Chapter 68: Beneath the Divine Eye, the Fox Demon Has Nowhere to Hide

As the hour drew near, Chu Xiaoyu finally spoke in an unhurried tone. “Perhaps you all think I’m speaking nonsense, don’t you? Very well, let’s do this then. I’ll have her reveal just a single tail of hers first.”

Here, on my own ground, I call the shots.

With a flick of her hand, Chu Xiaoyu instantly immobilized Su Daji, leaving her unable to move.

Terror contorted Su Daji’s face. “Ah… you—you… what is it you want? Let me go…”

“Don’t struggle, and don’t resist. Sit quietly, or else you’ll suffer far more.”

As she spoke, Chu Xiaoyu tightened her psychic grip.

“Ah—!”

With a piercing shriek, driven by Chu Xiaoyu’s power, the fox spirit possessing Su Daji was finally forced to reveal its true nature.

The first change was her ears. The human form twisted and lengthened, becoming slender fox’s ears. Next, her nose, then her mouth and hands—each feature shifting into bestial form, terrifying beyond words… and at last, the tail.

A thick, snowy-white tail burst forth from her lower back.

Those present were utterly dumbfounded.

Their hearts shook with disbelief.

So this peerlessly beautiful woman was a fox spirit all along?

“Heavens… this—how can this be… my daughter!”

Witnessing his daughter’s grotesque transformation, Su Hu collapsed from his stool to the floor.

To see a human taken over by a demon for the first time was enough to haunt anyone’s dreams.

A timid soul might well have died of fright at the very sight.

The transformation was complete.

Su Daji knew there was no longer any disguising her true form; tears as large as beans rolled down her cheeks.

From a woman of breathtaking beauty, she had in an instant become a beast, her real self laid bare for all to see.

Despair welled up in Su Daji’s heart; she wanted nothing more than to die.

Were it not for the summons of the goddess Nuwa, would she ever have appeared here? Humiliation was the least of it—her very life now hung by a thread.

“She’s truly a fox spirit!”

King Zhou’s heart was filled with bitter regret.

So this was the thing that had bewitched him, led him to ruin, destroyed his house and kingdom. How could he, the Son of Heaven, have been so ensnared by a mere fox demon?

He suddenly remembered the warnings his teacher had given him about disaster and loss; anger flared in his heart, and he longed to rush forward and kick her.

Vile fox spirit! She deserved death!

“What a pity,” the Iron-Fan Princess sighed with heartfelt sympathy. “Such a beautiful sister, possessed by a fox demon… Master, please, save poor Daji.”

But Chu Xiaoyu only shook her head. “I cannot save her. The real Su Daji, I fear, is already gone—her soul but a faint remnant, barely clinging to life. It was only in that state that the fox spirit found an opportunity to take possession. Now, their bodies and souls have fused as one; they are inseparable, neither wholly Su Daji, nor entirely the fox spirit.”

Su Hu suddenly fell to his knees, weeping and begging Chu Xiaoyu. “Master, I know your powers are great—please, I beg you, save my poor daughter. Since childhood, I kept her hidden from the world—I owe her so much as a father… Please, please, save her.”

“It’s not that I refuse, but that I am powerless,” Chu Xiaoyu replied. “Your daughter’s soul and the fox spirit’s form have fused completely. If I were to force them apart, the last remnant of her original self would vanish forever.”

“In truth, it is only thanks to the fox spirit’s possession that your daughter’s final trace remains. I must say, as a father, you have failed her. While she pined away with lovesickness, you never once noticed, and so the fox spirit found its chance. In the end, perhaps, this calamity was a twisted stroke of fortune.”

With his divine eye open, Chu Xiaoyu saw all things in heaven and on earth—nothing could be hidden from him.

Sun Wukong never managed to forge a pair of Fiery Golden Eyes, but Chu Xiaoyu had awakened the Divine Eye in his own sacred domain. Was there some connection between the two?

Hearing that his daughter was truly beyond saving, her life hanging by a thread—why had it come to this?

Overwhelmed by rage, Su Hu howled at the cowering Su Daji, “Monster, what have you done to my daughter? Give her back to me… Oh, my child, it’s your father who has failed you, forgive me…”

The Su Daji who now existed was both herself and not herself.

Catching her breath, Su Daji finally found her voice. “May I call you General Su? Or perhaps… father? Heh. If not for me, your daughter’s soul would long since have faded into nothing. It was only because I succeeded in taking possession that she survived at all.”

“Perhaps it was fate—my fox form merged perfectly with your daughter’s body. Now, we can no longer be separated. I am Su Daji, yet I am not.”

Hearing this, Su Hu’s heart fell into utter despair.

Did this mean his real daughter would never return?

Looking at the grotesque, monstrous fox spirit before him, Su Hu was seized by an urge to draw his sword and end her life.

Better to kill her outright than let her remain defiled by this base creature.

“Monster, tell me—what happened to my daughter? What did she go through?” Su Hu struggled to contain his fury, fighting the impulse to kill.

“I read through her memories,” the fox replied coolly. “It was nothing but the old story of a man and a woman.”

“Let me put it this way: after you locked her away like livestock, one day, in the two towers, she met a strikingly handsome young man. The two of them exchanged glances and fell deeply in love at first sight.”

“Day after day, those two would climb their respective towers and gaze longingly at each other, as if bewitched.”

“As time passed, your daughter grew sick with longing. When the young man stopped appearing, her lovesickness became a true illness, and you, her father, never noticed a thing.”

“And so, by a twist of fate, I was able to possess her.”

“Damn it! Who was this man? What was his name?”

Su Hu trembled with rage.

His daughter, locked away from the world, had still fallen for an outsider? And it was all one-sided, culminating in a lovesick malady?

What a tangled, wretched mess.