I shook my head and said, "I have nothing left to consider." At that time, although I was still young and didn't understand much about the ways of the world, there was a stubbornness in me. When I looked at Zimu, who had surfaced from the water, I unexpectedly said, "I don't want to place my hopes in the next life." Zimu stared at my face in a daze, as if looking at an old friend not seen for many years. After a long while, Zimu silently sank back into the water and disappeared. Han Zong gazed at the rippling surface of the water in the tank and sighed, "Fortunately, she kept her promise. Let's go!" Han Zong's plan was for me to row into the center of the mountaintop reservoir, where I would take the secret medicine Zimu had brought and fully merge with the fox skin. Once the stone fox sensed my merging with the fox skin, it would surely take the risk to wade through the water to catch me. Zimu and the eight water ghosts she had gathered were waiting for her in the water. If Zimu couldn't stop the stone fox, Han Zong had prepared a boat for me that concealed two heavy crossbows loaded with a century-old wood core, giving me two chances to shoot the stone fox. If both of my arrows missed, Han Zong, hidden in the shadows, would still be controlling a crossbow. If we failed to capture the stone fox three times, we could only wait for death. Han Zong helped me onto the boat and gave it a push from the side; the small boat drifted toward the center of the reservoir on its own. I sat in the boat with the crossbow, but Zimu still hadn't brought the medicine, and my heart began to race with anxiety. Zimu had not shown up yet; could she have broken her promise? If Zimu didn't come, my only reliance would be the two wooden arrows resting on the crossbow. I had heard that foxes fear the wood that has become a climate, and there is a saying in folklore, "A hundred-year-old wood subdues a thousand-year-old fox," but the premise was that I could hit the stone fox with the wooden arrow. It had already suffered once in my home; if I wanted it to fall for the trap again, I would have to force it into the snare. Without the secret medicine, the stone fox could remain still and wait for me to come ashore again. By then, the mountain and the valley would have turned into the stone fox's domain, and I wouldn't even have the chance to escape. As I watched the time pass little by little, my heart grew more uncertain, and I could no longer resist stepping out of the cabin. Just as I stood on the deck, I saw a stone door opening in the water, towering several meters high.
I don't know whether that large door is submerged at the bottom of the water or standing in the water, but I can clearly see the ghostly relief carvings on the door. Countless lifelike reliefs resemble a group of malevolent spirits trying to break free from hell, yet they are forcibly held between the realms of yin and yang by the stone door. Although they have turned into reliefs, they still struggle desperately to escape the stone door's restraints and rush into the human world. I merely exchanged a glance with the ghost gate, and the underwater stone door opened ominously. A figure dressed in a white gown, stunningly beautiful and cold, drifted out from the door and quickly floated to the surface. When I turned to look, I saw a white-draped female corpse drifting beside the boat. The corpse lay quietly in the water, feet facing the boat, with her hands crossed over her chest. Though her complexion was pale and bloodless, it could not conceal her former beauty. Soon after, a second corpse, a third… eighteen female corpses surfaced one after another, forming a circle around the small boat. I instinctively swallowed hard, crouched down, and picked up the oar, gripping it tightly. When I looked back at the corpses in the water, all eighteen bodies opened their eyes in unison, and dark mist surged from their pitch-black pupils. The once stunningly beautiful corpses, at the moment the dark mist left their bodies, seemed to have their flesh and blood drained away, rapidly shriveling up. Moments later, the eighteen corpses transformed into eighteen flat human skins floating in the water, their mouths and eyes hollow, hair scattered. In my terror, I quickly dove into the cabin and pushed the door shut, but the dark mist that flowed from the corpses seeped through the cracks of the door bit by bit. At the same time, a voice from beneath the boat called out, "Don't be afraid. The ghostly energy I've extracted using human skin is the secret medicine to merge you with the fox skin. Sit tight and wait for your fusion with the fox skin." Only then did I breathe a sigh of relief, sitting in the cabin with a crossbow at the ready. Before long, the swirling ghostly energy reached beneath me, gradually spreading up like stagnant water. A strange itch erupted on my body, and at that moment, I wished I had a few more hands to scratch. Zimu, submerged in the water, seemed to see my movements and sternly shouted, "Don't scratch! Grit your teeth and hold on. That's the fox skin growing on you. If you scratch it open, all your efforts will be wasted. You must endure, even if it kills you." Just as I was forcing myself to keep my hands pressed against my legs, I heard the cold laugh of the stone fox from outside the cabin: "You really believe everything you hear, don't you?" "I'll tell you, those things on the water's surface are all beautiful skins of the Rakshasa demons borrowed from that woman in the underworld. The so-called ghostly energy is merely the essence of the Rakshasa demons. If you absorb the ghostly energy and merge with the fox blood, have you even thought about what you will become in the future?" A shiver ran down my spine at those words, and I couldn't help but tremble. I knew full well that foxes could deceive, yet I inexplicably felt that what it said made sense.
The Stone Fox looked at me and, seeing that I remained silent, spoke again: "Chen Jiu, you and your grandfather have both hated the wrong people and trusted the wrong people." "I swore back then not to take revenge on the Chen family. Would I really skin you? Besides, I can't even enter the underworld; how could I have skinned you before you were born? Where would the skin you lost in the underworld have gone?" "Have you ever thought about these things?" When the Stone Fox asked me this, doubts flooded my mind, and the more I thought about it, the more I felt that everything the Stone Fox said made sense. Unexpectedly, the Stone Fox suddenly said, "I can't skin you in the underworld, but there are others who can!" "Hanzong!" I nearly shouted, my heart sinking sharply. "Right!" the Stone Fox said with a light laugh. "The old ghost you've been serving isn't just an ordinary character." "The female ghost you invited is no ordinary person either." "Can you withstand the deception of two ghosts working together?" My heart sank, but my mind seemed to regain a bit of clarity: "How do I know you're not deceiving me?" "Haha..." the Stone Fox laughed. "My goal is to kill you and take back my skin. Whether you believe me or not, I will kill you. I just don't want you to go to the underworld hating the wrong person." "I want my skin, and they plan to take yours. Both sides want your life; you are undoubtedly doomed. The only difference is, who do you want to die at the hands of?" The Stone Fox's words made my head buzz, and a wave of emotions—feeling deceived and used—erupted from my heart. Logically, I shouldn't doubt Hanzong, but the greatest skill of a fox is its charm. Even an emperor blessed by the country's fortune can hardly escape being enchanted when faced with a fox spirit. When the Stone Fox was speaking to me, it was using its supernatural powers to strike at my heart, intending to manipulate me into disrupting Hanzong's plans and forcing him out, leaving me with no room to struggle.