Chapter 52: White Peach Keeps a Diary

Worried about Little Sprout, I decided to follow her. After searching around the house for quite a while, I finally found her sitting alone in a corner with her head lowered, her shoulders trembling slightly.

Little Sprout was crying!

I quickly walked over and said, "Little Sprout, just now I was only—"

"Shh—" Little Sprout was startled at first, but immediately gestured for me to keep quiet.

Was she crying at all?

Her face was practically beaming with a huge smile.

What on earth could Little Sprout be so happy about?

Lowering her voice, Little Sprout whispered, "Keep it down, I'm reading Bai Tao'er's diary."

"Bai Tao'er? A diary?" It took me a long time to process this.

Isn't Bai Tao'er the fox that Ye Huan keeps?

It can write a diary?

Has that fox turned into a spirit or something?

"Lower your voice!" Little Sprout urged anxiously. "Don't let Bai Tao'er hear you. Brother Huan thinks he's just raising an ordinary fox, but Bai Tao'er has been keeping up an act all along. It's a fox that has cultivated spiritual powers. It just hasn't been able to take human form yet; if it could turn into a human, it would be an absolute femme fatale. Writing a diary is nothing!"

"I just happened to stumble upon Bai Tao'er's secret. You mustn't tell anyone!"

Putting on a stern face, I said, "Isn't it wrong of you to sneak a peek at someone else's diary like this?"

Little Sprout grinned and said, "Bai Tao'er wrote a lot of things about Brother Huan. Don't you want to know?"

"I... ahem..." Suddenly feeling my desire for gossip burning fiercely, I maintained a solemn expression on the outside and said, "This fox is deliberately lurking around Ye Huan, and there's a good chance it has ulterior motives."

"For Ye Huan's safety, we must keep Bai Tao'er under constant surveillance to prevent it from doing anything shady. Hand the diary over so I can take a look."

"No way!" Little Sprout protested. "You can't hold the diary. If it gets contaminated with human aura, Bai Tao'er will notice, and it'll stop writing."

"I'll hold it while you look. Besides, you can act as my lookout so we don't get caught by Bai Tao'er."

Contaminated with human aura and the fox would notice?

If it gets contaminated with Yin aura, would it not notice?

Why did that fox seem kind of not very smart?

Not dwelling on it too much, I sat right down next to Little Sprout and started reading the diary together with her.

Bai Tao'er didn't write in the diary every day; it only picked up the pen when it felt something was worth recording. Moreover, this diary was newly started, with the contents beginning from the time Old Thief Yuan and I arrived at Box Ridge.

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Month X, Day X

People have come to Box Ridge—an old man and a young one. I don't think the old man is a good person; he's trying to trick Tiger and Kitty into going down the mountain to work like beasts of burden for him.

Kitty is so silly, he might actually let himself be led away by someone...

After reading that, I couldn't help laughing: A fox truly knows another fox! Bai Tao'er saw right through Old Thief Yuan's evil intentions from the very start.

Month X, Day X

Kitty has a new friend.

This is the first time I've ever seen Kitty smile at anyone other than Tiger. In the past, Kitty never talked much to people, and his eyes always carried a chill...

I know Kitty needs someone to care about him, and Er'gou is very good to Kitty.

Yet when I see Kitty together with Er'gou, why does my heart feel so sad?

Thank goodness Er'gou is a male.

My face went completely dark after reading that.

Is this fox sick in the head?

A male?

Humans are divided into men and women, not males and females—did it not even know that?

Grinning, Little Sprout flipped to the next page:

Month X, Day X

Er'gou isn't a good person either. He actually made Kitty swallow the Black Tiger Fiend!

Even though Kitty has a Void Fiend constitution, he can't digest the Black Tiger Fiend. If the tiger soul within the Black Tiger Fiend isn't dealt with, Kitty will eventually be consumed by the backlash.

Er'gou, I've remembered you.

I'm going to go mix up some medicine right now and poison him to death!

A chill ran down my spine upon reading this. "What did Bai Tao'er go off to do? Go mix medicine?"

Little Sprout shook her head. "I don't think so? Why do I feel like it went to steal someone's roast chicken instead?"

Just as I was about to speak, I heard someone shouting outside: "Catch the fox!"

I quickly stood up. "Sprout, keep reading its diary more often in the future. Tell me immediately if anything comes up, and try to find its older diaries as well. Let me know if you find anything. Once this is done, there'll be a hefty reward in store for you."

My desire to know about Ye Huan's past wasn't entirely driven by gossip. Rather, I had deduced from Old Man Ye's fragmented remarks that Ye Huan's origins were far from simple, and his birth back then was probably somewhat similar to mine.

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However, neither Old Man Ye nor Ye Huan had ever brought these matters up to me.

Ye Huan had only mentioned offhand that he knew when he was going to die.

Old Man Ye and his grandson didn't talk about these things because they didn't want to drag me and the old thief down with them.

Even so, I couldn't sit idly by and let such a thing happen. Even if I had to defy the heavens, I had to find a way to carve out a path of survival for Ye Huan.

That was the real reason why I wanted to know about Ye Huan's past.

I abandoned Little Sprout and ran outside to watch the commotion, only to see Bai Tao'er sprinting back at full speed the moment I reached the entrance. I casually grabbed the loose skin at the back of Bai Tao'er's neck and hoisted it up in the air.

Even while hanging mid-air, Bai Tao'er still stubbornly clamped its jaws onto a chicken leg and refused to let go.

The deli owner, chasing closely behind, also rushed in. "It's this fox! It stole my chicken leg."

I set Bai Tao'er down on the ground. "I'm really sorry, this fox is mine."

Old Thief Yuan and I were regular customers at the deli, and everyone knew us. Seeing me say this, the owner found it hard to stay angry.

I took out my phone and transferred two thousand yuan to the owner. The owner was stunned. "Young Master San, what is this for? If I had known this was your fox, I wouldn't have chased after it. How much does a single chicken leg cost anyway?"

I smiled and said, "This isn't compensation, I'm just keeping a tab with you. When I go out of town on business and don't have time to feed it, if it comes looking for food, just give it to them and put it on my account. If the funds run low, just give me a shout and I'll transfer more to you."

"Well, since Young Master San puts it that way, you're honoring my craftsmanship. Whenever your fox comes by in the future, I'll definitely give it the absolute best." The owner chuckled as he accepted the money.

I picked Bai Tao'er up by the scruff and said, "Can you understand human speech or not? From now on, just walk into his shop openly, ask for whatever you want to eat, and don't let people chase you for half a street length."

I pretended not to know that Bai Tao'er could understand human speech, and it pretended not to understand a word I was saying, keeping its head down as it gnawed on its chicken leg.

The next day, Little Sprout told me, "Bai Tao'er wrote in its diary again. It says you're not a bad guy after all, and has decided to use a bit less poison next time—just enough to leave you half-dead."

That damn ungrateful fox, it never forgets wanting to poison me to death.

I carefully inspected everything I ate and drank for several days, until Old Thief Yuan finally brought back some news: "Alright, I've figured out a way to resolve the Black Tiger Fiend inside Ye Huan."

"Pack up your things, we're heading out. Er'gou, make sure your car's gas tank is full! That place is a whole province away; don't run out of gas and leave us stranded halfway there."

My gear couldn't be identified just by looking at the outside, but it wouldn't get past airport or high-speed rail security. If I wanted to travel with my equipment, driving was the only option.

Hearing that Ye Huan could be saved, I immediately packed my things and headed toward Changchun in Jilin Province.

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