As the young girl’s soft hand gently closed, Chu Nanci’s fingers suddenly tightened, almost exposing his demon form in front of Jiang Yin.
Fortunately, when fox ears began to emerge from his silver hair, Jiang Yin had already closed her eyes and leaned in to kiss him.
A delicate fragrance filled the air. Chu Nanci’s reason was nearly gone. As he held the back of her head and responded to her, his other hand picked up the bloodstained dagger by the bedside and threw it out.
The dagger spun once through the room, precisely sweeping past each candle flame. The light dimmed inch by inch, until the final candle was extinguished, leaving the entire room in darkness.
Hearing the disturbance, Jiang Yin opened her eyes. When she realized the candles had gone out, she let out a breath of relief.
This was better. She could not even see his face now. Everything could be hidden in the darkness, including her nervousness and shyness.
And moving in the dark naturally required feeling one’s way through.
Jiang Yin slowly curled her fingers, cautiously exploring.
Her fingertips were soft, and Chu Nanci instinctively responded to her.
Jiang Yin’s heart gave a violent leap, and she almost withdrew her hand.
But the young man’s cool, large hand covered hers, his voice low and hoarse. “Not continuing?”
It was phrased as a question, yet the force pressing over her hand left her no possibility of retreat, imprinting deeply into Jiang Yin’s palm.
“…There must be something wrong with the air in this world. No matter who comes here, they all have to go through this kind of restricted scene, is that it?”
Jiang Yin frantically tried to brainwash herself. This was her target, her fiancé, someone she could spend her life with.
Even setting feelings aside, just considering the current situation, whether it was the backlash within his body or this room, both needed to be dealt with.
She took his hand and placed it on her waist.
In the darkness, the young man seemed to tilt his head slightly. Something atop his hair swayed along with the motion. Before Jiang Yin could see clearly, he had already pulled her into his arms.
He understood the hint she was too shy to voice, and took the initiative to seize control.
Yet at this moment, his temperature had dropped. His entire body was unnaturally cold. When his hand fell upon her, it felt like a sheet of snow. His body was like a snow-covered mountain, making her feel cold as well.
“So cold…”
She shrank her shoulders, her voice carrying a faint, pitiful complaint.
“Bear with it,” Chu Nanci said, also feeling uncomfortable.
She thought his body was cold, yet he felt that hers was excessively warm.
Like burning iron, as if it would melt him alive.
Even so, he could not bear to make her let go.
…
Jasmine flowers had bloomed three in succession. Inside the room, the passage of time was unknown. Midway through, Jiang Yin’s sense of pain returned, and she swallowed another Life-Extending Pill.
When only the final flower remained unopened, she no longer had the strength even to lift her hand. Her voice hoarse, she asked him, “…Why?”
She could feel that he was not unaffected. He was not sitting there unmoved, yet for some reason, he was restraining himself.
‘…Is the favorability still not enough?’
A trace of indescribable disappointment rose within her, yet she also felt that perhaps this was for the best. She did not know whether to feel relieved or troubled.
Faced with the water the young man brought to her lips, she lowered her eyes and took small sips.
After feeding her the water, Chu Nanci reached out to wipe the moisture from the corner of her lips, his voice gentle and calm. “Ah Yin, perhaps you should ask yourself why, at this moment, your heart is occupied by someone else.”
Hearing this, Jiang Yin immediately grew anxious. “I don’t!”
She had already taken the initiative as far as she possibly could. How could he say something like that about her?
Feeling deeply wronged, she bit down on his finger.
This was simply too much!
She used force, her teeth pressing into his fingertip, bringing a faint sting of pain.
The Life-Extending Pill had worn off.
“Or let me put it another way.” Chu Nanci pressed lightly against her restless teeth, a gentle smile in his voice. “When Ah Yin is with me, are you only thinking of sharing bliss with me, or are you thinking of making these flowers bloom faster, so you can leave this room sooner, leave my side?”
Jiang Yin blinked, feeling guilty as she loosened her bite. “What difference does it make? The result is the same anyway…”
“For me, it is not the same.” Chu Nanci used the finger she had bitten, still marked with a trace of blood, to rub lightly at the corner of her lips. His fingertip moved slowly. “I hope that Ah Yin is the same as me, with only desire for each other in your heart, not doing this just to leave this place, to attend the Moonlit Night Tour, to look for that Liu Niang.”
He actually knew everything.
Jiang Yin shrank back, her voice growing softer. “I’m sorry… but Liu Niang’s disappearance is my responsibility to begin with. I have to find her.”
The young man stroked the final flower at her wrist.
“What a ‘have to.’” He let out a very soft laugh. “I truly do not know whether it is because you took medicine and cannot feel pain that you disregard yourself like this, or whether even knowing it will hurt, you would still act the same.”
Jiang Yin could not see his expression, but his laughter gave her an uneasy feeling. She quietly shifted her body, trying to retreat, only to be pulled back again.
“Shall we try?” Though he asked, he had no intention of waiting for her answer.
A sharp clap sounded in the darkness, followed by Jiang Yin’s altered cry.
Only after a long while did she come back to her senses, staring blankly with her eyes open, almost unable to believe what he had done.
“How can you… how can you do that!”
Chu Nanci withdrew his hand without a change in expression. “Do what?”
“You hit me…” Jiang Yin’s face flushed red as she could not bring herself to say the rest. Overcome with embarrassment and anger, she scolded, “Xie Huaian, you’ve gone too far… ah!”
Before her words even finished, another strike fell.
“What did you call me?”
Jiang Yin’s waist trembled as she promptly gave in. “…Ah Ting.”
“Good.” He praised her lightly, neither too gentle nor too harsh, yet his hand did not stop in the slightest.
This time, the entire jasmine flower hanging at her wrist trembled.
“Mm…” Jiang Yin had little strength to begin with. After several strikes, her voice carried a sobbing tone. “Why are you hitting me again?”
Chu Nanci’s throat bobbed for a few breaths before he spoke as usual. “Only when you remember this feeling will you not dare to repeat it next time.”
“Repeat what?” Jiang Yin felt somewhat wronged. “I just wanted to save someone. Is that wrong?”
“Of course it is wrong.” Chu Nanci raised his hand again, glancing at her. “That day, it was Liu Niang who hurt her waist and told you to leave her and return to the village. Her disappearance can be called an accident, misfortune. To put it more harshly, it could even be called self-inflicted. The only thing it has nothing to do with is you. The life or death of Xue Zhuang’er is likewise unrelated to you. Yet you insist on taking responsibility upon yourself and blaming yourself. That is the first mistake.”
His palm fell, and Jiang Yin’s entire body trembled.
She tried to curl up, but Chu Nanci calmly pulled down the bed curtains and bound her legs, saying softly, “To find her, you participated in the Moonlit Night Tour. Not only did you get yourself injured, you also drew the covetous attention of others. That is the second mistake.”
With her legs bound, Jiang Yin could no longer struggle free. Hearing the sound of his hand cutting through the air, her voice changed in fright. “It was Xie Yunlin who misunderstood on his own. Does that count as my fault too?!”
“You forgot how to address me, yet you remember someone else’s name so clearly.” Chu Nanci let out a faint, mocking laugh. The force of his strike was heavier than before. “That truly deserves punishment.”
Jiang Yin’s vision went white. The half-closed jasmine was struck open for the most part, only a little more before it would fully bloom.
He continued, “Third, I would like to ask you. You said before that you are the young lady of the Jiang Residence, loved by your parents. Then who exactly taught you that whenever something happens, you should attribute the problem to yourself, and for the sake of outsiders, even go so far as to mistreat your own body?”
“I… I didn’t…”
As soon as Jiang Yin finished speaking, a candle lit up before her eyes. Having not seen light for a long time, her eyes stung, and she reflexively closed them.
“Open them.”
Tonight, the young man was unlike his usual gentle self. He was domineering to an extreme. Afraid that he might strike again at any moment, Jiang Yin endured the discomfort and opened her eyes.
What she saw, however, was an extremely embarrassing sight.
The young man held the candle in his hand. The dim yellow light illuminated a scene that made one’s heart race.
Before, everything had been shrouded in darkness, and she could pretend not to know. But now, there was not a single dry place left on the bed. Water was still dripping steadily from the bedside.
And at the center of the candlelight, the shocking swelling made her shrink back in fright.
With her vision restored, even without the sensation of pain, as she watched the young man’s palm come down, Jiang Yin could already imagine what kind of pain would follow once the medicine wore off.
Yet at this moment, her tears were entirely due to another kind of feeling.
The jasmine flower on her wrist was completely soaked by her tears, blooming into a vivid, damp blossom.
Through her blurred vision, Jiang Yin saw him raise his hand again. Frightened, she let out a sob. “Don’t hit me anymore… Ah Ting, please.”
She shrank back in fear. Chu Nanci lifted his eyelids to glance at her, then raised his hand to untie the bindings at the bend of her legs, wiping away the moisture that had spread outward.
Jiang Yin looked at him with misty, tear-filled eyes, her voice especially cautious. “Are you not angry anymore?”
Chu Nanci did not speak. With no reassurance, she did not feel at ease. Even though she had been untied, she did not dare to retreat. After hesitating for a moment, she gritted her teeth and said, “If you are still angry, then hit me three… two more times, that’s fine too.”
After all, she could not feel pain right now. Being hit was just being hit. She could endure it.
Hearing this, the anger Chu Nanci had just managed to suppress because of her tearful gaze surged up again. He almost wanted to do exactly as she said and strike her a few more times.
“Ah Yin, don’t be like this.” He was truly helpless. As he wiped away the tears at the corner of her eyes, he instructed her word by word, “No matter who it is for, whether Liu Niang, me, or anyone else, other people’s suffering has nothing to do with you. At any time, do not place others’ feelings above your own.”
This was an ancestral teaching of the Nine-Tailed Fox clan. At this moment, he hoped that the human wife he had chosen could understand this principle.
He could not tolerate Jiang Yin becoming like his parents and his kin, letting herself be reduced to nothing for the sake of others.
Jiang Yin stared at the young man’s pale eyes, which seemed capable of seeing through the human heart, and remained stunned for a long time.
She murmured softly, “…Fox.”
This time, it was Chu Nanci who was stunned. “What?”
Jiang Yin lowered her head, holding back the sour sting of tears.
In the original text, the nine-tailed fox demon Chu Nanci had said something similar.
That was when the male and female leads were about to seal him. Zhu Nian had asked him why he was so cruel, why he did not care about others’ feelings.
At that time, Chu Nanci’s nine tails had all been severed, his life hanging by a thread. Yet upon hearing this, he had smiled indifferently. “What do others’ feelings have to do with me? I only care about my own pleasure.”
When Jiang Yin read that line, she had firmly remembered him.
“Ah Yin, what did you just say?” Chu Nanci almost thought there was something wrong with his illusion technique, that it had failed to conceal his fox ears or tail.
He carefully circulated his energy and checked himself again and again, but found nothing unusual.
Jiang Yin raised her hand and pointed at his face. “Your mask… it’s a fox.”
By coincidence, the mask she had casually taken from the Affection Room bore the pattern of a white fox. Worn on the young man’s face, it suited him unexpectedly well.
Chu Nanci had not paid attention to it before. Hearing her say this, he reached up to remove the mask.
“Wait!” Jiang Yin hurriedly said, “Take it off later. Let me tidy up first…”
She propped herself up with her sore and weak limbs, trying to get up, but Chu Nanci had already removed the mask.
Now, with nothing covering him, when he lowered his gaze, Jiang Yin could even see, reflected in his pupils, the flushed redness she did not dare to look at directly.
“…”
She tried to pull the blanket beside her to cover herself, but he reached out and lifted it away. He even lit two more candles.
The corner of his lips lifted slightly, his tone carrying a hint of amusement. “Feeling shy now. Isn’t it a bit late?”
Jiang Yin knew it was late, of course. But looking at his face, she truly could not be as composed as she had been earlier when she had taken the initiative to respond to him.
“…It’s not the same.” That was all she could manage. “Just now I couldn’t see…”
“It’s the same.” His expression remained calm. Holding a damp cloth, he slowly wiped her clean, his movements exceedingly gentle, as if the one who had struck her mercilessly earlier was not him.
“I can do it myself…” Jiang Yin’s entire body flushed as if she had been boiled in water. She did not even dare to raise her eyes. “Stop…”
Without the mask, there was less of that illusory feeling. Her mind even began to fill in everything that had happened in the darkness just now.
Especially those hands…
Looking at the young man’s jade-like fingers, Jiang Yin felt as if her eyes had developed some special ability. She actually ignored the cloth in his hand and instead watched as, under the candlelight, his hand brushed over the jasmine petals.
Without any warning, a small drizzle fell, landing right onto his hand.
Both of them froze at the same time. In the next instant, Jiang Yin shut her eyes and played dead.
‘Serious question, is it still possible to switch to another planet to live on right now?’
Switching planets was impossible, but switching topics was still doable.
“I still want to participate in the Moonlit Night Tour. Don’t be angry yet. I understand everything you just said, but what I’m doing… rather than for Liu Niang, it’s more for myself. I truly feel guilty. If I don’t do something, I won’t be at ease. By joining the Moonlit Night Tour, no matter the result, at least I will have tried, and my conscience will be clear.”
After she finished speaking, a long while passed without any response.
The room was so silent it made one uneasy. Jiang Yin secretly opened her eyes and saw the young man staring at the dampness on his hand, seemingly lost in thought.
“…Sorry.” She apologized instinctively. “I didn’t mean to dirty your hand.”
“Dirty?” Chu Nanci clearly did not understand her choice of words. The corner of his lips lifted slightly as he licked away the remaining droplets from the back of his hand. The silver hair behind him returned to black strands, and he let out a satisfied, low sigh.
There was no sign of him finding it dirty. If anything, it seemed as though it had not been enough.
Jiang Yin felt that her worldview had suffered a tremendous shock.
Was this really something a rookie like her was meant to witness?
Hearing a faint rustling sound, she immediately turned her head away, the tips of her ears turning completely red.
…
Finally suppressing his restless instincts, Chu Nanci looked at her hand. The contrast of pale against pale somehow carried an air of indulgent allure.
He did not look for long. Afraid that if he lingered even a moment more, the heat period that had not yet fully subsided would awaken again, he suppressed the agitation within him and stood up, intending to fetch a damp cloth to wipe the stains from her hand.
But Jiang Yin tightened her grip on his hand.
“Don’t go…” Her voice trembled with sobs as she pleaded repeatedly, “Don’t go, don’t go…”
As she cried, she clutched his hand tightly, refusing to let go, like a drowning person grasping onto the only piece of driftwood.
After the release, his body temperature had recovered somewhat, yet at this moment, Jiang Yin’s hand holding his was burning hot. Sensing something was wrong, he looked at her again and realized that at some point, she had fallen asleep.
The young girl’s eyes were closed, her lashes damp with tears. Her cheeks, soaked with moisture, were flushed even more deeply.
When asleep, would she still feel shy?
He raised his hand to check the temperature of her forehead. It was just as alarmingly hot.
She had developed a high fever.
“Ah Yin?”
The girl on the bed, whether deeply asleep or unconscious from the fever, gave no response to his call. Only a few indistinct murmurs escaped her lips, pleading for him not to leave.
Her fingers gripped his hand so tightly that her nails dug into his palm, showing just how much force she was using.
Who knew what she was dreaming of.
Chu Nanci wiped the cold sweat from her forehead and said gently, “Alright, I won’t go.”
The high fever was not caused by external injury, and the power of the nine-tailed fox could not heal it. Chu Nanci could only use a sound transmission talisman to contact Huaying, asking her to send someone with fever-reducing medicine.
Huaying was not in the pleasure house at the moment. When she replied, her tone carried a trace of urgency, as if she were occupied with something important. “The fever medicine His Highness needs is already in the cabinet inside the room…”
Her meaning was that Chu Nanci could simply take it himself.
At that moment, Jiang Yin whimpered softly, “Sister Shengsheng, don’t go.”
On the other end of the sound transmission talisman, Huaying paused for a moment before speaking again, “But those are only ordinary medicines. If His Highness requires, I can send a female physician from the house to examine her thoroughly.”
Chu Nanci did not reply. He extended a tail to retrieve the medicine from the cabinet and examined it.
He was not skilled in pharmacology, but if it was only to reduce a fever, ordinary medicine should suffice.
At this moment, Jiang Yin refused to let go. The traces on their hands had not yet been cleaned. From a selfish standpoint, he did not wish to be disturbed by outsiders.
Even though everything had already ended.
Through the sound transmission talisman, the sounds of the cabinet opening and closing and porcelain containers clinking reached Huaying. Her tone was steady as she said, “After all, Your Highness has the body of a fox demon, while she is merely flesh and blood. Naturally, she cannot bear it. This matter also exhausts the mind greatly. It would be best to have a female physician prescribe medicine suited specifically for her and properly nurse her back to health.”
She waited for a long time before finally receiving Chu Nanci’s consent. “Send someone up.”
Huaying quietly acknowledged.
Soon, there was a knock at the door.
“Come in.”
Chu Nanci’s fox tail slipped between their clasped hands, wiping away the traces hidden in the gaps.
The female physician who entered was the same one the matron had brought earlier to examine Jiang Yin. He had seen her before. Her name was Fang Xin, a close friend whom Huaying had brought out from Quzhou, and she was also aware of his identity.
Even upon seeing his tail, Fang Xin kept her eyes lowered, focusing solely on taking Jiang Yin’s pulse.
After a few breaths, she withdrew her hand and went to the table to grind ink and pick up a brush.
Chu Nanci said calmly, “Speak. I can understand.”
Writing back and forth would only waste time.
Fang Xin’s hand holding the brush paused. She set it down as instructed and began to gesture.
She could not speak. In daily life, she communicated through sign language or writing. But she knew that the person in the room held a noble status among the demon clan. Even Huaying addressed him as “Your Highness.” Though he allowed her to “gesture” in front of him, she still did not dare to be presumptuous. Her movements were careful, afraid of angering the infamous ill-tempered nine-tailed fox.
After watching her gestures, Chu Nanci frowned. “You mean that there is too much accumulation of impurities within her body, and they must be expelled. Otherwise… her life will be in danger?”
It was only nine blossoms. How could it reach the point of life being in danger? Her body was truly far too weak.
Chu Nanci’s brows knitted tightly. “How do we expel it?”
Fang Xin trembled slightly as she took out a packet of golden needles. Seeing that Chu Nanci did not move, she took out a folded booklet and placed it beside the bed. “This is the information Your Highness requested.”
Chu Nanci flipped it open with one hand, scanning through it quickly, his gaze settling on several circled phrases on the page.
“Memory loss… demon power curse…”
From the information gathered at the pleasure house, Xie Huaian had encountered a puppet demon when leaving the Xuantian Sect, and had been afflicted with a demon power curse. Now he had lost his memory and mistakenly believed himself to be a demon.
Chu Nanci had long known that the Xuantian Sect disciple robes Jiang Yin wore when he first met her had come from Xie Huaian. He had only thought it a curious coincidence.
Jiang Yin had also assumed he had lost his memory and believed he had been afflicted with a demon power curse.
Continuing to flip through, there were records of some events from Xie Huaian’s time in the Xuantian Sect, as well as brief information about several people around him.
None of that mattered. Chu Nanci skimmed past them quickly, finally arriving at what he wanted.
【He has a fiancée, named Jiang Yin…】
There were some smudges in the middle, making the text unclear. Further down, it read: 【The two grew up together as childhood sweethearts, deeply devoted to each other. This time, Xie Huaian descended the mountain to marry her.】
Chu Nanci suddenly snapped the booklet shut, a trace of hostility surfacing in his brows and eyes. “Where is he right now?”
Fang Xin handed him a key.
Chu Nanci glanced at the marking on the key and immediately headed downstairs.
At the same time, a silver-white longsword appeared in his hand.
The sword was his life-bound weapon, named Wuyou. It was rarely unsheathed, because the demonic aura on it could not be concealed. Once used, it would allow the immortal sect cultivators hunting him to locate his position.
Xie Huaian had been afflicted with a demon power curse, and most of his cultivation had already been sealed. Dealing with him did not require Wuyou at all. Yet the words “deeply devoted” written on that page overlapped again and again with what Jiang Yin had said that day, that she would marry no one but him.
He could not allow Xie Huaian even the slightest chance of appearing before Jiang Yin.
Reaching the door, Wuyou left its sheath. A cold gleam flashed along the blade. Powerful demonic energy stirred up a violent gust of wind, slamming the door open with a loud bang.
But the person inside who turned to look at him in confusion was not a man.
Chu Nanci’s expression darkened even further.
“Hey…” Lin Yueying, who had been frightened out of her wits in the room, finally came back to her senses. Looking at the shattered door that had been split to pieces, then at the man with a livid face, she immediately filled in the blanks herself.
“Are you looking for Jiang Yin? She didn’t come here to find male companions, I can testify for her. The pleasure house issued a bounty, and we had nowhere else to go… wait, where are you going?”
Seeing Chu Nanci storming off in anger, Lin Yueying was afraid he intended to go and cut Jiang Yin down with a single strike. She quickly followed behind him. “Jiang Yin is not that kind of person. Don’t act rashly. If there’s something to say, say it properly.”
Chu Nanci pressed his lips tightly together. The Wuyou Sword in his hand sensed its master’s anger, its blade trembling.
The moment he heard Jiang Yin’s name, he understood.
The information from Huameng Tower could not be wrong. If Xie Huaian was not here, then it could only mean that Huaying had deliberately deceived him, all to make him leave Jiang Yin’s side.
If she was willing to risk angering him by doing this, it meant that whatever she intended to do to Jiang Yin was far more serious than simply deceiving him.
Chu Nanci hurried back. One sound transmission talisman after another burned in his hand, yet Huaying never responded.
By the time he returned to the previous room, both Jiang Yin and Fang Xin were nowhere to be seen. Without hesitation, he closed his eyes and stilled his breath, using a tracking technique to locate Jiang Yin.
Lin Yueying was still thinking about how to speak up for Jiang Yin. After finally catching up, she saw that the man’s hair was rapidly losing its color, turning completely silver in the blink of an eye.
This was a sign of chaotic internal energy.
Lin Yueying immediately stepped forward to stop him. “You need to calm yourself and regulate your breathing right now. Jiang Yin won’t do anything reckless. You should trust her…”
Chu Nanci swung his sword.
“Get out.”
This strike only landed beside Lin Yueying, stopping her from stepping forward.
He swallowed a mouthful of blood and continued searching for Jiang Yin’s presence.
But since Huaying intended to deceive him and take Jiang Yin away, she would not forget that he knew tracking techniques.
Whatever secret method she had used, not a single trace of Jiang Yin’s presence could be found throughout the entire city of Lin’an.
Even when he removed the seal he had previously placed on his fox tails and expanded the range of his tracking technique, he still found nothing.
Lin Yueying stared at the bloodstained fox tails behind him, stunned for a moment before reacting. “You’re using a tracking technique to find Jiang Yin?”
Chu Nanci did not respond to her. He continued to expand the tracking technique. One fox tail after another emerged, each marked with heavy bloodstains.
“If you keep going, you’ll fall into cultivation deviation!” Lin Yueying said urgently. “I know where Jiang Yin is!”
Only then did Chu Nanci spare her a glance. “Where?”
“The Moon Drifting Boat!” Lin Yueying said. “There’s a Illusory Memory Array on the ship. Once it’s activated, those on board will fall into their past memories. Tracking techniques can only follow traces of aura, so naturally they can’t locate someone within memories.”
Upon hearing this, Chu Nanci’s aura surged again. With anger attacking his heart, he forcibly spat out another mouthful of blood.
It was not that he did not know the Illusory Memory Array on the Moon Drifting Boat could block his tracking technique. He had simply not expected Huaying to be so bold as to go this far.
Once someone entered the Illusory Memory Array, the slightest misstep could trap them completely within their past memories. Even if they managed to leave the array, their mind would suffer severe damage.
He wiped the blood from the corner of his lips and stood up with his sword in hand.
Seeing this, Lin Yueying hurriedly said, “Your internal energy is in chaos right now. Even if you force your way into the array, you won’t be able to withstand the backlash… I have medicine!”
She took out the last piece of a Life-Extending Pill from her storage pouch, her tone carrying a faint hint of pleading. “Take me into the array with you. I’ll give you the medicine, and you can go save Jiang Yin.”
Only then, upon seeing the Life-Extending Pill, did Chu Nanci finally shift his gaze onto Lin Yueying’s face.
That face, identical to Huaying’s.