Chapter 122 The Past Event

That leaf came from Qingqiu in the demon kingdom. It had delicate and beautiful patterns. In the human world, this creation from Qingqiu could be used to find creatures also from Qingqiu.

When Wei Yuan and the Heavenly Maiden found the fox spirit, it looked at them in surprise.

Then, it looked nervously at the green leaf in their hands:

"Where's Lao Zhai? How is the leaf in your hands?"

It was the first time Wei Yuan had seen this kind of spirit.

This was a rare male fox spirit, according to legends, and he looked very old.

Among the demons, not many could transform into human form without high cultivation. Huang Gu Nü, with over a hundred years of cultivation, could only send messages in dreams, begging for help. Among the types that could transform, the most famous were fox demons and tanuki spirits.

This fox spirit had transformed into a short old man with silver-white hair and wrinkles on his face. He was wearing a light-colored British suit and looked gentle and refined, but he seemed anxious, making his silver hair shake.

Cultivating into a spirit could greatly extend a creature's lifespan, but it wasn't without limits.

Foxes themselves only live for ten years.

Even if their lifespan was extended tenfold, it would only be a hundred years.

And a nine-tailed fox with a thousand years of cultivation would be a great demon recorded in the Classic of Mountains and Seas.

………………

Wei Yuan told the old man how he had obtained the book and the leaf.

The fox spirit's face showed regret, and he sighed, sitting on a chair next to the park. He was silent for a long time before saying:

"Is that so? Lao Zhai has passed away..."

"I finally found the medicine. It seems it's meaningless now."

The Heavenly Maiden looked at the medicine in the old fox spirit's hand and said, "This is an elixir to prolong life. You were going to give it to him?"

"You must have been injured when you gathered the herbs."

The fox spirit said naturally, "Because we are friends."

The girl's eyes showed some surprise. She thought for a moment and said, "The leader of Qingqiu is a nine-tailed fox. Although she is considered an auspicious sign, she eats evil people. Are you her subordinates? Do you also find people to be friends like the wild fox demons outside?"

"I haven't eaten anyone."

The old fox spirit muttered something and then, for some reason, shifted uncomfortably.

"Okay, I once wanted to eat him."

"Only once."

"I just had a slight thought. Evil is judged by action, not intent, so it doesn't count as evil."

Wei Yuan became interested and placed the Qingqiu leaf aside, saying:

"You wanted to eat him, but how did you become friends?"

"Also, do all spirits hide in the human world like you?"

The fox spirit said, "Things become spirits over time. Whether there is spiritual power or not, spirits aren't just about magical power. Originally, we all lived in the deep mountains and old forests, but now there are fewer and fewer deep mountains and old forests, and you humans are building more and more of these steel forests, so naturally some demons have nowhere to go and will mix in."

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"As for the matter between me and Lao Zhai…"

Seeing that Wei Yuan and the girl next to him, who made him feel uneasy, seemed interested, it shook its head:

"If you want to hear it, I can tell you about it."

…………………

The leader of the Qingqiu clan, the nine-tailed fox, was a great demon famous throughout Shenzhou!

Before she was vilified, she was an auspicious sign in the eyes of mortals.

But the nine-tailed fox ate people.

Whether it was because it was her instinct as a beast rather than a demon, whether it was seen and recorded by someone back then, or whether it was because evil people were punished and devoured, these were not fabricated lies, but stories recorded in the Classic of Mountains and Seas.

Hu Ming was the most ordinary Qingqiu fox.

He also wanted to get closer to the nine-tailed fox, so he decided to do something that could prove he was a fox demon.

Instead of practicing bewitching spells, he decided to find a way to do ancient hunting, to eat people.

This wasn't because he felt embarrassingly out of place learning bewitchment and transformation techniques among a group of little female foxes, nor was it because he was too stupid to learn how to become seductive; it was simply to follow the ancient style.

He quickly locked onto a target.

It was a very, very poor little boy whose parents had died in a short war, leaving him alone.

But he had a hobby that poor people of that era shouldn't have: reading.

The first time he hunted, he didn't act rashly because there were adults present.

The second time he hunted, he had already reached the little boy's back, but he vaguely heard him muttering something. Suddenly, he raised his voice and shouted, "Evil spirit, where do you think you're going?" which scared Hu Ming so much that his fur stood on end and his eyes widened.

Could this little guy have been born with magical power?

But later he realized that the boy was just reading a story in a book called *huaben*.

The fox's movement startled the boy, and the two of them stared at each other for a long time. The boy smiled, broke off a piece of dry, hard bread, and held out half of it. But the fox didn't even look at it, flicked its tail, and ran away.

Boring.

Stupid.

These were his initial thoughts.

The fox decided to attack this kid from behind. He was big enough that a fox could eat him for a long time. But the stories were too good, and he decided to listen to all the stories, finish all the books before making a move. He looked at the books. The Qingqiu fox's lifespan wasn't short. It would take at most a year to read all these books.

But after finishing one book, there were more books.

Sometimes, wanting to savor these stories and words, the boy would find a way to copy them.

During this time, the fox often appeared, and he had become used to it.

However, things weren't peaceful among the boys in the village, especially for those without parents and those who didn't fit in. The little boy was often bullied by older boys. Every time this happened, the fox would yawn and feel bored, then secretly use illusions to trick them when the boys ran away.

For example, making them step on air and sit in the manure pit.

For example, making them trip and fall.

At this time, he would feel like he was a great hero in the stories.

Other spirits asked him, "How could a fox demon from Qingqiu be friends with a human boy?" Hu Ming would slightly raise his head and proudly tell them that the guy wasn't his friend, just food. He would reproduce the ancient tradition of the nine-tailed fox eating people.

The wild little spirits would look at him with respect and admiration.

Such days passed for a long time. The turning point of the story was when Hu Ming went down the mountain to the village one day and saw a Taoist priest take out a yellow talisman and hand it to the boy, telling him, "You have demonic energy on you. You've been entangled by a fox spirit. Demons harm people and eat their life force. Stick this talisman on it, and I can subdue it."

Hu Ming sneered. He didn't think the guy would suspect him.

And the boy was silent for a long time before taking the talisman.

So the fox stayed away and didn't look for him for several days.

But in the end, he still went, to hear the last story. He decided that if the boy took out the talisman, he would eat him. Sure enough, after the story was finished, the boy lit a lamp and looked at the fox, saying, "Are you a fox spirit?"

Hu Ming raised his chin and said coldly, "Yes."

"Are you my..."

Before the word "prey" could be said,

the boy smiled and took out a book, saying, "Great!"

He said, "You can talk, so we can read books together. I have a lot of things I want to discuss with someone."

Hu Ming was a little dazed. Then the boy, with a face full of excitement, chattered for a long time before suddenly remembering something and slapping his forehead, saying, "Oh, right, a Taoist priest came to the village and might have discovered you. You have to hide from him these few days."

"I tricked him out of his talisman. He can't deal with you."

The boy was triumphant.

The fox stared at him with wide eyes, but couldn't help but laugh.

After reading so many books, didn't he know that Taoist priests could draw talismans?

……………………

The old fox spirit reached out and took a fallen leaf.

He stopped talking, paused, and said, "We were inseparable. More than ten years passed. We read books together, argued, and then he came to the city, found a wife, married, and had children. And I returned to Qingqiu. We agreed to meet once every three years."

"The last time I saw him, I saw that his lifespan was coming to an end, so I didn't return to Qingqiu, but went to find this medicine, hoping to prolong his life. But it was still too late. Although I knew this day would come sooner or later, I was always unwilling to think about it."

"So this book of his has finally come to an end."

The Heavenly Maiden looked at the old, gentlemanly Hu Ming and said, "The lifespan of a Qingqiu fox is not just a hundred years."

"You lied just now."

The fox spirit smiled cunningly and said, "Yes, it's not just a hundred years. It can be two hundred years, three hundred years, but so what?"

"My family doesn't understand. Human lifespan is too short for us. He could only live to be sixty-something, while I could live to be several sixty-somethings. But he was still my most important friend. The length of life is not the key to friendship."

"We are like dust in the world, walking between heaven and earth. No one knows who will leave first. What we crave is equal exchange of souls. So even if I have one sixty years, two, or even ten sixty years, he only has one sixty years."

"But the sixty years with him are still the brightest and most important, enough to illuminate the long lifespan of the Qingqiu fox clan."

"After all, he accompanied me through his entire life."

The seemingly old fox spirit stood up and bowed very elegantly to Wei Yuan and the Heavenly Maiden.

Looking at the elixir that could prolong life on the chair, he shattered it with his gentleman's cane.

The elixir bloomed the moment it came into contact with the air, like countless white flowers blooming, then floated into the air and slowly turned into light feathers, disappearing. This fleeting beauty, a treasure that was still extremely valuable in this world of spiritual revival, disappeared forever.

"This was found for my friend. Since my friend is gone, it has no value."

"Thank you both for telling me that he has left."

The old fox spirit put on his hat and said, "He's not in this city. There's no need for me to come here anymore."

"I will go to Qingqiu. The Qingqiu leaf is left for the two of you. You can use it to find the direction of Qingqiu."

"If you come, I will entertain you."

………………

Wei Yuan and the Heavenly Maiden walked back to the museum.

The Heavenly Maiden suddenly said, "Mobile phones really aren't good things, are they?"

Wei Yuan was a little surprised and said, "Why?"

The girl frowned and thought, "Hu Ming's friend gave the book and Hu Ming's keepsake to his grandson before he died, but he easily gave up such opportunities because he could use his mobile phone to read books. If he had asked Hu Ming, Hu Ming probably wouldn't have refused to give him the elixir to prolong his life."

"Moreover, bookworms, such spirits, can only survive in books that have been read carefully."

"Now that words are recorded in mobile phones, bookworms and Mai Wang (lit. pulse looking, a mythical object that could identify books), will become fewer and fewer, won't they..."

Wei Yuan thought for a moment and said, "That's not necessarily true. There are still many people who like to read, and there are far more people who can read in this era than in ancient times. Besides, the real purpose of mobile phones is to allow people who want to see each other but can't to communicate and shorten the distance."

The girl shook her head, "The distance hasn't been shortened."

She paused slightly, her bright eyes looking at Wei Yuan beside her, and emphasized:

"In our era, even if there was a long distance between us, we would go to see our friends when we wanted to see them. So 'Is it not delightful to have friends coming from distant quarters?' is really happy, happy that friends are thinking of you, will come to find you, and have arrived safely, rejoicing that you can see them again."

"Just like Hu Ming, traveling back and forth between Qingqiu and the human world every three years, most of his time would be spent on the road. If I miss you, I will cross mountains and seas to see you. This is more valuable than a text message on a mobile phone."

Wei Yuan looked at the girl's bright eyes, thinking about the question from a thousand years ago, and smiled:

"There's always some shortening of distance, just like it's easier to write letters and easier to send messages."

"It shortens the distance for people who aren't so urgent that they have to see each other, like 996."

The girl frowned. She was very curious about this era and said:

"Jiu Jiu Liu (996)?"

Wei Yuan smiled, "It's an unpleasant special product of this era."

"Of course, if you want to see someone, it's still best to go see them in person."

……………………

Hu Ming took a taxi to Quanzhou Airport, planning to take a plane to leave Quanzhou and go to the mountains and forests.

Then return to Qingqiu.

He casually used his mobile phone to check flight information.

A new flight message flashed past, but Hu Ming didn't pay attention to it.

A plane from the original Indian New World landed at Quanzhou Airport.

ps: Three thousand eight hundred words~ That should be enough words, right...