Chapter 12 “Gather herb, meet a wild beast”
With the success of the first feeding attempt, there’s going to be a second and a third…..
In order to allow the baby fox to produce more affection for herself, Ling Yue began changing things up and started to hunt different wild animals every day: Snow chicken, deer, and so and so on, every day was something different. Aside from the portion for herself, the rest would always be chopped into smaller pieces and given to the baby fox.
This kind of exercise not only greatly improved her actual combat ability and reflexes, the Yuan energy in her dantian had also grown at considerable speed.
By the third time she brought food in, the baby fox no longer avoided her. Instead, it would come out of the white mist and wait for Ling Yue at certain periods of the day.
“It’s a good sign that the little guy is finally not hiding itself from me.” Seeing this scene, she couldn’t resist breaking out into a smile.
From the reaction of the little guy, Ling Yue can be certain this was no ordinary animal, nor does he seem like a middle level wild beast.
If so, then why was this little guy here and who left him?
Looking at the foggy mass of white mist, she began wondering what lies beyond it.
Day after day, by now the cute little fox no longer held hostility towards Ling Yue and would allow her to stand as close as ten meters away without alarming it.
Then by the fifteenth day, Ling Yue was fortunate enough to hunt down a wild boar weighing in at nearly two hundred Jin’s.
(1 Jin = 0.9pound, ancient chinese weighing metric, usually used for wine and stuff. My dad used to run to the alcohol shop and call 1 jin of wine when I was a kid.)
“Wild pork meat is very tough, making it hard to consume. Maybe this time I can turn it into barbecue.” She thought this and got to it. Roasting one of the boar legs, she sprinkled some coarse salt to finish it off.
Who knows if the little guy will be able to adapt to this new flavor. Bringing with her this form of unease, she brought the roast port leg into her Red Mist Sky.
Inside the space, the cute baby fox had long been waiting for her. Once he took sight of Ling Yue, the little guy joyously ran over without a second thought.
Then taking a bite out of the freshly roasted pork leg, the little fox jerked back a bit, its pink tongue sticking out and beads of watery tears began filling its eye.
“Impatient little fella, it’s too hot right now.” Ling Yue amusingly rubs the fox on the head.
The baby fox’s fur was soft, so soft it felt like silk itself. Against this level of tenderness, Ling Yue didn’t want to stop fondling the little guy.
This time, the little fox didn’t avoid her unlike before. It’s obvious he’s quite fond of Ling Yue at this point.
Letting Ling Yue gently rub its head, the baby fox began digging into the pork leg in small moderate bites. Despite being a wild animal, Ling Yue can see the baby fox had a very elegant form of eating, almost like someone taught it some manner.
Upon realizing her own thoughts, Ling Yue couldn’t resist laughing at herself for coming up with this outlandish idea.
Towards its first taste of barbecue meat, the little guy was very satisfied and ended up cleaning out the entire pork leg. Against this level of thoroughness, Ling Yue had to hand it to the fox.
With everything consumed, the little fur ball then wiggled its stuffed body up to Ling Yue’s leg and sprinkled a drizzle.
“You little…” Ling Yue didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry right now.
Although she had just been suddenly drenched with urine, she knew inside this form of marking was the fox’s way of accepting her.
Playing for a while longer with the little fur ball, Ling Yue then finally departed from the dimensional space and called it a day.
Half a month down, Ling Yue had become fully familiar with the wild animals in this area and could no longer find challenge in hunting them.
Also, she could no longer locate any more valuable herbs worth harvesting here so she decides to venture into the ridge to try her luck.
If her luck was good, she might even find some medicinal plants like the Qingmu fruit which the medicine shop lacked right now. Against the selling price of the Vitality Condensing Grass, that fruit can sell for much higher.
The deeper she went, the more uninhabited it became, but in contrast, the variety of precious herbs grew in large and nearly dazzled Ling Yue’s poor little eye. Among the many she found, she couldn’t even name them.
After walking for a few hours, the landscape became steeper and a waft of fruity aroma was constantly hitting her in the face. Looking further ahead at the lush forest, batches of green emerald colored fruits the size of persimmons were hanging off the branches of a very healthy looking tree.
Qingmu fruit! Sparkling in her eyes, Ling Yue immediately strode over.
Likely haven’t been picked by others for a good while, the branches were covered in these fruits. Plucking a few off, a rustling sound suddenly came from the bushes. From the dense greenery, a gray haired metal armed ape jumped out.
This kind of metal armed ape wasn’t to be trifled with. Standing at heights equal to a full grown man, its bulking arms can easily reach to its knees and could strike a boulder in two with a single blow. As one of the more famous wild animals in Seven Star Mountain, this ape was one of the higher tiered predatory animals here.
All of the ape’s gray hair had been raised by now, its face making a scary scowl as it stared at Ling Yue and the Qingmu fruit in her hands.
Making a wheezing sound through its nostrils, the metal armed ape swings its arm and brushes aside the shrubbery.
Oh no, this strip of Qingmu fruit belongs to the metal armed ape!
Tensing up inside, Ling Yue remembers from the book (Records of Da Xia), some of the higher tier predatory animals have a strong notion of being territorial. No wonder there had been so many herb gatherers being killed before.
Uttering a loud angry roar, the metal armed ape swings its iron bar like arms at Ling Yue.
Not slow to respond either, Ling Yue condenses the Yuan energy from her dantian into her fist and backpedals several steps to avoid the first assault. Then releasing the energy built up, three blue lightning streaks flew towards the ape from Ling Yue’s Lightning Burst Fist.
Upon landing at the ape’s left arm, the explosive force from her attack causes the ape’s flesh to tear apart and hurting it dearly.
Crying out in aggravating pain, the strong body of this gray haired ape shivered at the injury it sustained. Not only did the attack make a big hole into the ape’s left arm, the impacting force from Ling Yue’s attack also broke its shoulder blade.
ROARRRR—
Disregarding the immense pain from its left arm, the gray haired ape went into a maddened state and rips an entire tree trunk from the ground and uses it to smash at her.
With every blow, the greenery and soil that got in its way would be blown away.
Knowing she can’t take the enemy head on or be reckless, she musters up her remaining strength and dashes into the depths of the forest in order to hide herself.
This metal armed ape has been lord of this area for many years, when has it suffered like so? Picking up its pace, it relentlessly chased after Ling Yue from the back.
Fortunately there are many trees in the forest and the fact that it was also injured too, it didn’t take long for Ling Yue to open up the distance between the two.
As the metal armed ape continues its chase, Ling Yue’s shadow soon disappeared from its sight. Angry and annoyed, it can only begin scouring the area for any signs of the hateful girl.
Not far away inside an old tree hole, a pair of eyes were peering out into the distance.
This was an old dead tree killed off by thunder strike. With its leaves withered and gone, the only thing left of this tree was its stump. Out of urgency, Ling Yue had hid herself inside this opening earlier.
Sure enough, the ape didn’t find any traces of her. After making several more rounds in the area, the ape can only bitterly go look elsewhere.
Then just when Ling Yue was ready to slip away, she lost her footing due to the slippery walls and fell deep into the seemingly bottomless tree hole.