Chapter 46: Banter Interrupted by a Vixen

"So you're saying?"

Dai Longmei glanced at Lily, who was resting across the saddle.

"Your body was just thrown away into that main city like that?"

"Mm~"

Lily's fox ears drooped once more.

"When I woke up, I found myself trapped inside this fox's body."

"I wanted to go find my own body, but I discovered I had been tossed right to the border of Jinchuan and Jinyuan."

"I had barely run far when that bunch of White Lion Cavalry came chasing after me."

"I could only run for my life, but..."

Dai Longmei patted Lily's little head.

"But a fox's short legs couldn't run fast?"

"Hmph!"

Lily flicked her tail in annoyance.

"If you were stuck in this body, you wouldn't be able to run fast either~"

"Anyway, I had no choice. Seeing that famous tall signal pillar, I decided to climb up and hide."

"It's so magical; those White Lion Cavalry couldn't sense my aether at all."

"Heh, it seems that piece of junk left behind by the immortals actually has its uses."

Dai Longmei hadn't originally thought much of that tall signal pillar, nor had he ever cared about matters from the immortal era.

However, after hearing about Lily's adventures in Dongsong and witnessing all sorts of bizarre occurrences along the way, Dai Longmei gradually began to realize that the strange events befalling him were somehow mysteriously connected to immortals, deities, alien invaders, and intoxicated foxes.

They had now coalesced into a powerful vortex, sweeping himself, Lily, and the others into its depths.

Moreover, these events were closely tied to the master who had taught him aether arts.

Perhaps, his master was right at the eye of the storm.

Dai Longmei took a deep breath and gazed at the dark purple giant rock already visible in the distance.

"No matter what, Lily, I will help you get your body back."

"After that..."

Dai Longmei looked into Lily's jade-green eyes.

"After that, what? Plum... Plum blossom."

After their intimate conversation that night, Lily's gaze toward Dai Longmei had carried a different flavor.

"After that, you'll come with me."

"Eh?!"

"No... what I mean is, you'll come with me, and Zhuzi, and Uncle Yousheng, with us, with the Liaodong Army."

"Think about it. Right now, the beacon fires of Longyou are burning everywhere, the Intoxicated Fox army is gaining momentum, and those aliens—though blocked outside the aether wall—are also growing stronger..."

Sensing that Lily's imagination was running wild, Dai Longmei quickly explained, "We all practice aether arts. Coming with me, well, isn't it much safer that way?"

Dai Longmei hadn't used the word "us," so... heh heh, was Lily really just imagining things?

"Well~ anyway, both the east and west are fighting right now, tomb raiding isn't safe for me anymore, and I can't get in touch with that old True God fellow..."

Lily looked at Dai Longmei and nodded.

"When the time comes, don't you dare leave me behind and go back to Liaodong alone!"

Seeing Lily put on her haughty act once more, Dai Longmei felt a pang of sympathy.

Lily had truly managed to survive completely on her own for over a dozen years. A young girl working as an exceptionally perilous tomb raider, hunted by aliens, and entirely devoid of family support.

"I won't, Lily, I won't."

Dai Longmei's gaze toward Lily grew resolute.

"Come back to Liaodong with me. Once this is settled, it won't change!"

Faced with Dai Longmei's deadpan seriousness, Lily suddenly burst into laughter.

"Ha, I was just joking with you."

Yet soon enough, Lily looked at Dai Longmei with tenderness in her eyes.

"I trust you, Plum."

"After all, we're already... frien..."

"Right, friends, we're already friends."

"I always treat my friends with absolute sincerity."

Dai Longmei unconsciously uttered the word "friend," yet for some reason, a faint sense of desolation stirred within his heart.

"Tsk tsk tsk, riding horses and all," Long Zhu poked his wolfish head out, sizing up the somewhat ambiguous pair of human and fox. "Still flirting away out here~"

"Hey now, you little wolf cub, stop bothering them," Dai Yousheng said, grabbing the reins and pulling Long Zhu aside.

"You two chat, take your time chatting~"

Dai Yousheng had quite naturally accepted the fact that his Fifth Young Master was apparently flirting with a young girl trapped inside a fox's body. In fact, he was rather supportive of the two of them sticking together.

Seeing Dai Yousheng's matchmaking, teasing expression, a blush inevitably crept across Lily's face.

"No, Uncle Yousheng, what are you stirring things up for?"

"You all know about Lily's situation."

"She's something the True God uses to vanquish enemies and secure victory..."

"Don't you dare call me a weapon!" Lily protested quietly using aether transmission.

"Alright, alright~ You're not a weapon, you're a pretty girl, okay?!"

"A pretty... girl..."

Lily felt her face grow hot all over again.

"She's... she's a friend helped by the True God to conquer our foes."

"The way you phrase it makes it sound like I harbor some sort of intentions toward her..." Dai Longmei stammered slightly, prompting Dai Yousheng to burst into laughter.

"Fine, fine, fine~ I won't tease you two anymore."

"Someone's there, there's someone ahead!" shouted a household guard acting as a lookout at the front of the procession.

"Look closely, boy!" Dai Yousheng called out toward the head of the column. "This whole western gate area is nothing but a vast desert, where would anyone come from?"

"It really is a person, Brother Yousheng, it really is!"

Sure enough, ahead of the caravan, kneeling by the roadside half-buried in yellow sand, was indeed a person. Several corpses lay scattered nearby.

"It looks like... a fellow tomb raider..."

Though Lily said this, she felt a sense of strangeness, for she sensed a familiar aura emanating from the kneeling figure in the distance. She attempted to probe the person's aether, but found nothing at all.

"Best be careful, we still have a mission to fulfill," Dai Longmei said coldly.

"Understood!"

"Zhuzi, take two brothers and scout out the situation!"

"You got it, Fifth Master!"

The caravan approached the figure's location while maintaining a safe distance. Long Zhu circulated his dantian, gripped his jade sword tightly, and crept forward accompanied by two sharp Liaodong guards.

Sure enough, as Long Zhu drew closer, he spotted waist-tokens on the fallen corpses—the standard identification issued by the Tomb Raider Guild to its members.

"Old Gan!"

Long Zhu had grown quite familiar with these tomb-raiding brothers and hurriedly motioned for a squad leader behind him to step forward.

"Take a look at these..."

"Ah, they're brothers from the Thirtieth Squad..."

"Thirtieth Squad?"

"Yes, we heard a loud explosion came from the direction of the main city earlier, so the Guild Master sent them here ahead of time to scout the situation..."

"Who would have expected..."

"And what about this kneeling one?"

Long Zhu approached the kneeling figure and saw that their face was veiled. Judging by their posture, they were quite graceful and did not look like a man at all.

"Official..." the kneeling figure suddenly spoke.

Long Zhu was startled, immediately leveling his jade sword at the person's neck.

"Official... I'm not... a bad person..."

"Save me... there are sharp-eared demons chasing..."

Before finishing the sentence, the person collapsed straight forward. Long Zhu hurried to catch the body, only to feel a soft touch against his chest.

"This is... a woman?"

"A woman?"

Dai Longmei, Dai Yousheng, and the others hurried over as well, only to see the veil slip to the ground, revealing a visage covered in dust and blood yet still strikingly beautiful.

An exquisite, oval-shaped face set off a delicate nose, while a pair of brown eyes gleamed like tortoiseshell beads. Though her fair hair was stained with desert sand, it retained its soft luster.

What put both Dai Longmei and Lily on immediate alert, however, was the pair of pointed ears.

Everyone already knew that stardust beings also had pointed ears. Although the unconscious maiden possessed brown skin and white hair, and her facial features did not entirely resemble those of the aliens, the two of them tacitly began circulating their aether to guard against a sudden attack.

"My~ This girl has pointed ears too?"

"Could she be an alien..."

"Unlikely, Zhuzi... unlikely."

"Take her over to the caravan first," Dai Yousheng instructed a nearby guard, gesturing for them to support the unconscious sharp-eared maiden.

"Uncle Yousheng, wait." Dai Longmei glanced at Lily perched on his shoulder.

Lily nodded affirmatively.

"Let's inspect her first."

The two of them simultaneously swept their respective aether across the girl's entire body, yet failed to detect any traces of aether whatsoever.

Although the familiar aura that had alerted Lily remained, there was indeed no deep blue aether characteristic of the aliens.

"She must be..." Dai Yousheng said, watching the girl being tended to aside.

"At the edge of the western desert, legend has it there is a city called Fulin."

"Oh, I know that, I know that..." Dai Longmei and Long Zhu chimed in simultaneously, both avid readers of weird tales and chronicles.

Seeing the two of them race to answer, Lily let out a soft snort of laughter.

"It is said that Fulin City is overflowing with gold and silver everywhere; even the city lord's palace is crafted entirely from gold."

"Gold is a rare commodity around here, something only tomb raiders like us can dig out from the ground," Lily said, staring at the girl who was slowly regaining her breath.

"Indeed, but in their realm, those things are everywhere."

Dai Yousheng continued, "Although they reside deep within the desert, Fulin City sits upon a massive oasis and is exceedingly prosperous."

"Yet they are entirely isolated from the rest of the world, with only the common folk of Longyou near the desert having any contact with them."

Dai Longmei signaled for the caravan to halt temporarily for a rest and instructed the household guards to maintain high vigilance.

"That's right~ A couple of hundred years ago, their relations with the King of Longyou were decent, but later on, for reasons unknown, official correspondence gradually ceased."

"Now, it's nothing more than a legend~"

"Heh, I've heard that the cavalry of Fulin are top-notch warriors."

"Back when Longyou was harassed by the wolf tribes of the desert, they even hired Fulin cavalry as reinforcements." Long Zhu took a hearty gulp of water to counter the scorching desert heat.

"Who knows? That was hundreds of years ago, and our historians each recorded things their own way—who knows what the situation with the Fulin people is really like?"

Dai Longmei watched the recovering sharp-eared girl, his vigilance still unyielding.

"However, the surviving records all state that the Fulin people have pointed ears and brown skin."

"Just like this girl..."

"Fox-child..."

The girl opened her mouth to speak.

"My name is... Fox-child..."

"Are you... Jade people?"

"Fox-child?"

Lily, residing within the body of a fox, felt extreme discomfort at the name, and that familiar, eerie sensation welled up in her heart once more.