Proofread by Zhu Yuan
When I met Bai Xiaoshan, I had only practiced for three hundred years. At that time, I woke up and saw a colorful pheasant scampering nearby. Almost immediately, my mouth watered. The slow practice brought me a great regret since I was unable to catch any pheasant in the process. Almost all the pheasants in Green Mound had been caught by other foxes. I could only tearfully allay my hunger with bark and gra.s.s, and became a vegetarian fox rarely seen in the world.
Therefore, it could be imagined how excited I was when I finally saw a pheasant. I got up instinctively and leapt towards it.
However, the fox proposed but G.o.d disposed. Bai Xiaoshan had been practicing for five hundred years at that time, so he kicked me off easily before I could even touch his feathers.
When I was thrown to the ground and sparks flew before my eyes, the beautiful, delicious pheasant disappeared, and there was a boy about five or six years old who was chubby, good-looking, and cute. For a moment I froze, and then I saw him sway to me. He grabbed me into his arms, tugged at my ear wildly, slapped me on the body from time to time and said angrily, "Stupid fox! I"ve been practicing for five hundred years. How dare you eat me! Believe it or not, I can easily kill you!"
In fact, Bai Xiaoshan"s words were quite threatening, because I always cherished my life. But when I saw his chubby and pink cheek and listened to his boast, I couldn"t help but laugh out loud.
Bai Xiaoshan suddenly stood there, surprised at my laughter. How could his defeated opponent laugh happily in his arms? For a long time, he couldn"t regain his presence of mind. While he was in a daze, I stuck out my tongue and licked his face. Then I tasted it in my mouth and sighed: "That"s quite strange! Why are you so tasteless?"
Bai Xiaoshan didn"t expect that he could be molested by me without any precaution. He threw me out immediately. He covered his flushed face, looked at me tearfully and pointed at me with shame and indignation: "You, you, you ..."
I rubbed my ears, which were tugged to be inflamed, and glanced up at him with a sad look. There was a very strange scene: a fox squatted on the ground and looked at a cute child. The child covered his little pink cheek, stamped his feet, glared angrily at the fox and shouted: "You! You robbed me of my innocence!"
Of course, innocence could never be returned to him. He was unwilling to lick my face back since it was covered with fox fur. After struggling for a long time, Bai Xiaoshan finally made up his mind to accept me as a child bride, so that I could repay his innocence, which had been kept for five hundred years. The main duty of the child bride was to prepare delicious rice for Bai Xiaoshan.
For this reason, my skill of cajolery made a great breakthrough in a short period of time. I was a notoriously lazy fox in Green Mound, which meant that I could barely feed myself in the past. In order to fulfill my duty as a child bride, I had to tempt all the male monsters in Green Mound, including foxes. I ogled them and blew them kisses in order to let them send rice to me voluntarily. Of course, this was a very difficult challenge for me who had not taken a human shape yet, especially in the face of many monsters who had the power to become humans. This proved that my skill of cajolery reached the point of perfection!
I was still very proud of this, although it directly caused me to have no progress in other spells for more than one thousand years. That was another story. However, my complacency didn"t last long. Soon I was chased by all the female monsters in Green Mound after I enticed their husbands and sons. (In fact, I was wronged. What could a fox do to "humans"? There was pure spiritual communication between us!)
As a result, the rice supplied to Bai Xiaoshan was cut off.
After hundreds of years of chasing and escaping, Bai Xiaoshan finally couldn"t stand such a tangled life when I reached one thousand years old but still could not become a human. He forced me to pack up and "elope" with him. We went to Qiyun Mountain at the foot of Kunlun Mountains. With the pressure brought by fairies in Kunlun, monsters in Qiyun mountain could be regarded as models of abiding by the law. They all concentrated on practice and didn"t want to get into trouble at all. Although the environment was a little depressing for demons who devoted themselves to cultivation, this was indeed a treasure land. The place was deified by the nimbus of fairies in Kunlun. All the demons here could abandon their evil thoughts and practice with concentration. Naturally, the speed of their cultivation was also improved.
Generally speaking, such a good place must be full of demons, but in the past one thousand years of my practice, I had not seen many of them. According to Bai Xiaoshan, only those who were sincere in practice and had affinity with fairies could arrive here. His remark made me wonder for a long time. I had no sincere desire to become immortals, so I once dreamed that I had affinity with fairies. I might have been a fairy in my previous life, but I was kicked out of heaven to be an animal for my laziness.
Bai Xiaoshan was dedicated to his cultivation. He blamed me for being too idle, because I just wanted to enjoy myself all day long. Only when he used violence to intimidate me could I pretend to practice for a while.
With the experience of being chased in Green Mound, I dared not tempt other monsters again, so my only use to gain rice as a "child bride" was gone. Bai Xiaoshan had no choice but to exploit a piece of land by himself, busy sowing and reaping all the year round. It was only a small challenge for him. After all, spells were not practiced for fun, and there were always opportunities to use them.
In fact, I wondered why Bai Xiaoshan didn"t kick me to death. According to him, their pheasant family was always bullied by our fox family. It was lucky for him to find a fox who could be bullied by him, and to push me around was a compensation for his ancestors of the pheasant family. At first, he wanted to grind me down so that even my mother, who had already died, couldn"t recognize me. However, since I was a real vegetarian and had never killed any pheasant, he gave up that idea. While listening, I was scared to sweat. For the first time, I was glad that I was unable to catch pheasants.
However, Bai Xiaoshan also claimed that it was wise not to kill me. After all, I had provided him with rice for hundreds of years. I had done hard work even if without meritorious deeds. Moreover, my name was Bai Li, and I shared the same family name with him. "One should not persecute people who share the same family name with him," and that was the answer he obtained after pondering for hundreds of years.
In fact, I would like to refute that my surname was Bai (in Chinese it means "white") because I was a white fox, and his was also Bai because he loved white rice. The two were totally different.
Of course, because I was always oppressed by him, I could only keep it to myself. No matter how much I despised him, the smile on my face must be sincere enough.
Alas, the fox, under the pheasant"s claw, had to surrender!