Being the Wife of a Fluffy Creature [Quick Transmigration] - Chapter 34

Chapter 34: The Second World (4)

Wu Boyi was a straightforward fox; as long as he didn’t trigger a keyword, it would answer whatever Wu Yao asked. Since falling on hard times, it had frequently gone hungry and developed a habit of scavenging junk. It had picked up the police cap and the handgun from the graveyard at the east end of the village.

One could always find good things there; it made a round of the place every day. Wu Boyi recognized these two items and originally intended to trade them for food, but after searching the village for two days and finding no police, it had forgotten about it over time.

Wu Yao grabbed the tail and shook it again, and quite a few fresh items actually tumbled out.

Various small snacks, a video camera, a press card, a police ID, a driver’s license, a blood-stained school uniform, several dead cell phones, and a plush bear toy that was taller than he was.

Wu Boyi was clearly a bit unhappy, letting out low whines at Wu Yao with a cold fox face. Wu Yao didn’t understand the words, but he knew it was trying to reason with the child. He stared at the plush bear for a long while: “Can I go in?”

“Wa?”

“That bear is bigger than me. If your tail can fit that, it can definitely fit me. Can I try going into your tail?”

Wu Boyi tilted its head in silence. Wu Yao felt its gaze was very similar to someone cursing him out. Compared to having its warehouse cleared out, it seemed to hate others touching its tail even more.

The two sides remained at a stalemate for a long while before Wu Yao spoke first: “Sorry, I was being presumptuous.”

The fox shook its head and scratched a few words into the dirt: “Sheep, Partner”

“The tail is very sensitive and can’t be touched casually? The tail warehouse is a private space that only your partner can hide in?”

“Wuwu-wa.”

The fox nuzzled his palm, indicating he could pet its head in the future, then raised a paw to rake the scattered small items back into its tail.

A faint smile played on the corners of Wu Yao’s mouth; he had roughly felt out the personality and boundaries of the new mission target. It was a soft-hearted “good person”—gentle, tolerant, and even-tempered—despite being full of thoughts of revenge. It was very similar to the “Holy Father” dog from the previous world, but more sensitive and delicate due to having suffered more harm.

This discovery allowed Wu Yao to relax instantly.

Great. After reading the information on the “stupid fox,” he had thought the target this time was a villain who hadn’t yet fully blackened. He wasn’t an employee of the Redemption Department and hadn’t participated in the corresponding training; his previous few attempts to redeem villains had ended with him being killed by the targets.

During his vacation, he had specifically gone to the Redemption Department to attend an auditing class, and he eventually concluded that the fault wasn’t his. The necessary prerequisite for redemption is that the target is struggling in the mire and needs an employee to give them a pull—it is not for an employee to jump in and try to salvage a drowned corpse that has already sunk to the bottom.

The former yearns for the light but is helpless; the latter is splashing around happily in the mud and will get angry at anyone who tries to pull them out. The villains Wu Yao had encountered were all the latter type; he had taken the villains’ self-whitewashing rhetoric as truth. In his eyes, he was stopping them from making more mistakes; in the villains’ eyes, he was a traitor cutting off their path to wealth who deserved to have his bones crushed and be thrown into the sea to be silenced.

Thinking about it carefully, failure was inevitable. Wu Yao couldn’t exactly go out and commit rape and murder with the villains. He didn’t get along with them; the “silly dog” and “stupid fox” types suited him much better.

While helping the fox pack its warehouse, Wu Yao asked the system: “Are all the mission targets this department can reach ‘good people’?”

“Don’t worry, a legitimate company doesn’t take ‘low-life’ villains. Even if we get a villain contract, it’s bound to be a high-class, ambitious villain with a vision—the kind that can talk a protagonist into a stupor. But you’ve got one thing wrong: there are no ‘good people,’ only ‘good beasts.’ Our department only takes animal contracts.”

The system checked the time and handed Wu Yao a bunch of meat skewers. “Eat your fill so you have energy for work this afternoon. I’ve had too many skewers lately and I’m getting a bit of internal heat. That stir-fried kidney you made looked pretty good; teach me how to cook when you have time.”

Wu Yao hummed in response, pulled out a skewer, and held it in front of the fox. “Since you can use magic and are a monster, you should be able to eat human food. Want a taste?”

Wu Boyi looked up, leaned in to sniff the skewer, tried to gnaw off a piece of meat, and then immediately flopped onto the ground and rolled around twice.

Wu Yao asked blankly, “What’s wrong?”

The fox wagged its tail and wrote: “Fragrant.”

Looking at the word on the ground, Wu Yao suddenly realized that Wu Boyi liked to express its feelings directly. If it was angry, its fur bristled; if it was happy, it rolled around. Even with magical powers, it retained its animal habits. This was too dangerous; it couldn’t hide its thoughts and was easily seen through at a glance. No one had taught it how to survive in human society before, and in the future…

In the future, it wouldn’t matter whether it learned or not. With him around, he wouldn’t let it be deceived again.

Cheating Wu Boyi was the same as stealing Wu Yao’s money. He carried a lot of resentment while on the clock; if pushed too far, he could stay in a small world for eighty or a hundred years, chasing after idiots to bite them every single day.

In the small rural courtyard, the boy and the fox cub hid behind the corn pile together eating meat skewers. The fox’s tail would occasionally sweep the ground to erase the writing, like erasing a blackboard.

Being simple didn’t mean being brainless. Wu Boyi only told Wu Yao partial information; it didn’t mention a single word regarding its own secrets.

In its memories, the village was always very lively. When it was little, the people in the village all kept their hair long, though later they slowly cut it short for some reason. Many soldiers had fought here; after the soldiers left, the police came, and after the police left, there were more tourist cars. To this day, many outsiders still frequently enter and leave the village, but the locals never go out.

The geographical location of this village wasn’t remote; it seemed to be a small tourist spot. It was just that it wasn’t developed well and didn’t have much to see, plus the villagers were very xenophobic, so it never became popular.

The fox felt that the temple where tourists were required to take photos and check in had nothing worth seeing. The “Sangan True God Immortal” enshrined within didn’t have a shred of divine power; it was just a nicer-looking statue. Instead of worshipping a broken stone, it would be better to worship the fox.

The villagers and tourists all worshipped the True God Immortal, and it seemed there were quite a few believers outside the village as well. Perhaps because so many people believed, when Wu Boyi went to steal offerings two days ago, it found that there really was power inside the stone statue.

It had originally intended to wait a few days to prepare and then absorb the power in the statue, but a seven-day grand festival was about to be held in Changning Xiaoyin Village. The temple was guarded by people every day, so it couldn’t get close. Wu Boyi wanted “Laicai” to think of a way to get it into the temple.

Wu Yao put down the roasted small kidney: “Can’t you wait until the festival ends to absorb it?”

Wu Boyi suddenly fell silent.

Just as Wu Yao was about to press for answers, the notification sound of the mission system suddenly rang in his mind.

“Congratulations to the host for triggering a side mission — Fox Life is Precious”

“Quickly save your fox, it’s going to die!!!”

“Time limit: 7 days”

Wu Yao was slightly stunned. “You… you’re dying?”

The fox’s eyes snapped wide open.

“You can use magic, so you should be a fox immortal or spirit that has practiced for many years. But now, you can’t use any magic except for the tail warehouse. You’re so weak you can’t even beat a chicken or duck; your power is almost gone.” Observing the thin, small fox cub in front of him, Wu Yao gradually realized the severity of the situation. “You saw the ancient villagers with long hair when you were little, and then you saw armies exchanging fire in the village. I don’t know how long it takes for a fox to cultivate into a spirit, but you’ve seen the changing of eras, so you must have lived for a very long time.”

“The lifespan of an ordinary red fox is only a dozen years. For you to live this long, you must be propped up by your magical power.”

Wu Yao didn’t finish the rest of the sentence. Its life was on a countdown; once the remaining magic in its body was used up, Wu Boyi’s fox life would reach its end.

The fox lay on the ground in a daze. Wu Yao saw too much emotion in those amber eyes. It still had many things left undone; it wanted to live.

Wu Yao gently rubbed his brow and thought for a bit. “Those vengeful ghosts we met last night—they said you were the ‘root of calamity’.”

The fox flicked its tail irritably.

“You’re not? You were framed?”

“Wa.”

“I don’t care if you’re the root of calamity or not. As long as you can help me escape the village, you are my savior. I will worship you properly, even more piously than the villagers worship the True God Immortal.”

No one had ever said such things to Wu Boyi. It narrowed its eyes and looked at the boy seriously. After a long while, it imitated a human and raised a paw to press against the boy’s palm.

The deal was made. The boy would help it recover its power, and it would lead the boy out.

As for the specific implementation of the revenge plan… Wu Boyi had never considered letting a child who needed a small stool just to climb onto the heated brick bed go and kill people. Human society, like the forest, had its own set of rules. If the boy killed someone, even if he left the village, his life wouldn’t be good afterward. The little liar only needed to use his brain; the fox would handle the bloody business.

Zhaodi kept her head down the entire time, acting as if she saw nothing. Wu Yao walked around the house holding the fox, and she didn’t even lift an eyelid. The statue that had had its head smashed off last night was back in its original place, its body clean and intact with not a single crack visible.

Wu Boyi pointed at the statue and told the boy that this was the “Sangan True God Immortal” the villagers worshipped. Wu Yao asked about the story of the True God Immortal, but the fox knew too few words to express it clearly.

It just so happened that Zhaodi was there. Wu Yao pulled her in front of the statue and told her to worship the god. As she approached the statue, the girl began to tremble all over as if she were connected to an electric current. Her lips kept moving as she knelt on the ground and kowtowed forcefully to the statue.

Wu Yao pricked up his ears and leaned in, only to hear her repeatedly muttering: “I know I was wrong, please forgive my sin, I beg you to let me go.”

Wu Yao squatted behind her and asked gloomily: “What sin did you commit?”

The girl, who had been numb and dull, let out a scream of terror, finally showing some signs of life. She looked at Wu Yao in horror, then lowered her head neurotically, her body twitching uncontrollably.

The system felt very sympathetic toward Zhaodi and Pandi. “The child is so pitiful, stop scaring her.”

Wu Yao didn’t respond, instead turning his head back in confusion to look behind him.

“What are you looking at?”

“I don’t know. Her gaze just now didn’t land on my face, but behind me, as if someone were standing back there.”

Looking at the empty room, the system rubbed its arms in fear. “Crap, is there a ghost?”

Wu Yao leaned into the fox’s ear: “Is there anything else in this room?”

If there was something dirty in the room, it was impossible for a fox spirit not to see it. Seeing Wu Boyi shake its head, Wu Yao relaxed instantly. Held in his arms, Wu Boyi could clearly feel the changes in his body. Listening to his heart rate return to a steady rhythm, it looked up and nudged the boy’s neck.

Wu Yao gave a muffled laugh. “Why do I trust you so much? You are my little fox immortal that I worship. Who else can I trust if not you?”

The fox wagged its tail, the fur sweeping across Wu Yao’s thigh. Anyone with half a brain could guess that the Sangan True God Immortal was definitely the key to this world; unfortunately, Zhaodi refused to tell him the story of the Immortal no matter what. Every time the Immortal was mentioned, she would look into the air with terror.

Wu Yao stayed home all day, and no playmates came to find Laicai. He didn’t know if there were no children of the same age in the village or if Laicai just had a bad reputation and no friends. Wu Boyi clearly had no companions either, so it specifically invited Laicai to go scavenge trash with it to bond.

While the adults were away, Wu Yao searched the rooms but found no useful clues. Aside from that strange statue, there was nothing special about the house.

Wu Yao looked at the sunset outside the window: “Is it too late to go out now? I’m worried that if my dad comes back and can’t find me, he’ll take it out on my sister.”

Zhaodi was making dinner in the kitchen. Wu Boyi looked at her back coldly: “Wuwu-wa.”

“You think she doesn’t deserve sympathy?”

The fox shook its head and then nodded. Zhaodi was both pathetic and hateful? Wu Yao didn’t understand why Wu Boyi would think that. Did Zhaodi really have a “sin”?

The dog’s barking rang out in the yard again. The little fox turned and jumped to the ground, scurrying into the kitchen in a few steps and jumping out through the back window. Before leaving, it wagged its tail at Wu Yao as if saying “see you tomorrow.”

The wooden door opened, and several strange men walked into Laicai’s house. They all knew Laicai and greeted Wu Yao with smiles. One of them claimed to be Laicai’s eldest uncle; he handed a small schoolbag to Wu Yao, saying it was a gift. Wu Yao opened it to look; it contained some stationery and brushes, which seemed normal.

The scumbag dad was the last to walk in. Wu Yao poked his head out to look behind him but didn’t find Laicai’s second sister. The man patted Laicai’s little head and gave Zhaodi a kick, telling her to serve the relatives.

After greeting the two children, he pulled two bottles of white liquor and a bag of peanuts out of his satchel and put them on the table. “Laicai, stop dazing around and go eat. Big brother, you guys start drinking; I’ll come as soon as I’m done!”

The man spoke while walking toward the statue.

Just as Wu Yao was about to sit at the table, he saw the man reach into his satchel with one hand and pull out a large black bag, which he placed respectfully on the statue’s offering table.

“Drip… drip…”

A thick smell of blood permeated the air as drops of bloody water dripped down from the offering table.

The uncle was teasing the child, chatting with Wu Yao about kindergarten. After the man bowed respectfully several times to the statue, he raised his hand and opened the bag.

Seeing the items inside, Wu Yao felt a roar in his brain, and a sudden chill rose up his back.

The system screamed in terror. “Fck, fck, fck! How could they skin Pandi! They’re crazy, they’re all crazy! There isn’t a single normal person in this village—Xiaoyao, run away with the fox right now!!!”

Run?

Wu Yao gave a cold laugh. Could they even run?