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Author: Shi Ding Rou
Translator: yuejiin
Please do not steal my translations!
At this very moment, Pipi only wished she was a gecko, able to quickly climb along the smooth wall of the well to escape from the ground.
But in the dark, aside from her breathing, it was as peaceful as a grave. She forcibly scraped her fingernails against the well wall but left no traces on the hard granite.
Immediately after, Helan Jingting actually softly laughed with a ‘chi’ sound, with no clear reason and boundless implications, like a needle piercing the air full of tension. Pipi was suddenly too nervous to breathe.
“Are you scared?”
“Sorry, I didn’t know you had a serious heart disease!” Pipi said.
After a few seconds of silence, Helan Jingting didn’t respond. “What did you say?”
“Have you seen a doctor?”
“……”
“Did you always avoid interviews because your heart is not good and you’re afraid of being disturbed?”
“……”
“That… I won’t bother you, and I won’t interview you anymore.”
“……I think…you didn’t understand my meaning……” Helan Jingting’s voice evidently darkened.
“Mr. Helan, please allow me to praise you, you’re very humorous. Listening to you talk feels great like a spring breeze, let’s talk next time. Bye!”*
*T/N: she switches to formal speech here
“So to say, you really are scared.”
“…impossible.”
“Your hand is trembling a lot.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Your leg is also trembling.”
“That’s impossible.”
“What are you afraid of?”
“I’m not afraid of anything.”
“Then why are you using all your strength to step on my foot?”
“Sorry.”
The green slab stone above suddenly moved.
Moonlight carrying along the mountain atmosphere shone straight down, a firefly flew out of nowhere, settling on Pipi’s shoulder, a fluorescent dot that glimmered strangely.
Glimmering at the same time were Helan Jingting’s snow-white teeth.
Pipi’s soul felt chaotic.
After a while, she finally asked, “You said you aren’t human— then what exactly are you?”
“I’m a fox.”
“You’re a fox?”
“Sorry, when addressing me please use the classifier ‘wei’. I’m accustomed to others referring to me respectfully.” Helan Jingting politely corrected.*
*T/N: In the Chinese language, different things have different measure words/classifiers. The classifier for animals is ‘zhi’ (which she used when calling him a fox) while it’s ‘wei’ for people. I guess he feels like she’s calling him an object when using ‘zhi’. This part is not gonna make much sense if you don’t know Chinese bc there’s no English translation T^T.
“A (wei)… fox?”
“That’s right. Humans regard themselves as above all things, but in the end they’re just a bunch of monkeys. Six of one and half a dozen of the other*, we are all vertebrates.”
*T/N: notice that six and half a dozen are the same thing? Exactly ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°). He means there’s no difference.
“Eh—” Pipi was at a loss for words.
Stupefied for a long time, she again asked, “Then this year…how old are you?”
“I’m older than you.”
“Older by how much?”
“Older by…879 years.”
Pipi was never that quick-witted when she was nervous, especially regarding numbers. She still didn’t get the exact number even after mentally calculating for a long time. Her back was pressed against the ice-cold wall of the well and couldn’t be pressed any closer. She hated that she could not turn into a fossil that was set in the stone. At the same time, a few stories from Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio flashed through her mind. Fortunately, the fox spirits in those stories were all positive and kind hearted. However, another story immediately prevailed in covering up all the previous stories.
“The Painted Skin.”*
*T/N: a short story from Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio (also adapted into a movie) about a fox spirit who eats human hearts. You can read the story here and look at the movie info here.
Pipi refused to recall the specific content of “The Painted Skin,” licked her lips, and tried her best to appear calm, “If you’re thinking about eating me, you’ll definitely regret it.”
“Oh?” Helan Jingting’s tone was very soft, but still smiling, “Why?”
“I have AIDS, and I’ll bite if you force me.”
Helan Jingting laughed till he was out of breath.
Taking advantage of this, Pipi suddenly lifted her leg and tried to kick, but she was caught by his sharp eyes and quick hands.
“No need to be afraid, I won’t hurt you.” He let go and sat on the other side of the chair, maintaining the furthest distance from her in the well.
However, the more it was said like so, the more Pipi’s voice trembled, “Do…you mean it, or…you’re purposely teasing me.”
“We foxes tend to keep our words.”
“No, you’re not a fox.”
“How should I say it for you to believe me?” As if offended, Helan Jingting’s voice was somewhat impatient.
“Easy, transform into your original shape for me to see.”
Helan Jingting laughed.
“I can’t transform.”
“I’ll lower my demands, showing me a fox tail is also fine.”
“I don’t have one…”
“Then you aren’t a fox.”
“It’s like this—” Helan Jingting painfully explained, “after cultivation many of my external features have disappeared.”
“I don’t get it.”
“In normal circumstances, foxes cultivate from top to bottom, so the tail is the last step. But I did it in reverse, so the eyes are the last step.”
“Why did you do it in reverse?”
“I was born blind, so I had to do it backwards. Moreover it was especially slow. Who told me to be disabled.”
“Stop trying to decieve me.”
“Everything I said is the truth.”
“Fine, what else can prove that you’re a fox besides your heart rate.”
“My sense of smell is very good.”
“How is it good?”
“When you woke up this morning you used radix zanthoxyli toothpaste.* Next, you ate a fried bun, mushroom flavored. You drank soybean milk. Then you went to the newspaper office. Following up you accidentally stepped on a banana peel. The subway was very crowded, you were crammed near a woman wearing Gucci perfume. For lunch you ate twice-cooked pork and fish congee. You really cherish your teeth, you went to rinse your mouth again but this time you used sarcandra glabra toothpaste.* Next you got tired and drank a strong brew of cheap jasmine tea. Your colleague likes to chew gum but doesn’t like you so she stuck the gum on your chair. You sat down to work and got some stuck on your pants, which you were unaware about the entire day. Your job today was to sort files. You’ve touched hundreds of papers from 30 different years, the scent of the printing ink is very disorderly. You rode a coach bus, the bus driver smoked Yuxi cigarettes. You got hungry and ate a bunch of beef jerky and potato chips…. Lately you’ve been having irregular menstruation, hormones can cause your body’s smell to change, but I have reason to believe that you will get your period tonight….”
*T/N: these are herbal toothpastes
“Helan Jingting, you dare to follow me!”
“I can’t see anything during the day, how could I follow you?”
“You can’t see? Who knows if that’s true or not.”
“Guan Pipi, for a stupid woman like you, I wouldn’t even want to waste my intelligence to go and deceive.”
“Either you transform to prove you’re a fox, or you’re simply a liar.”
“I’ll send you home, this conversation is over.” Helan Jingting suddenly grasped her arm, suddenly lightly jumped upwards, and brought her out of the well just like that.
“Hey, you jump higher than Liu Xiang. Why don’t you participate in the 100 meter hurdles in the Olympics?”
“Can you stop talking?”
“……”
The atmosphere in the car was very different.
Helan Jingting maintained a gloomy expression.
Pipi couldn’t stay still any longer. If there was nothing to say then she would find something to say, “Aside from flowers, what else do you eat?”
“I also eat people.”
“Hilarious. Everything we (humans) eat now contains chemical additives, we certainly aren’t organic.”
“That’s why I’m very picky.”
“Then you definitely won’t care for me, really. I’ve had hepatitis.”
“Speaking of liver*, that’s my favorite thing to eat.”
*T/N: Chinese word for hepatitis (肝炎) contains the word for liver (肝), and hepatitis affects your liver.
“Then next time I’ll treat you to fried pork liver.”
A certain someone was gloomy.
Pipi didn’t bother with him, continuing to say, “Have you noticed that in this world, proving you are a human is very easy, proving you are not is very hard.”
With a screech, the car suddenly came to a stop. Although buckled in, Pipi’s body lunged forward yet was firmly stopped by the seat belt, her rib being strapped against very painfully.
Helan Jingting jumped out of the car, pulling her from the car to underneath a big tree, suddenly using both his hands to grasp her neck and coldly say, “If I eat you right now, would I be able to prove it?”
Yuenme Translations 
