Xu Yang woke before the village did,though something about the silence made him open his eyes at once. He remained curled on the wooden windowsill,tail wrapped around his body,watching the pale sunlight slowly spread across the room. Usually,the first thing he heard was the rooster in the courtyard,followed by birds calling from the trees. Today,there was nothing. Xu Yang lifted his head slightly. Even the village dogs were quiet. Outside,footsteps moved along the street. A wooden door opened,then closed almost immediately.
Xu Yang stretched,arching his back and extending his paws across the windowsill. He yawned once,then settled down again as two women passed beneath the window. "The lantern was lit again."one of them whispered.The other woman stopped walking. Her hand tightened around the basket she was carrying. "At the shrine?" She glanced toward the road before lowering her voice. "Yes." "What did you see?" "The ground was disturbed." Her face had gone pale. "There were marks in the dirt." The second woman swallowed. "Footprints?" She shook her head. "Something had been dragged." Xu Yang's tail slowly stopped moving. "Dragged?" he murmured. He stared at the ceiling for a moment,then sighed quietly. "I leave for one night,and somehow the shrine gets worse."
The women continued walking,but their voices remained low. "We should tell the elder." "He already knows." That made the other woman stop. "He does?" "He was there before sunrise." Xu Yang's ears lifted. That was new. He watched the women disappear around the corner before jumping down from the windowsill.By midmorning, the village had returned to its usual routine, but nobody seemed relaxed.People still carried water,opened their shops,and swept their doorways,yet their eyes kept drifting toward the same path.
Near the edge of the village,a man carrying firewood caught his son's arm before the boy could run toward the trees. "Don't go that way." The boy looked up at him. "Why?" The man glanced toward the shrine path. His jaw tightened before he answered. "Because I said so." "But there's nothing there." The man's grip loosened slightly,but his expression remained serious. "Old shrines remember things people don't." The boy stared at him,confused. Xu Yang,hidden in the grass nearby,blinked. "That doesn't explain anything." He waited until the man and child had gone before slipping quietly toward the shrine.
The path was empty. The farther he went,the quieter the village became.Even the sounds behind him seemed to fade beneath the trees.Xu Yang reached shirne he noticed In daylight,it looked smaller than it had at night. The old wooden beams were warped,the stone steps were cracked,and faded talismans hung from the doorway. Still,the feeling remained. Something was wrong. Xu Yang sat at the bottom of the steps and stared at the shrine.The strange pressure beneath his ribs stirred again. His tail flicked. "No." He looked up at the broken doorway. "Don't start." A faint breeze passed through the ruins. Xu Yang narrowed his eyes. "I'm not transforming just because you feel mysterious." He turned away and examined the ground instead.Fresh marks cut through the dirt.
Xu Yang leaned closer. They weren't footprints. Something had been dragged from the edge of the shrine toward the broken wall,and whatever had made them had tried to hide the trail. His ears slowly flattened.Then he caught the scent of Demonic aura.Xu Yang stopped breathing for a moment. "So the spider wasn't the only one here." He didn't look up. Something was watching him. His fingers tightened against the dirt,but he forced himself to remain still. A small insect crawled across the ground in front of him.Xu Yang followed it, and pretending to be distracted.
He slowly lifted his head.High above the shrine,one of the thicker branches bent slightly beneath someone's weight. A man was sitting there.He looked as though he had been there long before Xu Yang noticed him.Blue hair fell loosely over his shoulders, catching strips of sunlight between the leaves. A pair of dark-tipped wolf ears rested among his hair,one turning slightly toward the village below. His clothes were surprisingly neat for someone sitting in a tree. A long robe of white and pale grey fell around him in quiet layers,held by a simple sash. A light outer coat rested over his shoulders,its edges carrying faint patterns that appeared and disappeared whenever the sunlight shifted.He was simply watching.
Xu Yang stared at him for a moment. The man's golden eyes met his. Neither moved. Xu Yang's ears tilted back.So he was watching the whole time...The man finally lowered his gaze toward the shrine,then looked back at Xu Yang. Then he smiled. "You're very careful." Xu Yang flicked his tail. "Should I be worried?" The man's smile widened slightly. "That depends on what you're planning." "I wasn't planning anything." "Then you're doing a poor job of looking innocent."
Xu Yang narrowed his eyes. The man gave a quiet chuckle and leaned back against the branch. "Interesting." Xu Yang decided he had heard enough. He turned and started toward the village. Behind him,the man's voice drifted lazily through the leaves. "The shrine remembers you." Xu Yang's steps slowed for half a second. "Even if Heaven pretends not to." He kept walking. Only his tail betrayed him,a slight twitch giving away his unease. Who was that now? Wolf demon? Fox demon? Do demons just take turns appearing whenever I finally get comfortable?... He glanced back once.
The man was still on the branch.Xu Yang quickly looked away. Why does every demon I meet act like they already know me?...He sighed quietly. "I don't even know me." By afternoon,the whispers had spread through the village. A hunter claimed the forest animals had changed their paths. A farmer complained that his ox refused to go near the shrine road. A child insisted the black cat had been sitting on the shrine steps,staring at the door. Xu Yang pretended not to hear any of it. He lay beneath a cart in the shade,eyes half-closed. But he could feel the villagers watching him now.
Across the street,a hunter crouched beside a house and pushed loose soil over a thin loop of rope. Xu Yang's eyes opened fully. A snare. For a cat. His tail curled closer to his body.From the banyan tree,Fox Demon watched with mild interest. "Efficient!" he murmured. His eyes shifted toward Xu Yang. "Cruel,though." Xu Yang stared at him from beneath the cart.Fox Demon smiled. "Now what will you do?" Before Xu Yang could move,a strange light appeared behind him. The shrine lantern flickered twice then it suddenly burned bright. In broad daylight.
The nearest villagers froze.Someone dropped a basket. A gasp went through the street. "The lantern!" "Call the elder!" The hunter grabbed his spear and backed away from the shrine. Xu Yang slowly crawled out from beneath the cart. The snare lay directly ahead. He looked at it. Then at the villagers. Then back at the rope. "This is getting ridiculous." He stepped forward. One paw entered the loop. The rope snapped tight. The villagers cried out. "It's caught!" "Don't touch it!" "Stay back!" Xu Yang looked down at the rope. He didn't struggle.Instead,he calmly lifted his head toward the shrine. Dust began to move around his paws.
At first,it was only a faint swirl. Then more dust rose from the ground,turning slowly around him. The rope trembled. The fibers pulled tight. Then loosened. Then tightened again. The hunter stumbled backward. "I didn't touch it!" Above the shrine door,the faded talismans suddenly darkened. Ink spread across the paper like spilled water. The old characters twisted into shapes none of the villagers could understand. Xu Yang's expression changed.The whisper did not enter through his ears. It appeared directly inside his mind.The rope snapped. The broken fibers fell around his paw.
For several seconds,nobody moved. Then someone whispered,"It broke by itself." Another voice trembled. "It's cursed." "Stay away from it!" Xu Yang remained where he was. The dust slowly settled and lantern flame became perfectly still. For one brief moment,the village was silent again. Then a child began to cry. Then villagers turned and ran. Doors slammed shut one after another. Wooden bolts dropped into place.
Within moments,the street was empty. Xu Yang stood alone beside the broken snare. High above him,Fox Demon remained on the banyan branch."Heaven has seen you," he murmured. "And it never forgets." Xu Yang did not look back. For a moment,his thoughts went completely quiet. Then he sighed inwardly. Of course it has... So I'm officially on Heaven's attention list now? ... Great! Just wow... His tail flicked once, slower this time. I didn't apply for this. I didn't agree to anything. I didn't even get a warning... A faint tension settled in his chest. "Never forgets." sounds less like a rule and more like a threat. His ears angled slightly backward.Xu Yang's claws pressed lightly into the earth. Maybe the problem wasn't what I had done... Maybe it was what this body was.His gaze slowly lifted toward the shrine. That's either extremely bad luck... Or this body has been hiding something from me all along...