Chapter 1

The summer heat was oppressive, yet the mountain stream remained refreshingly cool.  

Since the death of the Ten Thousand Year Fox King, Thunderclap Mountain and Cloud-Touching Cave had been shrouded in sorrow. The little demons in the cave were despondent, and many had already fled to seek refuge elsewhere.  

The Fox King had left behind immense wealth, but neither his son nor daughter was capable of protecting the inheritance. Their current predicament was no different from a child carrying a fortune through a bustling marketplace—any powerful demon with ill intent could bring utter ruin to Thunderclap Mountain.  

Cloud-Touching Cave was adorned with gold and jade. Passing through winding corridors to the depths of the cave, two Fox Maidservants stood guard outside a chamber. Inside, a small white fox curled up beneath a brocade quilt, tear stains still visible at the corners of its eyes.  

“When do you think this Little Fox Cub will snap out of it?” At the foot of the bed, the illusory figure of a brightly colored Little Chicken tilted its head, its expression remarkably human-like. “It’s been over half a month—crying, sleeping, then crying again. Is he made of water?”  

Beside it, the equally illusory Spotted Deer blinked, its clear eyes somehow radiating kindness. “He’s still just a little cub.”  

The Little Green Snake coiled atop the deer’s head lazily lifted an eyelid. “Such a crybaby.”  

The deer shook its head. “The little one has suffered a great loss. Can’t you let him grieve?”  

The Ten Thousand Year Fox King had failed his tribulation—wasn’t it natural for this young prince, who couldn’t even maintain a human form, to be heartbroken? His father had just died—what was wrong with crying for a few days?  

“Fair enough. None of us ever had fathers to begin with, so who knows how it feels to lose one?” the Little Green Snake muttered before curling back into a circle and resuming its nap.  

If the little cub could sleep, so could he. Who wasn’t a little cub at heart?  

“Shameless,” the Little Chicken snorted, hopping onto the center of the bed. It circled left and right, scrutinizing the fox for a long while before tilting its head again. “I still don’t get it. This Little Fox Cub looks utterly unremarkable—what ability does he have to draw our souls to him?”  

“Coming back to life was already a miracle. Be grateful in secret—why overthink it?” The Little Green Snake yawned indifferently, settling on the deer’s head as it prepared to doze off.  

“After being schemed against so many times, how have you still learned nothing?” The Little Chicken gnashed its teeth, smoke practically rising from its head as it flapped a wing and smacked its rival off the deer. Its beady eyes burned with fury. “Since when does anything good in this world come without a price? Aren’t you afraid of being cheated until not even your bones remain?”  

Dizzy from the blow, the Little Green Snake scoffed, “So what if we’re cheated? We don’t even have physical bodies—what bones are there to lose?”  

The Little Chicken was livid, flapping wildly in another frenzied attack. “Even losing your life didn’t teach you a lesson—no wonder your dragon descendants are trampled underfoot!”  

“As if your phoenix kin fared any better! What are you gloating about?” The Little Green Snake flared up in anger. What use was caution? Would constant paranoia help them figure out what was going on?  

He had inexplicably regained consciousness, only for his mighty dragon form to be reduced to a measly Little Green Snake. If anyone should be aggrieved, it was him!  

Back in the day, he had been a fearsome overlord of the primordial era—who hadn’t trembled at the name Zu Long? Now, even his soul was stuck as a Little Green Snake, and yet he hadn’t complained!  

The chicken and snake fought viciously, while Shi Qilin—in the form of the Spotted Deer—frantically tried to mediate.  

The deer’s size wasn’t much larger than the chicken’s, and its gentle, soft-spoken attempts at peacemaking might as well have been silence.  

“Stop fighting, stop fighting—please don’t fight!”  

“Can’t we talk this out? Why must you argue?”

“Ow, stop hitting me, or I’ll get disfigured!”

…

“I told you to stop making noise! Can’t you understand human speech?!”

Little Chicken: ???

Little Green Snake: ???

Shi Qilin opened his eyes wide in terror, “That wasn’t me who said that just now.”

Zu Long and Yuan Feng exchanged glances, then turned to face the little fox who was baring his teeth and claws fiercely. Forgetting their fight, they quickly moved closer, “Little cub, can you hear us now?”

“Duh, who couldn’t hear you making such a racket!” The little fox snarled irritably, his morning temper flaring up—even the Jade Emperor wouldn’t be spared from his wrath. “I told you to stop making noise, stop making noise! Do you think you’re justified in disturbing my sleep?”

“Who knew you could hear us today? Clearly, you couldn’t sense our presence just a few days ago,” Yuan Feng muttered under his breath, turning his head away as if they hadn’t been fighting. Zu Long coiled up, looking as docile as could be, leaving only Shi Qilin to offer a soft-spoken apology, “Sorry about that.”

Fu Li: …

The little fox studied them for a moment before transforming into the appearance of a fifteen or sixteen-year-old boy.

It wasn’t an exaggeration to say he couldn’t maintain a proper human form—he genuinely struggled with it.

The boy was exceptionally handsome, with red lips, white teeth, and an elegant bone structure, especially his eyes, which sparkled like stars, full of life.

Except for the pair of furry ears sticking up from his hair and the large, fluffy tail behind him—anyone could tell just by looking how soft they must be to the touch.

Even the little fox himself didn’t know where the problem lay. The cultivation techniques and incantations were all correct, and his spiritual energy flowed without error, yet he couldn’t achieve a complete human form.

When his father, the Ten Thousand Year Fox King, was still around, even he couldn’t figure out the reason, only offering vague reassurances like, “The time isn’t right yet, be patient.” Who knew when that “right time” would finally come?

Reducing his nine tails to one was already his greatest feat—asking him to retract them entirely was simply asking too much of a fox.

The boy, with his large furry ears, visibly irritated, demanded, “Who are you? Why are you trespassing in my Cloud-Touching Cave?”

Shi Qilin glanced left and right, realizing the other two had no intention of answering, so he reluctantly took it upon himself, “We…”

Fu Li grew impatient with his slow speech and decided to pick someone else to respond, “Alright, you take a break. You there, snake demon, you answer.”

Zu Long: ???

Shi Qilin: …

Yuan Feng: …

Pfft—HAHAHAHAHAHA!

Little Chicken burst into laughter, hopping around in delight, tears nearly streaming from his eyes, “Snake demon, he’s calling you.”

The “snake demon” hissed angrily, itching to beat his rival into the ground until he couldn’t even crawl away. But now wasn’t the time for their usual brawling—no matter how unwilling, he had to deal with this little fox cub first.

Little Green Snake shot a fierce glare at the other two useless companions before slithering gracefully to the bedside, raising himself up with an air of dignity. “We are demon cultivators from the Northern Kuru Continent. We perished while crossing the sea and, by a twist of fate, ended up here at Thunderclap Mountain to restore our spirits. We mean no harm to this place.”

Fu Li sized him up skeptically, not buying a word of it. “A snake demon traveling with a chicken demon and a deer demon? Who are you trying to fool?”

Chicken demon: …

Deer demon: …

The Little Green Snake turned its head and saw the identical dumbfounded expressions on the Little Chicken and Spotted Deer’s faces. It silently laughed its head off before turning back with an exaggeratedly serious explanation, “That’s where you’re wrong. We’re not traveling companions. This chicken demon and deer demon are my emergency rations.”

“Emergency rations my foot!” The Little Chicken bristled with anger, swatting the Little Green Snake off the bed with one wing before delivering another round of furious pecking.

The fox-eared youth propped his chin on his hand, waiting for them to finish fighting before saying with undisguised disdain, “They say the Northern Kuru Continent is a wild, bitter land full of demons and monsters, where any random creature could scare children into silence at night. But you lot look even weaker than the minor demons of my Thunderclap Mountain. Northern Kuru Continent? Give me a break.”

The Little Green Snake and Little Chicken turned their heads simultaneously, “Do we not look fierce enough?”

The Spotted Deer, who had been out of the loop until now, tilted its head and asked, “Not fierce enough?”

Fu Li replied expressionlessly, “Fierce?”

“Not fierce enough?” Yuan Feng flapped his chicken wings twice, faint flames appearing behind him as he released the overwhelming pressure unique to the phoenix clan, instantly overwhelming the skeptical Little Fox Cub.

Fu Li found himself rooted to the spot, feeling as though he were trapped in world-destroying flames. The resonant cry of a phoenix echoed from the depths of his soul—what felt like an instant seemed to stretch into countless years of torment.

The Little Chicken landed on a candle holder, preening with immense satisfaction, “Convinced now?”

Fu Li: stunned.jpg

The Little Chicken blinked its beady eyes and waved a wing in front of his face, “Weren’t you quite sharp earlier? What, scared stiff?”

The Little Green Snake shook its head, “Don’t worry, don’t worry. All demons from the Northern Kuru Continent are like this. You’ll get used to it.”

Fu Li stared blankly at the three unremarkable-looking creatures before finally finding his voice again, “You’re really great demons from the Northern Kuru Continent? The kind that can punch across the four seas and kick through the eight wildernesses?”

“Naturally,” Yuan Feng declared proudly, puffing out his chest.

Fu Li sniffled, his voice trembling, “So… are you going to stay at Thunderclap Mountain to recover?”

“More or less. Though we’ll probably stick with you—wherever you go, we go. Don’t know why, but we do recover faster around you.”

Not that it was much faster, but better than nothing.

As Yuan Feng rambled on, about to find another angle to boast about himself, he noticed the previously spirited Little Fox Cub had turned into a teary mess again. “Hey hey hey, why are you crying again?”

Tears streamed down the fox-eared youth’s face like broken beads as he sobbed incoherently, “Why… why did you only show up now?”

Two hundred years. He’d been transmigrated for two hundred years, waiting every day for his golden finger/old mentor to appear. And today, he’d finally found them—waaah!

Back when he first arrived, he thought he was just an ordinary fox, albeit an exceptionally pretty one. Then he discovered his father could not only take human form but was actually a famous demon king. That’s when he realized he hadn’t been reborn into an animal documentary but a cultivation world.

If that were all, fine—a cultivation world was a cultivation world. He’d just work hard at cultivation.

Until a few days ago, when his father failed his heavenly tribulation and his soul returned to the heavens, dissipating into the void, his elder sister Hong Yu was tasked with finding a formidable Son-in-law to protect the siblings. Soon after, a fellow called the Bull Demon King eagerly came forward, offering to become their family’s Son-in-law. That was when he realized this wasn’t just any ordinary cultivation world—it was the *Journey to the West*, a place notoriously unkind to demons without backing.

How could this be allowed?

Was the Bull Demon King’s eagerness to marry into their family genuine? No—it was a death sentence!

Take the Jade Faced Princess, for instance—arguably the most tragic fox spirit in *Journey to the West*. She provided monthly rice and yearly firewood to support her Son-in-law’s first wife, never having done anything particularly wicked, yet she was still struck dead by Zhu Bajie’s rake.  

Even Dou E wasn’t as wronged as her.  

Now, that unlucky role had fallen to his sister, and he’d sooner die than let that old bull through their door.  

But the stubborn brute was dead set on becoming their live-in Son-in-law. No matter how many times Fu Li drove him away—once, twice, thrice—the blasted ox would come crawling back within days. Worst of all, he couldn’t even beat the damned creature in a fight. It was infuriating!  

Next time that old bull came looking for trouble, he’d sic his golden-finger, top-tier demon on him and pummel that ox head into the dirt.  

*Sniffle*—his long-overdue golden-finger mentors had finally arrived, two centuries late. Three against one—surely they could thrash that damned ox now!  

Three days apart, and one must look with new eyes. The Fu Li of today was no longer the Fu Li of yesterday. Now, he was the dazzling, golden-finger-wielding Niohuru·Fu Li!  

A full three golden-finger mentors!  

They’d definitely beat that cursed ox until he was bawling for mercy, begging on his knees!  

**Author’s Note:**  

Fox cub (hands on hips): Golden-finger mentors! A full three of them!