The wind blew in through the cracks in the old paper window, stirring up dust. The wind turned a page of the book in my hand, and it seemed as if a beautiful young woman in a short-sleeved cloth dress was standing in front of me, adding firewood to the stove.
The windowpane creaked softly, and bathed in the shimmering light of the snow, I carefully read the words in the book. It was a story about a fox spirit:
There was a young hunter who lived on a desolate mountain. He hunted wild rabbits and their young to fill his stomach, and occasionally hunted wolves and deer. He skinned them and sold their hides at the market at the foot of the mountain, using the money to buy medicine for his seriously ill mother.
Once, he shot a nine-tailed silver fox in the hind leg. The fox's fur was as clear and bright as moonlight. The hunter saw that it was beautiful and otherworldly, like a spirit beast. He felt very lonely in the desolate mountains, so he took the fox in his house and raised it. He didn't know what a silver fox should eat, so he saved some of his own daily food to feed it.
One day, as usual, he went out hunting and found a girl carrying a food basket who had tripped over a broken branch in the mountains and twisted her ankle. She was biting her lip and sobbing halfway there.
He knew the mountain path well, so he carried the girl to a house to nurse her wounds. He tore off his own clothes to bandage her wounds and applied snow to reduce the swelling. The girl was dressed thinly, so he took off his deerskin coat and draped it over her, and then lit a fire to keep warm.
To thank him, the girl opened the lid of her food basket, which contained many exquisite pastries. Her smile was pure, and the firelight made her skin appear snow-white. She said, "My name is Xiao Jiu."
The hunter looked to the side and found that the little fox was nowhere to be seen, and he didn't know where it had gone.
Xiao Jiu's leg needed some time to heal, so she stayed at a hunter's hut. Fearing for her reputation, the hunter erected a fence in the hut to separate the river from the path. During this time, smoke could be seen rising from the stove in the hut every day; Xiao Jiu was an excellent cook. The hunter went out hunting during the day and ate with her at night, sitting around the fire and gazing at her with tender eyes.
Later, the hunter encountered tigers and leopards, a perilous encounter. When he finally made it back to the hut, he was on the verge of death and covered in wounds.
He said to Xiao Jiu: "Xiao Jiu, I have a seriously ill mother at home, and I am unfilial. After I die, please take the Ganoderma lucidum I dug up yesterday down the mountain to give to her, okay?"
He also said: "Xiao Jiu, Xiao Jiu, the food you cook is so delicious, I really like it."
After saying this, he fainted.
Xiao Jiu gazed at him quietly, lost in thought for a long time. She walked to the desk, leaned over it, and carefully wrote down the past events in a notebook. She wrote on the paper: "The heart of a nine-tailed fox can save lives. If I give you my heart, I will no longer be Xiao Jiu. I will only be able to revert to my original form and will not remember anything from before. So I am writing down our past in this notebook. If you wake up in the future and still remember that there was a girl named Xiao Jiu, that will be enough."
This was the last sentence in the booklet, the last words blurred by tears.
I heard a noise inside the room. I turned around and saw a silver fox curled up on the small couch. It was holding the arrow tightly in its arms and gently licking the shaft.
My heart skipped a beat, and I wanted to get closer to see how many fox tails it had.
The little fox seemed startled, its whole body shuddering as it reared up and looked at me.
There are indeed nine tails behind it.
It opened its eyes and gave me a wary look, then darted out of the house with a whoosh. I dropped the booklet in my hand and ran after it. The little fox wasn't fast; its hind legs seemed to have a limp, and it walked with a stagger. But the snow was deep, and occasionally I tripped over a broken branch, causing me to stumble.
My footsteps left a trail of footprints on the ground, occasionally shaking the snow off the branches, which scattered sparsely before my eyes. Just as I was about to catch it, I lunged forward to grab its long tail. The little fox cried out, turned its head, and bit my hand hard. It hurt terribly, and I loosed my grip. It leaped to the right, and I fell to the ground, struggling to my feet, but the little fox had vanished.
By then, it had gotten dark, and a cold wind blew, stirring up heavy snow again. I looked around and saw nothing but trees; I had no idea where I was.
Blood trickled down the back of my hand, disappearing into the snow, a stark contrast to my eyes; a faint numbness lingered, and red spots appeared around the wound. Recalling the woman's words at Tanlu, I realized this little fox was probably poisonous.
I grabbed a handful of snow and placed it on the wound, then leaned against a towering ancient tree and sat down.
The crisscrossing branches spread out before me, covered in snow and ice, their black and white contrasting sharply. A howling wind whistled in my ears, and large flakes of snow fell, melting into ice crystals on my neck and piercing my skin to my very bones. The mountains were so still, broken only by the occasional bird song or animal cry, making the night even more eerie.
I recalled the feeling of being poisoned by cold as a child, the chill seeping into my heart bit by bit. Looking around, there was no one I could rely on. I thought of my master, but he was always so far away from me. Even when we spent every day together in Medicine King Valley, sitting at the same table, listening to the rain falling on the bamboo forest, we were still separated by thousands of miles; how much more so now, we are truly worlds apart.
Pain, accompanied by fear, began to spread from the back of my hand to my arm, then to my shoulder, down my spine to my toes, and throughout my entire body. Snow water mixed with blood gradually seeped into the gaps between my fingers. My mind was hazy, and I didn't know what was happening; my eyelids felt so heavy that I couldn't lift them.
I don't know how much time passed, but when I opened my eyes and woke up, the snow had stopped. A layer of snowflakes covered me, and I tried to lean against a tree trunk to support myself, but I couldn't muster the strength. I was scared; I didn't know if anyone would come to save me. This vast, desolate forest... it was so vast.
The night was so dark it sounded like the howl of a wild beast, not a single ray of light could be seen; it was so desolate and lifeless.
The wind rustled through the woods. I closed my eyes, wondering if what I had said to Lou Xiyue earlier would really come true: that jackals and tigers would carry me away, leaving only a pile of cold, white bones.
A loud cracking sound of a tree branch breaking rang in my ears, as if a tiger or leopard was approaching, stepping on the fallen leaves.
When I heard someone urgently calling my name again, I felt flustered, as if I had lost my footing, and also a little angry. He called out again and again, "Qi Xiang".
I moved my lips, wanting to respond, but I didn't have the strength to utter a single word.
Lou Xiyue's voice gradually faded, as if it were fading into the distance.
After a moment of silence, footsteps sounded chaotic, as if fine snow was falling. Suddenly, someone pulled me into an embrace, his breath ragged, "Qi Xiang, you..."
He stopped speaking, as if suppressing some emotion, and then said in a deep voice, "Where exactly did you go?"
His warm breath brushed against my neck. He wrapped me tightly in his fur coat, lifted me up, and gently asked, pressing his forehead against mine, "What's wrong? Are you cold?"
I nodded slightly. Lou Xiyue carried me back. He walked very fast, as if he used his lightness skill. My head was against his chest, and I could hear his heavy heartbeat, so clear, as if it were echoing in my heart.
I heard him let out a soft sigh of relief and say, "Thankfully..."
Birds flapped their wings and cried out in the forest. The cold faded, the mournful wind stopped, and the vast wilderness stretched out before me. I seemed to hear the sound of snow falling, peeling away inch by inch from the earth and sky, painting a clear sky and a bright moon.
[39] Silver Fur Coat in Darkness (Part 2)
A fire was burning inside the house, and dry branches crackled and popped in the fire pit.
I opened my eyes slightly. Lou Xiyue was sitting to the side, poking at the fire with a branch, his forehead resting on his hand, his brow slightly furrowed. He wore a silver-gray brocade robe with moon-white lines depicting flowing clouds, and a deerskin coat was draped over my shoulders. His profile was slightly reflected in the firelight, and for a moment I felt a sense of familiarity with him.
I opened my mouth and called out, "Lou Xiyue."
He turned his head to look at me, pulling the coat wrapped around me up a little. "Are you still cold?"
I moved my hand and saw that the wound had been bandaged. I replied, "It's a bit cold. I saw a nine-tailed fox and it bit me."
He got up, wrapped me in his robe, and lifted me from the couch. He then hugged me tightly from behind, sat me back down by the fire, and said, "Come, let me hold you and warm you up by the fire."
I said softly, "I suffered from cold poisoning when I was a child, so I might be a little afraid of the cold."
He responded very softly from behind, "I know."
He tightened his grip, saying, "Nine-tailed foxes live in icy and snowy places, so they are naturally cold-natured. You are already cold-natured, and if it bites you, you will naturally become weak. I have prepared a prescription with ginseng and astragalus to apply to your wound. I don't know how effective it will be."