(1V5) Crimson maple leaves drifted through the mountains of Lingwu. Tao Mianmian, a red fox who had cultivated for a thousand years, remained trapped in her fox form, unable to take human shape. She had extraordinary talent and peerless spiritual grace, and her thousand years of cultivation had given her power far beyond the threshold for transformation. Yet she was inexplicably stuck at the final step, becoming an oddity whispered about by the mountain spirits.
The demons who had begun their cultivation later than her all took human form and roamed the mortal world. Only she remained a palm-sized little fox, possessing unparalleled foxlike beauty but unable to conjure even the slightest hint of a human form. She searched everywhere for immortal herbs and secret arts, sought advice from the gods, and tried every method she could think of, yet every attempt at transformation failed. A thousand years of effort and waiting brought her nothing but confusion and frustration.
At her most desperate, an ancient black book with blank pages revealed the truth: she was a rare Purifying Spirit Fox, with a spiritual core so pure and immaculate that she could not take human form. Only by drawing near to a chaste, abstinent immortal of profound cultivation and being nurtured by his immortal aura could she briefly assume human form. To make that form permanent, she would need nine more chances. If all nine failed, there would be no hope left.
This was her only chance at survival in a thousand years. Tao Mianmian went all in and set off for Kunlun Ruins. Pretending to be an injured little fox, she used her dazzling red-furred beauty to stop a cool, otherworldly white-robed immortal lord. By sheer luck, he took her in, and she came to live in his tranquil immortal palace.
The immortal palace was silent. Day and night, she was nurtured by the immortal lord's gentle, clear aura, while she kept her desperate resolve hidden in her heart. She knew nothing of love; she saw their companionship only as part of her cultivation to escape her fox form, wholly focused on fulfilling her thousand-year dream of taking human shape. But this deliberate closeness, begun for the sole purpose of transforming, quietly strayed from its course as they spent each day together. Her thousand-year obsession ultimately blossomed into an unexpected bond of destiny between an immortal and a fox spirit.
