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Who Could Love a Monster Challenge
By:
Sergio Palumbo
Zhu Anji could truthfully say he now possessed everything he had ever desired in his life: the thirty-year-old Chinese building contractor was incredibly rich - part of the most modern towns in his country had been entirely built thanks to his business; he was undoubtedly handsome; and he was bursting with good health. His body was slender, well-proportioned and he had an attractive face topped-off by a full head of black hair.
There was almost nothing that he wished for that seemed to be out of range for him: sports, car races, games of chance, he had everything at hand. But instead of simply having a good time and savouring his life, one thing was always on his mind more than everything else: sex!
He was a playboy well-known throughout his country and also internationally. There was not a renowned actress or beautiful model he hadn’t already spent one night with. After dating all the most notable and most wondrous women in China, the man had finally turned his attention to the most renowned and loved women abroad, so he had begun collecting several love affairs with many famous women from the world of fashion. There was apparently no kind of girl he didn’t like or didn’t search for: Indonesian TV announcers, Swedish dancers and Venezuelan hot babes. But he proved to be never satisfied, he wanted more and more, so his unending lust made him go abroad, always looking for new beautiful women. Brunettes or blonde, fair-skinned or tanned, of northern or southern birth, not one of them appeared to be unreachable to him.
Many said he had a sexual addiction, and the newspapers usually called him by many other names like degenerate or mad about deep lasciviousness and the worst excesses. But the man didn’t care; he liked to live as he thought best and to have a good time under any circumstances. Until one day Zhu, who was now 38, decided he was fed up of all those brief love affairs, he needed more! And something new which would renew his appetite, certainly...
It happened one day when he was inspecting a new structure built in Guilin, in the northeast region, that he noticed an ancient but still flashy mural painted in a religious palace. It represented a slim, spectacular woman with long curls and a wonderful face. Such a wondrous image seemed just to protrude out of the wall itself! Zhu soon asked the monks what that painting was about and they told him it was a work of art: it had been built to honor a legendary Huli jing who was thought to be capable of assuming human form and was endowed with immortality. She was said to be living in the jungles around there since the oldest times and was a representation of love, lust and attractiveness, even though others simply thought of her as a dangerous monster.
The playboy immediately asked if they thought that such a creature was true and those simply smiled in return, revealing that she used to appear before anyone who really loved women or was looking for a true love.
Since that moment, Zhu had been aching for an encounter with her, desiring to meet that beautiful woman, and finally it happened! One night a soft wind was fondling the meadow outside the window of his refined hotel room when suddenly the glass door opened. The man saw a slender figure on the balcony, it was a female presence, better, she was the most beautiful woman Zhu had ever seen. Her body appeared to be half-naked, enveloped in a transparent light gray dress that let him imagine everything.
The female figure entered the room, approaching the bed he was lying on and reached him. Before Zhu could even speak or object the woman shook her head to silence him, then simply touched his chest and kissed him vehemently. The man soon responded to her gesture and kissed her deeply.
It was only after they had made love all night that Zhu dared to ask her, “Who are you really? Why are you here?”
She told him: “I’m the Huli jing called Gui. Your yearning invoked me yesterday and here I am, with you!” The answer pleased the man, but before she said anything --in his heart-- he already knew the answer.
It was only early in the morning that the woman arose from the bed,went towards the glass door again and exited the hotel room.
“Will you be back, my love?” Zhu asked her.
“Every night, for as long as you stay here, my dear…” the other smiled. So the man was reassured and stayed in bed for a while.
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The Huli jing moved away from the hotel, completely unseen, and walked into the jungle nearby. She followed a hidden path through the undergrowth that only Gui seemed to be able to see. Then she entered a clearing where she found another older Huli jing, just like her. The Elder’s hair was darker, and the head of the other one looked more slender and pointed.
“How is that love interest of yours going?”
“Not bad, he’s already mine! You know, humans are narrow-minded. After all, he should be glad that I’m not a profiteer or a gold-digger who would waste all his resources by always asking for more and more, for gifts like precious stones, necklaces and expensive dresses…”
“It’s very good for him, after all, that you’re not that kind of creature.”
“No, I’m not…I just satisfy my senses by draining all of his life energy, day by day, slowly, until the moment comes when he will only be an empty shell in the end…”
“So the story goes, he gets what he thinks he needs…”
“…and I get all the rest, as usual,” Gui sneered.
“Precious stones and expensive gifts would have cost him much less, for sure…” the other Huli jing considered.
The End