Golden eyes glinted secretly with the glow of blue foxfire. Bai Qingyue's gaze turned deep and unfathomable under the cover of darkness; a certain air of intimacy could be felt between the soft-spoken human girl and the mysterious fox cub.
There was so much to be said that a simple answer would fail to adequately describe the reason for his proclamation.
"It was the only thing I could think of at that moment." In the end, the Fox Lord opted out with a lie. His voice was monotone, devoid of emotion or feeling.
Looking at the little fox's innocent expression, Li Meirong believed him without hesitation. It confirmed her previous assumptions, and she sighed in relief.
"Oh, that's what I thought… I got worried for nothing." She answered, reassured.
Bai Qingyue's gaze darkened further, from deep gold to the unnerving abyss of an endless night. His tiny paws clenched as he struggled to restrain his temper.
She believed his lie so easily, sighed in contentment at it, even. Was it such an insult, such a terrible fate, to be tied to him in marriage?
It wasn't as though he could easily explain to her the curse he suffered from. Passed down through every generation of the Bai Clan, the curse made it possible for each pure-blooded family member to only ever become attached to a single soul in the entire universe.
What made the curse the furthest thing from a romantic idea, was that the curse worked in only one direction. The fated partner for a cursed clan member would not necessarily ever form the same kind of attachment towards the cursed person.
Being soul-bound to a single person in the entirety of existence sounded romantic, but reality was far less kind. As such, Bai Qingyue knew he had to tread very, very carefully with his little bride.
Once upon a time, the Celestial Bai Fox Clan had been a desirable and powerful tribe to forge alliances with. Known for their might and beauty, and for the prominence the Huli Jing had held throughout history, there had always been gods and goddesses of all realms lined up, waiting for an opportunity to catch a glimpse of any Bai Clan family member's visage.
Naturally, those who married into the Bai Clan were immortal lords and ladies of noble status and immeasurable strengths.
At least that had been the case, up until the the moment the Bai Clan had inherited the curse.
Countless eons ago, the Primordial Fox Lord had been the cause of the dreadful curse. And ever since his untimely death, the whole Bai line had been inflicted with the punishment he had been granted.
The Primordial Fox Lord was known to have been a distinguished god, peerless in both power and intelligence. A truly perfect and unique existence in all creation; if not for his womanizing ways, he would have remained one of the first among the most renowned Heavenly Lords.
Apparently, though, it had not been enough for the Primordial Fox Lord to simply have a harem of a thousand concubines; his lust was seemingly endless, and he always sought to conquer more.
One of his conquests had led the Primordial Fox Lord to his inevitable demise. It was the Jade Emperor's first daughter, the Dragon Princess, who had pretended to be a servant in attendance at the Heavenly Tree of Life banquet.
The banquet celebrated the Heavenly Tree's bearing fruit of eternal life, which fruited only once every ten thousand years. The gathering was an exclusive event, and only a select few were allowed attendance.
Back then, the Dragon Princess had impersonated a servant in order to attend the gathering, and fell in love at first sight with the dashing Primordial Fox Lord.
The Primordial Fox had easily charmed the Dragon Princess the moment they had met, unaware of her secret identity. They shared a brief, passionate interlude in each other's embrace, as couples naturally tended to do.
Unfortunately, it didn't take long until the Dragon Princess found herself discarded and alone; her charming lover had disappeared altogether.
If only that Primordial Fox Lord had known: the woman he abandoned was the most beloved daughter of the Jade Emperor. Had he known, there was no way he would have set his mischievous paws on her!
The Primordial Fox Lord of the Bai Clan discovered his mistake only after being summoned to the Jade Emperor's court hall.
When he had arrived there, he saw the Dragon Princess standing tall and proud at the Punishment Hall in her full regalia, adorned with the royal dragon crest, no longer pretending to be an insignificant servant girl.
As punishment for his heathen ways and low moral conduct, the Jade Emperor had ordered a permanent curse be placed upon him and his clan, for all generations to follow. The curse was cast directly, by the very same Dragon Princess he had previously abandoned.
The Fox Lord and all his family would only be able to develop feelings and desires for a single being throughout their entire life. They would be unable to be attracted to any person other than their fated partner.
Many theories circulated throughout the centuries about the fate of the cursed Bai Clan. Some gods thought the Bai Fox Gods had grown too strong, and had become a potential threat to the Royal Dragon Clan.
They believed the Jade Emperor, ruler of the Heavens, had grown wary of the Bai Clan members, and had sent his own daughter to seduce the Primordial Fox Lord in an attempt to trap him.
Many gods speculated that the curse had been intended from the very beginning, meted out as a collective punishment, in order to bring about the Bai Clan's imminent extinction.
After all, even if gods could live indefinitely, finding a single soul in the entire universe to continue the bloodline required nothing short of a miracle. Regardless of the intention, the curse would cause the decimation of a great and powerful clan in the Heavens.
Following numerous battles and very few offspring born, the large and terrifying Bai Clan went from several thousand members to a mere few hundred.
Thus, before his untimely death, the Primordial Bai Fox Lord assembled the rest of the Celestial Fox Clans under the Heavenly Realm, subservient to his rule, and made the Bai Clan take control of all the Huli Jing. By taking matters into his own hands in such a way, he took leadership over all Celestial Foxes.
The Primordial Bai Fox Lord placed a counter-curse over the clan, one that bestows every Bai Fox Male's offspring the clan's bloodline as inheritance, while disregarding the maternal line.
Thus, he ensured that since the clan members no longer had any control over who they mated, at least the bloodline would manage to survive. It also meant that newborns would, in all likelihood, be of mixed blood until there was none from the original Bai Clan remaining.
If that were truly the case, the Jade Emperor was indeed wise as he was conniving. He had guaranteed his prestige would remain intact by using underhanded methods. Instead of starting an all-out war, the Emperor wiped out a potential threat by breeding it out.
If the counter-curse would not have existed, the Bai line would have perished long ago. The counter-curse ensured the clan's survival by forcing the male's bloodline to overtake the female's line.
In essence, when a Male Bai member found his fated person outside the clan, any offspring from the union would take after the Bai bloodline and follow the father's lineage. However, the counter-curse did not work with Bai females, causing many mixed-blooded children to form sub-branches in the tribe. Now, it was more common to find mixed-blood rather than pure-blood Bai Members remaining. It was a surprise for many that the clan had managed to survive, and even somewhat prosper, under such harsh circumstances.
The curse had also caused dissent among the fox clan members who were forced into marriage and copulation, such as Bai Qingyue's own father. The Bai elders went so far as to drug some of the male clan members to perform in bed, so as to continue the nearly diminished lineage.
Desperate times called for desperate measures.
How, without revealing all this, could Bai Qingyue possibly explain to Li Meirong just how special and important she was to him?
Unfortunately for her, Li Meirong's lack of knowledge didn't mean Bai Qingyue didn't grow angered at her response to his lie. The grumpy little fox placed his snout to the curve of Li Meirong's neck, and nipped his wife's smooth skin in reprimand.
"Ouch! Snowball, that hurt!" Li Meirong frowned; her doe-eyes watered from the sudden pain as she pushed Snowball away from her neck, glaring at his guilt-free, baby-face expression.
Snowball's ears drooped, his fluffy tail curving up around his belly. The fox averted his gaze from hers bashfully, and in a low tone, muttered an excuse.
"I stopped the mosquito from sucking your blood…"