Xun Xue’s gaze swept over the little one’s drooping, lifeless ears atop her head.
She couldn’t help but chuckle, rubbing that wilted little head, “Alright~ Just wait a moment… I’ll have someone from the palace bring another one over.”
“Mm-hmm.”
Lu Qiancha instantly perked up, even her little tail couldn’t help but wag quietly—a single coin had bought her one and a half sugar sculptures.
She was delighted.
“Heh.”
Xun Xue watched the little one’s sudden shift from gloomy to cheerful, barely able to hold back her laughter. With affection, she pinched the little, warm, fuzzy paw.
In a few more days, she wouldn’t be able to pinch it anymore—better to enjoy it while she could.
Lu Qiancha didn’t mind. She focused on finishing the sugar sculpture, then patted her paws, swiftly shedding the ruqun that had a bit of sugar dust on it and quickly changing into a little wool jacket.
Afterward, Lu Qiancha’s eyes locked onto the pile of snack boxes stacked like a small tower on the low table.
“Awuu!” A small piece of honeyed snow lotus cake.
“Awoo!” A bite of glutinous rice dumpling stuffed with red bean paste.
In just a few bites, more than half of the snack tower had visibly disappeared.
She was full.
Lu Qiancha contentedly rubbed her slightly bulging belly.
A fruitful haul, a fruitful haul.
Once she was satisfied, Lu Qiancha decided to go out for a walk to ease her mind, and to practice the Moon Shadow Escape Art technique she’d just obtained.
Xun Xue didn’t stop her.
She simply stood up, hung a Shui Xian Palace Token around her daughter’s neck, tidied up the messy hair on her daughter’s forehead, and gently reminded her, “Don’t get too caught up with Moon Shadow Escape Art, come back early, and no staying up late.”
“Got it!”
Lu Qiancha drew out her reply, her figure already vanishing with a “whoosh,” blending into the cold, vast moonlit night outside the hall.
Leaving the boundary of the palace, she stepped onto the edge of the empty, snow-covered martial field.
Lu Qiancha steadied her breath, spiritual energy surging within her.
A stream of clear, cold moonlight, pure as a cold spring, descended silently from the Ninth Heaven, enveloping her.
Her steps began—the opening movement of the “Moon Shadow Escape Art” technique.
A wonderful sense of “body and mind as one, spirit and light entwined” arose within her!
She felt as if she’d turned into a strand of flowing moonlight, her consciousness light and eager to soar.
With each step, a subtle resonance and pull formed between her and the immense lunar star in the heavens.
Wherever her heart willed! There the light would follow!
Lu Qiancha’s form on the snowy ground grew faster and blurrier.
Moonlight flowed over her, as if draping her in a gauzy veil of light.
Spiritual power surged, merging body and moon.
She let go of all restraints, letting her mind guide her movements.
“Whoosh!”
“Whoosh!”
“Whoosh!!!”
With several ghostly shifts as swift as teleportation, Lu Qiancha felt her grasp of this movement technique growing more natural and adept.
Guided by the lunar force, mind as her vessel; her figure moved like a startled swan’s shadow, vanishing within the moon’s glow.
She was completely immersed in this mystical state!
But during her final, all-out step, her spiritual power condensed a bit too fiercely.
When her form solidified again, the sensation underfoot was no longer the soft, crunching sound of snowy ground.
Instead, it was a smooth, hard, black stone surface.
Where was this?
Lu Qiancha looked up in confusion and found herself standing before a grand, ancient temple exuding an aura of wildness and divinity—the enormous Wolf God Temple of the Grand Spirit Lord stood before her.
The temple doors were tall and broad, with a massive black plaque trimmed in gold suspended high above—“Wolf God Temple of the Grand Spirit Lord.”
In front of the doors, two massive statues of Ice Soul Giant Wolves, sculpted both fiercely and majestically, held huge stone orbs like suns and moons in their paws.
Their gazes seemed to pierce through the void, coldly watching her, this uninvited intruder who had blundered into a sacred domain.
“?!”
Lu Qiancha’s little mouth hung open.
Oh no, oh no!
She’d gone too far!
She instinctively shrank her neck, wanting to quietly sneak away, but at that moment—
A deep, resonant hum, as if from the ancient depths of the earth, rang out behind her without warning.
“…Come here.”
The strange voice sounded directly in Lu Qiancha’s ear. The little wolf cub’s eyes immediately glazed over, slipping into a daze.
Her short legs moved on their own, step by step, toward the silent, shadowy gates of the ancient temple.
At the instant she entered the temple—
“Poof!”
It felt as if she’d passed through an invisible barrier.
A streak of flowing light flashed, and Lu Qiancha’s muddled consciousness cleared in an instant.
“Huh?” The next second she was awake.
Lu Qiancha suddenly felt her center of gravity sink oddly. The seemingly smooth black altar stone beneath her feet had become slick as if greased.
Her limbs simply refused to cooperate.
“Thud!” With a resounding crash, Lu Qiancha landed squarely on the icy hard ground in a textbook “all four paws to the sky” pose.
Lu Qiancha was seeing stars from the fall, her head spinning.
What was going on?
She shook her confused little head, trying to push herself up.
But… as soon as she raised her upper body, her hind paws slipped.
“Thud!” She slammed hard back to the ground.
Wait, who swapped my key controls?
She finally realized something was wrong, and jerked her head down to look at her body—
“???”
Her body wrapped in the wool jacket was gone.
In its place was a tiny wolf cub, covered in thick, dark-blue soft fur, her paws even smaller and rounder, clearly just weaned.
“Who?! Who turned me… into a dog?!”
Lu Qiancha’s voice, full of fear and disbelief, echoed through the empty great hall.
“Not a dog, a wolf.”
A cool, ethereal girl’s voice, like a drop of icy spring water into a cold pool, sounded from above.
Beside the towering statue of the celestial wolf, stood a wolf tribe loli, only a head taller than Lu Qiancha.
At the same time, a slender foot wrapped in frosted boots, treading upon mist, landed silently on the ground not far before Lu Qiancha’s eyes.
“So you’re the one who did this to me?!”
Lu Qiancha abruptly looked up, baring her little sharp teeth at the gray-haired loli who looked down with arms crossed, “Turn me back now!”
“It was not my doing.”
The loli’s face stayed blank as ever, just slowly shaking her head, her voice utterly even.
She looked up at the immense statue of the celestial wolf, its gaze disdainful toward all creation: “This is the will of the Grand Spirit Lord. How could a human form step foot in the sacred land?”
Her indifferent gaze returned to the bristling little wolf cub on the floor: “To face the Grand Spirit Lord, you must appear in your original form. This is an iron rule as old as time.”
Following her gaze, Lu Qiancha looked at the wolf god statue, its gaze arrogantly surveying all.
“Ha~”
“Hey! You up there, big dummy! Did you hear me?! Hurry up and turn me ba—”
Lu Qiancha bared her teeth at the statue.
“Smack!”
A hand chop, sharp and sudden, struck down hard on Lu Qiancha’s furry little head.
Tears welled up in Lu Qiancha’s eyes as she curled her paws to cover her head, feeling deeply aggrieved—these local deities really were too rude.
“Show respect to the Lord of Spirits.”
The little loli slowly withdrew her hand, her tone still utterly flat.
“And who are you to boss me around?”
Lu Qiancha clutched her head, staring back at her with her blue eyes.