"Sorry, if it weren′t for those two cat yaokais causing trouble, today′s harvest wouldn′t have been so little." Mu stood before him, apologetically looking at the defted cloth bag in her hands. "This is all I managed to refine."

  "The descendants of the Cat Yaokai King do indeed possess more skills than most." He smiled faintly and continued browsing the numerous books on the towering shelves.

  Soft light, cast from the spiral-patterned ceiling, enveloped his tall, slender figure without leaving any shadow on the ground, no matter where he moved.

  His study was vast, impossibly high, more like a grand library. It seemed as if the knowledge of the entire universe had been condensed within this space.

  "Why... do you never look at me?" Mu followed his graceful, unhurried steps, her gaze unable to hide a subtle sense of disappointment. "Am I not good enough like this?"

  His attention was entirely elsewhere, focused on flipping through Quantum Theory of Many-Particle Systems. He shook his head as he read, put it back, and picked up A Brief History of Time. After another quick look, he shook his head again. As for books like On the Anomalies of Earth′s Magnetic Field and The Present and Future of Cosmic Life, he barely gnced at them before disdainfully tossing them back onto the shelves, muttering indifferently, “Trash.”

  “Shuo…” She took a step closer, softly calling his name, unwilling to give up.

  “Call me Master, or Anubis,” he said coldly, his gaze never shifting as he closed the book in his hands. “What you look like right now is irrelevant. Only foolish humans ask such shallow questions. I don′t want to hear them from you again.”

  The light in Mu′s eyes dimmed as she pced the cloth bag on the ground. Bowing her head, she murmured, “Yes, Master.”

  "Leave," he said, with a slight movement of his left hand. The cloth bag flew into his grasp. He weighed it briefly before adding, "Keep working hard. We still have a little time."

  He walked over to the globe pced by the bookshelf, slowly spinning the blue sphere. "Three kings in alignment... hehe."

  "Rest assured, Master," Mu said as she backed toward the door. Turning to leave, she gnced at his captivating profile—that face that had lingered and churned in her heart for millennia. She couldn't help but murmur softly, with a hint of sorrow, "I thought you would like it."

  -------

  I was unconscious for most of the day and didn′t wake until te afternoon the next day. Cang Tongkai had found his family′s chef and brought me an incredibly delicious meal meant for the sick, which moved me to tears. I praised this cat for having a moral conscience.

  He and Xuan eventually believed me—believed that this down-and-out woman was once the galnt and beautiful tree yaokai innkeeper, bold yet rebellious, cold on the surface but secretly passionate.

  Cang Tongkai said that in his lifetime, he rarely remembered anyone′s gaze, except for that tree yaokai, who was even more arrogant and prideful than he was. Although my appearance has changed beyond recognition, my tone of voice and disdainful eyes still give me away.

  Xuan was furious and vowed to kill Mu, that wretched Yaokai, and recim everything for me. Now that Cang Tongkai has discovered his true identity, they are strategizing, gathering all the power they can muster, and preparing for a decisive battle against the yaokai wreaking havoc in `Endless′.

  Yes, my `Endless'—once an innocuous and even beneficial teahouse—had, unbeknownst to me, turned into a graveyard for Yaokais.

  This was something no one had anticipated, including myself. I was so close to it, occasionally even gncing at it from afar, yet I failed to notice anything particurly unusual. It wasn′t until Cang Tongkai informed me that, starting ten days ago, every night after midnight, a strange blue mist and a flock of monstrous birds would surge forth from some hidden pce, hunting yaokais on a rge scale. Even his kin weren′t spared—dozens of lower-level cat yaokais had already been captured. When he and Xuan tracked the source, they were shocked to find that both the mist and the skeletal birds originated from my `Endless′.

  This sudden disaster instilled an imminent fear in all the Yaokais with even a trace of spiritual power. Even Zhang Daxia, who had been lurking by my side, sensed the danger and didn′t dare leave. And yet, I remained completely oblivious.

  “It′s not your fault. You′re not particurly smart to begin with, and now you′ve lost your powers,” Cang Tongkai remarked, finally seizing his chance for payback.

  That brat. I didn′t have the energy to argue with him. The more pressing issue was uncovering what on earth Mu, that lunatic, had been up to in my `Endless′. If st night′s disaster was orchestrated by her, then what exactly was her goal?

  Xuan, who had been silently deep in thought while crouching on the table, suddenly turned to me. As a cat with a mind of his own, he said, “Before taking any action, shouldn′t we first bring back the real you? Right now, you can′t even handle a single skeletal bird, which is a huge problem.”

  Cang Tongkai scratched his head vigorously and asked, “Think carefully—among the people you know, is there anyone who could appear in front of you without any hint or help from others and call out your true name?”

  “If there were such a person, I would′ve run to them long ago,” I sighed. Perhaps Jiu Jue could give it a try, but that wandering vagrant is impossible to locate. By the time I managed to track him down, Mu′s dark schemes would have already wreaked havoc on countless innocents. Even if I did find Jiu Jue, I′m not confident he could see through this unfamiliar shell to recognize the true me. One who could has already disappeared forever, and the other... is nowhere to be found.

  Gently stroking the golden dragon jade amulet on my wrist—the one that had twice saved me from dire situations—I could still feel its faint warmth. In my mind, Ao Chi′s face became increasingly vivid: his proud and disdainful expression, occasionally tinged with childishness, and his habit of shouting and arguing with me endlessly.

  If my memory serves me right, three days after he gave me this amulet, Ao Chi completely disappeared from my life. On the night before his disappearance, we had the biggest argument since we had known each other.