Qin Mu edged forward and, peering through the window lattice, saw the white fox blow on the kindling beneath the stove through a bamboo tube.
Qin Mu coughed. "Is anyone home?"
The white fox started, hid the tube, and burst out in a hoarse, ancient voice: "Who dares shout and bawl, disturbing this venerable one's cultivation? I am an old demon of many years, and I shall grind your bones to dust..."
Qin Mu laughed. The fox looked up, saw him, breathed a sigh of relief, and its voice turned sweet: "So it's the boy who borrowed my wind two days ago. I went to a feast, drank too much, was a touch rude. Come in."
Qin Mu stepped in and looked around, surprised. The place was swept clean and tidy — a cot, a rice jar, furniture, a screen, even a dressing table.
The white fox stood upright and bowed: "Humble and poor, this cottage is. Forgive your laughter, young master."
"You're cooking?"
"I went to a meal at the sisters' and had a cup or two too many," the fox said. "This morning I woke with a sore head and am brewing a bowl of sobering broth. Please, sit."
Qin Mu marveled. This white fox was even shrewder than the demon ape — it could brew its own soup, though it drank itself tipsy daily.
He caught sight of a bookshelf and walked over. He pulled out a scroll; it spoke of the arts of breath and breathing, and a few spells, all fragmentary.
The fox, having brewed its broth, saw him reading so intently and said delightedly: "I don't know the writing; I practice only from the pictures. If you know the characters, will you read them aloud to me?"
"Why ever not?"
Qin Mu sat down. The fox's tail twitched, and a bowl of sobering broth was lifted onto the table by the wind. The fox sat across from him, eyes bright.
Qin Mu opened the first page and read: "Send qi to Fangcun Mountain, rouse the elixir that steadies the root; the tiger walks beneath the lungs and viscera, shaking the cold of the sea of qi..."
The fox sipped its broth, listening hard, then asked abruptly: "Where is Fangcun Mountain?"
"Fangcun Mountain is at the brow — the Spirit Womb Divine Treasury," Qin Mu explained. "To send qi there is to guide your qi up to the brow. But when it reaches the brow, a divine sound from beyond the nine heavens cuts off your flow."
The fox tried it, then shook its head. "No divine sound."
Qin Mu frowned. Whenever he guided qi to the brow, a divine sound blocked his breaking through the wall; yet the fox felt nothing. He did not dwell on it, and read on. The method recorded in the scroll had its subtle points, though it did not agree with his Supreme Body, and he could not practice it.
The fox was quick-witted and grasped the meaning. It laughed: "Before, I practiced by the pictures and thought I had mastered everything this book held. Who knew I'd got many places wrong. Thank you, young master, for clearing my doubts. My name is Hu Ling'er. May I ask yours?"
"My name is Qin Mu — the cowherd of the Qin family. I'm no young master. I live nearby. Where did you get these scrolls?"
Hu Ling'er drank its broth, feeling the fog lift, and said: "Sixty li to the west lies a ruin. Once, home late, I sheltered from the dark in it and chanced to force open a stone chamber. I found these books there, and a bottle of pills. I swallowed a pill, and at once my ears and eyes grew keen and I had my wits about me. I thought them worth keeping, so I brought them home — only I know no characters, so all along I could only look at the pictures. Every spell I know I learned from those books."
"Sixty li to the west?"
Qin Mu was amazed, and fell to thinking: "Could it be the Dragon Palace of the Yong River?"
Hu Ling'er's eyes lit up. "There are a great many dragon statues over there. But it's fearsome within — great peril. I didn't dare go in; I just carried out some books and turned back."
Qin Mu pressed: "Can you take me there?"
The little fox said: "It's fierce inside, not lightly entered. I'd barely reached the door before I was so scared I—" It was ashamed and trailed off, having no doubt been frightened out of its wits.
Qin Mu grew excited. "Don't you want to see the dragon palace? There may even be a dragon king inside!"
"No, I don't."
Hu Ling'er thought it over, then blinked cunningly: "If Young Master Qin comes often and reads these scrolls aloud to me, I'll take you there. But I won't go in."
"Done!"
Qin Mu raised his palm; Hu Ling'er hesitated, then raised a furry paw to slap against his, and drained its broth to the last drop. Fox and boy stepped out and set off westward.
"Two days ago you went to a feast," Qin Mu recalled. "Whose?"
"It was a banquet thrown by the Spirit Monster King, who invited the great demons of every land. After I got the scrolls from the Dragon Palace of the Yong River, my wits sharpened and I became a great demon of small fame about here. Only I can't beat those brutes who trust in raw force, so among the great demons I rank last."
Hu Ling'er hopped onto a plantain leaf, roused its spells, and summoned a demon wind that bore the leaf aloft: "The Spirit Monster King has already cultivated a human body — formidable indeed. Every great demon for a hundred or a thousand li around, exotic beast lord or no, must obey his command."
The demon wind drove the leaf and carried the white fox into the air. Qin Mu sprang up after it, set his feet on the crest of the wind, and raced westward.
Meanwhile, two or three li from the hut, a hulking glutton of a beast was craning its neck about, muttering in bewilderment: "By my count Mu'er should have come long ago. This time I've disguised myself as an exotic beast, so he can't possibly know me... Strange — where has the little wretch gone? Hm? A fox's demon wind! His first time out hunting and already he's been coaxed off by some vixen!"
On the Yong River, a hundred li from the Village of Broken Elders, a gust of wind carried a plantain leaf a full yard long, and on it sat a white fox, while beside it trod a boy riding the wind.
"With my magic I cannot yet fly on my own," the fox called. "I can only raise a demon wind and let it drive the leaf aloft. Were I to run through the wind as you do, I'd surely fall... The dragon palace is just about here!"
Hu Ling'er let the demon wind sink, and the two drew slowly down toward the ground. At last fox and boy landed.
Qin Mu looked about. The Yong River looped around a great mountain, green waters embracing a green peak. Birds sang crisp through the valley, monkeys leaped among the woods, and great fish and river beasts swam below.
The white fox darted ahead with flying leaps, and Qin Mu followed at a fast trot — straight for the mountain girdled by the river. Could the dragon palace be built not in the river, but on the mountain?
After a while they reached the summit and saw a ruin — a Dragon King Temple. Before it stood a vast water-subduing stone, more than eight fathoms high, like a stele, borne on the back of a colossal stone tortoise. The tortoise's great mouth hung open, as if its long labors had left it gasping.
The temple was broken-walled and collapsed; not a single image stood. Surely it could no longer fend off the creeping dark.
He was still puzzling when Hu Ling'er vanished. Then her voice came: "Hurry in!"
Qin Mu followed the sound and saw the white fox standing in the stone tortoise's mouth, lifting a paw to beckon. The tortoise was huge — tall enough that a man could stand upright inside. Qin Mu followed the gamboling fox to its throat, where a deep staircase opened before them.
Qin Mu followed onward. The corridor grew broader and broader, until it seemed to plunge into the heart of the mountain. The walls were overgrown with damp, gleaming moss, and strange creatures drifted through the air like dandelion seeds, each dangling a tangle of thin tentacles by which it could fly.
The white fox sprang up, caught one in its jaws, and swallowed it, then went bounding along, eating one after another, as though they were quite delicious.