The Elders

“Black Zhenwu Demon-Sealing Banner.”

Grandpa stared at the fox-paw symbols I had copied.

I told him and several elders what happened.

Except the red threads.

Grandpa’s eyes sharpened.

“That banner is a sacred object of the Nine Heavens Demon-Subduing Patriarch. I have a replica from my master. It cannot cover heaven and earth, but it is enough to suppress a demon.”

“Exactly,” one elder said. “If the fox is not removed, the village will never be peaceful.”

A bearded elder laughed.

“With my Seven-Star Sword, killing a lone fox is easy.”

“But she is from Tushan,” I said. “And she may be connected to Little Sprout.”

“Do not interrupt,” Grandpa snapped.

“For the village?” My eyes burned. “If not for your village, Little Sprout would not have died.”

“Spirit Hunter,” I said slowly.

The room fell silent.

Grandpa’s face stiffened.

“Foxes transform and deceive. They eat humans. This is an ancestral rule. How many times must I say it?”

“It was your rules that killed my sister!”

I stormed out.

Back in my room, I stared at the red thread.

This time, it gave no guidance.

Someone knocked frantically on my window.

It was Wang Qi’an, my childhood friend.

His grandfather had once been a spirit hunter too, until he went mad studying forbidden arts, slaughtered the village livestock, then killed himself.

Because of that, classmates called Qi’an “Crazy Wang.”

He had been bullied until I saved him once.

After that, we became sworn brothers in the backyard, imitating wandering heroes.

“Brother Yao,” he gasped. “The elders used divination before the shrine. When it was your turn, they got the anger sign.”

The anger sign.

A god’s wrath.

“They suspect you’re possessed by the fox. We need to run.”

“No,” I said. “You stay.”

I whispered a plan into his ear.

His eyes widened.

“Brother, isn’t that… bad?”

“Please.”

Then I patted his shoulder and ran into the forest.

Before long, the elders caught up.

They moved across treetops with decades of cultivation.

When the bearded elder’s Seven-Star Sword nearly pierced me, the red thread on my wrist vibrated.

Ding.

The elder retreated in shock.

“Fox clan sacred item! You really are connected to the demon.”

“Use the Thirteen Ghost Gate Needles,” another elder said. “Test whether he is possessed.”

Before I could react, thirty silver needles fell from the sky and struck my acupoints.

Pain drilled into bone.

I collapsed.

The world turned gray.

Only the elders’ red outlines remained.

Behind each of them dragged a strange fox tail.

“Die.”

“Die, all of you!”

Veins bulged in my legs.

I launched myself toward the nearest elder.

Blood blades formed in my hands and swept forward.

Three mountain ridges flattened in smoke.

I moved through the dust like a ghost.

One throat.

Another.

Ten steps, one kill.

A hundred Taoists fell.

A hundred?

Doubt flashed.

But more red figures appeared.

Endless.

By the time I collapsed from exhaustion, I heard the elders speak.

“Such killing aura. If he had not lost reason and attacked phantoms, we would be dead.”

“Is this really just a little fox?”

“Could she be the child of a Tushan leader?”

“Begin the exorcism. Remove the root.”

Then darkness swallowed everything.

When I woke, Qi’an knelt beside me.

Behind him stood the Black Zhenwu Banner.

“Brother, are you okay?” His voice shook. “I took the banner and heard an explosion. The mountains were flattened.”

“You saved me?”

“I just waved the banner. My cultivation can’t trap those old monsters for long.”

He scratched his head.

“It was the beautiful sister who jumped out of you and saved us.”

“Wearing red?”

“Hehe. Yes.”