Becoming a Fox Spirit from Under One Person

In Chen Ruoan's previous life, there was a period when the persona of a melancholy teenager was popular among his peers.

While the internet was flooded with youth-themed literature and everyone was pretending to be gloomy and melancholic, Chen Ruoan was reading Tagore, Whitman, and Thoreau instead.

He liked this line from "The Collection of Fireflies".

It is a love without possession or entanglement, but a mature and equal partnership, protecting each other with sunshine-like gentleness, willing to illuminate the other's "brilliant" life, while respecting their independent personality and choices, giving them ample freedom to express themselves.

Wei Shufen could find strange and unusual books at street stalls, but she couldn't find Tagore's "Fireflies".

She hugged her legs, rested her cheek against her knees, and said softly, "Really?"

"Um."

Chen Ruoan smiled.

You possessive, yandere types are just lacking in giving your partners freedom.

"Th-thank you..."

Wei Shufen hurriedly got up, then covered her mouth and ran away.

···

A few days later, the Miao village still hadn't received a reply from the team, but Chen Ruoan was being fed more and more food. Sometimes it was bandit chicken, sometimes it was eight-piece chicken, and sometimes it was braised chicken with chestnuts.

As the saying goes, the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, and this applies equally to foxes.

The fox's weaknesses seemed to accumulate with each feeding.

By December, the north wind, carrying a chill, sweeps across the cliff face, making it even harder to find some rare poisonous plants or insects.

Carrying a bamboo basket, Wei Shufen climbed the steep cliffs, her fingertips gripping the crevices and her toes touching the jagged edges of the rocks, slowly moving upwards.

The foxhound sat on the opposite rock, watching her figure frozen in the cold, precipitous mountain scenery.

It must be admitted that Wei Shufen is a young woman, just a little young now, and it's only a matter of time before she is called a "great beauty".

She's beautiful, but her name is a bit lacking.

"Shufen" is a common name in this era, but Chen Ruoan always thinks of Song Dandan from "The Lazy Man's Blind Date" and the famous line, "My name is Wei Shufen, female, 29 years old, and still unmarried."

As the fox was recalling, a shout suddenly came from the other side.

Looking up, Wei Shufen was about to fall off the cliff again.

Swish!

A dark figure suddenly darted out; Chen Ruoan revealed his true form, his front paws gripping the crevice in the cliff edge, while his hind legs tensed, supporting the girl's waist.

Those rare poisons always lurk in dangerous places. Wei Shufen was used to falling and getting hurt, but this time, she felt warm and soft beneath her.

She instinctively wrapped her arms around the fox's broad back, buried her face in its warm, soft fur, and laughed, "You truly are my savior fox."

"My dear aunt, how did you grow up to be so big?"

"She's got a tough life!"

"I'll carry you up to gather herbs."

"It's okay, I can do it myself."

After tidying up the bamboo basket, Wei Shufen began to climb again. Perhaps knowing there were foxes below, she climbed even more boldly.

The less careful you are, the easier it is to cause trouble.

Whoosh!

She threw herself into the fox's soft fur once more.

"You're using me as an inflatable cushion?"

Wei Shufen shook her head and smiled, then whispered softly beside the fox's ear, "I didn't mean to. But if there's a next time, could you try catching me in human form?"

"No way, you'll fall to your death next time."

"You stingy person."

Wei Shufen climbed again, and Chen Ruoan seemed to have anticipated that she would fall again. There was no reason why she would.

Should I answer this time?

Wei Shufen is highly skilled at grooming and cooks well, so I might have to take her on another assignment, entirely out of respect for the bandit chicken.

Whoosh!

As expected, a green shadow, like a kite with a broken string, plummeted straight down the cliff.

Wei Shufen opened her hands, and then another hand grabbed her slender wrist, stopping her from falling.

Before the girl could recover, Chen Ruoan reached out and braced himself, and with a soft "click," the bamboo ribs of the umbrella lifted the oil-paper umbrella, blocking the fierce north wind.

Chen Ruoan exerted a slight force with his wrist, lifting the girl up and then embracing her waist. The oil-paper umbrella tilted to the side, facing the wind, and slowly descended.

"Sigh, even if they're thirteen or fourteen, they're still just little girls, and they all like to play these kinds of games."

Chen Ruoan couldn't help but think that if this were a romantic scene of a hero rescuing a damsel in distress, he would definitely hold up an umbrella and spin around in the air a few times, with peach petals fluttering around him and pink bubbles.

It also needs incredibly emotional background music.

Snapped!

The two landed steadily. Chen Ruoan released Wei Shufen's waist, and the girl bent down, nodded, and happily ran away with the bamboo basket on her back.

The fox watched her leave, then glanced at the ground, which was littered with scattered poisonous plants and insects.

"Is it really that fun? You're even giving up the poison you collected?"

Chen Ruoan carefully put away the poison for Wei Shufen, looked up at the cliff, then leaped up and jumped again with his umbrella.

I must say, I fantasized about this scene countless times when I was a child, either jumping from the rooftop or from the water tower in the field, and then opening my umbrella!

Yeah, it's really fun.

···

Beside the Miao village flows a stream, the water already quite cold in winter. Wei Shufen combs her hair with a wooden comb, gazing at her reflection in the water.

"Hmph~ The water-wicker skirt around her waist makes her look like a fairy descending to earth~"

She was singing a familiar tune when suddenly someone called out from behind, "Sister Shufen, I haven't seen you going to Brother Zhou's place lately."

The newcomer was named Zhang Shuying, who was a little younger than Wei Shufen. Both of them, along with Luo Shuning from the west of the village, had been noticed by a famous Gu master in the village, and the three of them would become fellow disciples in the future.

"I don't want to go."

"Why?" In Zhang Shuying's memory, Sister Shufen and Brother Zhou often played together, and Sister Shufen was happy to go to the Zhou family's house.

"How should I put it? It's like seeing a flower that exudes a strange fragrance yet is extremely poisonous. Compared to it, even the weeds by the roadside would pale in comparison."

"What a strange saying... Is Sister Shufen saying, 'Having seen the ocean, one finds it hard to be satisfied with a mere stream'?"

"perhaps."

"Shuning went to your house, saying she was going to deliver something."

"Okay." Wei Shufen tidied her hair, put it in a ponytail, and skipped and hopped home.

In the Wei family, a girl of about ten years old circled around the fox, exclaiming "Wow~" and gazing at it with longing and affection.

After receiving permission from Chen Ruoan to "do it", she simply stroked the fox fur.

Chen Ruoan dislikes unruly children, even comparing them to disrespectful old people as social "pests," but Luo Shuning is too well-behaved, making it impossible for the fox to dislike her.

"Fox spirit, what do you eat?"

"They eat chicken, duck, fish, and meat, as well as fruit and incense."

Where do you sleep?

"Up in the attic, when it gets cold, they'll move closer to people's beds."

"So how do you foxes usually howl? Do you howl like wolves?"

"No, we usually shout 'The Great Chu will rise, Chen Sheng will be king.'"

Wow~

Luo Shuning's innocent eyes sparkled like stars as she cupped her still chubby face in one hand and gently stroked the fox's fur with the other.

But the surrounding temperature seems to be getting colder and colder.

Luo Shuning shivered and looked towards the doorway. Sister Shufen was stuck in the door frame, but her eyes were lifeless and empty, and she looked completely broken.

"Sister, I brought you some newly made Gu gu." The girl went up to her, and when she got close, her icy hands were placed on her head.

Elders often like to rub her little head, but Sister Shufen seemed to use a little too much force.

"Shuning, I'm going to teach you some manners. For example, when the hostess isn't home, don't touch her things without permission, understand?"

"Huh?"

What terrible thing did I touch?

At such a young age, Luo Shuning couldn't distinguish between a forced smile and a smile that didn't reach her eyes. She only felt that Sister Shufen's expression was terrifying, like a tiger about to devour someone.

"Wow!!!"

The fox's ears perked up, and upon hearing the howling sound, Xiao Shuning was terrified and burst into tears.