The entire evening.
Su Mumu lay obediently on the haystack, face up, looking as if she had lost her soul.
Jiang Mengxin sat nearby, gazing worriedly at the storm world outside the cave.
Whoosh whoosh
Clang!
Another tree was blown down.
“It’s really not quite…” Jiang Mengxin murmured. “She’s been like this ever since we returned from the ancient ruins. Did she trigger something?”
Su Mumu remained quiet and still, a veritable sleeping beauty.
Until one of her tails was pinched hard.
“Ow!” Su Mumu yelped, her small face full of unhappiness and resentment. “What are you doing?”
“What did you do in the ancient ruins?” Jiang Mengxin asked.
“I didn’t do anything.” Su Mumu blinked.
“Stop playing pitiful.” Jiang Mengxin said. “Tell the truth.”
“Hmm… I just grew some tails.” Su Mumu thought for a moment.
“I didn’t do anything.”
Jiang Mengxin stared straight at Su Mumu’s face.
With an examining gaze, as if to see through all falsehoods.
“I really didn’t do anything… there should still be some trust between people.” Su Mumu muttered.
“It’s hard to believe you.” Jiang Mengxin said.
Su Mumu shook her fox ears, putting on an obedient, innocent expression to show her sincerity with actions. She had now completely given up opposing Jiang Mengxin.
She simply couldn’t win against her…
It was better to just listen to her.
This was forced by circumstances, there was no other choice…
It wasn’t that she had been successfully tamed.
Su Mumu’s mind was active.
All kinds of slander and complaints were hidden in her heart, she had already cursed Jiang Mengxin hundreds of times.
Thus, her mood brightened a little.
Though she was still very melancholy…
“Who gave you the nine tails?” Jiang Mengxin asked.
“This…” Su Mumu hesitated, not knowing if she should tell the truth.
However, the next moment, pain came from the tip of her tail.
Su Mumu grimaced.
“It was… it was the chief of that Moon Clan who gave it to me. She said it was some kind of inheritance, and only if I accepted it would she be willing to send you to the ancient ruins. Otherwise, you would have fallen half-dead from the cliff.”
Jiang Mengxin was slightly startled and let go of the fox tail from her fingers.
She furrowed her brows. “Liar.”
“Really!” Su Mumu pouted her lower lip. “I’m not lying to you. Stop bullying me, okay!”
From the little fox girl’s expression, it seemed she really wasn’t lying.
Jiang Mengxin couldn’t help but feel suspicious. “Then why did you save me?”
A flicker of emotion passed through Su Mumu’s eyes, and she said softly, “Even if I tell you, you won’t believe me, and you’ll hit me.”
“Why?” Jiang Mengxin found it even stranger.
“Because you hate me.” Su Mumu’s tone was full of desolation. “You hate me, so everything I do is wrong. Even if I saved you, you would only think… that I’m lying to you, that I’m using you for something.”
Beside the haystack, the fire crackled.
The warm light reflected on Jiang Mengxin’s face, clearly showing a look of astonishment.
“I finally understand. In this world, demons and humans are natural enemies. No matter what we do, we can’t get along!”
“Even if there was a deep love in a past life, the other person wouldn’t care. Once they know the other is a demon, they’ll definitely throw away our love like trash!”
The soft, sweet voice lingered in the cave.
***
Outside, the storm raged wildly, snowflakes fleeing chaotically into the cave one by one, only to be devoured by the fire.
The expression on Jiang Mengxin’s face grew even stranger.
She opened her mouth, not knowing what to say.
“Love, feelings, memories, the future—these things are clearly more precious, but in the face of positions and stances, they mean nothing!” Su Mumu remembered something and laughed bitterly. “Fate is really boring.”
“Tch.” Jiang Mengxin clicked her tongue.
“Are you going to hit me for this too?” Su Mumu glanced at Jiang Mengxin, the firelight making her face look very beautiful.
But she couldn’t quite read her expression.
Is she unhappy? Angry? Or what?
Just then, Jiang Mengxin’s gaze also came over.
Su Mumu met her eyes.
This time, she didn’t avoid those amber eyes.
Everything was already over.
Su Mumu figured it out.
Ever since she turned back into a fox girl, ever since she accepted the Moon God race’s inheritance, she could never turn back into a human.
All her previous hiding and lies would turn into sharp blades, stabbing herself.
‘There was no way she could hide it from Xinxin…’
‘As for my own future?’
‘Xinxin had already given her answer, hadn’t she?’
‘Utter disgust, taming—the Changsheng immortal sect’s attitude toward me would only be worse. Either I’d be locked in a dungeon as a lab rat, or I’d become a dish on the chopping board.’
‘Fate was already decided.’
‘So boring.’
‘What exactly am I hiding…?’
“Do you… have something you want to tell me?” Jiang Mengxin paused. “What exactly are you…”
Before she could finish speaking, suddenly, at the cave entrance—came the sound of rapid breathing. Someone was coming!
Su Mumu looked toward it.
Jiang Mengxin did the same, immediately becoming alert.
The newcomer was a girl wearing glasses, not tall, with an ordinary appearance.
Su Mumu had a vague impression of her—she was one of the students in the elite class.
Back when she was hiding in the bushes, it was this girl who came looking for her…
“You…!” The girl looked haggard. “To actually meet living people… that’s really great…”
“You?” Jiang Mengxin stood up, flipping her palm, and a small flying sword appeared. “What are you here for?”
“Jiang Mengxin, you need to escape…” The girl fell to the ground with a thud, coughing up blood.
“They’re all dead… Those monsters are going to destroy the Outer realm world. If you don’t run, everyone will be wiped out…”
“What monsters? What do you mean?” Jiang Mengxin asked.
“It’s… the monsters sealed by the Ancient Sage… They were released by them.” The girl’s voice grew weaker.
Jiang Mengxin stared at her solemnly.
Soon after, the girl lying in the snow stopped breathing.
“She’s… dead?” Su Mumu was stunned.
“It seems so.” Jiang Mengxin walked over and examined her carefully. “With massive trauma on her body, plus the cold, she actually couldn’t have held on this long. It was her survival instinct that made her walk a bit further.”
“How tragic…” Su Mumu’s mood became heavy.
It was the first time she had directly faced the departure of a life.
Once she put together her own experience and the tragic outcome she might face in the future, she became even more depressed.
“The monsters sealed by the Ancient Sage… the creatures of the Outer realm world—are they trying to forcibly escape?” Jiang Mengxin was lost in thought, murmuring to herself. “That’s why they are attacking this world madly?”
As expected of a theoretical genius.
She analyzed the answer based on just a few small details.
Su Mumu sighed in her heart.
‘Well, this counts as the end of the world, right?’
‘Wow, wonderful. All the good things have to happen to me.’
Jiang Mengxin, not caring about the dirt, rummaged through the clothes of the corpse on the ground. Soon, she found a brilliant crystal, glowing all over.
The moment she took it out, it illuminated every corner of the cave.
Su Mumu just watched her quietly.
Implicitly, she understood what that was.
“A teleportation crystal.” Jiang Mengxin laughed bitterly, casually threw it onto the haystack, and it landed beside Su Mumu.
“Why?” Su Mumu was surprised. “For no reason, you just toss the only hope of escape to me?”
“That crystal is useless.” Jiang Mengxin shrugged. “There’s a stronger power preventing the formation from activating. It must be caused by those monsters.”
“What… does that mean?” Su Mumu’s face turned ugly.
After a moment of silence, Jiang Mengxin looked at the wind and snow outside the cave and spoke very softly. “We can’t go back.”
Kinda fitting spot to be dropped