Wagging My Tail in the Ice Queen CEO’s Embrace - Chapter 42

“I am a fox spirit born with nine tails,” Ming Ying said.

Regarding the nine-tailed clan, Ming Ying actually didn’t know much information. She could only explain to Fu Anyu within the scope of her own knowledge.

“My clan has always emphasized bloodline inheritance,” Ming Ying recalled. “Most cubs born are naturally nine-tailed, with only a few being ordinary white foxes. Earlier when I said I was a fox from the mountains, that was actually a lie too.”

Seeing the change in Fu Anyu’s gaze, she quickly added, “But I truly don’t know the exact location of my family! I only know it’s a very large city located in the far west of the demon realm, which has been under my father’s rule for hundreds of years.”

“You lived in the royal city of the nine-tailed fox clan?” Fu Anyu asked. “And you’re from the royal family?”

“Yes,” Ming Ying said somewhat sheepishly. “I’m the youngest princess of my generation.”

For a moment, she couldn’t think of what else to say, nervously clutching the hem of her skirt.

“Then why do you always say that as long as you’re sent to the demon realm, you can find your way home?” Fu Anyu asked gently.

“I can sense the direction of my home,” Ming Ying replied. “This is what one of my elder brothers told me, it seems to be called ‘bloodline calling.'”

She couldn’t help but recall the incident of running away from home, lowering her head and murmuring, “So, that’s why when I left home, I dared to go so far… far enough to leave the clan’s protective barrier and encounter evil demons.”

Fu Anyu reached out and gently stroked her head, then asked, “How did you know you had mistakenly entered the forbidden land at that time?”

“The evil demons chasing me said so,” Ming Ying looked up at her, imitating the evil demons’ tone. “‘Stop her quickly! Don’t let her run into the forbidden land!’ That’s roughly what they said.”

The evil demons chasing her at the time weren’t nearly this calm, but Ming Ying really didn’t want to remember the details. Even when talking about these things, she couldn’t help trembling all over.

“My leg injury wasn’t the only one,” she said tremulously. “While being chased, I was in so much pain I almost went numb… But after stepping into the forbidden land and coming to the human realm, I could hardly feel the other injuries anymore, only the pain in my leg persisted.”

“The leg pain is because they cast the Annihilation Seal on you,” Fu Anyu said while placing a hand on her back and gently drawing her into an embrace. “Don’t be afraid, it’s all over now.”

Soon, she heard the little fox’s sobbing from within her embrace, and before long, her clothes were damp with tears.

“I regret it so much… so, so much…” Ming Ying choked out between sobs. “I could have stayed by my parents’ side all along, why did I have to run away in a fit of anger… My clan’s destiny is to pass on the nine-tailed bloodline. I refused, I ran away, but what kind of criticism will my parents have to face because of this.”

Fu Anyu gently patted the little fox without responding, letting her cry bitterly in her embrace.

She could hear the little fox’s self-blame and her deep longing for home and her clan. Precisely because of this, she couldn’t comfort her with any words.

She couldn’t, as an outsider, tell the little fox “You did the right thing” or “you did wrong.”

That such a deeply homesick little fox would still choose to run away, even beyond the protective barrier, was enough to prove she couldn’t endure her clan’s customs and traditions, hence her decision to leave home. In Fu Anyu’s view, there was nothing wrong with that at all.

But after leaving home, the little fox encountered many setbacks and even crossed over to a completely different world, causing her to lose all her spiritual power and making it impossible for her to return home for a long time. This series of misfortunes undoubtedly hinted to the little fox that she had been wrong.

The only thing Fu Anyu could do now was give the little fox a hug, letting her slowly calm down and recover from those negative emotions on her own.

Ming Ying didn’t cry for too long this time; she just felt suddenly upset and needed to cry for a while. When she let go of Fu Anyu, she noticed the other’s collar was already soaked, and she immediately folded her ears in panic. “I’m sorry, I…”

“Don’t worry about it.” Fu Anyu ruffled her hair and handed her a tissue to wipe her face. “Crying when you’re upset can make you feel a lot better.”

“But I cry often,” Ming Ying said as she wiped her face. “My mother always calls me a ‘little crybaby’.”

“That just means you’re easily moved emotionally,” Fu Anyu said with a light laugh. “In the human world, there are two terms: ‘laugh threshold’ and ‘cry threshold.’ Everyone’s laugh and cry thresholds are different, which is why, when faced with the same situation, some people burst into laughter immediately, some remain expressionless, some cry out loud, and some are completely unmoved. You don’t need to blame or belittle yourself for it.”

Ming Ying sniffled and nodded, quietly praising her, “Sister, you’re so good at comforting people.”

For some reason, she felt that even if the sky were to fall, it wouldn’t be a big deal once it reached Fu Anyu.

Fu Anyu simply smiled faintly. Noticing the little fox’s tail spread obediently behind her, covering the parts her nightgown couldn’t, she tentatively asked, “Before the new clothes arrive, do you want to try conjuring your own clothes?”

She had noticed that the little fox’s situation was quite unique. When she reverted to her fox form, the clothes she wore in human form couldn’t be hidden and had to be taken off. When she transformed back into human form, she had to put them on again.

This meant the little fox had to maintain one form for as long as possible. Otherwise, if she encountered a situation where she had to switch forms while outside, she might disrupt social order by being unclothed.

Ming Ying looked at her blankly. “But I don’t know how.”

Fu Anyu opened her phone, pulled up a mini-program, unfollowed it, and then taught Ming Ying how to follow it.

“This is an app developed by the demon race,” Fu Anyu explained, handing the phone to Ming Ying. “It contains many commonly used spells. You can try searching for them.”

Ming Ying wasn’t very skilled at using the search function yet. Seeing her slow movements, Fu Anyu simply guided her hand, expertly navigating through page after page.

She sat close to Ming Ying, acting completely natural, but Ming Ying grew increasingly flustered, her face reddening as she repeatedly reminded herself to focus and memorize each step as much as possible in one go.

With Fu Anyu’s help, she typed “conjure clothes” into the search bar and pressed the magnifying glass icon. Instantly, several results popped up:

Learn to Turn Fur into a Plush Coat in One Minute, A Clothing Conjuring Tutorial Even an Amoeba Could Understand, The Correct Way to Use White Fox Fur, The Simplest Tutorial for Conjuring Clothes: From Beginner to Burial…

Ming Ying: ???

“Are these really spells for conjuring clothes?” The titles deterred her, and she didn’t dare click on any of them. She looked at Fu Anyu in disbelief.

“All of them,” Fu Anyu nodded. “Any tutorials that can be searched by users are officially certified legitimate spells.”

She glanced at Ming Ying’s screen and explained, “But some yao practitioners make a living by writing tutorials. Their income is tied to the click-through rates of their tutorials, which is why they deliberately use such titles to attract users’ attention.”

“I see,” Ming Ying nodded, only half-understanding. She opened the one that looked the most serious, “Learn to Turn Fur into a Plush Coat in One Minute,” skimmed through it briefly, and found that the content was indeed the intricate incantations she was familiar with. Only then did she start reading carefully from the beginning.

The tutorial page was divided into “Incantation Section,” “Interpretation Section,” “Practice Section,” and “Feedback Area.” The Incantation Section straightforwardly posted the complete incantation, while the Interpretation Section provided a detailed explanation of the spell, making it easier for readers to practice with minimal effort and to anticipate potential mishaps in advance.

The Practice Section documented the tutorial author’s own practice process, with each step accompanied by images and short videos. Content that couldn’t be reviewed with real people was replaced with simple sketches. The Feedback Area was where readers could share their practice results and experiences during the process, helping the tutorial author optimize the spell.

After reading the main content, Ming Ying didn’t rush to practice. Instead, she first checked the Feedback Area.

She noticed that the top rows were all filled with comments like “Succeeded on the first try, thank you for sharing, author!” Some even included comparison images of their yao form and human form with censored areas. But as she scrolled further, she began to see some feedback about failures.

“My son often hurts his hands playing basketball, so I wanted to add a plush wristband for him. But damn, I ended up sprouting a thick ring of hair on his wrist! Shaved it off, and it grew back. The next day during the game, it scared off his girlfriend!”

“Tutorial author, come take your beating! I succeeded by skipping the third-to-last line of the incantation, but when I recited the whole thing, my cat fur grew in weird places. I won’t specify where, but I’m already feeling depressed.”

“This tutorial is perfect for pranking your boyfriend. [Image: Samoyed on the left, ‘Shih Tzu with a small braid’ on the right.]”

These disastrous feedbacks frightened Ming Ying so much that she tugged on Fu Anyu’s sleeve and pointed to the “come take your beating” comment, asking, “What should I do if something like this happens to me?”

“First, check how many feedbacks mention succeeding by skipping a line of the incantation,” Fu Anyu said. “Racial differences can affect the success rate of spells.”

She took the phone, typed the character “fox” into the search bar of the current tutorial, and showed the loaded page to Ming Ying. “These are the feedbacks from the fox clan.”

“So convenient,” Ming Ying praised, taking the phone back and reading through them one by one.

The feedback from the fox clan was mostly normal, and all of them had recited the full incantation. After reading all the fox clan feedback, Ming Ying’s confidence grew. She returned to the Incantation Section, formed hand seals, and began chanting the incantation while silently visualizing the parts of her body she wanted the clothing to cover.

Ming Ying first tried to materialize tabi, what humans commonly call socks, on her feet. As soon as she finished the incantation, she noticed her snow-white fox fur clinging to her feet and transforming into the tabi she remembered. They existed independently and could be removed, without merging with her feet or causing any prickling discomfort from the plush texture.

Ming Ying took off the tabi socks she had slipped over her feet, examined them with keen interest for a moment, then put them back on, eagerly moving on to manifesting the next piece of clothing.

Fu Anyu lay sprawled over the computer desk, her chin resting on her interlaced fingers, watching as the little fox gradually clothed herself piece by piece. The fabric grew increasingly lighter, shifting from thick, plush wool to delicate white gauze, and she smiled approvingly.

“You’re learning fast,” she praised.

Ming Ying was in the midst of conjuring a fluffy hair accessory when she turned her head to smile back at her. But in that moment, she lost her focus, and the fox fur that had been gathered around her ears suddenly sprouted entirely from the tips, elongating her ears by a noticeable margin.