Chapter 16: The Flower Festival Worships the Fox Immortal Part 2

Thinking this, Lu Qi showed a strange little smile.

They walked for a long while until the sun sank westward, and at last Lin Zhuoyu stopped, staring curiously down from a cliff.

“Lu Qi, come quickly—there’s a town down here!”

Lin Zhuoyu couldn’t tell towns from small villages; anywhere with people counted as a city to him.

He summoned his Eldest Senior Brother and carried Lu Qi on the wind to the village entrance. One look and he was startled.

At the very center of the road at the village’s mouth stood a stone statue. On closer look, its left hand held a vase and its right a sword—a human body with a fox’s face. A Fox Immortal Statue.

Several elders in plain cloth knelt before it, chanting, “Offering of the Flower Festival—the Fox Immortal manifests!”

Kneeling nearby were men and women weeping, and two half-grown boys with wooden faces, their cheeks painted with colored ink in the likeness of foxes.

Lin Zhuoyu touched down lightly, tilted his head up at the eerie Fox Immortal Statue, and muttered to himself, “Is that a fox immortal or a fox demon?”

The kneeling elder opened his eyes, heard this, and at once rose on his cane in fury. “Who speaks such wild words?! Ignorant whelp! Ignorant child! To offend the Fox Immortal is to invite Heaven’s punishment!”

Everyone else glared as well.

Lin Zhuoyu rounded on him in feigned anger. “Little Qi! How can you say something so disrespectful? Apologize to the Fox Immortal at once!”

Lu Qi: “?”

Lin Zhuoyu stepped forward and bowed, bending apologetically. “Forgive us, Grandfather. The child knows no better—he’s never seen such a magnificent Fox Immortal Statue. Don’t take offense.”

Only then, grudgingly, did the elder’s anger subside. He narrowed his eyes at them. “Outsiders?”

“That’s right.” Lin Zhuoyu smiled. “My younger brother and I were headed for Guping City, but we lost our way somehow, and now night is falling. Might we lodge here for the night?”

At this, a gleam shot through the old man’s weasel-like eyes, and his aggressive manner vanished entirely, replaced by an amiable smile. “But of course. The Flower Festival is in a few days—you two young friends have come at just the right time.”

Lin Zhuoyu took the old man’s hand and shook it, saying gratefully, “You’re so right, Grandfather. Fate brings people together across a thousand li!”

The elder: “…”

Lu Qi: “…”

In a few words Lin Zhuoyu had charmed his way in, sweet-talking “Grandfather” this and “little brother” that—social skills truly breathtaking to behold.

Lin Zhuoyu’s mouth was worth a pile of Crystal Jade; he successfully lodged in a small, refined, quiet courtyard in this remote little village.

In the center of the courtyard stood another Fox Immortal statue.

Lin Zhuoyu circled it a few times. “This fox immortal is carved so lifelike.”

The tips of Lu Qi’s ears reddened. He tugged at him and whispered, “Elder Brother, they’re watching us.”

Lin Zhuoyu glanced sideways, found two people peeking from the gate, curved his lips in a smile at them, and gave Lu Qi’s head a pat.

“It’s fine. I’m here. What’s to fear?”

After nightfall, the village blazed with lamps.

One of the ink-faced boys from the village entrance brought dinner. Lin Zhuoyu was about to chat him up and pump him for information when the boy set the food down and bolted like a startled rabbit.

Lin Zhuoyu’s brow arched.

A village that worshipped the Fox Immortal. A Flower Festival held though April was nearly at hand. Villagers excessively attentive to outsiders…

Lin Zhuoyu laughed. Straight out of a storybook—the omen of a Great Demon’s haunting.

In no hurry, he sat down comfortably, folding his legs.

Lu Qi seemed hungry and asked carefully, “Elder Brother, can we eat this?”

“Of course. Eat if you’re hungry.”

Lu Qi picked up his chopsticks and ate, then, after a moment, asked, “Elder Brother, are we really staying here?”

Lin Zhuoyu smiled. “Yes. And if the fox demon that harmed your family happens to be here, we can slay it in passing—and save these villagers too.”

“Oh,” Lu Qi said, lashes dropping to hide the half-smile in his eyes.

Seeing him eating happily, Lin Zhuoyu said nothing more and closed his eyes to enter meditation.

His divine sense spread outward like gossamer threads—but for some reason, strive as he might, it could not leave the little courtyard.

Under the moonlight, the Fox Immortal Statue gave off a pale, ghostly glow, eerie beyond words.

At the third watch of the night, as Lin Zhuoyu circulated his breathing, he suddenly felt someone reaching to touch him.

Without thinking, he flung out a thread of spiritual power.

Thump.

He started, realization crashing in, and snapped his eyes open to find Lu Qi sprawled on the ground, white-faced—he must have landed on his wounded back.

Lin Zhuoyu hurried to help him up. “Are you all right? Did the wound split again? I forgot to tell you—don’t come near me while I’m meditating.”

“I’m sorry,” Lu Qi said, aggrieved. “I didn’t know.”

Lin Zhuoyu busied himself feeding him sugar beans and checking under his clothes; fortunately, the wound had not split.

Seeing Lu Qi’s color improve, he asked gently, “What did you need?”

Lu Qi licked his lips and said softly, “I went out for a walk just now. The people here are all… wrong, somehow.”

“Oh? Wrong how?”

“Come with me, Elder Brother,” Lu Qi said.

Lin Zhuoyu gathered his robes and followed him out; fearing the heavy night dew, he took up his own cloak and tied it around Lu Qi’s shoulders.

Lu Qi’s body stiffened involuntarily—he seemed unaccustomed to another’s touch.

Sneaking, Lu Qi led him out of the courtyard and down a secluded path to the Fox Immortal Statue at the village entrance, where they hid to one side.

Curious, Lin Zhuoyu looked over and caught the old man from earlier instructing the two ink-painted boys.

“…Watch them carefully! Understood?”

“Yes.”

“The Flower Festival is upon us, and two greenhorns walk right in. The Fox Immortal is blessing you two—if not, it would have been you two brothers tonight.”

“Grandfather, if the festival’s offering is suddenly changed, won’t the Fox Immortal be enraged?”

“Fear what? The Fox Immortal only said that two people must come before it each year to ‘serve.’ It never named who. As long as they’re flesh and blood, there will be no punishment.”

“…Yes.”

Having given his instructions, the elder had the two boys snuff every lamp along the main street, then shuffled away.

Darkness fell in a tide. In a worried voice, Lu Qi said, “Elder Brother, I heard it all. Every year the village offers two people to the fox demon—it is their Flower Festival. And no one has ever returned alive. They mean ill. They mean to send us to our deaths.”

In the darkness, Lu Qi’s pupils had silently become a fox’s Demon Pupils, fixed on Lin Zhuoyu with a sly smile.

By day this man had sworn so earnestly to slay the Great Demon, so that no one else would suffer the parting of kin as he had—so full of warm-hearted sincerity. And then he was dragged here to serve as a scapegoat.

Anyone would be furious, would resent these kin who repaid kindness with enmity.

In the darkness, Lin Zhuoyu’s breathing did not change in the slightest. Under Lu Qi’s eerie stare, he nodded, unhurried.

“I know.”

Lu Qi’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Oh? You knew all along, Elder Brother? And you’re not angry?”

“Why would I be angry?” Lin Zhuoyu said, baffled, steering Lu Qi back the way they had come by the shoulder, distracted. “Their choice was only self-preservation.”

Lu Qi’s face darkened. “But they mean to harm you!”

“That is a separate matter.” Lin Zhuoyu said seriously, “I held no expectations of them. I understand sacrificing kin to stay alive. But if they threaten my life, nothing prevents me from killing them.”

The resentment of strangers, and Lin Zhuoyu’s own heart, were two different things to him—and he kept them very clearly apart.

Twice now his probes had failed. In the darkness, Lu Qi nearly lost hold of his expression, glaring at Lin Zhuoyu almost viciously; an exasperated thought even rose in him: Perhaps I should simply eat him now.

Just then, Lu Qi’s ears twitched sharply. He seemed to hear something.

Irritably, he glanced aside—and in the darkness, as if lamps being lit one by one, points of ghostly green light kindled, surrounding them, ring upon ring.

Lu Qi’s pupils contracted sharply.

Lin Zhuoyu saw them too, brow arching. “Oh? So there’s a wolf pack here as well.”

The natural enemy of foxes was the wolf.

That wolves prowled a land “protected” by the Fox Immortal suggested the Fox Immortal was not so efficacious as rumor claimed.

Lu Qi made no response.

Noticing that the boy beside him had begun breathing considerably faster, Lin Zhuoyu sighed inwardly—this child is scared even of mindless wild wolves; truly one to worry over—and summoned his Eldest Senior Brother to his side.

Lu Qi stared at the wolves with loathing. One raised hand could grind these beasts to dust and scatter the ash.

But those ghost-green beast pupils, those heavy animal breaths, were like needles driven into his temples—and for a dazed instant, he seemed to be back in the wilds of his childhood.

Countless wolves springing at him, tearing at his flesh.

In his ears, shrill, piercing laughter…

Suddenly—whoo—

The jeering, ghostly shrieks were swept away on a gust of wind, and the darkness before his eyes slowly gave way before a blaze of firelight.

Lu Qi lifted his head, dazed.

The slender young man had pulled him behind his back, his right hand—knuckles clean and fine—raising a fire-kettle-like artifact, countless spirit-fire sparks scattering in all directions.

“By vast decree, fire expels evil.”

Perhaps fearing the flames would scorch the curtain hat, Lin Zhuoyu had removed everything from his head. Eyes closed, he recited the exorcising decree, and the trailing firelight painted his features a beautiful warm orange, like a piece of jade rare beyond this world.

Nothing of that phantom figure in the Violet Fox’s memory was worth one ten-thousandth of this moment.

At the sight of spirit-fire, the wolves scattered yelping in every direction.

Lin Zhuoyu had no wish to slaughter indiscriminately, and seeing the wild wolves flee so easily, he turned to Lu Qi with a brilliant smile.

The lingering spirit-fire still favored him, drifting about and gilding the young man’s silhouette in a soft glow, as if he had been washed in a layer of luminous, translucent light.

“Don’t be afraid.”

The young man’s figure reflected in Lu Qi’s eyes as he stood rooted to the spot, unable to collect himself for a long, long time.