by Gore, A. P.
Yet she wasn’t ready to become a slave. It was impossible.
“Senior, that’s not possible.” Wei Lin spoke in a ragged tone. “She’s a friend, and she has her own will.”
Sun Nuan felt a strange warmth reaching her mind. A friend. Yes, she was a friend.
Her mind quickly raced through the events that had happened so far. The beast wanted to form a soul contract between Wei Lin and her daughter, and surprisingly, both beasts could speak the human language. That was something she had never heard of before. But one thing was clear, the mother beast could kill her with a single thought.
However, if she was trying to lure Wei Lin to form a contract with her daughter, then something was wrong with her or her daughter and only Wei Lin could fix it with his body cultivation. That’s what she guessed.
“Senior.” Sun Nuan followed Wei Lin’s lead in showing the beast respect. “I will take a vow of heaven and earth to keep everything that happened here a secret and never discuss it with anyone other than Wei Lin and Jiya.” If she took a vow of heaven and earth, she couldn’t defy that. If she went against her vow conditions, lightning would descend and destroy her body.
Wei Lin nodded. “Senior, let’s do that. Pledging secrecy should be fine. Shouldn’t it?”
“No, that won’t work. Pledge your servitude or die.” The fox beast growled, and Sun Nuan felt the pressure increasing twofold. It was so intense, like every nerve in her body was exploding from inside.
Gritting her teeth, she endured it.
She could die for Wei Lin, but she couldn’t pledge servitude to him. Her pride wouldn’t allow that.
“Senior, stop. This is not necessary. If you kill her, our deal is off.”
The pressure on her body lessened slightly, and she felt like she was on a break between two strenuous activities. Her muscles eased, but she had lost all the strength in her legs and was sprawled on the ground.
“Sun Nuan, are you all, right?” A firm hand slipped under her waist and pulled her up.
Red rushed to his cheeks. He had touched her waist a couple of times. This man had taken great advantage of her. Would he take responsibility for what he had done?
Like lightning descending in a dark night, illuminating a whole valley, things became clear to her. Wei Lin was the child of destiny mentioned in her clan records. If not, he had some other great destiny protecting him from everything. So far, he had defied all odds and miraculously reaped great rewards. First was in the forest where he’d battled two powerful enemies. The location of the Two-Colored Poison Flower was a secret, and yet he’d stumbled upon it and gotten his hands on it. The second was the Alchemy Comprehension Tower. It had been unconquered for the last thousand years, and most people couldn’t even reach level four of the trials, but this guy had reached level six in one go. If he wasn’t a child of destiny, then how could he do that? The third situation had unfolded right in front of her eyes. When the odds were against him and the beast was about to wipe him dry, everything was flipped by a single act. Pulling out a single corpse of a fox changed everything, and now he negotiated with a beast even her father, a royal emperor, couldn’t defeat.
If he wasn’t a child of destiny, then who else could be?
“Senior, I will pledge my loyalty to him as a follower. Does that work for you?” She had made her choice. She couldn’t be his slave, but being a follower was okay. This vow would restrict her movements, and she would have to follow his orders, but if he was a child of destiny, it wouldn’t be a bad choice. If worst came to worst, she could force him to release her from the pledge. If he released her, she would be free.
“Sun Nuan, what are you talking about? I don’t need a follower.”
“Human girl.” The mother beast’s voice echoed in her mind, startling her. “You won’t regret becoming his follower. In fact, this might be the best decision of your life.”
Sun Nuan could only nod. She was helpless against the mother beast. “I take a vow of heaven and earth. From this day on, I pledge my loyalty to Wei Lin.” A strange sensation entered her body, and she convulsed for a moment. It was the vow. If one took a heaven and earth vow, it was bound with the primal force of the world, and no one could go against it.
Wei Lin shook his head and looked away. Was he disappointed in her?
“Senior, let’s start.” Wei Lin walked toward the beast mother, and the cute little fox stepped backward in fear.
“Mother, if you force me to form a soul contract with him, I’ll die by my own fangs,” the little fox said in a firm voice, and judging from her determined look, she spoke the truth.
Chapter 56
History of Tai Juan
The gloomy cave darkened with the little fox’s threatening words.
Li Wei stopped in his tracks, his gaze tracing over the little fox. For a moment, silence filled the cave, but it was soon broken by the little fox’s munching. She spoke with food in her mouth and scratched her whiskers intermittently.
How could he take her seriously like this?
The Mother Fox stared at the little one with pitying eyes, and then looked back at Wei. Wei’s chest tightened. If the little fox declined, their deal would be off, and he wouldn’t get his hands on the Devour Bloodline Cultivation Art.
That would be bad.
And what if the Mother Fox killed him and Sun Nuan once the deal failed to go through?
That would be super bad.
Squinting, Wei stared at the fruits lying next to the little fox’s front paws. Seeing her munching like a glutton, he made a decision.
“Senior, before we initiate the soul contract, why don’t you let me talk with miss Jiya for a moment. Alone.”
The Mother Fox and Sun Nuan both rolled their eyes while the little fox stopped munching for a moment.
“You filthy human. What are you trying to do with me? What do you want from me?” the little fox asked in a pitiful tone, as if Wei had asked her to sleep with him.
Wei chuckled. “Little fox, you can trust me. I have no interest in foxes, and your mother is strong enough to kill me with her glare if I dare to do anything to you.”
The little fox went back to munching, this time on a green-colored fruit. She acted like nothing mattered to her but food. What a weird fox. When did he last see a vegetarian fox?
Never.
“Jiya’er, my child. Follow him and see what he has to say.”
The little fox pouted like a pig but followed him to the entrance of the cave.
Wei sat on a large stone, letting his feet hang over the edge. The chilly wind brushed against his cheeks.
The little fox stood a few feet away from him, staring into the darkness, scratching her whiskers like she didn’t care for his talk.
Well, why would she trust a stranger? A human at that.
“Little fox, do you like fruit?” Wei asked, staring at the fluffy fur around her neck.
“Grounded Redberry Fruits are the best, and they only grow in Ten Beast Valley, so I won’t follow you outside,” she replied in a stern voice.
Wei laughed. The little bastard didn’t forget to taunt him. “I bet you’ll like this too.” Flicking his wrist, he pulled a Twisted Vitality Fruit, red like apple, from his storage ring and cut it in six equal parts. A sweet aroma gushed out of the fruit as soon as he exposed it to air. “What is that?” the little fox asked with wary eyes.
“Twisted Vitality Fruit.” Wei put one piece in his mouth, showing her, it was not poisonous. It was a low-tier Bronze Grade fruit found in abundance all over the human cities. It was one of the tastiest fruits available in the Mortal Realm. It had no medicinal value, yet alchemists used it in many low-tier pills used on mortals.
Alchemy was a strange art. Or all the alchemists who invented the pills were madmen—or madwomen. Or they wanted to take revenge on humans. Around ninety-nine percent of the pills he had eaten in his two lifetimes had tasted like shit. Maybe worse than shit. A sane person wouldn’t want to eat one. Thank heavens, as a
cultivator, he could shutter his senses and eat the pill without throwing a tantrum.
However, mortals couldn’t do that, and most of the low-tier pills were used on mortals. Sometime in the past, someone had found this fruit and used it in an alchemy recipe to suppress the bad taste of pills, and it had worked. So, this fruit became a common ingredient of low-tier pills and powders.
The little fox looked away, but she turned back again and again to look at the fruit like a young man whose eyes are constantly drawn to a voluptuous girl on the street.
“I’ll eat all the pieces if you don’t want any. This is one of the best fruits from outside.”
“I won’t be bribed by a mere fruit.”
“I know that, and this isn’t a bribe. Do you think a single fruit would be enough to fool you? I know you’re smarter than that.” Wei extended a piece of fruit to her.
The little fox moved her front limbs like a human and shoved that piece in her mouth. As soon as she took the first bite, she couldn’t restrain from breaking into a smile. “This is good. Almost as good as Grounded Redberry Fruits. Can you give me one more, human?” She lost her pretext of hostility and spoke like a kid while scratching her whiskers.
Wei sighed inwardly, a happy sigh. She was indeed a kid. Facing a gluttonous fat kid was good.
“Now, taste this.” Wei pulled out his bottle of Yin Yang Liquid and poured one drop on a piece of Twisted Vitality Fruit. When the fruit absorbed the drop, it changed, turning livelier, and a strong aroma of vitality gushed out of it, alluring to their senses.
The little fox’s ears turned up as she observed the change to the fruit. Unknowing to her, her tongue had stuck out and her eyes leaked greed. Even the fur on her neck swayed left and right.
Wei cut the grown piece in two and dropped one in his own mouth to earn her trust.
The little fox couldn’t hold herself back, and she snatched the remaining piece from his hand and shoved it in her mouth.
“Ahh . . .” A seductive moan slipped out of her mouth. “This . . .” Her eyes closed as she savored the taste.
Wei too wanted to close his eyes and savor the heavenly taste but resisted the urge. Increasing the age of the fruit by ten years had lifted its taste to a new level. He would be the richest man in Old Martial Town if he started a fruit stall and sold fruit enhanced with his Yin Yang Liquid.
Shaking his head, he pushed that thought away. That would be a waste of the godly liquid.
“Human.” The little fox opened her eyes and stared at the bottle like it was the most precious treasure in the world. “Give me that bottle, and I’ll ask my mother to let you live safely.”
“Little fox, I can give you the bottle, but I don’t have many such fruits on me. But where I come from, I have enough to give you a whole fruit every day.”
“Every day?” Her chin jutted up, and she stared in his eyes with hope. But her face dropped the very next moment, and a sad sigh slipped out of her mouth. “No. I can’t leave my mother behind. Even if you have nice fruits. I can stay hungry, but I can’t leave my mother behind.”
Wei sighed inwardly. This was tougher than he’d thought. “Forget it. I’ll give you the bottle. But tell me what happened with your mother first. Maybe there’s a solution to her injury.”
The little fox raised her face to look at him. “Don’t you want to devour her?”
“Are you fine with that?”
She shook her small head. “I’ll despise you if you devour her.”
This was what he’d thought. When he’d walked out of the cave, he’d realized this arrangement wouldn’t work. If he performed a soul contract with the little fox and then devoured her mother, what would she think of him? Well, he could just forget about devouring the Mother Fox and be content about receiving the cultivation art and the Dantian Strengthening Fruit. That was still a good deal.
Yes, he should do that. Then there would be no enmity between him and the Mother Fox, and he was over the stubborn mentality of the Mortal Realm. In the Mortal Realm, beasts were treated as monsters, as enemies. But in the Martial Realm, beasts had their own place, and having been friends with Rual’er in his previous life, he knew they had a kind heart like humans.
And he didn’t want to become a lazy immortal by stepping over hundreds of dead bodies. He loved life, and he wanted others to enjoy it too. His principles were clear thanks to the two hundred years he’d spent in his last life. He would carve his own path filled with love, money, and luxury. Devouring someone’s mother in front of them wasn’t a path he wanted to take.
The little fox jumped up on the stone he was sitting on. There was enough room for a man and a beast to sit side by side.
“You must know my mother, Tai Juan, is stuck in the Heart Blood Realm, a step away from reaching the Houtian Realm, but she can’t take that last step because of Lord Mayhem.”
“Lord Mayhem?”
“Yes, Lord Mayhem. He has set up an energy seal around this valley that prevents any beast from stepping into the Houtian Realm. Because of him, my mother has been stuck in the Heart Blood Realm for the last two hundred years.”
Wei frowned. “Who is this Lord Mayhem?” This person or beast must be a super-cultivator to put up an energy barrier around a whole valley to seal everyone inside. What was he trying to hide from outside world?
Unfortunately, Wei was too weak to check on this mystery.
But whoever this Lord Mayhem was, he or she must have invested a lot of resources to carve such a mysterious formation. Other than a heaven grade formation, nothing could do such a mysterious thing with one’s cultivation.
“Did he attack your mother and injure her?”
She shook her small head. “No.” Tears, like white pearls of sea, dropped from her elliptical eyes. “I was responsible for her injury. If I hadn’t ventured into the Four Tailed Fox’s territory, she would have been fine.”
Wei gasped hard. The Four Tailed Fox. It was said that all the beasts in the Mortal and Martial Realms were descended from the beast gods, and foxes were descendants of the Nine-Tailed Fox, the god of foxes. Although he had never seen a Nine-Tailed Fox, he had seen a Seven-Tailed Fox in the Martial Realm. That fox was the lord of a whole region, and no human dared trespass in its territory. A Four-Tailed Fox should be comparable to a Houtian Realm qi cultivator. Since the Black Foxes’ Mother Fox was only a Heart Blood Realm beast, she must have suffered heavy injuries.
And he knew one of the last Four-Tailed Foxes alive.
Chapter 57
Lord Bento
“Is the Four-Tailed Fox’s name Lord Bento?” Li Wei asked, keeping his wits together. He knew one fox called Lord Bento, and he’d once told Wei that he’d come from the Mortal Realm and had been stuck at four tails for almost three hundred years.
The little fox raised her eyes and looked at him like he was a ghost. “How did you know? In the quiet air, her voice held a clear note of suspicion.
Wei sighed regretfully. “Just a guess.”
“But he is only called Bento. Not Lord Bento. And you can’t know him. It’s impossible. According to my mother, he has never left of this place.”
“No. I don’t know him.”
“Then how did you know his name?”
“Just a guess.” Wei chuckled. “Eat more.” He dripped some Yin Yang Liquid on another piece of fruit and handed it to the little fox. As expected, she forgot about everything and focused on the fruit piece. After observing her for a moment, Wei stared into the darkness. It seemed he had to come back here in the future and help Lord Bento remove the shackles of energy binding him here and ascend to the Martial Realm. In doing so, he might be able to pay his gratitude and avoid the calamity Lord Bento would face in the future.
He owned a lot to lord Bento from his previous life.
“This Bento must be almost close to the Houtian Realm,” Wei whispered as if to himself.
“Yes. He is one of the five guardians.” The little fox stopped munching and looked up. “Be
cause of me, my mother ventured into that devil’s territory and was attacked by his wife, Kumara. She sneak-attacked and injured my mother with an artifact. Prince Bento intervened and ordered my mother to stay out of his territory. He didn’t even offer her an antidote for the fox poison inflicted by his wife’s artifact. He has it, but he didn’t give it to us, so I stole some. But . . .”
“But what? Did you damage the herb?” This was beast territory, and they didn’t have sophisticated alchemy methods, so any antidote meant an herb or a natural treasure.
“It’s unmatured and will require at least ten years to mature. And my mother . . .” She sobbed like a human, her body shaking violently.
“Little fox, let me see the herb.”
A shiny blue herb appeared on the stone. The little fox must have some storage ring type treasure hidden on her body.
“System, can you search the inheritance memories for herb?” Wei asked inside his mind. After spending some time with the system, he knew a command like that might work.
And it did. The system displayed a bunch of lines in front of him.
System: Indexing inheritance memories. Estimated time of completion: 3 hours.
“What? I can’t wait three days. I just need information on this herb.”
System: Using methophysical algorithm to search information. Dedicating all resources to the algorithm. System will be unavailable for the next few minutes.
Everything went blank, and Wei felt like something was missing from his mind. It was a similar feeling as when his cultivation was sealed. He’d felt that emptiness because he couldn’t sense his roots. But the system was different. Was it connected to his Soul Root?
Or not. The system was a truly mysterious thing, and he bet no one but him had something like it. And he had barely scratched the surface of it.
