Blood of the Fox

Chapter 5

Rongling, the guardian beast of the Tower of Punishment, heaved a loud sigh as the large stone doors cracked open and a slight, skinny figure slipped in between the cracks.

"You again?" He said. "Why don't they just send you here to be a servant to me, and then it'll save you the trouble of having to walk here and back every day."

Ruyi shrugged. She rubbed her foot idly along the stone ground of ground floor of the towering building as the great lion-like beast, towering above her four or five times her height, pawed through a bamboo ledger in front of him, searching for her name. "Here we go, a hundred days on the third level of punishment. A hundred days! Really you must have angered someone." Rongling leaned over the ledger and gazed down at her quizzically. "How much time have you spent on the third level?"

Ruyi made a half hearted attempt at counting in her head. "Oh around... thirty years maybe?" Time passed differently in the Tower, it was one of the mysterious things about the Tower of Punishment that few immortals could understand and explain. She could spend her hundred days here and still be back in time to scrub the floors of the Hall of Plenty after the feast - if she was still able to stand that was.

"With that much time in the Tower your neili can't have had no progress. In fact I think you've spent almost as much time here as the Third Prince in the last hundred years, although he is not of course on the third level."

Ruyi's heart skipped a beat- and then she was immediately overcome with an urge to smack herself. "The Third Prince? Why should he be here? No one would dare to punish him, surely."

"No one but himself. The Tower of Punishment is better than any training centre, as long as one is not afraid of death. Perhaps you can also think of your time here in that manner, it might be of some comfort to you."

"That's..." Punishing oneself? To Ruyi, the very concept seemed unnatural. Why on earth would one punish oneself, what kind of ridiculous purpose would that serve? She thought of that proud, haughty face with the mocking eyes. That lazy, golden princeling in here, punishing himself? The statements were not reconcilable.

"Even if one was not of afraid of death, when one is not here by choice and can't leave whenever one wants then it can hardly be called anything but punishment," Ruyi reasoned instead. "Also as I understand training involves an exchange of physical attack, not a one sided pummelling such as what is in store for me."

"I suppose. Even with great neili, spiritual power, it means nothing if its not complemented by any gongfu, physical arts." Rongling stroked his long golden beard. "Really you know nothing at all? I remember the Fox King and how powerful he was. I still remember the day he bested the West Dragon King in one century's Golden Hunt. It was such a humiliation for the dragon clan." He chuckled. "Surely they must have taught you some of their ways."

"I have never met any foxes other than my mother and she certainly doesn't know any martial arts." Ruyi shook her head.

"A shame." Rongling shrugged. He paused and then said, "Say, have you got something around your neck?"

Ruyi went cold briefly. She put her hand over her bare neck. "No, why?"

Rongling squinted at her closely. Ruyi felt the sweat bead on her forehead but then he shrugged. "Ah well you had better get started." He motioned with his hand to the stone stairwell behind him snaking around the circular walls. "The third level, you're most familiar with it. Don't miscount and accidentally go into the fourth, the monsters there you won't have any chance without knowing any gongfu."

"Whereas in the third I'll just suffer horribly but won't die." Ruyi nodded. She clasped her hands together in a gesture of respect. "Thanks for your care, high immortal."

***

The Tower of Punishment was said to be have been created by the Taishanghuang, the Elder Emperor, and the magic he used was akin to that used to create the Nine Heavenly Realms. Each of the levels were filled with monsters and beasts from across the Nine Realms, but controlled so that the least powerful were in the lower levels and the most dangerous on the top. Supposedly the Tower of Punishment did not actually exist in the Heavenly Imperial Realm - after all that would be quite dangerous in close proximity to all the royal households - but somehow, in the Mystic Realm.

"The Mystic Realm is the most mysterious of all the Nine Realms and only the Taishanghuang who created it knows it's secrets. Even if the Jade Emperor himself was to go now there is chance that he would get lost, confused."

Ruyi had come to understand that Rongling, who was one of the oldest creatures in the Heavenly Realm and who had once been one of the guardian beasts sitting at the foot of the Elder Emperor, was also one of the only people who could get away with speaking slightingly of the Jade Emperor.

As she ascended the stairs now, Ruyi thought about her mother. She wondered what her mother looked like now and if she had grown old. Her mother had reassured her that she would not die while Ruyi was away and had encouraged her to go and make her fortune. Still no doubt this was not the fortune that her mother had had in mind for her.

She unlatched the wooden door on the third flight of stairs and opened it. Outside was what appeared to be a desert steppe. In the distance a golden tower jutted into a rumbling, stormy sky but it was tilted as though it was half way to falling down. A golden face appeared in the sky, a giant mouth and fierce eyebrows glowering down at her. Then it disappeared. It was a strange, surreal landscape rather like a twisted dream Ruyi was having. Everything is flying down and tumbling up.

Not far away she spied movement. A four headed green snake with three eyes in each head dropped out of sight as soon as it saw her looking. Ruyi perceived with her power vibration along the sand, something fast moving towards her.

The door swung shut behind her. It would not open again for a hundred days.

Now all she had to do was survive.