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

The cracks in the ground are still tearing.

Broken bricks crashed into the abyss, echoing hollowly. A dark red beam of light surged out from the crack, scorching the half-collapsed dome like a branding iron, gleaming with a shocking bloody light.

Su Chang'an's seventh tail has gone mad.

It wasn't under her control. Its tail lashed wildly behind it, its fur bristling, the dark red tip shooting outwards with incredible force. With each lash, it felt like a heavy, dull hammer blow to her spine.

It's not that she's in pain.

This is the price of "borrowing a number".

Chains pierced through ribs. Runes were branded into the spine. Hundreds of chains tightened simultaneously, forcibly pulling the bones outward, dislocating joints, and rupturing tendons.

Su Chang'an instantly arched his back.

The five tails exploded out of control, directly overturning the blanket wrapped around Chen Xuan. Her left hand gripped the broken bricks tightly, her ten fingers stretched to their limit, carving five white marks.

His teeth bit through the back of his tongue. The strong taste of blood rushed straight to his throat.

It wasn't her blood.

It is the blood of our ancestor who was drained three thousand years ago.

"Su Chang'an!"

Chen Xuan rolled off her lap. His spine, which had just been set in half, crashed onto the broken bricks, the seam of the broken bone making a tearing sound that sent chills down one's spine.

He didn't say anything.

He used his shattered right hand to brace himself against the ground, the broken bone piercing his palm and blood seeping into the cracks between the bricks. He reached out with his left hand and pressed down hard on Su Chang'an's arched back.

"What's wrong with you?!"

Su Chang'an couldn't hear.

She was overwhelmed by another person's wave of pain.

Hundreds of chains pierced the flesh from the most obscure corners. Every three hundred years, a dozen or so new chains were added; the old wounds had not healed before new iron seeped into the bone.

Su Chang'an struggled frantically in his sea of ​​consciousness. His consciousness was being pulled downwards by a torrent, heading straight for the nailed-together body underground.

The synchronization rate skyrocketed.

The system panel flashed a blinding red light at the edge of consciousness, the text crackling and flickering:

[Soul synchronization rate...67%...Warning! Exceeding 80%...Host consciousness will be overwritten!]

Su Chang'an was too lazy to listen to the system's nonsense.

She directly condensed the essence of the Celestial Fox into a needle and plunged it deep into the base of the seventh tail. This physical severance effectively sealed off the damned "forced resonance."

The pain receded like a receding tide.

The wails from underground faded into the distance. Su Chang'an's body went limp, his back slamming against the broken bricks. Cold sweat trickled down his forehead and into his hair, his nerve endings still trembling wildly.

Chen Xuan's hand was still on her back.

"Your seventh tail is twitching." His voice was hoarse, as if he had swallowed a razor blade, and each word was laced with blood and froth.

Su Chang'an stared at the oppressive dark clouds in the sky, his throat dry: "That old ancestor underground is about to die."

Chen Xuan's hand froze.

"Li Changgeng jumped down and forcefully broke the chains, causing the seal to become unbalanced. The chains' rate of blood absorption doubled." She paused for three breaths. "He's accelerating her death."

These words landed on the ruins, sinking without echo.

Li Changgeng was saving people, but he became their death warrant.

Su Chang'an closed his eyes, then opened them again. The system progress bar hadn't changed; it was still at 94% of the Death Tribulation.

Her mind was racing.

The Ancient Celestial Fox had its essence drained over three thousand years, leaving not even a fraction of its former glory. But even a weakened camel is bigger than a horse; in terms of combat power, it was at least at the peak of the Great Sage realm.

If she could inherit this "legacy," she could instantly be fully revived, break through this broken formation, and escape with Chen Xuan.

What's the cost?

Synchronization rate.

More than 80% of her consciousness was suppressed. She was no longer Su Chang'an.

Chen Xuan moved his hand to her shoulder. His broken finger bones touched her charred skin, and his fingers trembled, but he didn't let go. He pressed his wrist against hers.

"What are you doing?" This is not a question.

Su Chang'an turned her head away. Chen Xuan's face was half buried in dust, and a crack appeared in the bloodshot shell of his left eye as he stared intently at her.

"You want to go down?"

Su Chang'an did not deny it.

"No." He gritted his teeth, the words squeezed out from between his bones.

Su Chang'an curled up her third tail and unceremoniously pulled his hand off her shoulder.

"You still have five laws blocking your meridians, your dantian is almost empty, you can barely turn over, how can you stop me?"

Chen Xuan swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing as he swallowed bloody saliva.

"I can't stop you. But if you go down, the synchronization rate will definitely exceed 80%." He heard the system warning; their minds were still connected.

"And then?" Chen Xuan hooked a tuft of hair on her tail with his index finger. "You become that old monster from three thousand years ago? She emptied herself to save Li Changgeng, and you're going to follow the same path?"

These words, though spoken lightly, scraped away a layer of skin from Su Chang'an's heart.

She wasn't afraid of death; what she feared was becoming the grey-robed saint in the mirror.

"You're overthinking it." Su Chang'an pulled his tail back. "I, Su Chang'an, never do business at a loss."

She pressed her hand back to the ground. Her spiritual veins throbbed faster. Thirty-eight breaths, thirty-five breaths… Li Changgeng was fighting desperately.

A muffled sound of breaking chains echoed from the bottom of the abyss.

One of the 372 was broken. A wisp of scalding primordial energy flowed back along the spiritual vein, burning Su Chang'an's palm.

Very light footsteps could be heard outside the ruins.

Su Chang'an's four tails instantly stood upright, and Chen Xuan tensed up like an iron plate. His footsteps on the brick seams were almost silent, at least at the level of the Opening Mansion Realm.

Su Chang'an flipped his left hand, squeezing out the last half of the Heavenly Fox Essence from his fingertips, which glowed with a dark red light.

A hand emerged from a gap in the stone wall. It was long, fair, and wore a half-broken ring on its middle finger.

The Goddess of the Royal Family.

She didn't come in. After pausing for five breaths, she retreated the way she came, clean and efficient. She was waiting for a loophole to appear in the great formation; now was not the time.

Su Chang'an extinguished the red light at his fingertips. Right now, only two things were truly critical: Chen Xuan's continuously dropping body temperature, and Gu Tianhu's countdown, which lasted only six days.

Chen Mu hurriedly crawled into the ruins, his trouser legs covered in ash and mud.

"The waterway is open! The entrance is on the third floor of the dungeon. The array patterns on the bluestone wall below have all disappeared and are very thin. I can hear the sound of chains on the other side."

Su Chang'an quickly calculated in his mind: "Half an hour round trip."

Including errands, she'll have at most two hours. She only has half a percent of her Heavenly Fox essence left, which is barely enough.

The premise is that Chen Xuan, this burden, cannot be brought along.

She lifted Chen Xuan's right hand, which was resting on her knee. Seven bones were broken; it was limp and weightless. She shoved her hand back into his chest.

"I'm going underground."

Chen Xuan's chest tensed instantly, his muscles hardening like stone.

"Chen Mu will lead the guards, and the Goddess of the Wang family will observe from outside. The patrols will rotate every half hour. Don't move—"

"You're not coming back," Chen Xuan interrupted her.

He didn't waste any words. His left hand, with its torn nails and bloody flesh, gripped Su Chang'an's wrist tightly. Bone against bone, the entire arm trembled.

"I said I wouldn't."

"You couldn't control yourself!" Chen Xuan's voice cracked and slurred. "That old fox is stronger than you, but she couldn't control herself either!"

Su Chang'an looked at the bloodstains mixed together between the two.

"That old fox doesn't have a system." Su Chang'an grabbed his palm and said, "The system will alarm when the synchronization rate reaches 79%, and forcibly disconnect when it reaches 80%. I have my own anti-addiction mechanism."

She's betting that the system can give her a hand.

Chen Xuan stared intently at her, his pupils turning a dark red: "Stop trying to fool me. When has the system ever saved your life? You've lied to me six times since we were kids, and every time you lied to me, your left pinky finger would bend inward."

Su Chang'an's left little finger stiffened for a moment, then silently withdrew, only to forcefully push it back in half a breath later.

"Then give me a plan to 'survive tonight'?" Her voice cracked.

Chen Xuan fell silent.

A third muffled thud of breaking chains echoed from the depths of the abyss. The spiritual vein's pulse surged to eighteen breaths. Li Changgeng was using his Quasi-Emperor cultivation to forcefully break the seal.

The needle sealing the resonance was loosening. The body beneath the earth was calling out to her, not for help, nor for Li Changgeng.

"Chen Mu, take your men and wait for me at the waterway entrance," Su Chang'an ordered.

Chen Mu glanced at Chen Xuan and then slipped away.

Su Chang'an began to pry open Chen Xuan's fingers one by one. Middle finger, ring finger, index finger.

When he broke off the fourth piece, Chen Xuan finally spoke up: "Take me with you."

Su Chang'an paused.

"I'll lie on your tail and play dead," he said in a hoarse voice. "If your synchronization rate goes too far, I can call you."

"Would calling me do any good?"

"It works." Chen Xuan gripped her tightly. "Every time you got lost in your sea of ​​consciousness before, I would call out and you would come back. You've never lied to me about this."

Su Chang'an couldn't bend his fifth finger anymore.

She pressed her hand against his bloodied palm and began to settle scores.

"You weigh 68 jin, plus a bunch of scrap metal, that's 75 jin. You can still use five tails, keep one for backup. It'll take two hours to go back and forth, carrying a 75-jin load, your life force will burn by 20% more."

She concluded: "A huge loss."

Chen Xuan's only remaining thumb was tightly hooked around her wrist.

"It's worth it."

The pulse beneath the earth was pounding faster and faster. Time was running out for her.

Su Chang'an looked down at the stubborn thumb.

She roughly scooped him up, her three tails firmly supporting him, while the fourth wrapped up the medicine box. The fifth casually grabbed a sharp piece of iron door and tucked it behind her waist.

As he walked out, stepping on the broken bricks, his broken bones grinding against each other, Chen Xuan gritted his teeth and didn't utter a sound.

As Su Chang'an reached the edge of the ruins, he paused slightly.

The red light emanating from the crack in the ground weakened, but the murmur that traveled up along the spiritual vein became clearer.

It wasn't Li Changgeng he was calling out for.

The seventh tail stretched uncontrollably toward the abyss, but she pulled it back.

The wind whipped up a cloud of dust, and the fox tail thoughtfully shielded Chen Xuan from the swirling dust. When he looked again, the ruins were empty, leaving only two pools of blood that were indistinguishable from each other.