Ji Xiao

It took only a moment of stunned realization for Xu Yi to recognize that smell—

When he was little, he had once caught a fox stealing chickens from his home. That fox had carried this same peculiar rank stench!

That fox had stunk Xu Yi into vomiting for an entire afternoon, so even now, the smell remained fresh in his memory.

Unlike the fox from his childhood, this woman carried not only that foxy rankness, but also a heavy yet unpiercing scent of perfume. It did not smell like Puxi snow cream, but more like some pungent perfume used by Westerners.

What Xu Yi did not know was that he alone could smell this unique mingled odor.

If anyone else had come, they would have smelled only the woman's intoxicating exotic fragrance, completely unable to detect the fox's rank stench.

"Demons, devils, ghosts, monsters, spirits, immortals..."

Xu Yi silently recited them once in his heart.

"This woman... is a fox demon?"

Xu Yi's head swam a little.

Why was there a fox demon imprisoned beneath the Jing Family estate?

While Xu Yi examined the woman, the woman was examining him as well.

She saw not only Xu Yi, but also the two points of spiritual light above his head.

She stared warily at those two points of light, and reverence and jealousy gradually appeared in her gaze.

This boy of unknown origins actually had immortals protecting him!

The woman understood at once. It was precisely because immortals protected him that this boy had been able to come so deep into the terrifying Jing Family estate, where spiritual traps lay everywhere!

Xu Yi held the lantern in one hand and rubbed his nose hard several times with the other, trying to rub away the heavy foxy stench clogging his nostrils.

"Miss, what is your name? Where are you from? Why are you imprisoned beneath the Jing Family estate?"

Ji Xiao was quite annoyed by Xu Yi's blunt barrage of questions, but she did not show it. She merely covered her face with the scant scraps of cloth remaining on her body and sobbed.

"I am a dancer at the Neon Grand Ballroom on Songding Gate Street in Twenty-Third Shop. My name is Ji Xiao.

"The Jing Family's Night Roaming God forcibly abducted me, intending to refine me into a household immortal!

"I would rather die than submit, so she imprisoned me here and subjected me to every kind of torment!

"Boohoohoo..."

Tears streamed down Ji Xiao's face, while her cheeks bloomed like peach blossoms.

Her weeping wound through the heart a hundred times over; it hurt the ears to hear and the heart to bear. It was her personal technique. If an ordinary man heard it, his bones would likely melt into a heap, leaving him wholly unable to resist as he fell on the spot beneath her pomegranate skirt.

But Xu Yi was different.

At that moment, Xu Yi only felt his scalp go numb—

As Ji Xiao spoke, he felt the stench on her body overwhelm the fragrance.

That unique foul smell thickened and thickened in the gaps between her words, fermenting and fermenting until it became an overwhelming flood that could not disperse, charging straight at the crown of his head.

Xu Yi was nearly knocked unconscious by the smell.

The stench made him unable to open his eyes. He could not help taking a step back and raised a hand in a stopping gesture, gritting his teeth with his eyes shut.

"Play is play, jokes are jokes. Don't try that on me..."

Ji Xiao's gaze darkened.

What was this man? How could he remain unaffected by her spirituality!

Her gaze shifted between Xu Yi and the two points of spiritual light three feet above his head.

I've already used a probing move on this stinking man, yet these immortals did not intervene?

A flash of delight and relief passed through Ji Xiao's eyes.

These immortals are not here to protect this stinking man!

Xu Yi finally recovered from the smell and opened his eyes.

"What did you just call a household immortal...?

"Why does the Jing Family want to refine you into a household immortal?"

Household immortal and immortal household—the words were reversed, but their meanings lay worlds apart.

Xu Yi's intuition told him that Ji Xiao was very likely connected to the Jing Family's decline.

Ji Xiao's eyes flickered. She realized that Xu Yi was a fledgling who had only just entered the trade.

No.

This man had probably not even entered the trade yet.

This man had found her through nothing but his innate talent for sensing spirituality.

Fledglings with powerful spirituality were the tastiest.

She quietly wiped away the saliva about to seep from the corner of her mouth. This time, she did not use spirituality, and her voice became low and gentle as water.

"A household immortal... is an immortal spirit invited into a home. It can bless the household with peace, and it can also bring wealth and treasure into the family.

"Some household immortals with powerful spirituality can even grant the wishes of those in the household."

Xu Yi said in a deep voice.

"So you are one of the [Immortals] in the Hundred Night Miasma?"

A vein at Ji Xiao's forehead suddenly throbbed.

Then her brows relaxed, and affection filled her picturesque eyes.

"Though you are not a Night Roaming God, little husband, you know quite a lot!"

She went on.

"Demons, devils, ghosts, monsters, spirits, immortals...

"They have been nailed with the ugly name 'Hundred Night Miasma,' yet the Night Roaming Gods flock to them like ducks, exploiting them, sucking their marrow after breaking their bones, devouring them until not even dregs remain."

She sighed, her manner languid.

"Those unlucky ones like me, whose spirituality is weak, can only let the Night Roaming Gods pinch and knead us however they please..."

Ji Xiao gripped the bars with both hands and leaned sideways against them, her voice carrying traces of a sob.

"Little husband, if you can let me out, I will certainly repay you handsomely!"

Xu Yi looked down at her from above and suddenly questioned her.

"You broke Jing Hesheng's back."

A look of grievance appeared on Ji Xiao's face, making her beautiful features even more pitiable.

"Jing Hesheng is not a good man!

"He got drunk at the Neon Grand Ballroom and tried to force himself on me!

"I swore I would die before submitting, so his family's Night Roaming God forcibly abducted me here.

"I wanted to escape, but Jing Hesheng refused to let me go. I rose up to resist, so naturally I could not avoid hurting him!"

Xu Yi raised an eyebrow.

"And his family's business being snatched away had nothing to do with you either?"

Ji Xiao said, "I know nothing about that at all!"

Xu Yi said, "I don't believe a single word of what you said."

Ji Xiao smiled. Her peerless smile blossomed in Xu Yi's black-and-white vision, so beautiful that it made him lose focus for a moment.

"I don't believe it either."

The atmosphere inside and outside the cell suddenly turned strange.

Xu Yi felt something unusual flowing through the air. He vaguely sensed it was surging spirituality, but he could neither see nor grasp it.

It was spirituality controlled by Ji Xiao.

The smile on Ji Xiao's face gradually faded. Her fox-charming peach-blossom face turned cold, and that coldness only made her seem even more bewitching.

"But, little husband, it has already been three minutes."

Xu Yi said, "???"

Ji Xiao took a step back. Her bearing was composed and her expression solemn, looking exactly like the sacred Wushan Goddess in a painting.

"Now, you have to help me open the cage."

As she watched Xu Yi, she observed the movements of the two points of divine light above his head with even greater vigilance.

The two points of divine light showed no change.

Before Xu Yi could refuse, he discovered in horror that his body had begun moving on its own!

He fought desperately, but he still could not stop his body from moving forward step by step like a machine. At the same time, it tore open the lantern, exposing the lit wick.

He stretched out his arm and, trembling, brought the wick close to the cell bars.

"Three minutes!"

Xu Yi had already realized the source of the strangeness before him.

"If you speak to her for more than three minutes, she can control you!

"This... is her ability as a household immortal?!"

Rather than fear, Xu Yi felt excitement rise within him.

The instant the wick touched the bars, the flame erupted with a whoosh. The rotten bars caught fire, and the flames spread along them, blazing as they went. In the blink of an eye, the entire cellar was illuminated.

Ji Xiao slowly walked out through the firelight. The air warped in the flames' scorching heat, reflecting the fact that her face had already turned into that of a fox.