The Nine-Tailed Fox Cub Cries for His Dad, and the Whole Army Sees Red

Three-year-old Xiao Jiu knelt at the mouth of the cave, clutching his mother's hand as it slowly grew cold.

"Mother, don't we have nine lives? Open your eyes and look at me again..."

Jiu Niang did not answer. She gazed at the mountain ridge in the distance, burned black as charcoal, a smile on her lips.

She hadn't told Xiao Jiu that she had used three lives the year the enemy burned the mountain, two when the flood swept through the valley, and three more when she threw herself in front of bayonets to protect a handful of children. Now, with her last life, she had time to say only one thing:

"Go... find your father. The Fifth Army is on the other side of the mountain."

Clutching one white fox hair his mother had left him, Xiao Jiu walked barefoot into the army camp, hazy with smoke. He tugged at the soldiers' sleeves one by one and asked in a childish voice, "Are you my dad?"

No one knew that each time this child, who somehow always survived the hail of bullets, came back to life, he lost another tail beneath his clothes, and his memories of his mother faded a little more.

On the night his fifth tail disappeared, Xiao Jiu finally learned who his father was.

He tucked the fox hair back into the pocket close to his heart and said nothing.

His father was fighting a war. He couldn't be distracted.