Xuan Ling sat on the sofa in Song Yanqing's living room, his tail swaying behind him, a steaming cup of coffee in front of him, his sharp eyes fixed on Song Yanqing.
Shang Shujue, the Little Fox, lay listlessly on a sofa, her beautiful eyes darting around, but she didn't dare look at Song Yanqing even once, looking very guilty.
Song Yanqing sat opposite Xuan Ling, holding a cup of coffee in his hand and drinking it. He looked calm and composed, seemingly unaffected by anything that happened on Qingqiu Divine Mountain. However, in reality, his fingers, gripping the rim of the cup, had turned white.
"This is roughly how it happened." Xuan Ling retracted its tail, turned its head to glance at Shang Shujue, who had buried its face in its paws, sighed softly, and said seriously:
"So I need to take him back to investigate why his magic was sealed. But he seems reluctant to part with you. If you'd like, I can take you back with me."
"Although our Qingqiu cannot compare to the prosperity of the human world, it is still a place of beautiful mountains and rivers, more than capable of supporting a human like you."
Song Yanqing paused, finally putting down his coffee. He glanced at the fluffy little thing on the sofa, then gently shook his head. "Take him away."
Song Yanqing originally thought he was going to have a warm and adorable pet, but it turned out to be not a simple pet, but a nine-tailed fox from Qingqiu.
The divine fox... it seems a mortal like him can't afford to raise it...
"Eek~"
Shang Shujue understood Song Yanqing's meaning in chasing away the Fox. He made a meaningless whimper, his tone sounding both reluctant and helpless.
Song Yanqing didn't look at him, only giving him a cold profile. Shang Shujue saw this, bared his teeth at him fiercely, and then ran out of the house.
"Sorry to bother you. Consider this a favor we in Qingqiu owe you. If you ever have any problems you can't solve in the future, you can come to J City to find me. This is the Fox Clan's communication butterfly."
Xuan Ling left a wad of cash and a black, hollowed-out iron box, nodded, and turned to leave. Song Yanqing stared at the money and the iron box on the table, remaining silent for a long time.
A while later, he called Zhou Lin, who answered quickly. "No need for the PR department to get involved. I didn't manage to raise that Little Fox. She left on her own after finishing her food. It was too late yesterday, so I didn't tell you."
Zhou Lin, who was about to head to the public relations department, thought, "..." Damn! He really isn't a domesticated child, huh? You're really something else!
"Okay, then remember to log in and explain."
After hanging up the phone, Song Yanqing logged into his account, edited a message explaining the situation, sent it, and then ignored it.
The audience and fans were stunned, then burst into laughter, teasing Song Yanqing for his bad luck in encountering a wild Fox, while others marveled at how beautiful it was...
The wildlife protection bureau personnel who were about to visit Song Yanqing to inquire about the Fox's situation fell silent after seeing his explanation.
This situation... shouldn't be considered keeping wild animals privately, right? At most, it can only be considered rescuing and feeding them? But they went to Song Yanqing's home according to regulations, understood the specific situation, and told him not to feed wild animals casually in the future before leaving.
The matter was left unresolved. Suddenly, a Little Fox appeared in Song Yanqing's life, but before he could even raise it for a day, the Little Fox was gone.
The only bright color in his life dimmed again at this moment, and his life returned to its previous state, seemingly unchanged.
As for Shang Shujue, the moment he returned to Qingqiu, the seal on his body was immediately released, and he transformed back into a leisurely Little Fox who could change forms at any time.
When everyone saw that he had finally returned, they were all happy and surrounded him, asking him all sorts of questions. He got annoyed by their pestering and simply stayed in his Fox den, refusing to go anywhere else.
"Grandpa Chief, why do I lose all my spiritual power as soon as I go down the mountain? Is there some kind of seal inside my body preventing me from going down?"
The weather was fine that day. Shang Shujue found the clan chief fishing by the river, squatted down next to him, and looked at the fish that jumped out of the river and then returned to the river in the distance with a puzzled expression.
"Everything in this world has a cause and effect. You won't find the answer you're looking for here, Grandpa Clan Chief. Why don't you go and look at your parents' graves? Perhaps you'll find the answer you're looking for there."
The clan chief stared intently at the fish leaping out of the river and falling back into the water, instantly becoming so angry that his beard bristled and his eyes widened. "These wretched, stinking fish! How dare you openly provoke me! Today I'll catch you all and cook you!"
Shang Shujue glanced at his angry clan chief grandfather, secretly smiled, turned around and ran away, heading straight for his parents' graves.
He didn't know if the answer he was looking for was there, but he knew that his grandfather, the clan chief, was sometimes right. What if the answer he was looking for really was there?
Shang Shujue quickly bought some things and took them to visit his parents. Almost every year during the Fox Moon Festival, he would come alone to sweep his parents' graves, so he was already quite adept at it.
"Father, Mother, your son has come to see you again. I wonder how you are doing in the Fox Immortal Realm? I went down the mountain a while ago and met a very interesting human. He's quite handsome, hehehe..."
Shang Shujue knelt before her parents' graves, a faint smile playing on her exquisitely beautiful face, so beautiful it seemed to outshine everything else.
"However, I'm not here today to talk about his affairs, but about my own. I've discovered that once I leave Qingqiu, my spiritual power is sealed, and I can't even maintain my human form. Do you have any clues?"
When Shang Shujue asked his question, naturally no one answered him. He could only kneel in front of the grave and talk to himself. He talked to his parents for a long time, but in the end he still didn't get any answers. So he simply reverted to his fox form and curled up in front of the grave to sleep.
This wasn't the first time he'd done something like this, and his father and mother wouldn't blame him. He lazily yawned and then fell asleep.
He slept quite soundly, and then he had a dream. In his dream, he saw a beautifully sculpted baby, a mother holding the baby, and a father watching the mother and baby...
Ah~ that little baby looks like him...
The moment Shang Shujue had this awareness, his consciousness sank into the dream, as if experiencing it firsthand.
He was carried by his mother to a celestial being dressed in a purple-gold jade robe. The celestial being gently stroked his head, but he could not see the celestial being's face...