The man froze. Having grown up in the wild, the little fox didn’t understand that some actions, which were common among animals, had completely different meanings for humans. Like this time, he had simply wanted to let the man know he should eat something.
The soft sensation from the edge of his lips and the fur brushing against his cheek felt as if something had tugged at his heart. He couldn’t quite describe the feeling.
Even though the food was right at his lips, the man still hadn’t opened his mouth. The little fox was frustrated, and it directly slapped the man’s cheek with its paw.
The man lowered his gaze, meeting a pair of clear, confused eyes.
Suppressing the urge to rub his forehead, the man thought, ‘Forget it, forget it. He’s just a little fox who doesn’t understand anything. Why am I making such a fuss?’
Having figured this out, the man finally opened his mouth and accepted the grilled meat the little fox had offered.
The little fox was satisfied. It jumped back onto the man’s lap, curled up, and prepared to sleep.
The man looked at the little fox using his leg as a pillow and was fast asleep, and a slight smile curved on his lips.
It wasn’t in vain that he had searched for so long. Finally, he had found him.
The man didn’t need to eat, so he picked up the little fox and tidied up the area before starting to heal the fox’s wounds.
He didn’t know what had happened to the little fox before he found him, but it didn’t matter. Now that he had found him, whatever had happened in the past no longer mattered. From now on, he wouldn’t let anyone hurt the little fox again.
A soft white light rose from the man’s palm and entered the little fox’s body. As time passed, the little fox’s breathing became more steady.
The little fox stayed in the cave, no longer needing to worry about anyone coming to seek revenge. When he was hungry, there was delicious food brought right to his mouth. When he was thirsty, he had sweet honey water. Under the man’s care, his wounds healed rapidly.
One could say this was the most comfortable time the little fox had ever experienced since birth.
As the man and the fox became more familiar with each other, the little fox no longer rejected the man’s closeness. On the contrary, he loved snuggling up to the man. He liked the warmth of the man’s palm, the gentle strokes, the deep, pleasant voice…
Once the little fox had recovered, he no longer stayed in the cave every day. He would go hunting with the man, play by the river, and grill meat under the moonlit sky together…
Life during this period was so comfortable that he almost forgot about the fox couple seeking revenge on him.
Since being with the man, the little fox had hardly thought about his past life. The pain and hardships seemed far away now. He was no longer alone and no longer had to endure everything by himself.
The man took such good care of him that the little fox often thought that even if he had parents, they wouldn’t be able to treat him better than this.
Time seemed to pass unnoticed in the mountains. Under the man’s attentive care, the little fox had grown noticeably larger since they first met. His fur had become sleeker, and his eyes were brighter, filled with the mischief typical of his age.
He would act cute and coquettishly in the man’s arms, make playful demands, and at the same time, under the man’s guidance, he began to learn how to cultivate systematically.
Every night, he would curl up in the man’s embrace, listening to him talk about the outside world, and would drift off to sleep to the sound of the man’s deep, gentle voice.
He didn’t know the man’s identity, nor where he came from, and he didn’t care. All that mattered was the man’s promise to stay by his side forever.
At this young age, the little fox didn’t understand that sometimes, words were the weakest promises. He also didn’t know that the world was unpredictable, and the forever you believed in could vanish in an instant.
Every month, the man would leave once, sometimes for as long as five days, sometimes as few as two. The little fox didn’t know where he went, and even when he acted coquettishly, asking the man to take him along, all he got was a loving pat.
This time was no different. The little fox blocked the man and refused to let him go.
He couldn’t understand. The man didn’t need human food and wasn’t a mortal, so why did he have to leave every month?
The more familiar he became with the man, the more he relied on him, and the more he feared his departure. In just a few short months, the little fox had already become deeply attached to him.
A person who has lived in solitude for a long time does not fear loneliness, because they don’t know what it feels like to have company. But once someone experiences warmth after being lonely, it becomes unbearable to return to the cold solitude.
The man crouched down, gently patting the little fox’s head as he always did. “Be good, I’ll be back soon.”
The little fox sulked, but since he considered himself a magnanimous fox, he snuggled with the man for a while longer before reluctantly letting him go.
Left alone on the mountain, the little fox was bored out of his mind. This wasn’t the mountain where he used to live. He had thought about taking the man back to his mountain, but he feared the big foxes from the neighboring mountain might hurt him. So he decided to wait a bit longer, to wait until he was stronger, and then he would bring the man back with him.
The cave felt empty without that person. The little fox lay on the stone bed that still carried the man’s scent, pretending that the man was still by his side.
“Bang—”
A loud crash woke up the sleeping little fox. Before he could stand, the ground shook. His sharp claws dug into the stone wall, preventing him from being thrown off.
“After hiding for so long, we’ve finally found you!”
It was the big foxes from the neighboring mountain!
They had actually tracked him down?!
The little fox quickly steadied himself and ran outside. He wasn’t afraid of the fox couple; if he were, he wouldn’t have settled down next to their territory.
“What do you want?” The little fox’s voice still had a soft, childlike tone, but at this moment, no one would underestimate him because of that.
“What do we want? Li Shu, you injured our son so badly, and you still ask what we want?” A charming female voice rang out, but it was filled with venom.
“You know better than I do why he was injured. You’re only coming after me because you think I’m easier to bully!”
The woman felt embarrassed and became furious at having her intentions exposed, “No matter how you try to twist it, my son’s injury is your fault, and you must pay the price!”
Li Shu didn’t waste time arguing. He immediately launched an attack.
If these people were reasonable, he wouldn’t have been so badly injured that day. It was their fox cub who attacked first, and with no restraint at that. Was he supposed to just sit there and let himself be beaten to death without fighting back?
The man sensed something was wrong halfway through his return trip. He had set up a formation around the cave, so if the little fox was in danger, he would know. Not daring to delay, the man rushed back immediately.
By the time he arrived, everything was over. The two big foxes were pinned under the furious little fox, begging for mercy, but the little fox acted as if he hadn’t heard them.
His bloodlust had been stirred, and his eyes glowed red, teetering on the verge of falling into madness.
Thunderclouds churned in the sky, as though a great storm was brewing. The man rushed through the clouds and pulled the little fox into his arms.
“It’s me, I’m back. Shu Shu, wake up, it’s all right now.”
He gently called out in a soft voice, while stroking the little fox’s fluffed-up fur from head to tail.
Under the man’s repeated soothing, the red in the little fox’s eyes gradually faded.
The rumbling thunder slowly subsided, and the rolling clouds dispersed reluctantly.
Exhausted, the little fox barely managed to confirm that he was in the man’s arms before collapsing into a deep sleep.
The man carefully adjusted his hold on the little fox, then slowly approached the two foxes, who had been beaten back to their original forms and severely injured. His oppressive aura fell down on them, with no intention of showing mercy.
The two foxes were already gravely wounded, and under the crushing pressure, it felt as if their bones would be ground to dust.
“We were… wrong…”
The two foxes bowed their heads low, filled with regret. If they had known earlier that this wild fox cub had any connection to this powerful figure, they wouldn’t have dared to act, even if they had ten times the courage.
“I won’t take your lives,” the man said with a wave of his hand. “Your cultivation will be stripped, and only after you’ve atoned for your sins can you enter the cycle of reincarnation.”
When the little fox woke up, he found that the man was treating him even better than before. Not that the man had been unkind before, but now his kindness had taken on an even deeper care.
He clung to the man, asking, “Was it you who saved me that day? Where did those two foxes go? Will they come back?”
Yes, after waking up, Li Shu had forgotten everything that happened that day. More precisely, he had completely forgotten the part where he went into a frenzy.
The man had no intention of making him remember. “Don’t worry, they won’t bother you again.”
Li Shu soon discovered that he could now talk directly with the man, and compared to those two foxes, he cared more about the man. He quickly stopped dwelling on what had happened that day.
He jumped onto the man’s lap, raised his body, and locked eyes with him. “My name is Li Shu. You still haven’t told me yours.”
‘Li Shu.’
The man silently repeated the name, as if savoring it, rolling it over and over in his mind, wanting to internalize it completely.
“Who gave you this name?” he heard himself ask, his voice trembling slightly.
“Huh?” The little fox rubbed his head against the man. “I don’t know. Ever since I became conscious, I just knew my name was this.”
Unconsciously, the man patted the little fox’s head. “Call me… Ah Lin.”
“Ah Lin.”
Hearing his name spoken in that soft, childlike voice made the man’s heart soften. It was a mix of satisfaction, joy, and an indescribable pain.
“Shu Shu, do you want to see the human world?”
Hearing this, Li Shu quickly climbed up onto the man’s shoulder, circling his neck and resting his head in the man’s nape, his eyes sparkling. “Can Ah Lin take me there?”
The little fox’s fluffy white tail draped over the man’s shoulder. The man stroked it a few times. “Does Shu Shu want to go?”
“I do!”
Of course he did. That was the human world that was full of countless legends. Li Shu had heard stories from all kinds of demons and monsters about it and had long wanted to see it for himself.
Without much preparation, the man carried the little fox down the mountain.
To go from the demon realm to the human world, one had to pass through a barrier. This barrier served to protect both the human world and the demons, and only those with a certain level of cultivation could cross it.
With the man’s protection, Li Shu easily passed through the barrier.
A barrier separates two completely different worlds. There were mountains inside the barrier and there were mountains outside the barrier, but the feelings they gave off were completely different.
Not long after they left the barrier, a grand palace appeared before them, faintly surrounded by celestial energy. Since ancient times, gods and demons had been opposing forces. Li Shu extended his claws and tightly gripped the fabric beneath them.
“Ah Lin, where are we going?”
“Don’t be afraid,” sensing the little fox’s tension, the man patted his head. “This is where we’ll be living from now on. With me here, no one will harm you.”
When the man approached, the people dressed in the same attire bowed their heads in unison.
“Greetings, Grandmaster!”
The man nodded lightly and carried the fox straight into the inner hall.
This was a side of Ah Lin that Li Shu had never seen before—cold, aloof, and detached from the world, as if he was above the mundane world. It was so different from the Ah Lin who lived in the cave and doted on him endlessly, as if they weren’t the same person.
There were attendants everywhere in the residence. Li Shu didn’t dare to speak; he knew that in the human world, if an animal spoke, it would cause panic.
The man’s identity was clearly extraordinary. This was evident from the respectful and sincere attitude of the servants.
Finally, when the man dismissed the attendants, Li Shu jumped out of his arms and stood on the table, staring directly into the man’s abyss-like black eyes. “Ah Lin, who exactly are you?”
