Love & Redemption
Chapter 254: Final Volume: I Am Liuli - 13: Divine Witch (Part 7)

Chapter 254: Final Volume: I Am Liuli Chapter 13: Divine Witch (Part 7)

Wuzhiqi slowly stroked her fur, which remained smooth.

His Little Fox had gradually become stiff.

She would never again nuzzle his face with her fluffy tail, speak to him in her coquette manner with her silly words, nor would she follow him around, helpless and resentful, where all he had to do was look back to see her pointed snout.

She always complained, "Wuzhiqi, you never have me in your heart. You never look back at me. Following you around is utterly exhausting. One day if I do not wish to follow, you probably wouldn’t even notice. You make a great Monkey, surrounded by a noisy throng of brothers. But as a man, you really are terrible!"

Indeed, he was a terrible man.

Now, she was truly gone, and no matter how many times he turned around, he couldn’t catch a glimpse of her fox fur.

Wuzhiqi sighed, a sigh so faint it was almost imperceptible. He held Zi Hu in his arms, stood up, and gazed blankly around him. Everything remained unchanged; he was still himself, and Kunlun Mountain was still Kunlun Mountain. The only difference was that she was no longer there.

"Little Fox..." he murmured softly, gently brushing her closed eyes, "Dead Monkey will avenge you now. You were always so timid. Walking Huangquan Road alone, what if you got lost? That would be terribly bad. I will find some Divine Witches to accompany you."

He slowly drew the Sea Control Hook from beneath his ribs. Sensing the turbulent aura within him, the Sea Control Hook emitted a sky-piercing silver light, like a blade cleaving through all the gloom in the forest.

"I should bury this entire mountain with you, how’s that, generous, Dead Monkey?"

He laughed ferociously.

Wuzhiqi, always an incredibly arrogant demon, had always lived by the creed: if others do not offend me, I do not offend them; but if others offend me, I repay a thousandfold. Although he seemed casual and carefree on ordinary days, caring about nothing, once someone crossed his line, the price they paid could not be described as merely agonizing. Otherwise, Heaven would not have suffered headaches because of him in the past.

He spun the Sea Control Hook several times in his hand, the heavy weapon buzzing in his palm, aching to explode with rage.

Suddenly, he threw the Sea Control Hook high into the air and bellowed, "Go!"

The man-length Sea Control Hook instantly turned into a streak of silver light and disappeared from sight. The winds that rushed in from all directions seemed to lose their way in an instant, shrieking sharply as they collided and chafed against each other in the unseen cracks, blowing the trees into disarray, and countless leaves were shredded by the turbulent air.

The ground began to tremble violently, making it hard to stand, and from afar, only a sharp "slashing" sound was heard, followed by the voluminous, intense noise of the mountains shaking as if a silver dragon burst forth, carrying the momentum of a thousand troops, unstoppable.

Wuzhiqi leaped into the air, and with a raise of his arm, the silver dragon settled solidly into his palm—it was the Sea Control Hook returning.

He then put the Sea Control Hook back in his belt, holding Zi Hu. With a slight tap on the treetops with the tip of his foot, he crisply jumped off the cliff.

Behind him, heaven and earth split apart, and the outer peaks where the Divine Witches resided in Kunlun Mountain collapsed thunderously. He delightfully and deftly exacted revenge for Zi Hu.

Meanwhile, Xuanji and the other two in Kunlun Mountain felt the violent shift between heaven and earth in an instant, their faces changing as they turned back. A black dragon-like dust rose in the west, lingering in the sky.

"That is..." Xuanji furrowed his brow slightly, suddenly recalling something, and exclaimed, "Isn’t that where the Divine Witches reside? Did Wuzhiqi start a fight with them?"

Liu Yihuan squinted at the rising smoke and couldn’t help but sigh inside, thinking about how big a gamble he had taken. Now, any further talk would be meaningless. Once a fight starts, the situation becomes irrevocable.

Tengshe’s eyes lit up, exclaiming, "Wuzhiqi is here too?! Let’s go find him!"

Liu Yihuan looked at him incredulously, wondering, "Hey, he’s already taken action, even shaving off a chunk of the mountain. Isn’t that a disaster looming?"

Tengshe had already sprinted ahead, shouting back, "Let’s talk disaster later! Fighting him is the real deal right now!"

In his heart, battling Wuzhiqi had always been a priority; everything else was secondary.

With Tengshe leading the way, passing through Kaiming Gate was as easy as eating tofu. The gate opened, and the nine-headed Kaiming Beast was still sleeping soundly there, not moving a muscle, evidently subdued by the sedative that Wuzhiqi had administered. Seeing it, Tengshe grinned and said, "Must have been your handiwork, huh? This clueless Kaiming, dog-like, daring to eat anything, will sooner or later commit a grave sin."

Xuanji said, "Since we tricked it into opening the Kaiming Gate, will the Heavenly Emperor punish it?"

Tengshe shrugged his shoulders, "Well, that depends on its luck and the mood of the Heavenly Emperor. Being such a fool, the Heavenly Emperor would surely be too lazy to punish it, at most shutting it away in hell for some time to reflect."

Hearing that it wouldn’t lose its life, Xuanji felt somewhat relieved. Regardless, it was their fault for intruding through the Kaiming Gate first, causing such a charming Divine Beast to be implicated; he always felt somewhat guilty.

"When I see the Heavenly Emperor, I will plead for it," he said.

Hearing his statement, Tengshe snorted derisively, smacked him hard on the head, and said, "You plead for this, you plead for that, do you really think Heaven is your backyard? You can barely protect yourself, and you still want to care for others? Being a good person isn’t done this way; you’re the biggest fool."

Xuanji had wanted to retort, but realizing that she indeed demanded too much, she simply kept her mouth shut. Moreover, truthfully speaking, first, whether she could meet the Heavenly Emperor was questionable, and second, whether she could remember what she actually wanted to say upon meeting him was also an issue.

These matters would be thought over later; the immediate priority was to deliver Liu Yihuan to Dragon Gate and then see what kind of trouble Wuzhiqi had caused.

The trio exited Kaiming Gate, with Tengshe carrying Liu Yihuan on his back, and they all leapt down the enormous cliff. At this point, no one cared about the inability to use Sword Control. Midair, Xuanji used Sword Control to fly, following along Chishui River. From afar, they could see a large portion of the mountain peaks by the riverbank, previously lush and verdant, had been sheared off. The dust had not yet settled and was even beginning to drift in their direction.

Liu Yihuan watched in astonishment, sighing repeatedly, "That damned Monkey! He really can’t control himself! Look what he has done! Even if the Heavenly Emperor doesn’t punish us for intruding into Kunlun Mountain, if he asks us to compensate him with a mountain, just shoveling the dirt would take us hundreds of years!"

Tengshe gazed at the flattened mountain peak and suddenly had an ominous premonition. He blurted out, "That’s where the Divine Witch lives! Leveling the mountain is a minor issue, but if he has killed all the Divine Witches, that’s truly disastrous!"

"What do you mean by ’truly disastrous’?" Xuanji turned and asked him.

Instead of answering, Tengshe paused, then suddenly asked, "Where’s your man? Why didn’t he come?"

The man he was referring to was, of course, Yu Sifeng. Mentioning him darkened the expressions on both Xuanji and Liu Yihuan’s faces. Xuanji sighed, "He... It’s unknown who kidnapped him. Zi Hu was taken away by a beam of white light, but he just disappeared out of the blue..."

Tengshe coldly said, "Great! Then you might as well wait to collect their corpses! Do you truly think Heaven is so easy to bully, allowing you to come and go as you please? If the old Heavenly Emperor doesn’t capture a few people to constrain you, he wouldn’t be called the Heavenly Emperor!"

When Xuanji heard him say this, her face turned pale. Liu Yihuan urgently said, "Could you not speak nonsense here? It’s disturbing and punishable!"

Tengshe replied, "How am I speaking nonsense? If you hadn’t caused trouble and killed people during this visit, they might still be alive. But Wuzhiqi, that boy, couldn’t restrain himself and killed all the Divine Witches, how could they still be alive? Think about it, why would someone arbitrarily kidnap two people without any reason?"

Xuanji said in a low voice, "But I can sense that... the ones who took Si Feng and Zi Hu aren’t the same person... The Divine Witch who took Zi Hu was someone I had injured. But the one who took Si Feng... I didn’t even notice a shadow."

Although Tengshe was about to say some harsh words to scare her, seeing her looking so unwell, he couldn’t bring himself to say them and simply let out a sigh, "Let it be, we’ll take things as they come. I just inexplicably staked my life on your hands."

Xuanji looked at him and softly said, "I don’t want to drag you into this... Maybe you should return, lest the Vermilion Bird and Azure Dragon speak ill of you behind your back."

Tengshe gave her a scornful look, "Bullshit! If you talk like that again, I’ll cut off your wrist and go home to make a dish of pig’s trotters!"

Xuanji initially wanted to argue that her hands were human, not pigs’ feet, but upon seeing Dragon Gate not far ahead, and noticing a figure slowly moving forward under the gate, Liu Yihuan, overflowing with surprise, struggled to jump down from Tengshe’s back, crying out, "It’s her! It’s her! Good Heavens! She actually came here! And even faster than I did!"

Tengshe grabbed his belt and stared for a moment before finally saying, "Wait, that’s not the Azure Dragon!"

The three descended from the clouds, and Liu Yihuan, upon touching the ground, couldn’t wait to rush forward to see if her beloved had arrived first. Halfway there, she suddenly stopped, looking puzzled at the figure moving slowly ahead—clearly, she too realized that this was not the Azure Dragon. The Azure Dragon was short and skinny, but this figure was tall and robust, seemingly holding something in his arms.

"Wuzhiqi!" Xuanji, with the sharpest eyes, immediately spotted the long braid hanging over his shoulder and dashed toward him. Upon hearing the name Wuzhiqi, Tengshe, unable to contain himself, darted forward like a shot, reaching him in the blink of an eye and shouted, "The fine mess you’ve made! Even the Abyss Hell won’t take you now, come on! Before you die, have one last fight with me to fulfill a long-held wish!"

He repeated himself twice, but Wuzhiqi didn’t react at all, prompting Tengshe to look closer, only to see that he was holding a purple fox that had already stiffened in death. He recoiled in shock, stepping back and muttering, "She... she’s dead?"

At this point, Xuanji and the others had caught up, and the sight of the purple fox’s body struck Xuanji like a thunderbolt, nearly causing her to fall to her knees. Trembling, she walked over and raised her hand to touch the body, unable to believe that the purple fox was really dead.

Wuzhiqi looked emotionlessly at everyone and said indifferently, "The Divine Witch was killed solely by me, and it has nothing to do with you. If the Heavenly Emperor wishes to punish someone, let him direct his wrath solely at me."

Xuanji, unable to hold back her tears, said tremulously, "Was it the Divine Witch... who killed her?"

Wuzhiqi responded softly, "I am picking a good place to lay her to rest. Yet, I can’t seem to find any pleasing landscapes nearby."

Saddened by the death of the purple fox and the unusual behavior of Wuzhiqi, Liu Yihuan also felt a surge of sorrow. At a loss for consoling words and pained by the sight of the purple fox curled up, he was reminded of her mischievous charm when alive and could not help but tear up. After a long pause, he suggested, "Why not... cremate the body, take the ashes, and once back in Central Earth, find a scenic spot for burial?"

Wuzhiqi was silent for a long while before finally nodding. He gently placed the purple fox down, gazed at her for a long time, and then said, "Wait for me in the Netherworld, I will soon come to find you."

Tengshe ignited a blood-red flame that instantly engulfed her body. Seeing Wuzhiqi’s silence and Xuanji’s heartbroken crying, Liu Yihuan feared the impact of this event might lead to resentment among them, worsening matters, so he said, "Dust to dust, earth to earth, she is now heading to the Netherworld. Let’s all say a few words to her spirit... I’ll start."

He bowed three times to the body of the purple fox in the flames and softly said, "In life, you were a lovely fox, and in death, you are the loveliest ghost fox. Life is not long for anyone, you go to hell a bit lonely but it’s nothing serious; just endure it, and in a hundred years, we’ll reunite in hell, stirring up a lively scene once again."

After another three bows, he looked back at Xuanji, who just shook her head, crying too hard to speak. Liu Yihuan sighed deeply and looked at Wuzhiqi, who was staring blankly at the roaring flames, his eyes flickering indistinctly, brilliance blazing, lost in thought.

It was a long time before he finally spoke softly, "The last question you asked me, I didn’t lie. In my dreams, you are truly there."

The little fox afraid of loneliness, the little fox anxious about loss... all these troubling yet sweet memories had finally come to an end. What would she say when they meet again?

Wuzhiqi took a deep breath and slowly closed his eyes. (To be continued. For more updates, please visit www.qidian.com, where Chapters are abundant, and support the author and genuine reading!)