Just as she was about to close in on Lu Yunze, a flash of cold light in the air sliced her in two.
The next wave of fox tails shot forward, but the moment they neared Lu Yunze, the controlled puppets immediately clutched their severed tails and let out screams.
Lu Yunze had already fallen completely unconscious.
Jiang Sui planted her scythe in the ground and glanced back at Lu Yunze behind her.
“Lu Yunze? Lu Yunze?”
She grabbed him by the collar and gave him a rough shake, but there was no reaction.
“Sleeping like a log. You’ve got some nerve having that kind of mood. In the end, it still comes down to me.”
After complaining, she muttered to herself, “Maybe you’re just too exhausted. Fine, last time. I’m still counting on you to watch my back later, so don’t keep making me protect you.”
After gently setting him down, Jiang Sui turned back to face the puppets that were getting back up.
The cross-sections of their tails were completely different from ordinary fox tails. The squirming flesh was repairing the wounds, and fresh skin quickly grew brown fur, soon looking nearly identical to a complete tail.
These weren’t tails at all—they were parasites, weren’t they?
Thinking back to how she’d called that Commissioner Wang a fox spirit, she should have called them poor wretches instead, targeted by such disgusting secret arts and turned into parasitic hosts.
Jiang Sui recalled what the black cat had told her—that Gu Lan was a formidable opponent. Now she could feel it a little.
There was no such thing as a flawless secret art in this world. When one aspect was especially outstanding, there was bound to be another fatal weakness.
Jiang Sui’s beast transformation senses were exactly like that. The ability had a limited duration, and she couldn’t use multiple abilities at once, or it would greatly increase her burden.
When Jiang Sui first acquired this new ability, she tested the limits of the burden, and under the black cat’s supervision, she even tried to push past that limit.
Honestly, the consequences of that reckless stunt were quite severe. At the time, Jiang Sui felt her enhanced senses ache terribly, her head buzzed, and she nearly passed out in the bedroom, bleeding quite a bit.
Jiang Sui believed that she wasn’t the only one—Gu Lan’s secret art definitely had irreparable flaws too.
As long as she found that flaw, she could find a way to defeat her here.
More and more enemies were accumulating in the outer corridor. Jiang Sui’s expression grew grim as she shielded Lu Yunze behind her.
The puppets seemed to receive some kind of order and launched an attack together once again.
Meanwhile, on the hotel rooftop.
As the highest point of the entire building, and being nighttime, the cold wind here was far stronger than at ground level, and much colder.
Yet one person stood on the rooftop as if nothing was wrong, looking down at the road below the hotel.
After seeing Luo Yao and the others rush out of the hotel heading toward the police station, she furrowed her brow slightly and called her companion on the other side.
“If you want to save your leader, now’s the time. Once reinforcements arrive, you won’t have another chance.”
With that, she hung up.
This woman wore a thin qipao, the fabric pressed tightly against her mature, curvaceous figure by the strong wind. Her appearance was mature and beautiful, with a hint of allure at the corners of her eyes.
What was most eye-catching, of course, were the nine fluffy tails spread out behind her like a peacock’s display.
Each tail seemed to have a life of its own, drifting slowly through the air and trembling from time to time.
As a senior Budaoshi in the Black Star Cult, Gu Lan’s specialty was taking revenge on her opponents.
Her secret art, “Spirit Pivot Heart Fox,” could implant parasitic objects resembling fox tails into others’ bodies, either preserving their consciousness and strengthening their abilities, or turning them into her puppets.
But this ability required choosing between quantity or range.
If the range was large, the quantity had to decrease; if the quantity increased, the range couldn’t stretch too far.
Gu Lan had turned all the hotel staff into her puppets, and although she was hiding here, she believed it was more than enough.
She couldn’t leave this building even a step, or the backlash of the secret art would leave her severely injured.
Having accidentally let Luo Yao and the others escape, Gu Lan decided to focus on dealing with the people remaining in the hotel first, then head to the police station to see if she could wipe them all out in one go.
“How troublesome. I don’t know how you found me. But since I found you, don’t think you’ll escape my grasp.”
Gu Lan had a unique method of tracking her prey. She shared partial senses with all the puppets she controlled, and she also possessed a special tracking ability.
That was scent.
The scent emanating from every person was strong, especially after drinking alcohol—the smell of liquor was so potent it was almost choking.
That was why she didn’t attack the moment they entered the hotel. She waited until they’d had a few rounds and their bodies were drenched in the smell of alcohol.
Now there were only two people left, and one of them had already lost combat capability.
“So how much longer is that little girl going to struggle?”
Gu Lan plopped down onto a chair that had been moved to the rooftop, closed her eyes, and leisurely waited for the outcome of this battle.
She could smell it all—Jiang Sui was running, and the alcohol scent on her was heavy.
She was carrying that unconscious man, wasn’t she?
Where did she think she could run? All exits were blocked, and she couldn’t spare the attention to find Gu Lan’s location.
“Huh?”
The alcohol scent on Jiang Sui suddenly weakened considerably, but her speed increased greatly instead.
“Did she find the dead weight on her back too troublesome, so she ditched him and ran off alone?”
Gu Lan propped her chin on her hand and let out a light laugh:
“So-called feelings are all fake in times of crisis.”
Jiang Sui stopped running—probably cornered with nowhere left to go. Gu Lan decided she wasn’t going to keep playing with her, and directly ordered the puppets to pounce and tear her to shreds.
Gu Lan clenched her fist hard, and a loud crash echoed from below. The commotion was considerable—she’d even bet the walls had collapsed.
“Now I need to go find the man she abandoned.”
But after quite a while, Gu Lan found nothing.
“Why can’t I find him? Where did she throw that man?”
Gu Lan immediately intensified her search, having the puppets check every corner without missing a spot, but still found nothing.
How was that possible?
He clearly had such a heavy alcohol smell—how could he suddenly vanish?
Gu Lan pinched her chin, her expression grave.
Unless, after being abandoned by Jiang Sui, Lu Yunze had already been safely transported out of the hotel by someone.
How could that be? There were only the two of them here, and Gu Lan hadn’t detected a third person’s presence at all.
“Wait, what is this smell?”
Apart from the scents that should be in the hotel, Gu Lan also picked up a strange fragrance. This aroma was very rich, seeming like a mix of multiple floral scents, but also somewhat like a fruit fragrance.
Either way, something was off—this smell hadn’t been there before.
Creak~
The rooftop door made a sound out of nowhere, startling Gu Lan to her feet.
Was the wind just too strong?
But she remembered locking the door.
A sliver of hope lingered in her heart until that figure appeared, shattering it completely.
Jiang Sui, scythe in hand, stepped onto the rooftop and locked eyes with her.
Though a bit disheveled, she still looked full of energy, and the killing intent in her eyes sent a chill through Gu Lan’s heart.
“How did you find your way here?” Jiang Sui sneered coldly.
“Take a guess?”
The black cat didn’t know much about Gu Lan’s secret art, but it told Jiang Sui everything it did know. Unfortunately for Gu Lan, Jiang Sui was someone with a strategy.
If it had been Lu Yunze in her place, he probably would’ve been worn down until his stamina ran out.
That included the choice between quantity and range, as well as tracking by scent.
She had fled with Lu Yunze, and after confirming the large number of puppets, she could be certain Gu Lan wasn’t far from them.
As for scent tracking, Jiang Sui was carrying so many potions with her—there was bound to be a little something to mask her own scent.
Gu Lan, as the fox spirit among fox spirits, would have a shockingly strong stench when using her secret art. Jiang Sui also had enhanced olfactory senses, so it took no effort at all to trace that smell right back to Gu Lan’s location.
“I’m not the only one who’s good at sniffing things out.”
Gu Lan quickly recovered and smiled: “So you’re a little fox spirit after all.”
Jiang Sui said nothing, thinking to herself that she was indeed a fox spirit in a certain sense.
“But compared to you, Auntie, I’ve got a long way to go.”
Hearing that word, Gu Lan took a deep breath:
“Such an impolite little girl. You really do need to be properly disciplined!”
With that, the nine tails behind her suddenly stretched out, all shooting toward Jiang Sui.
Luckily, Jiang Sui was quick enough to dodge, or she’d have to change her name to “Jiang Jiu Ku” from now on.
Getting around those tails wasn’t hard. For Jiang Sui, the real challenge was getting close to Gu Lan and landing a hit.
Jiang Sui broke through the tails’ defenses to reach her front, but every swing of her scythe was blocked by Gu Lan.
These tails were different from the puppets’ downstairs—they looked like flesh and blood, but they were incredibly tough.
Jiang Sui slashed down and only managed to leave a shallow bloody mark on the surface. Before she could press the attack, she was forced back by the wild dance of tails.
Gu Lan also looked at the wound on her tail, showing clear displeasure.
Every time the tails surrounded her, Jiang Sui always found a gap to slip through.
“What a troublesome brat.”
The two of them wore each other down on the rooftop, neither able to gain the upper hand.
That’s how it seemed, but Gu Lan had long since prepared a plan.
After Jiang Sui leaped to dodge a sweeping attack, the moment she landed, the ground beneath her feet suddenly shattered. Another tail that had been lying in ambush underground burst out and wrapped around her ankle.
Jiang Sui was hoisted up in an instant, her scythe knocked from her hand, her limbs and body tightly bound.
“Got you. Any last words? You’re pretty easy on the eyes—how about becoming my puppet?”
Jiang Sui was caught, but her expression showed no tension at all.
“Don’t worry, I won’t kill you. I’ll first go find that man you hid. Don’t think masking his scent means I can’t find him.”
“Who said I hid him in the hotel?”
“What?”
Jiang Sui yawned.
“Who said I was fighting alone?”
Gu Lan was still frowning when a black shadow suddenly leaped out from the corner, flying straight at her.
“Aaah!”
Gu Lan screamed, clutching her face as the tails binding Jiang Sui loosened.
The little maid landed on the ground with a thud, unable to stop herself from complaining:
“You took way too long. I’m a cat right now, and you keep making me do heavy lifting—what am I supposed to do about that?”
The black cat shook its head at her.
All the guests had arrived. Together, they turned to look at Gu Lan, as if waiting for something.