The red moon hangs overhead. A fox is taking a bride.
Bai Li, a fox from Qingqiu, awaits her groom.
His eyes are dark with bruising, his pupils are ink-black and lifeless, and his neck looks as if it has been sewn together. Countless nails have been driven into the top of his head.
His head tilted to one side, he stared straight at Bai Li. After a long while, he even gave her a bizarre smile.
She did not mind at all. Holding her groom with a touch of tenderness, she spoke with a lovesick ache in her voice. “Just look at you. You’re so thin, there’s nothing left but bones.”
Bai Li is the Fox King’s daughter. Her parents both died when she was young, entrusting her to the care of the demons they trusted most in their final moments.
At first, those demons looked after her out of respect for their old ties to the Fox King. But as time went by, their warmth toward her faded. All that remained were cold stares, punches, and kicks.
Unable to take it anymore, she ran away to the human world. By chance, she saved a young boy. It was her first time seeing a human, and she was frightened, so she bared her teeth at him.
Instead of getting angry, the boy reached out and gently touched her already-injured leg. His eyes glistened with tears. “You’re hurt. Don’t move around. Let me take you back so we can have a look, all right?”
She did not trust him and turned to run, but the boy scooped her up.
She struggled with all her might, then realized she could not summon her spiritual power at all.
Later, she learned that the boy was named Gu Sanyue, the least favored legitimate son of the Gu family. Bai Li had planned to leave once her injuries healed, but whenever she saw that he was suffering the same fate as her, her heart softened.
So she stayed with him for four whole years.
On the anniversary of her parents’ deaths, she said goodbye to him for a while. He told her to come back soon. She smiled and nodded, then left without looking back.
As she went, she felt a dull ache in her chest.
When she returned, she discovered that the Gu family had been wiped out.
Bai Li searched through a mountain of corpses until she found the boy’s body. Holding his cold form, she wept with all her heart.
She searched through ancient texts and waited until her hair had turned white before finally finding a way to bring him back.
She used her own blood as the catalyst, soul-locking nails as the primary ingredient, and soul-seeking needles as the secondary one, all to revive a single person.
The revived Gu Sanyue had no consciousness. He was like a puppet.
So what? As long as he could stay by her side, that was enough.
Sweet romance, happy ending.
The tropes are a little old-fashioned. Not sure when I’ll start writing it.
This blurb was written on 2023.11.14 (screenshot saved). First published on Jinjiang Literature City.
Theme: Love yourself first, then love others
