Chapter 14

Chapter 14: Foxy

In the chaotic night among the temple’s rubble, a silver-haired, fox-tailed girl crouched among broken bricks, chewing rotten leaves she’d pulled from a garbage bag.

And Yu Sheng—dead three times over—stood behind a broken wall, staring at her.

They faced each other in silence across the ruins. For a first meeting (that earlier headbutt didn’t count), it was a scene Yu Sheng would probably never forget.

Then the fox-tailed girl’s eyes widened.

Shock surged through those gold-and-red irises—shock, joy, disbelief all tangled together. She stood up, still clutching a fistful of leaves, and stared at Yu Sheng like she was afraid he might vanish if she blinked.

“A person?” she choked out. “A… person! You’re a person?! You… who are you? Where did you come from…?”

Yu Sheng had rehearsed an opening line. He’d planned how to introduce himself, how to ask about her situation, even how to be gracious about her earlier “help.”

But the moment she spoke, his mind blanked.

Her reaction was nothing like he’d expected.

What did she mean, a person? Was him being human really that shocking?

And more importantly…

She was acting like she’d never seen him before.

But she had. She’d seen him fighting the monster.

Sure, their “meeting” had been… creative, and after her headbutt his overall outline had been very different from what it was now, but still—his face shouldn’t have changed much.

Even if she hadn’t gone back to check the scene afterward, she should have at least remembered the guy she’d launched into the afterlife.

“We… have met,” Yu Sheng managed after two or three seconds. “Just now, out on the open ground. You said you were coming to save me. Forgot?”

The fox girl tilted her head, clearly not understanding. Then her attention snapped somewhere else. She pointed at the spilled kitchen waste, eyes shining.

“This… your… thing?”

Her speech came in strange pauses, like it had been too long since she’d spoken to anyone and she had to dig each word out of the dust.

Yu Sheng answered awkwardly, “Uh… yeah.”

“Can I… eat?” she asked quickly, still stumbling. She clenched the leaves hard, as if using sheer willpower to stop herself from stuffing them straight into her mouth. Her jaw moved; she was still chewing what she’d already swallowed halfway. Then she glanced at Yu Sheng again, urgent and apologetic. “I… hungry. I want eat. Sorry…”

Her hands trembled. Her voice was desperate, yet she restrained herself with a kind of fierce control—as if she wasn’t only holding back hunger, but something more dangerous than hunger. Something close to losing herself.

Yu Sheng blinked. For a moment, he could have sworn he saw faint traces of shadowspawn drifting behind her, creeping in from the dark like hunters waiting for a mind to slip.

But they dispersed almost as soon as he noticed them.

Yu Sheng stepped out from behind the broken wall. Something was clearly wrong here (though those tails were enough to make anyone say that), but he still forced himself to walk closer.

“You can’t eat those,” he started. “They’re all—”

He couldn’t finish.

Because he’d never seen hunger like this in his life.

The girl had already started to crouch again, like she couldn’t wait for permission. She reached toward the spilled scraps.

“Wait!” Yu Sheng blurted. “I think I have food!”

The girl froze. Yu Sheng dug through his pockets, half-panicked by his own sudden impulse.

In the end, he pulled out two packaged buns and a palm-sized piece of chocolate. He’d meant to keep them as a late-night snack.

His work had made him used to staying up.

The fox girl watched his hands with wary confusion. Yu Sheng showed her how to tear open the wrapper. When the plastic ripped, the smell of bread drifted out.

Her eyes lit up.

Then, in a blur, she grabbed Yu Sheng’s hand and tried to shove his whole hand—bun and all—toward her mouth.

Yu Sheng barely yanked back in time. She was fast. Worse, she was terrifyingly strong. He had to use nearly all his strength just to pull free before she bit off his fingers.

Even so, her sharp canine teeth scraped his index finger, leaving a thin cut. Blood welled.

“Damn,” Yu Sheng muttered under his breath, staring at the little bead of red. “How long have you been starving…”

The girl didn’t seem to hear him at all. She devoured the bun like she was trying to cram it straight into her stomach. Her cheeks bulged with every bite. Yu Sheng honestly worried she’d choke in the next second—but she forced herself to swallow and then locked onto the second bun like it was the only thing in the world.

“Slow down,” Yu Sheng said quickly, blocking her with his forearm. “Catch your breath first. If you eat like that, you’ll choke. Okay? Do you understand?”

“I… understand…” The fox girl nodded hard, swallowing again.

Only then did Yu Sheng hand over the second bun.

He watched her claw at the wrapper with clumsy hands. Her technique was wrong, but her strength was absurd. She shredded the plastic in an instant, tore the bun in half, and stuffed it in—then, halfway through, she seemed to remember his words. She slowed down with visible effort, tearing off smaller pieces and eating them one by one as if she were afraid it would disappear.

All the while, her gaze kept darting to Yu Sheng’s hand.

To the last piece of chocolate.

“This is choco—” Yu Sheng started, ready to hand it over, but stopped mid-word. His expression turned odd.

He thought for a second, then called quietly in his mind, “Irene.”

Irene’s voice flooded his head immediately. “Yu Sheng! What was that just now? Why did you suddenly go silent again? And no matter how I called, you didn’t—”

“It’s complicated. I’ll explain later. For now, I need to ask you something.”

“You…” Irene sounded annoyed, then sighed like she was forcing patience. “Fine. Ask.”

“Dogs can’t eat chocolate, right?” Yu Sheng stole a glance at the fox girl’s hopeful face and tried to keep his tone serious.

“…Right,” Irene said, baffled. “That stuff is poisonous to dogs. But why are you suddenly asking this? You’re trapped in the Otherworld and you still have time for—”

Yu Sheng ignored the rest. “Then can a fox eat it?”

“A fox probably can’t… either?” Irene hesitated. “They’re canines too. Look, a lot of human food is toxic to species that aren’t human. Let me put it this way: your diet—forget what animals think, even to an ‘otherkind’ like me, it’s insane. You eat poison with strong alkali, guzzle acid, let bio-chemicals run through your gut, and stuff your face with rotten matter—”

Yu Sheng cut her off. “What about a fox that’s cultivated into a spirit?”

Irene finally ran out of words. “…What?”

“I mean a fox that turns into human form,” Yu Sheng thought fast, because the fox girl was nearly done with the bun and clearly about to pounce. “A fox immortal, a fox demon—you know. Does it still count as a fox? Is it more human, or more fox? If it’s more fox, is it still considered a canine?”

“…What the hell is going on over there?!” Irene hissed.

Yu Sheng heard her first half and decided it was close enough to a yes. He handed the chocolate to the fox girl anyway, still remembering to warn her, “Here. You can have it, but try a little first. I’m worried it might be bad for you.”

“Th-thank you!” The fox girl took it with shaking hands, unwrapped it clumsily, and took a cautious bite.

Surprise lit her face.

Then she narrowed her eyes, as if sinking into a kind of happiness too deep to express.

“That’s it,” Yu Sheng said, spreading his hands. “I don’t have any more. I don’t know if that’s enough to fill you up… and I don’t even know what to call you.”

“Thank you,” the fox girl said again. This time it sounded solemn.

Only now, with the edge of starvation dulled, did she lift her gaze and meet Yu Sheng’s eyes. She pointed to herself with careful seriousness.

“Foxy.”

“Huh?” Yu Sheng didn’t react right away.

“Foxy,” she repeated, and this time she smiled—small, proud, almost disbelieving. “I… have a name!”