The Little Fox Spirit Doesn't Want to Carry a Cub - Chapter 1

In the early days of winter, the first snow of the year fell upon Changming Mountain.

This heavy snowfall, arriving earlier than in previous years, covered the entire earth overnight. It stretched for hundreds of miles, merging the sky and the ground into a single shade of white.

On a mountain path buried under the snow, a drift suddenly moved. A round little head poked out from within.

It was a little fox.

The fox’s fur was a strikingly beautiful bright red, with only the tips of its ears and tail dusted with snow-white fluff. It was very small, roughly the size of a newborn cub, yet it possessed a long and exceptionally bushy tail.

It crawled out of its snowy hollow and looked around blankly, its eyes dazed as if it had only just woken up. Then, it tilted its head back to let out a wide yawn and sat down in the snow, curling its fluffy tail around itself until most of its body was tucked away.

With a soft thud, a clump of snow fell from a branch and hit the little fox on the head.

Not yet fully awake, the fox’s ears twitched in fright. Then, it heard a string of chirping bird calls.

“Li Ruan, now that you’ve been beaten back to your original form, has your reaction time become sluggish too?”

It was a mountain sparrow, covered in thick dark-gray feathers. Its long tail feathers perked up as it hopped back and forth on a branch. “You used to be so formidable, didn’t you? You could even summon such massive heavenly lightning.”

The little fox shook the snow off its head, its eyes slowly narrowing. Its two paws began to dig rapidly into the snow, forming a snowball. With a quick turn, its tail swiped with great agility.

The sparrow let out a squawk as it was hit dead-on. It tumbled from the treetop, leaving a small, round crater in the snow.

“Hmph.”

The little fox didn’t spare it another glance. It curled its tail back up and gently stepped its front paws onto the fluff. Squatting in the snow for too long had made its paws a bit cold.

The little fox’s name was Li Ruan, and he was a fox spirit. Or at least, he had been until half a month ago.

Li Ruan had come to Changming Mountain three hundred years ago. In his own words, it was because Changming Mountain sat at the foot of the Imperial Capital and was situated atop a dragon vein. The spiritual energy was abundant, making it the most suitable place for cultivation and ascension.

It was true that the spiritual energy was abundant; most animals on Changming Mountain had developed spiritual consciousness, and many spirits and monsters resided there to cultivate. As for ascension, no one had ever seen it happen. Whether it was true or false, no one knew.

Except for Li Ruan.

He could summon heavenly lightning at will and firmly believed that as long as he survived those eighty-one lightning tribulations, he could ascend to the immortal realm. Unfortunately, in the three hundred years he had spent on Changming Mountain, he had tried no less than ten times. Other than leaving Changming Mountain in a chaotic mess after every attempt, there had been no results.

On the contrary, the small animals living here grew to dislike him. Who would like someone who might make you homeless at any given moment?

However, Li Ruan’s cultivation was high. No matter how much the mountain animals disliked him, they didn’t dare do anything to him. That was, until half a month ago, when Li Ruan faced another lightning tribulation. The heavenly lightning shattered his foundation and struck him back into his original form.

He became what he was now.

The sparrow struggled to crawl out of the snow pit, yet it didn’t seem particularly angry. It flapped its wings and landed in front of Li Ruan, craning its neck to chirp shrilly, “Are you still here waiting for someone? Is anyone really going to come?”

Li Ruan didn’t turn his head, staring instead at the end of the mountain path. “A-Xue said if I wait here, I’ll find them.”

A-Xue was another fox spirit living in a cave further south, who had supposedly cultivated for nearly a thousand years.

After his foundation was destroyed in the lightning tribulation, Li Ruan could no longer continue his cultivation alone. He could only seek help from this great spirit who had practiced for a millennium. The great spirit gave him a suggestion:

Dual cultivation. Take a human’s essence.

Among the demon race, this wasn’t an uncommon method of cultivation. A mortal’s essence was of the Yang nature, which aided a demon’s cultivation. Dual cultivation made the process twice as effective with half the effort. It was for this very reason that the mortal world frequently saw incidents of monsters sucking the life essence out of humans.

But Li Ruan had lost all his magical power. In the days immediately following his failed tribulation, his injuries were so severe that he had difficulty even walking. He had no strength to go down the mountain and kidnap a mortal.

Fortunately, the great spirit pointed him toward another path: Wait patiently.

So, from that day on, Li Ruan came to this mountain path every day to wait. Sometimes when he got tired, he would take a nap under a tree and continue waiting when he woke up. Last night was the same; he accidentally fell asleep under a tree, only to find himself buried under a thick layer of snow when he woke.

“But I heard that humans consider Changming Mountain a forbidden area. No one has entered for many years,” the sparrow’s chirps sounded exceptionally clear in the quiet morning mountain. “How long are you going to wait?”

Changming Mountain was filled with spiritual energy, and thus all things had souls and wild beasts were numerous. Hundreds of years ago, it had been a royal hunting ground. The emperor at the time loved hunting and often came to Changming Mountain for grand hunts, killing many living beings. Later, it was the great spirit A-Xue living in the south who finally stepped out of the mountain.

No one knew what method he used, but shortly after, the emperor issued a decree to abolish the royal hunting ground and forbade anyone from approaching. Even now, through several changes of dynasties, the reputation of Changming Mountain as a forbidden land persisted. No one ever intruded into this place again.

Li Ruan had heard these stories too, but A-Xue told him to wait in peace—there had to be a reason for it.

“I say, why don’t you just give up on ascending?” The sparrow perked up its tail feathers and walked back and forth in front of Li Ruan, swaying as it left a string of tiny claw prints in the snow. “Look, A-Xue has cultivated for a thousand years and has never even heard of a demon being able to ascend. How long have you been at it? Even if such a good thing as ascension existed, how could it ever be your turn?”

“If you didn’t ascend…” the sparrow preened the feathers on its chest and said softly, “We could still be friends.”

That last sentence was too quiet; Li Ruan didn’t hear it clearly. But even if he had, it wouldn’t have shaken his resolve.

Li Ruan said, “I am going to ascend.”

“Why?!” the sparrow stomped its feet in annoyance. “What’s so good about ascending anyway?”

Li Ruan countered, “What’s not good about it?”

“You—!”

The sparrow couldn’t come up with an answer. After a long silence, it finally snapped in a fit of rage, “The others weren’t wrong—your brain really was broken by that lightning!”

“Stupid fox!”

Leaving those words behind, the sparrow flapped its wings and flew far away.

Li Ruan watched the small black dot disappear into the vast mountain range. He blinked his eyes in confusion, not understanding why the sparrow had suddenly gotten angry again. The mountains were very cold after a snowfall. The mountain wind, carrying snowflakes, blew through the little fox’s fluffy fur, making him shiver.

It’s so cold…

Li Ruan lowered his head to lick his icy paws and took one last look at the end of the mountain path. In such cold weather, no one should be entering the mountains anymore.

And besides…

Grumble—

Li Ruan rubbed his belly. After being turned back into his original form, he could no longer use magic to fast. He hadn’t eaten anything for a day and a night. He was truly hungry.

Li Ruan made a decision within a few breaths. He shook the snow off his body and turned to walk deeper into the mountain.

Changming Mountain was a continuous range of high peaks, located three hundred miles outside the Imperial Capital. Before the royal family ordered the mountain sealed, there had been a small path used by local villagers to gather herbs and firewood. The place where Li Ruan had been “waiting for a rabbit” was on this essential path into the mountain.

The place where he lived and cultivated, however, was at the bottom of a deep canyon within the mountain. The canyon was surrounded by mountains on three sides, and deep within it was a hot spring, making the valley floor warm in winter and cool in summer, filled with dense shade.

Before Li Ruan arrived, this had been the cave of a weasel spirit. But back then, that weasel had only just gained its spiritual consciousness and had only cultivated for a few decades; it was no match for Li Ruan at all. Li Ruan gave him a beating and seized the cave for himself.

The law of the jungle—that was how the world of spirits worked.

Li Ruan carried a wild pheasant he had hunted on the way, hopping and skipping back toward his cave. There wasn’t much snow in the canyon; once the sun fully rose, the bit of snow there would completely melt. Li Ruan intentionally stepped into the untouched snow with every step, pressing paw prints into the surface, having the time of his life.

…And then he slipped and landed on his bottom right when he saw what was outside his cave.

The wild pheasant, which wasn’t quite dead yet, fell to the ground and struggled to escape, but Li Ruan could no longer be bothered with it. On the snow in the distance lay a dark mass. It was unclear how long it had been lying there; it was covered in snow.

That looked… like a person?

Jiang Shen had thought he was certainly doomed this time.

In recent years, the situation at court had been unstable. First, there were frequent wars at the border, and later, a plague spread in the south, followed by widespread famine. Jiang Shen, who had gone south for disaster relief, was urgently recalled to the Imperial Capital by a secret letter. However, as he approached Changming Mountain last night, he realized he had fallen into a trap.

Someone had set an ambush outside the capital to eliminate him in one fell swoop.

Jiang Shen was the Emperor’s legitimate son and had been the Crown Prince since birth. From the moment he was born, countless people had wanted his life. And recently, as the current Emperor’s health deteriorated, it made many people even more restless.

Last night, Jiang Shen was forced to divert his path into Changming Mountain, but he still didn’t escape the assassins’ pursuit. The ten or so personal guards accompanying him all died in battle, and he accidentally fell off a cliff.

Falling from such a height, he should have found death inescapable. But now…

Jiang Shen knew he must still be alive. The piercing cold surrounding him made it difficult to feel the pain in his body, but the thing pressing against his chest was so clear it couldn’t be ignored. It was very light, very soft, and warm—it seemed to be a living creature.

Through the layers of his clothing, that little thing was gently stepping on his chest, one foot after another. It felt like… the paws of some small animal.

Jiang Shen suddenly remembered that extremely fat stray cat in the palace, which always liked to step all over people, purring and acting spoiled. But now, the little thing stepping on his chest moved even more gently than that cat. He couldn’t tell if it simply lacked strength or if it was afraid of hurting him.

Jiang Shen did not move impulsively. Even in such a disadvantageous situation, he remained terrifyingly calm. He intentionally kept his breathing very shallow, pretending he was still unconscious.

But the thing on his body didn’t leave. After treading experimentally for a while, it even very impolitely laid down on his chest.

Jiang Shen: “…”

The small animal’s warm breath puffed against Jiang Shen’s face. They remained in a stalemate for some time until Jiang Shen finally gave in. There was no other way; he wasn’t sure of the extent of his injuries, but he could feel that he couldn’t move his body at all, and his mind was growing more and more groggy.

If he delayed any longer, he might truly die.

Jiang Shen let out a soft breath and carefully opened his eyes.

Then, he met a pair of bright, clear eyes. Those eyes were very beautiful—the corners were long and upturned, while the pupils were round and a very pure, deep red.

Jiang Shen blinked. The little thing lying on his chest blinked back.

Li Ruan had lived for hundreds of years, and this was likely the first time he had been so close to a mortal. And such a good-looking mortal at that.

Fox spirits were naturally beautiful when they took human form. Li Ruan thought his own human form was quite handsome, and A-Xue in the south was also very good-looking. But the person before him—his beauty was different from theirs.

This man was clearly covered in blood and filth now, his hair disheveled, but his face was exceptionally striking. Slanted eyebrows leading to the temples, a high bridge of the nose—even in such a wretched state, his elegance was hard to erase.

Incomparably handsome, as the folk stories put it—perhaps this was what it looked like. Li Ruan thought to himself.

This was great. He was so good-looking that it would be pleasant to look at him during dual cultivation. Li Ruan was very satisfied with this “heaven-sent” furnace.

But his satisfaction alone wasn’t enough. A-Xue had told him that humans were mostly afraid of monsters, and those with small hearts might even be scared to death by one.

The person before him was truly very weak, covered in wounds of all sizes, appearing as if he only had one last breath left. He couldn’t be allowed to be scared to death.

With that in mind, Li Ruan lowered his head. Using the kindest tone of his life, he spoke very politely:

“Hello. Can you dual cultivate with me?”

Jiang Shen: “…”

Jiang Shen: “???”