Chapter 162 — The Young Master Is Smitten
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 4
After a while Ling Yuxiu felt a pricking pain and hastily looked down. Shen Mu was wiping away the clotted blood seeping from her skin with the Heaven-Fragrance silk kerchief; once the blood had flowed out, no mark at all remained on the skin.
Ling Yuxiu lowered her clothing and blinked her big eyes. "Divine physician, I have still got a few wounds on my back. I wonder whether they have left scars..."
Snow Fox said in her crisp voice, "I applied the medicine to the wounds on your back. Before I dressed them I squeezed out the clotted blood for you; there will be no scars."
Ling Yuxiu looked at her. The little fox smiled very sweetly, very falsely.
"Hmph, fox spirit!" thought the girl and the fox spirit at the same moment.
Snow Fox blinked. "Sister Yuxiu, how old are you this year?"
Ling Yuxiu's eyes flickered. "How old are you?"
"I am twelve."
"I am sixteen."
"You are a year older than the young master!"
...
Ling Yuxiu felt as though the little fox had pounced and driven two knives deep into her heart. It hurt badly. This fox was a mere shrimp of a thing, yet her strikes were vicious and came without warning, leaving her no defense.
She had long since seen that the little fox meant no good, deliberately burrowing into Shen Mu's blankets every night, pretending to understand nothing, shamelessly playing cute, without a shred of modesty.
And now this little minx had begun to attack in earnest.
Ling Yuxiu was usually free-spirited, a girl who seemed broad-minded, with a boldness and generosity rare in other girls; but she had a delicate side as well. She smiled sweetly and said, "Little Sister Ling, the fur on your paws is so soft. Why have you never tried turning them into human hands?"
Snow Fox yawned, eyes half-closed. "The young master likes it."
"Little Sister Ling, why have you still not taken human form?"
"The young master likes it."
"Look, your pupils are different from ours."
"The young master likes it."
...
Ling Yuxiu conceded defeat. This little fox's defense was seamless, not a drop leaking through, and she parried and counterattacked in the same breath, like the Great Thunderclap Monastery's divine art, the Mirror-Flower Void Wall, which can rebound another's attack back upon them.
"Where did the fox spirit learn that?" Ling Yuxiu, no match for her, was somewhat indignant.
Snow Fox was smug. In the Rain-Listening Pavilion she had consulted the ladies there on precisely this kind of skill.
Ling Yuxiu was suddenly caught between laughter and tears: here she was, jealous and vying with a little fox. Truly a disgrace to the royal house. She had a bosom where a bosom should be and a figure where a figure should be; though Shen Mu's eyes were a bit blind and he always said she was somewhat plump, she was not bad-looking. However sharp the little fox's moves, she had not taken human form.
Victory was already hers; there was no need at all to vie jealously with this fox spirit.
Before they reached the frontier pass, Libationer Bashan finally caught up. Seeing that Butcher Tu had already left, the big man was beside himself, wailing and weeping, cursing Heaven's Blade between his sobs.
Shen Mu comforted him a while, then said, "It is not that he did not want to see you; it is that he found you too talkative, always nagging him, so he left first. In truth Grandpa Tu cares for you a great deal; when he heard you were in danger, he was the first to rush over. Do not cry, do not cry. We are at the frontier pass now. How can Khan Wu be seen with tears and snot all over his face?"