Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio, but Thunderbolt Taoist Sect

A strange thing has happened in the city recently. There is an official in the city who is very famous and has achieved some success at a young age. However, he is too young and arrogant and has offended people. Not only has his path to promotion been blocked, but he has also gotten into trouble and is being targeted by his enemies.

Not long ago, this official, perhaps fearing retaliation, committed suicide in his own home, and his wife followed suit by hanging herself, a story that evoked deep sorrow in everyone who heard it.

Before everyone could finish their sighs, the man suddenly opened his eyes a day after he died, nearly scaring the people who came to help clean up the body to death. And as soon as he opened his eyes, he shouted that his surname was He, that he was not a local, but from the capital, and that he had actually been resurrected.

"Why are there so many cases of reincarnation these days?"

After hearing this story, Ling Ziling immediately complained that it seemed like anyone could act out this "resurrection" trope.

"The underworld officials often slack off, and many people who die can't find their way to the underworld. In the end, they either become ghosts or drift away to other places. If you walk along the moat, there is a mass grave not far away, where there are many lonely ghosts."

After being overthrown by his cousin, startled by the sudden appearance of Ling Ziling, and realizing that the other party was not an ordinary person and would not use his magic to eliminate them, this fox cousin gave up.

If someone were to pass by at this time, they would see a girl in pink sitting with her legs bent by the river, while the two foxes opposite her, one squatting and the other lying down, were chatting in human language.

The two foxes spoke human language and made very human-like movements; they were clearly sentient beings.

"The mass grave, I know where that is."

She had previously killed a wild dog that ate human brains and saved the deserter Li Hualong. The two of them bumped into each other at a mass grave, and she caught up with him after a chase.

"But it's quite rare to see a body possessed without any aftereffects. Have you ever seen one before?"

"I've seen it before."

Miss Li was reincarnated through a series of unforeseen events.

"However, the underworld is currently undergoing reforms, so there should be fewer of these kinds of silly things in the future."

"...How do you know that the underworld is undergoing reforms?"

Shiyilang was almost sober. When he heard Ling Ziling talking about the news from the underworld, he instinctively felt that the girl who had pulled him out of the river was no ordinary person. This kind of information was not something that a living person in the mortal world could obtain.

"I've been there, and I've even seen the ghost messengers and the King of Hell."

Ling Ziling calmly uttered words that terrified the two foxes. They were certain that the girl before them was alive. How did she get there? When did she go?

"...You're also a reincarnation?"

Based on what was just said, this was the only answer Shiyilang could think of.

"No, it just so happened that I came across some things and went to the underworld with some other people. I was there to help."

"Then you have quite a wide network of connections."

This girl is incredibly capable; she can help people go to the underworld.

"So, how do you know that this young master He who has been resurrected is your cousin's lover? The capital is quite far from here."

Even if a person dies and transforms from walking to flying, they shouldn't drift this far, right?

“Cousin Jiulang is already here. He can’t possibly not recognize his sweetheart… Why are you looking at me like that?”

"What's your name?"

The fox cousin they're discussing now is called Huang Jiulang, while the one who got drunk and rolled in the river before is called Shiyilang. Lingziling is curious about what this fox cousin's name is.

"My name is Goro."

"Then why do you call Jiulang 'brother'?"

Goro, Kuro, and Shijuro—shouldn't it be this order?

"Each family can arrange their own order, and we'll address each other according to age and seniority. If we're all mixed together, I'm afraid I'll have to call him Fifty-Lang. By the way, what's your name, young lady?"

Since this girl isn't an ordinary person and even saved her cousin, exchanging names and becoming friends is perfectly fine.

“The spirit is spirit, the emerald shadow and immortal dust are spirit.”

"...So long."

Shiyilang's rant.

"Ling Zi Ling is the name, and Bi Ying Xian Chen is the title."

Sometimes, self-introductions begin with a poetic phrase; if you include that phrase, then it's truly long.

In short, the matter of being resurrected through possession is extremely rare. The person who was resurrected was my cousin's lover. Now my cousin has traveled a long way to find her. Wulang thought there would be some excitement, so he dragged his good cousin along to see what was going on.

Eleventh Brother loves wine and spends all his time running around the city stealing wine, neglecting his cultivation. To this day, he still can't cultivate a proper human form. Fifth Brother thinks that his cousin is good at cultivating human form and can get along well with ordinary scholars. He even stole the heart of one of them. If they could meet, maybe his cousin could give his cousin some pointers.

Even if it's just for the sake of making it easier to drink in the future, Shiyilang can't stay so ignorant and incompetent forever. You're just a fox who can only steal wine from all over the place. If you're discovered, you're likely to lose your life. Wouldn't it be more convenient to turn into a human and buy wine with money?

"I'm not ignorant or incompetent. I'm just not good at transforming into a human. I have other skills, otherwise I would have been bitten to death by those four dogs long ago."

Shiyilang offered a sophistry.

"You're quite proud of yourself? I think you've just been spoiled by your aunt."

Is it something to be proud of to be caught stealing chickens and chased by the landlord's four dogs?

"Anyway, come with me into the city quickly, let's see what's going on."

"Take me with you, I want to go and see too."

Lingzi Ling hasn't entered the city yet, but today she happened to run into this situation, and since she had nothing better to do, she said she wanted to come along, and the two foxes agreed.

So in a certain alley, three heads—two people and a fox—peeked out. One of them was a young girl, with her hair uncombed and without hairpins, wearing a peculiar headdress with a pink yin-yang symbol on each side. This was Ling Ziling.

There was also a handsome young man dressed in shorts, with a red fox perched on his shoulder. This was Goro in human form and Shijuro in non-human form.

"We're acting like thieves."

Although she said that, Ling Ziling was very cooperative in her actions. Wherever Wulang told her to hide, she would go there, treating it like a game.

"There's nothing we can do. We only know Cousin Jiulang. We've only heard of He Zixiao. We don't even know if he knows that Cousin Jiulang is a fox."

Since Huang Jiulang wasn't here, they went directly to visit him. The people on the other side didn't recognize them, so they could only observe first to see where Huang Jiulang was.

"He should know, right? He's already gotten himself killed."

Shiyilang said in a low voice, "Once we enter the city, we may run into people at any time. In order not to be discovered that a fox can speak human language, he can only speak in a low voice."

Fortunately, the other two, one a fox demon and the other a celestial being, both possessed exceptional hearing, which did not hinder their communication.

"How did he die?"

The spirit asked itself.

"How else could he die? After his cousin got together with him, he wanted to protect him and set a fixed time for them to meet. But the kid disagreed and changed it to meeting every day. In the end, the demonic energy overwhelmed the yang energy, and he was exhausted and that's how he died."

It is a common understanding that when mortals get close to demons and ghosts, their own yang energy will inevitably be damaged.

"...I vaguely remember."

Sang Xiao was the same way before. She didn't believe Lianxiang's advice, and Miss Li didn't understand anything. In the end, the ghost energy eroded her body, leaving her half-dead.

Lianxiang knew the reason and was able to save the person from being half-dead. How come Huang Jiulang knew the reason but the person died so quickly?

Ling Ziling thought this way and asked this question.

"Can't monsters also not harm people? Your cousin also follows proper cultivation and doesn't absorb people's life essence."

"How can we not harm people? We are fox spirits, not fox fairies. Our demonic aura is innate. Anyone who gets too close will suffer."

"I once met a fox spirit who could not only control her demonic energy to prevent harming people, but also use her medical skills to save people whose yang energy had been damaged."

"...You have such a wide network of connections."

Today, Goro experienced firsthand the feeling of being ignorant and uninformed through Ling Ziling. This girl, who had pulled her cousin out of the moat, was truly capable.

First, he went to the underworld with others, met King Yama, and returned unharmed. Later, he met a fox spirit who could control demonic energy and not harm people, and who was also a skilled healer. He had also seen a person possess a body and return to life before. His network of connections and experiences were rich and colorful.

Eleven: Brother, I understand the logic, but can we please stop talking about how I slipped and rolled into the moat?

"So you guys don't know how?"

"How could that be? This sounds like a powerful demon with great spiritual abilities. Do we look like one?"

“…It certainly doesn’t look like that.”

Ling Ziling looked Wulang and Shiyilang up and down. In her mind, compared with Lianxiang, they were indeed somewhat different. Lianxiang could conceal her demonic aura, and from a distance, it was impossible to tell that she was a fox demon. But Wulang and Shiyilang were full of demonic aura. Even though Wulang was in human form now, it was easy to tell at a glance what kind of demon he was.

"What are you doing?"

"Cousin Jiulang?"

Huang Jiulang originally came to find He Zixiao, but when he sensed a familiar presence nearby, he followed and saw two people and a fox acting suspiciously. He knew Wulang and Shiyilang; the elders of their families had been friends for two generations, and the younger generation all played together and knew each other.

But the girl in pink with a whisk doesn't look like a monster at all; she even has the air of a Taoist priest. How could she be mixed up with them?

"Hey, cousin, where did you come from?"

"You reek of alcohol... Eleven Lang, you've been drinking again?"

Foxes have a very sensitive nose. Huang Jiulang smelled the alcohol on Shiyilang and opened his folding fan to cover his mouth and nose. He also looked like a young man with a very handsome face, even prettier than a girl.

"Yes, he even slipped and fell into the moat, almost drowning."

"Cousin... never mind, whatever makes you happy."

Eleven has given up. Just tell me, he's done a ton of stupid things when he's drunk, and he'll be able to refresh that list soon.

"By the way, is Third Sister here?"

Upon seeing Goro, Huang Jiulang remembered something and quickly asked Goro about it.

"Third sister? Third sister hasn't returned from her trip yet."

"When is she coming back? I have something to say to her."

"I don't know, I'll have to ask my older sister at home."

"Okay, I'll go ask."

Upon receiving the news, Huang Jiulang ignored them and left immediately, leaving Wulang and Shiyilang completely bewildered. They had indeed come to find Huang Jiulang, but judging from his hurried manner, he seemed to be in a real hurry.

"Why does my cousin want to see my third sister... What are you doing?"

As soon as Huang Jiulang arrived, Ling Ziling fell silent, and he couldn't even see where she went. After Huang Jiulang left, Wulang looked to the side and found that Ling Ziling had found a place to sit again, with a book in her hand that she was flipping through.

"It's troublesome..."

Ling Ziling frowned as she flipped through the book. She found the system's e-books strange; when she flipped through them quickly, they resembled the database effects in the next room, which then materialized into a physical book.

However, this physical object is just a form; it only looks like a book and can be turned, but it has no actual thickness. When others come closer to look, they can only see pages of white paper.

She was currently reading Huang Jiulang's story, and the more she read, the more her brows furrowed. Seeing her increasingly serious expression, Wulang and Shiyilang also quieted down on their own.

With a "snap," Lingzi closed the book and turned to look at Wulang.

"Wulang, forget about He Zixiao, hurry home, your cousin is going to trick your third sister!"

"what?"

“I cultivate Taoism and can predict the future. Huang Jiulang wants to marry your third sister to his lover so she can become his wife. He asked about the whereabouts of the third sister because he wanted to ambush her on her way back.”

Ling Ziling's bluntness in revealing future events might seem reckless. In the past, when they hinted at things to the indigenous people, they would at least maintain a certain air of superiority, revealing a little more than necessary, and ending with a phrase like "Heavenly secrets cannot be revealed, the time has not yet come."

However, Ling Ziling simply couldn't hold back this time. The plot was too painful for her to bear. She had to put aside all the talk of using someone else's strength against them and adapting to local customs. She had to stop Huang Jiulang's scheme.

"Is this true?"

Upon hearing Ling Ziling's words, Wu Lang immediately became restless. If he were in the form of a fox at this moment, he would probably be furious. Huang Jiulang was indeed his cousin, and it was true that the brothers had a good relationship, but if someone wanted to trick his own sister, they would have to put aside their brotherly affection.

"Absolutely true, even more true than Junior Nephew Ah Zhen... well, that's not quite the right way to describe it. Anyway, what I, Daoist Lingling, want to do is uphold justice and never lie to anyone, not even those who aren't human!"

Although they had only met today, Ling Ziling flew directly into the city, which showed that she was quite capable. When they rescued Shiyilang, Shiyilang also remembered that the girl crossed the water directly. In any case, her strength was definitely not bad. It would be a piece of cake for her to beat the two little monsters like them. There was no need for her to go through all sorts of trouble to harm them.

"I'm going home now. Could you please keep an eye on Shiyilang for me and make sure he doesn't get lost?"

"?"

Shiyilang: Cousin, am I some kind of object?

"I'll go back with you, cousin. Wouldn't it be more believable if the two of us told the story together?"

"You should stay here and let the smell of alcohol dissipate first. I'm afraid my older sister will think I'm drunk and talking nonsense."

Shiyilang was drunk and dizzy just now, but he's sober now. He still smells of alcohol on him. Wulang suspects that he just crawled into the wine vat and drank it. Huang Jiulang is highly skilled and his words carry weight in the family. If he and Wulang go back like this, everyone will just think that Shiyilang is drunk and talking nonsense.

Ling Ziling, who also hinted at Huang Jiulang's intentions, was a member of the Taoist sect and was not suited to go to the monster's lair. Therefore, Wulang had to go home first to see what Huang Jiulang wanted to say to his elder sister.

Soon, only Ling Ziling and Shiyilang remained in the alley, the two of them seemingly doing nothing.

"...You foxes really do live up to their name, you run really fast."

Ling Ziling couldn't help but sigh. Huang Jiulang was like this, and so was Wulang. They truly lived up to their reputation as foxes; they could disappear in the blink of an eye with a single kick of their four legs.

"Actually, I'm pretty much the same."

"You mean he kicked off on all fours, rolled into the bushes, and headbutted your cousin?"

Oh right, apart from this Eleven, all these foxes are pretty fast runners, including Little Green, who can roam all over the mountains and fields.

"...Or you could just tell me to roll into the moat."