Hu Jiuying’s right hand, which was holding a piece of fried chicken just seconds ago, turned into a sharp, white claw. She dug it deep into the princess’s eye.
“Argh!” Princess Huai yelled in pain, something that she had never experienced in her life.
In the past, she would laugh at people who were punished or bullied for not being able to withstand pain. It wasn’t until she had experienced it herself that she finally understood how torturous it could be. She began to regret not killing Hu Yue when she had the chance.
“H-how dare you! How dare you!” Princess Huai roared as she tried to keep conscious.
However, no matter how loud or how much the princess yelled, her voice could not get out of the room because of an invisible barrier erected by Hu Jiuying. She wanted the princess to experience the same torture that Hu Yue had received. That was why she did not seal the princess’ voice.
“The motto of the Foxes of Greenhills is simple; an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,” Hu Jiuying smiled. “Now that I’ve got your eye, it’s time for your tooth.”
The fox girl made a thread out of magic and tied it around the princess’s teeth and tongue before giving it a jerk.
Blood filled the princess’s mouth instantly.
“P-please… Just kill me…” Princess Huai pleaded in tears.
“Hah! Do you think I’m an idiot?” Hu Jiuying mocked. “You weren’t even the one who killed Hu Yue… The best punishment for you is to make you have a taste of hell without actually killing you.”
The girl then used magic on the princess and shattered all of the bones in her body. Unless someone was willing to give her an elixir of life, the princess would never be able to move anymore.
After finishing the job that she was here for, Hu Yingjiu turned into a ray of light once again and left before reappearing in another garden in the huge mansion.
The night was eerily quiet as Li Xiao, son of King Huai, rested in a pavilion. He was completely drunk.
A gust of chilling wind woke him up. When he opened his eyes, he saw a person slowly pacing towards him.
“Mingyue? Is that you? You’re alive?” Li Xiao jumped up with a surprised expression and tried to reach for the woman approaching him.
“Li Xiao… Why? Why didn’t you save me?”
“I-I… I’m afraid of my mother… I’m sorry… I was too weak to save you…” Li Xiao cried as he dropped to his knees. “I always thought I had mastered the way of martial arts… that I’m powerful. Yet, when that happened, I only realized how weak I was…”
“Do you really love me?” the woman asked.
“I do…” Li Xiao wiped his tears off his face. “I really love you… But… My mom… She doesn’t approve of us…”
“Then, why don’t you take your own life? We can get married in the afterlife. No one can come in our way,” the woman suggested as she threw a sword down to the ground.
“Take my own life? I…” Li Xiao grabbed the sword and pondered. “C-can I bid farewell to my father first? I know how much he loves me. It would pain him to see me go without saying goodbye…”
“No!”
“Please!”
“If you can’t do it, then let me help you!”
Before the woman could act, a dragon roar pierced through the quiet night.
When the roar ended, enormous energy gathered in King Huai’s mansion, and clouds began to form above it.
On top of the cloud stood a man with a magical mirror in his hand. The golden light shone from the mirror and scanned every inch of the mansion.
“Who would’ve thought that the mother actually had the guts to take her own life…” Hu Jiuying said as she quickly transformed into a ray of light once again to escape.
However, the man on the cloud noticed the ray of light and roared, “Monster! How dare you!”
Thunder began to roar in the clouds, and a shot of lightning shot towards Hu Jiuying.
“What? Are you trying to stop me with simple Imperial Lightning Art?” Hu Jiuying laughed as she returned to her human form. This time however, she had nine ten-feet long tails trailing behind her.
“Nine-tailed fox!” the man exclaimed.
The tails waved around and dispersed the lightning without taking a single scratch. The tails then swiped towards the man and sent him flying to the ground.
“Hah! You still need a few hundred years of training if you want to catch me. I’ll be waiting for you in Greenhills,” Hu Jiuying mocked as she disappeared into thin air.
…
King Huai’s mansion was situated on Qinghua Street, just a few miles away from the imperial palace.
As soon as the dragon alert sounded, three rays of light shot out from the palace and arrived at the mansion in mere seconds. However, they were too late, and the nine-tailed fox was already gone.
With a simple wave of his arm, Xuan Wei dug out the Taoist priest, who had been thrown deep into the ground by the nine-tailed fox.
After being fed a recovering pill, the priest slowly regained his consciousness.
“Senior Xuan Wei!” the priest quickly greeted when he saw who had saved him.
“Ling Hua, what happened here? Who tripped the dragon alarm?” Xuan Wei asked.
The barriers that were erected around the imperial palace and its surroundings were all set up by the Tao. For a demon to enter and leave the barrier with ease was something punishable by the emperor.
“Princess Huai has been murdered by a nine-tail fox from the Greenhills,” Lin Hua explained with a bitter smile.
The surprise was evident on Xuan Wei’s face when he heard that the princess was assaulted by a nine-tailed fox. Even he would have a hard time facing a first-grade level demon king.
“Amithaba. But how did the nine-tailed fox completely avoid our detection?” Kong Ci asked. Even the Buddhist Sect would get a scolding from the emperor for the incident as they had also played a part in the mansion’s defenses.
“Let’s go take a look at the princess first,” Court Eunuch Zhu scoffed. “Let me be clear that you two have to take the fall since the emperor has already learned about what just happened.”
The other three people looked at each other and let out a deep sigh.
A lot of people had gathered in the garden outside the princess’s room.
Li Heng, who was dubbed as King Huai, was staring at his dead wife while his son kneeled next to him.
“You ungrateful child! You did this to your mother!” Li Heng roared at Li Xiao.
“I-it’s all my fault… I…”
Li Xiao was in complete despair as he gripped his dull sword tightly.
Hu Jiuying had lived for hundreds of years. She understood the best form of revenge was to go for the mind instead of the body.
The more Li Xiao hated his own weakness, the weaker he would become.
When Court Eunuch Zhu and the others walked into the room and bowed to greet King Huai. “Sir!”
King Huai was the nephew of the current emperor and was one of his favorite. As one of the most powerful people in the empire, the court eunuch and representatives from the two sects had to bear the responsibility of the princess’s death.
“Please, raise your heads. My wife has been assassinated by a demon. Please help me apprehend the one who did this,” Li Heng pleaded. Despite his high status and authority, he was reluctant to act all high and mighty in front of the two immortal masters.
“Sir, can you fetch us some of the princess’s belongings so that we can track the demon who did this?” Kong Ci requested.
“It’s even better if we can get her hair or blood,” Xuan Wei added.
Li Heng immediately plucked a strand of hair with blood on it off the dead body and handed it to Xuan Wei. “Please!”
Xuan Wei took the hair and began to draw his magic out. “Let the blood be the guide. Trace!”
As the hair burst into flame, Xuan Wei closed his eyes and followed the energy trace that the magic had produced until he barely saw a person in the dark.
Yet, before he could clearly see who the person was, he was attacked by a wave of energy that caused him to fling his eyes wide open as he threw up blood.
He quickly swallowed an entire bottle of recovery pills while Kong Ci immediately started chanting to help Xuan Wei recover.
Court Eunuch Zhu let out a few dry coughs and turned to King Huai, “Sir, I’ll leave and give my report to the emperor first…”
…
Zhou Yi stood by the window in Tongfu Inn and stared at Qinghua Street.
The demonic energy there was visible even when he was more than ten miles out. He wondered how many masters had been awoken by it.
Feng Ling’er, the fox spirit, had cuddled up in his arms. Her body was trembling, and she could not concentrate on her cultivation when the energy was close to hers.
“Well, one can never escape karma, huh?” Zhou Yi raised a brow as he tracked the nine-tailed fox energy escape into the southern part of the city. He let out a sigh but did not stop it.
Zhou Yi was the one who had slain the star courtesan Ming Yue, who was none other than Hu Yue from Greenhills. Her death was warranted by the Demon Handbook. Despite that, Zhou Yi did not agree with Princess Huai’s actions.
She was a mother who had punished the girl that her son loved. She tortured the girls instead of stopping her son. Anyone would want to avenge the unfair mistreatment of the girl.
Zhou Yi learned from Hu Yue’s memory that the Foxes of the Greenhills lived in the promised land of Greenhills. They were led by a fox god who was much more powerful than a nine-tailed fox.
The fox god would naturally be enraged to learn that one of its descendants had died in the hands of a human.
Zhou Yi knew that unless the situation called for it, he should not expose the truth behind Hu Yue’s execution.