Chapter 014

Chapter 14: Foxy

In the muddy night, among the ruins of a broken temple, a silver haired, fox tailed girl crouched between shattered bricks, chewing wilted lettuce she had pulled from a trash bag, while the man who had already died three times, Yu Sheng, stood behind a cracked wall staring at her in shock.

They faced each other in the dark, quiet and still. As first meetings went, headbutts aside, Yu Sheng knew he would never forget this scene.

Then he watched the fox tailed girl’s eyes slowly widen. Great surprise and joy, with a bit of disbelief, filled her golden red pupils. She finally stood up, still clutching a handful of leaves, and seemed to jolt awake. She lifted a finger at Yu Sheng and made a choking sound: “A person? Ah, a person! You’re a person?! You… who are you? Where did you come from?”

Yu Sheng had already planned a whole opening speech, including how to introduce himself, how to ask this miss about the situation, and how to show he was broad minded enough not to mind the earlier headbutt. But as soon as she spoke, he froze. Most of his lines fled his mind. Her reaction was not what he had expected at all.

[What do you mean, am I human? Is that such a shock? Has she never seen a human, or has it been too long since she saw one? And more importantly…]

Maybe he was imagining it, but Yu Sheng felt like she was acting as if she were seeing him for the first time. Yet she had already seen him while he fought that monster earlier. Sure, their first meeting had been unusual. After that headbutt, his overall shape probably looked different from now, but his face had not changed that much.

Even if she hadn’t checked the scene carefully after the headbutt, she should remember the one who died under her forehead, not look at him like he was a complete stranger.

“We… already met once,” Yu Sheng managed after two or three seconds, then blurted out: “Just now, on the open ground outside, you said you came to save me… remember?”

The fox girl tilted her head, as if she truly had no idea what Yu Sheng meant. Very soon, though, her attention slid elsewhere. She pointed at the bag of kitchen trash on the ground, her eyes seeming to glow in the dark: “Is this, yours?”

When she spoke, there were odd little pauses, like she hadn’t talked to anyone for so long that each word had to be remembered and placed back into her mouth.

Yu Sheng sounded awkward: “Uh, yeah…”

“Can I, eat it?” the fox girl blurted, still slightly stuttering. She gripped the leaves in her hand tighter, as if wrestling with the urge to shove them into her mouth. Her lips moved, chewing what she had already stuffed in. She shot Yu Sheng a quick look and asked in a rush: “I’m, hungry, I want to eat, I’m sorry…”

Her hands trembled. Her tone was urgent, yet she was holding herself back with sheer will, like she was trying to control not only her appetite, but something far more dangerous that was close to slipping free.

Yu Sheng blinked. For a second he thought he saw pale shadows drifting behind her, stretching from far away like a hunter waiting in the dark for its prey to let down its guard.

Then the shadows faded at once.

Yu Sheng stepped out from behind the wall. He could tell something about the girl was wrong already, and not only the bundle of messy tails. Still, he went forward boldly: “You can’t eat that. It’s all…”

He found he could not finish the sentence. He had never been this hungry in his life.

The girl slowly crouched again. She seemed unable to wait for his answer and reached to pick up the spilled scraps.

“Wait! I think I have food!” Yu Sheng shouted. He seemed to remember something and dug fast through his pockets as he spoke.

In the end, he pulled out two small packaged buns and a palm sized bar of chocolate. He had planned to save them for a late night snack.

Because of his job, he often stayed up late.

The fox girl watched his movements with a mix of caution and confusion. Yu Sheng came right up to her and showed her how to open the bun’s wrapper. As the plastic tore, warm bread smell drifted out. The girl’s eyes lit up at once. She moved with a blur, grabbed Yu Sheng’s hand, and tried to shove his hand with the bun straight into her mouth.

Yu Sheng almost didn’t react in time. She was not only fast but shockingly strong. He had to yank back with all his strength, barely pulling his hand free before this fox bit off his fingers. Even so, her sharp canines scratched a small cut on his index finger, and blood seeped out at once.

“My goodness, how long have you been hungry…” he muttered.

The girl didn’t seem to hear anything. She stuffed food into her mouth fast, as if she wanted it directly in her stomach. Her cheeks bulged. Every chew made her eyes go wide. Yu Sheng worried she would choke any second, but she forced it down, then stared at the second bun.

“Catch your breath first, slow down, you’ll choke if you eat like that,” Yu Sheng said, blocking her for a moment and meeting her eyes. He spoke seriously: “Okay? Do you understand?”

“I, understand…” the fox girl said, nodding hard and swallowing.

Only then did Yu Sheng pass her the second bun. She tore at the plastic clumsily. Her method was wrong, but her strength was scary. She shredded the bag in no time, ripped the bun in half, and shoved it in. After stuffing half her mouth, she seemed to recall his warning, or maybe realized how precious the food was. She hurried to slow herself, tore the bun into tiny pieces, and placed them into her mouth with extreme control. At the same time, her gaze kept flicking to Yu Sheng’s hand, landing on the last little piece of chocolate.

“This is a choco…” Yu Sheng started, raising his hand to offer it, then paused halfway. His face turned odd.

He thought hard for several seconds, then called inside his mind: “Irene.”

The noisy voice of the Portrait Doll exploded in his head: “Yu Sheng! What happened to you? You suddenly went quiet, and I called you and you didn’t…”

“My situation is complicated. I’ll explain later. First I need to ask you something.”

“You… fine, ask,” Irene sounded annoyed, but gave in with a sigh.

“Dogs can’t eat chocolate, right?” Yu Sheng kept his tone as serious as he could, even though he felt ridiculous. He glanced at the fox girl, who was watching the chocolate with shining eyes.

“…Right,” Irene said, confused. “It’s toxic to dogs. Why are you asking that now? You’re trapped in the Otherworld and you still have time to…”

Yu Sheng cut off the rant: “What about foxes?”

“Foxes probably can’t either… I think?” Irene hesitated. “They’re canids too. And listen, lots of human food is toxic to other species. Honestly, your menu looks crazy to animals, and even to an otherkind like me. It’s like eating poison with alkali on the side. Acid all day, chemical brews down the hatch, rotten stuff by the mouthful…”

Yu Sheng interrupted the chatterbox again: “What about a fox that cultivated into a spirit?”

Irene finally lost the thread: “…What?”

Even a relentless chatterbox can be broken by a sharp topic switch.

“I mean a fox who can take human form. Like a fox immortal or a fox demon, you know?” Yu Sheng spoke quickly in his mind, because the fox girl was about to finish the bun and reach for the chocolate. “Is a fox immortal more fox or more human? If it’s more fox, is it still a canid?”

Irene: “…What is going on over there?!”

“There’s a starving fox here, white hair, red eyes, nine tails… maybe six or seven, they’re matted so I lost count, and all I’ve got left is a chocolate bar.”

Irene went quiet, then accepted it faster than expected: “Nine tails? Then she can handle it. If she didn’t have that much power, what did she grow all those tails for? A boat propeller? Wait, how is there someone there? Wasn’t it an uninhabited Otherworld? How did a…”

Yu Sheng heard the first half and it sounded reasonable. He didn’t respond to the rest before he handed over the chocolate, but he still warned her: “You can have this, but try a small bite first. I’m worried it might be bad for you.”

“Th… thank you!” The fox girl hurried to take it. She fumbled with the wrapper, then took a careful nibble.

Surprise spread over her face. She shut her eyes a little like she was bathing in happiness.

“That’s all there is, no more,” Yu Sheng said with a wry smile, spreading his hand. “I don’t know if it’s enough to fill you up… uh, and I don’t know what to call you.”

“Thank you,” the fox girl said again, more solemn than before. Now that she wasn’t as hungry, she looked into Yu Sheng’s eyes, touched her chest, and spoke earnestly: “Foxy.”

“Ah?” Yu Sheng didn’t get it at first.

“Foxy,” she said, pointing at herself and slowly smiling. “I have a name!”