The massive gates of the Inner Palace of the Crow King’s Nest were only open for special occasions, most of the ti two smaller side doors were used by everyone entering and leaving.
It was at one of the side doors that a loud voice was causing a ruckus amid the small line of people waiting to be let in, as the guards checked their qualifications to enter.
"This is outrageous! Do you know who I am?! I am Ko Gunwen, the eldest son of the Silver Wing City’s Lord! You can’t-..."
"And I’m the Iron Claw Group Leader’s Dad", the head guard at this entrance point, who heard that identity shouted at him for a good half hour at this point, cut into his words while picking his ear with his pinky, and then pointing to a different guard added, "And this here’s his brother, that one over there’s actually your distant uncle, you just didn’t see him much growing up"
"Y-you wretch! How dare-... ", Ko Gunwen almost choked from indignation, while the guard he called the brother of Iron Claw Group Leader laughed, "Who’re you calling your son, chief? If I am, I certainly inherited better looks from whoever the mother is!", causing a roaring laughter from the other guards.
"You see how helpful that line of argunt is while we haven’t confird your identity yet? And regardless... Even if you really are who you say you are, we need confirmation from the higher-ups that you are allowed in - there’s protocol when you guys visit this place as well. Wait in line like everyone else", the head guard yawned into Silver Wing City’s eldest young master’s face.
The latter breathed heavily, pulling all of his strength to contain his anger, and watched with bloodshot eyes as another man passed by him and was let in after his identity and right to enter was confird.
He has lost count how many tis people who ca after him were let through in front of his nose while he was held back here, looking more and more like a laughingstock.
At this point he knew that the guards were ssing with him on purpose because he pissed them off when he arrived. But he couldn’t do anything about it.
At this point, behind him, a masked man with a little fox on his shoulder approached the scene.
One of the guards absentmindedly approached the masked man, his attention still focused on Ko Gunwen. By the ti he finally turned to the newcor, the masked man was already right in front of him. Seeing his cultivation in Nine Mortal Realms, the guard snorted, expecting to send away an ignorant country bumpkin who didn’t know where he was trying to enter.
He wanted to quickly be done with it and return to watching the spectacle, so his eyes casually brushed on so kind of token the masked man took out as he opened his mouth and already started raising his hand to shoo him away, when he noticed that the masked man didn’t actually have any fox or other animal on his shoulder.
’Eh? Wasn’t there... ’, and as this made him slightly focus because he thought he was seeing things, his eyes finally stopped on the token. The next mont his mind froze, and the very next - exploded with thoughts.
"W-welco, p-please wait a mont...", he stuttered out and sent a sound transmission to the head guard who imdiately turned his head from the fuming Silver Wing City young master to the masked man, specifically the token in his hand, and abandoning the forr, hurried forward to the latter, "Dear Guest, may I...?"
The masked man silently handed over the token, and after checking it with his own specialized communication jade, the head guard deeply bowed as he handed the token back with both hands, "Welco, Dear Honored Guest. It is our honor to receive you!"
The other guards dropped their jaws seeing their laid back leader act this way and hurried to deeply bow as well, chanting the last phrase their leader said in unison.
The masked man casually took the token back and proceeded walking without a word, passing by surprised looks of others waiting for their confirmations, and most notably the shocked and at the sa ti practically exploding Ko Gunwen. And then, ignoring the even louder ruckus that began behind his back, went inside the passage leading into the main palace.
The guard who greeted the masked man first, raised his head, and glanced at the back of the masked man, and almost shouted when he saw fluffy tails of a little fox, pointing to it with his finger. He later spent many years arguing with his fellow guards that there was a small fox on that man’s shoulder, while all others always told him he had too much to drink or was overworked that night.
—
"You and your tricks", Wu Long chuckled, shaking his head. The side passage he went into and was slowly passing through was a dark, low-ceiling and relatively narrow corridor, dimly lit with lights spilling over from entrances to small individual shops on both sides.
"Hehehe, I like playing with humans. Humans always have the most amusing reactions to ’seeing things’ as you call it. And there’s an infinite variety of ways how things play out, and all the interactions around it, it never gets dull", Fen Baihu giggled.
"I pity the people who lived on the Cloud Piercing Continent", Wu Long imagined how people all over that continent were ’played with’ for thousands of years while she was bored.
"Oh! I have a lot of fun mories there. Especially with people looking for their stuff. ’I just left it there! Where did it go?’, or ’Hmm, I thought I put it sowhere in this box... all of my socks are in this box... where is my lucky pair?’, hehehe! The looks on their faces when they ask soone else where it is and those people find it exactly where they were looking for it!", she turned to lay on her back on his shoulder, playing with bubbles of moving images with people in them, constantly changing scenes, that appeared in the thin air above her with her cute little paws.
"Why only humans though? There were Azure Eagles and White Ring Revenant Pythons on the other continents, plus there was the Tree Spirit...", Wu Long asked, not sure it was so ’lucky’ for humans to be so uniquely entertaining for this playful fox.
The bubbles of past mories and episodes disappeared into strands of mist that quickly dissipated as if they were never there, and Fen Baihu floated a bit off his shoulder to rotate in the air and land back to sit, while her eyes rolled up with ’oh please~’ kind of expression, "Co on, Spirit Race’s reactions are notoriously dull, admit it, even you humans think so. Especially tree Spirits... that old man nearly drove insane just to talk to... ’this humble one this, this humble one that’, his range of facial expressions and reactions are what’s humble! Other Beast Races tend to never question their senses, so they’re no fun either. They just beco alert without much confusion or any kind of interesting reaction. Demonic Beasts are dumber so they get fooled, but they’re so dumb and single-minded it’s not even fun to ss with them. Even among races I t that weren’t on those three continents, not many are as fun to play with as humans. Don’t get started on the various Races of Giants... they just sit there and blink with blank looks, instead of reacting in any way... and who knows what the Elentals even think? Hmm, hehehe, I like how enraged Dragons get though..."
"And then you get surprised that foxes get a bad rep...", he smiled, not sure whether he should laugh or be worried about the future in light of the last words she said.
"What’s wrong with it? It’s just so fun~", she tilted her head, "And it’s not my fault foxes have that reputation. It’s not like I’m the only fox who does it. About half of all fox species have illusory-related, similar, or adjacent powers, and all of them have done it since the dawn of ti. So don’t pin this one on ! You could say I am following a tradition!"
Wu Long didn’t argue since he wasn’t really disagreeing with her on that, he knew very well that all her pranks were benign and harmless in nature, just confusing and head-scratching episodes in people’s everyday lives, not cruel tricks done in extre situations. In most cases they made the people caught by those tricks laugh in wonder as well.
At this point, he reached the end of the corridor, and turned around the corner. There he was t with an archway entrance so distance away, bright warm light coming from it and contrasting with the relative darkness of the corridor obscuring the view beyond, letting through only sounds reminiscent of a busy street.
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