Chapter 1: The Lost Child

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation

Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

The deeper into the cave she ventured, the darker it became. Cold air blew in her face. Having fought against countless demons and monsters before, Zhe Huo felt a familiar tingle down her spine—but before she could strike a flare to illuminate her surroundings, she’d stepped out onto empty air, and tumbled over the edge in a cascade of loose stones.

Zhe Huo swore an oath into the darkness, lashing out with her bladed whip and catching onto a crack in the rough stone wall. She tried to use that to pull herself back up, but the blade tore free with the crack of splitting stone. Another shower of rock fragments rained down upon her head, and then she was in free fall.

Zhe Huo imagined her body smashing apart when she hit the ground. The image of it drove her almost to tears. She shouldn’t have been so greedy, taking up a stupid quest like this.

Then, with a titanic splash, she hit water instead. After several gulps of the ice-cold water, Zhe Huo finally surfaced once more. Wiping the water from her eyes, she took a couple of shuddering breaths, and looked up to see a few faint rays of light shining down at her. Somewhere up there, there was a way out of here.

Zhe Huo made to soar through the air towards the light, but no sooner had she stepped off the water’s surface than she detected the overwhelming stench of blood.

She wrinkled her nose. Had someone beaten her to the kill, and stolen her prey?

Three days ago, Snowcrystal Palace, a prestigious school of the divine arts, announced a reward of a hundred thousand spirit gems to anyone who could slay a monster known as the Deer with Seven Ears, and procure the bezoar from its innards.

That was why Zhe Huo had come here, but this blood didn’t match the scent of the monster she was seeking. Coming ashore and wringing the water from her yellow robes, she pulled out a flare and struck it alight at last, lighting up the vast cavern she was in. She circled around the perimeter of the subterranean pool, and eventually spotted the trail of blood upon the slick, wet floor.

Following the blood across the craggy floor, Zhe Huo stopped dead suddenly when she heard a faint rustle. Turning to the sound, she spied a fluffy white tail carelessly brushing past the stone walls. It coiled and trembled, as though in terror.

Following it with her eyes, she chewed on her lip for a moment. Then, with a precise flick of her whip, she caught the tail and pulled its owner out into the light. A frightened wail rang through the air. Zhe Huo stared at what she had caught.

It was a child, perhaps five years of age. In the dim light, she saw a head of chestnut-brown hair, a pair of delicate, pointed little pink ears standing straight up, and an exquisite, fair face—like that of a doll. His hair hung down over his brow, but two deep blue eyes shone through like stars, watching her through a sheen of tears.

Looking into those eyes… it was like being lost in the night, adrift upon an endless crystal ocean.

The child was wrapped in a large, filthy set of robes that dragged across the ground. Captured by Zhe Huo as he was, his big, bushy fox tail instinctively curled around her whip, and he hung there, watching her in silent misery.

Zhe Huo felt her heart soften. Pulling herself together, she shook the whip once or twice, and asked, “Can you understand me?”

The child nodded.

“What are you doing down here?”