The mountain path wound onward, lush trees flourishing on either side.
The conversation between Wang Lang and Su Yao, one man and one fox, lent a touch of life to the quiet mountain road beneath the night sky.
"Since gaining intelligence, I've lived thirty springs, by your human reckoning!"
"You're so young—you should call me Sister Su Yao."
Hearing this, Wang Lang could not help marveling that this little fox had cultivated to a level comparable to the late Qi Drawing stage of humans in merely thirty years.
The bloodline talent of the Snow Shadow Spirit Fox truly was extraordinary!
After all, ordinary mountain spirits and wild monsters might absorb the essence of the sun and moon for over a hundred years and still count themselves fortunate to touch the threshold of first-stage Qi Drawing. More often, they lived muddleheaded lives and remained mere common creatures in the end.
Thoughts turned in his heart, but his expression remained calm as he said,
"Oh? Thirty years old? Among us humans, girls of that age are mostly already helping their husbands and raising children, mothers themselves."
"But you still look... well, like a child whose youthful heart has yet to faded."
"If I called you 'Sister,' I'm afraid it would shave years off your life. Better not."
"Pah, pah, pah! You're the one who'll lose years off your life!" Su Yao's fur immediately bristled.
"Our Demon Race has long lifespans! Thirty is the prime of youth!"
"You're jealous—nakedly jealous!"
"My mother said human scholars care most about propriety. Yet look at you: you may possess Grand Righteous Qi, but you're a fake scholar!"
Wang Lang let her make a fuss without getting angry, merely saying blandly,
"What Wang reads are miscellaneous books, unlike those sour pedants who only know how to flaunt their bookish knowledge."
"Besides, propriety depends on the person. There seems no need to be overly rigid with a little fox who sneaked out of home."
"Who sneaked out?!" Su Yao's voice immediately took on a note of grievance.
"I... I only left because Mother suddenly said she needed to enter seclusion, to break through some crucial juncture, and left me alone... no, left one fox alone in that cold, lonely cave abode."
"I was bored staying there, so I came out to wander around and see the splendor of the human world. What's wrong with that? Langzi! You tell him! What's wrong with it?"
Wang Lang felt rather helpless at being called Langzi.
The title had come from Su Yao remembering her mother saying that human scholars liked others to call them something-or-other Zi, because it made them sound learned.
She had found Wangzi awkward to say, while Langzi rolled off the tongue, so that was what she began calling him.
Wang Lang had tried correcting her several times without success, so he could only let her have her way.
Deep mountains, her mother in seclusion... It seems this Little White Fox's mother is no weakling.
One man and one fox chatted on and off.
Mostly, Su Yao spoke while Wang Lang listened, occasionally tossing in a sentence or two that was neither salty nor bland. The atmosphere was quite harmonious.
Yet at some point, the road gradually narrowed, while the forest on both sides grew denser.
Suddenly, a clear, strange sound came from the bushes not far ahead!
The sound was not loud, yet it was exceptionally shrill!
Wang Lang felt his mind violently sway, and his gaze was involuntarily drawn toward it.
Vaguely, he seemed to see an extremely dazzling flash of golden light vanish between the trees.
That golden light seemed to carry an indescribable power of temptation!
Wang Lang's consciousness instantly blurred. As though his body were beyond his control, his feet shifted, and he bolted toward the direction where the golden light had disappeared!
"Huh? Langzi! What are you running off for?!"
Startled by his sudden action, Su Yao anxiously shouted after him.
Seeing that Wang Lang turned a deaf ear and instead ran even faster, Su Yao hurriedly chased after him, shouting as she ran, "Wait for me!"
The forest was deep and the trees dense. Grand Righteous Qi sped through Wang Lang's meridians, all so he could keep up with that intermittently visible golden light ahead.
That thing darted through the forest with astonishing speed, always maintaining some distance ahead of him.
Though Wang Lang's will had briefly been lost because of that strange sound, his instincts remained.
As he gave chase with all his strength, only one thought remained in his mind: catch it!
After chasing for roughly the time it took an incense stick to burn, the golden gleam ahead abruptly slowed.
The distance between them rapidly closed.
Wang Lang seized the opportunity, violently pushed off with his feet, and shot out his right hand, grabbing at the slowing ball of golden light!
What met his hand was not the solid object he had expected, but something empty and ethereal!
Yet he had indeed caught a cicada roughly the size of his palm, its entire body seeming to have been cast from pure gold!
Before he could examine it closely, however, the Golden Cicada suddenly dissolved in his palm into specks of flowing golden light.
Like shattered flowers in a mirror and moon reflected in water, it vanished into nothingness in an instant.
At the same time, Wang Lang shuddered all over. The confusion in his eyes rapidly faded, and his mind became completely clear.
"Huff... huff... Lang... Langzi!"
Only then did the Little White Fox, Su Yao, catch up, panting heavily.
She leaped back onto his shoulder and smacked his chest with her little paws, both angry and anxious as she said,
"Why... why did you suddenly run around like a madman?! Were you trying to ditch me? Or are you going back on your word about protecting me?"
"You humans all say a gentleman's promise is worth a thousand pieces of gold. You..."
As she spoke, her words suddenly stopped, and her snow-white fur stood faintly on end.
Wang Lang did not answer either.
All his attention had been seized by the sight before him.
The instant the Golden Cicada vanished, he suddenly discovered that only several dozen steps ahead,
where dense forest should have been, a temple had silently risen!
This temple was enormous, far exceeding any Wang Lang had seen before.
Vermilion walls towered high and stretched out on both sides, vanishing beyond sight, as if they enclosed the entire mountainside.
The temple gate was even more magnificent, several zhang high.
Layer upon layer of eaves and bracket sets rose overhead, covered in glazed tiles that, beneath the dim night sky,
actually gave off a faint golden radiance on their own, looking solemn and sacred beyond measure.
Yet beneath that holiness and grandeur, what Wang Lang felt was a deep, bone-piercing strangeness and discordance.
Throughout Yuan Province, he dared not claim to have trodden every inch of land, but within several hundred li of Listening Waves Mountain Manor, there could not possibly be a temple of such scale, such conspicuousness!
His instincts screamed warnings, and a chill shot up his spine.
Even the Grand Righteous Qi within him seemed to have been stirred by some invisible stimulus, as though facing a formidable enemy.
"Langzi..." Su Yao's voice trembled noticeably as she shrank closer to Wang Lang's neck.
"This place... this place feels so terrifying..."
"It looks all golden and glittering, but deep down it's gloomy and sinister. It's even scarier than the deep mountains and old forests where I live..."
Wang Lang nodded in agreement.
The sight reminded him of accounts he had read in Old Wang's miscellaneous books recording strange tales and unusual events:
In certain deep mountains, vast marshes, or places where yin and yang met, things that should not exist would sometimes abruptly appear—mirages, or blessed lands of immortals.
But more often, they were ghost dens that devoured people, illusory realms that claimed lives!
They often presented beautiful exteriors, like paradises beyond the world or jade towers and jeweled halls, luring living beings inside.
Of those who blundered into them, nine out of ten vanished forever. The rare few fortunate enough to escape
would mostly lose their minds after recounting what they had experienced, then die bizarre deaths not long afterward.
This resplendent golden temple before him definitely did not feel like a kind place!
Without hesitation, Wang Lang scooped Su Yao off his shoulder and held her in his arms. He feared that if something truly happened, the little fox would fall behind.
"Go!"
With that, he turned and sprinted madly in the direction he believed they had come from!
The wind howled past his ears, while the trees raced backward.
Wang Lang focused on nothing else, seeking only to get as far away from that strange temple as quickly as possible.
At the same time, his mind raced. That Golden Cicada... what exactly was it?
It actually made me lose control of my mind and lured me here? Was it an illusion, or some kind of spirit creature?
He ran for a full quarter of an hour. By all reason, he should already have burst out of this forest and returned to the original mountain path.
Yet although the surroundings remained unfamiliar, that oppressive sensation of being watched had not diminished in the slightest.
Suddenly, he came to a sharp stop, his pupils contracting.
Ahead, the trees had thinned out.
And there, in that clearing, stood that magnificent temple emitting faint golden light.
Together with its gate several zhang high, it stood there silently once more, as though it had always been there and had never moved.
The angle and position at which it appeared were exactly the same as when he had first seen it!
"How is that possible?!" Wang Lang's heart shook violently.
He was one hundred percent certain that he had returned in a straight line along the original route!
Refusing to believe it, he immediately turned right, picked a direction, and once again broke into a mad sprint.
Yet after racing to the right for some time and pushing aside a thick curtain of vines, the temple gate once more blocked his path directly ahead.
Wang Lang's face darkened, and he tried going left.
The outcome was no different.
No matter which direction he turned, no matter how fast or how far he ran,
this strange temple would always appear before him at precisely the right moment.
Even more chillingly, grayish-white mist began silently spreading through the air around them.
At first the mist was thin, but it thickened at a visible speed, making the surrounding trees appear dim and shadowy, adding even more gloom.
"Hiss!" Wang Lang sucked in a cold breath and stopped his futile running.
"Following like a shadow... Have I run into a ghost wall?"
To be honest, he had seen plenty of demons while following the old man in the past, and now he even had a little fox demon tucked in his arms.
He had even crossed paths with Heretical Cultivators who ate people. Only ghosts and specters were something he had never encountered in this life—truly strange and unfathomable.
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