Revenge Doesn't Wait for the Night

However, Shen Mu had not expected that the revenge of the Three-Tailed Demon Fox would come so quickly.

As the setting sun slanted, Shen Mu finished practicing the Army-Breaking Saber Technique once more. His body felt as if he had been intimate with a hundred women, and he collapsed onto the ground, gasping for air.

After resting for a full half-hour, Shen Mu finally regained a sliver of strength and rose to collect the clothes he had washed and hung outside the Bamboo Shed.

Yet, the moment he took the garments down, a pungent, musky fox stench wafted from them, nearly causing Shen Mu to faint.

"Ugh~"

Shen Mu retched, his gaze sweeping in all directions. He saw the Three-Tailed Demon Fox perched on the branch of an Origin Mulberry Tree about ten zhang away, its mouth open in an anthropomorphic grin, its blood-red eyes filled with cunning.

"You damn beast!"

Shen Mu was so angry he was ashamed, and he picked up a stone from the ground and hurled it at the creature.

The stone whistled through the air with great force, but the Three-Tailed Demon Fox had been prepared; it landed nimbly on an adjacent Origin Mulberry Tree branch and vanished into the woods in the blink of an eye.

Looking at the clothes reeking of fox musk, Shen Mu's face twitched uncontrollably.

"What a beast that doesn't let a grudge last overnight."

Shen Mu's expression was somewhat strange; he shook his head with a bitter smile, then used a fire starter to ignite the clothes and burn them to ash.

After finishing this, Shen Mu pushed open the door to the Bamboo Shed, his complexion instantly turning deathly pale.

The entire interior of the Bamboo Shed was also permeated with a thick, musky fox stench.

That damn Three-Tailed Demon Fox had actually snuck into the Bamboo Shed to urinate...

"Ugh~"

Shen Mu endured the suffocating stench, pushed open the windows of the Bamboo Shed, and threw the door wide open, attempting to dilute the odor inside by ventilating the room.

"Damn it, you wretched Three-Tailed Demon Fox, I will not rest until you are dead!"

Shen Mu cursed viciously, took a piece of cloth, soaked it in a water bucket, tied it over his face, and scrubbed every inch of the Bamboo Shed thoroughly.

Once he was done, Shen Mu stepped out of the Bamboo Shed and let out a long sigh.

"This won't do. I must kill this damn beast, or I'll never have a moment of peace in this Emerald Cloud Valley."

Shen Mu sat atop the Bamboo Shed and began to ponder.

He had never expected to invite such a massive headache upon himself.

If that Three-Tailed Demon Fox came to urinate every single day, just thinking about it made him question his life.

But how was he to slaughter this beast?

Shen Mu thought for a moment, an idea immediately forming in his mind, and he rose to head toward the valley entrance.

The outer disciples who harvested Origin Mulberry Leaves in Emerald Cloud Valley were not like the disciples guarding the Origin Mulberry Field who could rely on beast meat for sustenance, so Emerald Cloud Valley still maintained a canteen where a dedicated cook prepared daily meals for the outer disciples.

Shen Mu arrived at the kitchen, claimed he had a craving, and successfully begged for a live rooster.

Carrying the rooster back to the Origin Mulberry Field he guarded, Shen Mu used knowledge he had learned from his past life regarding wilderness survival to set a trap for the Three-Tailed Demon Fox.

The rooster was placed inside the trap, its ankle tied with a thin string, the other end of which formed a snare.

Once the Three-Tailed Demon Fox pounced to bite the rooster, the snare in the trap would immediately be pulled taut.

To prevent the Three-Tailed Demon Fox from using its sharp teeth to bite through the snare and escape after being caught, Shen Mu even took extra protective measures.

"Damn beast, don't let me catch you; sooner or later, I'll use your hide to make a shawl!"

After finishing all this, Shen Mu jumped onto the roof of the Bamboo Shed to admire the stars scattered across the firmament.

The day's physical training had already left Shen Mu exhausted.

Now, amidst the quiet night, with a gentle breeze brushing his face, his mind and body couldn't help but relax.

Before long, Shen Mu drifted into a deep sleep.

The next day.

Before the sky had fully brightened, Shen Mu woke up right on time, his gaze turning almost subconsciously toward where he had set the trap.

The scene he saw made Shen Mu's face twitch violently.

The rooster used as bait in the trap had vanished, and while the trap had been successfully triggered, it did not seem to have snared the Three-Tailed Demon Fox.

"What happened?"

Seeing this, Shen Mu jumped down from the Bamboo Shed to inspect the trap.

Aside from a pool of dried chicken blood, there was nothing in the trap.

"What a cunning beast. How did it manage this?"

Shen Mu couldn't help but feel puzzled.

In his view, this trap should have been flawless.

That the Three-Tailed Demon Fox could eat the bait and still escape unscathed was undoubtedly shocking to him.

One had to know that the rooster was restrained and had almost no ability to move; once the Three-Tailed Demon Fox bit the rooster to death, it should have inevitably triggered the mechanism and stepped into the snare.

Now that the snare had been triggered, it clearly hadn't caught the Three-Tailed Demon Fox; otherwise, wouldn't there be signs of the snare having been bitten through?

Yet there were no bite marks on the snare, so how had the rooster used as bait vanished into thin air?

"Fine, fine, fine. You damned beast, tonight I'll see exactly how you're pulling this off."

Shen Mu laughed in sheer frustration, resolving to keep watch the entire night; he was determined to bring this Three-Tailed Demon Fox to justice.

By now the sky had brightened, so Shen Mu put his thoughts aside and plunged back into his intense cultivation.

After a full day of body tempering, Shen Mu went to the valley entrance to beg for another rooster.

Following yesterday's setup, Shen Mu tied the rooster's feet and placed it in the trap, then set the snare at the other end.

To ensure there were no slip-ups, Shen Mu even placed several extra snares around the perimeter of the trap, covering them with weeds, and ran the trigger lines back to his own hiding spot.

This significantly increased the margin for error in his trap layout.

Even if the Three-Tailed Demon Fox didn't enter the trap, the moment it stepped into one of the surrounding snares, he only needed to pull the rope to successfully capture it.

With everything prepared, Shen Mu hid in the shadows a few yards away, clutching the ropes, waiting for the Three-Tailed Demon Fox to take the bait.

The silver moon hung high in the sky, and the firmament was dense with stars.

Because of the day's body tempering, Shen Mu only managed to keep watch for an hour before waves of exhaustion washed over him, and he drifted straight to sleep.

However, about an hour later, the rooster in the trap suddenly let out a sharp cry, jolting Shen Mu from his slumber.

Shen Mu sobered up instantly and scanned his surroundings. By the moonlight, he finally spotted the Three-Tailed Demon Fox not far from the Bamboo Shed.

It was about five yards away, moving on tiptoe, its blood-red eyes darting toward the Bamboo Shed from time to time, as if it would bolt the moment it sensed any movement inside.

"Come on, let me see how you're doing this."

Shen Mu muttered to himself, slowing his breathing, terrified that the slightest noise would scare the creature away.

It took a full stick of incense worth of time for the Three-Tailed Demon Fox to reach the edge of the trap, yet it refused to take another step forward.

It seemed to know a trap was laid there, merely staring longingly at the rooster while occasionally licking its lips with its tongue.

"Take one more step..."

Shen Mu grew anxious; if the Three-Tailed Demon Fox took just one more step, it would trigger the snare hidden outside the trap.

Then he could pull the rope in his hand and successfully capture the Three-Tailed Demon Fox alive.

Yet the Three-Tailed Demon Fox never took that step. Instead, after inspecting the surrounding environment, it slowly backed away.

Just as Shen Mu thought he would return empty-handed again tonight, the Three-Tailed Demon Fox retreated several yards, picked up a dry branch from the Origin Mulberry Field in its mouth, and slowly walked back.

Seeing this, Shen Mu's eyes widened.

He suddenly understood why the Three-Tailed Demon Fox had been able to retreat unscathed after triggering the trap last night.

"What a clever creature."

Shen Mu felt a secret chill.

The opponent had used nothing more than a dry branch to render his entire trap useless.

The Three-Tailed Demon Fox bit down on the branch and approached, then stood outside the trap, using the branch to incessantly poke and harass the rooster inside.

Although the rooster's feet were tied, it flapped its wings frantically, successfully triggering the trap while simultaneously jumping out of it.

The Three-Tailed Demon Fox didn't even expend much effort; it dropped the branch, lunged forward, and snapped the rooster's neck in one bite.

The rooster flapped a few times before dying completely from blood loss.

The Three-Tailed Demon Fox carried the rooster's carcass away, but it didn't rush off; it turned around, took a leak in front of the door to Shen Mu's Bamboo Shed, and only then vanished into the Origin Mulberry Field.

"Is this thing really just a fox?"

After watching the entire process of the Three-Tailed Demon Fox eating its "buffet," Shen Mu was left in a daze.

Wouldn't it be fair to say it was a human wearing a fox's skin?

"It seems killing this beast won't be as easy as I thought."

Shen Mu sighed inwardly.

He had considered buying a longbow, but that would inevitably waste time and progress on his body tempering.

"Sigh, forget about this beast. If it wants to pee... let it pee. At worst, I'll just sleep on the roof."

After some deliberation, Shen Mu decided to concede.

After all, he was the one who had kicked it first; it was understandable that it held a grudge and was now seeking revenge.

"I hope that after feeding it two chickens, it goes to take its revenge on someone else."

Shen Mu's expression was rather strange. He wasn't the only one who had besieged it back then; surely it couldn't just focus its revenge on him?