Wagging My Tail in the Ice Queen CEO’s Embrace - Chapter 59

Even with an odor-blocking mask on, Ming Ying was immediately nauseated by the stench as soon as she stepped out of the car.

She regretted eating so much for dinner.

Chen Yanxue glanced at the coordinates Fu Anyu had sent and quickly led Ming Ying to the location.

Fu Anyu stood in front of an old house, looking down at her phone. When she saw the little fox holding a baseball bat, dressed in sportswear, and sporting a high ponytail, she froze for a moment before a faint smile touched her lips. “Did you come prepared?” she asked.

“Yunxin took it upon herself to dress her up,” Chen Yanxue replied before Ming Ying could speak. “And this baseball bat too, she insisted the little fox bring it along.”

Though dizzy and nauseous from the foul odor, Ming Ying clutched the baseball bat tightly and muttered, “I can’t let the ghosts outdo me in presence!”

Chen Yanxue didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Just as she was about to say that ghosts wouldn’t care about such things, a faint scent of pinewood drifted past her and settled beside Ming Ying.

“Stay close to me,” Fu Anyu said, steadying the little fox and letting her lean against her.

When working outside, Fu Anyu always wore a pinewood-scented perfume, but at home, her scent was that of jasmine blossoms.

Logically, the faint pinewood fragrance shouldn’t have been able to penetrate the odor-blocking mask, yet Ming Ying noticed the scent growing stronger, completely isolating the foul, bloody stench.

She took deep breaths, finding her mouth and nose filled with the pinewood aroma. After inhaling it for a while, her spirits lifted, and she looked up at Fu Anyu in surprise.

How magical, what kind of spell was this?

Once she had recovered, Ming Ying tugged at Fu Anyu’s sleeve and asked, “How can I help?”

“There’s a barrier that needs you to break it,” Fu Anyu said, pointing toward the old house’s door. “I’ve already checked it out. It’s not complicated, but it’s intricate. Breaking it alone makes it easy for a fierce ghost to interrupt. Focus on breaking it, and Xiao Chen and I will protect you.”

“Alright, leave the barrier to me!” Ming Ying nodded eagerly and, with Fu Anyu’s support, walked toward the door, baseball bat in hand.

A chilling wind blew along the way, loosening her ponytail and causing strands of hair to brush against her neck.

Ming Ying was actually quite afraid of ghosts. Feeling the occasional coldness on her neck and the subtle sensation of fine threads touching her skin, she couldn’t help but shiver. Unable to control herself, her hidden fox ears popped out in fright.

“Don’t be afraid, I’m here with you,” Fu Anyu encouraged her from the side.

Breathing in the faint pinewood scent and listening to Fu Anyu’s calm voice, Ming Ying’s tension eased slightly, and her steps grew more confident.

She was here to help, she couldn’t hold her sister back!

But as she reached out to gather her spiritual energy and approached the door, a woman’s piercing scream echoed in her ears.

Ming Ying flinched, pulling her hand back and folding her ears as she looked at Fu Anyu, her voice trembling. “W-what do we do?”

Now she understood why breaking a barrier alone made it so easy for a fierce ghost to interrupt.

“I’ll temporarily seal your hearing,” Fu Anyu said. “Until it’s unsealed, you’ll only be able to hear my voice.”

Ming Ying’s heart nearly skipped a beat. Once she processed the words, she quickly nodded, a small thrill of excitement bubbling inside her.

Only being able to hear her sister’s voice, could anything be more wonderful than that?

The next moment, she felt Fu Anyu’s hands gently cover her ears. Warmth enveloped her, and then, all sound faded away like a receding tide.

The world was silent, yet every sound Fu Anyu made was crystal clear to her ears, even her breathing seemed to echo right beside her.

Ming Ying felt an inexplicable itch in her ears and couldn’t help shrinking her neck slightly. But the absence of the woman’s miserable screams and the eerie howling of the wind did put her at ease. Calmly, she reached out toward the gate and began dismantling the barrier.

“Don’t mind us, focus on breaking the barrier,” Fu Anyu said.

Ming Ying nodded, fully immersing herself in concentration. Her condensed spiritual energy probed into the barrier, searching for its weak points.

At this moment, all she knew was that she was enveloped by the faint scent of pine, and the person she trusted most was standing guard beside her. With just a slight lift of her arm, she could pull her into an embrace.

If she worked harder, she could resolve the malevolent ghost sooner and bring Fu Anyu home earlier.

She wanted Fu Anyu to wipe her body, to hold her in her arms as she slept.

This obsession kept her completely focused. Her left hand traced patterns in the air, but before she could complete a few strokes, a fierce gust of wind slammed into her. Then, she heard Fu Anyu utter a low command, “Gather!” In an instant, a thin water shield materialized before her, with water-based spiritual energy flowing gently within.

Ming Ying knew the malevolent ghost had begun its assault. She hurriedly accelerated her efforts to break the barrier.

All the spiritual energy she had stored in her spirit-control device converged onto the bracelet on her left wrist, facilitating her spellcasting. She noticed Fu Anyu’s breathing growing increasingly rapid, but aside from the single command, she heard nothing else. Worry for Fu Anyu crept into her mind, and she wanted to turn around to check on her.

But she couldn’t afford to look back now. Doing so would disrupt her own spellcasting, not only causing the barrier-breaking to fail but also subjecting her to a backlash of spiritual energy. If she couldn’t react in time, she would surely suffer severe injuries and cough up blood.

“I’m fine, don’t worry,” Fu Anyu’s voice suddenly rang out. “You have to trust me.”

“I trust you,” Ming Ying replied with a nod, her fingers moving even faster as she traced patterns on the barrier.

The barrier wasn’t particularly complex, but it required patience to sever each point of spiritual energy convergence, making the process tedious. Ming Ying had been trained in patience since childhood by her father. Though this training hadn’t manifested in her daily life, when it came to inanimate objects like barriers, she felt no pressure.

After another five minutes, she heard a sharp “clang!” The transparent barrier suddenly revealed a dark golden outline, immediately followed by a dense, spiderweb-like pattern of cracks before dissipating into spiritual energy.

“Eh? My hearing is back?” Ming Ying instinctively touched her ears. No sooner had she spoken than Fu Anyu scooped her up. By the time she regained her senses, a foul, fishy-smelling wind violently invaded the faint pine scent that had surrounded her, sweeping across her face.

Ming Ying was so overwhelmed by the stench that she rolled her eyes and coughed several times before recovering. Lifting her gaze, she saw by the dim moonlight that the spot where she had been standing was now a massive crater!

“It’s a malevolent ghost transformed from a snake demon! Ming Ying shouted immediately after sniffing the fishy wind.

She was quite familiar with the scent of snakes. Back in the royal city, snake clan envoys often came to visit.

“Understood,” Fu Anyu replied tersely. Holding Ming Ying, she leaped again, her free hand pointing toward the enormous black shadow charging into the air after them. Instantly, a giant green jade gourd, tall enough to fit two people, materialized in front of them, blocking the snake demon ghost’s full-force strike.

Ming Ying was still shaken when she spotted the green jade gourd. Her gaze instinctively shifted to Fu Anyu’s neck.

The cord that had held the small gourd now hung empty. It turned out the gourd wasn’t just a storage artifact, it could also be used for defense.

The next moment, Ming Ying heard the sharp ring of a sword. Looking down, she saw Chen Yanxue brandishing her peach wood sword, stepping on two talismans as she charged forward. With a flourish of her blade, spiritual energy coalesced into countless sword shadows, all aimed at the snake-demon wraith!

Seeing them unleash their full power, Ming Ying couldn’t help but feel she was holding them back. After all, Fu Anyu was holding her with one arm while using the other to control the green jade gourd for defense, leaving no hand free for a weapon. Ming Ying herself only had a baseball bat, and even that was gripped in her left hand, her right hand was burned and couldn’t bear much force, nor could she channel too much spiritual energy through it.

After a moment’s thought, she swiftly channeled spiritual energy into the baseball bat, coating its entire surface before commanding it to surge wildly through the wooden weapon, feeding on its nature.

Chen Yanxue had just landed a strike and was forced to retreat again and again, dodging the massive serpent tail. As she contemplated how to close in, she suddenly heard Ming Ying let out a drawn-out “Ah!” The next instant, a rich, earthy scent of vegetation washed over her.

Stunned, she glanced toward Fu Anyu and saw the little fox in her arms had a vine of green tendrils wrapped around her left forepaw. The baseball bat she had been clutching tightly was now flung forward, its surface covered in finger-thick thorns, it had transformed into a veritable spiked club!

The “spiked club” struck the shadowy form squarely at its seven-inch weak point. The snake-demon wraith let out a piercing shriek, but before it could counterattack, the wood-attributed spiritual energy coating the “club” surged through the thorns into its body, invading from within.

This was Ming Ying’s first time using this spell, and she could feel her spiritual energy depleting rapidly. The intense mental focus required soon brought fine beads of sweat to her forehead.

She could even sense that her tails were likely shortening from the strain.

But just as the thought crossed her mind, she felt the arm holding her grow cold. Immediately after, Fu Anyu’s water-attributed spiritual energy flowed into her body, coursing along her left foreleg and beyond.

Water nourishes wood. With the infusion of water-attributed energy, the wood-attributed power felt as if it had taken a potent tonic. In no time, it broke through the snake-demon wraith’s protective spiritual barrier.

With this support, Ming Ying quickly recited an incantation to reshape the wood-attributed energy. Part of it remained as sharp thorns, while the rest transformed into vines that sprouted from within the snake-demon wraith, coiling around it in layer upon layer.

“Sword formation, strike!” she heard Fu Anyu command. Immediately after, Chen Yanxue’s rapid incantation echoed through the air. Even from a distance, Ming Ying could feel the overwhelming sword intent spreading like a tidal wave.

Chen Yanxue’s sword was specially designed to subdue demons, and its oppressive aura was formidable, Ming Ying had experienced it firsthand. But now, she had no energy left to protect herself, and her combat reflexes were sluggish. Caught off guard by the sword intent, she felt her breath catch and let out a pained whimper.

Hearing her distress, Fu Anyu immediately withdrew the green jade gourd, shrank it, and pressed it against Ming Ying’s chest. A soft green glow emerged from the gourd’s surface and flowed into the spirit-control bell charms on Ming Ying’s forepaw and hair.

The gentle chime of the bells eased Ming Ying’s discomfort. Seeing that Chen Yanxue’s sword formation had successfully struck the snake-demon wraith and the massive shadowy form was now plummeting downward, she took a few quick breaths, unwound the green vine from her paw, and carefully wrapped it around Fu Anyu’s wrist.

“I’ll leave it to you.” Ming Ying murmured softly, then leaned into Fu Anyu’s embrace, so exhausted she wanted to close her eyes and sleep immediately.

But in this desolate wilderness, even resting against Fu Anyu didn’t create a sleep-inducing atmosphere.

After keeping her eyes closed for a while, Ming Ying felt Fu Anyu land on the ground. She consciously moved out of her embrace, only holding onto the corner of Fu Anyu’s clothes as she obediently followed her, slowly walking toward Chen Yanxue who was examining the fierce ghost.