The Great King Ordered Me to Marry – Chapter 8
by Little PandaSpeaking of the Fox Being Cornered
Which one is my master?
Zhuoxue looked left and right, putting on the appearance of someone who couldn’t find her master.
Fortunately, once the demon lords emerged, the banquet was about to begin. The gathered demons crowded forward to flatter them, jamming the mountain path tighter than ever.
The small demon let out a cry and leaned to Zhuoxue’s ear: “I have to go. I haven’t finished today’s chores yet. Any later and they’ll dock my Spirit Stones1.”
Zhuoxue had no intention of keeping her. She’d have liked to send her ten li away. She waved: “You go ahead. I’ll keep looking — see where my master got squeezed off to.”
In truth, she wasn’t looking for any master at all. She didn’t even know which mountain realm these demon lords came from.
Just then, patrol small demons materialized from both sides, their expressions grim and cold, thoroughly scattering the jubilation.
Like snow water stirred into hot soup — one overflow and even the fire was snuffed out.
Only the demon lords who had been inside the hall knew about the intruder. The rest of the small demons, seeing this scene, were badly shaken — they thought this All-Demons Banquet was actually a Hongmen Banquet2.
A Hongmen Banquet wasn’t entirely baseless either. There were rumors in the demon world that Longming had long been dissatisfied with the Nightmare Tribe — perhaps because of the catastrophic missteps of the great war, which she couldn’t accept. Over the years, she had hosted banquets frequently, intending to win over great demons from all sides to retake Wugou Stream.
What “winning over” actually meant was open to endless speculation. It could be sincere recruitment, or it could be coercion through scheming.
The small demons harbored various thoughts, looking to their own masters. Only when they saw their masters’ expressions remain normal did they relax slightly.
The silver-haired demon lord draped in a black cloak stepped out from the hall. A mere few steps — no earth-shaking grandeur — yet the small demons were too terrified to even sweat.
After all, she was a tiger. Her majesty was innate — a single, impassive glance could cow the wind into silence and the rain out of its tears.
Longming’s gaze shifted, and where it fell, not a single small demon dared raise their head to meet her eyes.
The two crescent-shaped markings beneath her eyes — like the stripes of her true form — had tips sharp as lightning bolts that seemed to crackle before the assembled demons. Silence spoke louder than words.
The once-boisterous main peak of Lingkong Mountain was now so quiet that the stirring of wind was audible, and even the rustle of grass and trees was crystal clear.
Zhuoxue stole one glance at Longming, then didn’t dare raise her head again. She calculated how to slip through undetected and stay safely on Lingkong Mountain.
If she truly couldn’t stay, how was she going to escape?
“Don’t frighten them,” a demon teased.
Longming said coolly, “All who come are guests. But those who come uninvited…”
The demons’ hearts clenched. They immediately understood — most likely, someone had trespassed.
Zhuoxue practically buried her face in her chest, terrified of being exposed. She hadn’t even found herself a master yet.
Fortunately, there were many foreign demons on the mountain today. Longming couldn’t possibly trace it back to her right away.
“If they don’t come forward of their own accord, then don’t blame Lingkong Mountain for withholding its courtesy.” Longming lowered her gaze slightly, her chin buried in the fur collar of her cloak, making her eyes appear even sharper.
Zhuoxue was afraid, yes, but she couldn’t help marveling. How could any demon be so beautiful, so razor-sharp? Even the Bone-Dissolving Vines3 of Qiufeng Ridge paled in comparison.
She admitted it — Lan Hui was wildly ambitious, and she herself was too reckless. But she was already here. Turning back now would be like putting up a sign that says ‘no silver buried here’4.
The guests exchanged glances, then saw Lingkong Mountain’s patrol guards encircle the area, under orders to verify each master’s invitation one by one.
The small demons each sought out their masters. They also had to undergo magical verification of their true forms, lest the intruder had cast illusions to hide among them.
Seeing fewer and fewer demons around her, Zhuoxue grew anxious. She simply stepped back and stood with the mountain’s demon servants.
The demon servants stared, bewildered as to when a fox had appeared among their ranks.
Then black wind struck, swirling sand and stone in all directions.
The black wind abruptly became the leopard woman Chunxi. In her hand she gripped a blood-soaked severed finger — who knew whose it was.
The moment the severed finger appeared, the demons dared not make a sound.
Chunxi cradled the severed finger in her palms, stepped forward, and knelt before Longming with head bowed. She said in a low voice, “Reporting to my lord — the maze array at the foot of the mountain has been destroyed, and Ghost’s Dread5 has been scattered everywhere. This subordinate happened upon the intruder’s trail and followed it. I intended to capture them alive, but that demon’s movement skills were formidable — they chose to sever a finger rather than be taken.”
Ghost’s Dread — now that was a nasty piece of work.
This herb could attract bewildered hungry ghosts. With the mountain’s miasmic barrier dispelled, the hungry ghosts could easily force their way in and turn the All-Demons Banquet into a complete mess.
Zhuoxue thought to herself: impressive tactics. This looked like the work of an enemy.
Since Longming was the Old Master of Wugou Stream, she surely had no shortage of enemies. Who could guess which one?
All the better. The demon with the severed finger wanted to disrupt the All-Demons Banquet — the great demons could go after that one. No need to kill the fox to warn the monkey6.
Zhuoxue let out a breath of relief, then stared at the blood-soaked severed finger and suddenly shivered.
She had meant to show Lan Hui some red — but she was the one who saw red first.
But red was not the same as red. The difference was that the former was festive, the latter gruesome.
“This is the pig demon’s severed finger.” Chunxi raised her arms.
Severing this finger would cost at least a jiazi7‘s worth of cultivation to repair. An ordinary demon might accumulate only that much in an entire lifetime.
“And they scattered Ghost’s Dread everywhere?” Longming took the severed finger from Chunxi’s palm.
She examined it closely, then clenched her fist as if to grind it to dust.
Zhuoxue watched in disbelief. The rumors weren’t unfounded after all. The demon lord of Cangqiong Mountain Realm was said to eat people without spitting out the bones8 because she…
…was destroying the evidence.
But the thought had barely surfaced before Zhuoxue felt a pang of disappointment.
Because the demon lord hadn’t destroyed the evidence as she’d imagined. Those slender, powerful fingers slowly opened, and the broken bone was still in her palm.
The difference was — the human finger had become a pig’s toe.
Longming had used her demonic energy to suppress it, forcibly making the pig demon’s severed toe reveal its true form.
“A pig demon. Whose pig demon dares to run wild on Lingkong Mountain?” a great demon sneered.
Longming looked thoughtful. She brought the severed toe to her nose and sniffed. Who knew what peculiar scent she detected. After a moment, she returned it to Chunxi’s palm and said, “Keep searching. The banquet continues. Hold onto this for now — it will be useful later.”
“Understood.” Chunxi acknowledged.
Zhuoxue thought she’d been cleared of suspicion. She turned to leave at her leisure — but the one among the demon servants who appeared to be their head steward called out to her, catching her dead to rights.
“How come I’ve never seen you before? Which peak were you working on?” the head steward asked, puzzled.
His voice wasn’t quiet — and with the mountain so eerily silent, the question drew every demon’s gaze.
Zhuoxue felt ants crawling up her back. Her thoughts raced through a thousand ways to die — all of them wrongful deaths.
“I…”
“You’re not a demon of Lingkong Mountain.” The head steward saw through her outright. “Who are you?”
Zhuoxue thought of the severed finger from moments ago and looked tremblingly toward the tiger demon. Her beautiful pupils shrank, like crystal flowers in a snowstorm — fragile, perhaps, but not soft and powerless.
It was no wonder the head steward had seen through her at a glance. Such extraordinary beauty was rare among demons — anyone who’d seen it wouldn’t forget.
She didn’t look like a small demon with formidable power — nothing to fear. And she was a fox, not a pig — not necessarily allied with the intruder.
The great demons watched with leisurely composure, as if enjoying a spectacle.
Longming was watching her too, but with a quiet gaze. Behind the stillness lurked something like a predator biding its time — so cold, so certain of its prey.
Zhuoxue thought, I’m done for. She gritted her teeth and shouted “Great King!” — and what a shout it was, loud enough to split the heavens.
The demons were all bewildered. The fox’s shout was like a victim pounding the drum of grievance at a mortal magistrate’s gate.
A thief crying “thief” wasn’t uncommon. But this fox shouted it with far too much righteous conviction.
The scrutiny in Longming’s eyes vanished. She laughed without apparent reason and beckoned. “Don’t worry, everyone. She’s my newly hired personal demon servant. Fox, come.”
Come?
Come where? Come for what?
Zhuoxue was riding a tiger she couldn’t dismount9. She desperately wanted to turn and flee, but she had no choice but to walk toward the tiger demon. The tiger demon entered the hall, and she could only follow.
Inside the hall, the tiger demon took her seat on the bone throne. The pressure radiating from her was impossible to contain — like a flood bursting a dam, it surged grandly to swallow every corner of the hall.
Zhuoxue’s knees gave way. Even her soul took the impact. For a moment, her consciousness drifted far beyond.
“Closer.” Longming beckoned.
Zhuoxue barely came back to herself, gasping as she clutched her chest. She’d caught her chest, but her skull was still throbbing. How was she supposed to get closer?
The fox woman in human form was drenched in cold sweat. She’d bitten her lips red, but couldn’t take a single step. This was worse than being punished by Lan Hui.
At least Lan Hui’s disciplinary ruler didn’t make her feel like she was dying.
“You can’t even take a single step.” Longming’s tone was unreadable — it was unclear whether she was surprised or regretful.
As her words fell, the pressure receded slightly.
Zhuoxue gasped for breath. Her sweat-soaked clothes clung to her back, miserably uncomfortable. Her face, pale for a moment, flushed faintly — she looked like someone who’d just survived a catastrophe.
Her eyes flicked sideways. She cast one longing glance behind her, then walked with extreme reluctance to the bone throne. No matter how much she loved to play the contrarian on a normal day, she didn’t dare act freely now.
The hall door creaked. This was shutting the door to beat the dog10!
That’s it — I’m done for. Might as well do as I please one last time.
The fox transformed back to her true form and tried to leap out. But her big tail had barely swung free before it was grabbed firmly, yanking her right back.
Thud.
The door closed.
The fluffy ball of fur hit the ground. It looked like a patch of sky-fallen snow, but it landed with a sound.
The fox yelped in pain, heart in her throat. She scrambled forward with all four paws clawing at once, but didn’t make it even one chi11. She only left the stone floor beneath her covered in scratch marks.
Longming held her with one hand, without the slightest effort.
Her claws aching from the scrabbling, Zhuoxue gave up. Her whole body trembled as she summoned her courage: “Did you see through me from the start? Then why didn’t you catch me earlier? Why toy with me?”
“The one I intended to catch was someone else,” Longming said.
“Then why catch me now!” Zhuoxue couldn’t catch her breath.
A long silence.
“You seem somewhat familiar.” Longming tightened her grip on the fox’s tail.
Zhuoxue hurried to explain: “I’ve never set foot on Lingkong Mountain before, and I’ve never met you, my lord! This is my first time here — I mean absolutely no harm!”
“I mean, you somewhat resemble…” Longming lowered her gaze, stroking the fox fur beneath her fingers. In her quiet tone lay infinite nostalgia. “An old friend of mine.”
The fox’s bad ear acted up again. “I resemble what — ten thousand people?”
Footnotes
- A standard spiritual mineral used as currency and a cultivation resource among cultivators and demons.
- A treacherous feast designed to lure and eliminate enemies, from the historical 'Feast at Hongmen' (206 BCE) where Xiang Yu plotted to kill Liu Bang.
- A type of vine found at Qiufeng Ridge, described as beautiful but dangerous.
- From a Chinese folktale: a man buried 300 taels of silver and posted a sign reading 'No 300 taels of silver here' — thereby revealing exactly what he tried to hide.
- A potent herb capable of attracting bewildered hungry ghosts, used here as a sabotage weapon.
- A twist on the Chinese idiom 'kill the chicken to warn the monkey' — making an example of one to intimidate others. 'Fox' replaces 'chicken' because Zhuoxue is a fox.
- A traditional Chinese time unit representing a full 60-year cycle, often used to denote a lifetime's worth of accumulated cultivation.
- A Chinese idiom meaning to be utterly ruthless — to destroy someone so completely that no trace remains, like consuming a person entirely without even spitting out the bones.
- A Chinese idiom: 'riding a tiger and unable to get off' — trapped in a situation where one cannot back down without consequences.
- A Chinese idiom: 'shut the door and beat the dog' — to trap someone inside before dealing with them.
- A traditional Chinese unit of length, approximately one-third of a meter.
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