Lanke Chess Edge
Chapter 12: Red Fox

Ji Yuan’s had already sent greetings to eighteen generations of Zhang Shilin and his companions’ ancestors.¹ Although he was also trying to save his own life, he had save theirs too, after all. Why didn’t they take him with them when they left? They didn’t even say goodbye. They didn’t even bother making a sound!

The most frustrating thing was that Ji Yuan didn’t dare yell, even if he wanted to curse them up and down. He could only hold it in until his face turned red.

It took a long time for Ji Yuan’s mood to stabilize.

“Huh…huh…”

After calming down, Ji Yuan sat dejectedly beside the mountain god statue.

‘Damn, what should I do now? Can I risk going down the mountain?’

Ji Yuan eyed the the food and water next to the statue of the mountain god. At the very least, it seemed those guys had some conscience, and left some food for him.

After calming down a bit more, Ji Yuan finally remembered that he had indeed heard Zhang Shilin call out to him, but he was so sleeping soundly at the time, and hadn’t paid it much attention.

“I am their life’s savior, after all. You couldn’t wait for me to wake up to thank me in person? Or even shake me awake…”

Ji Yuan couldn’t help but sigh. After this group of people departed like that, his plans had been completely disrupted.

After all, he had arrived in an unfamiliar world. He had originally planned to go down the mountain with the traveling merchants. It would have been best to rely on his identity as their savior to ask them for help in finding a place to stay, and then make plans.

Since there were tiger spirits in this world, there would definitely be real masters, and perhaps immortal cultivators or even immortals. There might be a cure for his eyes, or even a chance to enter the path of cultivation.

It was clearly possible to travel through time and space, and to encounter a tiger spirit immediately upon arrival. Ji Yuan could be considered to have acclimatized to the constant exposure to extremely unlikely events. Probabilistically, this could also be regarded as a form of good luck.

Thinking about it that way, Ji Yuan actually felt a little excited.

He picked up the small sack of food from the ground, took out a steamed bun, and put it in his mouth. Then he lifted the hemp rope tied around the bamboo tube, and hung it diagonally across his body. Ji Yuan carefully made his way towards the doorway of the temple.

His weak eyesight could barely be used as normal vision, let alone making out any details. At least he could make out the outline of the surrounding scenery, but he had to be particularly careful where he stepped.

“ROOOAAAR-“

Just when he arrived at the gate of the temple, he heard the sound of a tiger roaring in the distant mountains.

Ji Yuan trembled, and his previous excitement immediately disappeared. He jumped back in a conditioned reflex, but suddenly stepped on something that rolled out from under him, and his body instantly lost its center of gravity.

“Woah-“

“Pong! Dang!”

“Boom…”

“Ouch…”

Ji Yuan stepped on a candle that had rolled underfoot, fell backwards, hit the altar table in the mountain temple, then fell again. He was briefly dazed.

“Hiss… hoo… damn… Some people are so unlucky, even drinking cold water will clog their teeth!”²

Ji Yuan struggled to sit up, and carefully touched the back of his head in search of bruises. He found a big bump where he had been knocked out. It hurt a little when he touched it, but fortunately, the pain was only superficial, so there should be nothing wrong with his brain.

After resting for a while, Ji Yuan felt better. He stared blankly at the small bag and the bamboo tube beside him.

This fall conclusively rid Ji Yuan of his urge to go down the mountain. If something like this had happened while he had been climbing or going downhill, wouldn’t he potentially have died?

Ji Yuan had cherished his life, and could even be said to be afraid of pain. He had already lost his life in his previous life. Although this life wasn’t off to a great start, there was still hope.

“Boom…”

The thunder sounded, and the silver snake of lightning danced in the sky again, but this time Ji Yuan had seen the rain coming and was not surprised. It seemed even worse of an idea for him to go down the mountain half-blind in this situation.

As the saying went, “it’s easy to go up the mountain, but it’s hard to go down.”³ It was a really suitable proverb for this occasion!

‘How about… we take a break? ’

“Shaaaa…”

It didn’t take long before the rain began to fall intensely. The weather in the mountains really changed at a moment’s notice. There was no point in worrying about his fate at the moment. It would definitely be bad to go out now.

Fortunately, Ji Yuan was already sitting in front of the altar, so he closed his eyes to calm his mind.

Sure enough, as his thoughts settled, the beautiful, colorless image of the world slowly emerged in his heart with the sound of the water, and the vivid beauty of the mountain bathed in rain slowly unfolded.

In the heavy rain, what Ji Yuan enjoyed most was the sound of animals running about. The picture was invigorating and reminded Ji Yuan of the smell of barbecue.

Suddenly, Ji Yuan heard the sound of a small animal panicking in the rain. It seemed to be running towards the mountain temple. Soon enough, it trotted under the temple’s eaves.

Water droplets dripped off of the little animal’s body. Ji Yuan listened as it crept carefully into the mountain temple. However, as soon as it entered through the temple door, it froze, as if it had seen Ji Yuan sitting in front of the altar.

Ji Yuan opened his eyes to a blur of light and shadow in front of him. The little animal appeared in his vision as a vague shape, smaller than a dog.

Through his rain-sensing observation, Ji Yuan knew that this should be a fox.

These animals were relatively timid and would not attack humans, so Ji Yuan felt relatively at ease.

Strictly speaking, this abandoned mountain temple mostly belonged to the wild animals. Based on the collection of animal excrement in the temple, it was clear that Ji Yuan and the traveling merchants were just passers-by.

They were all hiding from the rain together, so Ji Yuan had no intention to drive away this fox. Besides, it was quite boring to be alone.

The fox’s coat was a relatively bright, red color. He crouched at the temple gate, staring at Ji Yuan. Seeing that the person inside didn’t respond after some time, he relaxed a little, hesitated, and walked through the temple door in the front wall. Once inside, he vigorously shook his body.

“Tack-clack-clack-clack-clack…”

The rain dripping from the red fox’s fur was rapidly flung away. Much of the moisture reached Ji Yuan, who sat only a few meters away, and he had to block his face with his hands.

When the fox had finished shaking off the water, Ji Yuan could sense the details of the creature more clearly, including his fluffy fur. It was obvious that this was a remarkably beautiful little fox.

This fox was also well-behaved. After shaking the water, he leaned against the front wall of the temple to rest. From time to time, he would be glance at Ji Yuan, observing his reaction.

One person and one fox sat in the mountain temple: one still could not walk, the other sheltered from the rain. Everything was silent and peaceful.

At this moment, Ji Yuan finally felt a little hungry. Of course, he didn’t have anything good to eat, but at least he had a small bag of dry food to fill his stomach.

He fumbled to open the bag and held it with both hands. The dry biscuits were hard as rocks. The steamed bun wasn’t much better, but it was still preferable to the dry biscuits, so he took out a steamed bun from the bag.

He tore a small piece and brought it to his nose to sniff. There was no moldy scent, so he stuffed it into his mouth and began eating. The more he ate, the hungrier he found himself. One steamed bun was devoured in seconds.

Ji Yuan couldn’t help but grab another steamed bun, wolf it down, and then abruptly tamped down the urge to eat a third.

This bag was not very big. Even just removing two steamed buns made the bag shrink. He stretched out a hand and felt around the bottom. After a moment, he determined that there were only two steamed buns and three dry biscuits left.

As an upright young man living in the 21st century, he had a proper job. Although everyone around him always complained that they were worried about their livelihoods, he had never worried that he would starve to death, so he was a little slow to respond to the consequences of that particular realization. After a brief moment, Ji Yuan at this moment suddenly realized that his food was running out!

And even if he made it down the mountain, he probably won’t have any friends or relatives to rely on. How would he make a living? What could he do now, beg on the streets?

“What the heck!”

Ji Yuan couldn’t help but shout in frustration.

The fox startled and stood up, wary.

Instead, he attracted Ji Yuan’s attention.

“Hey, little fox, I’m a blind man, I don’t have any food for you. I have a couple steamed buns and biscuits, but you can’t eat them. I won’t give them to you. If you somehow manage to eat me, don’t worry, at worst it would relieve me of my troubles.”

“Hiss…”

The fox’s hair puffed out, his limbs tenses, and he bared his teeth at Ji Yuan.

“Just kidding! It would be good if you caught a field mouse or a rabbit…”

Ji Yuan said in a soothing tone. His voice and actions just now must have startled the fox. Even the peaceful rabbit bit back when it was cornered; he wouldn’t mistake the fox of a beast.

For a long time, neither man nor fox moved. Then the fox carefully lay back down in his corner, and Ji Yuan breathed a sigh of relief as he continued to stare up at the altar table.

1. A better translation would have been “continued cursing out the merchant group and their entire families” but straight-up the image of Ji Yuan politely greeting Zhang Shilin’s entire family and then proceeding to curse them out in a deadpan voice was too funny not to leave as is ↩︎
2. Proverb – drinking cold water doesn’t clog your teeth, so it’s like saying you’re so unlucky that all the bad things happen to you even if they’re ridiculously unlikely. It’s funny, because just earlier he was commenting about how the fact that all these crazy events kept happening to him meant that he might have good luck instead. RIP immediate karma ↩︎
3. Proverb roughly meaning “it’s easier to start something than to finish it,” and also very situationally accurate in the literal meaning as well, since JY is literally trying to go down a mountain but being stopped partway through ↩︎