After giving the scary fox maid a few more minutes to capture Ziyou Yung’s lamentable figure from multiple angles, they brought him down.

“His palm is scrapped,” Chao said, “Wrist shattered, and one shoulder dislocated. But nothing else. Thankfully.” He paused, removed his vambrace, and fitted it around Ziyou Yung’s injured arm.

The artefact glowed, then covered the madlander boy with its healing form. Su Yafeng took it in with interest, “A peculiar artefact. Harmonious Heaven?”

Chao flinched. He had a complicated expression on his face.

“Do we move him to Pa?” Ziyou Ling asked, completely disregarding the mood. “Where’s his sword? Aye, this brat. He castrated an Imperfect Heaven 3rd order Chaosfiend and he doesn’t even know it.”

"He did what?" Youjin Liu asked, shocked. The dozen other cultivators, each stronger than Ziyou Yung by miles, stared, mouths agape.

“Oh ya’ll won’t believe it. If I could do something so whacky with only a broken arm to show for it, then—”

“Ling, stop,” Chao said.

“Huh? Wha—Yeah, we can talk about this later.” The upbeat madlander shut her mouth. Talking about Ziyou Yung’s abilities in front of strangers wasn’t the best of ideas.

Youjin Liu looked at Chao with a complicated expression. This was his adopted son and would have once been his son-in-law. Was there truly that little trust between them?

“Fairy…?” Chao looked up at Su Yafeng. The maid didn’t reply.

“Honoured Fairy,” Chao continued nonetheless, “This one rudely requests we look for Brother Yung’s sword—”

“It is trash.” Su Yafeng replied. “Let the fiends have it.”

She raised a palm, and the azure winds carried the comatose Ziyou Yung, along with Chao's mirror fortress, to the top of the fan.

She walked to the clearing, catching Su Xiya in a hug. The foxmoth yaoguai chirped happily on her snout, nuzzling against the floofy fox’s fluffy fur.

With no word of goodbye, Su Yafeng took Ziyou Yung and the two foxes, flying gracefully up as her feet gently swayed off the fan artefact. This maid judged that Ziyou Yung had enough shocks for one day.

It was time for him to take a good rest.

***

“An’ there they go. Just like that,” Ziyou Ling muttered with envy, “Wonder which realm that scary maid is in….”

“Most definitely Unfolding Heaven at least.” Ziyou Maque said, grimacing as he bound a herb-soaked bandage tighter on his arm. “We’ve gotta leave too. With us like this, I don’t like the odds of more nasty surprises.”

That got a unanimous agreement from all parties.

“I’ve sent an elder particular in the stealth arts to scout the area where the foxmoths are supposed to be,” Youjin Liu said, “let us wait a while longer.”

“Aye, forgot about that.” Ziyou Maque said, “But by the mad heavens. That missy left behind the Dusk valley lion’s meat and blood.”

“It must mean little to her.”

The Youjin clan and Free sparrow gang members had been working hard collecting the splattered gore into specialised vials and pouches. It would preserve the quality. Even though the wind foxes had ripped the creature to shreds, it was an Imperfect Heaven 3rd order Chaosfiend. To waste even a drop of its urine would be a sin. For the poor at least.

“Elder Brother Chao.” On the other side of the clearing, Youjin Chun tried approaching the meditating boy, but Youjin Gangkai stopped her.

He put a finger on his lips and shook his head. “Later.”

Youjin Chun could only agree with tears in her eyes. In the fight with the dusk valley lion, she had been useless. Chao could at least fight back with his artefact, which was part of his strength. But her…

She sat under a twilight-coloured tree, staring up at the dawn sky. The time outside the forest must be nearing evening, so the colours would match. She wanted a bath, but it would be a while before they returned.

Rustle.

“Patriarch!” A gloomy-looking lanky man appeared out of thin air before Youjin Liu.

He handed over a scene capturing token, which could capture both light and sound.

Youjin Liu read the contents as his face gradually darkened.

“I had assumed with the Dusk valley lion gone; we would have an easier time.”

“Lemme guess, fate’s being a bitch?” Ziyou Maque said with a grin.

Youjin Liu sighed, then displayed the token’s contents mid-air. He used another auxiliary jade slip called the scenic window token.

It showed a shadowy valley with hundreds of hidden caves, twilight trees, and running streams. Piles and piles of fiend corpses scattered all around it. The air was heavy with dread, and another battle would break out every few minutes.

The Three-headed marauder was there, with its army of avian chaosfiends. So were the Imperfect Heaven 2nd order Wretched bloodhound and 3rd order Bone-eating putrid python. But there were more. A humongous Wretched hornbeast the size of a house, a wretched chiroptera equally as big with its two pairs of bat wings. They gathered around an unassuming black construct embedded into the very air, as though it had ripped a hole in reality.

“A voidrift!”

“That is not all,” Youjin Liu said.

The image moved to the other side. The Three-headed marauder guarded the northern area around the cave like a horrid watchcrow. But the voidfiend corpses on the ground weren’t its doing.

Dusk valley lions, Azure dark lizards, Woodfang wolves, and,

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

"The Four fears chimaera….The 3-Star chaosfiend king." Ziyou Maque gasped.

There was a chaos-spring, seemingly newly spawned.

And it was now being guarded by a powerful and imposing chaosfiend. With four heads that resembled a bird, wolf, lizard, and lion, each one exuding a different terrifying aura. Its bird head had a razor-sharp beak with saw-like edges, while its wolf head was adorned with a metallic coat and menacing yellow eyes. Its lizard head was plated with plate-shaped gems and had a long, pointed, whip-like tongue, while its lion head was regal and proud with a magnificent mane flowing around it that sparked with lunar white qi.

The beast loomed menacingly, its body covered in thick natural armour that glimmered with a faint ethereal light. Its four tails were long and sinuous, shimmering with different shades of qi, from yin to death, dark to poison. As the chaosfiend stood guard, the air around the spring was filled with an ominously powerful energy that could be felt even from the capture.

The two sides were at war: six Imperfect Heaven 2nd order and two Imperfect Heaven 3rd order powerhouses divided into a bloody grinder.

And the Dim Gold City was woefully unequipped to sneak past them to find the ever-so-important cave hiding the foxmoths.

The group left. Nothing more to see and no solution in sight. They would have to wait for the mercenaries.

***

Chao greeted the familiar gates of the Dim Gold City with forlorn. He turned back, his excursion to the forest left wanting.

He had set out to get closer to the fox yao. Hopefully, the yao pup Su Xiya would convey his heroism to Su Nanya and gleam the truth of the princess’s intrigue, yet he was not given a chance.

“Brother Chao!” A silhouette of a roly-poly-like boy bounded over, huffing and puffing. His fats covered his beady eyes as he futilely wiped the ocean of sweat with his sweaty palms.

It was Wang Lihou.

Pant! Pant!

“T-This—” He raised up a sound transmission token. “It was making a strange kii kuu sound, and I was worried that something had gone wrong!”

"Calm down, Lihou." With a raised eyebrow, Chao said to his good brother, "Here, drink this and take a deep breath." He handed over a waterskin.

“Oh, ohhhh thanks. Cough cough arch—”

“Not at the same time!” Chao clapped his forehead, then clapped the fat boy’s shoulders until he stopped wheezing.

“I’m fine now, thanks.” Wang Lihou said.

“Why would you be worried, Lihou? You wouldn’t have any way of knowing what happened in the forest.” Chao asked, confused.

“So something did happen! By the heavens, that kii kuu voice had been driving me nuts. But I could not bear to throw the token away.”

Chao grabbed the fat boy’s meaty shoulders and shook him, “Do not ramble! Explain properly.”

“Yes, yes.” Wang Lihou blushed and threw a stink eye at the smirking Youjin Chun, “This is a ‘new and improved Dim gold sound transmission token’ that Brother Yung made. Well, that was his words, not mine. And there are only two of these, as far as I know. I have one, and the other one should be with Brother Yung. We had exchanged spiritual imprints for testing its functionalities.”

Realisation dawned on Chao’s face.

“You said kii sound?”

“And kuu.” Wang Lihou nodded.

“That’s the weird jibber Lord Yaoguai makes,” Ziyou Ling commented from the side, tending to the injured Ziyou Maque as the Free sparrow gang hauled the man on an Iron-hoofed ox cart.

The gang leader raised a hand, “When did ya hear this sound?”

“Earlier, about mid-noon I guess?” Wang Lihou said with a finger on his chin, “It was making the noise for over an hour.”

Chao took a deep breath, “When we had found Brother Yung, Lord Yaoguai was there with the fox maid. He held a sound transmission token in his paws. Come to think of it… these look identical!” Chao compared his memory with the token in Wang Lihou’s meaty palms.

“Then you mean…?”

“I cannot be sure. But Brother Yung does have a soul contract with Lord Yaoguai. It could be possible that the yaoguai can use Brother Yung’s artefacts.”

“I remember Brother Yung using a special Dim gold silk when he made these tokens,” Wang Lihou said, “I remember Silky spitting it out!”

“Silky… oh right. That was the Lord Yaoguai’s name—By the mad heavens!” Ziyou Ling yelped. She snatched the token from Wang Lihou’s hand and held it up like it was a divine treasure, “This transmitted sound across the forest!” She looked at Ziyou Maque, who was grinning like a maniac.

"Aye! This changes everything." The gang leader told Youjin Liu, "We gotsa test it first. To see if it is the real deal. But if it is…."

“Then we have half the problems plaguing the foxmoth hunt solved….” Youjin Liu finished the unspoken sentence.

Chao looked between them, then at the sound transmission token, with a complicated expression.

I would’ve died today if she did not show up… for Brother Yung.

“He solved the problem without even being here,” He muttered quietly. He noticed Youjin Chun staring at him with an unreadable gaze and turned away, leaving the rest of his sentence unvoiced. His eyes then fell on Ziyou Ling, raising a confused wind in his heart.

It’s like he’s one of those heroes in the minstrel’s epic ballads.

***

Yung slowly opened his eyes. Above was a grandiose roof in black and gold. Below, a white and fluffy bed. On his arm was Youjin Chao’s vambrace, healing him. Inside, there was pain.

His body had no visible injuries, but his spirit felt like rotten curry.

Yung looked at Su Nanya sitting by his bedside, poking Silky with intrigue.

“Nothing will go wrong, my ass!”

“Quiet, you. Dare you raise your voice in our presence.”

“I should’ve known better.” Yung grumbled. Su Nanya looked at him from the corner of her eyes, then recrossed her long legs with a huff.

Hours passed, and Yung let his aching body rest.

He was probably in the Dim gold hotel, Su Nanya’s queen’s suit. He lay on her giant bed; the curtains unfurled to let the light in. The hustle of the market square barely reached Yung’s ears. The air smelled of fresh herbs and foxy maidens.

But Yung lamented that his mind was on Youjin Chao and not the beauty by his bedside.

It was just a training session. Like a beginner’s first quest in an adventure game. So why in Gaia’s name did I meet a freaking final boss!

He cursed his own stupidity. Because the main character was with us. Of course, Youjin Chao would ‘coincidentally’ bump into a monster far stronger than him and live to tell the tale while profiting the most.

“Did you save us?” Yung asked weakly.

“Menial tasks are left to our maid.” Su Nanya replied with a huff.

Lo and behold, the protagonist was saved by Deus Ex Machina in the form of Su Yafeng.

Yung lamented; he too was important people. So perhaps…

Don’t be ridiculous.

For the main character, no mission was ‘just’ a mission. Even a rabbit hunt could yield inheritances of lost civilisations.

Yung needed to re-evaluate his next steps, scrap his whole plan, and remove his hands from Su Nanya’s own.

Which he did.

According to the vixen, converting Heart qi to True qi would significantly boost Youjin Chao’s mystical artefact’s healing properties.

Yung did feel better, and it had only been two and a half hours since he had his slimy, virgin paws around her soft, cushiony digits.

Yung felt the Vambrace on his arm. Chao didn’t hesitate to part with his greatest life-saving tool to heal me… I… It wasn’t his fault that we ran into the boss monster.

“How strange,” The vixen said, staring at her fingers with utter fascination. “that you would confess your grievous wrongs before we had the chance to rebuke adroitly.”

Yung tilted his head towards her; it was hard with his large bandages.

“We shall hear you name your sins,” Su Nanya smirked, “you may begin.”

“I… don’t understand.”

Su Nanya was flabbergasted, “Why do you think you suffered such misfortune as to be flung out from that beast’s behind?”

“I… what? Are you saying it pooped me out? What?” Yung would believe he was far more confused than Su Nanya was offended.

“What low language! How dare you,” She threw Silky at him. The critter bounced off his cheek, then giddily flew back at Su Nanya.

“Can you please explain rather than throwing stuff? God.” Yung could only hope his definitely-not-fake wince would convince the crazy thot.

“Very well,” Su Nanya sat straighter, hands crossed under her buxom, “we ask you, as you have just said that you must know better. Why, exactly, do you suppose you have crossed paths with none other than a Dusk valley lion king during your first ever jaunt into this primitive greenwood?" Her eyes were smug and bratty, "We shall hear your excuses before we shall correct your crime."

“It’s,” Because the trouble magnet Chao was with us, “a completely unfortunate coincidence.”

"Nay." Su Nanya said, her mellow voice rising an octave. "It was because you have brought the ire of the heavens upon you!"

“That’s… what I said. Bad luck.”

“But why is that, is our simple question, oh foolish new servant.” Su Nanya held her palms regally at her voluminous bust, her eyes smug with vindication, “It is for you dare to say you desire our body but not the backbone to act upon it!”