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Feng stirred from a nap, stretched, and yawned, her seven fox’s tails sweeping across the bed sheets. She heard birdsong through the window, and though there was a breeze, the noonday temperature was perfect for her naked body. She felt no need to robe herself, especially because her human lover was watching.
Zhuge Wei, at first glimpse, did not seem the sort of man who had fought in two death duels, communed with the Dragon Sage, and saved the Middle Kingdom from invasion. Rather, he looked like a monastery drop-out. His hair was just short enough that one could imagine him as a monk. His body was solid and whiplike, but it was hidden under the fine civilian clothes he had exchanged for his robes. His pleasant (if unremarkable) face was predominantly pensive, either from constant contemplation or simple empty-headedness.
Feng knew Wei was committed to the former interpretation, but she had witnessed plenty of evidence of the latter. Humans were already so small-minded, and though Wei had outfoxed her thrice, he had a tendency to withdraw into useless esotericism.
Such as…having a stark naked woman staring him down - and a huli jing at that, who could offer unimaginable pleasures he was well aware of - and doing absolutely nothing about it.
Feng restrained the annoyed huff that threatened to escape her lips, instead turning them upward in a coy smile. “What are you doing?”
Wei came out of whatever daydream had occupied him, regarding her as if for the first time from his seat by the window. “I’m composing extemporaneous poetry.”
Feng almost laughed. “That old score?” She rolled onto her stomach and arched her back, rising onto her hands and knees in foxlike fashion. “My former mistress would approve.” Indeed, the cantankerous old hag Zhuge Miao would appreciate her adopted heir observing the literary art he had pestered her to teach, especially if it resulted in frustrating Feng’s advances. “What kind of poem?”
The corners of Wei’s mouth twitched. He adjusted the front of his tunic. It was green - he had always looked good in green. “A pianwen.”
“The ‘parallel horses’?” Feng caught his drift and grinned. “Or in this case, would it be a ‘horse with two backs’?” She rose to her knees, lifting her breasts into the air for him to appreciate.
Wei bore no reaction, although Feng knew that he was reacting somewhere.
After all, it was a fox spirit’s nature to tempt monks.
However, taking in the sight before him, Wei did not seem fazed, and Feng recognized the start of the game they often played. He, ever so enlightened and even-tempered, had once resisted her three times - long enough to become a pupil of her old mistress, who forbade Feng from taking him into her foxhole unless he became ‘exceptionally stupid.’
Of course, old Zhuge Miao had said nothing about warming his bed. And Feng found that, with the application of a little pressure, these days Wei’s once-so-discerning guard was sometimes down. After all, what threat did she pose?
Smiling, caring not that her pointed canines were on display, Feng initiated this debate once more through intention and body language alone.
Wei thought carefully, and then recited, “Overlooking a courtyard in Xiu Xian/Admiring the breasts of a fox spirit/Imbibing cold jasmine tea/Smelling fresh lotus petals/Why do kites fly?”
Feng wrinkled her nose. “Raunchier than your usual fare, yet somehow still boring.” Her tails flicked as she slid off the edge of the bed, bare feet carrying her across the floor. “The part about my breasts was too short. Say more about that.”
Wei smiled behind lidded eyes, so relaxed they were almost closed. “I fear they would need their own pianwen.”
“Ha!” Feng leaned close, leering with fangs bared. “Calling them horses, are you? Careful now. Next time you go for a handful you might find yourself grasping at fur and claws.”
“Noted,” Wei said. “Two human ears and two fox’s ears/two perfect breasts and seven fearsome tails/ huli jing , once a shrewd deceiver of monks/my beloved, once today an eager bedfellow.”
Feng’s tails, having begun unbidden to swish back and forth, abruptly stopped at the end. “Ehh, it kind of ruins the eroticism when you use the term bedfellow .” She inspected her nails nonchalantly, mainly to hide how pleased she was.
Wei, who had known her long enough to know that the majority of her emotions were feigned, shrugged. “Well, I’m not sure of another three-syllable term that would work. I’m not going to call you prostitute. ”
Feng’s face split in another mischievous grin. “Oh, I could be your whore.” Her form began to warp and shift, tails retracting, limbs sculpting, an open-necked hanfu with a thigh-slit skirt covering her new body, which was that of a heavily made-up courtesan. She batted long eyelashes. “What do you think? Does the Imperial Champion like what he sees?”
Although he outwardly appeared as unfazed as before, Feng thought Wei might have stiffened a little at the use of his official title. It was one he took no glory in, and one of the most reliable buttons for her to push.
Suppressing a sigh, Wei leaned away and fluidly stood up. “Wouldn’t you usually serve me tea?”
Feng offered a smile that was clearly part-snarl. “It’s cold, remember?”
“Not a very good whore, are you?” He rounded the corner into the kitchen, and once he was out of sight, Feng heard the sounds of the kettle being emptied and refilled.
This time, her huff was definitely audible. Taking on the form of a rumpled peasant woman, one she had once used to try and entrap Wei on the road when he was but a student, she blew her bangs up and marched around the corner to confront him.
Wei had heated water and set the kettle to a boil, a small fire safely controlled in the hearth. He was watching the surface of the water passively, craning his head forward to smell the tea leaves, when Feng pointedly bumped the toes of her peasant’s shoe into his shin.
“Excuse me,” he said, making no other reaction to the impact. “Do you require assistance? Perhaps you’d like some tea?”
“Perhaps he who communed with the mighty immortal Dragon Sage might know it is unwise to goad a huli jing past her patience?”
“Really?” Wei did not turn to look at her. “All I asked the Dragon Sage was how kites fly. Besides, you usually have much more patience than this.”
Feng rolled her eyes. Ah yes, that idiotic question. First monk in a hundred years to receive the honor and what does he ask? If she told Miao, maybe then the hag would let her take him into the damn foxhole.
“Infinitely more knowledge, cunning, and wiles than a human, yes, not to mention sundry more magical powers, but patience, not always, no.” She reached out and glided her nails down the back of his shirt, making minute furrows in the fabric. “I’ve always been sloppy on the follow-through, according to my old mistress. She used to laugh at me about this one thick-headed monk, who somehow managed to outsmart me three times .”
“Mmhmm,” Wei said. “I gather you weren’t trying very hard those three times.”
“Oh no, I was.” Feng drew closer, opening the front of her homespun dress until she could press her naked breasts against his back. “Had I ensnared him, his last moments would have been utter bliss. ”
Wei made another noise of assent. “Tempting words.”
Smiling, Feng slid her hands up his chest. “Tempting is my game.”
They remained like that for a moment, she rubbing teasing circles with her palms, fingers skittishly tracing his nipples, and he standing stoically, endeavoring to focus on the tea.
Wei sighed. “What do you want, Feng?”
“I want my husband to come to bed,” Feng cooed, with a carefully crafted pleading tone.
“Husband?” A wry smile reached his voice. “I thought you were my whore.”
“I can be your wife instead,” Feng said. “If that’s what interests you.” She ground against him, willing him to face her and let her move her hips against his groin.
Wei hesitated. Something she said was troubling him. Feng sensed a chink in the armor.
“It’s you that interests me,” he said, after a moment.
With a smile that had already tasted of victory, Feng let her lips brush his ear. “Then fuck me.”
In an explosive blur of movement, Wei pivoted and caught Feng’s wrists with that speed she often forgot he had. He backed her up until her rear hit the table, tails knocking over a few pieces of silverware.
Feng gulped. Thick-headed and absentminded though he may be, her human was fast.
“I will,” Wei said. “But you, Feng. Not a yiji, not a commoner’s wife. You.”
With that, Feng was able to struggle out of her shock. The peasant woman’s teeth were sharper and longer as she smiled next. “Is that a command?”
“It’s a condition,” Wei said. “And…a request.” His grip on her wrists, which had never been painful to begin with, loosened. His eyes, their deep earthy-green flickering with the stove-light, searched her face.
Feng’s body undulated, the lines of her body contracting like those of an inchworm before his eyes, and realigned herself as she had awoken earlier - compared to the peasant woman, a little taller, a little curvier, and once again with her tails on full display, with matching vulpine ears poking out of her long, straight hair.
“Well, sifu-ah, ” she said cloyingly. “You finally have the woman you want. What are you going to do with me?”
A vein throbbed on Wei’s forehead. Perhaps the only thing that tried his infinite patience as much as being referred to by his bloody title of Imperial Champion was when Feng addressed him as if she were one of his students. “Keep that up and you may not like my answer.”
“Try me,” Feng said, her grin widening as she slid her foot up the inside of his leg.
In response, Wei released her wrists, grabbing her instead under the thigh and behind the neck, and lifted her up, unceremoniously depositing her onto the table.
Unconcerned - it was solid mahogany - Feng did not yelp in surprise, but rather laughed, somewhere between delightedly and mockingly.
“There’s a koan for you,” she said. “What time of day does a table have eight legs?”
“Whenever two or more gather,” Wei said, tugging at the collar of his tunic. “Which in this case, could last a while.”
“Mmm…” Feng reached between her legs and skimmed her hand up his bulge, fingering the waistband of his pants and easing them down. “Now, that, I like. No more poetry for me, just sexy riddles - ah.” She gasped as Wei suddenly was hanging over her, one of his hands next to her shoulder as the other positioned himself to enter her.
“How about this?” he asked, the barely restrained power in his body already making her spine shiver. “How many orgasms can a huli jing withstand before she begs for mercy?”
“Th-that is no riddle,” Feng said. She was unable to hide her blush, but got control of the shaking in her voice quickly. “The answer is simple, most just die before they reach it.”
Wei smiled, a competitive spark in his eyes, and made his move.
“Try me.”