'I love you.' 

The words echoed in the eerily silent air around the pair long after falling from Li Meirong's lips.

Zhu Qingyue's snarl shifted into a clear and rather puzzled frown, his hold on her gradually loosened.

Slowly, bit by bit, his grip eased away.

To Li Meirong, it felt like she was fighting a losing battle to remain awake and focused. After having confessed her feelings in such a way, however, she was determined to see his reaction no matter what. With that in mind, she continued her struggle against the numbing pain and light-headedness that hastened her towards unconsciousness.

Through heavily lidded eyes, she bore witness to Zhu Qingyue's humanity slowly resurfacing, his sense of reason not entirely quenched.

Li Meirong's grim expression softened. Her fingers, trembling from blood loss, traced slowly along his bloodied jaw, all the way down his long snout. 

As her fingers tapped the very tip of his dark nose, she heard him let out a low, rumbling growl.

Where only a second ago he seemed as if he was about to shred her into tiny pieces, he now appeared visibly and obviously confused. She thought, a little hysterically, that he looked a bit funny at the moment; it was as if he wasn't sure whether to keep torturing her or cradle her in his embrace.

The corners of her lips tilted upwards into a soft, brief smile as she gazed up at him.

If someone had asked Li Meirong - in that moment or any other - what love meant to her, they would be sorely disappointed with the answer she would give them.

Frankly speaking, when it came to love as when it was shared between a man and a woman, she no longer held a very favourable opinion on the matter.

She used to long for the budding warmth that would engulf her whenever she was around the person she held feelings for. She used to think that being able to love someone and finding your other half was a blessing. She used to think it was a connection that could transcend time, space, and age.

Love should be, she once thought, a pure and selfless emotion. But fate had, for better or worse, taught her otherwise.

If she was to really spend some time thinking on what it meant to love somebody, to sit and ponder on the matter, then she could only come to one conclusion: this emotion was only ever a weakness.

To her, love was heartache. Love was longing. Love was, perhaps, just an endless series of disappointments concocted by the chemicals going haywire in the brain. 

All in all, she knew for certain that the terrible feeling had clouded her judgment more times than she could count. She knew that to be true now, and she also knew that right now she must not be thinking straight at all.

Still, if she was bound and fated to die at Zhu Qingyue's hand, then she might as well be honest with herself in her final moments.

Although she still didn't want to admit it, she had - somehow - still managed to fall in love with this absolute bastard of a man.

So the question remaining was: what was she so afraid of?

She wasn't so sure what the answer to that would be. Even if this man was a monstrous beast, it was still the man she loved. And, as foolish as it might have been given her current circumstances, she had instinctively felt that she had to confess her feelings before she died, to show him that she trusted him.

"Zhu Qingyue…I despise you." Li Meirong murmured again, gurgling a little on her own blood as she glared at him, "and I despise myself for loving you."

She stared at him accusingly, unsure if it was because of his despicable betrayal or if it was instead fuelled by the knowledge that she had, in the end, opened up her heart to him. 'How dare you make me fall in love with you?!' she thought furiously.

The bestial version of Zhu Qingyue stilled entirely at her words, as if frozen. The rage had vanished from his face altogether, only to be replaced by an obvious look of embarrassment which was most unbefitting of his current monstrous visage.

The silly, flustered look he possessed caused a tiny bit of comfort to unfurl within her. From the odd expression she could decipher from his furry muzzle, Zhu Qingyue appeared to be so terribly perturbed that he could no longer even tell his left from right anymore.

That made her laugh aloud. It was a laugh like that which a person gave when relieved of all stress and heartache, leaving them with a rare moment of clarity. The laughter of a person who had discovered something true to themselves.

It was then she realised, suddenly and clearly, that she no longer felt any pain - nor did she have any trouble breathing.

'How is this possible?' Li Meirong thought as she squirmed under Zhu Qingyue's hold on her neck. She looked down at her stomach, finding no cuts nor tears giving evidence of her wounds.

She seemed to be perfectly fine, like nothing had ever happened and as though no harm had come to her at all.

Any other traces of the violence that had just occurred were also missing, gone as if they had never happened despite only a few moments having passed.

'Wait a minute… this can't be real.' Li Meirong's mind became numb with realization.

This world wasn't without its fair share of crazy situations, but the crowd disappearing so suddenly, the world dissolving into complete darkness, and Zhu Qingyue turning into a huge furred beast - this was just a little too much to believe.

Thereafter, the gates to the fatigue she continuously fought against opened up once more.

As she turned back around, the bestial Zhu Qingyue was no longer in sight. Finding herself all alone in complete and utter darkness, a wave of dizziness washed over her and she fell, paralyzed, to the ground.

When Li Meirong regained consciousness, she was lying flat on her back on the familiar stage of the arena. The suffocating silence which had filled the air was suddenly abuzz with the voices of hundreds of spectators.

Before being able to peel her eyes open and look at anything, she could already hear the all-too-familiar racket coming from the sect's disciples who had come to see the battle.

A collective gasp sounded through the crowd as Li Meirong wearily rubbed at her eyes and squinted them open. Various disciples within the crowd began discussing the shocking turn of events amongst themselves.

"She broke out of the illusion all on her own… Sister Meirong truly is an impressive young lady."

"Impossible! Did you not hear Senior Wei's explanation? Only his pixie can break the spell! … Where did that pixie disappear to, anyway?"

"At this point, does it even matter? The fight is as good as over! That huge fox spirit standing over there belongs to Junior Sister Meirong, and he tore through the array surrounding the stage! Breaking the rules like that means the battle ends immediately."

"Tsk, tsk. Instead of doing a counter-attack, she got herself disqualified. This is a sham!"

The discussion took a turn to the negative, switching from murmurs of shock and awe to boos and chants of disappointment and disapproval.

Disoriented by her entire ordeal, Li Meirong stifled a groan as she tried to collect herself and regain her bearing. She began to hoist herself up from the stone cold floor, using her elbows for support, feeling shaky and sore.

Her plan was instantly thwarted, however, as a mountain of white fur pressing against her face blocked the attempt.