What The Fox? (Completely Free!)

Chapter 43

Chapter 43

Xuyi Mountain was freezing this time of the year. It was late fall when I left Mongli, and the journey across the desert and mountains was treacherous. The winter was in full swing by the time I made it home.

I had no one to return to, nothing to my name except the well-worn clothes on my back. My horse couldn't handle the narrow footpath which had fallen into disrepair. I had to dismount and walk up on my own. My shoes already had holes in them, and the wet rocks were quick to cut my feet.

I wasn't sure what I excepted to find in the village of monks at the top of the mountain. Was I looking for salvation? Forgiveness for my crimes?

I didn't know, but I continued onward like a sparrow that always returns home to its nest. A mysterious force dragged me home across the thousands of li between here and Mongli, even though I knew there was no one to greet me on my return.

I smelled faint whiffs of incense as I neared the top. I could almost hear the monks chanting their morning hymns and sweeping the temple steps even in the dead of winter. At the top of the steps, I saw an old woman selling her wares at the morning market.

She took one look at me and asked if I had come to throw myself at the mercy of the monks. I supposed with my messy hair and ripped clothing, I looked like an unhinged woman whose family had cast her out and whose one salvation was to join a nunnery.

"Look at you, shivering like you are at death's door. Take one of my linens to cover yourself."

She offered me one of the sheets she had been using to keep her products off the ground. She was selling bits of wooden carved into combs and utensils, hand-painted porcelain bowls, and a small basket of rice. I suspected it wasn't for sale at all, but rather she had probably purchased it at the market for her own family. Still, I couldn't take my eyes off it.

The pearly beads seem to call out to me. I didn't remember the last time I ate. Perhaps it was half a week ago.

"Would you like something to eat?" She asked and offered me a bit of bread which she pinched off a small pork bao. I shook my head and backed away. I couldn't take her lunch.

"I'll find something at the temple," I assured her and ran away. The temple loomed in the distance, and it didn't seem so far from my vantage point. Yet as I started to walk in my ratty old shoes, it seemed endlessly far. If only I had dragged that horse up the mountain behind me!

Perhaps when this is all over, I'll go back down, kill it, and eat it — I thought to myself jokingly.

The temple's roofs were painted green to blend in with the landscape. It had been beautiful and warm to me once, but now, it seemed endless and far away. Soon, the sky clouded over, and it started to rain.

The mixture of rain and sleet pelted down on me. As I reached the brass doors of the temple, I noticed they were closed. Locked.

Where would I spend the night now?

I banged my open palms against the doors and prayed that someone would hear me. No one opened the door. My pitiful knocking would not awaken even a cat listening for the hint of a mouse.

I turned back and decided to head back to the market. There, perhaps, I would find an innkeeper with enough mercy to allow me to spend the night. I did have a satchel of money, but for some reason, I had forgotten to bring it with the mountain for me. I didn't know why. I wasn't usually absent-minded.

I slowly recalled I had hidden it in a secret compartment in my horse's saddle. The beast was off to more sunny meadows with the remainder of my money.

I wrapped my arms around my shivering arms and headed back toward the smokestacks in the distance.

The old woman wasn't where I left her. Heaven knows if here was really where I had found her in the first place. It was snowing and raining, and my eyes weren't trustworthy anymore.

If only I could find a place to dry off and rest, I could close my eyes and return to the temple another day. I saw an awning that overlooked a pile of wooden barrels. I could hide behind them and sleep. No one would even notice me there.

No! If I fell asleep in the snow, I would die.

I needed to find shelter. My feet found their way forward step by step. Then I noticed a doorway was open, and a lantern was hanging by a porch. Shadows of light flickered and danced while the howling winds blew the lantern to and fro.

How did that lantern stay lit? It must have been a miracle. And why was the door open?

I didn't care. I walked up to the doorway and pushed the door open. The warmth that greeted me was impossibly seductive. I didn't care that I was intruding on someone else's house. That fireplace called to me more surely than anything or anyone else in my short, miserable life.

"So you finally made good on your promise to return to Xuyi," a voice said from a mat by the fire. My blood froze even as my skin thawed. I knew that voice! It couldn't be!

"Come now, inside, before you freeze to death."

I both wanted to run to the source of that voice and turn around, escaping with my metaphorical fox tail between my legs. As surely as the fox knew to run from the wolf, my instinct told me to run.

Instead, I stumbled up to the fireplace and sat down on the bamboo mat beside it. A stick of incense was burning beside the fire, and it smelled of the childhood I remembered. I felt at home here, finally, after all this time.

"Alix," I said, my voice finally returning despite my shock. "You were here, waiting for me."

"Yes, I waited for you all this time. You were otherwise occupied, weren't you?"

I could tell by the sharpness of his tone that he knew I had been with Daoming this whole time. Yet, simultaneously, he brushed away my concern and moved closer to me on the bamboo mat. He was wearing a plain tunic and pants, just like when we lived in the Teng household. He still smelled of fresh grass and smoke.

"My lady, would you like me to bring you something to eat? Some chestnut cakes, perhaps?"

I nodded as Alix removed a tea kettle from the fire. He poured me a glass of jasmine tea in a cup that looked very much like the ones the old woman had been selling. Perhaps, he knew her, and they were friends.

I would like to think so. Perhaps, he found a home here while he waited for me.

I picked up the teacup with trembling fingers and brought it to my lips. It tasted lukewarm and weak, but it was the best tea I have had in a long time.

"Can we stay here together? In this house? Is it ours?"

"Yes, I built it for you while I waited. I knew the mate bond would bring you home to me. Do you think we could be happy here?"

"Yes," I whispered and laid down in Alix's arms. There it was warm even though my clothes were still damp. How nice it was to be home finally. "We'll be happy here until the end of our days."