The Great King Ordered Me to Marry – Chapter 59

Speaking of the Fox and Tiger Returning Together to Lingkong Mountain

She couldn’t say exactly what was strange about it — as though chicken chunks had tumbled into duck broth, each within the other, inseparable as lacquer and glue.

It wasn’t unpleasant, exactly — just so cloyingly rich it set one’s thoughts wandering to places they shouldn’t.

            

Zhuoxue pinched the hem of her sleeve and sniffed for a good while, then pressed the tip of her nose to the inside of her wrist. The scent had seeped into her very skin — it hadn’t merely clung to her clothes.

In that instant, her mind was flooded by scene after scene of their cloud-and-rain passion.

She had left Longming’s pale shoulders and back covered in red scratches, so Longming had seized her hand and bitten each fingertip, one by one.

            

Longming had held her wrist in her teeth, and when she trembled beyond all composure, closed her jaws — not too hard, not too soft.

On one side, methodical stroking; on the other, biting that numbed her fingertips — how could she bear it? She’d cried out on the spot.

So the strange scent was simply the auras of two demons kneaded together — she just… wasn’t used to smelling it.

            

How could she possibly get used to it? It was far too embarrassing!

Longming followed behind, treading through the snow. At her words, her steps paused slightly. “What’s strange about it?”

Zhuoxue already understood perfectly well — how could she possibly say the word “strange” now?

            

After three days of carrying on, her brain had been scrambled to pieces. In an instant she flushed crimson and frantically rubbed and patted at herself, trying to disperse the scent.

But it had marinated right into her. It wouldn’t come off.

“I don’t know!”

            

After a brief silence, Zhuoxue blurted out her reply.

Since waking from her mating heat, only four words occasionally remained on her lips, which could be freely rearranged into two responses.

One was “I know,” and the other was “I don’t know.”

            

It seemed the best course was still fleeing¹. The snow-robed girl abruptly transformed into her fox form, leapt high, brought both front paws together as though chiseling ice, and dove headfirst into the snow with a whoosh.

In human form, this deep snow would bury her to the waist; as a fox, she could hide completely.

Snow blanketed the mountain. The fox had concealed her body, but not her tracks.

            

Wherever she went, the snow sank slightly, carving a winding, shallow trail.

That was the fox’s escape route.

The fox fled at top speed, no longer caring whether she’d crash headlong into a boulder — if she could shake Longming for even one step, that was one step gained.

            

How could she face anyone like this? Reeking of such intense white tiger scent — anyone who came close would guess exactly what had happened.

And yet she was the one who’d clung to Longming and refused to let go, the one who’d kept saying she wanted it. Those three days had been pleasurable enough, but once they passed, she only wanted to sleep forever on Buzhou Mountain and never wake up.

From afar, the silver-haired, red-eyed great demon shifted into her beast form and gave chase like a thunderbolt.

            

The white tiger’s charge was far louder than the fox’s flight. The fox could faintly hear the rustling behind her and knew Longming was coming.

The fox startled, and her nine drooping tails shot straight up, poking nine sharp points through the snow like a cluster of white lotuses blooming on the surface.

The white lotuses moved rapidly, far more visible than the sunken trail. The fox had hidden her head but forgotten her tail — the more she tried to hide, the more obvious she made herself².

            

The white tiger lunged, and her broad paw pinned the fox beneath the snow dead center.

The fox gave a muffled squeak, the sound trapped under the snow.

More rustling followed as the white tiger ducked her head, bit down on the fox’s scruff, and lifted her effortlessly.

            

The fox’s four limbs dangled, nine tails hanging limp, and for a moment she looked as though her soul had left her body.

The teeth didn’t actually pierce her skin — the fox only felt a tickle at her scruff, and all her strength drained away at once.

The magnificent white tiger gave a toss of her head, flinging the fox squarely onto her broad back, and spoke in a human voice: “Your cultivation has improved. The wind and snow don’t freeze your paws anymore.”

            

Who could have imagined that the fox who’d struggled to take a single step when she first entered the mountain would shed her mortal bones and be reborn in mere days?

Anyone else, even if they’d eaten the Blazing Heart Orchid’s blossom, could hardly have achieved half of what Zhuoxue had now.

This was human will, and also heaven’s design.

            

Longming fell silent for a moment. A century ago, when misfortunes had piled one upon another, she’d regarded her displacement into the Mortal Realm as a run of bad luck. Who could have known that once that seed was buried, every day since had been like beating a Jie drum to force the flowers open³.

And at last, heaven sent down its rare treasure, and she caught it in her teeth.

The fox lay on the tiger’s back and drew a deep breath of Buzhou Mountain’s frigid air — but that intense, lingering scent came rushing into her chest along with it. She was so flustered she didn’t even dare look down at the tiger’s fur.

            

Just close your eyes, Zhuoxue thought.

Zhuoxue’s paws weren’t just unfrozen — walking through the mountains felt like coming home. Wind and snow became veils, frozen earth became a bed.

She shifted back to human form, pinched the corner of a tiger ear, leaned close, and muttered: “I don’t want to go back to Lingkong Mountain. I don’t want to go back to Qiufeng Ridge, either.”

            

The white tiger suddenly spread her wings, sending the wind and snow swirling elsewhere. “Thinking of settling down here?”

Zhuoxue hadn’t quite thought of that.

“But we still need to return to Lingkong Mountain,” the white tiger said slowly. “There’s been turmoil in Kunlun Jade Capital. The Nightmare Tribe is bound to make a move. Buzhou Mountain isn’t safe anymore.”

            

Zhuoxue knew that perfectly well. She gave an “oh” and bent one finger, scratching everywhere — smoothing the tiger’s fur this way one moment, that way the next.

Pressed this close, her face was flushed crimson — surely from the warmth of the tiger’s pelt.

“Tianji must have sensed the broken restriction,” the white tiger said, folding her wings slightly and casting a sidelong glance at her back. “If he wants to turn the tables⁴, he has only one option.”

            

That would be to eradicate the threat once and for all.

“It’ll be safer back at Lingkong Mountain,” the white tiger continued.

Better to die of shame on the white tiger’s back, Zhuoxue thought, than to die at Tianji’s hands.

            

She sat up, but the moment she straightened her spine, she was struck by the memory of how she’d straddled Longming’s body, gasping until her breath nearly broke.

Longming’s arm had wrapped around her waist, five slender fingers kneading with excruciating slowness — a skiff nearly reaching shore, only to be swept back by the waves, arriving but never quite arriving.

The mating heat had passed, but a smoldering fire still lingered, unextinguished.

            

She grabbed the white tiger’s wings without a word and buried her head nearly to her chest. At least the frantic wind masked her ragged breathing.

When Zhuoxue didn’t answer, Longming asked softly as she spread her wings and rose into the air: “What are you thinking about?”

Zhuoxue thought that perhaps it wasn’t just the place beneath her that was like a marsh — her entire body was a marsh, and the slightest brush of Longming’s voice against it made it impossible to hide what lay beneath.

            

Beneath the moss, shimmering ripples; and also wet, soft mud.

But her gaze shifted, and she found herself staring at the white feathers beside her hand — where they joined the tiger’s body, the same powerful flesh, sinew, and bone beneath.

She mumbled haltingly: “Looks like a wing root.”

            

“Hm?” The white tiger thought she’d misheard.

Zhuoxue was getting a little hungry. “Wing roots are firmer than breast or thigh, more chewy, but still tender. Raw or roasted, they’re sweet and delicious.”

The white tiger surged skyward, startling the fox on her back into flattening herself and clutching the tiger’s pelt, not daring to move.

            

She galloped through the boundless heavens, soared among the mountain peaks, forded waters and climbed into the sky. After another dawn and dusk had passed, they could finally see the edge of the Cangqiong Mountain Realm.

Zhuoxue woke up bleary-eyed. If the white tiger hadn’t been shielding her with spiritual power, she’d have tumbled off to who knows where.

She spotted the familiar peak in the distance and said brightly: “Lingkong Mountain!”

            

Longming’s wings beat hard, her body swooping forward — and crashing straight into a barrier.

Zhuoxue, dazed by the barrier that had smacked her in the face, said in confusion: “There didn’t seem to be a barrier before. If there had been, I wouldn’t have been able to sneak onto the main peak, either.”

A fierce glint flashed through the white tiger’s red eyes — a look that seemed to ache for blood and flesh. She said coldly: “It seems we’ve had quite a few uninvited guests while we were away.”

            

The mountain realm was vast, its fertile fields stretching a thousand li. From afar, only the main peak of Lingkong Mountain was lit.

A hundred bright lanterns hung along both sides of the mountain path. The patrol demons were so drowsy their eyes had gone glassy, but not one dared to sleep.

The instant the white tiger pierced the barrier, every demon in the mountain sensed it. They roused and rose one after another. Chunxi and Qiu Ruo appeared together, joining the lesser demons to welcome them at the mountain gate.

            

The white tiger descended from the sky, landing in a spray of dust and earth. A terrifying pressure spread outward with the force to swallow mountains and rivers.

But this pressure was fundamentally different from what the demons knew. Its menace lay not in sharp ferocity but in its unbridled, reckless force — a power that recognized no constraint.

Zhuoxue watched helplessly as the demons’ faces twisted in terror, then buckled as though their legs had been crushed beneath them, dropping to the ground in unison.

            

It was too sudden. The demons went pale as death, each one looking as though their soul had fled. Even the leopard demon Chunxi, who routinely followed Longming across the realm, was shaken so badly she could barely hold herself together.

Since her breakthrough, Zhuoxue hadn’t actually felt much different. Aside from her body being lighter and more agile, and her lingtai and spiritual meridians being sturdier, there didn’t seem to be any other change.

She kept herself flat, unwilling to show her face — too embarrassed to be seen, not wanting the other demons to notice anything amiss.

            

In that position, she leaned to Longming’s ear and whispered: “Why don’t you rein in your pressure? Why so imposing?”

Longming had been about to fold her wings, but the fox was clinging to the wing roots so tightly that she paused slightly before saying: “It’s you.”

The fox pointed at her own nose. It took her a long moment to process. What did she mean, “it’s you”? Could it be her pressure?

            

It seemed to be true — if it were Longming’s, why would she be completely oblivious to it?

She’d been a demon for years, but this was the first time she’d possessed such overwhelming pressure — and she couldn’t even feel it herself, let alone know how to withdraw it.

Watching some of the lesser demons retch from sheer terror, Zhuoxue felt a pang of guilt and frantically poked the white tiger’s wing root: “Then teach me, quick!”

            

Her mind was a blank. Thinking back on the entire journey from Buzhou Mountain, she wanted to dig a hole right then and there.

They’d passed through countless mountain realms on the way back, many of them claimed by other lords. She’d been radiating pressure everywhere, running roughshod — how was that any different from an untrained puppy pissing everywhere?

She was a fox, a nine-tailed one at that — she couldn’t be lumped in with dogs.

            

She wondered whether the other demons might show up at her door someday, demanding an explanation.

Zhuoxue blamed Longming entirely, jabbing the tiger’s wing: “It’s all your fault! Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

“Your pressure carries your scent,” Longming said evenly. “I find it quite pleasant.”

            

Zhuoxue’s face flushed scarlet again. She was only grateful that the demons were still suffering under the pressure and probably couldn’t hear Longming’s words.

The fox muttered very quietly: “Stop smelling me. Haven’t you had enough after three days?”

Her words carried a thread of pique, but because her voice was as faint as a mosquito’s whine, they sounded like pillow talk.

            

The white tiger’s expression didn’t change. She only answered after a long pause: “That would be… not enough.”

Three days ago, the fox drunk on her mating heat had been utterly shameless; today she was equally mortified — and the white tiger had traded places with her.

The tiger demon who’d tasted peach and apricot rain, on the other hand, had shed her blush and restraint, and now spoke with a sharp tongue that gave no quarter.

            

“You—!” Zhuoxue’s eyes blazed bright as summer flowers. She blurted the words out in anger, then added in a small voice: “You’ll be the death of me.”

In a fit of fury, she fumed for a second.⁵

The demons of Lingkong Mountain were fairly well-traveled. The All-Demons Banquet had only just passed — how could they have forgotten the auras of the various demon lords so quickly?

            

What was strange was that this pressure didn’t resemble any of the demon lords. Instead, it was somewhat like that little fox who’d appeared from out of nowhere.

The fox’s cultivation level was plain for all to see. It would take centuries to reach such heights — even with heaven’s favor and extraordinary talent, it was utterly impossible.

So who could it be? It couldn’t be someone who’d burst onto the scene overnight.

            

Zhuoxue simply shifted back to fox form — she could control her spiritual power freely now, after all.

The silver-haired figure dissolved into a fox, nine fluffy tails trailing behind, swaying gently with her aura.

The tiger’s body was enormous, and her wings were so broad they seemed folded from clouds into fans, blotting out the sky. The demons couldn’t see what lay on her back.

            

And the fox was lying as flat as a blanket, a thin sliver of fur — making her even harder to make out.

“Don’t change back to human form. Shield me a bit,” Zhuoxue muttered.

Longming indulged her and simply taught her: “Suppress the aura of your demonic core, and you’ll block the pressure.”

            

Zhuoxue had been racking her brain for a way to hide the pressure — she’d been on the verge of reversing the spiritual power in her meridians. She followed the instruction at once and reined in the pressure completely.

The demons breathed a collective sigh of relief. Those who’d been retching lay on their backs with rolled-back eyes as though they’d narrowly escaped death. Some demons had been so terrified they’d lost control of their bladders like mortals and were hastily casting spells to hide the evidence.

The demons had survived a brush with death. The lesser demons didn’t dare look around, but Chunxi cast a bewildered glance at the tiger’s back.

            

Even Chunxi and Qiu Ruo rarely saw the Demon Lord’s true beast form. Now both demons couldn’t help wondering — the Demon Lord had returned to Lingkong Mountain, so why hadn’t she shifted back to human form?

Longming clearly preferred her human form — otherwise she wouldn’t have built that silver palace and jade halls, or ordered every demon in the mountain to walk in human shape.

Chunxi clasped her hands and said: “Welcome back, Demon Lord.”

            

The demons echoed in unison.

The white tiger said evenly: “Has there been anything unusual in the mountain recently?”

Qiu Ruo, the mountain’s head steward, answered: “Not long after you departed, demons began repeatedly forcing their way through the mist array with hostile intent. To protect the main peak, we had no choice but to erect this barrier.”

            

The white tiger nodded, her red eyes glancing back briefly, then spread her wings with a powerful beat and flew toward the bedchamber on the side peak.

The area around the bedchamber was dead silent. The white tiger landed and shifted into a tall, slender human form — cool and detached in appearance, yet with two soft fox paws draped over her shoulders.

The fox scrambled up onto Longming’s shoulders in two steps, her nine tails hanging stiff and straight like brooms, and demanded in a small voice: “How come your scent is stuck so fast? How do I wash it off?”

            

Longming’s steps paused slightly. She pushed the door open and said: “You can’t wash it off. It fades on its own — but the stronger your demonic power, the more deeply rooted the scent becomes.”

The fox leaned close and sniffed Longming’s neck. The bite marks there had already healed — but she remembered exactly which spot was which.

No, wait — why did she remember that?

            

The moment she pressed close, she caught her own scent and thought, Oh no — Longming’s been marinated too.

The white fox froze. After a long moment, she pretended to be busy, turning to lick her paws and tails.

Longming had been devouring her for a long time, and truly —

            

not a single taste had been wasted.

Inside the bedchamber, the fox tumbled and scrambled away, shifting to human form atop the wooden desk. Her bare feet sent the drum stool rolling.

Silver hair wound around her arm — strand after strand, all white, not a single black hair to be found.

            

She was sneaking a glance at Longming when she felt something scorching behind her — as though she’d been set on a crossbow — and sprang away in a flash.

Zhuoxue snapped: “Longming, your wretched paper’s burned me again!”

Without looking, she knew it was a letter from Kunyu. Who knew how many times Kunyu had written — and she just had to walk right into it.

            

Longming walked over, picked up the White Deer Paper, and studied it closely. She frowned: “Why would she be at Jueming Ridge? Could she have rescued Liangmeng?”

On the paper, each stroke materialized in sequence — and not a single one was straight.

「I found Liangmeng. She’s willing to stay within Wugou Stream. According to her, every last drop of Tearful Eye in the Huangliang Dream Market was discarded.」

            

「The Nightmare King’s intention is to purge internal enemies.」

She’d written the wrong character for “Nightmare.”

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