When Sang Dai woke up, she felt hot.
The faint scent of grass and wood lingered in her nose. She found it pleasant and sniffed several times.
Her waist seemed to be wrapped tightly by something, constricting her so much that she found it hard to breathe. Instinctively, she reached out to touch it.
It was furry and coiled around her waist.
The texture was soft, like sinking her hand into cotton. The sensation was better than any high-grade spirit beast she had ever touched.
Perhaps she was still groggy, but the furry thing in her palm felt slightly stiff. She pinched it, and it trembled, though it didn’t struggle.
Sang Dai’s long lashes fluttered as she slowly opened her eyes.
The first thing she saw was a distinct Adam’s apple moving up and down. Below it was a slender, pale neck, its skin faintly threaded with veins that pulsed gently.
Then, there was the collarbone. Beneath the right collarbone was a tiny mole.
A mole?
She vaguely remembered someone with a mole beneath their collarbone. Once, during a fight, she had torn his clothes and caught sight of that mole.
He wore a spacious black robe embroidered with intricate gold patterns. Beneath it, faint outlines of his well-defined chest and abdominal muscles could be seen. She could feel that his body temperature was very high.
And then…
There was a silver-white, furry tail.
A tail?
A tail was wrapped around her waist. Her calves, her thighs—even draped over her body like a fur blanket—she was entirely encased in tails.
In her palm, she held a silver-white, fluffy tail. The tail twitched slightly, curling around her wrist as if responding to her touch.
Sang Dai’s lingering drowsiness vanished in an instant.
She heard a hoarse voice from above her head: “Awake?”
Sang Dai: “…”
“My true form—does it feel comfortable to touch?”
Sang Dai: “…”
She had seen Su Xuan’s true form before, a pure-blooded nine-tailed fox. In his full form, he was as large as a small hill—far bigger than he was now.
Back then, he had looked down at her from above, his glazed beast-like eyes cold and indifferent. His fur shone in the sunlight with a dazzling silver brilliance. Despite his nine tails being fluffy, they evoked no desire to touch—only fear at first glance.
She had only seen Su Xuan’s true form once. That time, she fought him for three months. Her provocations drove him to rapidly increase his cultivation, and he crossed a tribulation of heavenly lightning.
After the tribulation, he walked out of the lightning array, and Sang Dai had thought she was witnessing an ancient divine beast.
She hadn’t expected Su Xuan’s true form to be so enormous, like a towering mountain. Just one of his tails was thicker than several of her combined. She was utterly insignificant in the face of his true form.
Now, however, Su Xuan hadn’t fully revealed his true form. Only a few tails had materialized, and he had shrunk the size of his body. The tails were much smaller than what she had seen before, but even so, Sang Dai couldn’t wrap one hand completely around a single tail.
A single tail was as large as Sang Dai herself.
As for the texture—it was indeed quite comfortable. Soft and warm.
Yet, Sang Dai felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.
Panicking, she raised her head, only to meet Su Xuan’s lowered gaze.
The nine-tailed fox clan was known for their striking appearances, and Su Xuan’s face seemed meticulously crafted, as if by a master sculptor. His eyes were especially captivating.
Their lighter-than-usual color was like glazed glass, his silver-white eyelashes complementing the upward curve of his eye corners. Though his expression was calm, there seemed to be emotions hidden within his gaze that she hadn’t noticed before.
[Dai Dai, are you still cold?]
Cold?
Sang Dai froze for a moment, and memories of the previous night began to trickle back.
She remembered feeling cold and then suddenly sensing warmth. She had clung desperately to that warmth.
[Her body temperature is stable now, her meridians are no longer chaotic. Judging by her condition, she seems fine.]
Sang Dai: Thank you. I’m perfectly fine now.
At the moment, she felt warm all over, even within her meridians.
[Should I put my tails away? But Dai Dai, you seemed to enjoy touching them so much.]
Sang Dai: “…?”
Realizing that her hand felt like it was clutching a live bomb, she immediately released it.
[…Why did you stop? Was I too fierce with you earlier?]
At the same time, Sang Dai thought she caught a trace of regret in Su Xuan’s eyes.
Perhaps it was her imagination, but the fox tail she had just released nudged itself back into her hand, its fur brushing against the back of her palm.
It seemed to say: This lord permits you to touch. Feel free to touch to your heart’s content.
Sang Dai: “…”
“Su Xuan, I’m sorry.” She closed her eyes, lowered her voice, and apologized, pulling herself back a little to distance from him. “I must have lost my senses last night. If I acted inappropriately toward you, I sincerely apologize.”
She heard a cold snort in response.
The tail draped over her body retreated.
With her eyes closed, she could no longer hear Su Xuan’s thoughts.
Su Xuan sat up and looked at the sword cultivator still lying on the bed.
Her clothes were slightly disheveled. Last night, she had alternated between being cold and hot—clinging tightly to him when cold, and trying to kick him away when hot.
Su Xuan had been worried about her and stayed awake the entire night.
Just before dawn, Sang Dai kept muttering about being cold. No matter how much spiritual energy he transferred to her, it was of no use. In desperation, he revealed his tails, wrapping them around her like a fur blanket. He had held her entirely in his fox tails, and only then did she settle down, hugging his tail as she fell asleep.
And now, she was discarding him after using him.
While she had her eyes closed, Su Xuan glared angrily at the heartless sword cultivator.
Even so, the words he spoke still attempted to save face.
“Don’t overthink it. This lord only helped you because I was worried you’d die halfway through, and I wouldn’t be able to claim benefits from the Sword Sect. After all, I’ve invested so many celestial herbs and spiritual pills in you.”
Sang Dai, eyes still closed, nodded. “Mhm, I understand.”
Su Xuan: “…”
He couldn’t shake the feeling that she hadn’t taken it seriously.
Tidying his robes, which Sang Dai had disheveled, he got out of bed, pulling aside the canopy curtains and hanging them neatly.
When he glanced back, Sang Dai was still curled up in the blanket, her cheeks faintly flushed from the warmth of his fox tail. A sudden dryness crept into his throat.
This scene felt far too suggestive—like a married couple who had just been intimate. The husband had gotten up to tidy things, while the wife lay lazily on the bed, her eyes closed to recuperate from exhaustion.
The more his thoughts wandered, the more his suppressed frustrations from the night before flared up again. His body’s heat surged all at once to a certain spot, just as Sang Dai opened her eyes.
She only caught a glimpse of his silver-white hair swaying in an elegant arc as he turned abruptly. By the time her eyes fully focused, she could only see his back.
Sitting up, she asked in confusion, “Su Xuan, what’s wrong with you?”
The fox ground his teeth, barely holding back his frustration. “Sang Dai, don’t move.”
Lowering his head slightly, he glanced downward and, hearing the faint rustling sounds behind him, feared she might circle around to see his embarrassing state.
Last night, she had been delirious. Even when his body reacted strangely, he hadn’t worried about her noticing, knowing she wouldn’t remember.
But now, it was different. His condition was far too obvious, and his wide robes did nothing to hide it.
Sang Dai was like the moon above the clouds—pure and aloof. How could he let her see him consumed by such base desires?
His shoulders trembled.
Sang Dai frowned, stepping off the bed and reaching out to touch him.
“Su Xuan, what’s wrong with you?”
But Su Xuan dodged her hand, forcing his trembling voice to remain steady as he spoke with as much coldness as he could muster.
“This lord has matters to attend to. Today, Liu Lixue will handle your healing.”
With that, he left in haste, never letting her see his face.
The door opened and closed, leaving the spacious main hall with only her inside.
Sang Dai glanced at the pillow beside her. Two strands of silver hair lay there, and the faint scent of his grassy and woody fragrance still lingered in the air, mingled with her own light scent. The pillow bore the faint indent of a head—he had slept beside her last night.
Sang Dai rubbed her temples.
Something about him seemed odd, but she couldn’t figure out what she had done to provoke him or why he had suddenly become so irritable.
Had she said something just now?
As her hands fell to her sides, a flash of blue caught her eye. She glanced at the soft ribbon coiled around her left wrist.
The Binding Ribbon, crafted from the condensed heart’s blood and cultivation of the Beast King, was a Heaven-tier weapon. Even though it had yet to recognize her as its master, the ribbon seemed to obey Su Xuan’s orders, behaving obediently around her. It had shrunk into the shape of a bracelet, resting quietly on her wrist.
From afar, it looked like a beautiful piece of jewelry. Who would have thought this was a Heaven-tier magical artifact?
The Binding Ribbon had been quietly tending to her damaged dantian and meridians. Sang Dai’s injuries were severe, and it was only thanks to the ribbon’s continuous healing and the sporadic spiritual energy Su Xuan sent her that she had managed to hold on.
As she lightly stroked the ribbon, it affectionately pressed against her fingertip, full of spiritual vitality.
Sang Dai softly asked, “Do you have a name?”
The Binding Ribbon didn’t respond—perhaps Su Xuan had yet to name it.
She chuckled. “He’s so dismissive of a Heaven-tier artifact like you. How about I ask him to give you a proper name, would you like that?”
The Binding Ribbon spun excitedly around her wrist, then darted up her arm and encircled it in a loop. Sang Dai couldn’t help but laugh at its antics. Soon after, it obediently returned to its bracelet form, hanging quietly on her wrist and continuing to deliver spiritual energy to nurture her meridians.
She stroked it again, but the smile on her lips gradually faded.
Last night, although her mind was unclear, it wasn’t as though she had been drunk to the point of blacking out. She remembered what she had experienced with complete clarity.
That voice in her mind wasn’t Su Xuan’s, nor did it belong to anyone she recognized.
It was vast and distant, both familiar and foreign at the same time.
Sang Dai murmured under her breath, “Four Sufferings, poison, the demise of the Guixu.”
The demise of the Guixu.
Since ancient times, the Guixu had been the origin of the spiritual veins across the Four Realms. The veins derived from the Guixu were the foundation of cultivation in the Four Realms, making the Guixu the cornerstone of the entire cultivation world.
Only those who awakened Heaven-tier spiritual roots could enter the Guixu. Even so, Sang Dai herself had never seen what the Guixu’s spiritual veins looked like. As a disciple of Ying Heng, her identity was already unusual, and to avoid arousing suspicion, she had never set foot in the Guixu.
When Ying Heng destroyed the Guixu’s spiritual veins, it was tantamount to destroying the entire cultivation world, which was why the Four Realms had been hunting him ever since.
However, there was still hope for the veins, as the Guixu itself remained intact.
As long as the Guixu existed, there was a chance for the veins to regenerate. For this reason, the Four Realms had been searching for ways to repair the shattered veins or stimulate the Guixu to produce new ones.
Yet, the voice she had heard last night said:
“The Guixu will perish.”
If the Guixu truly perished, the cultivation world would be doomed.
And what did the Four Sufferings, Poison mean? Was it the reason for the Guixu’s destruction?
Sang Dai couldn’t shake the feeling that the voice she heard wasn’t a delusion born of her muddled state. It felt like something beyond her comprehension was reaching out to communicate with her.
And then, there was that final question:
“Heaven-tier spiritual root awakener, what path have you chosen?”
There were only seven individuals in the cultivation world with Heaven-tier spiritual roots, including Ying Heng.
Sang Dai’s path had been determined from the very beginning. When she awakened her spiritual root and was entrusted to Ying Heng for training, he had told her that her path was to save the world and its people.
“A sword in the hands of a sword cultivator,” Ying Heng had said, “should serve as a shield for the masses, not as a blade for oneself.”
Her dao heart had always been resolute.
But now, Sang Dai’s eyes darkened as her fingers absentmindedly stroked the Binding Ribbon. Her thoughts were tangled in chaos.
What was that voice? Was it connected to the destruction of the Guixu’s spiritual veins?
A sudden knock on the door interrupted her thoughts.
From outside came Cui Shao’s voice: “Miss Sang, Young Master Liu is here. Shall I help you get up?”
Sang Dai snapped back to reality. Morning had long passed, and the sunlight indicated it was already late in the day. She had woken up much later than usual.
Liu Lixue had come to heal her injuries so she could prepare for the meridian repair scheduled for half a month later.
She replied, “Alright, I’ll be ready shortly.”
When Sang Dai finished preparing and stepped outside, Liu Lixue was already waiting under the corridor.
He was dressed in his usual flamboyant red robes, holding a folding fan in one hand and leisurely fanning himself.
When he saw Sang Dai, he raised the fan and waved it at her. “Good morning, Eldest Miss Sang.”
Though, it was clearly close to noon.
Sang Dai shook her head helplessly and walked across the corridor until she was a short distance in front of him. “I am no longer the Sword Sect’s eldest daughter. Young Master Liu needn’t call me that anymore.”
The true eldest daughter of the Sword Sect was Shi Yao.
Liu Lixue’s expression stiffened at the correction, and he cleared his throat softly. “Miss Sang is right—my apologies.”
Having addressed her as such for over a century, it had become a habit he hadn’t yet broken.
Sang Dai shook her head. “There’s no need for Young Master Liu to be so polite.”
Recalling his lord’s instructions before leaving, Liu Lixue lowered his voice and asked, “Miss Sang, over the next half month, I will be helping heal your body in preparation for the meridian repair. It may be painful—can you endure it?”
At his words, Sang Dai curved her eyes in a smile and countered, “What does Young Master Liu think?”
Liu Lixue chuckled softly. “That was a foolish question on my part.”
Sang Dai lightly brushed her fingers over the Binding Ribbon. It responded enthusiastically, pressing against her fingertips as if in warm acknowledgment.
Her heavily damaged meridians throbbed faintly with pain.
Sang Dai lowered her gaze, but the gentle smile on her lips remained.
“Young Master Liu, after all these years, I’ve never feared pain.”
Liu Lixue paused, momentarily taken aback.
Sang Dai raised her eyes to meet his gaze and said in a calm, steady voice:
“I will return to the pinnacle of the Sword Dao.”