Early the next morning.

Xiao Mo had just gotten up and started washing vegetables when he heard Master Niu and the others chatting idly, saying that when the Young Lady, Tushan Jingci, had tried to sneak out of the residence the night before, she had been discovered by the maids.

While shouting, “I do not want to go back,” the Young Lady had been tucked under a maid’s arm at the waist and carried away.

This Young Lady was now being shut inside her room by Madam Tushan and made to face the wall and reflect on her mistakes.

Thinking back to the self-assured look on Tushan Jingci’s face the previous night,

Xiao Mo could not help smiling.

She was only a five-year-old little girl. At most, she probably only possessed the most basic concealment divine ability innate to the Nine-Tailed Heavenly Fox clan. She likely had not even set foot on the path of cultivation.

How could she possibly escape?

Still, Xiao Mo was rather curious.

Immortal Fox City was not some lawless place, and within Immortal Fox City, who would dare show disrespect to the eldest young lady of the Tushan residence?

So why was it that Madam Tushan did not allow her own daughter to step outside even once?

And just as the matter of the Young Lady trying to flee the residence had come to an end,

in a separate courtyard within the Tushan residence,

a beautiful woman sat on a wooden chair.

She wore a moon-white palace gown with a wrapped chest, draped on the outside with a gauzy outer layer of the same color.

The gauze was very thin. Through it, one could make out the texture of the fabric beneath, but not quite clearly.

Her legs were crossed, her right pale leg resting over the left. Her knee angled slightly outward, and the hem of her skirt slid open along the line of her leg, revealing a stretch of thigh like the finest mutton-fat jade, as if it had been soaked in warm water.

Higher up, at her chest, the wrapped bodice supported her there, exposing a small patch of skin. The bodice was neither too tight nor too loose, holding everything in perfect measure.

The gauze covering it rose and fell faintly with her breathing.

The beautiful woman looked no more than a little over thirty, but in truth, she was already more than three thousand years old. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

And before the beautiful woman, a little girl knelt on the floor with both legs together.

Her small hands were clenched into little fists and set atop the skirt draped over her thighs, while on top of her head rested a jade bowl filled with water.

The fox-eared young lady lowered her eyes and sniffled softly, looking aggrieved to the extreme.

“Do you know what you did wrong?”

Tushan Xinhua looked at her daughter’s aggrieved appearance and found it both funny and exasperating.

“Your daughter knows she was wrong...” Tushan Jingci puffed up her rosy cheeks, a faint mist of tears in her eyes.

“You silly girl, do you really know you were wrong?” Tushan Xinhua shook her head helplessly. “Every single time, you say you were wrong, and every single time, you go right back and make the same mistake.”

“Mother, your daughter really knows she was wrong.”

Tushan Jingci rubbed her little bottom.

There were still handprints there from Mother’s spanking beneath her skirt.

This time Mother had really struck hard.

Her bottom felt as though it had burst into bloom.

It hurt terribly.

“Enough. Get up.” Tushan Xinhua lowered her crossed legs. “Go back to your room. For these next three days, reflect properly while facing the wall. You are not to go out. Do you understand?”

“Oh...”

Tushan Jingci took the jade bowl down from her head, then stood up. Both her ears and tail drooped as she slowly made her way back toward her room.

“Sigh... that girl...”

Watching her daughter’s departing figure, Tushan Xinhua let out a soft sigh, though there was also some heartache mixed into it.

“Madam... regarding the Young Lady’s confinement... should it be enforced strictly?”

A maid walked to Tushan Xinhua’s side and spoke softly.

The maid was named Yueshi. She was a cat demon, and also Tushan Jingci’s personal maid.

“Forget it...” Tushan Xinhua shook her head. “That girl cannot be shut in. If she sneaks out, then she sneaks out. As long as she does not leave the residence, everything can still be discussed.”

“Yes, Madam. This servant understands.” Yueshi bowed and withdrew.

And not long after Yueshi left, Tushan Xinhua looked toward a folding screen in the room.

“Since you are already here, why keep hiding? You are making it look as though I, a widow, am secretly carrying on with someone.”

“Hehehe...”

A bright, pleasant laugh sounded from behind the screen, and a woman who looked to be only in her twenties stepped out.

The woman walked over and sat beside Tushan Xinhua. She did not stand on ceremony, and simply poured herself a cup of tea.

“How do you have the time to come here?” Tushan Xinhua said flatly.

This woman was the First Madam of the Lu family in the city, named Lu Xia. She was also Tushan Xinhua’s close friend from her maiden days.

“I have nothing to do at home anyway. What, if I am bored, I cannot come see you?” Lu Xia let out a soft laugh. “That aside, why do you keep hitting Jingci every day? Looking at that pitiful little face of hers, even I, as her aunt, cannot bear it anymore.”

“When have I been hitting her every day?” Tushan Xinhua sighed. “It is just that this girl is too restless by nature. She is always trying to sneak outside to play, and now that the deadline is drawing near, I have to be even more careful.”

“Mhm.” Lu Xia nodded thoughtfully, then raised her head and asked, “Next month is Jingci’s birthday, right?”

“Yes.”

When Tushan Jingci’s birthday was mentioned, Tushan Xinhua’s expression became even more grave.

Her daughter’s constitution was far too special.

Looking across the entire Nine-Tailed Heavenly Fox clan, from the time the Nine-Tailed Heavenly Foxes first came into being in the age of the valleys until now, according to the clan records, counting Jingci, there had only ever been five Nine-Tailed Heavenly Foxes with such a constitution.

And Jingci’s special constitution was destined to bring with it a special fate.

Jingci’s grandfather had once cast a divination for her.

Before Jingci’s sixth birthday, the first male she touched would become the love tribulation of her future.

For the Nine-Tailed Heavenly Fox clan, a love tribulation was something that could not be avoided.

But this love tribulation would be extremely difficult to pass. It could be said to be harder than ascending to Heaven.

Since that love tribulation would be so hard to overcome, then she would simply exchange it for another one.

That was why Tushan Xinhua did not allow her daughter to touch any male whatsoever.

She wanted to deceive the Great Dao of Heaven and Earth once on behalf of her daughter.

And by doing so, replace this “most difficult to overcome” love tribulation.

But so-called deception of Heaven could not be carried too far. Otherwise, it would draw the attention of the Heavenly Way.

So Tushan Xinhua had no way to lock her daughter in her room and simply never let her come out.

She also had no way to make it so there was not a single male within the residence.

What Tushan Xinhua could do was arrange her Tushan residence into a small world of its own.

Within that small world, there were men and women, grass and trees, humans and demons, all coming and going like flowing water, everything as normal.

She could even only turn a blind eye to her daughter’s “hide-and-seek.” She could not lock her up too tightly or restrict her freedom too severely.

But Tushan Xinhua had laid down one rule, and that was that no male creature was permitted to touch even a single hair on her daughter’s head.

And under the rules of the Tushan residence,

from the day Tushan Jingci was born until now, she had never touched a single male.

“Now, there is only this one month left. Once Tushan Jingci gets past her birthday, everything will be easy to deal with.”

Tushan Xinhua clasped her small hands, her expression grave, and spoke slowly.

“That may be true, but...”

Lu Xia spoke only halfway before falling silent. She merely looked out the window.

If the character for love could truly be avoided,

then how could there be so many people in the world, heedless of life and death, rushing toward it one after another?