Translator: Atlas Studios
Editor: Atlas Studios
Li Ang chuckled and said, “Why did you tease my companion last night?”
“He looked charming to me, so I wanted to play tricks on him,” said the black fox.
At the moment, the other companions of the quest team rushed over one by one. Upon seeing that the fox could speak the Fujian dialect, the others were relatively shocked.
“Since everyone is here to attend the banquet, we should be getting along with each other.” Li Ang smiled as he took out a glass marble and waved it in front of the fox before saying, “I’ll give you this marble. Will you perform the skills of a fox spirit for us?”
The previous night, he had learned from Chai Cuiqiao that most of the demons would transform into humans because they coveted the wealth of the human world and wanted to have a good time there.
In other words, luxury goods such as gold, silver, and jewels were valuable to the demons…
After the black fox saw that round glass marble with golden leaves inside, its eyes lit up and it nodded its head. “Sure.”
It easily jumped down the house beam, emanating white smoke around its body.
With a bang, a beautiful person in palace clothes appeared in the same spot. However, there was a fierce look on its pitch-black face and its full beard was extremely coarse. It was an unfortunate thing.
Everyone found it more than ridiculous. Hanging Sword for Ten Thousand Miles’ face turned pale, while Xing Hechou scratched his head and asked, “Shouldn’t a fox transform into a beautiful woman?”
The male fox, who was forcibly surrounded, had an awkward expression on its face as it explained, “I have yet to reach the transformation realm. This is just a botched diversionary trick…”
After it said that, it turned back into its fox form and howled twice before a big group of foxes leaped in through the door right away.
This group of foxes each had their own fur color. There were big and small ones, male and female. A white fox, which was the biggest one, coughed twice before it said in an old voice, “I apologize to everyone. This little one has a mischievous nature. Its magical power is still not proficient, and it always wants to show off. It has made a joke out of itself.”
“No, no. This…” Xing Hechou hesitated before looking at the black fox and adding, “His magical powers are very peculiar. This is an eye-opener for me.”
The group of foxes giggled. The black fox, who felt mocked by the group, hurriedly took out the glass marble and placed it before the old fox. “Look, grandfather. They gave me a marble.”
“Oh?”
When the old fox saw the golden leaves in the marble, it grinned. Its anthropomorphic expression was relatively terrifying. “Since it’s a gift from our honored guest, keep it. Oh, that’s right. Are you guys here to attend the banquet? How come I’ve never seen you guys before?”
Li Ang, who had prepared well, lied calmly without his expression changing or his heart thumping. “The few of us are successors of Daoist Priest Dan Teng from the overseas Ahitubai Islands. Our Master asked us to return to the Central Plain to learn through experience. We heard that there is an unrestricted banquet here, so we came over uninvited.”
“I see.” The old fox nodded its head and did not ask anything else.
A group of little foxes was chattering together, sharing short gossip. For example, a female fox had recently gone to seduce a scholar in dire straits. In the end, it had been chased by a shrew for being the mistress. A male fox had carried his wife to a brothel in the human world to find pleasure but had ended up not bringing money and getting locked up in the basement.
In the mystery novels of the Ming and Qing Dynasty, foxes were not all mature ladies and cute young girls who were thinking of gathering Yang and replenishing Yin all day long. On the contrary, there were also male and female fox spirits that lived with their clan and would even get along with humans.
According to a story in The Thatched Study of Close Scrutiny, the second floor of a pawn shop building had been occupied by a group of foxes. Every night, the voices of the foxes would be heard. Because they would not harm humans, they’d lived together in harmony for many years.
One night, a loud, clear whipping sound and a scolding had been heard from the floor upstairs. Everyone had hurried over to listen attentively and suddenly heard a male voice shouting painfully from upstairs, “The people downstairs are logical. How could a wife beat up her husband in this world?”
As it happened, a male member of this group of people also had some claw marks from his wife, so everyone had laughed boisterously and answered, “It happens, it happens. It’s not surprising at all.”
The group of foxes upstairs had roared with laughter and the sound of whipping and shouting had stopped.
Perhaps, female foxes were generally more powerful than male foxes.
There were still many stories about female foxes inflicting domestic violence on male foxes. Zhou Jia, a farmer in Song Village, couldn’t stand his wife’s beatings. While his wife had been asleep one night, he’d fled alone to hide in the broken temple at the entrance of the village and wait until dawn so that his neighbors could think of a way to help him.
His wife had gotten up at night and realized that her husband was missing. Thus, she had followed his traces to the broken temple, broken down Zhou Jia’s sin in front of the God statue, and shouted for Zhou Jia to lie down and get beaten.
A group of foxes living in the temple had heard the whip and the sound of someone begging for mercy, jumped around the God statue, and yelled loudly, “There is still such injustice in the world? Absurd! This is intolerable!”
Numerous male foxes had swarmed and taken away the whip in the wife’s hand, stripped her clothes off to whip her, and had not let her go even when she had started bleeding.
Suddenly, a group of female foxes had appeared and yelled, “Your gang of male foxes only knows how to help jerks. He had an affair with another woman behind his wife’s back. Shouldn’t he be beaten to death?”
Hence, the female foxes had snatched Zhou Jia’s wife over and put her in the corner before catching Zhou Jia to whip him. The male foxes and female foxes had quarreled for a long time and fought over the two living people, which had attracted the people guarding the village. Only then had they dispersed and let Zhou Jia struggle to carry his wife back to the village. On the way back, Zhou Jia’s wife had still scolded him.
Everyone thought and acted differently despite being in the same environment. Just like humans, demons also felt seven emotions and six desires. They also experienced greed, anger, foolishness, resentment, hatred, and love separation. There were crafty and repulsive demons, as well as righteous ones. Some were afraid of death and sought personal gain, while some would give up their life for righteousness and understood right and wrong.
The foxes who had come for the banquet in front of them were all dragged down by a family to feed. There were male, female, old, and young ones. Idle gossip involved short, trivial matters related to the family head. It was as if a family tour group had gone abroad for sightseeing in modern society.
After a place to stay was arranged for the foxes, a clamor was heard outside the temple. Ghosts and monsters quickly arrived.
There was a tiger who walked upright with a Daoist robe holding onto a fly-whisk, a cyclops with big hands and feet that was 4 meters tall and was holding onto a huge wooden club, an old, big, crafty-looking one holding a walking stick with a group of brown rats surrounding and protecting it, and a plague demon with toxic sores all over its body, a green-purple tongue drooping in front of its chest, white clothing, and a black hat.
All sorts of demons and monsters gathered in the courtyard of the temple and created a few small circles before making a clamor and exchanging conventional greetings with each other, seeming close to each other after meeting for a long time.
Despite their weird appearance, these demons and monsters lived in harmony and greeted each other just like rural entrepreneurs attending a reception would…
They looked old-fashioned for sure.
Click, click, click… Upon seeing the courtyard filled with demons and monsters, Hanging Sword for Ten Thousand Miles felt nervous, his body grew stiff, and his palm broke out in a sweat. At the same time, he secretly thought that these were generous rewards walking upright…
Xing Hechou silently sighed. As expected, just like Li Ang had said, if the quest team had not discovered the truth about Solitary Temple and had a conflict with Chai Cuiqiao before eliminating her, the team, which was unaware of the banquet, would very likely have lost its head out of fear when these demons had come and had an open fight with them. Then, everyone would have died.
Thank god, thank god.
Xing Hechou wiped the cold sweat from his hand and secretly assessed the combat power of these demons expressionlessly.