The Great King Ordered Me to Marry – Chapter 3
by Little PandaSpeaking of Demons, They Also Have Past and Present Lives
The crevice at the foot of the mountain had no light to begin with, and this cave, deep underground, was even more like a bottomless abyss.
Fortunately, Zhuoxue was already used to it — she crossed her legs and promptly grew drowsy.
Face the wall and reflect on her faults? She had no faults to reflect on, so she refused to reflect.
From somewhere distant came the sound of a pebble hitting the ground, rolling to a stop at the fox’s feet.
Zhuoxue had been about to drift off. Her eyes snapped open, and she kicked the pebble back. “Shoo, shoo. Whichever little demon that is, stop bothering me.”
The pebble rolled a few times and went still, as if someone had pressed it down.
From the shadows, a voice suddenly rang out, quavering. “Little fox, are you there?”
Two fuzzy ears perked up from Zhuoxue’s black hair, the annoyance in her eyes vanishing. She lowered her voice. “Of course I’m here — were you kicking stones at a ghost?”
From the darkness rolled something wrapped in a lotus leaf, fragrant and still warm.
She snatched it up and expertly unwrapped the lotus leaf. Inside was sticky rice chicken, the meat tender and flavorful, even the rice having absorbed the taste.
“I heard you got punished with confinement again by the Mountain Lord, so I went to town and bought this for you. Eat carefully, don’t burn yourself,” Lishu said cautiously from the darkness.
Zhuoxue pushed aside the sticky rice and went straight for the chicken inside, mumbling with her mouth full, “Little Bird Sister still treats me best. Auntie Lan hit me with the disciplinary ruler again — it hurts right in my chest!”
Lishu didn’t dare show herself, nor did she dare light a lamp. Terrified of being punished by Lan Hui, she quickly hushed her and whispered, “Keep your voice down. Don’t let the Mountain Lord hear you.”
Zhuoxue hummed contentedly as she ate, having completely forgotten how miserable she’d been just moments ago.
Lishu sighed. “The Mountain Lord is also doing it for your own good. You’re the youngest of all the demons on this mountain. You don’t understand the dangers out there. If you run into ordinary mortals who don’t know magic, that’s fine — but if you meet those with malicious hearts, they might skin you alive for your fox pelt. And worse, they could dig out your demonic core1!”
Zhuoxue spat out a lotus leaf she’d accidentally chewed and pouted. “It’s not like I have no guard against others. Besides, why is it that every demon on this mountain can come and go freely, but I’m the only one who can’t?”
Lishu couldn’t really answer that. All the demons had witnessed Lan Hui’s doting on the fox, but not one of them envied it — because the strictness interwoven with that indulgence couldn’t be summed up in a few words.
“Perhaps it’s because you were raised by the Mountain Lord herself,” Lishu said hesitantly, a thread of helplessness in her words.
That was true. Eighteen years ago, Lan Hui had found a swaddled infant at the foot of Qiufeng Ridge.
The baby in its wooden tub had drifted down the river. They’d assumed it was a mortal child — who could have guessed the swaddling held a fox?
This fox was born a demon. Freshly delivered, she couldn’t even open her eyes, just a fuzzy ball like a little pup.
The demons on the mountain were overjoyed and fought over what to name the little fox. They came up with things like Maomao and Baibai — fortunately, none of these names pleased Lan Hui.
“Who else would have the heart to beat the child they raised themselves? Only she’s different.” Zhuoxue spat out another bit of lotus leaf.
Lishu fell silent. She wouldn’t dare say even half a word against the Mountain Lord. If she slipped up and the Mountain Lord overheard, she didn’t know which mountain she’d have to move to next.
Qiufeng Ridge was still the best. Qiufeng Ridge had no quarrels with the world. The little demons on the mountain didn’t have to work, had no ambition to speak of, and just muddled through their days.
After finishing the sticky rice chicken, Zhuoxue still had that blurry white tiger on her mind. She inched furtively toward the cave exit and lowered her voice. “Little Bird Sister, do you know about past and present lives? They say all living beings have three lives — that can’t be false, right?”
“How would I know?” Lishu hesitated. “But there are rumors among the people. Some say certain children can speak fluently right after birth, and even recount events that happened hundreds of li2 away. They can name their hometown and who’s in their family — as though they never finished their Meng Po soup3, so they still remember things from their past lives after reincarnation.”
“What about demons? Do demons have three lives too?” Zhuoxue was genuinely curious.
Lishu shared everything she knew. “Demons are naturally part of the cycle of reincarnation too, but their three reincarnations aren’t all the same. In these three lives, one might be an immortal or a demon, one might be a flower or a blade of grass, and one might be a mortal human or a beast of burden.”
“Hiss, a beast.” Zhuoxue thought it over — she was already half a beast herself right now. Her past life couldn’t possibly have been a beast too, could it?
Could it be that in her previous life, she was that white tiger?
No way. A tiger demon’s piss alone would probably be enough to scare her.
Zhuoxue’s eyes went wide, unable to believe it.
“Why are you asking about this all of a sudden?” Lishu asked.
Zhuoxue didn’t answer. Instead, she covered her mouth and asked, “Little Bird Sister, do you know how to find your past life?”
“What would you look for it for? It’s not like you can go back,” Lishu said, puzzled.
“I dreamed of a city, and I’m a bit curious,” Zhuoxue said evasively, afraid Lishu would think she’d lost her mind.
Lishu stared at her in disbelief. “A dream you had at night — how could that be real!”
“It was a daydream,” Zhuoxue added.
“Then it’s even less reliable. You probably imagined it,” Lishu said, shaking her head.
“But the city in that dream was so real — it felt like I’d actually been there.” Zhuoxue grew anxious.
“Have you dreamed of it before?” Lishu asked patiently.
“No,” Zhuoxue said.
Lishu smiled. “If you hadn’t finished your Meng Po soup either, you’d have dreamed of it long ago. Why wait until now?”
Zhuoxue refused to drop it. She asked instead, “Let’s say I made it all up. Then how does reincarnation actually work?”
“I’ve heard that after death, souls wander to the Winding Place4, and from there they go to the Nine Springs Bureau5, where the souls are reborn.” Lishu didn’t dare say more. Her footsteps rustled as she backed away. “I have to go, or the Mountain Lord will catch me, and then I won’t even be able to bring you sticky rice chicken.”
“Bring a couple more packets tomorrow. This wasn’t even two bites for me — barely enough to get stuck in my teeth,” Zhuoxue said, licking the corners of her mouth with lingering satisfaction.
“Small body, big appetite. If you ever left Qiufeng Ridge, I don’t know who’d be able to feed you,” came a sigh from afar. “No wonder the Mountain Lord won’t let you wander.”
But when tomorrow came, Lishu brought the sticky rice chicken as promised — and not so much as a single fox hair could be found in the cave.
The fox had slipped down the mountain again. She figured that during these few days of confinement, Lan Hui surely wouldn’t come looking for her specially, so if she sneaked away and Lishu kept her mouth shut, she wouldn’t be punished.
As it happened, a household in town was holding a funeral, and the mourning music carried through the entire town.
The town was small to begin with — the same familiar faces coming and going, everyone dressed in white shirts and black robes to pay their respects, the sounds of mourning rising and falling.
The deceased was from a wealthy and prominent family in town — apparently a great philanthropist, too. Even beggars came to pay their respects, and no one at the estate turned them away.
The fox coming down from the mountain transformed in a flash — a white robe, eyes cast down, and she followed the mourners right through the gate, intent on finding the soul of the deceased.
The coffin was displayed in the courtyard, surrounded by kneeling mourners. Paper ash drifted everywhere — but not a soul in sight.
Zhuoxue observed from a distance for a while, then figured the departed soul might be elsewhere in the house and wandered off on her own.
Fortunately, demons had the power of transformation. She turned into a wisp of smoke and drifted slowly through a long corridor. As she passed the garden, she caught a whiff of cold, ghostly energy.
Found it!
Following the ghostly energy, Zhuoxue slipped through a crack in a door and easily found the old ghost standing before an altar.
The old woman was murmuring under her breath, though it was impossible to tell what she was saying. The strange thing was that what sat on the altar wasn’t a common deity or Buddha — it was a portrait of a beautiful woman.
In all her dozen or so years alive, Zhuoxue had either whiled away her days on Qiufeng Ridge or gone looking for fun in town. She’d never seen anyone like this.
The painting was truly exquisite — though whether it captured even seven-tenths of the subject’s magnificence was hard to say.
The beauty had silver hair cascading over her shoulders, with a few strands of black hidden within. She looked as though her hair had turned white from grief, yet her face showed not the slightest trace of melancholy.
She wore a black cloak with a white fur collar, and beneath it, a silk skirt patterned with ink-wash mountains. Elegant, yet unapproachable — because…
Her gaze was sharp and composed. Below each eye was a crescent-shaped black marking, extending downward all the way to the ends of her brow bones, as if cradling her eyes.
These eyes were as cold as a bright lamp on a snowy night, steeped in frost, seeing through everything.
Who was this?
So beautiful, and so commanding.
Zhuoxue saw the old woman was still murmuring, so she gave a muffled cough. The old woman’s ghostly form flickered — she nearly scattered from fright.
The old woman turned around in terror and asked tentatively, “You… you can see me?”
Zhuoxue stood with her hands behind her back. “I just died too. I wanted to ask you for directions.”
Footnotes
- In Chinese fantasy, a demon's core of power; it can be forcibly extracted by enemies, which kills or severely weakens the demon. Comparable to a cultivated 'golden core' in Daoist tradition.
- A traditional Chinese unit of distance; one li is approximately half a kilometer, or about a third of a mile.
- In Chinese afterlife mythology, Meng Po's soup makes souls forget their past lives before reincarnation. 'Not finishing the soup' means retaining memories of a previous existence.
- Literally 'Winding Place'; inspired by Chinese afterlife geography, where souls must traverse winding paths before reaching the underworld courts for reincarnation.
- Nine Springs is a classical Chinese term for the underworld; here it designates the afterlife bureau where souls undergo reincarnation.
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