Blackwater City Fox Calamity!

Dawn.

Front hall kitchen.

Today's meal was still the same old three: corn buns, plain congee, and pickled mustard greens.

Tasteless, like chewing wax.

Lin Guanhuo downed a few mouthfuls of congee, his expression downcast.

His mind was filled with nothing but the image of his partner Zhou Kai, who had died yesterday and turned into white bones.

After all, that had been a living, breathing person—and moreover, an acquaintance of his.

Just then, a wine flask was quietly pressed into his hand.

Lin Guanhuo looked up and saw Liu the Cook from the kitchen.

This man wore gray clothes, was in his fifties or sixties, and had supposedly spent most of his life in the Miscellaneous Room Courtyard's kitchen.

Ordinarily, he was stern and liked to keep a straight face.

But among the White Servants in the Miscellaneous Room Courtyard, this Liu the Cook was still one of the more humane ones.

"Take it. Have a drink to warm yourself." Liu the Cook handed the wine to Lin Guanhuo, knowing he was downcast over Zhou Kai's death. "Don't overthink it. In this world, human life isn't worth much. Live one day at a time—take it easy."

He patted Lin Guanhuo's shoulder. "That kid Zhou Kai may be gone, but at least he had a friend like you to remember him and collect his corpse. He didn't come into this world for nothing."

Lin Guanhuo gripped the wine flask, still warm from Liu's hand, and nodded silently. "Thanks, Uncle Liu."

After eating, Lin Guanhuo tidied up and prepared to get to work.

Today's job was a rough one: go to Luojia Town and escort a serious criminal back to Blackwater County for trial.

Lin Guanhuo, along with two other White Servants, drove a horse-drawn cart and set off against the biting wind.

Luojia Town was east of Blackwater County, a good several dozen li away.

The weather was freezing, and the road was long.

When they arrived at the Luojia Town office gate, several constables there had already been waiting for some time.

Seeing the prison cart arrive, they roughly shoved a disheveled old man and threw him into the cage.

"What did this old man do?" Lin Guanhuo asked casually as he locked the prison cage.

"Madness!"

A constable from Luojia Town sneered. "This old lunatic killed his own daughter-in-law! Chopped her into meat paste with a kitchen knife, they say. The scene... tsk tsk."

Lin Guanhuo nodded at that and said nothing more.

After all, such things were common in this era.

On the return trip.

The old man huddled in a corner of the cage, muttering deliriously to himself.

The other two White Servants traveling with him found it unlucky and kept their distance, leaving only Lin Guanhuo driving the cart, close by.

"Hehe... hehe..."

The old man suddenly pressed his face against the bars and grinned at Lin Guanhuo with a manic look. "Little boy, you think I'm crazy too?"

Lin Guanhuo ignored him and focused on driving.

"I'm not crazy... I didn't kill anyone..." The old man's voice suddenly turned eerie. "That daughter-in-law of mine... she was dead long ago! Died half a month ago!"

Lin Guanhuo finally took some interest and turned his gaze to the old man.

Seeing someone was listening, the old man's eyes grew even more fervent. "That was a fox spirit! That night I got up to pee, I saw her with my own eyes gnawing on my son's head! Like she was eating a watermelon! I was killing a demon! Killing a demon!"

"But no one believed me... hehe... no one believed me."

The old man suddenly lowered his voice, his eyes filled with terror. "Do you know why?"

"Because... because my son turned into a fox too! The whole of Luojia Town... there aren't many living people left!"

"Those people, they're all fox demons!... They eat people... and after they finish, they put on that skin and go on living... all of them are fox demons wearing human skin! I'm old, my meat's sour—that's the only reason I kept my life."

When the old man got to this point, his voice dropped significantly, and then he said slowly, "Little boy, do you think those people you just saw... were human?"

"If you don't believe me... take a look behind you?"

Hearing this, Lin Guanhuo paused.

If you can't find the book title, try searching for the author—maybe it just changed names!

Then he turned his head to look.

In the bitter wind, at the entrance of Luojia Town, the several constables he had just seen were standing in a neat row.

They didn't move at all, like paper figures, staring in Lin Guanhuo's direction.

Their faces were furry, their features cramped and twisted, like the face of a fox—extremely eerie.

Sensing Lin Guanhuo's gaze, those constables seemed to suddenly snap out of it and immediately scattered.

"This..."

Lin Guanhuo had seen quite a few things in his time.

Even so, this eerie sight still gave him a start.

"Well, little lad, I wasn't lying to you, was I?"

"Don't stare straight at 'em, or they might just set their sights on you! In no time at all, they'll hollow you out clean—they love sucking out brains and eating hearts!"

The old man in the prison cart grinned when he saw Lin Guanhuo's reaction.

Lin Guanhuo kept driving the cart.

If what this raving old lunatic said was true...

Then wasn't the whole of Luojia Town already a giant fox den?

Those monsters wearing human skin were swaggering around in official robes, walking under the sunlight without a care?

"The Fox Calamity in Blackwater County... has it really gotten this bad?"

The north wind howled, and the sky was growing dark.

Lin Guanhuo hunched his neck, feeling his hands and feet nearly frozen stiff.

He pulled out the flask of wine Liu the Cook had given him from his bosom, uncorked it, tilted his head back, and took a big gulp.

The harsh, cheap liquor burned down his throat into his stomach, exploding like a fire inside him, driving off much of the chill.

"Good wine... good wine..."

In the Prison Cage, the crazy old man suddenly went quiet, his nose twitching, those murky eyes fixed straight on the flask in Lin Guanhuo's hand. "Little lad... could you spare an old man a sip?"

Lin Guanhuo heard him. The wine was cheap, but in this godforsaken weather, it was still a rare treasure.

He glanced at the old man, then at the thin prison uniform on his body, and sighed inwardly.

"Catch."

Lin Guanhuo tossed the flask through the gap in the bars.

The old man took it with trembling hands, tilted his head back, and started gulping it down.

"Gulp... gulp..."

The remaining half of the flask was drained in one breath.

"Ha—what a relief! What a relief!"

The old man tossed the empty flask back to Lin Guanhuo and wiped his mouth with gusto. "With that sip in my belly, even if I'm heading to the chopping block, this old body's still warm!"

Lin Guanhuo put the flask away and couldn't help asking, "You killed someone. Once you're in the Blackwater County jail, no one's going to believe you when you say it was a Fox Demon. That's a death sentence. Aren't you afraid at all?"

The old man heard this.

"Afraid? Afraid my ass!"

The old man let out a laugh, his tone full of carefree bitterness. "My son's dead, my daughter-in-law's gone too. This old man's got no children, no family—just a lonely ghost. Better to die early under the executioner's blade than to have those beasts in human skin chew my bones to bits one mouthful at a time!"

With that, he fumbled around in his bosom for a while, then pulled out a small cloth bundle.

"Little lad, you seem like a kind-hearted sort. This old man can't take this thing into the Coffin, so take it as thanks for that last drink."

With that, he tossed the bundle to Lin Guanhuo.

Lin Guanhuo caught it instinctively. It felt a bit heavy in his hand.

"This is..."

"Don't look. Put it away."

The old man waved his hand and closed his eyes again.

He went back to that crazy, raving state, humming some nameless little tune under his breath.