Chapter 25 - A nice surprise

Lao Jianming, formerly Arthur, found himself confronted with a rather interesting situation.

Standing right in front of him was an orange little fox, sitting in the middle of the road he was traveling on just a few steps away from him. And sitting was literally all it was doing. For a while, it hadn't moved an inch, as if it had grown roots to the ground.

Quite curious behavior. A fox, a species known for its elusiveness, standing right in front of him with no intention of moving, simply staring at him with eyes that seemed to be lost in another world entirely.

Well, even foxes have their more mentally disadvantaged, he would have said if that was all there was to it. But this story starts a bit earlier.

It might look like it now, but that little fox had been chasing him for the past half-hour, trying its best to keep itself hidden, using the trees and foliage to conceal itself. With steps barely noticeable to the naked ear, that fox had been following him.

A normal human probably wouldn't notice a thing, but unfortunately for the fox, Lao was no regular human. Just the scent of bloodlust oozing from the fox's body was enough for him to know exactly what it had been up to.

He didn't bother stopping it, though. He wanted to see exactly what it was planning. From his precautionary scan he had done of the fox, not a single Qi undulation was felt. That meant it was a regular fox.

What was a little fox like that going to do against a cultivator? Scratch an itch on his back? It was nothing worth considering.

And so, he allowed himself to indulge in his curiosity. He had never heard of a regular fox trying to kill a fully grown man. It left him quite curious.

Still, just because he didn't believe the fox could hurt him, it didn't mean he let his guard down. His nerves were still completely steeled, ready to take action at any moment the situation might turn against him. It was better to be safe than sorry.

He continued walking, slowing his pace to give the fox more time to accomplish whatever it was trying to do.

A while later, it seemed like the fox had prepared everything it needed. It was now sitting still on a tree branch, carefully waiting for its chance to move.

And that chance came right as he passed by the tree branch, still pretending he didn't notice what the fox was up to.

It didn't hesitate. The jump was ruthless and effective, no wasted time or movements.

Indeed, it would have worked, had he been a normal person. Unfortunately for the fox, he wasn't.

With a slight movement of his neck, the fox missed the target right at the last second. Just as it was about to accomplish its goal, the world seemed to bend itself out of shape in order to stop it. In the end, its claw caught nothing more than air.

As it flew by, Arthur noticed how its expression rapidly changed from one of satisfaction to one of incredulity. Probably wondering what exactly had just happened. He found it quite humorous how quickly its satisfied expression vanished from its face.

What emotions were behind those eyes? Anger? Sadness? Fear? Embarrassment? Could a fox even have such complex emotions, or did they act purely on instinct?

It landed on the ground and instantly faced back at him. Though its actions might have felt sharp to an onlooker, they were definitely not as fluid as they had been before. Shock obviously still dulling its senses.

After a short moment of respite, the fox recollected itself. The glint in its eyes had returned, and it started looking at every part of his body, no doubt trying to exploit some sort of weakness he might be showing and reverse the bad situation it had gotten itself into.

"Well, I guess it's about time I put it out of its misery," Lao thought to himself.

As curious as all this was, the fox had clearly tried to kill him. It went above and beyond to hide its presence, laid out an ambush, and lunged at his throat without any hesitation. Even now, it was still trying to find a way to finish the job it had failed at earlier.

Sure, it may just be a regular animal; compared to him, it was no different than an ant. But in that world, leaving loose ends like that will only end in trouble. Looking down on its opponent just because it was a regular animal was extremely unwise.

Imagine if the fox found some random fruit granting it incredible powers, evolving from a regular animal to a spirit beast. If it tried to kill him again then, he may not be in such a comfortable position, maybe even cursing his own past stupidity.

He didn't know why the fox was attacking him. Was it purely based on instinct? Or was there another reason? Regardless, the enmity had been formed. The fox was going to remember him. Should they cross paths again, it would try to succeed in the task it failed to accomplish that day.

Sure, if the fox remained a regular animal, there would be no issues.

However, on the off chance it is able to start cultivating...

He wasn't going to take that risk.

He began to circulate his Qi. He planned to end it in a single move.

As he was about to attack, his body got stunned into immobility.

This time, it was he who got surprised.

The fox... had just spoken.

It sounds silly to even say it out loud. But that's exactly what happened. And it wasn't any sort of foreign language either. The fox had spoken in the human tongue, and he understood every word it said. The fox looked just as confused as he was, just not for the same reason.

It was quite funny, both of them trying to grapple with a reality they couldn't understand. The only difference you could make between both would be that, unlike Lao, whose expression remained unchanged, not leaking any of the shock that was blasting through his mind, the fox's state of being was far more honest and obvious to anyone looking in.

It took him a while to digest what had just happened, his brain working on overdrive to make sense of things.

"A fox speaking in human language? With no Qi? How is that possible? Are foxes around here like this? No, definitely not. Unless they are a spirit beast, no animal is capable of speech, much less human speech. So then, what is going on?"

He couldn't reach an answer.

No matter how much he searched his memories, nothing surfaced that could explain the talking fox.

With no success on that front, he tried his second option.

He focused his sight on the fox in front of him. Almost instantly, characters started floating in front of his eyes.

'Animal: Orange Fox

Explanation Level: 1

Age: 2 years old

Height: 0.4 meters tall

Weight: 5 kg

Backstory: ???

Cultivation: Non Applicable

Information: The name of this fox comes from the colors of its fur. It's known for being extremely crafty and cowardly, great at discerning when to attack and when to retreat. Hunts smaller-scale animals as meals, however, its diet consists of basically whatever it manages to find. No fatal attacks on humans were recorded.'

His ability told him the fox in front of him was just a regular animal, without anything out of the ordinary.

However, that was impossible to believe after what he just witnessed.

The fact that it laid an ambush for him and tried to kill him was already curious enough, going against everything his ability had just told him about the nature of the species the fox in front of him belonged to.

Had he been a regular mortal, that fox would have become the one to finally breach the record and score the first kill on a human being.

That could still be chalked up to the fox being special, though. Maybe it just had developed differently from the others, maybe it was naturally smarter, maybe it was a mutation.

However, no amount of mutation could ever give a regular fox the ability to speak. At that point, it wouldn't be a fox anymore, but a completely unrelated species.

There was a chance his technique was wrong, but Lao highly doubted that. His low mastery over it may lead to incomplete information, but not to factually wrong information. If there was really something the ability wasn't able to discern due to its low level, then it would either show up as a question mark or not appear at all.

And so, there was only one remaining theory that could explain why the fox in front of him was able to speak, while having no Qi and being normal in every conceivable way, to the point his ability found nothing out of the ordinary.

'This has gotten more interesting than I could ever have imagined. Letting this play out was the correct choice in more ways than one.'

The grin on his face widens.

"So, little one, how about we both have a chat? We have much to discuss."

After what felt like an eternity, the silence that remained undisturbed by either of them was finally broken.