Shen Hao stepped closer to the floating Fox Spirit, reaching out his hand to gently pat her head, his fingers running softly through her pristine white hair.
The Fox Spirit froze, her eyes wide with shock as she stared at him, entirely caught off guard by the unexpected gesture.
“Don’t worry,” Shen Hao said softly, his voice calm and reassuring.
“Whatever tragic past you’ve carried, you’re with me now.
As long as you stand by my side and assist me, I promise no harm will ever come to you.”
The Fox Spirit gazed at him with confused, swirling emotions for a long moment.
Then, with a soft sway of her tail, her body dissolved into a beam of light, flowing back into his right arm to reform the tattoo.
This time, the fox tattoo on his skin appeared peacefully asleep, its eyes closed.
“Host, that Fox Spirit is extraordinarily charming and possesses high-tier illusion techniques,”the System Spirit’s voice chimed in his mind.”you have a nice taste”
‘it doesn’t matter she is charming or not, if she don’t harm i don’t harm her, even though she is not that loyal to me.
she isn’t my enemy.
She was only following Shen Tian’s orders at that time because Shen Tian was her beneficiary and also her master back then.’
Shen Hao subtly flexed his right hand, a thoughtful glint passing through his eyes.
‘So I’ve now secured two major figures from The Immortal Empress Returns—first Yui Ling, and now this Fox Spirit.
It won’t be long before I meet the rest.’
he picked the most sleek, high-end luxury sports car from his collection, started the roaring engine, and set off to meet his fiancée, Liu Ruoxin.
Yesterday, his father’s condition had improved dramatically—a sudden recovery so complete that both his father and mother had already packed up and left on an extended international business trip.
For the past several months, ever since his father fell ill, they had barely left his side.
Now, with his father fully restored, they were back to managing the family’s global enterprise, meaning Shen Hao wouldn’t be seeing them for quite some time.
‘It’s all because of Shen Tian’s death,’ Shen Hao realized silently.
Refocusing his attention on the road ahead, his mind shifted to his upcoming meeting with his fiancée, Liu Ruoxin.
Publicly, her reputation was infamous.
Rumors painted her as a cold, ruthless heiress—arrogant, utterly detached, and impossible to handle.
To the high-society circles, she was a spoiled, unreachable ice queen whom no man could tame.
The reality behind Liu Ruoxin’s bad reputation was far more calculated.
In the original webnovel The Immortal Empress Returns, her current situation was actually quite precarious, and the nasty rumors floating around college weren’t even true.
Those spiteful claims—calling her a spoiled, cold-hearted ice queen—were deliberately spread by a jealous female student at her university who hated her guts.
According to the novel, Liu Ruoxin was actually facing severe bullying at her university—a detail Shen Hao would have never known had he not read the plot beforehand. Find the original chapter at novelping . com.
That female student secretly held a massive crush on Shen Hao.
Jealous to the core, she targeted Ruoxin relentlessly.
To make matters worse, Ruoxin couldn’t even speak up about it.
Her life at home was a living nightmare as well.
After her mother passed away, her father essentially disowned her in spirit.
The only reason the Liu family hadn’t kicked her out onto the streets entirely was because of her formal engagement to the powerful Shen family.
Even her elder brother treated her with cold indifference.
Trapped in a hostile household and terrorized at school, Ruoxin was suffocating under the pressure.
Shen Hao cursed his past self in his mind.
If he had just bothered to run a basic background check on his own fiancée earlier, she wouldn’t have been left to endure this hell alone.
He decided that whether this political engagement survived or not, he was going to back her up—financially, mentally, and physically.
After thinking more, Shen hao now want to meet her as soon as possible but Fate seemed to have its own cold, invisible hand in this world.
Because Shen Hao refused to be a passive pawn in its game.
He pushed the speedometer further, determined to break through whatever invisible barrier stood between him and his fiancée.
his sports car surged across a pedestrian crossing.
The traffic signal was glowing bright green in his favor, but out of nowhere, a figure darted directly into the middle of the road.
Shen Hao’s sharp reflexes kicked in instantly.
He slammed his foot onto the brake pedal.
SCREECH!
The high-performance tires locked, smoking against the asphalt as the sleek sports car ground to a sudden stop just inches away from the intruder.
Though the bumper hadn’t even touched her, the sheer force of the sudden stop and the terrifying roar of the engine sent the girl stumbling backward in panic.
Her feet tangled, and she collapsed onto the pavement, dropping her belongings all over the road.
Shen Hao gripped the steering wheel, his eyes narrowing through the windshield at the girl sprawling on the ground in front of his car.
He marched toward her, ready to snap at her for blindly crossing on a bright green light.
But the moment his eyes landed on her, the harsh words froze in his throat.
She was remarkably delicate.
Cascading black hair framed a strikingly white, almost translucent face—pale to the point where she looked as though she didn’t have a single drop of blood left in her veins.
Her soft, pink eyes fluttered weakly, fighting to stay open as if she were seconds away from collapsing from utter exhaustion.
Yet, it wasn’t her frail appearance that caught Shen Hao off guard.
It was the sudden, overwhelming sensation that flooded his chest.
‘What the hell is happening to me?’ Shen Hao thought, his heart hammering against his ribs.
‘Did I just fall in love a second time?’
It was the exact same feeling he had experienced when he first saw Yui Ling—an immediate, profound sense of comfort and unshakeable attraction.
Having no other logical explanation for this instantaneous, soul-deep pull, he braced himself.
He couldn’t shake the creeping realization that his already chaotic life was about to get a whole lot more fucked up.
As the crowd rapidly gathered around the scene, hushed whispers began spreading through the onlookers.
Shen Hao stood beside his sports car, still struggling to comprehend the strange, deep sense of comfort pulling at his heart, when the System Spirit floated right beside him.
She scanned the pale, unconscious girl lying on the pavement and turned her head to face Shen Hao.
“Host, she is the Chosen One—the protagonist,” the System Spirit revealed, nodding solemnly.
“And her current condition is critical.
My scans show an dangerously low blood volume in her body.
If she doesn’t receive an immediate blood transfusion, she might not survive.”
Shen Hao’s eyes widened in confusion.
‘The protagonist…?’
With the crowd swelling and people beginning to point and throw loud questions at him, Shen Hao didn’t waste another second questioning the bizarre feelings swirling in his chest.
Regardless of his original plans, he couldn’t just leave her here like this.
Ignoring the surrounding noise and flashing phone cameras, Shen Hao leaned down, scooped the frail girl up into his arms, and carefully placed her in the front passenger seat.
He slammed the door shut, climbed into the driver’s seat, and tore away from the curb, driving straight toward the nearest hospital at full speed.
Looking over at the pale girl whose life was slipping away beside him, Shen Hao gripped the steering wheel tight, realizing with a heavy heart that his meeting with Liu Ruoxin would have to wait once again.
“What should I do, even my heart is not in my control”