All Chapters of Once Upon a Time: Chapter 161 - Chapter 170

I stared at Chongxi blankly for seconds. Then I swooped up his book and looked into its pages. The more I read, the more I found traces that could only indicate Father was part of the whole story, including many other fairy tales and myths I had not been privy of. One of them was the tale about Ba, who was commonly assumed as the matriarchal forebearer of the Chinese vampires, the Jiangshis, was actually the daughter of Huang Di in the legends. But what was more intriguingly interesting, were the nine toenails that certain tribesmen under Chiyou's command had in the tales. I skipped to the end of the book and leafed through the final pages of the book when I stopped. The final part of the novel was a short account about the Wufang Shangdi, a tale heavily promulgated among entities of the Underworld and mediums alike. The Wufang Shangdi (The Five Emperors of the Highest) comprised of Bai Di (Emperor White) of the East, Qing Di (Emperor Green) of the West,

A myriad of padding thuds followed almost immediately as soon as its howl broke the silence. I jerked my head back in time to see a gigantic hound in mid-air towards me, the saliva dripping from its fangs with a savage glint in its bloodshot eyes. Would that Father had not so meticulously trained me himself, I would have been on the ground with blood spouting uncontrollably from my neck as life slowly ebbed away. But I was expertly trained with an adroit flair with my sword that few of my peers could ever hope to reach. I bent down quickly and leaned back, evading the hound's pounce while stabbing my weapon ruthlessly into the neck of the dog and it crumbled to the ground, fading into dust. With a quick, long breath, I got up and continue my jog down the slopes. I had barely gone far when I suddenly heard long whistling noises like something being hurled at high speeds into the air. But before my mind registered anything, a pebble smashed into the bark of

With the dawn of a new year looming near, so too the day of the Crucible of Heaven approached. Our adventures brought us to another theater of battle that was taking place because of the Crucible – beasts related to the Wudaxians (the Five Zoomorphic Deities) were waging war against one another, contesting their claims for fertile grounds on which they wished to train and meditate in preparation for the Crucible. Unbeknownst to most, if not all parties, the ripples of another plot, insidious and meticulous, were beginning to surface from these conflicts. An unknown hand was behind the weasels of Yizhou City, driving them to encroach into the vicinities of the Yellow Soil Ridge near Zunhua City. They were here to seek out hallowed grounds suitable for training and study of magic. The weasels, prior to coming here, were not aware that the regions of the Yellow Soil Ridge were being guarded by the Mountain Deity Lao Tao. It was he who authorized and assigned different are

One way or the other, Yan Jishi was not only a talker, but also a curious one, albeit with his regular bursts of expletives. What he pointed out quickly piqued the interests of Lu Bugong and Zhang Zhigui, all of whom began to stare at me strangely. I merely smiled and slowly reached for my glass, and called for another toast. Another quiet round of cigarettes ensued before I finally began my tale, "I think Old Man Xie might have forgotten to tell you that my father, Murong Hai, is not my biological father. Of course, my mother is not my biological mother as well." All three of me fixed me with a dumb and bewildered look. But a dawning expression formed on Lu Bugong's face, then he asked hesitantly, "Shiyan, are you... are you a fox demon in human form?" "Cough!" I almost choked from the fumes of my cigarette when I heard him. "What in the world had led this dumb fool to think of this?" But Yan Jishi and Zhang Zhigui wore the exact same expression as Lu Bu

Zheng Shuang's superiors must have been pressing down on him so greatly that he immediately brought us to his station without question. The Deputy Director was also overjoyed and relieved when Zheng Shuang reported to him that I have come up with a way for them to explain the incident. "Personally, I myself failed to make out why was this incident related to the police? Since when does "natural phenomenon" like this fall under the jurisdiction of the police?" Then I heard how serious this matter had become: the higher-ups of the authorities had deemed this case so serious that this task force involved not only the city police forces but also the county-level headquarters. But I was too young to understand the significance of this. It was only when I was reminiscing this incident with an older Zheng Shuang many many years later, when I finally got it. It was only human behavior. Fear and panic would sweep a community when faced with the inexplicable and in