However, Shen Mu had never expected the Three-Tailed Demon Fox to take revenge so quickly.
As the sun sank in the west, Shen Mu finished another round of practicing the Army-Breaking Saber Technique. His body felt as if he'd just bedded a hundred women, and he collapsed onto the ground, panting heavily.
Only after resting for a full half-hour did Shen Mu recover some strength. He got up to collect the clothes he'd washed and hung outside the Bamboo Shed.
But the moment he took them down, a powerful fox musk hit him, nearly knocking him unconscious.
"Ugh—"
Shen Mu retched, sweeping his gaze in every direction. On the crown of an Origin Mulberry Tree more than ten zhang away, the Three-Tailed Demon Fox had its mouth open in a disturbingly humanlike grin. Its blood-red eyes glinted with slyness.
"Damn beast!"
Humiliated and furious, Shen Mu snatched up a stone from the ground and hurled it at the fox.
The stone whooshed through the air, but the Three-Tailed Demon Fox had been ready for it. It nimbly landed on a neighboring Origin Mulberry Tree, then vanished into the woods in the blink of an eye.
Looking at the clothes reeking of fox musk, Shen Mu's face twitched.
"What a beast. It really does take revenge before the night is out."
Shen Mu's expression turned strange. He shook his head with a bitter smile, then used a fire striker to burn the clothes to ashes.
After finishing, Shen Mu pushed open the Bamboo Shed's door, and his face immediately turned deathly pale.
The entire Bamboo Shed reeked of fox musk, too.
That damn Three-Tailed Demon Fox had actually crept into the shed and pissed in it...
"Ugh—"
Holding his breath against the suffocating stench, Shen Mu opened the shed's window, then the door, trying to air it out and dilute the smell.
"Damn it, you accursed Three-Tailed Demon Fox! You and I are sworn enemies!"
Shen Mu cursed viciously, soaked a piece of clothing in a bucket, draped it over his face, and meticulously scrubbed every inch of the Bamboo Shed.
When he was done, Shen Mu stepped outside and let out a long breath.
"No, I have to kill that damn beast. Otherwise, I'll never know a moment's peace in Emerald Cloud Valley."
Sitting atop the Bamboo Shed, Shen Mu couldn't help but begin to ponder.
He hadn't expected to get into such a mess.
If the Three-Tailed Demon Fox came by to piss every day, just imagining it was enough to make him question his life.
But how was he supposed to kill the beast?
Shen Mu thought for a moment, and an idea immediately came to him. He got up and headed toward the entrance to the valley.
The outer disciples who gathered Origin Mulberry Leaves in Emerald Cloud Valley weren't like the disciples guarding the Origin Mulberry Field, who could fill their stomachs with beast meat. So Emerald Cloud Valley still had a dining hall, where cooks prepared meals every day for the outer disciples.
Shen Mu went to the kitchen and said he was craving chicken. He easily persuaded them to give him a live rooster.
Carrying the rooster back to the Origin Mulberry Field he was guarding, Shen Mu used what he'd learned from watching wilderness survival shows in his previous life to set a trap for the Three-Tailed Demon Fox.
The rooster stood in the trap with one leg tied by a thin cord. The other end of the cord formed a noose.
The moment the Three-Tailed Demon Fox pounced on the rooster, the noose in the trap would be yanked up.
To keep the fox from biting through the noose and escaping after falling into the trap, Shen Mu had even taken special precautions.
"Damn beast, just you wait till I catch you. I'll make a shawl out of your hide!"
After finishing, Shen Mu climbed onto the roof of the Bamboo Shed and admired the stars scattered across the night sky.
The day's body-tempering practice had already left Shen Mu utterly exhausted.
Now, in the stillness of night, a breeze brushed his face and made him relax.
Before long, Shen Mu had fallen fast asleep.
The next day.
Before the sky had even brightened, Shen Mu woke up right on time and almost instinctively looked toward the trap.
The sight made his face twitch violently.
The rooster bait in the trap had vanished, and the trap had been triggered, but it seemed the noose hadn't caught the Three-Tailed Demon Fox.
"What happened?"
Seeing this, Shen Mu jumped down from the Bamboo Shed to inspect the trap.
Apart from a puddle of dried chicken blood, the trap was empty.
"What a sly beast. How did it manage that?"
Shen Mu couldn't help feeling puzzled.
As far as he was concerned, the trap had been flawless.
The fact that the Three-Tailed Demon Fox had eaten the bait and escaped unscathed left him utterly astonished.
The rooster had been restrained and could barely move. Once the Three-Tailed Demon Fox killed it, it was bound to trigger the mechanism and step into the noose.
Now the noose had been triggered, but the fox clearly hadn't been caught. Otherwise, there should have been bite marks where it had chewed through the cord, right?
But there weren't any bite marks on the noose, and the rooster bait had simply vanished?
"Fine, fine! Damn beast, tonight I'm going to watch and see exactly how you do it."
Shen Mu laughed in fury, deciding to keep watch all night and make sure he caught the Three-Tailed Demon Fox.
By now, the sky had grown bright. Shen Mu put the matter out of his mind and threw himself back into intense training.
After a full day of body-tempering, Shen Mu went to the valley entrance and asked for another rooster.
Following the previous day's setup, Shen Mu tied the rooster's feet together and placed it in the trap, then prepared the noose at the other end.
To make absolutely sure, he also set several nooses around the trap. He covered them with weeds and ran the other ends of the cords back to his hiding spot.
That greatly increased the odds of his trap working.
Even if the Three-Tailed Demon Fox didn't enter the trap, the moment it stepped into one of the surrounding nooses, all Shen Mu had to do was pull the cord to catch it.
Once he had finished, Shen Mu hid in the shadows several zhang away, gripping the cords as he waited for the Three-Tailed Demon Fox to take the bait.
The silver moon hung high in the sky, and stars filled the heavens.
Because of the day's body-tempering, Shen Mu had only kept watch for half an hour before exhaustion came over him in waves. He fell asleep on the spot.
But about an hour later, the rooster in the trap suddenly squawked frantically, waking Shen Mu from his deep sleep.
Shen Mu came fully awake at once and scanned the area. By the light of the moon, he finally spotted the Three-Tailed Demon Fox not far from the Bamboo Shed.
It was about five zhang away, creeping along on tiptoe. Its blood-red eyes kept glancing toward the Bamboo Shed, as if it would bolt the moment it noticed the slightest movement inside.
"Come on, let me see how you do it."
Shen Mu murmured to himself, slowing his breathing for fear that even the smallest sound might scare the creature away.
It took a full incense stick's time for the Three-Tailed Demon Fox to reach the trap, but it didn't take another step.
It seemed to know there was a trap here. It simply stared longingly at the rooster inside, licking its lips from time to time.
"Just one more step..."
Shen Mu grew increasingly anxious. If the Three-Tailed Demon Fox came one step closer, it would enter one of the nooses he'd set outside the trap.
Then he could pull the cord in his hand and capture the fox alive.
But the Three-Tailed Demon Fox never took that step. Instead, after studying its surroundings, it slowly backed away.
Just as Shen Mu thought tonight would be another wasted effort, the Three-Tailed Demon Fox retreated several zhang, then picked up a dead branch from the Origin Mulberry Field and slowly returned.
Shen Mu's eyes widened at the sight.
He suddenly understood how the Three-Tailed Demon Fox had triggered the trap and escaped safely the night before.
"What a clever creature."
Shen Mu was secretly shocked.
The fox had rendered his trap completely useless with nothing more than a dead branch.
Holding the branch in its mouth, the Three-Tailed Demon Fox approached, then stood outside the trap and used the branch to prod the rooster inside.
Though its feet were tied together, the rooster flapped its wings wildly. It triggered the trap, then managed to hop right out of it.
The Three-Tailed Demon Fox had barely needed to exert itself. It dropped the branch, rushed forward, and bit through the rooster's neck in one snap.
The rooster flapped a few times, then died from blood loss.
With the rooster's corpse in its mouth, the Three-Tailed Demon Fox didn't even hurry to leave. It turned and pissed in front of the door to Shen Mu's Bamboo Shed before quickly disappearing into the Origin Mulberry Field.
"Is this thing really just a fox?"
After watching the entire process of the Three-Tailed Demon Fox enjoying its "all-you-can-eat buffet," Shen Mu stared blankly.
Calling it a person in a fox's hide wouldn't even be an exaggeration.
"It looks like killing the beast won't be as easy as I thought."
Shen Mu sighed inwardly.
He wanted to buy a longbow, but that would inevitably waste time and set back his body-tempering progress.
"Forget it. I'll stop messing with the beast. If it wants to piss, let it piss. I can always sleep on the roof."
After thinking it over, Shen Mu decided to admit defeat.
After all, he had been the one to kick it first. It was only natural that it held a grudge and sought revenge afterward.
"Hopefully, after feeding it two chickens, it'll go after someone else."
Shen Mu's expression turned a little strange. He hadn't been the only one who'd attacked it back then. Surely it wouldn't focus on him alone?
Before you continue