Bearing the Moon

On the Continent of All Spirits, one's lineage determines one's future. Fox spirits are common, but Moonbound Foxes are exceedingly rare, kept under control by only a few families. That is why the Lu family was powerful, and why it was doomed. On the night the family was wiped out, the moon had yet to wake. A child was pushed into a secret passage, leaving a ring of burn marks on his wrist. On the day of the spirit test, the mark burned hot. The celestial phenomenon raised everyone's hopes, only for a creature labeled "Low Potential, Unrecorded Species" to crush them. Lu Chengyue carried it off the platform and heard the words "cold stove." In a ruined temple, the little beast rolled up the dry rations and swallowed every last crumb. He laughed and scolded it, naming it Tun Tun. Tun Tun was first a glutton, then a blade. In the Shattered-Tooth Zone, it clamped down and refused to let go. Ink patterns flowed back, and it spat out a bizarre technique the Spirit Appraisal Institute couldn't classify. Lu Chengyue held it back from swallowing anything else in public. It had to survive, but it also had to stay hidden. He Wenchuan despised empty fame and understood the moon's shadow. A bowl of wine sealed their master-disciple bond; half a page of a tattered manual read: "Only by inheriting it can you emerge." The moon slept in the Contract Sea. The boy climbed up from the cold stove. The lineage bureau's spies were already sending out the contract appraisal records. He refused to believe a bestiary could determine his whole life. He would live until the day he could ride that moon.