Chapter 7: The Fox Clan’s Way of Possession

Nothing more than suffering backlash and dropping a level in cultivation—a small wound, quickly cultivated back.

But none of that could be said in front of Yan Su. Lin Zhuoyu did not answer, only hung his head and said glumly, “I know I was wrong. I shouldn’t have risked myself.”

Yan Su wasted not half a word on such an insincere apology, saying only, tersely, “Back to Floating Jade Mountain.”

Lin Zhuoyu hurried to say, “That fox demon was too weak—there must be a Great Demon behind it…”

Yan Su formed a seal and released a golden talisman to recall He Xing. “Right now, all you need to worry about is how you will explain to Shizun that you left the sect without permission.”

Lin Zhuoyu panicked. “Eldest Senior Brother!”

He Xing had been squatting in a corner and was abruptly yanked back by a golden talisman, roast chicken still in his mouth.

Seeing Yan Su’s face colder than usual, He Xing hastily drew himself up. “Your orders, Eldest Senior Brother?”

Yan Su: “Take him back to Floating Jade Mountain.”

Hearing he could go home, He Xing was overjoyed. “Yes yes yes yes!”

The Fox Clan’s supreme art was disguise, lurking unseen in the shadows year after year; an encounter like this was a once-in-an-age chance. Having finally wrenched the word “Qingshan” loose, Lin Zhuoyu could hardly bear to return empty-handed.

Lin Zhuoyu extended a hand and deployed his trump card, eyes pleading. “Senior Brother, look—a cut on my wrist. It’s bleeding.”

He Xing glanced over: the scrape was nearly healed.

But remembering how, three years ago, a small scratch on Lin Zhuoyu’s arm had sent Yan Su flying home from a thousand li away, he figured the man’s heart would ache all over again.

Unexpectedly, Yan Su lowered his eyes and met Lin Zhuoyu’s pleading gaze—brimming with make up with me, make up with me, I’m begging you—and finally said, “Since your wound is so grave, all the more reason to return to the sect and recover.”

Lin Zhuoyu: “…”

Every trick exhausted and nothing gained—he had rarely tasted such bitterness since childhood. Rare irritation surfaced between his brows, and he could not help snapping.

“Yan Linyuan!”

He Xing silently gasped, awe shot through with admiration in his gaze.

Yan Su looked at him. “Call me what?”

Under that sweep of those eyes, Lin Zhuoyu’s volume plummeted, and he stammered, “I’ll just—just stay one night, and return at dawn to confess… haha. Yan Linyuan. What a fine name. Senior Brother He, Senior Brother He, quick, tell me what’s so fine about it?”

He Xing: “…”

Spineless.

Seeing Lin Zhuoyu scared into a trembling lamb, still tugging at his sleeve, a rush of hot blood went to He Xing’s head. He stepped forward, shielding Lin Zhuoyu behind him. “Eldest Senior Brother, I think—!”

Yan Su, without so much as a glance, raised a hand and beckoned; the Profound Flying Steed came thundering up, and the dust kicked up by its hooves slapped He Xing full in the face.

He Xing: “…Little Junior Brother really is better off resting back at the sect!”

Lin Zhuoyu: “…”

Lin Zhuoyu pinched him in fury.

He Xing was thick-skinned and murmured, “Didn’t you see Eldest Senior Brother’s face is black enough to kill? A wise man bends with the times—keep it up and you’re sure to get a beating!”

Lin Zhuoyu was about to protest again when his gaze happened to flick across He Xing’s shoulder.

Qingru’s Boundless Water had rained down from the sky—even Yan Su himself had caught a misting of it.

He Xing’s shoulder was bone dry.

Lin Zhuoyu asked, puzzled, “Where were you when the Violet Fox appeared?”

He Xing blinked, uncomprehending. “Right there, waiting for Eldest Senior Brother to show his divine might. What’s with the question—did Eldest Senior Brother scare you stupid?”

Lin Zhuoyu’s eyes narrowed.

By then, Yan Su had already walked to Lin Zhuoyu’s side.

Before Lin Zhuoyu could turn, a hand casually pinched his waist; his robe hem spun with a kick of his legs, and he was gathered up and set inside the Profound Flying Steed’s carriage.

“Senior Brother!”

“I will find that Great Demon’s trail.” Yan Su pressed the two unused talismans to Lin Zhuoyu’s forehead, a golden sigil like a peach blossom mirrored between his brows. “If I prove useless, there is still Shizun. You need not gamble your life.”

Lin Zhuoyu’s lashes lowered; he answered nothing, sulking.

He simply refused to drift through another fifteen years on a phantom syllable of “Qing.”

Yan Su knew Lin Zhuoyu’s temperament—gentle and easily bullied on the surface, yet strongly opinionated within. The next time they spoke, he would likely face several days of a cold shoulder.

“Go.”

He Xing settled skillfully at the front of the carriage and seized the Profound Steed’s reins. “Yes, sir!”

Lin Zhuoyu entered the carriage reluctantly, and deliberately let the curtain Yan Su had raised fall with a vicious snap.

Yan Su said, “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

Lin Zhuoyu was silent a long moment. Finally, he lifted the curtain a crack, chewed up and swallowed the customary parting blessing of safe travels a thousand li, and snapped fiercely, “You’re chasing me off, and I still have to say pretty words? Say that a Great Demon eats me in three bites halfway there, and you’ll never see me again, however much you want to!”

Yan Su’s face changed. “You…”

The words out, Lin Zhuoyu lost his nerve; afraid Yan Su would curse him, he hastily flung out a strand of Boundless Water to lash the Profound Steed, urging it along—go, go, run, run!

The steed whinnied and bounded off atop the clouds.

The Boundless Water splashed up; He Xing ducked aside on instinct—yet a single drop landed on the back of his hand, and a small, nearly invisible flame flickered silently to life.

It died in an instant, noticed by no one.

The carriage vanished into the darkened sky. Yan Su turned back to examine the fox demon’s corpse.

Just as Lin Zhuoyu had said, this fox demon’s cultivation was mediocre. Had fox demons not been born masters of disguise, it would have been slain in the space of a blink.

Yan Su closed his eyes, spreading his divine sense across the whole of Linchuan City.

Even the earth-shaking business of slaying the fox demon had not disturbed the festival; the crowds still knelt and kowtowed, lamps blazing, voices shaking the heavens.

Ling Wensong stood with his arms crossed, watching the Bureau carry out the fox demon’s corpse and severed tail, a flicker of disappointment in his eyes.

So the man actually found the Violet Fox. A blind cat bumping into a dead rat.

Seeing Yan Su coming over cold-faced, Ling Wensong smiled thinly. “Sending Junior Brother Wuyou back to the sect—how does Commander Yan plan to keep catching demons now?”

Yan Su pressed two fingers together into a sword seal; the spirit sword descended from the air, stabbing hard and true at Ling Wensong’s neck.

CLANG.

Ling Wensong threw up a seal-block and was forced back half a step.

That strike had meant to kill. Ling Wensong’s face darkened as he moved to demand answers—when he suddenly felt a blank whiteness overhead. He looked up: the sky above all Linchuan City was thick with countless phantoms of swords.

He looked closely at the blade inscriptions: the words Wuyou filled the heavens.

Ling Wensong was aghast. “What are you doing?!”

Yan Su never reported his actions to anyone. The sword seal flashed between his brows; his white robes billowing, two fingers raised to his lips, he softly pronounced one word.

“Fall.”

Ling Wensong had no time to stop him. Overhead, thousands upon thousands of sword lights fell like meteors, hissing down—striking unerringly into the crowd.

“Are you mad?!”

Ling Wensong thought the man had gone mad and meant to slaughter innocents, and roared in fury—but no earth-shaking screams reached his ears.

The sword phantoms passed through the bodies of ordinary commoners without harming a single hair; only a scattered few let out a wail that was hardly human.

The Bureau’s people closed in and pinned them down.

An artifact set to each brow; in moments, a phantom fox shadow was expelled from each body. The possessed stood there dazed, wholly unaware of what had happened.

Ling Wensong stared in shock.

Under the very nose of the Bureau he commanded, over ten fox demons had infiltrated Linchuan City.

For a moment, Ling Wensong’s face burned hot with shame.

Yan Su never spared demons; in moments, he had slain every fox demon possessing a human body.

Just then, Yuan Jiucang hurried over. “Commander Yan, we found something nearby bearing Floating Jade Mountain’s mark…”

Yan Su: “What?”

Yuan Jiucang presented the artifact.

Yan Su’s pupils shifted. The flame ruyi pattern.

That was…

He Xing’s life-bound artifact. The Fire Shed.

He Xing treasured this demon-burning life-bound artifact like his own eyes. How could he have cast it aside?

Yan Su’s face changed abruptly.

He Xing, who left with Lin Zhuoyu…

Was he still himself?

“Achoo—!”

He Xing, driving, let out a mighty sneeze. Seeing the Profound Flying Steed following the road on its own, and with the fearsome Eldest Senior Brother absent, he grinned, lifted the curtain, and ducked inside to loaf.

“It’s already spring and it’s still this cold out there—my face was about to freeze off.”

He Xing made himself entirely at home strolling in. Lin Zhuoyu sat cross-legged under the lamp reading, occasionally annotating a few words with the cinnabar brush.

He Xing marveled.

Lin Zhuoyu and Yan Su had been at each other’s throats not long ago; he had assumed Lin Zhuoyu was sulking in silence—who knew he would be sitting there serenely reading.

Lamplight lent Lin Zhuoyu a veil of mist, adding to his beauty.

He Xing cleared his throat. Eldest Senior Brother was not here; he was bold again. Feigning nonchalance, he asked, “What are you reading?”

“Records of the Demon Race.” Lin Zhuoyu turned a page absently, glanced up at him, and wrote a few more words.

“Oh.” He Xing said, “The old text Senior Martial Uncle went through so much trouble to find for you.”

Lin Zhuoyu nodded. After much deliberation, he crossed out the words he had just written, wrote again, remained unsatisfied, and finally propped his chin on his hand, looking at him. “Can I ask you something?”

Lin Zhuoyu rarely gazed at anyone with such gentle, careful attention.

As if his heart were brimming full of you.

He Xing felt inexplicably flushed under the look, straightening his chest by force. “Ask away. Ahem. No promises I’ll answer.”

Lin Zhuoyu’s eyes were all curiosity. “Does your Fox Clan know the way of body seizure too?”

Confusion crossed He Xing’s face. “What are you talking about?”

Lin Zhuoyu opened the ancient Records of the Demon Race. A fox figure was sketched in strokes of cinnabar, with several fresh annotations beside it.

“Violet Fox. Disguise: Spirit Grade. Suspected mastery of body seizure.”

“Spirit Grade” was struck through, replaced with “Immortal Grade”; “body seizure” had been amended to “suspected possession; the possessed host’s consciousness still lingers.”

The expression on “He Xing’s” face froze solid in an instant. That living, breathing countenance seemed wrenched away by force; his features stiffened inch by inch, grotesque and dreadful under the lamp.

“You noticed?”

Lin Zhuoyu smiled. “Nope. Bluffed you.”

That rigid face cracked for an instant.

He Xing’s consciousness was still awake; hearing the strange voice at his ear, he asked in confusion, “Zhuoyu, who are you talking to?”

The Violet Fox possessing He Xing’s body had left Linchuan City and no longer needed to fear Yan Su; at last, it dropped the mask.

“Worthy of the Lin Clan bloodline.”

The Violet Fox’s lips stretched wide into a foxlike smile, the expression nearly splitting He Xing’s mouth apart, threads of blood seeping slowly from the corners of the lips. “A spirit body nourished on heaven’s treasures and earthly marvels—unique in ten thousand. With your body, even without worshipping that Big Dipper that would not save me, I can take human form all the same.”