Summary
On my very first day down from the mountains, I wandered straight into a cultivation sect (a community of practitioners who train in spiritual and supernatural arts, often seeking immortality).
While sheltering from the rain, I failed to tuck my tail away and swept the stone fox outside the Immortal Lord’s door to pieces. (“Immortal Lord” is a respectful title for a practitioner of spiritual arts, without specifying a particular rank.)
To keep him from finding out, I had no choice but to turn back into a fox, climb onto the stone plinth, and pretend to be the statue.
Sure enough, the Immortal Lord never exposed me.
He simply stroked me once before going out each day, and once more when he came home.
When it rained, he dried my tail. At night, he left me pastries. He wouldn’t let anyone else touch me, either.
After a whole month of being petted, I finally saved enough to replace the statue.
But I had barely left the mountain when the Immortal Lord came after me.
“The new stone fox looks exactly like the old one,” I explained, my head lowered.
The Immortal Lord asked only one thing.
“But will it wait for me to come home?”







