Oneshot Part 7

Chunjun was completely stunned. She didn’t know if she was scared or terrified, but she felt that everything was so unreal. Apart from scaring her at the beginning, this fox did not seem to have the intention of hurting her. What exactly was he trying to do?

Ah Lang looked at her dumbfounded expression and joked, “Weren’t you quite the capable one? Wanting to dig my cave and rob my treasure.”

It took Chunjun a long time to figure out what he was talking about. Previously, when she was sitting on her cousin’s scooter back to the village, she shouted loudly, “You can only get a single treasure after singing the song, how troublesome! If it were me, I would just find the cave and take all the treasure away!”

She knew that she was in the wrong. She mumbled, “How did you know?”

Ah Lang was noncommittal. “Your voice was so loud that the birds in the entire mountain could hear you. They have laughed at me for a long time.”

At that time, a golden pheasant paced up to him and cackled with laughter, “Ah Lang, I heard that a little girl is going to rob your cave.”

He pounced on the golden pheasant and pulled out one of its tail feathers, his teeth grinding with anger.

Chunjun understood. He was holding a grudge. So she said, “I said I’m going to rob your treasure, so you’re here to scare me?”

With the big tail swaying behind him, Ah Lang said, “I’m not that narrow-minded.”

“Then why did you catch me?” Chunjun asked.

Ah Lang didn’t reply to her.

Chunjun thought of the village and Grandma. “What did you do to my grandmother?”

Ah Lang was confused. “Do you mean Xiao Ping? She is sound asleep. I didn’t do anything to her.”

Xiao Ping…? Chunjun only realized that it was Grandma’s nickname after thinking for a while.

“But, those green lanterns…?”

“Foxes have a lot of tricks up their sleeves.” Ah Lang smugly checked his long nails as he spoke.

Chunjun fell silent. She tried to stand up and walk out, only to find that her ankle was very painful. She fell back down, but Ah Lang caught her in time.

Ah Lang frowned. “You sprained your ankle. You can’t walk yet.”

It was the first time for Chunjun to be…hold by a man. Her face instantly flushed. “It’s a little stuffy in the cave. I want to go outside to get some air,” she lied. In fact, she wanted to see if Ah Lang would let her go.

Ah Lang didn’t suspect anything. He just carried her and walked towards the entrance of the cave.

Only then did Chunjun find out that there was a cliff under the entrance of the cave, and she was secretly anxious. She sprained her ankle. How could she escape?

Chunjun sat at the entrance of the cave, and Ah Lang sat down beside her. He was calm and relaxed, with no intention of explaining his actions tonight.

The moon was well hung in the sky, and the night sky was clear, completely different from the foggy night just now.

Chunjun didn’t know what to say. She was still digesting this fact: Ah Lang the Fox really existed. This fox could talk, play tricks, and change into a human…

She wondered if she was still dreaming, but this dream was too real.

In between her thoughts, she turned her head to look at Ah Lang and found that Ah Lang was also looking at her.

“What are you looking at me for?” she asked.

“…” Ah Lang looked away. “You and Xiao Peng really look alike, and you’re even wearing her dress. I keep mistaking you as her.”

Chunjun slowly accepted his way of addressing people and immediately realized that the Xiao Peng he meant was her mother. “Do you know my mother?”

“Yeah. Xiao Ping’s third daughter, the first college student in the village. She’s smart, beautiful, and all the boys in the village like her. But after she went to a big city, she never came back.”

“All the boys in the village like her…including you?”

“I’m not from your village.”

“But you like my mother, don’t you?”

Ah Lang turned his head to look at her, his tone stiff, “No.”

“But I heard that someone in the village had received the fox’s betrothal gift before.” Chunjun thought of what had happened tonight. “Was that person my mother?”

Ah Lang curled the corners of his mouth, but he did not deny it. “That’s because Xiao Peng has a nice voice. That’s all.”

Chunjun looked at the fox. The boy’s green eyes rotated.

“Will you let me go?” Chunjun asked bluntly. She added, for fear of being confused as someone else, “I’m Xiao Chun, not Xiao Peng.”

Ah Lang sighed in his heart.

*

He didn’t know how long he had lived, maybe a hundred years, maybe two hundred years, in the mountains all his lifetime.

During these long years, he watched the village. He didn’t know when it started, but there was a tradition in the village that every time there was a wedding, the bride would come and sing him a song.

At first he only thought that humans were stupid. What could they expect a fox to do? He had some small magical powers, but his powers were not vast.

He had looked on coldly at the people for decades, and gradually thought that this tradition was not bad. At least he would not be so bored.

He would listen carefully to the singing of each bride, some had deep voices, some had sharp voices, some sang out of tune, some sang euphoniously… Then he would start paying attention to these brides, thinking, ‘Mhm, this one is not good… …this one is too skinny…this one laughs like a boar…’

After paying attention, he started being concerned for them. He not only paid attention to these brides, but also their families, children, and descendants…

As time went by, he began to protect and bless these people, doing everything he could to protect the peace of the village. Humans were cunning beings indeed. Just by singing to him, they had easily captured his heart, and he began to guard the village.