The heavens themselves seemed to hesitate before splitting apart, as if even the cosmos knew what was coming. Then, with a sound like a thousand wind chimes caught in a hurricane, she came crashing back into existence—Xiao Jiuying in full goddess splendor, her nine tails fanning out in a blaze of celestial fire that painted the battlefield in shades of mischief and mayhem.
She landed barefoot on a patch of scorched earth, embers swirling around her ankles, and immediately proved three things beyond any doubt:
First, she remembered Luo Feng's most shameful secret—the childhood nickname he'd buried under years of carefully cultivated dignity. "Puddlejumper!" she crowed, pointing at him with the delight of someone who had been waiting centuries to drop this particular bomb.
Second, she knew the exact moment she would reclaim what was hers. She checked an imaginary wristwatch, smirked, and announced, "Mark the 24th on your calendar. I'm collecting what you owe me." The way her gaze dropped to his lips left no room for misunderstanding.
Third, and perhaps most catastrophically, she remembered precisely how to make the Death Queen's left eyelid twitch in under three seconds flat. "Oh," she said, turning wide, innocent eyes on the poison mistress. "You're still here? How... persistent of you."
The Death Queen's dagger was in her hand before the last syllable faded. "I can fix this oversight right now—"
Li Qing, ever the voice of reason (or at least the voice of slightly-less-chaos), froze the weapon midair with a sigh. "We just got her back."
"Exactly," the Death Queen hissed, her smile all teeth and no warmth.
Xiao Jiuying, for her part, looked utterly delighted by the reaction.
The problem, as it turned out, wasn't that the newly resurrected Fox Spirit had lost her memories.
No, the problem was which memories she'd decided to keep.
Ask her about the Pantheon's weak points? She'd hum and tap her chin before declaring, "Hmm... nope!" with a pop on the 'p.'
Inquire about the backdoor codes she'd woven into the Divine Check-In System? "Sounds fake," she'd say, examining her claws with exaggerated disinterest.
The Void Emperor's true name? She didn't even hesitate. "Uh... Steve?"
But Luo Feng's most embarrassing moments? Those were etched into her divine recall with horrifying precision.
"Remember," she said, conjuring a foxfire projection of a much younger, much more unfortunate-looking Luo Feng, "when you tried to impress that village girl by juggling swords? And then—"
"I remember," Luo Feng said through gritted teeth as the image showed his teenage self dropping every blade directly onto his own feet.
Xiao Jiuying clasped her hands together. "Or that time you—"
"I will throw myself into the Void," Luo Feng announced to no one in particular.
Her return tour was nothing short of a masterpiece of provocation.
For the Death Queen, she "accidentally" set a single, perfect lock of her hair aflame—just enough to make her shriek—before offering, with saccharine sweetness, to braid it for her while it was still smoldering.
For Li Qing, she took one look at her meticulously crafted ice fortress and turned it into something that resembled a half-melted snowman with a lewd expression. The note left behind read: "Your frost is adorable. Like a grumpy kitten trying to look intimidating."
And for Luo Feng? She projected his most shameful moments onto every available surface—clouds, shields, even the breastplates of fleeing enemy soldiers. There was the time he'd face-planted into a pigpen. The incident with the unstable teleportation spell that left him naked in the middle of a temple. That one battle where he'd—
"Okay, we get it!" Luo Feng yelled as another image bloomed across the sky.
Xiao Jiuying just grinned, her tails flicking in smug satisfaction.
As the group retreated from what had once been a perfectly good battlefield (now mostly a monument to Luo Feng's humiliation), the Fox Spirit stretched like a cat in a sunbeam and leaned in close.
"Miss me, patchwork man?" she whispered, her breath warm against his ear.
The foxfire strand in his Eclipse Core burned brighter than it ever had before.
Behind them, the Death Queen was plotting revenge, Li Qing was preserving the one ice sculpture Xiao Jiuying hadn't ruined (it flipped her off when she wasn't looking), and Luo Feng's own shadow had started taking notes.
Somewhere in the distance, a plush demon unfurled a hastily stitched banner that read: "TEAM FOX SPIRIT."
Chaos, it seemed, was back in business.
END OF CHAPTER 80