Chapter 113 — The White Fox
The Sword Questions the Heavens · Page 4 of 7
"Ten years ago, I and... two friends heard that a demon was haunting the Black Stone Cave beneath Xiaochi Town, and went to investigate." Ming Li's face was calm as water as he spoke lightly of the past. For a time the vast space was utterly still, save for his voice drifting softly, and now and then the sounds of Little Grey at play nearby.
"...In the end, seeing that nothing could be done, and that the three-tailed demon fox was dead as well, it resolved to take its own life. Before it died, it bound the Mystic Fire Mirror to my hand." Ming Li reached into his robe and drew out the Mystic Fire Mirror. There, in the ghostly blue light all around, the ancient flame totem seemed to burn ever so faintly.
The white fox stared blankly at the Mystic Fire Mirror, as though entranced. How long passed, one could not tell. Then it said softly: "Little Six was my son!"
The surrounding silence seemed like death itself. Ming Li looked at this sorrowing white fox before him, and suddenly felt as though he could not breathe.
The white fox silhouette engraved deep in his heart, fallen into the searing magma, was clear as though before his eyes.
Ten years of time, and yet it seemed only yesterday.
What was it that had quietly changed—your heart and mine?
"I too had a hand in your son's death," Ming Li said calmly. "If you ever have the chance, come and kill me."
The white fox raised its head and looked at him long and deep. Somehow Ming Li suddenly felt that the white fox was smiling—a smile that looked back across a thousand years of vicissitude, a faint and sorrowful smile.
"If it could give you the Mystic Fire Mirror—I am its mother; do you think I do not know what was in its heart then?" the white fox said faintly, and slowly turned its body. The chain locked at its waist gave out a harsh sound, holding it fast.
Ming Li watched the white fox slowly walk toward the depths of the darkness, when suddenly a nameless impulse seized him and the words escaped him: "Is there anything I can do for you?"
The white fox's body halted, but it did not turn around. Only its voice suddenly carried a faint, barely suppressed agitation: "You would help me?"
Ming Li did not speak, did not answer.
The white fox slowly turned back. At this moment, all at once, its deep black eyes seemed to kindle with a strange light.
"Three hundred years ago, our fox-demon clan seized the Mystic Fire Mirror from the Burning Cloud Valley, but we were all but wiped out. Apart from Little Six, who barely escaped, I alone survived, imprisoned here in the Mystic Fire Altar, tormented by the Mystic Fire Crucible. My cultivation is held utterly in check by this Crucible and by the Eight Fierce Mystic Fire Formation beneath the altar, and I suffer day and night."
It gave a cold laugh. "If the Burning Cloud Valley had not wanted to learn from my lips where the Mystic Fire Mirror was, they would have killed me long ago."
Ming Li nodded silently.
The white fox glanced at him. "The Mystic Fire Crucible is a strange thing of heaven and earth, rigid and fierce, blazing hot. Once it is sealed, only one who knows the secret incantation of the Burning Cloud Valley can open it. But apart from that, the Mystic Fire Mirror alone can open it as well!"
Ming Li's gaze slowly turned to the Mystic Fire Mirror in his hand. A faint, gentle warmth came forth from the ancient flame totem upon it.
The white fox's voice went on ahead of him: "The Mystic Fire Mirror is the essence of all fire, a heaven-opening divine artifact. You need only go to the stone wall at the far end behind me, where there is a cylindrical stone platform. The Mystic Fire Crucible extends from there and reaches down into the volcanic magma beneath the earth, drawing endless heat from it. Set the Mystic Fire Mirror upon the stone platform and you will undo the Mystic Fire Crucible. Without that binding, the Eight Fierce Mystic Fire Formation below, with no Mystic Fire Mirror to command it, can no longer hold me."