Night quickly fell.
Wei Tianchong stood guard inside a bush that was as tall as a man. He stared ahead while his puppet loyally stood guard at his side.
As the minutes went by and the darkness deepened, the fox was still nowhere to be seen.
Wei Tianchong was growing more and more tired. He had never been through much hardship before, so he only found all this waiting very boring and annoying. His eyelids gradually began to sag.
At first, he still struggled to stay awake. But drowsiness continued to assail him, and a thought gradually began to form in his mind… I have a puppet protecting me, so it should be fine if I sleep a little.
Just like that, he fell asleep.
After sleeping for some time, he felt a gust of wind that made him shiver.
He opened his eyes and found that he was still in the bush. All was quiet, without the slightest sign of activity.
Whew! “Nothing happened,” Wei Tianchong sighed in relief.
He suddenly felt that something wasn’t right. Wei Tianchong turned his head to the side and saw a cute little red-furred fox squatting to his right, looking at him with beautiful blue eyes. It had a long and slender mouth and a bushy tail.
The eyes of the man and fox met.
“Ah!” Wei Tianchong shrilly screamed, his yowl tearing through the serenity of the night.
“C-c-catch it!” Wei Tianchong shouted.
The puppet strode over.
When the fox saw this, it turned around and ran off.
“After it!” Wei Tianchong shouted.
The fox ran quickly, jumping out of the shrub. From time to time, it turned to look back at Wei Tianchong, who was still doggedly chasing it together with his puppet. In the blink of an eye, they were out of Wanxin Village and running through the mountain forest.
Wei Tianchong shouted as he ran, “Don’t even think about escaping!”
But it seemed like he couldn’t catch up, and he was already panting for breath. He began to slow down.
The fox saw that Wei Tianchong was slowing down and actually stopped.
It turned around and looked at Wei Tianchong, faint derision in its eyes.
Wei Tianchong grew furious. “Shit, it even has the guts to wait for me.”
He resumed the chase.
The fox saw that he was chasing again and turned back around to run into the forest.
Running and stopping, the two of them ventured deeper into the forest.
Every time Wei Tianchong became unable to run, the fox would stop and look at Wei Tianchong.
Wei Tianchong was helpless and furious, scowling, “You won’t be able to run away forever!”
As they ventured deeper and deeper into the forest, Wei Tianchong found himself next to a mountain stream.
The water flowed rapidly, and the stream was broad enough that the fox couldn’t jump across. It stopped next to the stream and turned to look at him.
Wei Tianchong smugly laughed. “So? Where are you going to run now? I knew I would catch you!”
He strode forward with the puppet, and the fox continued to just sit there, watching Wei Tianchong.
Just when he was ten steps from the fox, Wei Tianchong felt the ground beneath his feet give way.
A large hole appeared beneath him.
Wei Tianchong screamed as he fell into the pit along with his puppet.
The bottom of the pit was made of soft soil, and Wei Tianchong had been through training before, so he wasn’t injured by the fall, merely a little sore around the rear. When he raised his head, Wei Tianchong discovered that the pit was at least five meters deep. He hadn’t learned any leaping spells, so he was unable to jump out.
The fox’s head appeared at the entrance to the hole. It looked down the hole and tilted its head as if it was appreciating the sight. Wei Tianchong could see the ridicule in its eyes.
His heart trembled as he sat himself on the ground. “It’s over! I fell for a trap… I can’t believe I fell for a fiend beast’s trap!”
While Wei Tianchong couldn’t be said to be the last to be captured by a fiend beast’s trap, he was probably the first.
The thought that he might die because of this filled him with remorse, and he covered his head and began to cry.
But the lethal blow he was expecting never came. The little fox glanced at him a few times before disappearing.
Wei Tianchong waited around for the fox to appear, but he soon got bored and fell asleep.
Wei Tianchong began to dream.
In his dream, he completed the mission and became Yan Changfeng’s True Inheritor. From then on, his cultivation increased by leaps and bounds, and he was soon able to order around the academy, the Basking Moon Sect, the Rosecloud Domain, the Great Stellar Chiliocosm…
At his left and right were his trusted generals, Tang Jie and Shi Meng, and behind him were countless beauties like An Rumeng, Liu Hongyan, and Ping Jingyue. All of them prostrated at his feet and shot him flirtatious glances. There was also a heavenly palace atop the clouds that wandered freely across the world, and wherever he went, he was worshiped and adored.
Content with his achievements, Wei Tianchong stood at the apex of life and loudly laughed.
But… hold on. Why was it raining?
Wei Tianchong angrily pointed at the heavens. “I didn’t let you rain, but you still dared? Put it away!”
But the rains only grew stronger, instantly drenching Wei Tianchong’s face.
Face?
Wei Tianchong froze, and the world before him changed, all of the gorgeous sights vanishing, to be replaced by the face of a fox that was licking him.
“Ah!” Wei Tianchong shouted in alarm. Jumping up, he struck a rock wall, and only now did he realize that this was a cave.
He tried to grab a weapon in panic, but he discovered that his weapon wasn’t on him. As for the puppet, for some reason, it wasn’t answering his summons.
In the middle of his shock, he heard a voice call out, “Little friend, do not panic…”
As his horse had died and he had been chased by Ye Tianshang’s group for a while, Tang Jie didn’t manage to get to Wanxin Village until the morning of the next day.
When he arrived, he saw that Shi Meng was already there, wearing the clothes of a farmer.
Tang Jie chuckled, took a school uniform out of his Mustard Seed Bag, and threw it over. “What? Did Ye Tianshang chase you so hard that you couldn’t even keep your clothes?”
In the past, Shi Meng would definitely have vented his anger, but he was uncharacteristically solemn. “The young master has gone missing.”
“What?” Tang Jie was startled. “You said the young master has gone missing?”
“Mm, I’ve looked all over, but I can’t find him,” Shi Meng replied. While his horse had been so tired that it was frothing, it hadn’t died, so he had arrived a little before Tang Jie. He had looked around the entire village but had found no sign of Wei Tianchong.
“Could he have not come here?”
“I asked around, and he apparently came yesterday and asked for information on the fiend fox. But no one has seen him since last night. And someone also mentioned hearing someone yell last night. Do you think…” Shi Meng said no more, but Tang Jie understood what he meant.
Sighing, Tang Jie said, “It seems he went to find the fiend fox on his own… This is a problem. I shouldn’t have let him go out alone. It was to temper him a little, and now look at what’s happened!”
He stomped his feet and cursed, “Shit!”
He was clearly furious.
“That fiend fox is weak, so the young master should be strong enough to deal with it,” Shi Meng consoled himself.
“The problem is that this isn’t a world where fists can solve everything!” Tang Jie angrily said. “There are examples of the weak overcoming the strong to be found all throughout this world. Someone like him is bound to be the target of someone else pulling off the miracle of the weak overcoming the strong!”
“Then what do we do now?” Shi Meng anxiously said.
“What else can we do? Find him!” Tang Jie quickly walked over.
Following the instructions of the villagers, Tang Jie soon came to the area near the shrub where Wei Tianchong had been hiding.
Looking around, Tang Jie said, “The young master was probably here, looking out for that fiend fox.”
“How do you know that he was looking out instead of something else?” Shi Meng asked.
Tang Jie retorted, “Do you think he could come up with a better idea?”
“……”
Walking forward, Tang Jie inspected the area while using his spirit identification techniques. “There are no intense spiritual energy ripples, so it doesn’t seem like any high-power spell arts were used. Of course, a night has passed, so they might have dispersed. But since it doesn’t seem like shrubs have been knocked down, there was probably no battle here. Shi Meng, go over there and see if there are any tracks.”
Shi Meng hurriedly ran over, and the two began to search for clues. Shi Meng soon shouted, “Tang Jie, come and look over here!”
Tang Jie ran over and saw Shi Meng standing atop a trampled bush.
Tang Jie carefully examined the bush and muttered, “It wasn’t caused by a fight. It’s more like someone was lying here for a long time, not moving at all… Shit, did he fall asleep?”
The two of them looked at each other.
Someone of Wei Tianchong’s personality really might have done such a thing.
Tang Jie looked at the sides and found some crushed blades of grass. “The traces are deep and heavy, but they don’t cover much of an area, so these were left by the puppet. This should be the place.”
The puppet weighed more, so it left more obvious marks.
Tang Jie plucked a blade of grass from the ground and gave it to Shi Meng. “Use the Tracking spell!”
The Tracking spell allowed one to track down the target, but it would only work on something that the target had interacted with before, and there was a limit to how long the time between interaction and the usage of the spell could be. If it had been too long, the aura on the item would have disappeared, rendering it unusable for tracking.
This was why, even though the two of them had always been close with Wei Tianchong, they had been unable to use the Tracking spell. They had to first find out where Wei Tianchong had been.
Although that blade of grass wasn’t his, as he had been lying on it for a long while, it had been stained with his aura. It also hadn’t been too long ago, so it was perfect to use for Tracking.
Shi Meng took the blade of grass and activated the Tracking spell. A faint trail of energy soon appeared before Shi Meng’s eyes, leading into the distance.
“He went that way!” Shi Meng shouted.
“Let’s go!” Tang Jie shouted, and the two swiftly rushed forward.
They followed the trail all the way to a mountain stream, where they spotted that large hole next to the stream.
Shi Meng pointed at the hole. “Oh my god! He fell into the hole.”
The two of them looked at each other and bitterly chuckled. Wei Tianchong was probably the only person that this could happen to.
Tang Jie glanced inside. “He’s not there. Shi Meng, keep tracking him!”
“It’s no good.” Shi Meng shook his head. “The spiritual energy has been thrown into disarray here. Someone seems to have done something here so that they can’t be tracked.”
