Chapter 2: A Life of Fractured Shadows

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Ansheng was still fiercely showing off his meal, paying no attention to the new words that suddenly appeared in his mind.

Actually, Ansheng was already quite accustomed to this phenomenon. When he first crossed over into Fox Hollow, he had noticed that he was somewhat different from ordinary foxes.

Occasionally, bits of text would pop into his head. These usually consisted of the wish or request along with the name of the person making it, accompanied by a note indicating that the wish had been fulfilled.

If Ansheng helped someone realize their wish, he would gain a strange kind of “wish power.”

What this wish power was for, Ansheng didn’t really know—only that it could be applied to his body or his mind.

When applied to his body, the wish power would strengthen his physique, sometimes causing a peculiar itching sensation near his rear.

When applied to his mind, Ansheng’s head would feel exceptionally clear and sharp.

He could even recall that in his previous life, when he was born, his own mother had looked at him with utter disdain.

In his past life, Ansheng was fond of reading novels, and whenever he came across words like “wish” or “wish power,” he immediately felt as if he had become some kind of wild mountain deity.

That wish power—it was probably just a different form of spiritual energy or incense power.

At first, when this thought occurred to him, Ansheng was quite anxious. He could accept crossing over, but he had no desire to end up in a chaotic world overrun by gods and demons.

Being reborn as a fox was already unlucky enough; if he ended up in a demon-ridden world, wouldn’t that just make his already precarious life even more miserable?

Fortunately, after wandering the forest for three months, he saw a helicopter painted with a red cross buzzing overhead.

Ansheng abandoned his previous fierce determination to train and decisively left the forest, planning to make a name for himself in the human world above the clouds.

...

“Hic—”

After eating and drinking his fill, Ansheng hopped straight onto the sofa without ceremony and tapped open the tablet computer he used for online classes, which lay there.

He planned to log into his new QQ account and post one or two suns before calling it a day.

When he first got the tablet, Ansheng had actually tried to log into all his social media accounts from his previous life.

But sadly, he couldn’t access a single one.

Even after registering a new QQ account, he tried adding his old QQ account as a friend.

However, the profile page was clearly a placeholder account full of images that could get permanently banned if exposed.

He had also checked the cloud storage linked to that account; although the account existed, the contents inside didn’t match.

Thinking about this, Ansheng felt deeply sorrowful.

If he could log into his previous life’s account, his fox life would feel somewhat complete.

Because in his past life, Ansheng had three bank cards.

One was a corporate account, one was for daily expenses, and the other was a fixed deposit card with online banking, hidden in a secret compartment in his desk.

There were hundreds of thousands in savings, but who knew which bastard would end up with them after he died.

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“If I’d known I’d turn into a fox, I shouldn’t have bought a car, a house, or insurance, or put money in fixed deposits…”

“Back then, I should have gone all-in on the ‘Top up 10,000, get 10,000 free’ foot massage promotion in Foot City—that way, doubling my wealth would have been a breeze…”

Scrolling through the app “Music Notes,” Ansheng saw a cybernetic bodhisattva showing off a hot dance. He couldn’t help but remember the money he hadn’t spent in his previous life, and his heart ached faintly.

“Yip—”

Ansheng lay on the chair and whimpered once, then painfully swiped away the cyber bodhisattva’s live stream and started browsing videos of foxes acting coquettishly that his pet owner had recently watched.

Ansheng was preparing to seriously study their moves, to blind Qingshui with a cloth over his eyes and from then on enjoy a permanent golden rice bowl experience card.

He felt no shame about the fox’s freeloading behavior—in fact, he found it quite appealing.

It was a fresh feeling he had never experienced in his previous life.

Of course, if it meant eating dog food himself, Ansheng would politely refuse.

Just as succubi don’t consume cursed or sterile food, a dignified male fox spirit naturally wouldn’t eat fast-sealed dog food.

“All right, I’ll stop the videos here for today. Let’s see if there’s anyone favored today!”

Ansheng deleted his browsing history and glanced through his QQ account. Finding no risqué pictures in the group chats, he felt greatly disappointed and cleared the login traces from the account.

The members these days were getting worse with each generation, chatting all day about how to make money but without any real prospects.

If they truly wanted to make money, couldn’t they learn from him?

His fluffy fox tail perked up, wrapping around the legs of the lady in black stockings, rubbing once around her, pretending to be a living Buddha in flesh.

Ansheng plugged the charging cable into the tablet, leapt up, squeezed through the stainless steel security bars on the windowsill, and came out into the bare little courtyard in front of the self-built house.

He was tired of the struggles of his past life; reborn as a fox, he planned to relax for a while before doing anything else.

Hard work was impossible—he didn’t even know who had benefited from the fortune he fought for in his previous life.

But Ansheng was very interested in the “wish power.”

Maybe, if he increased it to a certain degree, he could really attain immortality and return to the concrete jungles of the city with style.

Although being a second-tier fox in the country wasn’t bad, lacking an ID card and the ability to speak the language was very inconvenient.

“Today, Qingshui’s wishes are to guard the house, block the dog holes, and fix the door lock…”

Ansheng held his breath and sank his consciousness into his mind, where a list of text appeared.

At the top of the list were various “wishes.”

However, most of these wishes were utterly ridiculous.

For example, one elementary school student wished Ansheng to blow up the youth center so he wouldn’t need to attend health and physical education classes there every day.

Another was a local who claimed to have consulted the sea goddess Mazu and said he was going to take a big plane out to sea. Then he wished Ansheng to help him claim territory in Eagle Country to grow vegetables.

Grow vegetables? That’s not growing vegetables! I don’t even want to expose you!

Ansheng ignored all these bizarre wishes. For now, he was enjoying the good food and drink in Changxi Town.

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He didn’t want to cross oceans and fight bloody street battles at night with a Chicago typewriter machine just over some petty wish.

I am a dignified second-tier fox of Xia Country—asking me to join a firefight in Eagle Country is just too much.

Not to mention second-tier, even the first-tier panda boss couldn’t stop a 7.62mm bullet.

Animal protection laws from Xia Country didn’t apply in Eagle Country!

Aside from the strange wishes, most people were actually asking “Fortune Fox Master” for matchmaking.

But the foxes Ansheng saw were all dumbfounded.

Still asking for matchmaking? In my previous life, I had a car and a house and was still single. Now I don’t even have an ID card!

Wishing for romance from a twice-single dog like me? You’re dreaming.

“The door lock’s broken. Let me see what’s wrong!”

Ansheng came to the courtyard gate, stood up, and pushed open the slightly ajar big iron gate. Then he pulled out a rattan chair from the yard and, as a full fox, jumped onto it to study the lock.

“Hmm… seems like the lock cylinder won’t bounce back. Probably hasn’t been used for too long,” he murmured.

“Qingshui apparently came back to her hometown during summer vacation to study tea planting. Usually, her family lives in the city.”

After tinkering with the mechanical lock for a while, Ansheng roughly understood the problem. Mechanical locks don’t usually break easily.

If there’s a problem, it’s usually just lubrication or rust removal; if it really breaks, then it’s beyond repair.

“But where is a fox like me supposed to get a can of WD-40 to spray on this?”

Ansheng muttered bitterly, staring at the lock.

The big house contained nothing besides Qingshui’s change of clothes and an electric scooter.

There wasn’t even a refrigerator.

If it weren’t for Qingshui preparing food for herself, there might not even be a gas cylinder.

Because for Qingshui, two meals a day were basically always eaten at the neighbor’s fast-food restaurant.

Ten yuan for two meat dishes and two vegetables—tasty and affordable.

Just as Ansheng was thinking about borrowing some repair tools from next door,

Across the asphalt road outside the self-built house, a middle-aged man wearing a straw hat looked at Ansheng with a face full of exasperation.

Ansheng noticed him and immediately smiled, lifting his chin to greet him.

“Yip—”

Village chief of Changxi, Chen Fengshui: “...”