"Excuse me, is anyone here?"
Chai Xiaomi clung to the bamboo fence and peered inside.
The fence gate was left slightly ajar. She called out a few times, but the bamboo house was completely quiet, with no one answering for a long time.
The small courtyard looked simple, but it revealed exquisite details everywhere.
A bamboo swing hung in the corner, swaying gently when the wind blew. In front of the swing were a stone table and stools. A chessboard was carved into the tabletop, and right now, black and white pieces were clearly separated on it, displaying an unfinished game.
She stood on her tiptoes to take a closer look—it was a game of Go.
Back in school, she had been shoved into a Go interest class. Although she lacked perseverance and constantly slacked off, she couldn't help it since she had a Go-obsessed dad at home.
Whenever he had free time on weekends, her dad always loved to drag her into playing a few rounds. There was no other reason than the fact that he couldn't beat her mom, but he could easily defeat her.
The old guy was secretly quite wicked.
But later, she had a sudden flash of inspiration. The next time they played, she pretended to scroll on her phone with one hand, while secretly opening a Go game app and setting the difficulty to "Hell" level.
When her dad placed a piece, she would mirror it on the screen, and then copy the AI's move onto the real chessboard.
In the end, she won as smoothly as flowing water, her face beaming with triumph.
"Comrade Old Chai, you're way too weak," she had said, waving her phone triumphantly at the time. "I can beat you even while playing on my phone. Go back and practice for a few more years."
And right now, Chai Xiaomi stared blankly at the chess game on the stone table.
She was far too familiar with this board formation. It was a famous life-and-death problem known as the "Golden Well Enclosure" recorded in the classic Go manual. The black pieces formed an iron wall on the outside, and the few white pieces in the corner seemed trapped in a dead end, but there was a way to survive.
She stared at those white pieces and blurted out in a low voice: "Two-one point, place. Make an eye, live."
Just as her murmurs faded, the door of the bamboo house creaked and gently opened.
Chai Xiaomi's eyes lit up, flashing with a hint of awe.
The person who walked out was a young woman. Her face was charming and radiant, and her bright red dress made her look like a blooming peony. When she looked at people, she naturally carried an indescribable allure.
Yet, her eyes were completely pure, revealing a bit of naive innocence about the ways of the world.
The girl in the red dress let her gaze fall on the Go game on the stone table, then slowly looked up at Chai Xiaomi.
She broke into a joyful smile, showing undisguised liveliness and curiosity: "You know how to solve this game, Miss? I've been pondering over it for days, stuck here not knowing what move to make next."
As she spoke, she briskly opened the bamboo fence gate: "My name is Hongxiao. I was dozing off in the house just now and vaguely heard someone calling. I came out late, please don't mind me. Is there something you need?"
When she got closer, Chai Xiaomi noticed that the hem of her dress, which dragged on the ground, was a bit puffy, as if there was an extra layer of something lining it. She couldn't help but take another look.
"Hongxiao, you can just call me Xiaomi." Chai Xiaomi smiled. "My husband, my friend, and I are practicing archery by the woods over there. We forgot to bring our waterskins and are dying of thirst, so I wanted to come and ask for a bowl of water."
She paused, a look of embarrassment appearing on her face: "Um... if it's convenient, do you have any ready-made food in your house? I'll pay for it."
After all, this was a private residence, not a shop open for business. Asking for some water was one thing, but opening her mouth to buy food seemed somewhat presumptuous.
But she was truly hungry. The snacks she had brought along, like red dates and melon seeds, had long been eaten clean.
So she blinked her eyes and gave Hongxiao a soft, sweet smile that carried a hint of pitiful pleading.
Hongxiao looked in the direction she was pointing and suddenly froze.
The young man under the tree... wasn't he the one who had buried his head in making a bow on the roof all night last night?
She turned her head back and carefully looked at the girl with smiling, crescent-shaped eyes in front of her. Her memory suddenly became clear; this was the girl who had been washing clothes at the time.
So they were a couple.
The thought that she had almost mistaken that young man for a lecher made her find it quite amusing.
Hongxiao understood in her heart, and the smile on her face became much more genuine. "Come on in, there's plenty of water."
Pausing, she looked a little shy: "However, I don't have any food."
"That's fine, that's fine. Water is enough, thank you," Chai Xiaomi expressed her gratitude softly.
Hongxiao turned to get the water and soon returned carrying a clay pitcher and a bamboo cup.
Just as she was handing the items over, Hongjiao, who had been lazily coiled on Chai Xiaomi's shoulder all this time, suddenly raised its head. It abruptly opened its mouth at Hongxiao, revealing sharp fangs, and hissed, flicking its tongue.
"Ah!" Hongxiao cried out in fright. Her hand trembled, and she nearly dropped the clay pitcher to the ground.
Chai Xiaomi was quick with her hands and eyes. She grabbed the pitcher and turned her head to scold in a low voice: "You big fat snake! What are you doing?"
Being yelled at by her, Hongjiao widened its vertical pupils in disbelief. It looked at her, then looked down at its own snake body, which had indeed gotten quite a bit rounder recently, and its head instantly drooped.
Fine... it had gotten a bit fat lately.
Because its master rarely went on killing sprees anymore, its amount of physical activity had also plummeted.
It actually didn't want to really do anything.
It just felt that the woman in front of it had a somewhat floating gait, and the scent on her body exuded an indescribable anomaly. It just wanted to scare her a bit and test the waters.
Besides, why was this woman's name so similar to its own?
One was "Hongxiao," the other was "Hongjiao."
Its snakeskin was truly bright red; she was just wearing red clothes. What kind of red was that?
Hmph, just looking at it was annoying.
Hongxiao stared in horror at the snake on the young girl's shoulder, stepping backward step by step.
Just now, when that snake opened its bloody maw, she clearly felt an overwhelming, powerful aura of malevolence.
Unlike the demonic energy on demons, that malicious aura seemed to have been forged from an ancient, mysterious forbidden land of mountains of corpses and seas of blood, soaked in the resentment of countless demonic souls.
She felt as if she could see the desperate faces of countless demons right before their deaths surging within that malevolent aura.
Just how many living beings must it have devoured?
A fear originating from the depths of her bloodline enveloped her. Her divine sense trembled violently, and she felt her human form was about to fail.
Just as she was about to be unable to hold on and reveal her true form, the girl in front of her seemed completely oblivious to the terrifying malevolence. She just hurriedly said another "Thank you so much," then hugged the pitcher and bamboo cup, turned around, and quickly ran off.
"I'll come back and return them to you in a bit!"
By the time her crisp voice drifted in from outside, she had already disappeared from sight.
And inside the bamboo house, Hongxiao could no longer maintain her form. Her legs gave way, and she slumped to the ground.
A puff of red smoke burst out, and in an instant, she transformed into a small, fiery red fox.
*
Chai Xiaomi ran in a hurry, still panting slightly when she returned to Wu Li.
Her cheeks were flushed red, and her smooth forehead was covered with a fine layer of sweat beads.
She didn't have time to care for herself. First, she carefully poured a little water into the bamboo cup, quickly swirled it to rinse the rim, and then tossed the water out. Only then did she pour a full cup and hand it to him: "Drink up quickly."
As she did this series of actions, a tiny bead of sweat secretly gathered and slid down her forehead.
It hung right at the tip of her delicate chin.
Crystal clear, it swayed gently with her subtle breaths, on the verge of falling but not quite dropping.
Wu Li's gaze was involuntarily drawn to that single spot. He stared in a daze, his mouth suddenly feeling incredibly dry. Silently, he took the bamboo cup from her, tilted his head back, and downed the water in one gulp.
His gaze swept past her chin before hastily darting away.
He reached over to take the water jug from her arms, poured himself another full cup, and swallowed it all in one breath.
Just like that, cup after cup, he downed five consecutive cups in the blink of an eye.
"Slow down, you're going to choke," Chai Xiaomi couldn't help but warn him.
Seeing him reach out for a sixth cup, she quickly pressed her hand against the jug. "Take a breath before you drink any more."
Wu Li lifted his eyes, his gaze once again fixing on the young woman's delicate, petite chin.
That single bead of sweat was still there, trembling slightly, as if it were gently scratching at the very tip of his heart.
It was as if the cups of water he had just guzzled down hadn't entered his body at all.
A deeper, far more scorching thirst flared up from the back of his throat.
Was he just delirious with thirst?
To actually want...
To actually want to lean in and suck that trembling, precarious bead of sweat right into his mouth.
