Chapter 1: Wild Fox Tales

The night was dark and the moon was full; there was no wind.

The tree shadows were dense, as if hiding something invisible and untouchable.

Under an old tree, a litter of foxes emerged from their den one by one.

"What I am going to teach you today is the technique for transforming into human form."

The Old Fox was at the very front, a miscellaneous-furred one, and those behind were no better—either a Bald-Tail Fox, a Single-Testicle Fox, or a Quetui Hu.

A whole litter of runts and rejects.

But though their fur was not glossy, their eyes were bright, all bearing expressions like humans, either looking around or craning their necks.

"Old Uncle, where are we going?" the Single-Testicle Fox asked curiously. "Is the technique for transforming into human form 'Painted Skin'?"

He had recently heard a storyteller talk about gods and ghosts, and he already yearned for life in the human world.

The Old Fox said, "We are going to the Luanzanggang to pick out some skulls that have been exposed to the sun and moon, wear them on our heads, then Worship the Dipper and perform the incantations, and then you can transform."

"Ah—I'm afraid of ghosts." The Quetui Hu was a bit afraid to keep moving forward.

"Afraid of a feather!" the Old Fox said. "A single breath and those wandering ghosts will scatter."

The Bald-Tail Fox chimed in, "That's right, that's right!"

The group of runts and rejects arrived at the Luanzanggang, only to feel their fur grow cold and goosebumps rise; from time to time, a shrill, strange cry made even the leading Old Fox feel a chill in his heart, sensing that a ghost was staring at him. He suddenly became annoyed, turned around, and kicked the Quetui Hu's bad leg hard.

After kicking him, he felt much better and continued, "There is a knack to choosing a skull; beginners usually choose the skull of an old person."

"The skull cap is where the divine intent gathers; it is the most spiritual. Even after death, it retains the obsessions of a lifetime. Once we obtain it, we can borrow that intent to transform into the appearance they had while alive."

"Among them, changing into an old person is the easiest, because a person's great fortune lasts for sixty years; after sixty, there is no more great fortune, only residual luck. Only those with filial children can rely on them, or those who held office or had wealth can still have luck to squander."

"But the old men and women thrown here were either neglected by their children, or had no children at all—they were the widowed, the lonely, and the destitute. Using their remains to practice techniques is of no consequence; there is no fear of any Cause and Effect retribution."

"If they were someone of status, according to the rituals, they would have bought a Yin Contract and land deed, and would be under the jurisdiction of the Ghost Gods. If we took their remains to practice, they would complain to the Yin Spirit or appear in their descendants' dreams, which would be troublesome."

"If they were someone of status, they wouldn't be here anyway." The Quetui Hu looked left and right at the grave mounds; the better ones had a mound of earth, while the worse ones were just covered with straw mats.

"Don't interrupt!" The Bald-Tail Fox kicked his good leg hard. "Listen well, you talk too much."

Then they saw the Old Fox, on the Luanzanggang, searching left and right until he found an old skull, estimated to have been dead for twenty or thirty years, already turned yellow. He stood upright on his hind legs, blew a breath into the apertures to blow away the mud, sand, and insects inside, and then placed it on his head.

A wandering ghost, seeing its own head stolen, became anxious and crouched behind the Old Fox, trying to blow out the three Yang fires on the Old Fox's body.

But it only managed to stir up a gust of whirlwind.

The Old Fox ignored the original owner's intimidation entirely. With a sweep of his tail, he brushed it aside.

Wearing the skull, he stood upright facing the Big Dipper in the sky, gripped the ground with his hind claws, bowed with his front claws, and began to worship, while his mouth emitted a fox cry that sounded like a sinister laugh.

"Isn't it supposed to be worshipping the moon? I saw in a storybook that when foxes turn into humans, they all worship the moon." The Quetui Hu talked a lot.

"Stupid, worshipping the moon is to beg for lunar essence; worshipping the Dipper is to cultivate one's life. We are foxes; to become human, we must change our fox life into a human life." The Bald-Tail Fox kicked the Quetui Hu's lame leg hard again.

The Old Fox bowed for a while, performed a dance of unknown origin, and his form transformed into that of a short old woman.

The short old woman turned around; her face was sallow and her teeth were missing, and she already looked seventy or eighty percent like a human, only her eyes and the scent on her body were slightly different, and one could still see the miscellaneous-furred tail, though the next moment, it was hidden inside her skirt. "This is only a transformation after all, so you must be careful; you must never reveal your tail. Furthermore, you must be stained with the human scent; you need to wear clothes worn by humans to cover up our musky odor."

"Did you understand what I just did?" The Old Fox saw them shaking their heads and asked.

"Understood!" The Single-Testicle Fox was the most confident.

They had already roughly understood what kind of technique this was before they came out; as long as one was fifty years old, one could learn it.

And one year for a fox is equivalent to two months for a human, which is sixty days; this is what those who cultivate the Dao call a 'small year'.

Therefore, an eight-year-old fox, calculated by human age, is nearly fifty years old, has the possibility of developing wisdom, and has reached the standard of an old creature becoming a spirit.

"Go, pick a skull that catches your eye and practice the technique of transforming into a human!"

The foxes had long been restless and unable to contain themselves; hearing this, they went off to find suitable skulls.

The Quetui Hu picked several skulls in a row, but was not satisfied with any of them.

If he wasn't satisfied, he would kick them, treating them like balls.

This angered the wandering ghosts, but they could do nothing to them, at most stirring up a whirlwind for a while.

The foxes had fur on their bodies and were not afraid of catching illnesses from evil winds.

Although the Quetui Hu was bullied by others, his standards were quite high; he kept picking and choosing but was still unsatisfied, mainly because he didn't want to turn into an old man or an old woman, but wanted to turn into a beautiful youth or a flirtatious young woman.

He heard from other foxes that if you turn into their appearance, you can find humans to sleep with, and sleeping with humans is a very pleasurable thing.

Under the moonlight, the Quetui Hu searched and searched, and finally saw a half-buried thin coffin, burying a youth who looked quite good and had no external injuries.

At a glance, the youth's appearance was acceptable, so the Quetui Hu jumped onto the coffin to check the details for any major damage; if he had been murdered, he would be filled with Resentment Qi and could not be used to practice the technique.

Fortunately, it was still okay, intact and complete.

So he sighed, "This one looks good, he has the temperament of a fair-faced scholar, perfect for seducing young ladies."

"Although he hasn't rotted yet, as long as we set up a stove and boil him for two hours, it will be easy to peel off the skin and flesh."

But at this moment, the youth's corpse seemed to undergo a change; he suddenly sat up from the thin coffin, turned his head eerily, and looked at the Quetui Hu: "Don't boil my head!"

The Quetui Hu shrank back in fright and let out a loud cry: "Ghost!"

This startled the group of timid foxes, and they scattered instantly.

Only the toothless old woman the Old Fox had turned into was as nimble as a hundred-meter sprinter; she arrived there like a ghost and muttered, "What's so strange about a ghost? A single breath and it scatters."

The youth managed to prop his body up and straightened his loose head: "Greetings, Fox Immortals?"

The Old Fox's hair stood on end; he was immediately scared out of his technique, the skull fell to the ground, and a miscellaneous-furred fox scurried out from the jaw and vanished in a flash.

He was a timid one, after all.

Starting a new book, beep-beep. (End of chapter)