Li Meirong coughed tufts of fur out of her mouth and proceeded to examine her surroundings best she could.

Since she was still lying flat on the floor, all she could see was a wall of fluffy white fur concealing everything else from sight. No Senior Wei, no pixie, no audience of various disciples - just fur.

Looking sideways, she noted her current situation - imprisonment by four long, white legs.

"Stay down," the so called jailer growled from behind a wall of fluffy white fur.

Li Meirong stifled a gasp of her own. She was lying underneath a giant fox whose voice she recognized all too well!

While she could not say for certain, she was positive that her little fox spirit must have come to her rescue while she was being tricked by the nasty little pixie and knocked out cold!

It had to be her Snowball, but she felt like she had to ask in order to confirm her suspicions. The last time she had seen him in this form was a long while ago, when she had had her encounter with that crazy lunatic Sheng Jing Wu at the top of the volcano.

"Snowball, is that you?"

The giant fox's wide mouth parted slightly, a grumble rumbling out of from deep within his throat in a conveyance of acknowledgment.

Li Meirong reached up to grasp the fur above her, wrapping her arms around Snowball's warm belly as she released a deep sigh of relief.

'None of that was real,' she silently assured herself. 'Chou can't be dead, and Zhu Qingyue didn't try to kill me. Everything I just experienced must have been an illusion concocted by the pixie so she could trap me in a nightmare…'

The giant fox spirit reluctantly shifted out of his protective stance above her, snout turning left and right as he glared at the audience - trying to shake her off.

More so, he avoided looking at her at all, looking anywhere else but at her.

As Snowball moved about, Li Meirong noticed how his golden gaze never came close to her, but was glaring at everyone else instead.

Strangely, the tips of his pointy ears seemed awfully red beneath the soft white fur.

She took the initiative and crawled determinedly forward from underneath the massive wall of fur until she finally managed to peer right at his furry face.

When their eyes finally met, his strange condition worsened; his furry cheeks gained a pink tint as well.

'Is he blushing? That can't be.' Li Meirong raised a single delicate eyebrow in inquiry as she stared at the fox spirit, confused as to the reason for this odd behavior. If little Snowball had been a girl, then she may have pointed out that he looked like a blushing maiden in front of her secret crush. But, seeing as he was a fox, this obviously wasn't the case here.

Before Li Meirong had the chance to inquire as to the reason for his odd behavior, Snowball let out an awkward little cough and proceeded to wrap his awfully long tail around her narrow waist in an almost possessive gesture.

"Stop staring at me," Snowball grumbled while using his tail to maneuver her up into a sitting position behind him. He directed his sharp gaze straight ahead, breaking eye contact with Li Meirong and avoiding the possibility of it recurring in the near future.

In an attempt to somehow appease the obviously irritated fox, Li Meirong stood and reached out to give him another hug, but he pointedly stepped aside to escape her reach.

The movement nearly caused her to tumble backward, but as she drew closer, she noticed his face had become redder and redder still. Her expression darkened.

"Since you are evidently mad at me, don't you think you should at least let me know what I've done wrong?" she hissed, keeping her voice low so as to keep the conversation as private as possible despite their location. "How can we resolve our issues if you keep pushing me away like this?"

Snowball's tail swished furiously back and forth, but the fox spirit remained unusually quiet.

'This rascal really is going out of his way to avoid me,' Li Meirong was unwilling to bother concealing her own disdainful smile. She wasn't some sort of detective - it wasn't like she could figure out what ailed this silly fox if he refused to speak to her!

"You may rise, but do not leave my side," Snowball stated finally, his second speech since his appearance being a quietly barked command.

Li Meirong gritted her teeth, and decided to take control over the situation before it could get any more out of hand.

She marched forward one more time to stand right in front of the grouchy fox; between the two of them, who was the master and who was the pet? Who was the one who was supposed to be making the decisions here, huh?

Even though there were more pressing matters to take care of, she felt like she had to confront Snowball on this issue and stand her ground immediately, or else she might end up finding out that Snowball had taken it unto himself to become the master and boss her around!

Holding the sides of his furry cheeks in her palms, she forced his attention back to her.

"Didn't I tell Xiao An Fei to take you away from the arena? How come you're back here again?"

Her question seemed to cause the fox spirit's emotions to shift and tumble about all over. His fur bristled as he flashed his fangs in a silent warning.

"Why?" he repeated, snarling the word. "Do you wish I would have left so you could spend more quality time with this mongrel?"

Li Meirong blinked in confusion, processing his response for a few breaths of time before the meaning behind his remark dawned on her.

'Ah, so that was it… now it all makes sense!' Finally, she was given an answer to her question.

Connecting the dots with the clues she had been given, Li Meirong concluded that Snowball must have been jealous of Chou, since the latter was the one she picked for the battle instead of him.

'This silly fox,' Li Meirong thought fondly, shaking her head helplessly.

Sometimes she truly did wonder what was going on inside Snowball's furry head. Didn't he know that it wasn't a matter of her preferring Chou over him - which she didn't - but that she simply wished for him to say safe and sound, as far as possible from harm's way?

She wanted to explain herself and her reasoning properly to the fox, but now was not the time for that. First, she had to find Chou and step off the stage - and, if possible, she would strangle a certain pixie along the way. She considered her situation for a moment longer, and decided that it was indeed the best option for her to delay the conversation for a different, and better, time.

"You misunderstood my intent," she answered, pinching the space between her eyebrows. "Let's discuss this later on, alright? Right now I need to find Chou and settle things with Senior Wei and his familiar."

"Agreed." Snowball's sharp almond-shaped eyes remained fixed upon Senior Wei, who still stood across from them on the other side of the stage.

His golden gaze was murderous.