This Manhua is about a strong and active young boy named Duo Xi and a gentle young girl named Xiao Que. They live in a village at the base of a mountain which, legend has it, is home to female fox demons. Among the foxes is the very special Cai Sheng—a little girl fox with the power to one day become what only the most powerful foxes can become: a man, able to sire celestial fox children.
Lonely, with no one her age to play with, the child fox Cai Sheng descends to the village and plays with Duo Xi and Xiao Que. During that time, little fox child (Cai Sheng) is attacked by a dog and it's the two human children who save her! Now the humans are marked, and will remain so—even in their lives to come—until Cai Sheng repays her debt to them...Two hundred years later, Cai Sheng is more powerful and has mastered the art of becoming a man... and she still owes a debt to the reincarnated children!
This Manhua provides examples of
- Accidental Pornomancer: Everybody wants Cai Sheng... well everybody except the one person (s)he wants (at least at the beginning). (S)he would also really like everybody to kindly piss in the off direction from her/his love and sex life.
- All Love Is Unrequited: Well almost. Initially: the farmer and his wife love each other, Cai Sheng loves the farmer's wife, the nobleman's daughter loves (male) Cai Sheng, the priest apprentice loves the nobleman's daughter. At least.
- Animorphism: Fox demons and nine tailed foxes can turn into foxes, heavenly foxes can't. As do cat demons have cat forms.
- Asian Fox Spirit: Cai Sheng, the fox tribe (s)he belongs to and its politics are important part of the plot.
- Asshole Victim: The priest wont be mourned by anybody.
- Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: Many people from heaven were implied to have done this from the emissary to Cai Sheng's birth parents.
- The Atoner: One of the foxes became a farmer's wife and hopes fervently that Love Redeems. Then the priest shows up.
- Become a Real Boy: Both The Atoner fox girl and the cat demon dream of becoming human. In the fox girl's case it's also Who Wants to Live Forever?, as she doesn't want to see her beloved family grow old and die while she remains how she is.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Cai Sheng. Hurt his/her loved ones and you are dead.
- Blood Magic: What the Big Bad uses to gain power.
- Butt-Monkey: Poor Cat Demon girl.
- Call to Agriculture: Leave your life as magical fairy (fox demon) behind to marry a farmer, live simple life, watch the crops and your (mortal) children grow.
- Cats Are Magic: Cat. Demon. Girl.
- Changeling Tale: Some foxes are known to abduct children and mortal men. Especially the Big Bad, most of her victims are never seen again. Also Cai Sheng was taken from her parents by the fox leader.
- Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: The priest is a drunkard with questionable morals and mean temper, but still destroyed, who knows how many demons. But underestimates Cai Sheng which becomes a deadly mistake.
- Dying Race: The fox tribe leader sees her people as one. Considering their problem she has a point.
- Equivalent Exchange: Cai Sheng still owes the children for the lifesaving even after several lifetimes thanks to this. And (s)he is determined to pay back even whatever it might take.
- Even Evil Has Standards: The foxes of the tribe abduct and torture people for shits and giggles. But have a sense of honor and will at least throw you out for The Dark Arts (like Blood Magic).
- Fake Ultimate Hero: The priest apprentice becomes this thanks to Cai Shengs help.
- Gambit Pileup: The leader of the fox tribe has plans, heaven has plans, the Big Bad has plans, etc. Cai Sheng has a debt to repay and doesn't care about plans.
- Gender Bender: See description.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Cai Sheng tries hard to convince everybody including himself/herself that (s)he only wants her beloved to be happy but fails at the most crucial moment because of jealousy.
- Halfhuman Hybrid: Subverted. Fox demons can have children with humans, but those children will be for all intents and purposes human.
- Happily Married: The farmer and his wife.
- Immortality Inducer: Several around the series... there is also a mortality inducer potion meant for the atoner fox girl. Which Cai Sheng doesn't give her because of jealousy.
- Inept Mage: The young boy's reincarnation is a priest apprentice... a bad one.
- Intrigued by Humanity: Cai Sheng, who repeatedly states that (s)he likes humans and admires how much can we accomplish in such short lives.
- I Want Grandkids: The leader of the fox tribe. This is why she abducted Cai Sheng in the first place. See One-Gender Race to get an idea.
- Maligned Mixed Marriage: The farmer and his wife. The fox leader refused to talk to the girl since she decided to leave the tribe for this man. Also not even the farmer knows what she is because she is afraid of a Torches and Pitchforks reaction. With good reason.
- The Man Behind the Man: Cai Sheng. Thanks to his/her background manipulations the reincarnated boy becomes a lot more respected and well known as a priest than he deserved.
- The Matchmaker: As far as Cai Sheng is concerned those two children will end up together.
- My God, What Have I Done?:
- When Cai Sheng realizes that if (s)he didn't withhold the magic potion the farmer's wife could have lived.
- The farmer after the death of his wife. He was part of the mob that linched her.
- One-Gender Race: All fantastic foxes are female (and implied to be Uplifted Animals). Heavenly foxes can gain Gender Bender abilities with age/power level, but their Shapeshifter Default Form is still a woman. This means that their procreation is very limited. Either they wait for natural foxes to become like them or something like the plan in this comic.
- Precocious Crush: Cai Sheng loves his/her big sister (the atoner fox girl) very much... which gets creepy after the Time Skip. And gets deadly later.
- Really 700 Years Old: Most demons and supernatural beings. Even Cai Sheng is over 200 and (s)he acts around late-teen-early-twentyish.
- Reincarnation Romance
- Reincarnation: Big theme and Cai Sheng learns that reincarnations aren't interchangeable (even when they are similar).
- Religion is Magic: Priests are the only mortals shown to have magic.
- Rescue Romance: The nobleman's daughter imagines this between herself and the male form of Cai Sheng.
- Sliding Scale of Gender Inequality: The story's world is pretty much Know Your Place, Woman!, but this is also a story about women coping with or challenging the status quo making them Almost Perfect Equality. You're a guy? You're more powerful (even in the supernatural sense) and respected. You're a woman? You're underestimated and beneath notice if you know how to use this to your advantage. Also the main character chooses to stay a woman for her love. Is this surrender to the system? Accepting that not only the brute force approach works? Or that
somebody is way overthinking this? - The Stoic: The heavenly emissary. He also a strong believer in not intervening and not building human relationship. Cai Sheng has fun testing his temper.
- Time Skip: The series starts with the life saving mentioned in the summary then cuts to 200 years later.
- Torches and Pitchforks: The villagers when the old priest rail them up. Against the farmer's wife / atoner fox demon.
- The Trickster: Cai Sheng has this archetype. (S)he is generally wellmeaning but has the gift of tangling up things like no other.
- Vengeance Feels Empty: Cai Sheng learns this when (s)he kills the old priest for what he did to the farmer's wife/her love.
- We Help the Helpless: The priest apprentice became a, well, priest apprentice because he wanted to help people. The old priest on the other hand was
only interested in the money. - What Measure Is a Non-Human?: The farmer wonders this after the death of his wife. He pretty much also regrets that he didn't think about this sooner. Like when the priest showed up and insisted that a fox demon is not a human and should be killed.
- Wouldn't Hit a Girl: The emissary of heaven. Cai Sheng abuses this mercilessly.
