The Caged Fox - Chapter 3

4

They didn’t kill me. They said Father had taken pity on me because I was young.

That didn’t stop them from making a plaything of me.

The crown prince had a set of restraints made and fitted to my body.

An iron muzzle, a collar, handcuffs, and shackles. A chain as thick as a thumb ran through the collar ring, so he could walk me through the palace like a dog.

I crawled through every grand and humble chamber in the harem before he dragged me to the imperial gardens.

It was late autumn. The trees were bare, save for a few glorious camellias—some white as teeth, others red as the blood that had run down Mother’s stake.

The crown prince had been born to one of Father’s concubines in Mother’s second year at the marquis’s household. He was only a year younger than me.

His mother died early, and for a while he was entrusted to Mother’s care.

He was an ungrateful little beast who would never be tamed by kindness.

Yet Mother still poured her heart into caring for him, believing that someday he would willingly call her Mother.

I had laughed at her even then.

Look at that. She died without ever hearing it.

The crown prince was still a growing boy, at the age when he was forever racing about and making trouble.

When he saw Consort Xi’s parrot, he took out his slingshot and fired without a word.

The bird gave a squawk, stiffened, and dropped to the ground.

He sent one of his little followers to fetch it, then flung it against my muzzle.

“This is what you foxes like to eat, isn’t it?” He crouched in front of me with a mischievous grin. “Go on. Show me.”

I stared at the dead parrot.

My stomach growled. I hadn’t eaten for three days.

“All right!”

Happily, I picked it up, stripped off its green and red feathers, and bit down on its head. Crunch, crunch. I chewed it up and swallowed.

Then I breathed its bloody stink in his face.

“All gone.”

The crown prince fell onto his backside and vomited bile.

His pale-faced followers carried him away in a panic.

5

The crown prince took to his bed, tormented by fits of delirium.

The Noble Consort couldn’t be bothered with him.

He wasn’t her son. She had long been hoping he would die.

The fox pelt was soon cured and delivered to her. With the weather so cold and gloomy these past few days, it arrived at just the right time.

Tethered to a pillar outside her chamber, I watched her in her brocade cap and splendid clothes. Mother’s glossy red fur framed her oval face, lending it an unearthly allure.

On her way to see Father, she arched her brows and glanced at me with arrogant provocation and contempt.

I knew what she meant.

When Mother was alive, she had always believed Mother had bewitched Father with her fox charms. That, she thought, was why her own years in the palace had brought her no advancement.

Now Mother was dead, and she had become Noble Consort, highest among the women of the harem.

Of course she meant to grind everything Mother had beneath her feet.

I didn’t intend to pay any of it the slightest attention.

The sky had been overcast for days, but not a drop of rain had fallen on the capital since that downpour.

Damp rose from the ground and accumulated everywhere. Clothes washed in the palace would not dry. They lay in pile after pile.

The consort’s clothes looked new, but they gave off a strong, rank odor.

Humans might not notice it.

A fox couldn’t miss it.

My nose twitched. I recognized an animal’s musk—the scent used to attract a mate in heat.

The consort walked on the tips of her toes, swaying her hips.

She really did look like a vixen in heat.

Heh.

I laughed with delight.

There was no difference between humans and beasts after all.

A little of Mother’s demonic aura had rubbed off on her, and she was already wilder than an animal.

The maid Xiaoqing slapped me across the face.

“Laugh again, you little bastard!”

The consort’s expression turned cold as well.

“No food for her. No water, either. Let’s see if that won’t starve you to death, you little bastard!”

I stood there listlessly, without moving.

Fine. I wouldn’t eat.

As for water—

Even if they told me to drink from the wells mixed with Mother’s demon blood, I wouldn’t dare.

6

The Noble Consort didn’t return for three days.

Father didn’t attend court for three days.

At night, they locked me in a drafty woodshed. Through a crack in the door, I saw that human-shaped shadow of blood dragging its heavy tail, wandering outside the hall as though searching for something.

Sticky strands of blood connected her feet to the cracks in the paving. With each step, the ground beneath the entire palace pulsed like a living heart.

Thump.

Thump.

Cold, clammy wind kept pouring in from every direction.

I pricked up my ears. Carried on the wind was a woman’s low chant, at once resentful and weeping.

“Our hearts united forever…”

“Our hearts united forever…”

The next day, Xiaoqing lay beside the well a short distance from the hall, her clothes disheveled.

By the time they found her, her blood had turned the well red.

There was an empty hole in her chest.

Her entire heart was gone.

After examining her, the imperial physician said the wound looked as though it had been made by a beast with sharp claws.

A single fatal blow. It had gone straight through the breastbone and torn the heart out, skin and flesh and all.

Everyone there trembled.

They talked over one another. The palace was so heavily guarded—where could such a large beast have come from?

Then someone cried shakily, “A fox… a fox demon!”

An eerie silence fell.

A moment later, they were all collapsing to the ground in terror, fouling themselves.

I held the pillar and laughed, heedless of their frightened stares.

The chains of my restraints clattered all over me.

It was still early.

I wiped tears of laughter from the corners of my eyes.

This was only the first heart.