51 He Must Have Lost His Mind

Sheng Jing Wu peered over the volcano's edge, watching as Li Meirong fell and drowned in the boiling sea of lava. "If I can't have you," he remarked in an almost casual manner, "then nobody else will." His skin crawled, just for a moment, as an unfamiliar pang of guilt seized him. After practising demonic cultivation for centuries, it was a rarity for him to feel anything. Such a waste, though, after all the years he'd plotted to ensnare the woman, only to hurl her... Ai, it mattered no more.

She had become tainted by another, and he had no need for used goods. The humane emotion was soon extinguished.

Bai Qingyue, frozen in shock watching Li Meirong falling to her death, snapped back to the present and dashed at Sheng Jing Wu, determined to avenge Li Meirong and send him to the same fate. He leaped at the man's throat, preparing to tear out his jugular, only to go tumbling as his foe disappeared in a puff of smoke.

"Li Meirong!" The fox cried out, ignoring Sheng Jing Wu, who materialized on the opposite lip of the caldera. Bai Qingyue stood at the place she'd been only a moment ago—a moment that separated life from death. He reeled, staring into the bubbling fury of molten rock, barely able to comprehend his loss, or his ability to prevent it.

His eyes burned. He lifted a trembling paw and wiped his cheek, drawing it away again wet. Were those tears? Could it be possible?

He'd never shed a single one in his life. They were his anguish, hot, bitter, rendered now in material form and dripping down his face.

Li Meirong had been his intended, he felt it with every inch of his being, but even so, this physical and emotional suffering truly took him by surprise.

Surely, he did not know her well enough to become so attached. He tried to find a logical reason for this anguish. 'It must be the curse affecting me to feel this way,' he thought.

Otherwise, why would he feel as though his whole world had just collapsed?

Yet they would meet again, he silently assured himself. It might take aeons, but some way, in some distant future, their souls would meet again.

'Unless...' Might that day be made sooner if he, too, were to meet the same unfortunate fate?

Impulsively, he edged closer to the swirling liquid flames. Heat scorched his face and seared his eyes, but it was nothing to the devastation he felt in his heart. He leaned out, hanging in the air over the boiling magma, bereft, without hope. Was this how Li Meirong had felt in her final moments?

Almost hypnotized by the dancing red-yellow flames, a familiar azure shade caught his eye. Gone. But no, there it was again. 'Li Meirong!' She was engulfed by lava, yet seemed completely unharmed.

He stumbled back from the edge, eyes stinging, his self-destructive thoughts evaporated, just like the tears. 'Li Merong! Wonderful, clever girl!' His future wife had unconsciously tapped into the powers he'd bestowed, shielding herself with the eternal flame of the blue foxfire.

Pride swelled in his chest.

How could he support her? Or perhaps he should simply wait until she overcame the sucking lava, and then make her torture the wretched Sheng Jing Wu with his gifted powers, preferably eternally? The idea didn't seem so disagreeable to him. He'd find some fetid corner at the edge of the world to leave the man to roast within the eternal flames of his foxfire forever.

Unable to help himself, he indulged a low delighted snicker that soon heightened into a burst of maniacal laughter, relieving the pent-up emotions in the process. 'Oh yes, Sheng Jing Wu,' he thought, gazing across the caldera at his enemy, 'you will be made to pay, and the price will be steep indeed.'

Sheng Jing Wu knitted his brows, watching the fox from across the volcano's crater, trying but failing to decipher the different expressions as they crossed his face.

He must have lost his mind!

Sheng Jing Wu had chosen his vantage point poorly when he escaped the fox's attack, and now the searing intensity of fire mountain was finally taking its toll. Specks of lava leapt out of the bubbling liquid, stinging his face and hands. Yet, he would stay and witness Li Meirong's demise. Let this be the end of his obsession.

Ignoring the fox, he scanned the lava, looking for her sizzling, skin-melting corpse. And yet, she wasn't, not a flaming wreck, nor a burned-out husk. She was indeed engulfed in flame, but not the red-yellow fire of boiling rock; she was sheathed in a blaze of purest blue, yet she did not burn from it, nor from the lava. The blue flame protected her as she slowly sank, finally disappearing altogether.

"H-how is this even possible?" Sheng Jing Wu said, staggering, hardly able to believe his own eyes. This girl had never practised cultivation. What kind of powers could she possibly possess to withstand the liquid fire?

Bai Qingyue watched, buoyed and sustained by Sheng Jing Wu's stupefied expression. His mouth curled into a crafty smirk. He flexed one long claw and scratched his chin, recalling the man's words, "If I can't have you, then nobody else will…" A new scheme formed in the Fox God's devious mind. He would make sure that everything Sheng Jing Wu had ever owned would belong entirely to his wife. Then, he would burn the fool with eternal flames, just for good measure.

Sheng Jing Wu met the fox's gaze, the fine hairs on the back of his neck standing on edge. Its mouth, he saw, stretched in an unsettling manner. He had a sinking feeling that this would not be the last they saw of each other.

He was not alarmed, though. Besides a fearful aura, what else did the fox have? He was surely some kind of low-level fox demon, only masking himself as a more frightening entity. Sheng Jing Wu shook his head, clearing away the nonsensical feeling of impending doom.

The girl was gone. There was no way she would escape the all-consuming fire. Whatever shielding skill she possessed couldn't possibly defend her forever. Sheng Jing Wu might not be a very rational man, but he only entertained ideas within the realms of possibility. He could not even conceive of the notion that the fox he'd angered was a god, or that the girl's powers were heaven-defying in strength.

Impatient, he stepped back from the edge. The lava had now reached a full boil; it would be most inconvenient if he had to deal with the volcano's imminent eruption.

With a flick of his hand, he dematerialized in a shroud of mist and disappeared without a trace.