After leaving Green Ox Ridge, Bai Heng continued southward.
She deliberately slowed her pace, keeping her divine sense on high alert and extending her perception range to the limit. The green ox’s broken warning at parting had left her wary of the region ahead.
She had no idea whether the three black-robed “demon captors” were still nearby.
The following afternoon, as she passed through a dense camphor forest and was about to descend along a dried-up creek valley, her divine sense suddenly picked up an unusual fluctuation ahead.
There was surging spiritual energy, the desperate struggle of demon power, and… faint screams of agony mixed with unrestrained laughter.
Bai Heng halted. She activated Heavenly Fox Concealment to the fullest, her figure turning into a faint white mist as she quietly approached the source of the disturbance.
At the end of the creek valley lay a sunken basin ringed by trees. In the center was a cleared open space.
A one-sided torment was unfolding there.
Five black-robed cultivators stood in a loose circle. Embroidered on the chest of their robes was a strange dark-cyan emblem—a sharp claw gripping its prey, the talons clutching a round pearl.
The emblem of the Yu Ling Sect.
Two other black-robed figures with noticeably stronger auras stood on the periphery with their hands clasped behind their backs. Their expressions were cold yet amused. From their spiritual pressure, they were mid Foundation Establishment cultivators.
Trapped in the center was a slender, fiery-red fox.
Thick chains bound all four of its limbs, digging deep into the flesh and leaving bone-deep wounds. It was forced into a humiliating crouch on the ground. Every struggle made the chains glow with eerie dark-red runes, sending electric jolts of pain through its body.
Still, it stubbornly lifted its head. Its clear eyes were full of pleading and defiance.
“Please… let me go…”
The voice was soft, mournful, and perfectly clear, trembling with sobs.
This red fox was a third-tier demon cultivator.
Its spiritual intelligence was fully awakened, and it could speak fluent human language.
“Let you go? Haha!”
A narrow-faced late-Qi Refining cultivator squatted down, roughly grabbed the red fox by the scruff of its neck, and shook it in the air.
“Do you know how much effort we spent catching a sly little thing like you? A third-tier red fox with high intelligence—perfect material to bring back and train properly!”
The red fox dangled helplessly, tears rolling down its fiery-red fur and leaving dark wet streaks.
“I already hid deep in the mountains… I never went near human territories… I never harmed anyone…”
Its voice was hoarse, its plea pitiful.
“Why… why must you capture me…”
“It’s your own fault for being a fox with such fine looks.”
A younger Qi Refining cultivator laughed mockingly, his gaze lingering on the fox with ill intent.
“I heard that once foxes transform, they all become peerless beauties. What was that old saying again—‘the fox immortal repays kindness with her body’? Heh heh, you’re begging so desperately now. Once you transform, maybe you’ll repay us ‘benefactors’ by offering yourself and serving us well?”
His words drew raucous laughter from the other black-robed cultivators, their filthy remarks growing more and more unrestrained.
“This fox’s coat is so pure. When it transforms it’ll definitely be a red-haired beauty with a slender waist and long legs…”
“Brother Liu has good taste! We’ll all get our share later!”
“No need to beg for mercy or repay any kindness. Just accept your fate. You’ll have a good life ahead.”
Listening to the vulgar words, the red fox went rigid. The pleading in its eyes gradually gave way to despair and emptiness. It stopped struggling and speaking. It simply lowered its head deeply, as if trying to burrow into the earth and disappear from the world.
The two mid Foundation Establishment cultivators on the periphery exchanged a glance. One of them spoke indifferently.
“Enough playing around. We have work to do. This red fox has decent talent. Take it back, train it for a few months, and present it to one of the inner sect elders as a spirit pet. We’ll all benefit.”
The other nodded.
“Mm. The beast’s intelligence is already high. We need to hurry and brand it with the master-servant contract before anything goes wrong. Stand back—I’ll do it.”
Hidden dozens of zhang away in the dense canopy of an ancient locust tree, Bai Heng watched the scene through gaps in the leaves.
Her gaze lingered on the red fox.
Its fiery-red coat was now stained with blood and mud, looking utterly wretched. Yet those clear eyes—even in the depths of despair—still held a faint spark, and its head, though trembling, had never fully bowed.
It reminded her of Little Red.
The foolish fox she had “cloud-raised” for two years, watching it hunt, play, bring back a mate, and then vanish one day, never to return.
This red fox’s eyes looked almost exactly the same.
She knew the most rational choice was to slip away quietly.
The enemy had two mid Foundation Establishment cultivators and five late-Qi Refining cultivators—far beyond her current strength. Forcing her way in would be suicide.
She also knew she carried Yun Qing’s entrustment. The ring had not yet been delivered, the promise not yet fulfilled. She should not create complications here.
She knew all of this.
Yet she could not make herself take that retreating step.
The red fox’s desperate pleas, the cultivators’ unrestrained filth, the master-servant contract about to be branded—
And those eyes, so much like Little Red’s.
Bai Heng had never seen what happened to Little Red. When it disappeared, she had been nothing more than a consciousness trapped inside a piece of amber, powerless to intervene. She could only watch helplessly as Little White gave birth alone, raised her kits alone, and endured the hardest times alone, growing thinner and more exhausted.
Now, she was no longer that piece of amber.
She had power.
It was still weak, but she could do something.
She simply needed to be more careful, more patient.
She took a deep breath and forced her mind into the deepest calm.
Her divine sense extended silently like invisible tendrils, imprinting every person’s position, cultivation level, stance, and field of vision within the small basin into her mind.
The two mid Foundation Establishment cultivators stood farthest away, one on each side, their postures relaxed. They clearly believed the Qi Refining disciples had the situation under control.
Of the five late-Qi Refining cultivators, three were clustered around the red fox, toying with it, while two stood slightly farther out on guard.
The guards—one to the east, one to the west—were separated from the main group and had their view partially blocked by trees. They were the weak points.
Bai Heng chose the eastern late-Qi Refining guard.
She slipped down from the locust tree without a sound, using bushes and tree shadows for cover. Like a wisp of moonlight, she crept closer to her target.
The guard was leaning against a tree trunk, bored, his gaze drifting occasionally toward the entertainment happening in the clearing.
Bai Heng hid in a thicket three zhang away. She took out an ordinary pebble and used her telekinetic power to toss it lightly behind him.
The pebble landed with a soft but distinct clack.
The guard immediately tensed and turned, barking in a low voice.
“Who’s there?”
He cautiously investigated the sound but did not raise an immediate alarm, perhaps thinking it was only a small animal.
The moment he rounded a bush, turning his back to the main group—
A pale golden thread, thin as a hair, shot out silently from the base of the thicket and pierced the back of his skull.
The guard’s body stiffened. His eyes went blank. He never even managed a sound before slumping forward. Bai Heng caught him with her telekinetic power and gently lowered him onto a pile of fallen leaves without a noise.
A finer thread of Heavenly Fox True Fire seeped into his ear canal, burning away all remaining life force and divine sense from the inside out, ensuring no traces could be detected later.
She took out a simple sound-recording talisman she had prepared earlier—a minor talisman technique she had learned from Lin Wan’s notes and crafted herself with her telekinetic power. It could imitate a single voice for a short time.
She activated the talisman and, using the dead guard’s voice, sent a fuzzy, slightly panicked call toward the main group.
“Brother Zhou! Over here… there’s something here! Looks like a rare white marten!”
In the clearing, the Qi Refining cultivators turned their heads.
One burly cultivator frowned.
“What is that idiot Wang Er yelling about?”
He said to his companions,
“You keep an eye on the fox. I’ll go take a look.”
With that, he strode toward Bai Heng’s direction.
Bai Heng had already retreated deeper into the thicket, Heavenly Fox Concealment pushed to its limit. Her aura merged completely with the surrounding grass, soil, and trees.
The burly cultivator reached the guard post but found only his fallen, lifeless junior brother and an eerily silent thicket.
His expression changed drastically. He opened his mouth to raise the alarm—
A more condensed fox fire flying needle, infused with thirty percent moonlight power, shot out from his blind spot behind him.
His cry turned into a short, muffled grunt. He collapsed silently onto the leaf litter beside his junior brother.
Bai Heng did not bother hiding the bodies or looting them. There was no time. She simply dragged the two corpses deeper into the undergrowth and covered them roughly.
Time was short.
She was about to try luring another isolated target when—
Suddenly, her divine sense detected a new presence entering the basin from the front. It belonged to neither the Yu Ling Sect cultivators nor anyone trying to hide.
A young man in a water-blue brocade robe, a white jade pendant at his waist and a gold-splashed folding fan in his hand, strolled unhurriedly into the temporary beast-taming ground that the Yu Ling Sect disciples had claimed.
He had refined, clear features and a faint, elegant smile on his lips—the very picture of a carefully raised young noble from a great clan.
In the center of the clearing, the mid Foundation Establishment cultivator preparing to brand the master-servant contract turned sharply. He stared coldly at the intruder.
“Who are you? This area has been requisitioned by the Yu Ling Sect. Unrelated persons, leave at once!”
The blue-robed young master flicked open his fan and gave it a gentle wave. His smile remained courteous, his tone as mild as if he were discussing the weather.
“This humble one is Liang Lu. I happened to be passing by and saw the commotion, so I came to take a look.”
“The Yu Ling Sect truly has great authority—‘requisitioning’ land in these remote mountains and wilds. I was not aware that the mountains, rivers, and forests of Lan Province had fallen under your sect’s jurisdiction.”
His voice was clear and unhurried, carrying a natural, superior composure.
Hidden in the shadows, Bai Heng caught a clear view of that face through the leaves.
She froze for a moment.
Those brows, those features… it was Lu Liang.
Only last time he had worn a faded cyan cloth daoist robe and spoken with humble politeness, keeping his posture low as a mere loose cultivator.
Today he was dressed in luxurious blue brocade with cloud patterns, every inch the refined young noble.
Even his name had changed.
Last time he called himself Lu Liang. Now he introduced himself as Liang Lu?
Bai Heng watched the figure in the clearing silently. Her earlier assessment that this person was “not entirely pure” deepened once again.
But that was unimportant.
What mattered was why he had suddenly appeared here and what he intended.
She stayed perfectly still, making herself even more hidden.
She pulled her aura back completely and blended deeper into the shadow of the leaves, becoming nothing more than an inanimate withered leaf.
She would wait and see what happened next.