CH-050

In the early autumn after summer had left the Savoie parish, Shu Li raised a little white fox as the church's pet.

The little fox was the same one that had been spotted stealing melons in the fields—a small white fox.

At first, Shu Li had no intention of keeping a small fox.

Though he had thought about getting something fluffy to keep him company.

Research had long since proven that those with fluffy companions by their side find it easier to be comforted when facing setbacks, low points, loneliness, or heavy emotions.

And in truth, over these past half-year or so, Shu Li had also slowly come to realize that the people here weren't like paper-thin characters from a novel's plot—they wouldn't simply begin pouring out their hearts the moment you touched upon something, and then smoothly heal themselves right after.

The people here were real people.

They weren't always willing to openly speak of the pain within their hearts. And sometimes, when Shu Li stood beside them, what he could offer was mostly a watchful presence—he couldn't do much more, because frankly, a person's mere existence was far less effective at earning someone's trust than a single swipe of a fluffy paw.

People in pain were far more willing to confide in animals.

Shu Li therefore believed that at such moments, having something fluffy nearby, while it might not solve any problems, could at least make those in sorrow feel a little lighter—offering a moment of peace and comfort.

Of course, he wasn't thinking entirely of others.

Even though Shu Li was an introvert, he still felt that spending too much time alone was quite lonely.

Especially at night, when the entire church went so quiet that you could hear the wind cutting through the eaves. Occasionally he would choose to stay later at Elder Yagg's house for dinner before heading back to the church, as if lingering just a little longer made his own quarters feel a little less empty.

After living like this for a long time—especially when the days were lively but the nights were all the more silent—Shu Li couldn't help worrying that if this continued for thirty more years, he might not start mutating, but might become like Chuck from Cast Away, who treated a volleyball as his only friend.

After the start of autumn, nights began as early as five in the afternoon.

Shu Li couldn't imagine just how boring the evenings would be, and he certainly couldn't go to bed at five o'clock.

So the pet plan had to be put into action before winter.

That way, when winter came, he would also have a natural little hand warmer.

He had considered getting a cat, or a dog, and if all else failed, maybe a few pigeons.

A fox? It had never once appeared on his list of candidates.

Not because he thought foxes couldn't be pets, but because foxes had too strong a smell. Some said they had scent glands, others said their droppings reeked terribly.

Shu Li had absolutely no desire to bury his face into something pungent and fluffy.

So however many times the little white fox came running over, Shu Li chased it away that many times—yet it always stubbornly came running back.

This gave Shu Li a headache.

Once the trick of "annoying you into giving in" succeeded even once, the little fox would pester him even harder next time.

That wasn't solving the problem—it was teaching it bad habits.

Or rather, this wasn't taming the fox; it was being reverse-tamed by it.

"Then just catch it and throw it far away," Raymond suggested.

Shu Li thought this plan was workable.

So Raymond found a way to catch the little white fox, which took considerable effort. After catching it, Raymond didn't rest, but immediately hitched up the ox cart and sent it to the neighboring parish, then returned with an empty cart.

This gave them peace and quiet for two days.

Two days later, Shu Li saw the little fox come slinking back, dusty and bedraggled, as if nothing had happened, crouching by the fence railing and staring at him.

Faced with such a persistent little creature, Shu Li had no choice but to concede. He sighed, cut a slice of watermelon, and offered it to the fox.

—In truth, it wasn't much of a loss.

Because Shu Li had already cut into the melon for himself, only to find it wasn't sweet enough: too much rind, too little flesh, and the taste wasn't even as good as a tomato—so giving it away was no great pity.

But when Shu Li placed the melon the little fox had been so desperate for right in front of it, the fox didn't eat it at all, and kept trying to squeeze through the fence instead.

This time, Shu Li finally noticed what the little fox was actually interested in.

Shu Li had placed mirrors in his fields.

On his way to Carson City, Shu Li had worried that birds or small animals might come to steal his crops, so he had devised various methods to keep them away. Besides setting up a scarecrow, he had also hung some reflective objects—like a bucket filled with water, an iron block used to prop the door, and a mirror—which could startle and drive away the small creatures that came to steal.

As a result, he had truly never imagined that a small animal could become infatuated with his mirror.

When Shu Li pulled the half-worn mirror out of the field, the little white fox didn't run away—in fact, it spun in circles on the spot. As it spun, it would occasionally lift its head to look at him, its eyes shining with light, as if entreating him to give the mirror to it.

"...You..." he held the mirror up and tilted it slightly, and a spot of reflected sunlight skittered across the ground.

The little white fox leaped after it immediately.

But the mirror looked heavy, and with the little white fox's meager strength it certainly couldn't carry it away. So after thinking it over, Shu Li stuck the mirror into the edge of the field beside the fence, treating it as a kind of "dedicated spot" left for the fox.

To his surprise, the little white fox lay quietly nearby, still and peaceful, as if gazing at a painting it could never tire of.

The next day, the little fox came again.

Shu Li was prepared this time, and brought out a small handheld mirror for the white fox.

This was meant as a goodwill gesture, with the hope that once the fox took the mirror it would leave.

But the white fox glanced at it, clearly uninterested, flicked its tail, and turned briskly back to sit before the larger mirror.

It seemed to love particularly this kind of "full-body portrait" mirror, one large enough to show all four of its paws, the sweep of its own tail, and its snow-white back when it twisted around.

「Narcissus.」

Shu Li's first thought was that ancient Greek youth who fell in love with his own reflection, and he shook his head with a wry smile. "Little fox, little fox, your name must be Narcissus, mustn't it?"

The little white fox didn't understand much, but upon hearing a name directed at it, it wagged its tail.

Shu Li, seeing that it wasn't causing any trouble, walked away to attend to other business.

When he came back, a small pile of seeds had been left in the spot where the little white fox had been sitting: grains of millet, alfalfa, or wildflower seeds.

After that, the little fox came every day to "look in the mirror."

It would look and then leave, and occasionally stay the night, curled up beside the fields. If any other small animal came to disturb it, it would cry "yip yip yip" and frighten them away.

A canine body with the vocal system of a cat.

Shu Li had mistaken it for a cat multiple times.

Afterward, Shu Li started placing a little food beside the mirror for it—not as a lure, just an offhand gesture. The little fox ate it clean every time, though it would only eat when Shu Li wasn't present.

Until one evening in late summer, on a whim, Shu Li went to Elder Yagg's house for dinner.

On his way back, he saw the little white fox walking along the small path that led toward the church.

Man and fox stared at each other for a moment, and the white fox darted into the roadside grass and vanished. But after Shu Li had passed the spot where it had been, the fox reappeared and followed behind him.

Though this little white fox would only follow when Shu Li wasn't looking.

The moment Shu Li turned to look at it, the fox would stop in its tracks and pretend nothing had happened—licking a paw, raising a leg to scratch its head. In a few seconds it would run through a dozen different motions, always keeping itself busily occupied.

Shu Li supposed that was roughly when he began considering keeping the little fox.

After all, Shu Li had always been sensitive to smell, and had truly no way to tolerate an animal that reeked the moment you came near, no matter how cute it might be.

Yet, unexpectedly, whether due to the little fox's own vanity making it fastidiously clean, or for some other reason—its fur was always spotless, with not a trace of strange or foul odor, and it even handled its own toileting discreetly, never causing any trouble.

Shu Li had even feared his own nose wasn't reliable enough and specifically asked others to smell it too.

And everyone said that the little white fox didn't just have no foul smell—it actually carried a faint fragrance of grain baked in sunlight: dry and warm, with a faint sweetness, probably from having so often rolled and slept in the fields, leaving the scent of dried grass or husks on its fur.

And so, before the onset of autumn, Shu Li built a small shelter in front of his house for the little fox—with a roof and a window—and placed its beloved mirror inside.

Once the little fox moved into the shelter, it received its own name.

The white fox's formal name was Narcissus, and its nickname was Narci.

If Thea and Vivian called it "Fluffy," it would sometimes respond, but not often.

Ordinarily it wouldn't let just anyone touch it—it was only when Shu Li called it "Narci" that it would lie down of its own accord and flip over its soft, fluffy belly, rarely willing to take the initiative otherwise.

Sometimes Shu Li would get up early in the morning to find the little fox right there at his doorstep, happily sunbathing belly-up.

If Shu Li saw it and didn't pet it, the fox would tilt its head in bewilderment, then simply lay its body atop Shu Li's feet and refuse to move.

Though such moments were relatively rare.

Because Narci the little fox was by nature quite haughty, and disliked having its fur ruffled.

After August's start of autumn, with this little fox around, the days passed in a plain but pleasant rhythm.

In mid-September, farm work became busy again.

Shu Li went to check his wheat fields every day, and Narci the little fox followed along, darting back and forth in the fields.

According to Elder Yagg, the wheat would spike and ripen at the end of September, beginning of October.

But Elder Yagg also said that the tillering of the wheat they had planted had not gone as well as imagined.

So-called "tillering" refers to the process by which wheat puts out side shoots—the more of these shoots, the more potential spikes there would be.

Though Shu Li knew it was rare for anyone to get good results on the first batch of hybrid wheat, and that the predecessors had run tens of thousands of trials before cultivating a good short-stalked wheat variety, he had still poured money—and hopes—into his wheat field.

He didn't expect the short-stalked variety to produce fine grain, but at the very least the tall-stalked wheat he had planted should yield a harvest.

Shu Li was counting on it to get through winter—to make some dumpling wrappers, pull some noodles, and while he was at it, flatten a pancake or two.

How could the New Year come without dumplings? Shu Li had been looking forward to making dumplings together with everyone!

Shu Li cared more about his own wheat than about the growth of the parish's congregation.

On the very first day he went to the fields with full of hope, Shu Li saw that the short-stalked wheat—which had grown too short—either failed to spike at all or produced no grain, while the tall-stalked wheat had already begun to spike uniformly.

He immediately sensed disaster.

Short-stalked wheat is generally early-ripening, while tall-stalked wheat is late-ripening.

This strongly suggested that the short-stalked wheat they had planted might be entirely lost.

The cause could be many things: either Shu Li had overlooked the fact that different varieties had different soil requirements, or there was a natural, irreversible hybridization barrier between the short and tall stalks.

What made it worse was that Shu Li had performed manual pollination during this process.

—In order to facilitate successful hybridization.

In other words, though the tall-stalked wheat had indeed spiked early and showed signs of bearing grain, that might have been because of "contamination" from the short-stalked genes.

In reality, the result might also be that even if the hybridization succeeded, the wheat was sterile.

Shu Li was very worried that, without sufficient agricultural knowledge and experience, he might have ruined the entire wheat field.

And so he went to check every day.

Though he knew perfectly well that these bad outcomes wouldn't simply disappear on their own just because he kept looking, he still felt uneasy in his heart, and even the nearby townspeople, who normally wouldn't converse with him, began shaking their heads at him.

Seeing Shu Li, townspeople shook their heads and said: "This wheat is beyond saving. No one's ever seen tall and short wheat mixed like this before—it'll be a nightmare to harvest even if anything survives. Don't wait for the wheat to die, just harvest it now!"

Shu Li felt his inner defenses crumbling, but his pride prevented him from showing it immediately. "It's not urgent just yet."

He wanted to wait until the wheat had truly and completely withered before extinguishing his hope.

Elder Yagg and Raymond, seeing him go every day, worried he was hurting inside and urged him to stop looking.

Shu Li would only feel more and more heartbroken the more he looked.

But as had been mentioned many times before, Shu Li might look easy-going and be soft-eared, but his stubbornness was something else entirely.

Once he had made up his mind, it wouldn't change easily—no one could sway him.

Day after day, Shu Li kept to his schedule and observed the fields. The short-stalked wheat showed no sign of spiking. Though his mouth said "no rush," his heart grew heavier with each passing day.

Yet on the morning of the fourth day, rows of short-stalked wheat that had previously remained silent suddenly and quietly put out spikes, glinting golden in the sunlight—as if the entire wheat field had suddenly come alive.

After that, the wheat grew like children racing to shoot up: changing day by day, as if racing against the wheat fields of the townspeople nearby, growing faster and more wildly than any other crop.

A week later, the entire wheat field had turned a deep gold, rippling in waves, looking nothing like the "problem field" that had been written off just days before.

And the owner of the adjacent wheat field was dumbfounded.

He tended his fields every single day, yet couldn't match what happened when Shu Li came by to look.

He stood at the edge of the field, staring at that golden expanse, and took a long time to come to his senses. Only one thought filled his mind: "How on earth did this happen?"

But what was even more alarming was—

"My wheat might have been caught in the corner of Father Aliss's gaze too! It's growing better than last year, the spikes are astonishingly thick! I'm going to get rich!"

This was certainly something worth chatting about with the townspeople at the tavern.

"That might not necessarily be because of Father Aliss," someone else took a cold sip of ale and replied, not warmly, throwing cold water on the idea. "Maybe it was the little white fox next to him? Don't forget—the spirit the harvest festival in our Northern Territories is offered to is represented by a fox!"

Though none of them had much direct dealings with the priest, they paid very close attention to what he had been up to lately.

According to the children, Father Aliss had taken in a beautiful and proud little white fox this summer. Foxes of this coloring rarely appeared in the Savoie parish.

This naturally drew everyone's attention.

After all, it seemed to correspond with the legendary snow fox that guards crop harvests in their harvest festival deity tradition.

The owner of the wheat field couldn't stand to have Father Aliss's contribution questioned, and consciously raised his voice in rebuttal: "How hard is it to admit that Father Aliss has produced miracles? It isn't the first time miracles have appeared around him."

At these words, the whole room fell silent.

Wine cups hovered mid-air, and gazes fell uniformly on the wheat field's owner.

The wheat field's owner only then realized how loudly he had shouted. His knuckles went white, his throat bobbed, and his voice suddenly dropped half a notch. "...Oh no, I actually want to join the church, don't I? Will somebody please talk me out of this?"

He had assumed many people would step forward to stop him—but in the end, no one could.

In truth, since the first wave of harvests in summer, when Elder Yagg's farmland started outperforming theirs, their hearts had not been at peace.

"I didn't use to believe in God," the townsman who had first rebutted the wheat field's owner spoke again, softly this time. "But these fields have truly grown something miraculous."

"I wish he would look at my field for a moment too."

"Same..."

"I've been thinking that for a while now."

A heavy silence fell over the tavern. The ale no longer tasted good, and the meat lost its appeal.

Because they truly did not know what to do.

And at that very moment, unnoticed by anyone, a dark-haired young man had been resting silently on the windowsill, and when he heard their conversation, a ripple passed through his ordinarily still and placid eyes.

Then he bowed his head in thought for an instant, turned, and left without a sound—his footsteps so light it was as if he had never been there.

That was Leslie, who had left at the July wedding.

No one knew when he had returned to the Savoie parish.