In This Life • Tale Of The Nine Tailed • Lee Rang

Chapter 3

A/N: Please look at the image before reading.
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Lee Yeon's POV

Ryu Lin. Otherwise known as Lin. 2106 years old, the mountain spirit of KumKangSan, descendant of the purest arctic fox bloodline...maybe even the last of his kind. You may know that I was the mountain spirit of Baekdudaegan, but in reality, I was one of the four mountain spirits.

Baekdudaegan refers to the mountain system and watershed crestline running through almost the whole length of the Korean Peninsula. Starting from mount BaekDu in the north to mount JiRi in the south.

There are 13 branches along this mountain range which stretches for more than 1600km across the peninsula...in other words, it's A LOT of land, so it was simplified into eight main mountains, each spirit ruled two mountains. I ruled mount ODae and TaeBaek, Lin ruled mount KumKang and SeoRak. As you can see, he's much older than me, but we became mountain spirits at around the same time, our mountains were neighboring each other too so we became acquainted with each other and eventually became friends. Same goes for me and Sa Ddo who ruled mount SokRi and JiRi.

I was amused that I wasn't the only Gumiho (Seeing that Sa Ddo is a bear and Seo Hwa is a phoenix) and even more surprised that the other Gumiho mountain spirit is of the rare arctic bloodline. We got along immediately, though some distance was kept for the sake of protecting our territory, think of it as an internal competition between the mountain spirits.

But of course, I wasn't labeled the most merciless mountain spirit for nothing, or else, how would my forests flourish as it did? Lin's attitude to being a stubborn and determined mountain spirit was similar to mine. Which was probably why it happened.

I won't deny the fact that he is stronger than me, he's almost 500 years senior and possesses powers more advantageous than mine...As he likes to call it, manipulation of memories. Even so, seemingly powerful beings like him would still find themselves in desperate situations;

I found him at the foot of my mountain, poisoned with graveyard flowers by mountain spirit wannabes, the day before he had pissed me off by playing a joke on me so I wasn't really bothered with anything related to him. It was so bad that we decided not to cross paths with each other again. And when I don't care...I really don't care.

Lee Yeon help me!

Why should I?

I'll...I'll give you SeoRakSan.

Are you out of your mind?

I'm being very serious

Gumiho's may be sly in nature but we value integrity greatly. We stick to our promises and return favours (on demand), so he passed onto me the authority to rule mount SeoRak. I became the mountain spirit of three mountains and we barely talked nor heard about each other again.

He continued to manage KumKangSan, even after I left my position and the humans burned down the forests, nowhere was safe for the creatures that lived in the mountains I once overwatched. But SeoRak was somehow left untouched, and the animals who were able to escape took shelter there. Most importantly, Rang still had a place to go. When I returned and realised that everything was gone, the creatures and fairies spoke to me. Telling me about how frightening it was...and when I asked about Rang, they said that he was watched over by the mountain spirit of KumKangSan.

Maybe I never really knew him.
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Third Person POV

"No way.", SangBum said in disbelief, "How can I be your brother?"

Yeon leaned in, "It's true. Rang was my half brother and a half Gumiho...He died ten years ago."

SangBum contemplated for a moment before asking carefully, "Why did he die?"