Nine lives?

"..."

"This is Team Seven, negative contact in the 35-degree southeast direction."

"This is Team Eight, negative contact in the 60-degree southeast direction."

"..."

"This is Team Sixteen, negative contact in the 35-degree northeast direction."

The person in charge of the entire operation, coordinating the reports from various search teams, quickly noticed something was wrong.

"Where is Team Ten? Why haven't we heard from Team Ten?"

"Sir, we've been calling them for thirty minutes with no response."

"What direction were they searching?"

"The 60-degree northeast direction."

The Officer slammed his fist on the table and shouted, "They've been drugged and hypnotized again! It has to be!"

"Immediately send nearby teams to support them. Maintain constant communication every minute."

Although the enemy hadn't been found, this situation of losing contact without cause was all too familiar; it was exactly the same as what happened on the mountaintop.

With a rough idea of the enemy's possible location, the nearby teams began to close the encirclement.

Meanwhile, within the encirclement, the four members of Team Ten were standing under a tree with their hands raised, completely entranced.

They gazed at the White Nine-tailed Fox in the tree with infatuation, as if looking at a goddess, constantly trying to get closer but never able to.

Lan Mu, in its beast form, was napping on a tree branch, its nine large tails hanging down softly like white curtains.

The tree was tall and straight, and no matter how the four police officers climbed or jumped, they couldn't get close to the Nine-tailed Fox perched high above.

In their minds, this longing for something they couldn't reach tormented them, driving them mad.

"Another helicopter. If it gets this close, don't blame me."

Lights swept across the area, and the noise of propellers grew louder as they approached at low altitude.

When the helicopter flew directly over Lan Mu, it was so close that the pilot seemed to be drawn by a strange charm and looked uncontrollably towards the treetops.

He saw the Nine-tailed Fox sitting elegantly above, its extreme beauty captivating him to abandon the helicopter and leap towards the Nine-tailed Fox.

Lan Mu tilted its head, watching as the unmanned helicopter flew over its head and crashed into the distant jungle.

"Swish…"

With a single leap, Lan Mu landed on another treetop, narrowly dodging the pilot. The pilot, having broken a branch, fell from the tree and landed heavily on the ground.

The sound of bones breaking was distinct. The pilot, mesmerized by it, had jumped out of the helicopter, crippling himself.

Not only that, but police officers were also approaching from all directions. Whenever they got within a certain range, they would rush forward like they had found a treasure, babbling and jumping around under the large tree.

As time passed, more and more police officers gathered under the tree.

Eventually, there were over fifty police officers under Lan Mu's tails, looking up at it.

Their communicators were ringing incessantly, but no one bothered to answer, all of them crowded together, desperate to get closer to Lan Mu.

They swarmed under the same tree, bumping into each other, shoving each other, their hands raised like a group of survivors in the desert chasing after a single bottle of water.

Fifty-plus police officers missing for half an hour, even a helicopter crashed – the command center was going crazy.

"Is there another team? The first team shouldn't have arrived yet, right? Tell them immediately not to approach the target."

"Have them report the situation from a distance first, then hold position."

Fortunately, the commander reacted in time and stopped the remaining officers from approaching the area where contact was lost.

Before long, Team One reported: "Sir, the brothers from the other teams are up ahead. They… they are gathered around a tree about forty meters in front of me. That fox is on the treetop."

"They're surrounding it? Just like when they were on the mountaintop?"

"Yes, it's like they've been hypnotized."

The commander broke out in a cold sweat. This was the first time he had encountered an opponent like this, hypnotizing over fifty people at once. What kind of drug was this?

"Did you find any suspicious individuals?"

"Reporting, sir, no suspicious individuals. Within sight, there's only that fox…"

"Could it really be a Nine-tailed Fox? Is this truly a supernatural event?"

The commander hesitated. The situation had become awkward; he didn't dare send anyone closer, but he couldn't just give up.

With over fifty police officers held hostage, he couldn't report this to his superiors, leaving him in a difficult predicament.

"Believe me! Everything that's happening is definitely the work of that fox!" Rabbin pleaded desperately. This time, the commander was starting to believe him.

"Professor Rabbin, do you have a way to rescue my subordinates?" the commander asked, willing to try anything.

Rabbin said, "That fox is extremely cunning. You have only two options: either report the situation and request more support, or simply ask the army to intervene."

"The second option is to give up on capturing the Nine-tailed Fox alive and shoot it directly with a sniper rifle."

The commander said angrily, "Professor Rabbin, I didn't ask you how to catch the Nine-tailed Fox, it's just a fox!"

Professor Rabbin also said angrily, "Foolish! It's all the fox's fault. Killing the fox will solve everything."

"But you'd better tell the sniper to just heavily injure the fox. A live one is more meaningful to me."

The commander sighed, reported to his superiors, and ordered the first police team to remotely eliminate the fox.

The predicament here was also truthfully understood by reporters, who promptly sent the footage to the Kuala Lumpur media.

A helicopter had crashed, and over fifty police officers were taken hostage.

A mysterious White Nine-tailed Fox, an unknown criminal using magic.

Malai hadn't had such big news in a long time, but this was also a disgrace to the Kuala Lumpur police.

That day, the news spread throughout Kuala Lumpur and even began to spread nationwide.

The public began to question the police's ability to handle cases, being toyed with by one person, and still not having seen the perpetrator's appearance.

Furthermore, an unprecedented situation of over fifty police officers being held hostage had occurred. If even the police could be taken hostage, how could they expect the police to protect the public?

Facing the questioning from the public and the media, the Kuala Lumpur Police Chief addressed the public.

On one hand, he exaggerated the perpetrator's strength infinitely, and on the other hand, he denied the existence of the Nine-tailed Fox, classifying the case as a ghost-disguised murder incident.

Moreover, almost all the police force in the city had been mobilized, making a promise to the public: "We will capture the culprit, even if we have to search the Great Han Mountain rainforest."

Meanwhile, Lan Mu was still silently waiting for the final moments of his transformation to end.

Suddenly, with a dull thud, a bullet penetrated the leaves from a great distance and hit Lan Mu.

Lan Mu fell from the road, crashing to the ground.

From the source of the bullet, a sniper smiled confidently and said into his earpiece, "OK, target eliminated... bullet hit the target's head... What? How is that possible?"

Lan Mu, hit in the head, shook his foxy head and got up from the ground, covered in blood.

The police officers, deeply infatuated with him, were all around. But now, these officers seemed to have sobered up, looking bewildered and confused.

Lan Mu hurriedly cast his charm again, only to find that this time he hadn't controlled everyone, missing a few police officers.

"The range has shrunk? How is that possible?"

"No, wasn't I just shot by a sniper? But why am I not dead?"

"I was clearly shot in the forehead, I felt like my head exploded, how am I not dead in the blink of an eye?"

Lan Mu thought as he dared not linger.

He turned and ran, after all, being targeted by a sniper was not a good thing.

As he ran, Lan Mu finally noticed something was wrong.

He... was missing a tail!

"What the hell? Why do I only have eight tails?"

The missing tail was the ninth one, a tail whose function he didn't know.

Thinking back now, there were two possibilities.

One, the ability of the ninth tail was to act as a substitute for death. When the Nine-tailed Fox died, it would revive at the cost of one tail.

Two, each tail could be a substitute for death! He had already died once, so one tail disappeared. Perhaps the greatest secret of the Nine-tailed Fox was having nine lives.

In any case, Lan Mu was certain that he had indeed died once, his head blown open by a sniper rifle, dying on the spot!

"Damn it! I was actually killed!"

"If the Nine-tailed Fox had only one life just now, I would have truly died and never woken up!"

The more he thought about it, the more frustrated he became. Lan Mu gritted his teeth. If he had died miserably here just now, his unwillingness would have reached the heavens.

"A sniper, huh? You just wait!" Lan Mu fled frantically at this moment.

The feeling of dying once was indescribable. Those who have never died cannot know the emotional outburst in that final moment. Almost all of a person's emotions would erupt at that moment, but they would be stuck in their heart, impossible to describe or let others feel.

After hiding for several kilometers, Lan Mu directly burrowed into a tree hollow.

Although he really wanted to give himself a tail to get justice, he knew that the Nine-tailed Fox was still too weak. Even though its charm was unparalleled, its own fragility was a fatal threat. Others only needed one bullet to send him to his demise.

"Time until the mandatory period ends..."

"Half an hour left!"