The Empress's White Fox - Chapter 1

When I woke, my whole body felt limp and weak.

Then a palace maid shouted in my ear.

“The little princess is awake! Hurry, tell Her Grace!”

A woman in plain-colored brocade came in, carrying a flawless white fox-fur cloak.

I could smell it. That was my fur.

Instinctively, I tried to arch my back and bare my teeth at her. Then I remembered: I was no longer a fox.

They were all calling me… the little princess.

I looked down at the small, tender hands that had replaced my white paws. So I had become human…

The old fox in our den had told the truth after all.

White foxes, it said, were supernatural beasts by birth. A demonic aura surrounded us without any need for cultivation. By eating human hearts, we could preserve a human form without letting it rot.

Or we could entice someone to drink blood from a white fox’s heart, and then take possession of that person’s skin.

But I did not want to be human.

The empress had been human, and she had not been happy.

Once, the emperor had treated her with the utmost tenderness. Her family’s influence had helped him ascend the throne.

But once his reign was secure, the warmth in his eyes gradually faded when he looked at her, leaving only indifference.

I lay across the empress’s lap as she stroked my head and gazed into the deserted courtyard. She sighed.

“So none of it was real.”

I had never liked the emperor. The empress could not smell what I could: other women had left their scents on him.

Later, the Xie family fell from power.

After the empress’s father was demoted and her elder brother died in battle, the emperor never set foot in Chunhua Palace again.

Then word came that he had promoted Song Wanrou straight from Noble Lady to Noble Consort.

The empress was brushing my fur when she heard.

Her expression barely changed. She only gave a small laugh.

“So she was the one he truly loved. How carefully he has protected her.”

When the Noble Consort gave birth to a little princess, music rang through the palace all night.

Everyone said Noble Consort Song was favored above every other woman in the imperial harem. If she bore a prince next, she could become empress.

But she waited three full years without conceiving again.

All those years, Noble Consort Song appeared gentle and kind while secretly making trouble for Chunhua Palace.

Late one night, I lay on a rooftop, watching the two of them in the courtyard below.

The emperor’s gaze was tender as he looked at her.

“If I suddenly remove the empress,” he said, “the whole world will call me a heartless ruler.”

Song Wanrou leaned against his chest, her voice soft and obedient.

“For Your Majesty, I can wait.”

But she had already run out of patience.

The little princess caught a chill. Night after night, her fever would not break, and the imperial physicians knelt all over the floor.

They all said she was unlikely to survive.

Then a servant spoke up. “Back in my village, people say blood from a white fox’s heart can bring the dead back to life.”

“Her Majesty has a white fox. But they say she dotes on it like a child. She may be unwilling to part with it.”

The Noble Consort gave a cold snort. “Then we shall see which she values more: that fox of hers, or the princess.”

That night, everyone wanted to catch me and deliver me to the Noble Consort to win her favor.

As the princess lay at death’s door, a guard carried me before her by the tail. An arrow had pierced my belly. I had barely a breath left.

The smell of my blood made her cover her nose.

A maid whispered in her ear, “Your Grace, surely you do not really mean to give the princess fox blood? Most rumors like that are false…”

“Of course I don’t believe it.” A vicious gleam crossed the Noble Consort’s eyes, and her lips curved. “If Zhaoyang can do this one last thing for me, all the affection I’ve lavished on her over the years will not have been wasted.”

She took the jeweled ornaments from her hair and knelt before the emperor, trembling all over as she wept.

“Your Majesty, Zhaoyang cannot hold on much longer. I have no other choice.”

Everything she did was merely a mother’s desperate love for her daughter.

The tears slipping from the beauty’s eyes softened the emperor’s heart at once. He waved a hand.

“It’s only a fox. Do as you please.”

Word of my death soon reached Chunhua Palace. Just as the Noble Consort had hoped, the empress died of the shock and anguish.

Everyone thought Princess Zhaoyang would not survive that night.

No one imagined that, after several days unconscious, she would wake.

The Noble Consort draped the fox-fur cloak over me.

“Zhaoyang, you’re finally awake.”

She had red lips and white teeth, and tears still glistened in her almond-shaped eyes. She looked so delicate, so pitiable.

People in the palace called her the most beautiful woman in the capital.

I raised a hand and stroked her face.

How I wanted to peel off her skin too, and let her find out how it felt.

Unfortunately, I was only a small child now. There was no strength in my hands.