While Chen Mu was spending his wedding night, fresh snow fell over Mangdang Mountain.
Atop Fox Immortal Ridge stood the Demon Manor of White Cloud Cave.
Behind it lay an underground volcanic vent and a spring of spiritual water, which together formed a natural hot pool.
Nine-Bend Corridor and an elegant pavilion had been built along the mountainside. The fox women who came and went had all been born with the gift of Transformation.
"My lady, General Yan has arrived."
Deep within the manor, a fox woman delivered the message through the mist.
Ahead lay a stone cave suspended over a cliff. White mist curled within it, marking the hot pool.
A screen stood beside the pool. By the cliff, a carved lattice window stood open to the moon, framing drifting white flakes and mountains dressed in silver.
Su Yue'e was bathing in the milky-white pool, with a tray of fruit wine at her side.
Her fragrant shoulders half exposed, she leaned languidly against the pool's edge, admiring the moonlit snowscape framed by the window.
At the fox woman's report, her phoenix eyes lifted, and delight shone in them.
"Oh? He finally deigned to come back? I suppose he's here to beg for wine again?"
"Make him wait outside. Hmph, he won't have it that easy..."
Her tone was cold, but the corners of her lips curved upward. She rose slowly, draped herself in a translucent gauze robe, and stepped from the pool.
In the adjoining chamber overlooking the cliff, she sat before a mirror by the light reflected from the snow and began to paint her brows and arrange her hair.
But just as she dotted a speck of Cinnabar between her brows, the moonlight before her dimmed.
A white-robed figure with a sword on his back stood beyond