Chapter 1: The Birthmark

Gu Wan had been feeling anxious recently. She lost her appetite and can’t sleep

After the founding of the People’s Republic, thoughts of animals becoming spirits were forbidden, and the campaign against the “Four Olds” a few years back had dealt a particularly devastating blow to tales of demons and spirits. Still, Gu Wan felt that she had most likely been possessed by a fox spirit.

A faint, fingernail-sized light-red fox birthmark had subtly appeared over Gu Wan’s left breast a few days ago. In just seven or eight days, her skin had suddenly grown smoother and hydrated. Her chest had also grown bigger, her buttocks had become perkier, and her waist had mysteriously narrowed by two or three inches.

Her clothes that used to fit her a bit loosely now it felt as though her chest was about to burst out of them. Her breasts shape could be clearly seen swaying through her shirt with just the slightest movement. Gu Wan did not dare to set foot outside, feeling embarassed.

She had bound her chest tightly by wrapping it several times using cloth strips she secretly cut from a pair of her own long underwear. And in this sweltering summer heat, she almost gave herself a heatstroke from how constricted her bound chest was.

She had thought that would be the extent of it after living through several days of trembling fear. But yesterday, she bumped into Qin Xiaomei’s older brother, who had returned from the army to visit family. Gu Wan was horrified to discover that she actually wanted to throw herself at him like a completely smitten woman. Her heart had raced, her breathing had grown shallow and fast, and her entire body had gone limp.

Looking back on it now, she felt scared and relieved that her whole body had gone weak and her legs lacked the strength to move; otherwise, she would have had no choice but to end her life out of shame had she actually committed some scandalous act.

She had fretted all night thinking about this matter. After mulling it over for half the evening, she decided to wander over to a bookstore to see if there were any supernatural novels that could help her gain a better understanding of fox spirits.

She dug out the thirty cents she had saved up for a long time and told her mother she was going into the woods to gather firewood, before quietly going onto the main road where the village bus passed through.

After a half-hour bus ride to get from Qinghu Village to the county seat, she got off the bus and had to walk another stretch of road before reaching the county’s Xinhua Bookstore. Feeling extremely guilty and apprehensive. she did not dare ask the staff if they had any books written about fox spirits. So she simply searched shelf by shelf through the section holding novels and miscellaneous reading materials.

After spending the entire morning searching, she actually managed to find a few volumes of Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio by Mr. Pu Songling, along with some short story collections. She hid in a corner of the bookstore holding the books and flipping through them like an underground operative doing research. She gained quite a bit of insight after reading for over an hour. For instance, fox spirits were fond of physical beauty, with delicate male scholars and handsome monks being their absolute favorites.

Gu Wan felt she had likely uncovered the truth. Currently, nothing happened whenever she encountered other men in the village and only Qin Xiaomei’s older brother caused her body to experience such an abnormal reaction. It had to be because he was handsome.

The books also stated that fox spirits would drain the yang energy of men in order to cultivate their powers, and would devour the hearts of young children to maintain their alluring beauty.

She was truly scared out of her wits when she read up to this point. But on second thought, she had never felt the terrifying urge to scoop out her young nephew’s heart or eat his liver when he was constantly playing right in front of her every day.

The terror in Gu Wan’s heart went without saying after being in such a predicament. She figured she would need to avoid Qin Zhijun over the next few days. Their two families’ homes were less than a hundred meters apart so it seemed she would have to stay indoors entirely. Fortunately, Qin Zhijun was a soldier so he might not even return home for more than a few days every year or two.

Putting the books back on the shelf, she looked up at the bookstore’s wall clock and saw it was already 10:40 AM. So Gu Wan briskly walked out of the bookstore. There were only two bus runs back to the village a day, so if she missed the 11:00 AM departure, she would have to wait until 4:30 in the afternoon. Furthermore, she only had ten cents left after deducting the ten cents for her bus ticket so it was better to hurry back. If she missed the bus, she would have to spend money to eat lunch in the county seat.

Walking at a quick pace all the way to the station, the bus bound for Qinghu Village was already almost full. The driver and the ticket collector were a married couple from her village so the entire bus was full of familiar faces. However, Gu Wan had been shy since childhood, so she merely offered a timid smile by way of greeting whenever she saw people.

She spotted two empty seats in the last row on the left and chose to settled down in the innermost seat. Barely a minute or two later, the passengers inside the bus all began shouting to get moving, as everyone was rushing back to the village to eat lunch.

The driver, Li Daqing, glanced back and saw there was still one empty seat left. He smiled, took his place in the driver’s seat, and said, “Don’t rush, everyone. Let’s wait two more minutes. If no one comes in two minutes, we’ll head out.”

Gu Wan knew it was definitely longer than two minutes, even without looking at a watch. The villagers kept urging him to go. He saw that it was indeed getting late and finally started the engine. Just then, a young man in his late twenties boarded the bus. A few people with loud voices called out to Li Daqing, “It’s full now! Hurry up and drive, or we won’t make it back in time to cook lunch!”

Li Daqing shouted a hearty agreement and started the bus. When Gu Wan looked at the young man who was striding over to sit in the empty seat beside her, her heart wailed that the heavens were driving her to ruin. It was none other than Qin Zhijun, the person she was most afraid of running into right now.

The last row was a five-person bench, and the person sitting right in the middle happened to be a plump, heavy-set woman. The moment Qin Zhijun sat down, his arm came into contact with Gu Wan’s and she felt as though an electric current were passing through the place where their arms touched. She felt entirely out of sorts as that limp, melting sensation and the overwhelming urge to lean against Qin Zhijun returned once more.

Qin Zhijun turned his head and saw that it was the young girl who had come to his house yesterday to work on crafts with his younger sister. He assumed he was making her uncomfortable by sitting too close when noticed her flushed cheeks and panicked face. He shifted his arm forward toward his chest, doing his best to avoid physical contact.

Gu Wan’s mind was consumed by the single thought of getting away immediately, not paying no attention to Qin Zhijun’s movement. But this bus was packed full of villagers so her parents would skin her alive once she got home if she made a fool of herself here.

Gritting her teeth, she supported herself against the back of the front seat and tried to stand up to leave. Qin Zhijun was puzzled as to where she was going just as the bus started driving, but he was not one to pry into other people’s business. He tilted his legs to the side to clear a path for her to pass.

Gu Wan squeezed as close to the back of the front seats as possible to edge her way out, but the space between the two rows of seats was far too narrow. The back of her knees brushed against Qin Zhijun’s knee the moment she moved and her already weak knees immediately buckled. Just as the bus made a sharp turn while exiting the bus station parking lot, she lost her footing entirely and landed butt-first right onto Qin Zhijun’s lap. The centrifugal force of the turn threw her completely off balance, causing her body to lurch sideways to the left.

This sudden turn of events came without warning and Qin Zhijun instinctively reached out his hands to support her. But because Gu Wan was falling toward the left, his left hand,which was originally meant to catch her, ended up grabbing an indescribable location right beneath her armpit.

Qin Zhijun failed to react for a brief moment, feeling the unfamiliar, soft sensation beneath his palm. When he realized what he was grasping, he yanked his hand back as if he had been burned. Yet, he saw the young girl’s almond eyes brimming with tears and staring at him and looking as if she were overwhelmed with shame and anger.

Gu Wan was consumed by grief and indignation. Had she known this would happen, she would have been better off sitting honestly right where she was!

The plump woman sitting next to Qin Zhijun raised her booming voice and called out, “Oh my, isn’t this Xiao Wan from the Gu family? Did you bump yourself anywhere?”

Her loud shout has drawn the attention of half the passengers to the back of the bus. Everyone turned and saw the Gu family’s little daughter, Gu Wan, sitting on the lap of a tall young man. Those who recognized her showed expressions of surprise.

Gu Wan’s face turned so red it looked as if it were about to bleed. She hurriedly tried to push herself up, but being so close to Qin Zhijun left her hands and legs weak, and her entire body felt like it has no strength left. She collapsed right back down onto Qin Zhijun before her buttocks could even lift more than a dozen centimeters off his thigh.

On the other hand, Qin Zhijun was now enduring his own form of torment. Before the lingering feeling of that soft touch on his hand had even faded, the soft flesh of the girl’s hips slammed heavily back onto his leg and he felt a tingling sensation rushing from his scalp all the way down to the tips of his toes.

He wanted to give her a hand to support her whilst despising himself in his heart for being so filthy-minded. He saw that the girl was so humiliated she couldn’t even raise her face. The young girl, however, glared at him fiercely with the word “rogue” clearly written all over her face, leaving him no choice but to awkwardly pull his hands back.

The ticket collector was Li Daqing’s wife. She was about to start collecting fares with her ticket book, but she simply made her way straight to the very back row upon seeing Gu Wan in this state. She asked with concern, “What happened here?”

Gu Wan could not allow her reputation to be ruined with the entire bus full of people watching so she simply reached out her hand to call for help when Li Daqing’s wife asked.

“Auntie Daqing, please give me a hand. I don’t know if I’m carsick or having low blood sugar. I wanted to stand up just now to ask if I could swap seats with you near the front, but Uncle Daqing made a turn and I fell. Now my head is spinning and I can’t get up.”

Because she was so close to Qin Zhijun, these few sentences were difficult to utter in her weak state. It truly appeared to be just as she had described to the onlookers. Li Daqing’s wife quickly hauled her up and supported her over to her own seat near the front, letting her sit down after she heard her plea.

Only then did the busload of onlookers come to understand that she was just carsick and wanted to swap seats, only to lose her balance and fall during the turn. Everyone knew this Gu family daughter was honest and timid, not the type of girl who enjoyed flirting or entangling herself with young men.

Playing dead, Gu Wan slumped over the handrail in front of the conductor’s seat. She had narrowly escaped Qin Zhijun while successfully clearing her own name.

After a few minutes had passed, the weakness, the tingling sensation, and the heat surging through her body gradually receded. Still, considering the embarrassment she had just suffered, she had to play sick all the way through. She remained slouched over, pretending to be carsick right up until the bus reached the intersection leading to her house.

Li Daqing’s wife helped her off when the bus finally stopped. Qin Zhijun, who shared the same path home, also got off the bus.

On account of the awkwardness on the bus, Qin Zhijun stood about two meters away from her. He finally raised a foot to step forward once the bus had wobbled away down the rural road, intending to ask if she needed any help.

Gu Wan looked terrified as if she had seen a ghost when she saw him walking over. Without a single trace of the weakness from her earlier carsickness or low blood sugar, she took off running at full speed, looking for all the world as though an evil demon were chasing her from behind.

Qin Zhijun: “…”

Recalling the interlude on the bus, he rubbed his nose awkwardly. He felt as though he had been treated like a perverted sex demon. It was no wonder the young girl was afraid of him. It was better not to follow behind and frighten her further, so he chose an alternate, longer route home instead.

Sansukini: Hi guys. New 1980s novel from the same author of Casting Nets to Catch a Husband . It’s a little bit of a fantasy because the FL is a reincarnation of vixen, but mostly, it’s a slice of life, era novel. This one is a light-hearted straight romance so I hope you guys enjoy this one. Updates will be 5 days a week, I’ll try to keep up ʕง• ᴥ •ʔง.