Chapter 138: Collapse
"So, it really was this fellow obstructing me," Chen Jin muttered.
He strode over to the fat fox spirit, who lay collapsed on the ground. The creature was still coughing up blood and fragments of internal organs, as if his very body were composed of nothing more than these.
"You’ve certainly been busy doing ‘good deeds,’ haven’t you?" Chen Jin said, grabbing him by the scruff.
The questions that had puzzled Chen Jin earlier were now largely answered. Hu Er had originally been human, but this Master Hu had attempted to refine him into a fox spirit. The process had failed, which explained why Chen Jin’s attempts to force Hu Er back into his original form had been futile—he was, at his core, a man.
Just as humans can use psychological suggestion to make a creature seem like a monster, or rely on the power of collective belief to turn an object or a ghost into a deity, a spirit can likewise influence a human to take on monstrous traits. This reminded Chen Jin of the legends of wolf-children. However, this old fox had used his own demonic essence to catalyze a form of psychological suggestion, simultaneously planting the seeds for him to possess the boy’s body at any time. In Chen Jin’s eyes, the old fox was truly detestable.
"Hmph... hmph..." Master Hu could only manage these wheezing sounds; any insults or indignation were now reduced to mere grunts.
Chen Jin gave the old fox a shake, accelerating his demise, then pressed the cube he held against the creature’s body. He drew the soul out and channeled it into the cube. As the soul entered, the purple-blue markings on the cube flickered briefly before fading back to darkness. Chen Jin was already accustomed to such anomalies.
At his current level of cultivation, Chen Jin could not grasp a soul directly. A soul is not a ghost; it exists in a different dimension from the mortal realm, necessitating the use of an artifact that straddles the boundary between reality and illusion to capture it.
Chen Jin didn’t rush to extract the old fox’s memories; there were still other fox spirits in the hill, and he intended to hunt them down as well. The thunder had dissipated, but Chen Jin’s Tiger-Tooth Flying Sword slipped into the tunnels the animated corpses had emerged from. The sword carried Chen Jin’s senses with it, allowing him to perceive whatever it discovered.
The underground world beneath the hill was quite vast, filled with tunnels about half the size of a human, perfectly suited for foxes. There were ten interconnected chambers, clearly the living quarters of the fox spirits. The décor was mostly human—clothing, copper mirrors, quilts, and even books—though fox fur was the most abundant material. However, after circling through the chambers, the flying sword found no trace of the other spirits; it seemed they had fled.
With a sigh of resignation, Chen Jin recalled the flying sword. He then took out the cube and extracted the memories of the old fox.
The memories contained much that was trivial—such as the old fox’s habit of shivering while urinating, lest he fail to release a single drop—but there was also vital information. Chen Jin learned the origins of the fox spirits, their identities, their appearances, and the likely places they would flee to.
There were five fox spirits in total. Excluding the old fox and the fake fox-boy Hu Er, only three remained.
"Hmm, I quite like the number three," Chen Jin mused to himself.
The remaining three were Granny Hu, Master Hu’s mate, who was thirty-two years old and possessed only minor, ineffective spells and illusions; and their two grandchildren, who had only recently become fox spirits and were capable of little more than releasing foul-smelling, harmless gas.
This group of fox spirits had previously lived in a dilapidated temple a hundred miles away, having become spirits by absorbing the residual Buddhist aura of the site. Two years ago, a Taoist with some cultivation had arrived, driven them out, and killed the old fox’s son and daughter-in-law. Although that Taoist had left the temple last year, the foxes had not dared to return. After fleeing, they had wandered from place to place, visiting Mount Emei and Chengdu. Their travels over the past two years had been quite extensive.
Chen Jin also gleaned information about Hu Er. The boy was naturally dim-witted but possessed a talent for cultivation. However, his lack of intelligence prevented him from grasping the scriptures. The old fox had discovered Hu Er in a nearby town when he realized his own body was failing, his aging mind struggling to contain his soul. He had needed a younger vessel, but he refused to sacrifice his own kin. Discovering Hu Er, and possessing a secret Buddhist method for spiritual transformation stolen from his old temple home, he had devised the body-swapping plan. Reluctant to abandon his identity as a fox, he had attempted to slowly transform Hu Er into a fox spirit.
Yet, this was a fundamental tampering with the essence of life, far beyond the capabilities of a half-baked practitioner like the old fox, resulting in nothing more than a permanent fox-like face on the boy. It was a formidable feat in its own way, but compared to the legends of the tiger’s thrall, it was ultimately insignificant.
Chen Jin extracted the secret Buddhist transformation technique from the memories and glanced over it. He did not find the method particularly profound. The Taoist tradition held several such techniques, all of which were far more advanced than this.
However, Chen Jin now had a destination. He had never liked wandering aimlessly, so having a clear objective provided him with some comfort. He decided to head to that temple first to see if the fox spirits had returned there; after all, with the Taoist gone, they would face no threat.
Before leaving, however, he had to destroy this fox den.
*Crackle, snap...*
Chen Jin channeled the last of his thunderous energy, sending it coursing into the tunnels and engulfing the entire cavern.
*Rumble...*
The raw, explosive power of the thunder shattered the structural pillars of the den. Unable to support the weight of the hill above, the tunnels collapsed, and dust and debris blanketed the entire site. Afterward, Chen Jin built a pyre for the limp, animated corpses and burned them to ash. This would allow their trapped souls to ascend and ensure they would no longer plague the living.
"Dust to dust, earth to earth," Chen Jin murmured as he gathered the ashes.