When Yan Qing’an cried out “ouch,” He Heng’s pupils trembled slightly. In his heart, there was already a vague sense of about seventy to eighty percent “not good”.
But he still couldn’t help but scrutinize the person in front of him, trying to find the characteristics of a monster from the other party.
In the midst of the chaos, He Heng’s palm accidentally brushed against the alluring curves of the other’s waist and hips.
In that instant, even his tail stiffened in mid-air.
He Heng’s mind was filled with thoughts – what if this was really his master? How would he explain himself later?
Meanwhile, Yan Qing’an’s ears were already as hot as boiled shrimp, and he had no idea what He Heng was thinking. He just felt a burning sensation and a tingling on the skin that He Heng’s palm had touched. Subconsciously, he exclaimed,
“Don’t touch!”
“Let me go quickly.”
Just then, a strong wind blew through, and the forest echoed with the rustling sound. The dark shadow from before swiftly traversed through the dry trees beside the two. Zhou Yue, with a long sword in hand, closely followed at an incredible speed.
Upon seeing the two figures on the ground, Zhou Yue couldn’t help but pause, freezing in mid-air. He even forgot to continue chasing the monster.
He first looked at He Heng in amazement and said,
“He Heng? So, you’re here?”
“I was wondering where you went just now.”
Then Zhou Yue’s gaze shifted, and upon noticing Yan Qing’an bound by a red rope, his expression became somewhat subtle.
“Daoist Yan is here too?”
“I won’t disturb you then. I’ll go catch that monster first.”
With that, he left like a gust of wind, leaving He Heng alone in the chaotic breeze.
Then he quickly thought,
Zhou Yue had the ability to see spirits; he wouldn’t be deceived by monsters. He might be confused, but he wouldn’t be mistaken.
Since he referred to the person as “Daoist Yan,” the person currently bound beneath him with the monster-binding rope could only be his master.
Damn it!
He Heng’s heart immediately skipped a beat, and his tail and ears stood erect due to excessive tension.
As he reached to untie the knots on the person beneath him, He Heng attempted to shift the conversation, “Master, how did you come here?”
Yan Qing’an moved his somewhat numb wrist,
“You’ve been gone for so long; I thought something happened, so I came to find you. But who knew that as soon as I came…”
At that moment, He Heng noticed the red marks on Yan Qing’an’s wrist, rubbed raw by the rope. He quickly grasped Yan Qing’an’s wrist, which had turned red from the friction, and asked,
“Does it hurt?”
“You tied me—”
Finally freed from He Heng’s bindings, Yan Qing’an felt wronged, so he intentionally prolonged the tone when saying this sentence.
Upon hearing this, He Heng became even more flustered. He hastily half-embraced the person, gently blowing a few breaths of cool air onto the red marks on his wrist.
“Blow a bit, it won’t hurt after blowing.”
The wrist held in the other’s palm felt slightly itchy, cool, and the large tail behind them continued to sweep back and forth.
At this moment, the two were very close, and He Heng could almost touch his nose by just lowering his head. Yan Qing’an’s gaze also became somewhat uneasy. He felt the burning sensation behind his ears increase rather than decrease. He quickly found a topic to divert his attention.
“The monster is still outside?”
“Aren’t you going to catch the monster?”
“Oh, right.” As soon as the other mentioned it, He Heng suddenly remembered something. His ears perked up again. “Yes, the monster is still outside. I need to catch the monster.”
Almost mumbling to himself, he picked up the sword from the ground.
Seeing He Heng’s foolish appearance, Yan Qing’an subconsciously lifted the corners of his mouth.
For some reason, ever since the other grew ears and a tail, he often seemed a bit silly?
In the desolate mountain forest,
Following the traces left by Zhou Yue, He Heng and Yan Qing’an quickly arrived at the location where he and the monster were.
However, the moment the two stepped into that area, an inexplicable sense of foreboding arose in their hearts.
The temperature around them suddenly dropped, as if the air had been sucked dry. Gusts of chilling winds swept through, sending shivers down their spines.
He Heng instinctively looked down, only to see a few dry leaves at his feet being blown away by the wind, revealing gray lines crisscrossing the ground. The shape vaguely resembled a straight-edged triangle.
It looked clearly artificially drawn.
“Darn it, I was wondering why it kept circling around us here.”
At that moment, Zhou Yue’s voice suddenly echoed from beside them,
“I didn’t expect to fall into the trap set by that monster.”
The next second, the temperature in the air seemed to drop a few degrees again, and eerie laughter echoed from all directions.
He Heng looked up at him and asked, “What kind of formation is this?”
“The Four Symbols Illusion.”
Zhou Yue succinctly uttered four words and then explained, “The moment we mistakenly entered the formation, I finally understood what kind of monster it is.”
“Why does the monster we’ve been chasing always change its form and frequently create illusions of those demonized corpses?”
“Because it’s a Thousand-Faced Fox Demon, exceptionally skilled in using illusions. Just now, within this formation, it revealed its true form.”
As Zhou Yue’s words fell, He Heng saw that the black shadow weaving through the ancient tree thicket indeed had nine tails. However, its face kept changing—now a human visage, then transforming into demon snakes, rabbit demons, rat demons, and other minor demons, yet never settling into a fixed form.
In this brief moment, He Heng attempted to channel his inner strength to break through the constraints of the formation. The black mist around him instantly began to emerge, but the true qi circulating in his dantian seemed to be restricted, making it impossible for him to exert force.
“Is there no way to break the Four Symbols Illusion?”
Due to the sense of powerlessness, He Heng’s voice carried a hint of anger.
Zhou Yue shook his head,
“The Four Symbols Illusion, as the name suggests, is a formation composed of four emotions: joy, anger, sorrow, and happiness. The difficulty lies not in the strength of its magical power but in its ability to immerse you so deeply in your emotions that you cannot extricate yourself. Moreover, one might encounter their inner demons within the illusion. This formation has no direct approach; you can only rely on your own abilities to resolve it.”
He Heng subconsciously exclaimed, “Inner demon?”
But in the moment this sentence was uttered, he felt a sudden sensation of dizziness, as if his whole body had become weightless, and his voice sounded distant, as if coming from a faraway place.
He Heng vaguely sensed that the illusion was starting to take effect.
“Yes, the demonic obstacles within your heart, the deepest obsessions in your heart.”
These were the last words he heard at that moment.
In the moment he felt his feet leaving the ground, He Heng’s gaze fixated on Yan Qing’an, whose face was gradually becoming blurred. He mused vaguely,
What could be his inner demon?
The next second, He Heng fell into the illusion.
Before him stood a celestial platform in the ethereal clouds.
Yan Qing’an wore a white Daoist robe, his black hair pinned up with a hairpin. He held a long sword and, under the gaze of thousands, became the first mortal to step onto the celestial platform.
Countless cultivators below looked up at him with admiration.
As he crossed the celestial platform, he glanced back, leaving He Heng with an indifferent silhouette, eyes cold without a trace of warmth, as if he were a banished immortal with no attachment to the mortal world.
That icy feeling made He Heng feel as if his heart had been stabbed.
The next moment, the white figure plummeted rapidly the instant it crossed the celestial platform. Yan Qing’an’s white robe suddenly stained with mottled bloodstains, and with every few meters of descent, his cultivation dissipated.
The scene before He Heng unfolded like a fast-forwarded slideshow, replaying the injuries inflicted on him by the original owner.
“No!”
In He Heng’s mind, a frantic cry echoed, “No!”
Yet, he was utterly powerless to stop what was happening before his eyes. In the end, Yan Qing’an lost his inner core, lost his cultivation, and collapsed helplessly in a pool of blood, surrounded by disdainful cultivators holding long swords.
He Heng’s heart was filled with endless anger and pain in that moment.
Just then, a voice suddenly echoed in his mind,
[Wake up.]
He Heng immediately looked around anxiously, trying to find the source of the voice.
“Who are you? Why are you hiding in the shadows and refusing to come out? Are you the Thousand-Faced Fox Demon controlling me into this illusion?”
[…]
[I am a Thousand-Faced Fox Demon with a hammer. I am your system, 996.]
He Heng: “Damn.”
“You should have told me earlier.”
He almost forgot he had a system.
Immediately after, he turned to look at the person lying in the pool of blood, and his pupils contracted for a moment.
“So, is everything here fake?”
[Not entirely.]
[If he hadn’t encountered the original owner, Yan Qing’an would indeed have stepped onto the celestial platform, becoming the first mortal to ascend to immortality.]
[This is an illusion, but not entirely. There are karmic connections between all things. Every different choice you make will lead you to a different fork in the road. You can think of this place as a map leading to various forks.]
[But with me here, you won’t fall into these illusions.]
As 996’s words fell, the scene before He Heng rapidly shifted again. A swamp-like fresh blood spread, engulfed the surroundings, rising past He Heng’s calves. The air was filled with the frenzied cries of monstrous creatures.
These sounds seemed to come from all directions and were incredibly penetrating, causing a sharp pain in the eardrums.
For some reason, the previously unsealed demonic creatures from Cangshan Abyss gathered again in an instant. They seemed to have broken some restraint, opening a gateway from the human realm to the demonic realm. For a moment, the three thousand worlds were once again shrouded in darkness.
Someone had to bear the blame for all of this.
To protect He Heng, Yan Qing’an once again became the target of the cultivation world. He endured cruel corporal punishment for violating Daoist rules, without the protection of his dantian. In the end, the whip left glaring bloodstains on his back.
Yet, in the illusion, He Heng could only stand on the sidelines. He couldn’t speak, couldn’t integrate into the scene; he was utterly powerless.
A cold, mechanical voice suddenly sounded,
[You don’t—]
But before 996’s words could finish, another voice abruptly interrupted,
“Do you know?”
The voice was sharp and thin, much like the eerie laughter that He Heng and the others had often heard before.
He Heng immediately realized it was the Thousand-Faced Demon Fox speaking to him. With this realization, he became alert, but the voice continued,
“Do you know? In fact, the inner core your master lost, you can find a way to retrieve it for him.”
“Those righteous cultivators just don’t want to tell you.”
He Heng’s pupils quivered again.
In Yan Qing’an’s illusion,
The surrounding sounds were crashing waves, and the air carried a slightly damp, salty scent. His ears were filled with the continuous shouts.
Was he on a ship?
Yan Qing’an could see the chaos around him, crew members and people dressed as servants running around the deck in panic, but he couldn’t see himself.
He could only see his hands, and when he lowered his head, there was a vast emptiness.
So who was he?
But just then, someone on one side of the deck was calling his name.
Yan Qing’an couldn’t make out the specific words, but he was sure it was his name being called.
He rushed over eagerly, only to see half of He Heng’s body almost engulfed by the waves outside the deck, his chest bleeding profoundly.
The moment he glimpsed this scene, an incredibly intense wave of emotions surged in his heart, as if all the love and feelings that had been sealed away were now erupting.
He couldn’t speak; he could only reach out to pull He Heng.
However, the waves were too ferocious, and he, with only a pair of hands, couldn’t possibly lift He Heng up from below.
In the moment of He Heng’s fall, the sea surface instantly transformed into an endless abyss, and the deck beneath him rapidly dissipated.
All that remained in Yan Qing’an’s mind was one thought:
He Heng is dead.
Because he couldn’t pull him up, He Heng died.
The emotions of sadness and self-blame, like a bottomless pit, gradually consumed him. Yan Qing’an felt himself plummeting rapidly into the abyss, about to be engulfed by this extreme and agonizing emotional turmoil.
Just in the moment of descent, he suddenly had a thought:
If he allowed these emotions to continue, he would completely sink into this abyss, unable to break free.
In that instant, countless shattered fragments of memories flashed through Yan Qing’an’s mind. These fragments intertwined, as if forming a reel of film, connecting and passing through his mind in a rapid montage.
All were daily scenes of interaction between him and He Heng,
The image of He Heng with a furry tail,
The sight of him getting drunk and throwing a tantrum,
And the moment he said to him,
“Want to have a child with me?”
A child?
With this thought, the sadness that had enveloped Yan Qing’an suddenly dissipated. In this moment, he felt his mind buzzing.
Yan Qing’an felt that he had finally identified the problem with this illusion.
He Heng wasn’t dead,
He wouldn’t die.
Everything he had seen just now was just an illusion designed to confuse the mind.
Yes,
He hadn’t had a child with him yet, so how could he die?
As his mind gradually became dominated by this thought, Yan Qing’an felt the descent slowing down. The endless sorrow dissipated, and finally, the scene in front of him blurred again.
When Yan Qing’an slowly opened his eyes once more, a dazzling golden light flashed before him. Instinctively, he raised his hand to shield his eyes.
At the same time, the sound of a baby’s cry and the midwife’s congratulations filled his ears.
“Madam, it’s a boy!”
Because he was in a dream, Yan Qing’an didn’t find the scene before him strange at all. He just wanted to take a quick look at his child.
The next moment, He Heng, with wolf tail and wolf ears, sat beside his bed, cradling the baby in the swaddle with a contented expression.
Yan Qing’an focused his gaze, only to see the infant in the swaddle with a mixture of gray and white dog tail and dog ears – clearly a mixed breed!
He had an immediate feeling of breathlessness, but there was no pause for him to catch his breath. He Heng took advantage of the moment and said, “Madam, look, how beautiful our dog son is.”
There was a sense of pride and self-satisfaction in his words.
Before Yan Qing’an completely escaped from the dream, his last thought was, “Why would a wolf and a fox give birth to a dog?”
Author’s note: Heng Bao once again used his own silliness to overcome death.
