Transforming into a stunningly beautiful fox spirit, leaving a scar on the heart of a prodigy.

The red light dissipated.

The darkness receded.

Su Chang'an's consciousness was ejected from that long, endless river.

The roaring sound was still in her ears, like someone was ringing a bell in her head.

Each strike reverberated, sending shivers down her spine.

She opened her eyes.

wrong.

She did not open her eyes.

Her eyes were always open. These weren't her eyes.

The field of vision is very low, close to the ground.

Before them was a gray-black stone platform, covered with densely packed runes, most of which had faded, with only a few still emitting a faint red glow.

The air is cold.

It wasn't the dry cold of the northern snowfields, but a damp, chilling cold that seeped into your bones.

It smelled of rust and blood.

The sound of chains echoed in my ears.

Very close, right on either side of the body.

Su Chang'an tried to move.

I can't move.

It's not that she doesn't want to move.

This body wouldn't listen to her; her limbs felt as heavy as lead.

Every bone was screaming, but it wasn't a scream of pain; it was a feeling of being detached after all the strength had been drained.

She could feel the chains.

Hundreds of chains pierced the body from all sides, pinning it to the stone platform.

Each chain ended in a vein that connected to the main root of the spiritual energy. Runes flowed slowly along the chains, draining the last remaining life force from the body.

Su Chang'an's soul was shrouded in the deepest part of those eyes.

She can see. She can hear. She can smell the rust and blood in the air.

But there was nothing she could do.

Like a person stuffed into a glass bottle, looking at the outside world through the bottle walls.

My mind was in complete chaos.

Her nine tails were curled up together, and the tips of the tails were still trembling.

Because those images hadn't completely faded from her mind.

A boy frozen purple on the snowy plain.

A hand dripping blood from its sleeve beside the campfire.

The saying, "The highest form of detachment is not forgetting, but daring not to remember," is a metaphor for transcending emotions.

Su Chang'an couldn't close her eyes. These weren't her eyes. She couldn't close them.

She could only stare at the dim runes on the stone platform, listen to the sound of chains, and feel the faint, almost non-existent life force remaining in her body.

Then she noticed.

Tail.

It's not this body's tail. It's her own.

Her nine tails were curled up deep within her sea of ​​consciousness, and at the base of the third tail, an additional pattern appeared.

It looks like a white mark left by scratching the skin with a fingernail, but the line is glowing.

The dark red light was exactly the same color as the original color of the ancient celestial fox.

Su Chang'an stared at the pattern.

The system panel flashed briefly in the corner of my consciousness.

The handwriting was broken and intermittent, like a television with a poor signal.

"Detected...unknown primordial remnants...highly compatible with the host's soul..."

"Will it be absorbed?"

Two options float on the panel.

"Yes."

"no."

Su Chang'an did not move.

She stared at those two words for three breaths.

absorb.

What happens if it's absorbed?

she does not know.

Will it enhance my cultivation? Restore my original nature? Or be devoured by the remnants of the Ancient Celestial Fox's will and become a completely different person?

Those images were still swirling in her mind. Gu Tianhu squatted before the campfire, drops of blood from his palm falling onto the snow. A perfectly controlled smile graced his face.

Su Chang'an had been calculating the accounts since the first day he transmigrated.

She doesn't do business she's not confident about.

But she didn't have time to think about it.

Because another image exploded from the depths of my memory.

Chen Xuan.

On the floor tiles of Guiyuan Hall.

Li Changgeng's foot stepped on his back. The sound of a spine breaking. He crawled forward, his chin pressed against the ground. His fingernails curled up. Blood stained the path he crawled along red.

He was calling her name.

Su Chang'an's soul jolted violently.

She tossed the system panel aside.

Chen Xuan is still up there.

Li Changgeng was a quasi-emperor. Chen Xuan was a Great Sage. They were separated by an entire major realm. His hand bones were shattered, his Dao foundation had only just been rebuilt, and his spine had been broken—

He couldn't hold on.

Su Chang'an stopped thinking about that pattern. He stopped thinking about the ancient celestial fox. He stopped thinking about the snowfield and campfire three thousand years ago.

She began to struggle.

It wasn't a struggle on a spiritual level. It was a physical one. She tried to move the body. She tried to control even a single finger.

No response.

Su Chang'an changed his approach.

She stopped trying to control her entire body. She focused all her attention on one point.

Right forepaw.

It's the same paw that made a crunching sound when it stepped on the snow on the snowfield.

Su Chang'an squeezed out a wisp of his Heavenly Fox essence. An extremely fine wisp. He channeled it into the claw through the passage established synchronously with his divine soul.

pain.

The repulsion that arises from the collision of two different origins within the same body.

Su Chang'an's origin was white, carrying the warmth of the Phoenix True Fire. The remnants of the Ancient Celestial Fox's origin were dark red, bearing the marks of three thousand years of silence and decay.

Two forces were fighting in the claws.

Su Chang'an gritted his teeth and poured it in.

The claws moved.

It moved only slightly. The fingertip bent less than half an inch. Then it froze.

The runes on the chains lit up.

The suction force increased dramatically. The wisp of essence that Su Chang'an had just poured in was instantly drawn away by the runes and flowed into the main root of the spiritual vein along the chains.

Su Chang'an bit his tongue in his mind.

It doesn't hurt.

The soul has no tongue, but she needs this fire.

She tried again. This time, instead of channeling her essence into her claws, she explored the body's sea of ​​consciousness through the channel that synchronized with her soul.

The ancient celestial fox's sea of ​​consciousness was empty.

It wasn't destroyed, it was drained dry.

A gray, barren wasteland, devoid of anything.

Only a fading light remained in the very center as Su Chang'an approached.

A scene is frozen in the light. A snowfield. A campfire. A boy holding a wine jug. She recognizes him. Li Changgeng. Three thousand years. Chains piercing his bones. His very essence being extracted.

Gu Tianhu kept nothing but this.

Su Chang'an's tail stopped twitching; she had no time to think anymore.

She took a deep breath in her mind.

There is no gas.

But she needed this action, so she started working.

There are hundreds of chains, each connected to the main root of the spiritual vein. The runes operate according to a pattern. The frequency of absorbing the source is fixed. Each cycle lasts thirty breaths. There is a gap of about two breaths between two cycles.

Two breaths.

enough.

Not enough for her to break free of the chains. Not enough for her to control the body. But enough for her to do one thing.

Su Chang'an waited.

She was trying to figure out how to send a wisp of divine soul energy out of this body within two breaths. Send it up there. Send it to the Guiyuan Hall.

Send it to a place that Chen Xuan can sense.

Let that rebellious son know she's still alive.

The forty-seventh cycle.

Su Chang'an made a move.

She compressed the condensed wisp of divine soul energy to its limit, and taking advantage of the two-breath window when the runes dimmed, she sent it upwards along the main root of the spiritual vein.

The fluctuation was very weak. As weak as a spider's thread.

But it's going up.

Passing through the rock strata. Passing through the seal. Passing through the foundation of Guiyuan Hall.

Su Chang'an didn't know if it could get there.

All she knew was that the soul of that rebellious son was tied to hers by the same thread.

From the moment she first used her essence to unblock his meridians when he was three years old, this connection has never been broken.

As long as her spiritual fluctuations are within his perception range, he can find her.

The fluctuations disappeared into the depths of the spiritual vein. Su Chang'an could no longer see them.

She retreated back into the deepest recesses of those eyes.

and so on.

The runes on the stone platform continued to flicker. The chains continued to rattle. The body continued to have its last breath drained away.

Su Chang'an stared at the gray-black stone platform in front of him.

Then she felt it.

This response did not come from above.

It's from below.

The stone platform is shaking.

The runes on the chains suddenly became disordered. The previously regular flashing rhythm was disrupted. Several runes on the chains began to flicker, as if they had received some kind of external interference.

Su Chang'an's pupils contracted slightly.

wrong.

This wasn't her doing. The wisp of energy she sent out was too weak to trigger a reaction of this scale.

It's something else.

A strange power was flowing back from the direction of the main root of the spiritual vein, surging into this body along the chains.

That power was extremely violent, carrying a strong killing intent and a bloody stench.

Su Chang'an recognized the aura.

Her nine tails exploded at the same time.

It belongs to Chen Xuan.

With the aura of a shattered Dao foundation, that rebellious son burned his newly reconstructed Dao foundation, forcibly pouring his cultivation into the main root of the spiritual vein.

Chisel from above, chisel with your life.