Right now, Hong Chun was quite sure nobody else knew that the villain's former servant was a fox spirit.

Jiang Ming himself didn't know this because the only thing he cared about was Si Hai following and executing his orders. He didn't mind the methods he used.

Spirits weren't mentioned in the first book because back then, Hong Chun was planning to reveal them in the second book.

All along, she designed Si Hai's character to be a nine-tailed fox that would have full exposure in the second book as one of the antagonists.

She remembered writing the drafts for the second book but didn't really publish it online because she didn't like it.

Even Hong Chun's head was confused about whether it should ache or not.

"What else do you know?"

She heard him ask.

"I know that you're planning on using the Hong family as a stepping stone to do what you want."

Her tone was buoyant but the way she said it sounded like she wasn't even part of this family.

Nevertheless, Si Hai didn't notice as he too wasn't keen on familial ties. A nine-tailed fox like him wasn't family-oriented nor did he have any filial piety in his bones.

"What is it that I want?" He challenged her.

Hong Chun beamed at him. "Why don't you tell me?"

She wasn't a fool to show all her cards.

She had full knowledge this guy could easily harm her right now but she wouldn't allow him to kill her.

He was too young of a spirit. She could still discipline him.

If anybody else knew her thoughts, she'd be labeled as presumptuous.

For how could one tame a spirit? But in Hong Chun's mind, there was only black and white.

As long as someone had thoughts and feelings, they were a work in progress.

Work, meaning, any person or being with intelligence and emotions would have likes and dislikes, aversion and fondness to some things, ambition, and most of all fear.

These things could easily be detected by her like she was a machine scanning people. With this information, she could then decide whether to use these things to her advantage or not.

Honestly, all people could manipulate others to a certain degree even if it was unconscious. Little kids liked acting spoiled toward their parents into getting what they want. Someone dear to you could make you do things you've never done before.

But Hong Chun was like a hidden director in a survival reality show. Imperceptible and sly, she had an innate talent to influence people into achieving her goal. And that person would only think it was their decision and not related to her one bit.

What happened to Si Hai from the beginning was like this.

Hong Chun knew all he ever thought of was revenge even if he had no idea how. Seeing her as a naïve daughter of an average official, he planned on using her family. She recognized this with the help of the incomplete plot of the second book.

However, getting him to expose his plans this early was her design. Si Hai was most unstable during these times. He felt all alone, his plans weren't set in stone and he was insecure.

So the best time to rile him up was now. If she met him any later than this, his thought patterns would be more mature. It would take time and effort to approach him and sway his decisions. That would be a bigger hassle and ultimately, Hong Chun might be too lazy to care by then.

"How did you know about the potion?" His voice was shaky.

She grinned and shot a question back.

"What's the most important thing in your life?"

There was no response from the other person.

"For me, losing control of my own thoughts and emotions is worse than death."

Hearing this, Si Hai thought to himself. After realizing what it meant, he silently exhaled.

He targeted the wrong person.

The potion might have worked on Hong Chun in the beginning but she soon became aware of the foreign thing in her body.

This harmless-seeming lass knew herself so much that it was terrifying. She held a tight leash on herself and anything amiss would easily be detected.

Hong Chun wasn't bothered to correct his thoughts as she knew they were true.

Using modern terms, she seemed to have 24/7 high-end security on her thoughts and emotions.

The moment she felt different about Si Hai without a definite reason, she knew something fishy was going on.

Her appearance was a far cry from a paranoid OCD maniac but she was actually one (just on certain things).

When a foreign emotion entered her body, she tried to look for its cause. Yes, she treated it like an alien and somewhat novel experience.

It wasn't an active action but almost done on an instinctual level.

Recalling details in her mind, the only thing that differed from her living patterns was Si Hai serving her snacks.

But even after knowing that she was being drugged to 'love' a person, she kept on consuming them just to test how long she could resist it.

If she wasn't worried about the wasted time, she wouldn't unveil him so soon.

It was such a good experiment for her who had a 0% chance of having deep feelings for someone.

But she was getting off-track here. She still had to deal with this troublesome fox.

"No matter what you do, you can't achieve the thing you desire. You can use this family or some other family but it won't make any difference. Your opponents don't even deem you worthy to compete against."

She was referring to the current dragon and phoenix sitting on the throne. They ignored Si Hai before because he was just a servant. They didn't even bother to finish him off and just sent him to a faraway land.

Although it was rather unfair to Si Hai who, in reality, had the potential to harm the leads because of his identity but he could only do so after he gathered his forces and mastered his talents.

Right now, he had nothing.

Si Hai had volatile emotions after knowing his master died. The girl kept on provoking him so it took a bit of effort not to hurt her.

He knew he would regret it once he harmed her.

From the girl's words earlier describing her gift, he supposed she was a seer.

A seer was a mythical human who had high spiritual ability and can peer into people's fate. Although they were rare, spirits respected them.

Spirits naturally looked down on unenlightened humans but they could tolerate those who could sense their existence. A seer was only one kind of human who could sense spirits but the spirits saw this ability as nature's gift to pitiful humans.

In some abnormal way, Si Hai was right because he wasn't aware that Hong Chun was a soul from a different time and space but was born here in this world.

Spirits also had rules of their own, although they weren't as oppressive as the humans.

And one of these was to honor the existence of creatures with heightened senses for the spiritual kin.

Hong Chun wasn't aware of this but her casual half-truth was saving her life right now.

Ignorant of what the fox was thinking about, she continued reasoning.

"You planned for me to fall in love with you and have my father accept you as his son-in-law. Knowing my father, he will cultivate you so as not to slight his daughter. From there, he will probably use the connections he has to let you enter officialdom. After that..."

The villain's former servant would be more ambitious. He would rise up the ladders of public service until he gained fame. And then he'd plan on wreaking havoc in court.

He would fan the flames of those who were dissatisfied with the Emperor and even try to have the dragon and the phoenix split apart.

Hong Chun wasn't just predicting. This was part of the storyline of the second installment of her book.

The unnamed family that Si Hai used would utterly be destroyed. In the first place, what he wanted from this family was the means to enter the court.

After the goal was met, he wouldn't care less for the wife he never treated as one.

Unfortunately, it turned out that Hong Chun's role was to be that wife.

What an irony!

The name 'Hong Chun' didn't even pop up in her drafts.

But it would be stupid of her if she'd still follow that storyline. She couldn't watch herself get killed by the likes of Si Hai who only thought of avenging a worthless master.

"After all the efforts you will put in pulling them down, you'll still be unsuccessful. Do you know why?"

With an inexplicable smile, her words hung in the air.