That ethereal voice fell silent for a moment before quickly speaking again, carrying a sense of helpless frustration, as if despairing of someone’s incorrigibility.
“You should remember all the attempts you made before, none of which ended well for you… Even so, you still won’t give up?”
Jiu Baiyun also felt a bit helpless about this.
“There’s still hope, isn’t there?”
Seemingly at a complete loss for how to deal with Jiu Baiyun’s attitude, the ethereal voice simply gave up.
“Fine! I must have had the worst luck for eight lifetimes to have run into you! I won’t stop you from doing whatever you want, but let’s be clear first: my power is down to its last dregs. Use it sparingly.”
“Also, the barrier you set up has been damaged.”
After listening to the voice finish speaking, Jiu Baiyun couldn’t help but let out a light chuckle.
It seemed the other party was also thoroughly disappointed with this world.
But, the barrier had a problem?
When he left Nanfeng City earlier, Jiu Baiyun had already anticipated that trouble would eventually befall the city.
Therefore, he had specifically set up a barrier around Nanfeng City to ward off the eerie creatures.
If the barrier was damaged, it meant Nanfeng City…
“Forget it. I’ve done what I could. Whatever happens in the end can’t be blamed on me.”
However, he had settled in Nanfeng City for quite some time and left many things behind.
Some of those things should be retrieved now.
After pondering for a moment, Jiu Baiyun noticed something behind him—a snow-white, fluffy tail had appeared at some point.
“Tsk… what a nuisance…”
Jiu Baiyun tried wiggling the tail a couple of times before quickly retracting it, clicking his tongue in annoyance.
After he and the Yao Fox Demon Venerable self-destructed, their two true souls simultaneously took refuge in this body.
The benefit was that he still retained control of the body and could even use demonic power.
The downside was that the body would occasionally transform into a fox demon due to the Yao Fox Demon Venerable’s true soul.
Fortunately, this fox transformation was controllable, otherwise it would truly be troublesome.
After scanning the room and finding nothing else to prepare, Jiu Baiyun simply headed out the door.
However, he didn’t use the main entrance.
For reasons unknown even to himself, Jiu Baiyun had dug a tunnel in a corner of his courtyard.
Perhaps to avoid prying eyes, or perhaps to leave himself an escape route.
He couldn’t even remember the exact reason anymore.
Ever since learning this world was tainted by the eerie, he had developed this habit.
Walking through the tunnel, Jiu Baiyun’s pace was very slow.
The passage was narrow and damp, barely wide enough for one person to pass through while hunched over.
The earthen walls were cold, mixed with the scent of soil and the decay of old roots.
However, Jiu Baiyun was long accustomed to the oppressive environment.
His fingertips occasionally brushed against the uneven earthen walls, leaving faint rustling sounds.
“Squeak, squeak…”
A few faint gnawing sounds came from a corner not far away, accompanied by the quick scurrying of some small creature.
Jiu Baiyun’s footsteps didn’t falter in the slightest.
In this world shrouded by the eerie, a few sounds underground hardly counted as a threat.
The tunnel wasn’t long.
Jiu Baiyun soon reached the end—an exit half-concealed by withered vines and weeds.
Carefully pushing aside the obstructions, Jiu Baiyun emerged from the tunnel.
He quickly made a hand seal to conceal the tunnel entrance before looking around.
The tunnel exit opened at the base of the rear wall of an abandoned ancestral hall.
The hall was already in complete disrepair.
Leaning pillars supported a precarious roof, with tiles shattered and scattered everywhere.
Faint whispers could be vaguely heard.
Hearing the commotion from the ancestral hall, Jiu Baiyun paused slightly before taking a couple of steps toward it.
Initially thinking there might be refugees taking shelter inside, Jiu Baiyun merely glanced into the hall before immediately turning to leave without a moment’s hesitation.
‘Damn it, why is it her!’
As he hurried away, Jiu Baiyun kept muttering internally.
‘She didn’t notice me… she didn’t notice me… please don’t let her notice me…’
‘Nothing good ever happens when I run into her…’
However, the more one hopes something won’t happen, the more likely it is to occur. Jiu Baiyun had only taken a couple of steps when a figure appeared before him.
“Lord… Jiu, my young mistress requests your presence.”
One could hear the extreme displeasure in the maidservant’s voice.
Looking at the maid with the unfriendly expression before him, Jiu Baiyun inwardly groaned.
“Your young mistress?”
Jiu Baiyun tried his best to maintain a calm expression on the surface, even forcing out a polite, shallow smile, while subtly adjusting his stance, ready to respond to any sudden developments.
“I don’t believe I have any acquaintance with your esteemed household. Your young mistress must have mistaken me for someone else?”
“Why pretend ignorance, Lord Jiu?”
The maidservant snorted coldly, the displeasure in her eyes becoming more evident.
“You were just peeking around outside the ancestral hall, didn’t you recognize my young mistress? The young mistress said, since old acquaintances have met, she specifically asked me to invite you for a chat. Please, Lord Jiu, don’t keep the young mistress waiting.”
After saying this, the maid’s gaze hardened, simultaneously locking onto the area behind Jiu Baiyun, ready to block any attempt to flee at any moment.
Seeing the maid’s attitude so unyielding, Jiu Baiyun couldn’t help but click his tongue, his brow furrowing slightly, clearly not wanting to meet this “young mistress.”
After glancing left and right, a plan instantly formed in Jiu Baiyun’s mind.
Maintaining that polite, shallow smile on his face as if genuinely considering the invitation, he secretly began to stir the meager power within his body.
At the very moment the maid was fully focused on guarding his rear escape route, Jiu Baiyun’s figure suddenly swayed, abruptly darting sideways with such speed it left only a faint afterimage.
Simultaneously, the figure he left behind twisted like mist before slowly dissipating.
The maid was startled, clearly not expecting Jiu Baiyun to have this trick up his sleeve, and instinctively moved to intercept the darting figure.
And Jiu Baiyun was waiting for this exact moment.
The instant the maid made her move, he immediately bolted in the direction opposite the ancestral hall.
“Stop!”
The maid reacted swiftly, immediately turning to give chase, but Jiu Baiyun’s figure had already vanished.
A faint, aloof sentence drifted slowly through the air.
“No need to chase! Tell your young mistress that Jiu is but a mere mortal, far beneath the status of Lady Yun Yao. It would be improper for us to meet.”
“Damn it!” The maid stamped her foot in anger, but knowing she couldn’t catch up, she could only glare hatefully in the direction Jiu Baiyun had disappeared before turning back to report to her mistress.
Having shaken off the entanglement, Jiu Baiyun didn’t dare linger for a second.
The demonic power within him churned slightly from the earlier outburst, and his snow-white fox tail almost uncontrollably threatened to emerge.
He quickly suppressed it back, clicking his tongue again, inwardly counting himself lucky.
“Tsk, you ran pretty fast. But with only this bit of demonic power left, you still dare use it like that?”
Within his consciousness, that ethereal voice carried strong dissatisfaction and a hint of fatigue.
“What else could I do! Should I have stayed and really gone to meet that nuisance? Who knew she was from the Taihe Sect? Last time I ran into her, I almost got dragged into huge trouble!”
Jiu Baiyun retorted irritably in his mind, but his feet didn’t slow down in the slightest as he continued hurrying towards Nanfeng City.
—
“Are you sure that’s what he said?”
A gentle, refined voice slowly spoke out, tinged with a hint of weakness and fatigue.
The young woman’s jade-blue eyes stared somewhat vacantly at the dust-covered altar table inside the ancestral hall.
“Yes, that Jiu fellow doesn’t hold you in any regard at all, young mistress.”
The maidservant said unhappily from the side, her words dripping with dissatisfaction towards Jiu Baiyun.
The young woman remained silent for a long time.
She coughed lightly twice, a hand gently pressed to her chest, still staring blankly at the burning candle on the altar table.
In her mind, that snow-white figure kept surfacing.
You… where exactly are you…
“Young mistress?”
Seeing her mistress remain silent for so long, the maid couldn’t help but call out.
Only then did Yun Yao gather her thoughts, giving a slight nod.
“Let him be. He’s not our target anyway…”
Thinking of those nine fluffy, soft tails, Yun Yao’s gaze also grew resolute.
I will definitely find you…