Wagging My Tail in the Ice Queen CEO’s Embrace - Chapter 22

Although the failed transformation didn’t cause any injuries, Ming Ying obediently halted her spiritual gathering just to be safe.

Besides that, she needed to figure out one thing as soon as possible: Why did it hurt so much during this transformation?

Logically speaking, as a great demon with inherited bloodline like her, once she endured her first transformation, she should be able to freely shift between human form and demon body afterward. That meant only the first transformation should have been excruciatingly painful.

But today’s transformation clearly wasn’t her first time, yet she not only felt intense pain but also coughed up blood. There must be some reason behind it.

Even though she could grow new tails to store spiritual energy, she didn’t want to spend her whole life appearing as a fox.

To better observe her condition, Fu Anyu brought her back to her own bedroom, along with her dog bed.

Nestled in Fu Anyu’s arms, Ming Ying looked back at the guest room with reluctance and couldn’t help asking, “Why don’t you rest there?”

“Don’t like it,” Fu Anyu answered without hesitation.

Ming Ying had expected some explanation, but all she got was a casual “don’t like it,” which left her even more puzzled.

If she didn’t like it, why did she keep the guest room so clean and tidy? Why did she have it regularly cleaned? And why did she nurture the plants there so vibrantly?

Could it be that the guest room existed to commemorate something?

Suddenly struck by this thought, Ming Ying felt a bit creeped out and uncomfortable. But she didn’t press Fu Anyu further. Once they reached the bedroom, she quietly settled into her little bed to rest.

However, burdened with worries, she couldn’t sleep soundly. Lifting her head, she saw Fu Anyu leaning against the bed, scrolling through her phone with a relaxed demeanor, neither working nor seeming about to take a bath. Ming Ying decided to ask her a few questions, hoping she might provide some answers.

After a moment’s thought, Ming Ying hopped onto the bed and crouched at the edge, observing Fu Anyu but not daring to get too close.

She hadn’t forgotten how she had come over in the middle of the night with good intentions to keep Fu Anyu company, only to be coldly picked up and put back down.

Noticing her perched in the dangerous spot from the corner of her eye, Fu Anyu turned her face and beckoned, “Come here.”

Ming Ying didn’t move and retorted irritably, “Didn’t you say you didn’t need my company?”

Hearing the resentment in her voice, Fu Anyu didn’t respond directly. Instead, she moved to the side where Ming Ying was crouching, picked her up, and placed her by her pillow.

“Don’t crouch there,” Fu Anyu said, stroking the fox’s head. “You’ll fall and complain about it hurting.”

Ming Ying felt fine hearing the first half of the sentence, but the second half made her fur bristle. “Who would fall from there?! What do you take me for?!”

Fu Anyu just smiled, continuing to groom her fur as she asked, “You seem troubled. Were you planning to talk to me about it?”

Ming Ying did have a bellyful of questions, but with Fu Anyu’s prompt, she quickly sifted through them and picked the most urgent one to ask first: “Do you know how demons transform into human form?”

“You need sufficient spiritual energy and must learn your clan’s transformation spell,” Fu Anyu replied. “Both are essential, but besides that, other factors can also affect the success rate of the transformation.”

Ming Ying’s eyes lit up, and she picked up her ears to listen carefully.

“Some demons take spiritual medicines to stabilize their spiritual power and protect their meridians and internal organs, or wear special defensive magical artifacts,” Fu Anyu elaborated in detail. “Maintaining a human form requires an immense amount of spiritual power. Therefore, severely injured demons usually don’t lightly transform into human form and instead choose to heal in their demon forms.”

At this point, she glanced at Ming Ying. “As for you, you clearly have sufficient spiritual power, are proficient in the transformation spell, and show no internal or external injuries upon examination, yet you still can’t successfully transform into human form. That leaves only one reason.”

Ming Ying remained silent, waiting for her to continue.

But Fu Anyu grabbed her previously injured hind leg and parted the thick, dense fox fur.

Ming Ying never expected her to react this way. It tickled so much that she yelped in surprise and nearly kicked out.

“What are you suddenly doing?!” Ming Ying exclaimed, but when she looked up and saw Fu Anyu’s gaze fixed on her injured area, a thought suddenly flashed through her mind. She hurriedly focused her eyes to look.

There, on her skin, a patch of dark color had appeared once again. Upon closer inspection, the shape of this dark patch resembled some kind of mark.

“You’ve been cursed,” Fu Anyu said with certainty after examining her old injury.

“What kind of curse is this powerful?!” Ming Ying asked in disbelief. “It’s been so many days, and didn’t you clean it up last time?”

Fu Anyu had never seen this kind of mark before either. She shook her head, took out her phone to take a picture, and used the image recognition function to search online.

“It’s the ‘Return to Nothingness Seal,'” she soon found detailed information and read it aloud to Ming Ying. “Those afflicted by this curse lose all their spiritual power within half an hour. If the victim is human, it may lightly damage their spiritual root or severely harm their soul; if the victim is a demon, they will be forced back into their original form.”

Ming Ying’s eyes widened in shock. After thinking for a moment, she pointed at herself and asked, “So, the reason I can’t successfully transform is because I’ve been hit by the Return to Nothingness Seal and reverted to my initial state?”

Seeing Fu Anyu nod, she had another question: “If I’ve been forced back into my original form, why didn’t I turn into a cub?”

“The Return to Nothingness Seal doesn’t affect the victim’s overall appearance,” Fu Anyu replied. “Your demon form remains exactly as it was before you were cursed.”

Ming Ying understood and even breathed a sigh of relief. “So, it’s like I’m starting my cultivation and transformation from scratch?”

“Right,” Fu Anyu nodded again. “But for your safety, you must tell me the next time you want to transform into human form.”

“Of course!” Ming Ying quickly agreed. “If it weren’t for you today, I might have been in serious danger…”

“Not that serious,” Fu Anyu stroked her back. “Your body isn’t that fragile.”

Even though she knew Fu Anyu was trying to comfort her and help her feel at ease, Ming Ying couldn’t help feeling that something was off about those words.

She had actually been trying to subtly express her gratitude to Fu Anyu for saving her life, but it seemed Fu Anyu had missed the point?

With the transformation issue resolved, Ming Ying extended her three tails and patted them one by one on Fu Anyu’s pillow. “Second matter, if I want to go out, what should I do about them?”

“Can’t you retract them?” Fu Anyu asked.

“If I could, why would I be asking you?” Ming Ying rested her chin on one tail while the other two continued to anxiously pat the pillow. “They only hide when my spiritual power is depleted.”

“If the tail’s concealment state is automatically controlled by detecting the amount of spiritual power in the body, that’s easy to handle.” After saying this, Fu Anyu placed both hands on her green jade gourd necklace, clasped them together, and softly chanted an incantation.

Ming Ying recognized this gesture, some storage magical tools were accessed this way. Though a bit cumbersome, such tools were usually difficult to steal. Her own parents each possessed one.

As she was thinking this, a series of crisp bell chimes sounded beside her ears, and several accessories adorned with bells were laid out before her.

“This is a set of magical tools capable of storing spiritual power,” Fu Anyu explained to her. “Wearing them allows you to temporarily store spiritual power inside and retrieve it when needed.”

“So convenient?!” Ming Ying exclaimed in surprise and delight, extending her paw to fiddle with them. She discovered that the accessories covered everything from head to toe, truly a complete set. Curious, she leaned in to sniff but was met with an overwhelming scent of Fu Anyu, so strong that it caught her off guard.

She was instantly overwhelmed, sneezing several times in succession, and couldn’t help but shoot a strange look at Fu Anyu.

“You’ve used these!” Ming Ying stated with certainty, barely suppressing a laugh. “And you used the whole set! You…”

She had intended to tease Fu Anyu, never imagining that the expressionless powerhouse had once worn bells. But when her eyes met Fu Anyu’s, the words she was about to utter stuck in her throat.

Fear was one reason; the other was that she sensed a flicker of pain in Fu Anyu’s gaze.

“When I was young, I couldn’t control my spiritual power. There was too much of it in my body, causing it to surge uncontrollably, damaging my organs and leading to inflammation, which often gave me colds and fevers,” Fu Anyu voluntarily explained, her tone tinged with nostalgia. “This set of tools was personally crafted for me by my grandfather back then, ‘spirit control devices.’ Each piece can be adjusted for tightness using spiritual power, and you can use them.”

Having just experienced the agony of spiritual power surging within her body, Ming Ying couldn’t help but look at Fu Anyu with sympathy.

After picking and choosing from the entire set of bell accessories, she finally selected a pair of wristbands and anklets, asking Fu Anyu to help her put them on.

Fu Anyu gently held the fox’s paws, slipping the wristbands onto her forepaws one by one and tightening them slightly with spiritual power, then proceeded to place the anklets on her hind paws.

“Take a few steps,” Fu Anyu said, flicking one of the bells as she spoke to Ming Ying.

Ming Ying hopped onto the floor and walked back and forth. The constant, light jingling of the bells, though a bit noisy, brought a sense of calm to her mind. After a few rounds, she grew fond of them.

When she jumped back to Fu Anyu’s side, she cast a reluctant glance at the remaining accessories, thinking to herself that once she transformed into human form, she would definitely wear the entire set, not only were they beautiful, but they also soothed the spirit, killing two birds with one stone.

“Alright, repeat after me,” Fu Anyu said once Ming Ying had settled down with her paws tucked under her. She then recited the incantation she had long since memorized by heart.

Ming Ying followed along slowly.

When she focused her mind on learning, she typically grasped things immediately. After reciting it just once alongside Fu Anyu, she could recite the entire incantation from memory.

Fu Anyu then taught her how to channel spiritual power into the spirit control devices. Ming Ying followed the instructions, watching as her two newly grown tails rapidly shrank, transforming into pure spiritual power that flowed into the devices fastened to her limbs.

Without chanting, Ming Ying willed the spiritual power to return. The power that had just entered the control devices immediately flowed back into her body, re-forming into twin tails.

“This is so fun!” Ming Ying was absolutely thrilled, repeatedly drawing out her spiritual energy and then calling it back, never tiring of the activity.

Fu Anyu leaned against the bed, watching the little fox grow increasingly adept at retracting and releasing her tails, a slight smile curling at the corners of her lips.

“What a treasure! Your grandfather is truly amazing!” Ming Ying only stopped after she had played to her heart’s content. After praising the spirit control device and Fu Anyu’s grandfather, she stood in front of Fu Anyu, shook her entire body contentedly, and instantly, crisp and malodorous “ding-ding” sounds filled the entire room.

However, Fu Anyu frowned slightly, raised her hand to cover her nose and mouth, her gaze fixed on the tufts of fox fur joyfully fluttering up and down in the air.