Oneshot Part 9

Ah Lang grabbed Xiao Chun’s hand, and his face was still Guizhi’s.

Chunjun felt cold all over, the kind of cold that seeped to the bone. It was pitch black under them, and the trees were dark.

“Marry me, or I’ll let go.”

“I have lived a long, long time, and I’m so lonely. I like Xiao Peng, but she had betrayed me. You’re a good substitute. Because you’re her daughter, I’ll treat you well.”

“I have guarded this place for so many years. This village owes me a bride. This is your destiny.”

“Don’t you want the treasures in my cave? I have many, many treasures. If you stay with me, the treasures are all yours.”

……

Chunjun’s initial panic gradually turned into numbness. She was so angry at him.

Ah Lang had said a lot, sometimes threatening her, sometimes begging her, with Guizhi’s face and fox eyes.

She interrupted him and shouted, “I don’t want to!”

Ah Lang was taken aback, and then his gaze fiercened. “If you don’t marry me, I will eat your grandmother. Not only her, but also Xiao Peng, your father-”

Chunjun pursed her lips tightly and exposed his false bravado, “You said you don’t eat humans.”

“I can eat them.”

“You’re lying.”

“I don’t lie. You humans are the best at lying and betrayal. You people are insatiable and never think about giving back.”

“I won’t marry you. You should find someone who likes you, not force me.” With tears in Chunjun’s eyes, she said firmly and loudly, “I have someone I like! His name is Guizhi! He’s still waiting for me to go back!”

Ah Lang’s green eyes gleamed with ferocity.

Chunjun said decisively, “Let me go. I will not be the fox’s bride!” After saying that, her nails gouged the fox’s palm, and Ah Lang involuntarily let go of her hand in pain.

Chunjun fell into the darkness. The darkness was full of eyes, looking at her in horror. She didn’t know whose eyes were those. She only kept falling down, down, down…

*

At the dawn of the day, Chunjun was awakened by fur tickling on her face.

She was lying on the back of the fox, and the fox was tickling her nose with the tip of his tail as he walked.

She reached out her hand, grabbed the fox’s tail, and bit it fiercely. She needed to relieve her anger first.

“Hiss—” Ah Lang sucked in a deep breath. “Have you gone crazy?”

“I’m dead anyway.” Chunjun, who was barefoot, was not afraid of other people who wore shoes. 1

“You’re not dead.” Ah Lang was now in his fox body. His pointed face turned to look at her. “I’m sending you back home now, Missy.”

Chunjun sat up and looked around. Mountains, fields, trees… Did Ah Lang save her? Her anger subsided for the most part. Thank god she didn’t die.

The surroundings were very quiet. She thought that it was a little strange. Judging from the sky, it should be around five in the morning. Many villagers would go out to the fields before it was dawn. They were now close to the village, but there was no one.

“Xiao Chun, let’s discuss something,” Ah Lang said.

“Go ahead.”

“You won’t tell your mother what happened last night, would you?”

“Oh, you’ve scared me all night long yesterday, and now you’re afraid that my mother will be coming after you.” Chunjun moved her ankle. She became irritated when she found that it was still so painful that she couldn’t move.

“Hmph, I’m not afraid of Xiao Peng. She was the one who wronged me in the first place. I only ask this because…I just thought it’s good for her to forget about me.”

“I won’t tell my mom, but I will tell my dad. I’ll ask him to come and beat you up.” Chunjun felt that not only that she couldn’t move her ankle, but her whole body was aching.

Ah Lang was very disdainful. “I would love that. He was the one who stole my Xiao Peng. I can finally have a fight with him.”

“Ah Lang, I think, even if my mom didn’t meet my dad, she still probably wouldn’t marry a fox.”

“…” Ah Lang stopped talking and shook Chunjun off his body. He sat on the ground, his fox eyes narrowed.

Chunjun realized that she had said something wrong and hurriedly apologized, “I’m sorry. Isn’t that a hurtful thing to say?”

Ah Lang threw her back onto his back. “It’s good that you know.”

He added, “It’s you humans who have bad taste. I’m very handsome and sought after among animals.”

“For example?”

Ah Lang “err”-ed for a long time, but he couldn’t name a single animal that liked him. Finally, he said, “The golden pheasant probably likes me.”

The golden pheasant always came to ridicule him. She would proudly cock her tail feathers and say, “Ah Lang, still haven’t found a bride yet? Tsk tsk.”

*

Ah Lang told Xiao Chun a lot of stories about her family that she didn’t know.

For example, Xiao Ping, her grandmother, wasn’t as capable as she was now when she was young. When she first got married, she couldn’t even cook rice. For example, her newly married Second Cousin Sister and Second Brother-in-law’s had first met each other when one of them accidentally threw a date onto the other person, and the bad things they had done in the fields when they were in love. For example, Big Aunt used to like writing poetry, but her poems were so bad that Grandpa had set fire on them…

Some were good, and some were bad. These stories were lively and interesting, all of which she had never heard before. In the past, she only thought that her relatives were nice, but they were very far away from her. They only treated her as decent and warm as they could to outsiders. That was because she didn’t know them well either.

Ah Lang not only talked about her family, but also about other people’s families. He could name everyone in every family in the village up to five generations, as if he was describing his treasures. Chunjun listened and sighed a little in her heart. What a lonely fox he was, so lonely that he regarded everyone as his own family.

The relationships that she thought of as worthless were very cherished by him.

Ah Lang refused to admit that he loved the village and insisted that Longnan Village owed him a lot. But Chunjun asked if he would leave this mountain, and the fox said that it was always the humans who leave. He would never leave.

Footnotes

光脚的不怕穿鞋的 (lit. the barefooted people are not afraid of those who wear shoes (idiom)): fig. the poor, who have nothing to lose, do not fear those in power. (Source https://www.chinesepod.com/dictionary/%E5%85%89%E8%84%9A%E7%9A%84%E4%B8%8D%E6%80%95%E7%A9%BF%E9%9E%8B%E7%9A%84 )