When Su Qingyi walked out of her room again, she had changed into a black dress. The hem, just like her previous one, barely covered her chest and snow-white buttocks, offering a refreshingly cool feel under the scorching sunlight.
She went to the table and sat down quietly, beginning to draw talismans as Jiang Huai had taught her.
“Why do you want to learn talismans?” Jiang Huai asked, puzzled.
“After exhausting myself with sword practice every day, I can only temper my soul by learning formations and drawing talismans. Most Monster Cultivators of the Fox Clan do not understand talismans and formations, but many talismans and formations have great uses once learned. That’s why Mother asked me to study them.”
Jiang Huai understood. Since he had nothing else to do, he ended up teaching Su Qingyi for a while longer, until evening. He looked at Su Qingyi, whose face was slightly pale, and wanted to say something but stopped.
It was easy for him to teach, as he had already mastered it, but it consumed a lot of soul power for Su Qingyi to learn. The soul needed nourishment, and excessive use would lead to a headache and dizziness. Jiang Huai had reminded Su Qingyi several times to balance work and rest and asked if she needed to rest. However, Su Qingyi calmly shook her head, stating that she was already accustomed to it.
Jiang Huai taught very well. Normally, she could only figure out problems with many talismans through her own slow exploration. Now, she greedily absorbed all the knowledge Jiang Huai imparted, until her soul was on the verge of depletion. She leaned her body slightly on the table, and even her pair of snow-white fox ears drooped.
She closed her eyes to rest, her long eyelashes trembling slightly.
Despite feeling tired both physically and mentally, Su Qingyi felt no sadness. She had been accustomed to this since childhood, like a taut spring. After reaching the peak of exhaustion in her daily cultivation, she would fall into a deep sleep, and a new day would begin.
It was precisely this focused cultivation that allowed her cultivation level to reach the Seventh Realm so early. She had already sparred with several Fox Clan elders and could hold her own, never falling behind. This single-mindedness also meant that, apart from her mother, she had always been alone.
Therefore, facing Jiang Huai, she remained silent because she couldn’t think of any topics for casual chat and had never been in the habit of doing so.
While she was resting with her eyes closed, Jiang Huai was preparing some medicinal juice. He extracted the juice from some petals he carried with him, added it to his secret small desserts, and then used a small formation he had drawn earlier to freeze water into ice. A moment later, he placed a bowl of juice made from spirit medicine and fresh fruit, with a super large amount of ice, in front of Su Qingyi.
“What is this?” Su Qingyi asked, her eyelashes lifting slightly upon hearing the sound.
“It’s peach juice and a unique spirit medicine from the Eastern Region that can alleviate headaches caused by soul depletion to some extent.” Jiang Huai inserted a straw into the cup. Su Qingyi hesitated for a moment, then followed his example, parting her delicate pink lips slightly, and leaning towards the straw, taking a small sip.
Unfortunately, she did not show the joy Jiang Huai had anticipated. She remained calm and said softly, “It’s delicious.”
Jiang Huai was not disappointed. He placed the entire jug of drink on the table and said softly, “There’s more if you finish this.”
He had become a skilled physician from his own experiences. In the past, out of curiosity for formations and talismans, he often explored until his soul was nearly depleted and his head ached. He had found that drinking this helped him feel a little better. He leaned back in his chair, no longer watching the little fox girl who was biting the straw, and looked towards the dim evening glow in the distance.
The severe drought had left the Fox Clan extremely parched. The Fox Clan now only had three hours a day without direct sunlight, which was when the citizens of the Fox Clan’s Imperial City came out to engage in activities.
The Pill Formations and prescriptions he had given the Fox Clan had alleviated the plague disaster, but they were merely a temporary solution to the drought. Every day, Fox Clan citizens died from dehydration due to the hot weather, yet no one could do anything about it.
Jiang Huai had initially wanted to explore the Fox Clan out of curiosity, but as an outsider walking in the Fox Clan’s Imperial City, it was somewhat inappropriate. However, seeing how exhausted Su Qingyi was, he felt awkward to speak up about it again. So, he got up and said, “Then I’ll go back to my room to rest?”
“Okay.” Su Qingyi nodded gently. As he reached the door of his room, he suddenly heard Su Qingyi’s soft voice behind him.
“Thank you.”
“What are you thanking me for?”
“Your Pill Formations have saved many citizens of the Fox Clan.” Su Qingyi’s lips moved.
“I don’t deserve it.” Jiang Huai shook his head and walked into the room.
Those Pill Formations were not given to them for free; Bai Jin had traded them with the Fox Clan. Therefore, Jiang Huai did not feel comfortable accepting this gratitude. He returned to his room, which was simple and unadorned, with no decorations, only a wooden plank bed. Jiang Huai lay down on it, extinguished all the lights, and stared at the dark ceiling, lost in thought.
He couldn’t help but wonder what kind of existence the Heavenly Way was to this world. The Monster Clan, wishing to cultivate like the Human Clan, had to face Heavenly Punishment, yet the Human Clan was born with Heaven-blessed advantages. If the Heavenly Way was emotionless, why was it so biased?
Jiang Huai stared at the ceiling alone for a long time, gradually falling into a semi-conscious state. However, in his semi-conscious state, he had a nightmare. He dreamed of the time when Jiang Zhi tied him to a chair, unable to move, and repeatedly humiliated him with her smooth, fair, and tender feet. He could do nothing but straighten his back. In the end, Little Huai could only twitch meaninglessly, not a drop left.
He woke up from the nightmare, sitting up in bed, gasping for air.
It was terrifying.
He broke out in a cold sweat in his dream, his clothes sticking to his body. He got out of bed wanting to bathe. He opened the room door. The courtyard was empty. The moon had risen into the night sky, and the world had become incredibly quiet.
He figured Su Qingyi must be asleep too, so Jiang Huai didn’t want to disturb her. He walked towards the backyard. Just as his footsteps neared the bathhouse, he heard a very faint “ying ding” sound. The faint breathing startled Jiang Huai. At first, he thought it was a hallucination caused by his muddled head. He stopped in his tracks and, through the curtain of the bathhouse, caught a glimpse of a slender, fair figure sitting beside the bath.
Everyone has moments when they want to vent their desires. Jiang Huai’s instinctive reaction was to turn around and leave as quickly as possible, pretending nothing had happened, and come to the bathhouse later. However, what met his eyes at that moment made him tremble involuntarily, and his body froze in place.
Jiang Huai was not a righteous person. Sometimes, when he was with Qingyu or Wanwan, he would playfully say he wanted to see them pleasure themselves. Wanwan would obediently comply with shyness, while Qingyu would pinch her snow-white and tender skin with her other hand. Jiang Huai was accustomed to these things, but at this moment… Su Qingyi, in front of him, had her eyes tightly closed, covered in fine beads of sweat. Her fingernails were flashing with a sharp, cold light, like sharp blades, and she was drawing them across her clavicle. Scarlet blood beads overflowed along her knuckles. Such movements were filled with a violent sense of power, and her body was uncontrollably trembling. Her snow-white, tender skin was now covered in countless bloody and mangled red marks.
The sight froze Jiang Huai like a sculpture. The Su Qingyi at this moment was completely different from the cold and aloof Su Qingyi from the day. Her long, beautiful legs, which had amazed Jiang Huai during the day, were now covered in crisscrossing red marks. Blood flowed down to the gaps between her toes, looking as terrifying as a demon from a picture book. But besides the horror, Jiang Huai also noticed the water stains on the ground between her legs and her tightly curled toes.
And in that moment of stunned silence for Jiang Huai, he watched as Su Qingyi, with her eyes closed, clenched her fist and smashed it hard into her own snow-white lower abdomen. In that instant, her eyes widened, her eyeballs rolled up, her slender legs kicked high, and she collapsed onto the ground as if boneless. Yet, her lips seemed to be twisted into a smile of satisfaction and madness. In that very instant, Jiang Huai fled the scene.
He had no intention of peeking, but lying on the bed now, he felt restless. The exploding Monster Clan had already given Jiang Huai a significant mental shock. He couldn’t help but wonder if Su Qingyi was pleasing herself or tormenting herself. He thought about it repeatedly but couldn’t find an answer. But it had nothing to do with him; he should just pretend nothing had happened. However, as he tossed and turned in bed, Su Qingyi’s cold voice sounded from outside the door.
“You… saw everything, didn’t you?”
Jiang Huai thought he was hearing things, but when he stood up and sensed outside the door with his soul, he truly felt that in the moonlight, the naked fox girl, whose skin still bore unhealed bloodstains, was standing at his door, like a vengeful spirit come to claim his life.
“I, I just had a nightmare… broke out in a sweat, wanted to bathe, and happened to run into you… I’m sorry, it’s my fault…”
“Open the door,” Su Qingyi’s cold voice sounded again.
Jiang Huai flinched. “What, what do you want to say, just say it outside the door…”
Would this woman kill him to silence him?
“What happened just now, you are not allowed to tell anyone.” Su Qingyi’s cold voice sounded again, but it no longer carried the hint of gentleness and approachability from the daytime. It now held a commanding, threatening tone.
“Of course! I swear, I absolutely will not tell anyone. If I go back on my word, may the heavens strike me down with lightning.”
Upon hearing Jiang Huai’s promise from inside, Su Qingyi outside finally fell silent. She lowered her head slightly, blood still flowing on her skin. The wounds, blown by the wind, felt both itchy and scorching hot.
In everyone’s eyes, she was the Grand Princess of the Fox Clan, the best future heir. No one had ever seen her indulge in such frantic desires late at night, not even her own mother.
Jiang Huai happening upon her today was because she did this every day. It had become her addiction. Without it, she couldn’t fall asleep peacefully. But she had overlooked that there was another person in the courtyard, someone who might see her. Thus, by fate’s mischance, the current situation had come to pass.
She felt no shame, only fear. Fear that Jiang Huai would tell her mother about what he had seen, causing her mother to worry about her. That would be troublesome.
Su Qingyi hated trouble.
“Open the door,” Su Qingyi said coldly again.
“Didn’t I promise you? Why open the door, what are you trying to do?”
Jiang Huai’s forehead was covered in cold sweat. He was already preparing to use an Experience Scroll and make a run for it, but Su Qingyi’s calm voice said, “I want you to look me in the eyes and say it again.”
Jiang Huai cautiously opened the door. Su Qingyi outside was still naked. In the dim moonlight, her blood slowly flowed down her porcelain-white skin. Her fox tail, hidden behind her legs, concealed her pubic bone. In the moonlight, her waist was held straight, her eyes were clear, but there was no killing intent.
The moonlight also fell on her clavicle, and everything below her clavicle came into Jiang Huai’s view.
“I swear I will not tell anyone about this.” Jiang Huai looked into her eyes and repeated softly.
Su Qingyi gazed into his eyes. One second, two seconds, three seconds passed.
These three seconds felt like a century to Jiang Huai. Finally, Su Qingyi suddenly leaned closer, her forehead touching his, her delicate pink lips so close to his that the warm breath she exhaled fell on his cheeks.
“I believe you.”
She stared at Jiang Huai for a few more seconds before softly saying again, “Thank you.”
With that, she turned around and left from under the eaves. Jiang Huai did not dare to look at her snow-white, slender back again. He hurriedly closed the door, dived into the quilt, and wrapped himself up, trembling.
The mother fox is terrifying, the Western Region is terrifying, I really want to go home.
