The fox spirit thought for a moment, narrowed her eyes, and then put on a weak act, feigning illness. She let one of her front legs hang limply, pretending it was broken.
"...As you wish."
The fox spirit, cradling her broken leg, descended the mountain. The ranger, with a cigarette in his mouth, ran over, and another older ranger also came out curiously.
"Found it already?" the ranger chuckled.
"Yeah, not far. Her leg was injured, so she hid in a tree hollow waiting for me to find her," I said.
The older ranger shone his flashlight and frowned, "This is a red fox, female, right?"
It seemed the older ranger knew a lot about animals, so I nodded.
"It's currently red fox mating season, which is why it ran out looking for a mate. You'll have to keep a close eye on it when you get back. These things are incredibly cunning; ordinary ropes can't hold them. They can untie them."
"Really!" I feigned surprise, "Then I'll have to tie it up securely with ropes when we get back!"
"No need for that. A sturdy cage will do," the older ranger advised. He then pried open the fox spirit's mouth to examine her teeth, "Wow, this old already?"
"Kunkun, he says you're old, hahaha!" I couldn't help but laugh.
This was a sensitive spot for women. The fox spirit bared her teeth at the older ranger and turned her face away.
"This little thing is actually quite cute!" The younger ranger also patted the fox spirit's tail. I quickly stopped him, saying this one's tail was very sensitive.
It wasn't just sensitive; it was because her seemingly fluffy tail concealed nine braids, each with a dagger!
After thanking the rangers, I carried the fox spirit down the mountain and put her in the car.
The fox spirit immediately transformed back and leaned against my shoulder, whining, "Master, are you really going to tie me up?"
"How could I bear to? I was just teasing them," I said.
"No, no, I mean, if Master likes that, it's not impossible..."
"...Hurry up and put on your down jacket, don't catch a cold."
We returned to the Jinjiling base. This trip to the underworld was relatively short, but the night was already deep, and many demons were not home. Some were hunting in the mountains, and some were fishing in the sea.
I recounted the incident to Yaoyao and sent Shen Xingyue the design drawing of the hydraulic part for the cannon via WeChat. Shen Xingyue said it was a bit blurry, so I found a well-lit spot and used Chen Ke's phone to take a picture. Her phone had the highest resolution. After taking the photo, I sent it directly to Shen Xingyue's email in image format to avoid distortion.
This didn't involve any issues of leaks. For modern people, such a simple mechanical drawing could be designed by any engineering student.
Even Shen Xingyue, a half-baked medical student, understood it, saying it was very simple. She would have the ice factory start production tomorrow morning.
After arranging matters concerning the cannon, just as I was about to lie down with Yaoyao, letting her warm me up from the cold of the underworld, Wu Xiaohan sent me a WeChat message: "Brother! It's sold!"
"How much?" I asked, worried she might have sold it cheap.
Wu Xiaohan sent a long string of Arabic numerals, a '1' followed by a bunch of zeros.
"Ten million? Not bad. I'll give you a million commission," I said.
"Brother, you miscounted! You missed a zero!"
I counted again. I had indeed miscounted. It turned out to be one hundred million!
"Brother, I'll bring you the ninety million tomorrow. Please give me an address, or a transfer is fine!" Wu Xiaohan didn't mention waiving the commission this time.
I sent her Chen Lu's bank card account number. Chen Lu always handled the money, and her large transaction flow usually didn't attract suspicion.
I needed to properly thank that esteemed gun-tester. I found some paper money from the fox spirit's car and burned it for Wu Zhao, asking her to help me transfer it to that esteemed Lord Wanyan Hongzhu. He could be considered a firearms expert, a subordinate of Dai Zi.
Wu Zhao said okay and promised to pass it on. I took the opportunity to ask her how much she had earned recently from gambling on chess.
"Hehe, thanks to you, Lord Wu, with Bingbing's help, I've never lost!"
Of course. Chess software had never lost to human masters, let alone the ghost race. Moreover, mine was a paid software, and Bingbing's phone had a good configuration, capable of utilizing the software's computing power. It was truly high-end stuff.
"Speaking of chess," Yaoyao said after I finished my call, "do you want to practice? This afternoon, I heard that the Shanhai demon tribe is preparing to hold this event in two weeks at Mount Zhongnan. Time is very tight."