The ancient return was exposed by his sister's live stream.

His eyelids weren't fully open yet. They were droopy, carrying the impatience of someone who had just been woken up.

Yang Wanqing's hand was still suspended in mid-air, in the posture of pulling up reeds.

The giant fox let out a "woof".

Unhappy.

Then it flicked its hundreds of tails behind it—each one was four or five meters long, and the wind it created blew Yang Wanqing's hair all the way back.

It turned around, its four paws on the ground, and walked step by step toward the foot of the distant mountain.

With each step, a dull tremor reverberated through the ground. Hundreds of tails trailed behind, sweeping across the grass and bushes, flattening plants in their wake.

After walking a few hundred meters to the foot of the mountain, it circled twice and lay down again. Its tail spread out around its body, covering its entire body—from a distance, it once again appeared as a golden "reed".

Yang Wanqing slowly lowered her hand.

She stood there blankly for at least ten seconds.

Then he turned to look at Chen Siyao.

"Yaoyao...did I just disturb its sleep?"

Chen Siyao's expression was also quite subtle.

"...I think so."

The live stream chat exploded with excitement.

"Nine-tailed fox!!!"

"It has more than nine tails."

"I counted at least two or three hundred."

"Is this a Ten Thousand-Tailed Fox?"

"Everything in this world is out of control."

"Yang Wanqing's survival after pulling out the nine-tailed fox's tail was incredibly lucky."

"Laughing Nine-Tailed Fox: Don't pluck my hair, thank you."

"Luckily, it has a good temper and just moved to a different spot."

Yang Wanqing touched the back of his head and glanced with lingering fear at the giant foxes that had sprung up again in the distance.

"If it has a bad temper..."

"Don't think about it anymore." Chen Siyao pulled her away.

"Go, go, don't touch anything weird anymore."

After leaving the area where the giant fox was "sleeping," the two became much more well-behaved.

Yang Wanqing didn't touch anything she didn't recognize. Chen Siyao glanced at the live chat every few steps, letting 400 million eyes help her avoid any potential problems.

The path led deeper into the woods, and the sunlight was fragmented by the tree canopy and scattered on the ground.

A strange sound came from ahead... It wasn't an animal's cry, but a continuous, low-frequency "humming" sound, with the rhythm of rippling water.

The two walked around a tall, grayish-white tree trunk and looked up.

Yang Wanqing was stunned at first.

"Th-what is that...?"

Something was flying through the gaps in the tree canopy.

It's not a bird.

A group of translucent creatures swam among the treetops. They were larger than humans, with umbrella-shaped bodies that closely resembled jellyfish—but they had wings.

Six wings unfold from both sides of the umbrella, each a translucent membranous structure that refracts a pale blue light in the sunlight.

They don't fly with wings.

Their wings were open, but not flapping. Their bodies were making another kind of movement... the entire umbrella-shaped body was rhythmically contracting and expanding, just like a jellyfish swimming in the sea.

Each contraction creates visible ripples in the surrounding air.

They "swim" in the air.

Chen Siyao manipulated the photo crystal to rise up and get close to a camera to take a picture.

It's even more breathtaking up close. Inside the umbrella-shaped structure of that "air jellyfish" are flowing veins... glowing veins, like a city's nighttime map. With each contraction, the light within the veins flashes briefly, then dims.

"They move forward using compressed air," Chen Siyao concluded after observing for a while. "It's the same principle as jellyfish in the sea, except the medium is air instead of water."

Yang Wanqing looked up as the group of air jellyfish slowly drifted through the treetops, and couldn't help but reach out to touch one that was relatively close.

Chen Siyao slapped her hand away.

"Have you forgotten the lesson you learned from pulling off the tail?"

"Oh." Yang Wanqing withdrew her hand.

The chat in the live stream was filled with serious discussion.

"A six-winged jellyfish? Please provide a new species identification number."

"This flight principle is indeed the same as the propulsion principle of jellyfish on Earth."

"But air is much less dense than water, so normally it's impossible to fly this way."

"So there is spiritual energy; spiritual energy can change the laws of physics."

"That's right, there's a spiritual energy in the air of this world."

A swarm of air jellyfish drifted overhead, trailing long, thread-like tentacles. The tentacles, two or three meters long, swayed in the breeze, their tips shimmering with a faint fluorescent light.

Chen Siyao led Yang Wanqing forward.

We walked for another ten minutes or so. The trees in the forest became taller, with larger canopies that blocked out the sun.

Suddenly, Yang Wanqing stopped and looked up at the sky.

"Yaoyao, look up."

Chen Siyao looked up.

Above the tree canopy, through the huge gaps between the branches and leaves... there is something in the sky.

Very big.

Very big.

At first, she thought it was a very large cloud. It was long and narrow in shape, and its color was bluish—several shades darker than the sky's natural blue, almost like the deep blue of the ocean.

Then the "cloud" moved.

Its tail... a huge, flat, fan-shaped structure—swayed slowly.

It's not a cloud.

It is a whale.

A whale flying in the sky.

Its size is absurd. It is at least two hundred meters long from head to tail. It is three or four times larger than the largest blue whale on Earth.

Its body is semi-ethereal, with indistinct edges, blending seamlessly with the surrounding sky. Without close inspection, one might easily mistake it for a uniquely shaped cloud.

Its dark blue body has pale gold patterns that flow slowly—pulsating like blood in a vein.

It wagged its tail.

The movements were extremely slow. Elegant.

But in that instant... Chen Siyao saw the surrounding space distort. Like ripples on the surface of water, but in the air.

Ripples spread outwards from the whale's tail, pushing aside the clouds and creating visible refraction in the air.

Then it opened.

It wasn't a cry.

Chen Siyao didn't know how to describe the sound. It wasn't like any whale call she had ever heard... it didn't have that high-frequency moan or low-frequency hum.

It's more like... chanting scriptures.

An ethereal, deep chanting emanated from the depths of an ancient temple. A sustained, steady long note, layered within it... not a single frequency, but several frequencies superimposed to form a harmony.

The sound pierced through the treetops, through the air, and went straight into my ears—no, that's not right...it went straight into my brain.

Chen Siyao's mind went blank.

It lasted for three seconds.

The sound stopped.

The giant whale in the sky swayed its tail and slowly drifted past overhead. Its deep blue form grew fainter and fainter in the clouds, receding into the distance until it completely merged into the sky.

When Chen Siyao came to her senses, she found herself standing still with her hands hanging at her sides.

Yang Wanqing was in the same situation.

The two people looked at each other.

"...Was your mind blank just now too?"

"It's empty. When that sound came in, I couldn't think of anything."