousands, of pursuers were annihilated by her Talismans.
To be safe, Sang Luo followed a path from mory, returning to the small wooden cabin deep in the mountain forest—a small, pure land, isolated from the world, where no one would disturb them and no outside forces could pry.
She used a Water Elent Cleaning Talisman to clean the room.
The young man had already succumbed to exhaustion and fallen unconscious on the way there. She laid Yun Qi on the bed, covered him with a blanket, and went out to find so herbs. After brewing them into a dicinal soup, she tried to feed it to him.
The dicine just trickled from the corners of his mouth onto the bedding.
Sang Luo took a few large gulps of the bitter concoction herself, then pried open his mouth and fed it to him.
"COUGH..." The young man was choked awake.
Sang Luo’s eyes lit up. She quickly put down the dicine bowl and asked solicitously, "Are you feeling any better?"
Yun Qi’s face was pale, and his fragility had a heart-wrenching appeal that made one want to do anything to protect him. "...Thank you, Your Highness. I’m fine, just a little tired."
He was a Divine Venerable, after all. His external wounds were no major issue; it was the massive blood loss that required several days of rest to recover from.
Sang Luo brought over a basin of hot water. She wet a clean towel and began to gently wipe the gri from his face. "You get so rest, then. I’ll go find you sothing to eat."
This place was deep in an old-growth forest, and the nearest town was hundreds of miles away. Hunting for pheasants and other wild ga, however, was quite convenient. She decided to make him a pot of chicken soup to help him recuperate.
As Sang Luo got up to leave, she realized the young man had taken hold of her hand. "Your Highness..."
"Hm?"
"There’s sothing I want to ask you."
Sang Luo turned back to him, her expression knowing. "You want to know what’s going on with , with the Princess Ji Wan from the rumors, and all the rest of it, don’t you?"
"Yes. Please tell , Your Highness. I want to know the truth."
Sang Luo sighed softly. She knew Yun Qi’s heart must be filled with questions. ’He wants to know who, exactly, he fell in love with, doesn’t he?’
But Sang Luo truly had reasons she couldn’t voice. She wasn’t from this ti and space and was bound by the Heaven and Earth Laws. She was unable to tell anyone from this era about her true identity and origins—she simply couldn’t. She had tried before, when she was retrieving Minos’s soul bone. She couldn’t get out even half a sentence on the topic; any sensitive word would be erased by the Heaven and Earth Laws.
Sang Luo thought for a mont before saying, "The Princess Ji Wan who hurt you was a fake. She was an evil ghost in disguise."
Yun Qi was stunned.
He had considered that the Highness he loved so deeply might not be the real Princess Ji Wan. He had even speculated that she might be a lonely spirit who had, by so strange twist of fate, co to inhabit the princess’s body. But he had never imagined the truth would be this...
Sang Luo had had her own doubts before. The old Clan Leader of the Red Fox Clan seed like a kind, good-natured man. How could he have raised such a vicious and malicious Princess Ji Wan?
Was she really just that spoiled growing up?
’Unlikely.’
She had later searched through all of Princess Ji Wan’s mories, only to find the earliest ones were shrouded in a fog. When she returned this ti, she had used the spiritual power of her true form to break through that fog and finally glimpse the truth of the matter.
Sang Luo could finally piece everything together. She now understood why, when she had first traveled back one hundred thousand years, she had woken up climbing out of a mass grave.
The cruel and vicious Princess Ji Wan of the rumors was an imposter—an evil ghost, cut from the sa cloth as Ye Wushuang. They both ca from the sa place: the legendary Ghost Clan.
The Ghost Clan coveted the wealth of the Red Fox Clan and wanted to absorb it. They ambushed the princess while she was out traveling for experience, brutally murdering her Guard Team.
The real Princess Ji Wan had died in that pile of bodies long ago.
When Sang Luo traveled through ti, she arrived at that exact mont and, by a strange twist of fate, possessed the princess’s body. After she left, the evil ghost took over. For hundreds of years, the cuckoo occupied the magpie’s nest, and everyone ca to believe that ghost was the real Princess Ji Wan.
After learning all this, Sang Luo had sent that evil ghost to be scattered to the winds.
Once Yun Qi understood, he didn’t ask any more questions. He lowered his gaze to her abdon. "That child... is... still here?"
Sang Luo leaned forward and hugged him, giving no answer.
Yun Qi knew the answer. His fingers trembled slightly as he wrapped his arms around her waist, burying his face in her chest.
Sang Luo said.
"...We will."
...
A few days passed. Under Sang Luo’s ticulous care, Yun Qi recovered quickly. Aside from looking a bit thin and pale, he was not much different from before.
The two of them returned first to the territory of the Nine-tailed Fox Clan, and then to the Red Fox Clan. They told both Clan Leaders everything about Yeque Pavilion, Ye Wushuang, and the Ghost Realm. Soon, the various Beast Kings of Qingqiu and even other continents learned of the news. All went on high alert, investigating for any influence from the Ghost Clan within their own territories.
All branches of Yeque Pavilion and their affiliated organizations were smashed and utterly eradicated, root and stem!
When the dust finally settled, Yun Qi, in his capacity as the Young Master of the Nine-tailed Fox Clan, proposed to Sang Luo once more.
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