Chapter 6 — My Little Vixen

The following day, he took the initiative to seek me out at a cafe near my office. Initially, I had no intention of going, but a single sentence from him stopped me in my tracks: "Mien, don't you want to know why Vong disappeared all those years ago?" So, I went. Not because I doubted Vong, but because I needed to know what on earth he had endured.

Zen was sitting at a table by the window. He wore a black turtleneck sweater, his long hair loosely bound with a ribbon, and his greenish-gold eyes radiated a chilling, exquisite allure beneath the light. Had I not known full well how deeply manipulative he could be, I might genuinely have pitied him.

"Speak," I said, sitting down and leaving untouched the coffee he pushed toward me.

Zen let out a light laugh. "You're really on your guard against me now."

"You've earned it."

His smile faded slightly. "I only wanted to save you."

"By driving a wedge between us?"

"That's only because you don't know what Vong really is."

My expression darkened. "Watch your tongue."

Zen stared at me in silence for a long moment before suddenly bursting into laughter. "You've really fallen for him, haven't you?"

I did not deny it. Bit by bit, his gaze grew shadowy and dark. "On what grounds?"

I frowned. "On what grounds, what?"

Zen's fingers slowly tightened into fists. "On what grounds does a monster like him deserve to be loved by you? On what grounds are you willing to touch his tail, bring him into your home, and become his wife? Yet when I called you 'sister,' you avoided me like the plague?"

I was silent for a moment. "Zen, you're mistaken about one thing. Vong and I got married not because he is a beast-kin, and I love him not because he has a tail."

The corners of Zen's eyes slowly turned red. "But I can grow a tail, too. I can be very obedient. I can let you touch me, too."

I massaged my temples, feeling a headache coming on. "You don't love me. You simply want to snatch away everything that Vong possesses."

My words struck a raw nerve. Zen's expression shifted instantly, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper. "If it weren't for him, I would have been the one you brought home that day."

I froze. Zen looked at me, his eyes holding years of suppressed resentment. "When you were five years old, you saved a little white fox in the mountains. Do you remember?"

My heart gave a heavy jolt. Faint, hazy memories came flooding back. That year, my parents and I had gone camping in the mountains. A heavy snowstorm had blown in overnight, and outside our tent, I had found a ball of fur huddled beneath a tree root. Covered in blood and freezing on the brink of death, I had thought it was a small white puppy. Crying, I carried it into the tent, wrapped it in a warm towel, fed it warm milk, and clumsily blew upon its wounds.

*Blow, blow, and it won't hurt anymore.*

The next morning, when I woke up, the little white fox was gone. My parents told me wild animals shouldn't be picked up from the woods, and that it must have wandered back on its own. I had been sad for a long time. So it hadn't been a puppy at all. It had been a little white fox. It had been Vong.

Zen spoke softly, "That day, he wasn't the only one who was hurt. I was there, too. I was a snake-kin cub, with a low body temperature, buried deep beneath the snow where you couldn't see me. You carried him away. He survived. And I almost froze to death."

I stood there, utterly stunned. Zen's eye sockets were rimmed with red, yet he was still smiling. "Later, I was rescued by my own kin, and I heard that the Nine-Tailed Fox King had gone missing. After that, I investigated and found out he was by your side. On what grounds? Clearly, you could have saved me that day."

I held my breath, but quickly regained my composure. "Zen. When I was five years old, I was just a child. I didn't have the capacity to save everyone. You can curse fate, blame the ones who harmed you, or even resent me for not seeing you. But you cannot, simply because of your own suffering, treat Vong as a mortal enemy and try to strip away everything he has."

Zen stared at me with intense hatred. "You're just making excuses for him."

"I am speaking reason."

"You love him."

"Yes."

His gaze went completely black. "Then what if I told you he wasn't simply an innocent cub you rescued back then?"

My fingertips tightened. Zen gave a cold, dry scoff. "He was the former king of the fox clan. The day he was injured, he was no innocent cub. He had just massacred the inner sanctum of the fox clan and fled, dripping in blood. What you saved was a monster steeped in bloodshed. Mien. The creature you cradled in your arms as a child was never a pitiful little fox. He was a tyrant whom the entire beast-kin race wanted dead."

I said nothing. Countless images flashed through my mind: Vong's lowered eyelashes as he prepared breakfast for me; the tips of his ears turning red when he offered me his tail to touch; the shattered look in his eyes when he asked if I no longer needed him; and that day in the bathroom, when his nine tails curled back in shame and he murmured softly, "I'm sorry, did I frighten you?"

I stood up. Zen looked up at me. "You're leaving?"

I said, "I need to go home and ask him myself."

Zen's expression shifted. "Aren't you afraid?"

"I am," I replied calmly. "But I am even more afraid of leaving him to wait for me alone."

As I reached the door, Zen called out from behind me, "Mien. If he truly is a tyrant, will you still choose him?"

I paused in my steps. "I will let him tell me the truth with his own lips. After that, I will make my own decision."

By the time I returned to the villa, dusk had settled. The sky was a heavy, slate gray, and magnolia petals drifted like snow across the courtyard. Vong was sitting on a wooden bench in the garden. He wore a white coat, his silver hair slightly ruffled by the wind. Behind him, there was only a single tail—not nine, nor as fluffy as usual. It trailed lifelessly against the ground, looking somewhat dejected.

My heart softened instantly. Hearing my footsteps, he raised his head and looked at me. "You're back."

His tone was very calm. So calm that it made me uneasy. I walked over and stopped before him.

"Vong."

"Hmm?"

"I want to ask you something."

He seemed to have anticipated it already, his amber eyes completely devoid of surprise. "Zen told you?"

I nodded. "He said you slaughtered the fox clan's inner sanctum years ago. He said you're a tyrant hunted by all beast-kin, and that the little white fox I saved back then wasn't just any fox, but the Nine-Tailed Fox King."

Vong lowered his gaze. The wind stirred his long hair. After a long silence, he spoke quietly, "It's true."

My heart constricted. He looked up at me. In those beautiful, pale amber eyes, there were no justifications, no grievances—only a paralysis-like tranquility.

"The fox clan has no true king, only High Priests," he began slowly. "They revere the Nine-Tailed bloodline, yet they fear it just as deeply. Every generation of Nine-Tailed foxes born is locked away within the inner sanctum. They need our blood, our bones, and our tail fur for their sacrificial rituals, yet they refuse to let us leave."

He recounted the past as if telling a story about a stranger. "The year I was born, the fox clan suffered a severe drought. The High Priest claimed my bone marrow was too heavy and had stolen the fortune of the entire clan. They pulled out my very first tail plume and buried it beneath the sacrificial altar. When the clan had a bountiful harvest afterward, they believed the method worked."

I held my breath. A faint, bitter smile touched Vong's lips.

"When you touched my tail back then, I was actually terrified. Not because I was afraid you would hurt me, but because I was afraid I would remember those things. But you were different. When you touched me, you asked if it hurt. You told me to warn you if you accidentally pressed too hard. You bought expensive fur-conditioning oils for me. And you held my tail and praised how beautiful it was."

His voice suddenly grew softer. "Mien. You were the first person who ever made me feel that my tail wasn't a sacrificial object, but something worthy of being cherished and loved."