My Evil Wife Is a Nine-Tailed Fox

When Li Fei'er heard from Shen Minyao that Lu Anqi was in trouble, this wasn't what she was expecting to see. Did Lu Anqi just die? Had she become a ghost? Why was she being chased by the other ghosts and malevolent spirits, then? 

However, Li Fei'er had no time to think about the answers to these questions. She needed to save Lu Anqi regardless of whether she was a ghost or not. As soon as Lu Anqi reached them, Li Fei'er dispelled and exorcised all the ghosts and spirits at once.

"Begone!" Once she uttered her mantra, the spirits cried in pain. They then vanished into thin air, leaving no traces of their coming. 

Li Fei'er rested her trembling hands on her thighs. She kept on gasping for breath, her body drained from the amount of spiritual powers she had used to exorcise those malevolent spirits that were after Lu Anqi. 

Lu Anqi was in a crying mess as she clung to Shen Minyao's arm, leaving the nine-tailed fox demon helpless about what she could do to console the crying human. She glanced at Mu Qing for help, but the grim reaper had no idea how to do so. 

It took some time for Lu Anqi to calm down, and they returned to the rooftop, where they could have the privacy they needed. 

"Lu Anqi, what happened to you? Did you die?" Li Fei'er looked at her friend, baffled as to why Lu Anqi was in this state. She couldn't hug the other girl even if she wanted to, since Lu Anqi was like a ghost to her. She even doubted that Shen Minyao was able to touch Lu Anqi at all. 

"I'm not dead. No, I can't be dead, right?" Lu Anqi sniffed as she looked at Li Fei'er and Shen Minyao in confusion. 

"Tell us what happened first, from the very beginning," Shen Minyao said with her arms crossed over her chest, looking at Lu Anqi with her ever impassive face. 

Lu Anqi calmed herself and sat on the floor, next to Li Fei'er; while Shen Minyao and Mu Qing remained standing. 

"I came home last night, exhausted from a long day I had with Mr. Jiang. We just finished a case yesterday, and I went to bed and slept without changing out my outside clothes. I was just too tired. When I woke up, I realized that I had become a ghost… and someone else was using my body! She trashed my whole place, looking for money!" 

Li Fei'er's brows shot up. She had heard of some cases like this in the past, but usually, the person would eventually return to their body and wake up. She had never heard of a case where the ghost snatched the body of the living. However, thinking about it, wasn't Lu Anqi a medium? 

Shen Minyao pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed, thinking how Jiang Chen could allow this to happen to Lu Anqi. Just what kind of training was that man giving to his subordinate for her to lose her own body to another wandering spirit? 

"Lu Anqi, you do realize that you need to return to your body as soon as possible, right?" She asked the young human. 

Lu Anqi's lips quivered, and she nodded her head. "But I have no idea how to return to my body. Whoever possesses my body can't see nor hear me, and I have no idea how to repel her spirit out of it." 

"That sounds like a problem," Mu Qing commented. 

Lu Anqi glanced at him, wondering who he was and why he looked familiar and close to Shen Minyao. If she was in her normal state, she would have been in awe at how good-looking this man was, but that wasn't the case for now. 

"How long will it take before Lu Anqi dies?" Shen Minyao's question towards Mu Qing startled not only Lu Anqi but also Li Fei'er. 

"I-I'm going to die?" Lu Anqi stuttered in shock. 

"What else do you think will happen to your body? Ever wonder why many humans who get possessed by demons and ghosts don't live long? Your body will eventually reject the spirit that has possessed it, but once that happens, your body would have already received irreversible damage. You'll be as good as dead, then." Shen Minyao didn't bother to sugarcoat her words and told Lu Anqi the truth. 

"Her body is safe for now unless the spirit does something reckless to it," the grim reaper explained. "It hasn't been twenty-four hours since the possession, but Lady Lu should return to her body in three days. Else, her own body will think that it has already served its purpose and will deteriorate on its own." 

"I didn't know that a human body could do such a thing. How about those people in coma and the brain-dead?" Li Fei'er asked curiously. 

"They aren't totally dead, Lady Li," Mu Qing replied. "Unlike Lady Lu, their body is still their own as their spirit is still somehow bound to it. That's why, in some rare cases, patients who were in a deep coma could wake up and continue living." 

"Then, what about Shen Minyao…?" Li Fei'er couldn't stop herself from questioning Shen Minyao's—the demoness's origin. She was a demon with a human body, so how come her human body wasn't rejecting her? 

"This body has a rare constitution that allows my spirit to bind unto it without facing such consequences that Lu Anqi is facing now. The real Shen Minyao is what immortals like us call 'a perfect vessel'. Although rare, the real Shen Minyao isn't the only one who possessed a body like this." The fox woman was the one to answer Li Fei'er's question. This was the first time that Li Fei'er voiced out her curiosity about Shen Minyao's origin and why she was able to mingle and live as a human among them. 

"I see…" Li Fei'er nodded in understanding. "Then, what can we do to help Lu Anqi?" 

"We should find her body and force the spirit out of it," Mu Qing responded, eyeing the young shaman. "Is Lady Li proficient enough to expel a spirit from one's body?" 

Li Fei'er pressed her lips into a thin line and shook her head. 

"I know the basics and how to do it, but I haven't really tried or done it in real life," she admitted. 

"Well, don't you humans say there's first in everything? Might as well treat this as your chance to do it," Shen Minyao commented. 

"If I do it, we only have one shot, though." Li Fei'er looked at the three of them before her eyes landed on Lu Anqi. "Sorry, Anqi. I'm not strong enough yet, so I could only do the ritual once. I wouldn't know what to do if I fail." She told her friend, a little guilty that she couldn't assure Lu Anqi that everything would be fine. This was one of those rare times that she hated herself for not being strong enough to do something. 

She might have innate strong spiritual powers compared to other shamans. She was able to improve her strength faster, but her inexperience held her back in reaching her full potential as a shaman. 

Meanwhile, Shen Minyao thought that she was capable of kicking out the spirit from Lu Anqi's body. However, she wasn't willing to compromise her human body and leave it vulnerable for other spirits to possess. She could only sigh inwardly and accept that she was reduced to helping in different ways. 

"So, what's the plan?" She asked the three, but none of them knew what to do at the moment. 

Since they couldn't come up with any solution to back up Li Fei'er's one-shot exorcism on a human, Shen Minyao decided to give Jiang Chen a call. 

"Hey, Mr. Psychic, do you happen to be in town today?" She said, without waiting for Jiang Chen to say hello. 

"Shen Minyao? Do you need something?" Jiang Chen asked from the other line, surprised that she was calling him.

"Oh, no. I'm not the one who needs your professional help. It's just that there's this very young medium who has lost her own body to another spirit, and now she's wandering around like a ghost," Shen Minyao said with a cold tone as she checked her well-manicured hand nonchalantly. "I suppose you know her. A seventeen-year-old girl with shoulder-length hair and a cute, pretty face. She's still dressed in her high school uniform that she wore yesterday." 

The fox woman heard a loud screeching sound. Jiang Chen was probably driving when she called him.

"Where are you? I'll be on my way now." Jiang Chen's tone sounded so serious. 

"School's rooftop. Don't be late." The fox woman replied.

Shen Minyao scoffed and eyed the distressed girl in front of her.. She knew Jiang Chen wouldn't be able to stay still if he knew what happened to this girl.