The Caged Fox - Chapter 2

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Father was deeply drunk, as usual.

His slender frame slumped in a gilded wooden chair carved with dragons.

He looked like a toppled mountain of jade.

When the eunuch announced us, he raised his eyelids and gazed hazily in our direction. His beautiful, upturned eyes still shimmered with tears.

He really did have a fine face.

Years ago, when he had broken into drunken sobs at Wanchun House, passing women had kept turning to look.

Mother couldn’t bear the sight either. She went over to speak to him.

He wept that his mother’s family had brought him into disgrace. The emperor had cast him out of the palace. He had such great ambitions, yet no way to fulfill them.

Tears soaked his black hair and plastered it to his delicately sculpted face.

Noble, tragic, shattered.

Mother fell for him at first sight.

Now he was middle-aged, but his looks remained. Several years of supreme imperial power had lent him an air of decadent splendor.

The women in his harem were more infatuated than ever.

When the eunuch went to rouse him, the corners of his eyes were still red and swollen, wet with warm tears.

The old Daoist presented the pale ashes with an ingratiating smile. “Congratulations, Your Majesty! The demon woman has been executed. Your realm is secure for a thousand autumns!”

Father jerked awake as though thunder had struck beside him. With trembling hands, he took the ashes and cradled them tenderly against his chest.

“Hongniang… Hongniang…” he sobbed.

The Daoist tried to comfort him. “Why grieve over her, Your Majesty? Hundreds or thousands of female demons die for love every year. She was only one of them. There’s nothing to pity.”

Then he pointed at me. “This little bastard does carry imperial blood, so we dared not dispose of her ourselves. We await Your Majesty’s decision.”

Only then did Father look up at me in distress.

Something strange flashed in his eyes.

The Daoist was about to speak again when Father cut him off.

“Get out!”

We were left alone in the vast hall, staring at one another through the cage.

Father gave a cold laugh, tossed aside the ashes, and strolled over to look down at me.

“Stop pretending, Hongniang. I know you’re not dead.”

“You’re a demon. You have powers that reach the heavens. How could you die so easily?”

I looked up at him without expression.

Reflected in his eyes was my face, its contours identical to Mother’s when she was young.

Fox demons were beautiful by nature, and red foxes were the loveliest of all.

Even with my filthy hair and stained clothes, my lips were a touch of crimson against porcelain skin, and the corners of my foxlike eyes curved upward with a beguiling grace.

I was far prettier than those painted women in his harem.

Father’s face contorted. He reached in and seized my throat.

“Why wouldn’t you help me? You helped me win the throne! All I asked was for you to pray for rain! Why did you insist on defying me?”

Veins bulged along his thin arms.

Beneath the skin, a golden thread glimmered faintly—the emperor’s dragon vein.

Seven years ago, Mother had sacrificed the cultivation embodied in eight of her tails to seize it for him. Only then had he been able to defy fate and ascend the throne.

Protected by the destiny of a true dragon, he could not be harmed even by a great demon a thousand years old.

Certainly not by a half-demon like me.

His grip bruised my throat. I couldn’t suppress a cough, but I curved my innocent eyes into a smile.

“Daddy… It’s me. Xiaoyu…”

His blazing gaze faltered. The frenzy drained from his face.

“You’re not her…”

He let go, utterly lost.

“Yes. Hongniang is dead. Heaven has sent rain. The greatest threat to me is gone… There’s no one left to fear… Ha… No one left to fear…”

He gave a strange, desolate laugh, trampled dirty footprints through the pale ashes on the floor, and returned to his lofty dragon throne.

“I am the supreme ruler. My realm. My throne. They will always be mine.”

Greed twisted his jade-fine face.

He looked like a dog guarding its food.

Outside the hall, the wind howled in grief.

The crimson window frames rattled under its blows.

I giggled inside my cage and spoke softly to the bloody shadow wailing beyond the door.

“Oh, Mother. Stop crying.”

“You should have known what kind of man he was long ago.”