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

Darkness crept in from all directions.

As soon as Su Chang'an stepped into the crack, a crisp cracking sound came from under his feet.

The runestone bricks were ground into powder.

It's unclear whether Li Changgeng crushed it when he went in, or whether the three assassins broke it when they rushed in. The powder was extremely fine, so fine that it hung in the air without falling, and when inhaled, it had a metallic, rusty smell.

The passageway is wider than it appears from the outside.

It slopes downwards, the incline isn't steep, but you can feel the ear pressure changing every three steps.

The stone walls on both sides were covered with the remnants of chains.

The breaks were jagged. Some were clean, clearly severed by a sharp weapon; others were twisted and deformed, their edges charred and blackened, as if crushed by the forces of nature. Liquid seeped from the break of each fragment.

Red.

Thick.

It wasn't blood. Su Chang'an's Heavenly Fox essence told her that it was the essence of the spiritual veins forced out from deep within the stone wall after the sealing runes were destroyed.

Three thousand years of accumulation.

It's like a punctured water bag, leaking out in gushes.

Air perm.

It wasn't the scorching heat of the sun; it was a heat that steamed outwards from within the stone wall. The heat, carrying the residual pressure of the Quasi-Emperor's Law, silently ground against the skin, like walking on a red-hot iron plate.

The first cut appeared on Su Chang'an's left forearm.

Thin. Shallow. Like a riverbed that has been dry for three years.

No blood was drawn. The Celestial Fox's essence automatically sealed off the capillaries. But the seal was barely effective and could collapse at any moment.

She didn't stop.

Five tails wrapped Chen Xuan up completely.

The first strap draped under his armpits. The second supported his lower back. The third secured his legs. The fourth protected the back of his head. The fifth draped over his chest, its tail tip pointing directly at his heart, sensing his heartbeat.

Chen Xuan's face was pressed against her collarbone.

Breathing is shallow.

Su Chang'an was counting.

The interval between two breaths is half a breath before entering the tunnel.

It has now become more than half a breath.

It's still getting longer.

She increased the pressure on her feet.

The left foot stomped down, sending up clouds of runic powder. The right foot followed, the sole of the boot grinding over a broken chain remnant, the metallic scraping echoing through the passageway.

Chen Xuan's fingers, which were gripping her sleeve, twitched slightly.

That cuff had long been crumpled into a rope.

From the moment he entered the Guiyuan Hall until now, his fingers hadn't loosened their grip. He couldn't exert much force with his broken bones, but his knuckles were stuck in the folds of the fabric, as if he were nailed there.

"Slower."

The voice came muffled from between the fox fur. Hoarse. Intermittent. There were shallow gasps between each word.

Your heart is racing.

Su Chang'an ignored him.

Her heartbeat was indeed accelerating. With each step, the residual pressure of the Quasi-Emperor's Law intensified, and her Heavenly Fox Essence was desperately circulating to withstand this pressure, forcing her heart to increase its output.

He heard it.

A person who is half-dead.

Her spine was broken in three places, most of her meridians were shattered, and her spiritual power was so depleted that even her protective qi couldn't hold her up. The only thing she could still move was the hand that was clutching her sleeve.

He held this hand to listen to her heartbeat.

The tip of Su Chang'an's fifth tail trembled.

She did not respond.

They didn't slow down.

The passageway continued downwards. The slope became steeper. The remnants of chains on the stone wall grew increasingly dense, eventually breaking into pieces almost a foot long. Some of these remnants still had things hanging from them.

Shredded cloth.

Gray.

Su Chang'an recognized it. It was the material of Li Changgeng's Taoist robe.

After walking down a dozen or so steps, bloodstains began to appear on the ground.

Dry. Gray.

It wasn't the red color that human blood should have—it was the color of a quasi-emperor's essence blood that had deteriorated after being forced out of the body by the backlash of the laws.

One drop. Two drops.

Then there was a piece.

The bloodstains stretched intermittently from the center of the passageway into the darkness ahead, like the trails left by a person crawling forward on their knees.

Su Chang'an paused for a moment.

She looked up and ahead.

Light appeared at the end of the passageway.

It is neither a divine light nor a precious radiance.

It is an extremely dark red.

Dark red light seeped in from the opening at the end of the passageway, staining the stone walls on both sides with the color of rust.

Su Chang'an walked out of the passageway.

The ground beneath my feet has disappeared.

A rough, uneven rocky ground stretched out in all directions. The rock walls overhead arched into a dome, at least thirty feet high.

A natural cave.

A dark red light emanated from the stone platform in the very center of the cave.

Su Chang'an stopped at the cave entrance.

It's not because of the stone platform.

It's because of the ground around the stone platform.

chain.

Chains were everywhere.

Broken.

Scattered across the rocky ground around the stone platform, one chain on top of another, layer upon layer, they formed a pile of metal rubble half a person's height. Each chain was as thick as an adult's arm, its surface covered with densely packed runes. The runes were all dead, their luster gone, turning into grayish-black grooves, like neatly arranged corpses.

372 items.

Su Chang'an counted them in Gu Tianhu's memories.

Three hundred and seventy-two. This number is etched deep in the ancient celestial fox's memory. Three hundred and seventy-two anchor points, three hundred and seventy-two nails piercing the body. Nailing the meridians. Sealing the source. A living spiritual vein extraction device from three thousand years ago.

Now most of it is broken.

The broken chains and stumps on the ground, each one with the same color at the break point.

grey.

Li Changgeng's blood.

He used his own quasi-emperor's essence blood to corrode the runes on the chain, one by one.

Then, a hard cut.

Su Chang'an's gaze shifted from the ground to the edge of the stone platform.

Li Changgeng knelt there.

She saw his back.

Only one thought popped into my head—

He is old.

It's not that he looks old. His face still looks like that of a middle-aged man. His quasi-emperor cultivation level keeps his physical appearance intact, and he hasn't changed in three thousand years.

But the atmosphere is different now.

The Li Changgeng that Su Chang'an saw in the illusion was cold and hard. His quasi-emperor aura was contained within his skeleton, and every move he made was precise to the millimeter, like a sword that had not yet been drawn from its sheath.

The person in front of me is not him.

The gray Taoist robe was torn into strips. Some pieces hung on his shoulders, others on the ground, stained with blood, gravel, and fragments of chains. Strands of white hair peeked out from his hair ornament, clinging to his face and the back of his neck, the ends stained with dark red liquid.

It was unclear whether it was the essence of the spiritual veins or his own.

He placed his hands on a chain.

The Quasi-Emperor Law surged forth from his palm.

Su Chang'an could see the form of that law—it wasn't solidified light. It was a transparent distortion, like extremely hot air trembling. The law clung to the surface of the chain, grinding forward inch by inch. With each rune it passed, the rune changed from gold to gray, from gray to black, and finally crumbled into powder, peeling off the chain surface.

Each time a rune shattered, Li Changgeng's back would tremble.

Not much.

But it's obvious.

It felt like someone was hitting his spine with a hammer, one blow at a time.

Backlash.

Su Chang'an's Heavenly Fox Origin sensed the intensity of the backlash.

These chains are not ordinary sealing devices. They are directly connected to the main root of the spiritual vein beneath their feet. Behind each rune lies the power of the laws governing the entire spiritual vein.

Crushing a single rune requires enduring the backlash of the entire spiritual vein.

He crushed hundreds of them.

Su Chang'an looked down at the broken chains on the ground.

A quick glance.

At least 350 or more.

The number of runes on each chain varies, ranging from dozens to hundreds.

He crushed them one by one.

One by one, they broke.

Su Chang'an didn't know when he started doing it. From the moment he jumped into the abyss? Or even earlier? Her Heavenly Fox Essence could calculate it.

The runes on each chain were corroded to varying degrees, making it easy to deduce the timeline. She hadn't calculated...

His gaze passed over Li Changgeng and landed on the stone platform.

My breathing paused for a moment.

The body of the ancient celestial fox.

It was ten times worse than what I saw in the illusion.

Su Chang'an had seen this body in its prime in Gu Tianhu's memories—a nine-tailed silver fox, with pure white fur and long limbs, curled up in the snow like a ball of moonlight.

That's no longer the case.

Of the nine tails, only five still had color, grayish-white, like old cotton wool soaked in water.

The other four hairs had all fallen out and were hanging on the edge of the stone platform like four dried tree branches.

Large areas of its body had shed hair, revealing bare, bluish-black skin, with its ribs protruding one by one.

But these are not the most striking features.

It was a chain. And there were more than a dozen chains still attached, piercing the body from different angles.

Dark red granulation tissue emerged around each puncture point, layer upon layer wrapping around the chains.

It's as if this body is using its last breath to repair itself.

However, the repair speed cannot keep up with the consumption.

Su Chang'an could sense it.

The vitality emanating from that body was as weak as the last leaf that hadn't fallen in the depths of winter.

It's still hanging there.

It will be gone if the wind blows again.

Chen Xuan tightened his grip on Su Chang'an's sleeve.

He saw it too.

He didn't say anything.

Su Chang'an stood at the entrance of the cave.

The Celestial Fox's original perception fully unfolded.

She did something extremely risky in that environment—

She released the essence externally.

Her essence transformed into extremely fine threads, emanating from the tip of her tail and spreading outwards along the remaining patterns of law in the air, covering the space within three zhang around the stone platform.

The consequences were immediate.

The cut on my left forearm had multiplied from one to three. My vision blurred for a moment, and then I heard a buzzing sound in my right ear, as if something had flicked inside my cochlea.

But she got what she wanted.

Stone platform. Chains. Runes. Distribution of laws. The direction of the main spiritual vein. The remaining life force within the ancient celestial fox's body.

All.

In less than three breaths, all the information had gone through his mind.

Then she came to a conclusion.

Very simple.

It was also a desperate situation.

Li Changgeng cut more than 350 chains.

The remaining dozen or so, whether in terms of location, law concentration, or rune structure, are completely different from the previous ones.

The ones cut before were called "secondary locks." These secondary locks pierce the meridians of the limbs, tail, and body surface, and their function is to seal off mobility and the outward release of one's vital energy. By severing them, the Ancient Celestial Fox's body can regain some of its autonomous breathing and blood circulation.

But in essence—it's still locked.

The remaining dozen or so are called "master locks".

All puncture sites are concentrated in the chest cavity and head.

Each one is directly connected to the heart meridian of the ancient celestial fox.

It is not the heart meridian in the traditional sense.

It is the real heart.

The chains pierced through the ribs, their runic anchors pinned to the heart muscle. The runes and the heartbeat were synchronized—with each beat, the runes drew a sliver of life from the heart, channeling it through the chains into the main vein of the spirit.

Three thousand years.

Every heartbeat feels like it's being ripped out.

Gu Tianhu's heart was still beating.

But it's already become part of the chain.

Forcibly severing the main lock would tear the rune anchor from the heart muscle. In the current state of this body, the heart cannot withstand that kind of tearing.

If one vein breaks, the heart is torn in another place.

More than a dozen were completely broken.

It shattered into dust.

The ancient fox will breathe its last the moment the last main lock breaks.

Did Li Changgeng know?

Su Chang'an stared at his back.

His hands were still pressed against the chains. The Quasi-Emperor Laws were still grinding the runes inch by inch. His body was still trembling with each shattering of a rune.

The lock he was crushing was the main lock.

Su Chang'an's pupils contracted.

he knows.

Of course he knew.

It's impossible for a quasi-emperor's senses not to detect the connection between the main lock and the heart meridian.

He severed over 350 secondary locks, forcing the Ancient Celestial Fox from a state of complete body sealing down to one where only his heart remained locked. Step by step, he reached the very end.

Then they discovered that the last step was a dead end.

He was still grinding.

Su Chang'an watched the laws emanating from his fingertips.

The force of the law adhering to the chain was much lighter than when grinding the lock.

He hesitated.

Crush a rune, shake it. Then stop for a long time.

When he stops, his fingers will retract a little bit.

It shrank, then I pressed it back in.

Roll over the next one.

Su Chang'an retrieved the essence of the Heavenly Fox.

Blood beads seeped from three cuts on my left forearm.

She didn't wipe it.

Chen Xuan, who was in his arms, suddenly spoke.

The sound was very soft and muffled, mostly blocked by the fox fur and collarbone.

"He can't cut it down."

Su Chang'an lowered his head.

Chen Xuan's eyes were open. He had turned his head at some point and was looking at the stone platform through the gap in his tail.

His gaze fell on Li Changgeng's back.

"He cut down more than three hundred. He didn't dare to cut down the last few."

Su Chang'an remained silent.

"He's afraid."

Chen Xuan's voice was broken, as if his throat was stuffed with sand.

"He was afraid that if he made that cut, he would really lose everything."

Su Chang'an's fifth tail gently pressed against Chen Xuan's chest.

It means to tell him to stop talking.

Chen Xuan shut his mouth.

The fingers gripping the cuff didn't loosen.

Su Chang'an looked up.

Look at the stone platform.

Look at that withered body, so decayed that its original form is almost unrecognizable.

Look at those chains that pierce through the ribs and are nailed to the heart.

Look at that person kneeling by the stone platform, his white hair disheveled, his hands trembling, grinding over three hundred chains but not daring to finish grinding the last dozen or so.

The synchronization rate is still rising. The sixth and seventh tails have uncontrollably emerged from the source, their roots faintly burning.

She could feel the remaining consciousness within that body seeping towards her. It wasn't a deliberate attack, but an instinctive approach.

Like roots that have been dry for three thousand years, sensing a drop of water.

Su Chang'an clenched his left hand. A dull pain shot through the hollow of his palm. The bandage was already soaked with blood.

She glanced between Shi Tai and Li Changgeng.

The main lock pierces the heart. If it breaks, the person will die.

If it's not kept, it will remain locked forever.

But if it continues to be locked up, given the rate at which the ancient celestial fox's remaining life force is being depleted—

It won't last more than a month.

It broke, and he died on the spot.

They die slowly, over and over.

Li Changgeng knelt between the two answers.

I don't know how long I knelt there.

Su Chang'an closed his eyes briefly.

When she opened her eyes again, her gaze fell back on Chen Xuan in her arms.

He was still looking in the direction of the stone platform.

But his fingers gripped his sleeve a little tighter than before.

Su Chang'an spoke in a low voice.

The voice was so low it was barely a breath.

"The traitor."

"Um."

"I have to go and take a look."

Chen Xuan's fingers, gripping his sleeve, remained still.

Two breaths passed.

My fingers are loose.

It loosened halfway, then clenched back up.

I went back and forth three times.

Finally, he pulled his fingers out one by one from the folds of his sleeve.

Su Chang'an's third tail gently placed him on a flat rock at the entrance of the cave.

When she withdrew her hand from his back, her fingertips paused briefly on the back of his neck.

Chen Xuan didn't look into her eyes.

He was looking at his empty hands.

His fingers still retained the curved shape from when he was pulling at his sleeve.