"Junior Sister Xu, what is it?"
The man beside her noticed something was amiss and stopped as well, following her gaze.
His eyes passed over the bowing, scraping old fox and settled on a group of sallow, emaciated human children in ragged clothes on the distant grass.
The man paused slightly.
Then he could not help chuckling.
He turned to the somewhat distracted woman beside him and said gently, "Junior Sister Xu, you've spent years cultivating in seclusion in the mountains. This is your first visit to Spirit Mountain's territory, isn't it?"
The woman nodded slightly and withdrew her gaze.
Yet an indefinable gloom still lingered between her brows.
"This place... feels strange."
"Strange?"
The man shook his head. "Does it make you uncomfortable to see these furred and horned beasts aping human ways, ridiculous as monkeys dressed in crowns?"
"Or do you feel... that humans and demons living together like this upsets the natural order?"
The woman remained silent.
The man smiled, his voice clear and resonant, making no attempt to avoid being heard by the Fox Clan elders beside them.
"Actually, Junior Sister, you needn't dwell on it."
"Our Pure Yang Lineage ranks among the Five Luminaries Orthodoxy and presides over the Mars Imperial Position!"
"Above, we inherit the pure qi of the Heavenly Dao; below, we suppress the turbid currents of the Nine Netherworlds."
"Three inches of pure yang fire in our palms can burn away ten thousand miles of clouds across the heavens."
"In origins, we are the orthodox heirs of the Daoist tradition; in power, we wield the Mountain-Shifting and Sea-Filling Art; in standing, even the ten peaks of Spirit Mountain must lower their brows and meekly address us as exalted immortals."
At this point.
The man turned to the young woman beside him, whose