Huai Falls for an Old Friend - Chapter 1

“Yellow-gray-black-and-white Qingqing, why aren’t you visiting that little scholar today?”

“How many times do I have to tell you? My name is Bai Qingqing.”

I conjured a pebble and hurled it at Xie Huai in the tree.

He was the absolute worst.

Admittedly, my coat was far from pure—an especially grave offense among the notoriously vain white foxes.

To preserve our title as the most beautiful fox clan, our ancestors had encouraged marriage within the clan. Anyone who married an outsider had to announce it to everyone.

Perhaps because every white fox considered our own looks the ideal, marriages beyond the clan had grown rarer with each generation. The result was a clan made entirely of fluffy white balls.

I was the lone exception.

Not only had I been born with a patchwork coat, but a large red mark covered part of my fox face. Even after I took human form, the birthmark did not fade in the slightest.

But I was strong. No one my age dared mock me for it.

And I meant strong in the most literal sense.

I could fight.

While the other little furballs were still mewling for milk, I was already catching fish in the river. While they learned their first spells, I was diving into the sea to beat up dragons.

Yes, specifically this little black dragon, Xie Huai.

I strongly suspected that he opposed me at every turn now to avenge all the times I’d ridden him and pummeled him when we were children.

Xie Huai flipped down from the tree and looked me up and down.

“Don’t foxes take surnames from the color of their fur? Now that you’re human, you’ve decided your true form doesn’t count, Yellow-gray-black-and-white Qingqing?”

Why, thank you for remembering that all four of my paws were white.

I had no interest in his incessant chatter. I shifted aside and peered into the lake, practicing the eyebrow-painting technique I’d seen in the mortal realm.

“Bai Qingqing, are you stupid? One tiny spell can do that. You could change your whole face if you wanted.”

I rolled my eyes. “Someday, I want to enjoy having my husband paint my brows. I have to learn how it works.”

Xie Huai idly trailed his fingers through the water. “You’re a fox. He’s human. You walk different paths.”

“Then I’ll make a new path.”

“He still has to study. He can’t afford a fox who eats three roast chickens at every meal.”

I wiped away the eyebrows I’d drawn like two caterpillars. “I’ll support him. He said that once he places first in the imperial examination, he’ll ride a great horse here to marry me.”

Xie Huai muttered, “What’s so special about riding a horse? You’ve ridden a dragon since you were little.”

“What did you say…?”

I glanced sideways at him. He immediately fell silent, meek as a quail.

“I’m making beggar’s chicken today,” I said. “Do you want to come to my bamboo cottage?”

He instantly perked up. “Yes.”

Long ago, I had built myself a little bamboo house where Qingqiu bordered the mortal realm. It was also where I’d found Yun Jingchen, covered in wounds.

At the time, his raven-black hair had been tousled, his swordlike brows swept toward his temples, and his phoenix eyes were half-lidded above a high nose and tightly pressed lips. Even the blood staining his white robes was breathtakingly beautiful.

My heart had shamefully skipped a little faster.

When Yun Jingchen woke, he spouted a great deal of lofty classical prose before declaring that a life-saving debt ought to be repaid with marriage.

I told him I was ugly and unworthy of a gentleman like him.

He replied, “Judge a man by his words, and you may misjudge Zai Yu. Judge him by his looks, and you may misjudge Ziyu.”

He said I was like a piece of white jade dotted with black: when the specks joined into a masterful painting, they only raised the jade’s worth.

Looking into his clear, water-bright eyes, I did not refuse again.

Yun Jingchen believed I was an orphan. He promised that after earning top honors, he would marry me with all the proper rites and betrothal gifts.

While he studied at home, I tried to imitate the storybooks and sit prettily beside him, adding fragrance to his scholarly nights. I could never sit still for long.

Yun Jingchen did not get angry. Each time, he gently told me to do whatever I wished.

Father coaxed Mother the same way.

Perhaps this was what people called love.

Near the mortal realm, we could no longer use magic openly. Xie Huai followed close on my heels.

“Bai Qingqing, let me tell you a story.”

“Go on.”

“A friend of mine from the Eastern Sea told me about a rich young lady there. She broke with her family to marry a beggar. Later, the beggar went off to war, met with an accident, and ended up in another country. Believing the lady had remarried, he took a princess as his wife. Meanwhile, the lady waited in their broken-down hut. She nearly dug an entire mountain bare of wild greens just to stay alive until he came home.”

I drew a deep breath. “What exactly are you trying to say?”

“Just… don’t let some man fool you into living on wild greens. If it comes to that, I’ll give you half the pearls in my treasury.”

Xie Huai narrowed his eyes, apparently lost in thought.

I had no idea what was going through his head.

But I could guarantee that he was far more likely to be duped than I was.

I was the most gifted fox our clan had produced in thousands of years, not some helpless maiden without the strength to truss a chicken.

Dig up wild greens?

I’d sooner shear the mountain flat. If I didn’t, I would take Xie Huai’s surname.

My little home stood beyond a screen of leafy trees.

“If you keep hesitating, it’ll be too late.”

That was a stranger’s voice.

Xie Huai and I concealed our presence at the same time.

“The road to ascension is right before you, Jingchen. All you have to do is slay your wife to prove the Dao, and you’ll become an immortal. Besides, that woman is a demon. Her kind are the natural enemies of us cultivators.”

Then came Yun Jingchen’s cool reply.

“I know. I simply haven’t found the right opportunity.”