Don't farm, cultivate immortality!

"Well done, Black Steed." Zhuang Xing patted its neck and dismounted. "But how did you know this one was real? Did you just guess?"

“Brother, you can’t find your way back to the stable by guessing,” said Wuzhui. “I know this one is real just by the sound, you know? It’s the sound you people love most, the sound of money.”

"The sound of money..." Zhuang Xing looked at the trembling red fox at his feet and immediately understood that Wu Zhui's method of identification was the sound of copper coins clattering together.

This fox's trick can only create an illusion, but it can't produce any coins.

If it had been willing to give up all the money it had, it might have actually run away, but it was unwilling to give it up, so the horse recognized it.

"It seems foxes like money too, not just humans," Zhuang Xing said casually to the fox. "Can you talk? Why did you steal money in that village?"

"If I return the money, will you let me go..." the fox uttered in human language.

It was a somewhat shrill male voice. Sure enough, the stories in "Tales of the Night by the Lamp" were all lies. The kind of stories about catching a fox, which turned out to be a female fox, releasing it, and then having it transform into a beautiful woman and return to repay you with her body, were all written to entertain naive scholars who had never seen the world.

This red fox seems to have considerable cultivation; it knows several transformation techniques and can bewitch an entire village. It's at least much more powerful than the five red pandas in the house.

But in the end, he was just a fox; even when he entered the village to steal money, he was so cautious and didn't have any great skills.

“This money wasn’t yours to begin with, you should return it,” Zhuang Xing said. “As for whether I’ll let you go or not, it depends on your behavior. You should be able to tell that I’m a Taoist priest. What Taoist priests do is exorcise demons and protect the righteous path. If you honestly tell me where you came from, I will make my own decision.”

"Brother, why waste time talking to it!" said Wuzhui. "Let's just cut it up. I want to go back and eat radish leaves."

Young Ma seems to have a rather fiery temper.

The fox glanced at the gleaming sword in Zhuang Xing's hand. Zhuang Xing remained silent, but the fox shuddered, as if frightened, and hurriedly said, "I'll talk, I'll tell you everything!"

The horse's verbal threats were quite effective on the timid red fox.

"How many years have you been enlightened?" Zhuang Xing asked, seizing the opportunity.

“I’ve been enlightened for fifteen years.” The fox said dejectedly, “Master Taoist, please spare me. I really didn’t mean to harm anyone. I just wanted to steal some money and go outside Xizhou to find another place to beg for food.”

“If you hadn’t stolen from others, you wouldn’t have run into me today,” Zhuang Xing said. “If I let you go today, who knows if you’ll go somewhere else to steal tomorrow? In my opinion, it’s best to hand you over to the authorities; you might even get a reward.”

"Sir, please don't, sir..." the fox pleaded, "If I fall into the hands of the officials, I really won't survive..."

"Not necessarily. If you're just stealing, you might only be locked up for six months before the authorities release you," Zhuang Xing said.

"Sir...no, no, that's absolutely not allowed!" the fox exclaimed in alarm.

"Why are you in such a panic?" Zhuang Xing squinted at it. "Speaking of which, I feel like I've seen you somewhere before... I feel like I've seen you at some post station."

The fox stammered, as if it wanted to speak, but was unwilling to.

Zhuang Xing was actually just bluffing. Judging from its behavior, it might actually be wanted by the authorities somewhere.

Seeing the fox's hesitation, Wuzhui seemed quite pleased and took a step forward.

"Brother, this guy talks too much nonsense. Let's just cut him down. Better to kill the innocent than let the guilty go free. This is an ancestral teaching passed down from my ancestors."

"You still have ancestral precepts?"

"Of course, my dad told me. My dad's dad told my dad, and then my dad told me."

The fox trembled again; it finally couldn't withstand the pressure and told the whole story of its origin.

This guy really is a fugitive.

Ten years ago, it was a minor demon at the foot of Tiger Saint Mountain.

After the Great Sage Tiger died, the original mountain stronghold was destroyed, and all the monsters became wanted criminals, some dying and others fleeing.

Because it had several ways to protect itself, it managed to escape from the encirclement and suppression.

Since then, it has dared not show itself in its original form again, but has transformed into a human and blended into a small village.

They were living a good life until recently when officials came to the village and checked the household registration, which led to the discovery of a problem.

In other places, the officials might not have taken it seriously, but this was Xizhou. Although ten years had passed, the people of Xizhou had not forgotten when Tiger Great Sage committed evil deeds, so it was discovered.

It had no choice but to sneak away all the way to the border of Xizhou, intending to steal some money and move to a neighboring prefecture or county to live in a different place.

Upon hearing that this guy was related to Tiger Monkey, Zhuang Xing immediately gripped his sword tightly.

The fox demon trembled with fear and begged for mercy, "Master Taoist, I was forced into it! That Great Sage Tiger liked to show off, so he forced us little demons to go to the mountain to put on a show. I'm timid, I really didn't dare to do anything bad..."

Zhuang Xing said, "I can see that you are timid, but that's just your side of the story. Besides, if you're really afraid of death, why don't you hide in the mountains? Xizhou is so big, there are plenty of deserted mountains for you to hide in. If you want to live, just go into the mountains and never come back to this world, wouldn't that be enough? Why do you need to sneak across the border?"

"Grandpa...you're right..." the fox demon said tremblingly, "If I had never been to the human world, being a wild fox in the mountains would have been quite nice, but...I have been here..."

"Although I'm afraid of death... I... I still feel comfortable being human..."

"I don't want to be a wild fox, but if it were me, would I want to go to the mountains and become a savage?"

This fox demon, unusually bold, retorted with a question to Zhuang Xing.

Chapter 200 The Inside Story of Ten Years Ago

"Why do you think it's good to be human?" Zhuang Xing asked it.

“It’s great to be human,” said the fox. “Being human is much better than being a fox. Foxes can only forage in the mountains, but if I were human, I could paint, I could write, and I could sit down and drink tea with others.”

“I can go to listen to opera, I can buy a meal with money, and I can find a place to sit down and watch all kinds of people walk past me. But if I am in the mountains, all I can see are mountains, sky and earth.”

"Grandpa Taoist, I have lived for over thirty years. I spent more than ten years in the mountains before I gained sentience. Don't look at me like this, I am very old. I don't have many years left to live. Foxes have shorter lifespans than humans, even foxes that have become spirits. I don't want to die in the mountains."

"Grandpa, please let me go. I swear I'll never steal from anyone again, and I'll never do anything bad again."

The fox pleaded desperately, but Zhuang Xing remained silent; he had never intended to kill the fox anyway.

For a red fox to possess this level of cultivation is already a rare blessing in the world.

The fox didn't know him or his character. It was only when he was facing a life-or-death situation that he said these words, so they must not be false.

And the fox did manage to persuade him somewhat.

If it were him, he certainly wouldn't want to go up in the mountains and become a savage.

The fox made a mistake, but it didn't deserve to die.

If what it says is true, it must have gone through countless hardships to survive to this day.

First, he was oppressed by the tiger demon and deprived of his freedom. Then, he was wanted by the authorities and became a fugitive.

They finally found a village and lived a peaceful life for a while, but then disaster struck.

If what it says is true, then it is pitiful.

However, to ensure the fox wasn't lying, Zhuang Xing started from the beginning and had the fox recount all the details.

It's not difficult for an old fox spirit to fabricate a lie on the spot, but it's not easy to cover up a lie.

If it's a lie, the more questions you ask, the more flaws you'll find.

But when Zhuang Xing asked, he was extremely detailed in every aspect.

He also learned how Tiger Sage was knocked off the mountain back then. The fox said that on that day, a woman with a sword came to the mountain.

That day was the day Tiger Great Sage held his human flesh feast. Tiger Demon held a feast every month on the fifteenth, and only his capable henchmen could participate. Lesser demons like foxes couldn't get in.

The tiger demon had a standard for recruiting its subordinates: it would only take meat-eating demons, such as goat spirits and rabbit spirits. If it encountered these herbivorous demons, it would put them on the table and make them into a raw meat feast.

This monthly banquet can be described as a bloodbath. On this day, Tiger Sage would send one of his subordinates, a leopard spirit named Leopard Fire, to the "butcher shop" at the foot of the mountain to transport the day's "fresh meat" to his cave.

But by noon that day, Leopard Fire still hadn't returned to the mountain.

Instead, a woman in black carrying a sword came forward.

The woman's sword was stained with blood, and she walked up the mountain path without saying a word.

On the day of the human flesh feast, the little demons in the mountains don't have to do anything. Normally, they have to gather firewood, patrol the mountains, stand guard, raise chickens and ducks, and do all the miscellaneous tasks in the mountains. In fact, they are not much different from servants. Only on the fifteenth day can they rest.

The fox was sleeping on a cliff when it saw the woman coming up the mountain from afar.

The fox said it had seen similar things several times, but rarely did anyone come alone. The fewest people there were, there were five or six strong men, all with swords in their hands, but they didn't even see Tiger Great Sage before being wiped out by Leopard Fire, a leopard demon.

The largest number of people ever sent was when the government dispatched troops.

There was a whole squad of archers and swordsmen who saw Tiger Sage. But Tiger Sage transformed into his original form, a tiger the size of a small hill, and charged into the crowd. He could kill a group of people with a single swipe of his claws and bite off a person's head with a single bite. However, the officials' bows and arrows and swords could not penetrate his tiger skin.

In the end, Tiger Sage killed so many that blood flowed like a river. He spared a few officials who were so frightened that they wet themselves and knelt on the ground begging for mercy. He told them to go back and report to the government. After that, even the government dared not invade this mountain again.

Only that woman came alone.

Although she came alone, none of the mountain fairies could stop her.

Tiger Great Sage's mountain was almost completely destroyed by the woman alone, and the few ferocious and bloodthirsty tiger demons that followed him were all dead.

Only Tiger Monkey managed to withstand the woman's sword, but a huge gash was slashed across his chest.

The tiger demon used people from the mountains who were about to be slaughtered as hostages, and jumped off a cliff to escape from the woman's clutches.

The fox said that the woman originally wanted to chase after them, but the frightened people held her hands and feet, so she stayed.

Upon seeing this, the fox hurriedly ran down the mountain, knowing that this mountain would never exist again. At the foot of the mountain, it also saw the leopard demon's corpse, its head already rolled on the ground. The people at the foot of the mountain had somehow picked up weapons; they picked up hoes, pitchforks, and the demon's sticks and swords, and headed straight up the mountain.

The fox was almost beaten to death with sticks, but it was only by chance that it managed to escape in the chaos using its illusion and bewitching techniques.

Zhuang Xing asked the fox, "Which way did Tiger Great Sage cut his heart?"

The fox seemed to remember it well. It gestured and said it went from the right shoulder to the left chest. Zhuang Xing then asked about several details about the woman, all of which matched what Zhuang Xing knew.

That Tiger Great Sage was the tiger demon who came to the village and ate Yunling's father back then.

The woman in black was none other than Yan Huai'an.

No wonder the tiger spirit took the infant Zhuang Xing hostage as soon as it heard Yan Huai'an's voice. It had used the same trick to escape from Yan Huai'an when it was in Xizhou, and it wanted to use the same trick again.

Hearing this, Zhuang Xing was certain that the fox was not lying.

He had been traveling in Xizhou for a month, inquiring about Tiger Sage in Hundred Flowers Valley and from the officials, but none of them had given such detailed accounts. If the fox hadn't seen it with his own eyes, he wouldn't have been able to reveal such inside information.

Zhuang Xing then put away the Heart-Protecting Vine and untied the fox from its restraints.

The fox paused for a moment, then knelt down before Zhuang Xing, neither fleeing nor running away.

Zhuang Xing said, "You don't need to bow to me. It's not me who will spare you, it's you. If I go to the village and see anyone bleeding or injured, or if anyone is dead, you will already be decapitated and unable to live."

“I won’t kill you, but it’s not time for you to leave yet. You will come back to the village with me to return all this money and to break the spell on you so that the villagers can wake up.”

Chapter 201 The Fox Kowtowing

"Taoist priest, my bewitching spell is not a powerful technique. Ordinary people can be woken up in half an incense stick's time. It has no effect on a powerful Taoist priest like you. Moreover, it only works the first time it is used on someone. It won't work the second time. The people in that village should have regained their senses by now."