AUOF - 16

The poison accelerated its growth.

He had no time to think of anything else, clutching his wound as he broke through the window and fled.

Within the ruined city, fierce winds howled and swirled, carrying with them an eerie, piercing scream that echoed through the black mist.

The poisonous fog spread thickly.

Suddenly, Ji Hengyu’s form underwent a drastic transformation.

A massive silver-white snake tail devoured his lower body, replacing his original legs.

The snake tail moved swiftly through the grass, the sound of its movement chilling to the bone. Wherever it struck the ground or stone walls, everything collapsed in its wake.

—This was the effect of the poison.

The insect had robbed him of his rationality.

Without the support of spiritual energy, the last remnants of his sanity were no longer enough to maintain his human form.

He crawled at incredible speed, and soon, his upper body began to transform as well.

The body of a snake, the scales of a dragon.

Silver horns sprouted from his head, and golden vertical pupils glowed coldly like suns devoid of warmth in the dark night.

This grotesque, mismatched form was both his truest and most despised appearance.

His original form was enormous.

Like a collapsed city, his movements flattened the already devastated Wanshui Prefecture into a barren wasteland.

Ji Hengyu ran until he reached the outskirts.

He lay hidden in the jungle, coiled amidst the mountains, his sinuous body resembling a silvery river flowing through the darkness. His scales shimmered brightly, exuding a cold light that drew living creatures closer.

After reverting to his true form, Ji Hengyu’s senses became extraordinarily acute.

Even from a hundred miles away, he could sense approaching presences.

He opened his tightly shut eyes.

His pupils dilated and then quickly contracted into thin black slits.

Ji Hengyu swung his snake tail, instantly wrapping it around the demon that had crept up behind him.

—It was a hunting eagle demon.

Ji Hengyu showed no mercy. The tail tightened bit by bit, and the eagle flapped its wings desperately in suffocation. In just a few moments, the eagle demon was brutally strangled to death.

Ji Hengyu was severely injured, and the excessive blood loss made it impossible for him to maintain his current state.

If he didn’t find a way to replenish himself, he would soon pass out, and his body would become a huge temptation for the lurking demons.

Without hesitation, Ji Hengyu dragged the freshly killed eagle demon in front of him, opened his mouth, and sank his four sharp fangs into its abdomen, unhesitatingly drinking its blood and devouring the demonic core within.

However, the effect of this demonic core was negligible to him.

Ji Hengyu concealed his presence and continued his disguise, using the same method to mercilessly kill over a dozen more demons before barely managing to stabilize his condition.

As soon as he regained some strength, he immediately forced his body back into human form.

From his head, shoulders, chest, down to his abdomen, the transformation stopped there and did not continue further.

The violent killing intent Ji Hengyu unleashed eventually caught the attention of the Heavenly Dao.

Above, storm clouds gathered densely.

They loomed ominously like a colossal storm rolling across the ocean.

At the eye of the storm, purple lightning flickered on and off.

The thunder roared deafeningly, but he calmly stared at the storm clouds, allowing the lightning to strike him without resistance.

A total of eighteen bolts of heavenly lightning struck him. Some hit his arms, while the rest landed on his snake tail.

Ji Hengyu neither dodged nor resisted, enduring every single bolt of lightning.

All things in the universe have their balance.

Life and death are determined by fate. By interfering with the destiny of this world and breaking its laws, he deserved to bear the punishment of the heavens.

When he chose to kill those demons to sustain his life, Ji Hengyu had already anticipated the consequences.

When the heavenly punishment ended, the sky cleared once again.

With Ji Hengyu as the epicenter, a hundred-mile radius around him was reduced to scorched earth. His snake tail, which had endured the brunt of the lightning strikes, bore ghastly scars, with blood seeping deep into the ground.

He gazed at it indifferently, as if it belonged to someone else.

For the Kui clan, the snake tail was the embodiment of desire.

By nature, they were lustful. Before the dawn of civilization and the establishment of laws, the Kui were not yet known as the Kui. They had no names and lived communally in damp, dark sea caves. Though they lacked intelligence, they were obsessed with expanding their numbers, with mating seasons lasting three to five hundred years.

It wasn’t until they were enlightened by the laws of the universe, tamed as divine beasts, and given the name “Kui” that they gained wisdom.

Even after attaining intelligence and understanding worldly shame, their primal instincts remained deeply ingrained.

In this era, Ji Hengyu was the last remaining Kui serpent in the Nine Ling Realm. He could endure others’ criticism and the world’s scorn, but he could not tolerate this disgusting, inescapable nature.

To him, it was a stain, a defilement.

Its existence constantly reminded him that he was nothing but an animal—even as an immortal, even in the celestial realm far beyond mortal reach, even revered by all who called him “Lord Tianheng,” he was still lowly, ugly, and dark.

The pain inflicted by the heavenly lightning slightly alleviated the corrupting desires.

Ji Hengyu leaned against a massive tree, allowing his snake tail to coil on the ground.

His hair was disheveled, and his open robe revealed two wounds—one caused by a blade, the other…

Ji Hengyu couldn’t help but touch the wound, recalling the strange scene from earlier, which only deepened his confusion.

He couldn’t harm her.

Not only that, but any harm he inflicted on her rebounded onto himself twofold.

At this moment, Ji Hengyu finally understood the cause of Su Zining’s death.

Su Zining had planted the main worm in his own body and used the child worm to control Lin Xiang’er, never expecting that Lin Xiang’er would choose mutual destruction.

So…

Was this backlash bilateral, or unilateral?

If it was bilateral…

During the time he endured the heavenly punishment, was that little fox also suffering from the torment of lightning burns?

Ji Hengyu closed his eyes, feeling an inexplicable sense of satisfaction.

**

Sang Li didn’t know when she had fallen asleep.

The feverish dizziness persisted from night until dawn. She had an incredibly bizarre dream where she inexplicably became a man, speaking to a woman in front of her. At times, he spoke gently and coaxingly; at others, he flew into uncontrollable rage.

The dream was chaotic, culminating in the woman thrusting a sword into the man’s heart.

The intense pain in her chest made Sang Li unconsciously curl up. She could vividly feel her heart shattering as the man died, and the woman’s chest bloomed with a large pool of blood.

The vivid crimson consumed the entire dream, gradually bringing Sang Li back to consciousness.

She lay there for a long time. When she finally regained some strength, she discovered that she had transformed from a human into a fox.

The original work hadn’t specifically described the protagonist’s true form.

She had always assumed that the protagonist must be a powerful nine-tailed spirit fox, perhaps not as majestic and fearsome as those described in The Classic of Mountains and Seas , but at least as cunning and alluring as Daji from Investiture of the Gods .

But no…

Her true form was only about the size of a Samoyed.

Her entire body was snow-white, with pink cloud-like patterns adorning the tips of her ears and the corners of her eyes. Her body was round, her paws chubby, and her pads soft and pink. Her nine tails were long but very thin, gathering together to form a fluffy, cloud-like mass of fur.

Oh, the tips of her tails were also pink.

To summarize—

She was neither majestic nor fierce, and certainly not cunning or seductive.

Cute, chubby, and inexplicably festive.

If she went out like this, instead of scaring anyone, she might just get caught and kept as a pet.

Sang Li couldn’t figure out how to transform back into human form, so she curled up entirely in despair.

She was a little afraid that Ji Hengyu might return to kill her again, so after waking up, she stayed hidden under the bed, peeking through the gaps with her shiny fox eyes to observe the outside.

Sang Li still didn’t understand why Ji Hengyu had suddenly attacked her.

At the time, her retaliation was driven by anger and self-defense instincts. After he left, she passed out and remained unconscious for the entire night.

At that moment, Sang Li thought she was done for.

Strangely, not only had she survived, but even the gaping hole in her chest had disappeared.

Sang Li suspected she might have misunderstood something.

She flipped over, sprawling out like a cat with all four paws in the air, and then awkwardly craned her neck to look at her belly.

—Nothing.

Aside from being fluffy, there was just her big tail.

Her ears itched, so she scratched them.

Not dwelling on these thoughts, she instinctively raised her hind leg to scratch her ear, and afterward, licked her paw.

Halfway through licking, she realized something felt off…

Her tongue froze mid-air before she could retract it.

Sang Li twitched the tips of her ears, her fox eyes wide with deep thought. After a long while, she finally grasped the severity of the situation!

She was human!

What the hell was she doing licking her paw?!

Ahhhhhh! She didn’t want to be a fox for even one more second!

Sang Li had had enough; her patience was completely gone.

She used all four limbs to crawl out, but halfway through, she discovered…

Her butt was too fat—it got stuck.

“…”

“…………”

After a fierce struggle, wriggling her entire body against the bed frame, Sang Li finally managed to free herself.

She was utterly exhausted, her fur standing on end.

The fox fur flailed wildly in the air. Sang Li reflexively wanted to groom it but managed to restrain herself. She shook her fur straight and carefully jumped out of the window.

There were still some advantages to being in her original form.

Her vision was farther, and her hearing sharper. The only downside was that she was suddenly hungry!

But in this polluted wasteland of broken walls and rubble, where could she find drinkable water?

The ground was soggy with mud, and occasionally, she came across the remains of unknown animals.

Sang Li walked cautiously, unwilling to let her soft pads touch anything unpleasant.

She arrived at a stream.

The water flowed gently, appearing relatively clean.

She approached and sniffed it with her nose. A foul smell emanated from the water. Despite her extreme thirst, she ultimately refrained from drinking it.

Just then, a shadow suddenly appeared on the opposite bank.

The creature resembled a wolf, with two tails dragging behind it. The tails were covered in sharp spines, making it look highly dangerous.

It crouched by the riverbank, drinking noisily while eyeing her with its animalistic gaze.

One fox, one wolf—they stared at each other across the river.

Sang Li instinctively sensed danger and prepared to flee when, to her surprise, the demon wolf lifted its head and… winked at her?

Its two tails stood tall, displaying every single sharp spine to her.

—This was a courtship behavior.

Did this wolf… actually take a fancy to her?

Sang Li’s whole body shuddered, and she bolted away as fast as her legs could carry her.

“Ow... Ow-ow-ow!”

The demon wolf relentlessly chased after her, howling wildly as it pursued her.

She was so terrified her fur stood on end.

Fortunately, her four legs were swift. After circling the city, Sang Li finally managed to evade the persistent harassment of the demon wolf.

The exertion left her both exhausted and drowsy. But fate seemed unkind, as torrential rain suddenly poured down from the sky, washing away the mist and cleansing the ruined city.

Her thick fur, soaked by the rain, weighed heavily on her body.

Her ears drooped, and her tail hung limply. Her paw pads were scraped raw by the gravel on the ground, causing pain that slowed her movements.

Sang Li found a small cave where she could hide. It wasn’t large, but it was just enough to fit her.

She hunched over, curling up tightly like a cat, and wrapped her nine tails around her body to keep warm.

Still, she was cold.

Her paws hurt.

With no regard for whether she was human or not, she extended her tongue to lick the wounds on her paws. Then, sticking her head out of the cave, she drank a few mouthfuls of rainwater before retreating back inside.

The rain continued to pound against the stone walls, dripping down the edges.

In the distance, the mountains formed a dark blue silhouette. Sang Li rested her head on her fluffy paws, exhaling wearily, suddenly overwhelmed with an indescribable sadness.

She wanted so badly to go home.

Even though she didn’t really have a home.

Even though she had been alone there too, without family or close friends since her best friend moved abroad. Still, she had gotten into university, and she wouldn’t have to decline invitations from classmates because of college entrance exam prep anymore.

In the future, she could make friends with nice girls. Even if she didn’t, she could always order takeout on rainy days when she didn’t feel like cooking, lounging in her rented apartment while watching TV dramas.

Instead of being here, getting attacked, and hiding in a cave without even a piece of bread.

She really wanted to eat a steamed bun.

Even a plain cornbread would do.

So lonely, she wanted to go back.

Sang Li hung her head low.

Just as she was daydreaming about unrealistic cornbread, a tender red fruit suddenly flew into the cave.

Then two, three…

Red, green, orange.

Fruits of all colors, as if they had eyes, landed right beside her.

Sang Li stared in disbelief, her fox eyes wide open—

Heaven wasn’t raining… it was raining food now?!