No matter how much Xueya resisted, he was ultimately forced to wear the clothes. However, they didn’t fit well—Xueya had too many tails, and ordinary dog clothes couldn’t accommodate them.
Because of this, the temple master’s elegant eyebrows raised slightly. The young disciple who had brought the clothes quickly explained, “I also brought other outfits, but I heard the master’s fox is male, so I didn’t take them out.”
Before Xueya could react, the master calmly said, “No matter, let it wear them.”
The young disciple nodded and took out several beautiful pet dresses from his storage ring. In recent times, keeping spirit pets had become a trend. However, there were both cheap and extravagant ways to raise them, and dressing pets in clothes was a prime example of the latter. Simply put, only those with too much money to spend would raise pets this way.
Merchants, keen on profit, fully understood the mindset of these wealthy pet owners who loved to dress up their spirit pets. As a result, the materials used to make pet clothes were exceedingly expensive, and the designs were beautiful, comparable to the robes worn by female cultivators. In fact, the pet dresses were often even more expensive, with skirts being the most costly.
For example, the pet skirts the young disciple had brought were made with silk personally woven by South Sea mermaids. It’s well known that South Sea mermaids are very delicate, and weaving a single bolt of cloth in a year was considered a major accomplishment.
But Xueya, a mountain fox with no knowledge of such fine things, became immediately frustrated after being dressed in the skirt. He tried to take it off, and when he couldn’t, he angrily turned around to bite at the skirt’s hem. After a few bites, he was suddenly lifted into the air, coming face to face with the master’s strikingly beautiful face.
A light tap on his nose caused Xueya’s ears to droop, and his tails curled up. After the master flicked his nose, he was about to set Xueya down, but at that moment, Xueya licked his fingers.
The five-tailed fox in his hand was being very obsequious, licking his fingers right after being scolded. The wet sensation on his hand made the master furrow his brows. Without any change in his expression, he used the fox’s fur to wipe off the saliva.
“Don’t lick me,” he said coldly.
The young disciple watching from the side sighed inwardly at how the master just didn’t get it. A clingy little pet like this should be hugged and petted! As soon as the thought crossed his mind, he found himself meeting the master’s eyes.
The master was looking at him, his upturned eyes narrowing slightly. The young disciple awkwardly forced a smile.
His heart skipped a beat—d*mn it, how could he have forgotten that the master had the ability to read minds?
“The silt in the river that protects the temple seems to have accumulated quite a bit. Go clean it.”
The master’s voice was soft and gentle, but the task itself was harsh. A fierce old turtle lived in the river, and it loved to roll around in the mud. Whoever went to clean the silt would be bitten. Before the young disciple could beg the master to spare him, a gust of wind blew him out of the temple.
A barrier was set up at the temple’s entrance, preventing him from returning.
Realizing there was no chance of pleading for mercy, the young disciple left, dejected.
Meanwhile, after setting Xueya down, the master walked away indifferently. Xueya was angry now too. How dare the master use his fur to wipe away spit? Even if it was his own spit, that was still too much! After angrily scratching at the dirt for a while, he decided to fill his belly first.
The food brought by the young disciple was laid out on the ground. Xueya circled the pile of food once, then dove in excitedly. By the time the master saw him again, not only was the pet skirt filthy, but Xueya’s face was also smeared with grease.
The master, who was both beauty-conscious and a neat freak, twitched his eyebrows twice. Soon, the entire Baohe Temple heard him shout for Wenfu.
“Wenfu, get up here right now.”
The master, who usually spoke so gently to his disciples, was not gentle this time. He even used the word “get up.”
A quarter of an hour later, Wenfu sheepishly apologized, “Master, don’t worry. I’ll make sure it’s completely clean.”
Beside Wenfu squatted a five-tailed fox. The fox didn’t seem to understand the gravity of the situation, but he did catch the part about needing to take a bath. Immediately, he used his greasy paws to claw at Wenfu’s leg. “I don’t want to bathe.”
Seeing the greasy stains now adorning Wenfu’s disciple robes, the master’s eyebrows twitched again.
After forcing a smile at the master, Wenfu quickly turned back to the fox beside his leg and said, “You have to bathe. If you don’t, the master won’t like you.” After saying this, he added to the master, “I’ll take him for a bath right away, using spirit water to ensure he’s absolutely clean…”
Before he could finish speaking, Wenfu saw that a new oil stain had appeared on the master’s pristine white robes, courtesy of the clinging fox. He gasped in shock, his steps instinctively retreating.
Everyone at Baohe Temple knew how much the master loved cleanliness. Once, a disciple accidentally brushed the master’s robes with a broom while sweeping and was punished by having to clean the silt from the river for an entire month. Afterward, that disciple was nicknamed “Mud Eel” for their newfound ability to escape underwater.
Xueya, still oblivious to the danger, whined pitifully, “Master, I don’t want to bathe. I hate baths.”
An incense stick’s time later, the temple echoed with the miserable cries of a fox being forced to bathe.
Wenfu’s ears nearly burst from the noise, and though he desperately wanted to let go of the fox, he had his orders. Today, Xueya had to be bathed three times: once in ordinary water, once in spirit water, and once in heavenly water.
Heavenly water was no ordinary bath. While spirit water could clean the surface, heavenly water cleansed one inside and out, leaving their entire aura purer than before.
But the Heavenly Water Bath was quite painful. For a wild fox who already hated baths, the whole experience felt like torture. From initial panic to low growls, and finally to making indescribable noises, Wenfu was convinced that Xueya was cursing him—and using some very foul language at that. Wenfu was grateful that the temple master had previously cast a spell on Xueya, forbidding him from speaking human words.
Finally, after three rounds of bathing, Wenfu was a mess. His hair had been clawed into disarray by Xueya’s paws, his face and hands bore scratch marks, and his arm had even been bitten once. However, the fox in his arms now looked extremely refined, every single hair gleaming white as if it were glowing. Wenfu just wanted to finish the job quickly, so he hurriedly dressed the fox in the pet skirt he’d brought and immediately returned him to the temple master.
When he arrived, the master was sitting in the flower hall, drinking tea while flipping through the roster of participants for an upcoming martial gathering.
“Master, the bath is done,” Wenfu reported, utterly exhausted, his voice noticeably weaker.
“Mm. Leave him and go back,” the master said without even lifting his gaze.
Wenfu, overjoyed at the words, set the fox down and ran off without looking back.
Having just endured three intense baths, Xueya was still furious. As he surveyed the flower hall, he didn’t dare overturn the master’s tea, so instead, his eyes locked onto a cluster of flowers in the southwest corner.
Sunlight poured through a skylight, illuminating the vibrant flowers—colorful jinbandai blossoms, beautiful in every hue.
With a determination to take down the flowers as his enemy, the five-tailed fox leaped into the air, aiming for the blossoms. But before he could land, he was frozen mid-air.
The master finished reading the roster and finally gave his attention to the still-suspended fox. Propping his head on his hand, he moved his fingers lightly, and Xueya was drawn toward him.
The fox, dressed in a water-red pet skirt that made his fur look even whiter, had his five tails curled up tightly. His ears were twitching from sobbing.
Having been suspended in the air for so long, Xueya’s anger had faded, leaving only grievance. His eyes welled with tears, and when he suddenly saw the master’s face, he hiccuped, trying to push the tears back.
There was no way he would cry in front of this hateful human. But before he could suppress the tears, his nose was flicked again.
This time, the flick was not light—one could even say it was a bit heavy.
Xueya tried hard to hold back, but he couldn’t.
***
He still cried beautifully.
The thought flashed through the master’s mind, surprising even himself for a moment. But he quickly brushed it aside. He picked up the still-crying fox, cradling him in his arms, and used one of Xueya’s paws to stamp a paw print on an invitation with tea water.
Two days later, invitations for the martial gathering started returning from various sects, and the organizers began tallying the participants. Traditionally, recipients would mark the number of attendees on the invitation and send it back. When they reached the invitation from Baohe Temple, the clerk who opened it was momentarily stunned by the paw print.
Soon, the unusual invitation was brought to the elder overseeing the martial gathering, Yin Qingxuan.
“Elder, what does this mean?”
Yin Qingxuan glanced at the invitation, then turned away. “What else could it mean? He’s just showing off that he has a spirit pet now,” he said, frowning to himself. “Has he stopped being a neat freak since he started keeping a pet?”
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