The True Confessions of a Nine-Tailed Fox

Chapter 80: Lychee Grove

After the excitement of watching an old woman drag her grandson home had died down, I discovered that my tummy was rumbling. I was hungry again. In fact, only now did I realize that I'd forgotten to eat all day, and I was feeling a little wobbly on my claws.

Food. Food food food. Where could I get food? I scanned the marketplace.

Aha! There was a stall selling raw, light-brown rice. Some sort of animal spirit sat in front of them, taking orders and counting coins. His assistant was scooping out measures of rice from big baskets and wrapping them in lotus leaves. Both spirits had thick, brown tails and long faces, and their features were similar enough that they had to be related. The rice merchant wore an embroidered jacket over his tunic and trousers, while his assistant wore only a plain, brown tunic and trousers. The tunics were shorter than those in the Claymouth Barony, but I supposed that was unsurprising given everything else that was different here.

Maybe I could sneak in and grab some rice? It was worth a try, anyway.

I glided down as silently as I could, angling to come in behind the two spirits. I timed my arrival perfectly, landing on the edge of a basket right as the merchant squinted down at a handful of coppers, and the assistant turned his back to wrap up a measure of rice. I gobbled a mouthful, then ducked below the rim of the basket, using my claws to cling to the side. Taking careful side steps, I peeked around the edge to track the spirits' movements.

That was when I got a good look at their tails. They were covered in large, overlapping scales that stuck out like those on pinecones. Pangolins! These were pangolin spirits!

I'd never met a pangolin, awakened or not, before. I'd only ever heard of them from nobles who returned from exile, who described them as bizarre, ant- and termite-eating creatures with pointy heads and club-like tails that curled up into balls when threatened. They were supposed to have poor vision too, which might explain why these two hadn't caught me yet –

The merchant's human-shaped ears twitched. His head whipped around, and his nostrils flared. "Boy! Kill that sparrow!"

Curses. I guess they compensated with their other senses.

"Yessir, Uncle!"

The assistant lunged for me. In a flurry, I took flight, and he just missed, his fingertips brushing my tail. As I shot up into the sky, he lost his balance, waved his tail to try to regain it, knocked over a stack of lotus leaves, and crashed headlong into the basket. His weight overturned it, and rice grains flooded across the packed earth.

"Clumsy knave!" shouted the merchant, leaping to his feet. He beat his nephew's back with his tail, berating him the whole time, while the younger man curled up and used his own tail to cover his head.

Naturally, a crowd of onlookers swarmed the stall, some to cheer the merchant on, some to soothe him, some to help sweep up the spilled rice, some to pocket handfuls. Thank goodness the merchant and his assistant were spirits, or I'd have earned a hefty dose of negative karma on my first day out of the nest!

Unfortunately, after all this commotion, I was still hungry and no closer to figuring out where I was. Plus night had fallen, and now I was tired too. I had two choices: find a place in town to sleep, or keep flying north for as long as my wings could support me.

I opted for the former. I still didn't know what predators to avoid, and at least these city-dwellers ignored me unless I was trying to steal their rice. Finding a suitable shrub in someone's garden, I crept into it and perched on a twig.