Jin Xiao Yi Tan - Volume 1 Chapter 8

The full poem for the first line:

THE TEMPLE OF THE PREMIER OF SHU

Where is the temple of the famous Premier? —
In a deep pine grove near the City of Silk,
With the green grass of spring coloring the steps,
And birds chirping happily under the leaves.
…The third summons weighted him with affairs of state
And to two generations he gave his true heart,
But before he could conquer, he was dead;
And heroes have wept on their coats ever since.

‘Xiao Bai’, literally Little White, is a common nickname people give to cats or dogs.

But before he could conquer, he was dead; and heroes have wept on their coats ever since.

I had been deeply rueful of these words in the past few days.

I decided to write down Zhao Yinfei’s accomplishments, so that more would see it, so that more people would know, that there was a brave and valiant hero in the past.

With that, I hurried about collecting material during the day, and was busy with writing my draft for the special column during the night. I spent two continuous nights staying up late, and finally sent the draft to the editor’s mailbox on the afternoon on the third day.

I yawned, exhausted, and stood up from the laptop screen. After stretching myself, I rubbed my sore and swollen eyes, then reached out a hand to touch my desk.

Huh? It wasn’t there?

Lowering my head, the pen drive that I had always habitually placed on the desk had disappeared.

Where did the pen drive run off to, my draft hadn’t been saved into it yet.

I went looking all over for it, but even after going through the entire table and drawers, including carefully examining the floor, I still could not find that small pen drive.

Weird. Could I have placed it somewhere else, and forgotten about it?

I propped my chin up, thinking hard, and still could not figure out where I had put my pen drive. I could only give up for the time being.

After an entire night of rushing my draft, I hadn’t eaten anything yet. I had long since become so hungry my stomach rumbled, and as I yawned again and again, I staggered down the stairs to scour for food.

Jiuye wasn’t present; he must have gone out.

Ah Bao lay over his stomach beside the window, shaking a long feather here and there, who knew just what he was doing.

I extended my head to take a look. Turns out there was a cat crouching on the window ledge.

The cat with fur as silvery-white as snow and dark green eyes was one of the stray cats in the neighborhood. I would frequently meet it whenever I went out and it would always follow me for quite some time along the road, I would buy little fish from the marketplace at times to feed it. I never thought it would find the place I lived.

“Ah Bao, don’t let the kitty into the house, we don’t know if Ah Ye likes cats or not yet.”

I reminded him absentmindedly.

“Okay.”

Ah Bao turned his head, and for some reason, he started giggling when he saw me.

I didn’t have the energy to play along with him, and went on to the kitchen to take out eggs and cold rice from the fridge, intending on making some egg fried rice to fill my stomach. However, when the steaming egg fried rice came out of the stove, I immediately spat it out after tasting it.

Fuck! So spicy! So spicy so spicy!

Damn it, I had actually mistakenly added red pepper paste as ketchup into the fried rice!

I hurriedly gulped down a huge glass of ice water, alleviating the spiciness in my mouth slightly, but that plate of egg fried rice added full with red pepper paste could no longer be eaten.

It was really awful, this was what happened whenever a person became tired, always making plenty of mistakes.

I sighed, dispirited.

At this time, I heard Ah Bao laugh loudly.

“Ah Bao, what are you laughing at?”

I turned around to glare at him aggravatedly.

Who would have thought Ah Bao would change his position when I turned, standing behind me, both of those little hands grasping at the air as if he was trying to catch bees or butterflies. Even the yingyao was hopping by the side, circling around me, as if it was excited about something.

“Hey, what are you guys doing?” I turned my head to ask them.

Ah Bao blinked his large eyes at me, revealing a crafty smile.

Just as I was about to ask further, I heard the sound of the door opening, Jiuye had returned. There was a paper bag in his hand, and lifting his eyes to see me, he actually let out a pfft and laughed out loud.

“Please! What is every one of you laughing at!” I looked angrily at him.

Jiuye pointed behind me, saying a strange phrase.

“Xiao Mo, your tail’s showing.”

“Huh? Tail?”

I glanced back to take a look, saying perplexedly, “What tail? Please, I’m a human, how could I have a tail! Do you think I’m a monkey?”

“But, humans did evolve from apes and monkeys.”

Jiuye couldn’t help but laugh, letting down the paper bag in his hands, pulling me to the window where the sun was shining brightly through, pointing at my shadow on the wall, “You’ll know once you look at it using the shadow crystal.”

I took out that transparent glass ball from my pocket, raising it before my eyes to take a look.

Goodness! I, I really saw a thin and long tail, at the back of my shadow!

That tail seemed to have a consciousness of its own, swaying back and forth playing hide-and-seek with Ah Bao, and Ah Bao kept on reaching out his hands to try and catch it, giggling as he tried to grab it.

“What’s going on? Why is there a tail on my shadow!” I cried out in shock.

Jiuye smiled, explaining, “In this world, the life forms with an awareness of its own will all have a spirit. The humans evolved from the apes, and when they first formed their consciousness, humans were ‘monkeys’ with a tail, so the humans’ spirits originally had a tail as well.

“When the apemen evolved into the humans of today, their physical tails started slowly degenerating. Up till it vanished, but a tail was still left on the spirit, and this tail, it called a spirit tail. As the humans evolved, their brains developed even more, and their consciousness became even more formidable, so formidable they could control their own spirit tails to not manifest. Deliberately learning the skill to control it is not needed, just like how you know how to breathe the moment you are born, so under normal situations, your spirit tail will not come out.”

I asked, failing to understand, “Why did my tail come out, then?”

Jiuye laughed lightly, saying, “Because you’re too tired. When a person becomes too overworked, their mental state will be extremely weary, which will cause their consciousness and train of thought to slow down, unable to control the spirit tail. The unconstrained spirit tail will still retain a monkey’s nature of being extremely mischievous and loves to play pranks on its owner. For example, deliberately stealing your glasses so that you can’t find them, or secretly switching one of your socks, making you wear different stockings when you go out, or—”

“Or, secretly putting the red pepper paste into my hand!”

I cut off Jiuye, stirred up, “No wonder I put in the wrong seasonings earlier! I see, so it was all done by that tail!”

Jiuye pointed at the shadow on the wall, asking, “Did you lose something?”

I stared blankly, and hurriedly said, “My pen drive! I lost my pen drive!”

Through the shadow crystal, I abruptly realized, there was a tiny object curled at the end of that long tail. Although it was just a shadow, I could recognize it as the pen drive I had been strenuously searching for before this!

I looked at Jiuye anxiously, “How do I get my pen drive back?”

Jiuye smiled, “You can’t get it now, you can only wait until the spirit tail vanishes that the things it has taken will reappear.”

“How do I make the tail disappear, then?” I asked.

Jiuye patted my shoulder, saying, “It’s very simple, go have a good rest, and once you are mentally and physically recovered, the spirit tail will naturally vanish.”

“Uh, j-just that simple?”

I scratched my head. Although it felt a little intriguing, I had no other thoughts on it, and could only do as Jiuye said, obediently returning to my room to have a good sleep.

I must have been too tired. With that, I slept for an entire day and night. When I finally awoke, it was already noon of the next day.

After getting sufficient sleep, I felt as if I had gotten charged up, full of energy and vigor.

I flipped over and sat up on the bed, breathing the fresh air deeply, then turned my head, unexpectedly finding that pen drive quietly ‘lying’ on the right side of the desk.

I couldn’t help but smile.

It seems that the spirit tail must be gone by now.

*

Spirit tails were quite fascinating things. So they were the reason why people continuously made mistakes.

I became strongly interested in this mischievous tail, and whenever the weather was fine, in the afternoons where the sun was shining brightly, I would sit in the coffee shop using the shadow crystal to observe the shadows of passersby, looking to see if their tails had come out, and which of those tails had an object curled in them, playing a prank on their respective owners.

But I would have never expected, that this action would pull me into another bizarre incident.

And this incident, all started from that girl’s shadow.

She was a beautiful young girl, with bob hair and large eyes.

At first, she was just passing by the French window of the coffee shop. Through the shadow crystal, I realized in shock, that her shadow that cast on the ground, actually had nine big and fluffy tails.

I couldn’t help but jump, and when I placed down the shadow crystal, the girl outside the window had seen it. I thought my eyes had blurred, and sat there struck foolish for a moment.

But not before two minutes had passed, that girl actually walked through the door of the coffee shop and straight towards me, head tilted, asking with a smile, “You saw that, am I right?”

I almost spat out my coffee with that question, stammering, “S-Saw what?”

The girl bent down, sticking up an exquisite bottom, giving me a sweet smile.

This movement made by a beautiful woman would look very seductive and ambiguous from an onlookers’ point of view, but I knew what she meant, she was pointing at— her tails.

I coughed lightly, nodding simply, and admitted, “Mm, I can see it, nine tails.”

I paused, and asked, “Are you a fox spirit?”

The girl laughed out loud, and sat down in front of me, saying, “Don’t tell me that in the eyes of you humans, only the fox spirits have nine tails?”

“Uh, because, I’ve only heard of the nine-tailed fox…” I scratched my head awkwardly.

After experiencing all those odd and marveling incidents with Jiuye, I wasn’t that scared of these extraordinary things anymore, and besides, we were in a coffee shop, with that many people around, this wasn’t a place even a yaoguai could mess around in.

So I looked at the girl before me, asking, “What are you?”

“How about you guess?”

The girl smilingly kept me in suspense, taking the coffee mug in front of me to have a taste. She must have found it horrible, and immediately extended her tongue out with a hiss.

“Too bitter?” I smiled.

The girl shook her head, saying, “Of course not, it’s too hot.”

“Too hot?” I touched the coffee mug, and said, “It’s already cooled off.”

The girl stuck out her tongue at me, “Haven’t you heard of the ‘cat’s tongue’? A cat’s tongue is very sensitive, naturally afraid of heat. Even to an object that is considered cooled off to others, a cat’s tongue can still be scalded.”

“So… You’re a cat?”

The girl’s mouth curved into an astute smile, raising up her palms in a feline-like manner, propping herself up on the table and moved closer, deliberately blinking her eyes.

“Xiao Mo, do you really not recognize me?”

Her pupils contracted, turning into slits under the sunlight, casting out a dark green light, almost like resplendent jade stone.

I had seen this pair of beautiful and flirtatious eyes before.

“Ah! Y-you’re, you’re that stray cat!”

I cried out loudly, making the people around me jump, turning their heads in succession to look at me.

I became aware of myself, and hurriedly lowered my voice to ask, “Are you that white cat that’s been lingering outside the window recently?”

The girl narrowed her eyes and smiled, unexpectedly giving my cheek a lick.

I felt the tiny barbs flick across my skin, bringing a slight prickling feeling.

“That’s right. My name is Xia Xue, you can call me Xiao Xue, just don’t call me Xiao Bai anymore, got it?”

“Xia Xue? You have a surname?” I looked at her with some surprise.

“What, can’t cats have surnames like the humans?”

The girl moved even closer to me, glaring at me with a playful pout.

I leaned back, saying with a purse of my lips, “O-okay, Xiao Xue, I’ve memorized it… Cough cough, um, Xiao Xue, why have you been coming to my house, uh, no, my friend’s house recently?”

As those words came out, the girl’s bright eyes suddenly dimmed a little.

She said, “I came to ask you guys for help.”

“Help?” I felt that this was a little ridiculous, saying, “Something a yaoguai like you can’t resolve, how could a human like me help?”

The girl bit her lip, “Even if you can’t, I know that that friend of yours can definitely help me.”

“Are you talking about Jiuye?”

I couldn’t help but stare blankly again.