As she dodged, she didn't forget to keep adding fuel to the fire.
“My, my, my~ Someone's getting touchy! No way, right? Could someone actually be too afraid to admit it?”
Li Yuan paused, his breath hitching slightly from her sheer audacity, and his movements slowed down.
Seizing the opening, Hui lunged to the side, leaping clean over the low table. The cups on the table wobbled in the gust of wind she kicked up, nearly toppling over.
Li Yuan reached out to steady the teacup with one hand while his other hand shot toward the scruff of Hui's neck.
Hui swept her tails behind her, shoving a faceful of fluffy white fur right into his face.
With his vision blocked, Li Yuan's hand slowed by a fraction of a second.
Hui instantly slipped past his side, landed on the ground, and turned back to wag her tails at him in provocation.
“All those years of cultivation, and this is all you've got?”
Li Yuan brushed the fox fur away from his face. His smile remained, but it had taken on a distinctly chilling edge.
“It seems we must settle this once and for all today.”
Hui showed no fear whatsoever.
“Then bring it on.”
In the next instant, Li Yuan's figure materialized beside her, his hand clamping down on her head.
Not to be outdone, Hui placed her front paws on his shoulders, using them as leverage to flip backward and break free from his grasp. However, the moment she touched the ground, Li Yuan had already reached out and grabbed one of her tails.
Hui's body froze instantly, and the yard fell into a sudden silence.
Li Yuan looked down at the tail in his hand, and Hui slowly turned her head.
Their eyes met.
Hui's eyes narrowed.
“Let go.”
Li Yuan replied very politely:
“No.”
Hui took a deep breath.
“Li Yuan, I'm counting to three.”
“One.”
“Two.”
“Three!”
It was Li Yuan who shouted “Three!”, and at that exact moment, Hui lunged at him.
Li Yuan let go and dodged, but Hui used the momentum to slam straight into his chest. In an instant, the man and the fox rolled into a tangled heap, cyan robes and white fur mixing together in a chaotic scuffle on the grass.
Hui bit down firmly on Li Yuan's sleeve, refusing to let go, while Li Yuan pressed her head, trying to pry her off.
“Let go.”
“No.”
“Are you going to pay for my clothes if they tear?”
“I've already given you two of my tails. You think I care about a single robe?”
Once again, Li Yuan was left speechless by her words. Seizing the opportunity, Hui raised her paw and struck at his shoulder, aiming for his blind spot.
Li Yuan sidestepped to avoid the blow, twisting his hand back to pin her down.
But before he could secure his hold, Hui's tails swept in from the side, wrapping directly around his wrist.
Neither of them was willing to back down; both were as stubborn as mules, determined to fight to the bitter end.
Clearly, this completely undignified scuffle had no intention of ending anytime soon.
The man and the fox romped around the yard for quite some time.
At first, Li Yuan only wanted to rescue his sleeve from Hui's mouth, but somehow it escalated into Hui insisting on biting his other sleeve, while Li Yuan began to seriously try to stop her from ruining his clothes any further.
Though neither side was using real force, the small yard was still thoroughly thrashed in the process.
Several patches of grass nourished by the spiritual spring were trampled flat, and the once-tidy soil was now covered in paw prints and footprints.
Hui was incredibly nimble. Despite her decent size, she managed to weave in and out of Li Yuan's reach, escaping just as his hands were about to close around her every single time.
After missing several times, Li Yuan simply gave up and stood in place, raising his hand to smooth out the rumpled sleeves she had tugged on.
Hui squatted not far away, her eight tails swaying gently behind her, her face filled with smug satisfaction.
“Why'd you stop chasing me?”
Li Yuan looked at the two rows of faint teeth marks on his sleeve and sighed softly.
“I feel like if we keep going, this robe won't survive.”
“If it gets ruined, you can just change into another one,” Hui said, lifting her chin with a breezy tone. “It's not like you're short on clothes anyway. What's the matter? Is this your excuse for giving up?”
“I've gotten used to this one.”
“Oh, you've gotten used to it.”
Hui drew out her words, her eyes narrowing into slits.
“Are you used to the robe, or are you just used to wearing that gentle, refined mask of yours?”
Li Yuan's movements paused. As if she had finally caught him off guard, Hui slowly paced in a half-circle around him.
“Who was the one who lunged forward just now? Who was the one who grabbed my tail? And who was the one pinning my head down so I couldn't get up?”
Li Yuan remained silent for a moment before correcting her seriously:
“You bit me first.”
Hui didn't feel a shred of guilt.
“And that's because you flew into a rage out of embarrassment and tried to silence me.”
“I did not.”
“You did.”
“I didn't.”
“You did.”
Looking at her self-righteous expression, Li Yuan suddenly felt that continuing this argument was entirely pointless.
Arguing with Hui was always a losing battle.
Especially since she held the moral high ground of having “just saved someone and sacrificed a tail.” No matter what he said at a time like this, Hui would always find a way to steer the conversation back to that.
Sure enough, seeing that he didn't reply, Hui immediately pressed on:
“Besides, I've already given up my tail. What's wrong with teasing you a bit? Yet you went ahead and fought back without showing any mercy at all.”
Li Yuan's lip twitched slightly.
“...We were just playing around.”
“Heh, playing around.”
Hui nodded, her tone devoid of any actual belief.
“If I were to tear down your teahouse right now, I could say we were just playing around too, right?”
Li Yuan glanced at her, and Hui immediately added:
“After all, it's all just playing around.”
Li Yuan was temporarily at a loss for words. Seeing that he had finally fallen silent, Hui wagged her tails even more cheerfully.
“And another thing, when you grabbed my tail just now, you gripped it pretty hard. Do you even know what tails mean to a demon fox? Are they something you can just grab whenever you want?”
Li Yuan raised a hand and massaged his temples.
“You didn't seem to care much about that when you were shoving your tails in my face earlier.”
Hui replied as if it were the most natural thing in the world:
“They're my tails. I can do whatever I want with them.”
“...”
Li Yuan opened his mouth but found himself at a loss for words. Her shamelessness was truly unmatched.
Taking a mile after being given an inch, Hui took another two steps closer.
“See? Now you know you can't win an argument against me. Wouldn't it have been better to just admit your mistake earlier? Did you really have to force me to use physical force to realize that I'm skilled in both pen and sword?”
Li Yuan took a deep breath, managing to maintain his last shred of composure.
“Then let's just say I was wrong.”
Hui blinked, seemingly not expecting him to concede so quickly.
But she was quick to react, letting out a soft huff.
“What do you mean 'let's say' you were wrong? You were wrong to begin with.”
“Fine, I was wrong.”
Li Yuan yielded gracefully, offering no further resistance. Hui stared at him for a moment, suddenly finding it a bit boring.
If he had kept arguing with her, she could have teased him a bit more. But now that he had taken this submissive stance, it made it hard for her to keep pushing.
Still, Hui clearly didn't intend to let him off that easily. She lay back down in her original spot and spoke in a deliberately lazy tone:
“Since you know you were wrong, shouldn't you make some amends?”
A bad premonition immediately welled up in Li Yuan's heart.
“What do you want?”
Hui looked up at him, a trace of cunning flashing in her golden slit pupils.
“Not much. Let's just put it on your tab for now. I'll ask for it whenever I think of something.”
Li Yuan rejected the idea without a second thought.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“You are never reasonable.”
Hui burst into laughter.
“I'm unreasonable? You literally slapped a developing Heavenly Dao back by tens of thousands of years, and now you're calling me unreasonable?”
Hearing this, Li Yuan fell silent once more.
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