"Oh my! Such a pretty fox, and it has heterochromia and twin tails! Come here, big sister wants a hug!"
Yan Xiaoyi could never resist fluffy animals and immediately opened her arms to it.
Unfortunately, the little fellow seemed to have no interest in her. It sniffed the air, turned around, leaped into the bushes, and vanished.
"It seems Xiaozhu Peak is quite abundant in resources! I'll be eating well from now on."
Walking halfway up the mountain, Yan Xiaoyi didn't want to walk any further. Luckily, she spotted a dilapidated little wooden cabin. A bit of tidying up and it would do to make-do.
Evening fell.
Yan Xiaoyi saw the twin-tailed fox again. It was standing on the windowsill, its two eyes glowing with a faint, eerie light.
"Little fellow, do you like me? Hehe, since you're not saying no, it must be a yes!"
Yan Xiaoyi approached it with a beaming smile, and catching it off guard, scooped it up in her arms. She stroked the long fur on its body and sighed, "This texture is simply fantastic!"
The fox wriggled out of her embrace, climbed all the way onto her shoulder, sniffed her face, and then quietly curled up and settled down.
A flash of surprise crossed Yan Xiaoyi's eyes. "What's this? Does this count as accepting me?"
"Seeing as you're so white, from now on... I'll call you Little Black."
The White Fox seemed to understand her words; its fur instantly stood on end, and it bared its teeth, clearly expressing its dissatisfaction.
This little thing actually understood human speech!
With it keeping her company in the future, she wouldn't feel lonely.
"Haha, just kidding! Such a cute White Fox, how could I call it Little Black? ...Let's call you Big Yellow!"
The White Fox sprang up on the spot, whimpering in its throat, looking ready to bite someone.
Yan Xiaoyi hurriedly waved her hands. "Ahem~ my mistake, it's Xiaobai! That's flawless now, right?"
Hearing this, the White Fox finally withdrew its ferocious expression, leaped with a bounce onto the nearby tidily arranged wooden plank bed, curled into a ball, and closed its eyes.
Yan Xiaoyi sat cross-legged right beside it, muttering, "Mm, I need to get to work on my cultivation too. If I'm not mistaken, Leng Qingxue will be returning to the sect before long!"
"Oh, right!" Suddenly, she remembered a crucial piece of information.
In the original novel, Leng Qingxue owned a Treasure-Seeking Beast. Because it was injured, she ended up catching a White Fox and gouged out its inner core to treat its injuries.
That being the case! The victimized fox was undoubtedly Xiaobai!
She casually stroked the White Fox's head. "Don't worry, Xiaobai, with me here, I will never let her hurt you!"
At that very moment, the system prompt rang out: "Ding dong~ [Mission: Join the Cold Moon Sect] completed. Two hundred years of lifespan have been credited. Would you like to open the mysterious big gift package?"
"Open, open, open!" Yan Xiaoyi replied repeatedly, instantly perking up.
"Swish~" A flash of white light crossed, and a deep blue pill appeared in her hand, along with a rusted fishing trident.
Yan Xiaoyi furrowed her brow. "Come on, explain what kind of junk this is again?"
"A Qi Condensation Pill nearing its expiration date, capable of boosting spiritual energy absorption speed in a short time! An essential medicine for cultivation!"
Huh? She even had the nerve to pull out an almost-expired pill as a reward?
Wasn't she afraid it would kill her from food poisoning?
Dissatisfied, she swung the trident around. "Then what about this?"
"A rusted fishing trident. If you're lucky, you can spear a fish, and when dealing damage to humans or animals, it has a certain probability of triggering tetanus."
Yan Xiaoyi: "..." Great! Truly worthy of being a Trash System! I really want to pull you out right now and spear you a hundred times!
"Dear user, it is recommended that you take the pill immediately, as it's going to expire in just a moment~"
"I thank you for the reminder!" Yan Xiaoyi gritted her teeth, tossed the pill into her mouth, and chewed it with a loud crunch.
A moment later, the medicinal effect spread through her body.
She could clearly feel that the speed at which she absorbed spiritual energy had increased significantly.
The bottleneck at Qi Refining Level 3 Peak began to gradually loosen.
At dawn, a warm current coursed through her entire body. Yan Xiaoyi could clearly feel that her physical strength had increased significantly, and her body and mind felt a comfort she had never experienced before.
"Is this what breaking through feels like? Pretty nice~"
She slowly opened her eyes, thinking of her strange constitution: every time her cultivation increased by a level, it would summon heavenly thunder, with a 99 percent probability of randomly striking some lucky soul.
Looking toward the horizon, she muttered, "I wonder which unlucky bastard will get struck this time?"
——Well, don't blame me. The person who gets struck should reflect deeply on why it didn't strike anyone else and only struck them. Could there be something wrong with their character?
*
A thousand miles away, in a forest beneath the moon.
A middle-aged man, severely injured and with his spiritual power completely exhausted, was clutching his chest as he stumbled and fled through the woods.
Not far behind him, a bald old man clad in black robes and bearing a sinister expression was hot on his heels, clutching a gleaming steel trident in his hand.
"Thud~" The man in front ran out of stamina and collapsed to the ground.
Seeing that his target was too weak to run anymore, the old man licked his dark, glossy lips and smiled sinisterly. "Hehehe~ Ying Wuque! Don't put up a pointless struggle. Today is your doomsday!"
"Cough, cough~" Ying Wuque coughed up two mouthfuls of blood, sitting limply on the ground, powerless.
A bitter smile touched the corner of his mouth: I'm sorry, my disciples, it's all your Master's incompetence... If there is an afterlife, I will surely keep you all safe!
The one thing he couldn't figure out was why these people had such intimate knowledge of his whereabouts.
"Prepare to die! ...Huh?" Just as the old man raised the steel trident, preparing to take his life, dark clouds suddenly blotted out the sun, and a strange wind swept through the forest.
"Crack~" A bolt of heavenly thunder struck without any warning from the sky, hitting the old man right on his shining, bald forehead.
"Ah!!"
A miserable scream echoed across the sky. Before the old man could even leave last words, he breathed his last.
"This..." Ying Wuque stared in blank bewilderment at the smoking shoe-sole not far away, a stormy sea churning in his heart.
This sudden divine thunder was definitely no accident!
There was a master secretly lending a hand!
Yet being able to manipulate the power of heaven and earth, this person's cultivation must be unfathomable!
He struggled to his feet, looked up toward the horizon, and cupped his fists. "Which senior daoist has extended a helping hand? I am Ying Wuque, an elder of the Cold Moon Sect. I am endlessly grateful! Might I ask the senior to appear and show themselves?"
He waited in place for a long time, but no one appeared.
Ying Wuque guessed to himself that this must be a senior who disliked interacting with people.
He sighed softly, "It was presumptuous of me. A life-saving grace should be repaid with a gushing spring! Should there be a need in the future, senior may come to the Cold Moon Sect at any time! I, Ying, will surely do my utmost to assist!"
With that, he dragged his injured body and slowly departed.
The night wind blew, rustling the leaves.
Only a single pitch-black shoe-sole lay quietly where it was.
Meanwhile, in a secret realm not far from this place.
A young woman in white with a high ponytail felt a fierce jolt in her heart. She stared in astonishment toward the horizon, her eyes filled with disbelief.
"Junior Sister Qingxue, what's wrong with you?" A rough voice sounded beside her ear.
"I don't know." She shook her head, her expression grave. "It's just that I suddenly had a strange feeling, like... something that clearly belonged to me has inexplicably been lost!"
This answer left everyone behind her completely baffled.
What does that even mean? They couldn't understand a single word of what she was saying.
"Forget it." She shook her head, offering no further explanation. "Since matters here are concluded, let's return to the sect."
*
And the culprit behind all of this was currently lying in the little wooden cabin, hugging the White Fox and sleeping soundly.