The Fox Immortal Who Made Loofah Soup - Chapter 4

The contaminated water was easy to deal with.

A flash of merit, the poison receded, and Heaven even owed me some extra.

Yungui was the difficult part.

He was listless after we returned to the cave.

“Go buy me four roast chickens.”

“All right.”

“I want something sweet too. Get some osmanthus cakes from the end of the village.”

“All right.”

“The wine lady has brewed a fresh batch of apricot-blossom wine. Buy me a jar.”

“All right.”

Something was wrong. At least halfway wrong. Possibly completely wrong.

Normally, a couple of extra mouthfuls were enough to make him say, “Master, cultivators shouldn’t indulge their appetites.”

“Then shall we have loofah soup tonight?”

“All right.”

Oh no. The child really had lost his mind.

Close to mealtime, he came back carrying roast chicken, osmanthus cakes, and apricot-blossom wine.

Without a word, he sat in a corner and waited for his loofah soup.

“You really want to have it?”

“Don’t go turning into a little mushroom after you drink it.”

“Little disciple, why aren’t you saying anything?”

Not a trace of expression crossed Yungui’s little face. Suddenly he stood and went to the stove.

“I’ll make the loofah soup today.”

The little brat was innovating. He added peach blossoms to the pot.

Could we really eat that?

Then loofah soup, version four, was ready!

The taste was surprisingly—

Edible.

It was still far from good. It even left you feeling as if you couldn’t understand human speech.

But the old effect, where you started questioning your existence after drinking it, was gone.

Yungui sipped it slowly, a trace of nostalgia on his young face.

“A-Tao used to make it like this.”

I fell silent at once.

The girl in the drinking-water river today had been called A-Tao.

Yungui came close and leaned lightly against my leg, like a wild fox.

“At least you’re still here, Master.”

The truth was, I was very glad Yungui had been beside me since I gained my human form.

After Mother died, there had always been an empty space at my side.

Yungui held my sleeve. His eyes looked just as mine once had.

Empty too.

“Let’s go kill that Miao man.”

Yungui’s head shot up. “Really?”

“Really.” I nodded. “That’s a great deal of merit, you know.”

We said goodbye to the villagers and set off for Miaojiang.

Unfortunately, the loofah soup reverted to version two.

Yungui said very seriously that people had to look ahead. There was no need to drink version four all the time.

He also stated, very seriously, that version three was inhumane.

Before reaching Miaojiang, we came to an island.

The land was fertile, and the people honest and simple.

I found a spirit mirror. Just as I was about to commit the not-so-honest act of keeping it, Yungui shook his head disapprovingly.

It took an enormous amount of effort to discover that its owner was the woman who sold roast chickens.

“Oh, it’s nothing valuable. Thank you for going to the trouble of bringing it back.” Her gaze shifted to Yungui and grew disapproving.

“This child is far too thin! Here, take these roast chickens. Oh, I happen to have some candied hawthorn skewers too. Have those as well.”

Yungui was stunned by her enthusiasm. I immediately put on a smile and cheerfully accepted everything.

That night, he climbed onto the roof, puzzled. “Master, why are you drinking and eating meat on the roof? Is this some kind of cultivation method?”

I waved a hand. “You don’t understand. It’s for the atmosphere.”

“Here, have a little.”

The little sprout held the wine jar, not knowing what to do with himself.

I couldn’t stand watching him like that and passed over a wine bowl.

“Go on. It’s immortal nectar. Children can drink it too.”

For a moment I drifted away. So many years ago, Mother seemed to have done just this, sharing immortal nectar with me in our cave as she faced the moon.

Two tipsy foxes danced bewitching dances beneath the moonlight.

Rabbits in the mountains would fall under our spell and come running into the foxes’ cave of their own accord.

The drink was gradually going to my head. After a couple of sips, Yungui seemed drunk too.

“Master, I miss A-Tao.”

“For as long as A-Tao and I could remember, we were already poison vessels.”

“It was so awful there. We escaped. We smelled flowers, saw sunlight. A butterfly even settled on A-Tao’s fingertip.”

“But the very next moment, the poison turned the butterfly into a puddle of sludge.”

“It was as if we’d never escaped that deep pit of poisonous creatures.”

Yungui shivered, as though chilled.

“At least we weren’t afraid of each other’s poison. No matter how sad we were, we had each other.”

“At least we could still give each other a poisonous hug.”

“She said peach blossoms were the most beautiful flowers in the world. She wanted to make cakes with them, wash her clothes with them, cover her whole bed with them.”

“But we were separated. The next time I saw her, she had no life left in her.”

“We were so close to having a good life. Your method was helping us become more and more like ordinary people, Master.”

“Master, why is it so hard just to live like an ordinary person?”

I thought for a moment. “Maybe being alive is hard to begin with.”

Take us celestial foxes. Without enough merit, most of us never lived to see twenty.

Father had finally managed to gain human form without asking anyone to grant it to him. But then, in his eagerness to steal roast chickens for us, he squandered all his merit. And that was the end of him.

For a fox, though, such a brief life made each moment feel longer instead.

I remembered the roast chickens Father stole and the immortal nectar Mother brewed.

I remembered Yungui, whom I’d saved on the day I first became human.

Every one of those moments made this fox happy.

Right, Yungui?

What the hell? What was wrong with this child?

Usually so quiet and steady, Yungui was now laughing and crying as though possessed.

Was this immortal nectar that strong?

I took a tiny sip from the wine bowl in his hand.

Who put loofah soup in this?!