The True Confessions of a Nine-Tailed Fox

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

Fox spirits are infamous as troublemakers, Piri the nine-tailed fox perhaps more so than most.

After she follows an order from Heaven to destroy a dynasty with more enthusiasm than the gods can accept, she is sentenced to death by the Jade Emperor himself. Executed via her best-known torture device, she is cast into the cycle of reincarnation, starting at the very bottom – as a worm. While she slowly accumulates positive karma and earns reincarnation as higher life forms, she also has to navigate inflexible clerks, bureaucratic corruption, and the whims of the gods themselves.

Will Piri ever reincarnate as a fox again? And once she does, will she be content to stay one?

Whimsical, slice-of-life fantasy

Cover art by Daniela.

Information

Status: Completed
Year: 2021
Author: arianedartagnan

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.6/ 5.0
Followers: 672
Views: 668,057

Chapters(240 total)

Reviews

No reviews yet. Be the first to share your thoughts!

Community Reviews(10)

AaradurRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
I found this story to be incredibly amusing, carried by its protagonist. Piri is such a blatantly self serving asshole, and keeps outsmarting herself, but never gives up and never truly changes. The story wont have any deep plot or meaningful interpersonal relations or anything like that, because the MC isn't really capable of those anyway; Piri is a character that is objectively kind of horrible, but you still find yourself rooting for anyway
Protolee1Royal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
This is an amazing story for people that read daily and advanced readers its well put together with good plot and charecters
it makes you want to keep reading on and on till you have to stop its a great story by a great artist. it is not to hard to read and it still is very detailed and fun
-Protolee
WingedHeart84Royal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
This little gem follows a very bad fox who over time and friends becomes a very very good fox. Reincarnation, Japanese Chinese setting showing how reincarnation should work.
Beautiful writing and great storytelling. This story is bookshelf worthy where you will want to come back and read it all over again.
It's great to watch a very selfish individual change because of the people around her and the ending is do satisfying you would wish you could curl up in your own nine tails and purr.
Its adventure and dealing with the consequences of your actions and so nuanced yet filled with great visas of different parts of the world.
You get to meet so many different characters, be a part of many a different viewpoint. Piri may not tell everything but what she shares is true.
This story will hook you and won't let go until it takes you to the end, like a fox grabbing you with its teeth to take you where it wants you to go.
Puri will keep you intrigued, laughing, rolling eyes, wanting to strangle somebody and enjoy the roller coaster gor wherever Puri is the mecheviosness, choas and mayhem is sure to follow!
gonewindRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
The True Confessions of a Nine-Tailed Fox is not perfect, but as said in the title, it's a surprisingly fun hidden gem. I don't usually write reviews, but I felt it was sad that the story barely garnered attention.
The story's protagonist is Piri, a fox spirit punished for fulfilling a mission given to her by heaven to destroy a dynasty... a tad too enthusiastically. Let's just say Piri kind of deserved getting thrown back into the reincarnation cycle as the lowliest of souls. The story follows her repeated reincarnations from a lowly worm and upwards.
As a character, Piri is not a typical protagonist. She is cunning, manipulative, dishonest and more than a bit cruel. It combines with a personality that is vivacious, mischievous and colourful, with a splash of real empathy in the strangest moments.
A lovely part of the story is the interactions between Piri and Flicker, a low ranked office worker in heaven's bureaucracy who is tasked with dealing with Piri's reincarnation process. They are a good counter to each other. Piri's chaotic neutral leaning towards evil is countered by Flicker's lawful neutral leaning towards good.
The world is a colourful fantasy world of eastern origins, with spirit animals, sea dragons, interesting magic system, and the frustrating heaven's bureaucracy hanging over it all. I kind of wish there was more of this, as the story is sparse on the details at the start and only really gets into the world building groove in later chapters. I was definitely a bit confused as while the story leans heavily on eastern culture and myths, it is not the type of fantasy world I am used to.
Piri as a main protagonist is probably not for everyone. She is not a good person, though there is some hope with Flicker's influence. She shines in her interactions with other characters, especially Flicker. It also means that the parts that are only her aren't always as charming, though she definitely has her moments.
The nature of the story with the reincarnation cy
CKMoRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Overall conclusion
I rarely hand out full 5s, but they shouldn't be impossible to give out. It should just only be reserved for the stories I really adore, and so I wholeheartedly recommend True Confessions of a Nine-tailed Fox.
I thought long and hard about why I enjoy Piri's story more than other progfantasy stories, and it just comes down to this: it's not a power fantasy. When you follow Piri's journey to become a fox again, her progression is political power (so, soft power, which can be easily lost faster than it is gained) and character personality growth.
Ariane D'artagnan wraps it up in what is effectively fantasy/historical China as a backdrop to deliver a story where the hijinks are appropriately over-the-top and the character dynamics are wonderfully real. Let's break it down.
Style
Style-wise, Ariane executes wonderfully on writing an approachable story without boring experienced readers. I actually think this is one of the best examples I can think of - you tend to find writers who do one or the other.
I believe this is an excellent choice for her audience given she could have easily written True Confessions in a more literary sense, but ease-of-reading is always a good selling point and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this story to an older child. But beyond the easy-to-follow format you can find she also hides the occasional word-choice and/or naming scheme to delight the more experienced reader.
Story
Well, story-wise, the premise of the story is to follow the multiple reincarnations of the demon fox (better termed "yaoguai") Piri, who has been sentenced by Heaven and cast down the reincarnation ladder over the crime of... *checks notes* ... uhhh, being overzealous in carrying out Heaven's will. Now that she's serving out her sentence and has to climb the reincarnation pyramid to become a fox again, Piri has to work on the karma system to find her preferred form with tails: doing good, limiting evil, and everything in-between.
I was already sold on
DanceLikeAFoolRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Obligatory, Reviewed at Chapter 37(letting some chapters drop to binge later.)
Style: In many ways this is a story that combines aspects of Eastern-Asian folklore and the Wheel of Reincarnation with a few neat turns. The Main Character definitely needs to spin the wheel a few times, and fortune has given them an opportunity to work their way back to the top with a set of Rogue-lite circumstances, allowing them to [redacted]. The progress and pacing of the main character can be frantic, starting over again really fast due to unexpected failures, but it never felt rushed. Wholesome and relaxed pacing that quickens and makes me anxious for the MC on occaision with the mental reminder that they'll be fine. Probably.
Grammar: Excellent. Vocabulary excellent. Paints scenes, characters, and situations very well. Author will probably receive some sort of critique in comments at some point about being overly descriptive, but I, uhh, love that so-
Story Score: I give full marks for making me snort on several occaisions. In addition to the good humor there are several relatable setbacks. The story itself engages very well, making you care about a variety of topics including heavenly politics, creature characters, and side-characters that all cast important shadows on developing plot.
Character Score: Oof. It's hard to say this in the best way. The MC needs a lot of work, but the author makes you believe that they can get there. Maybe. Probably.
I don't always strike gold when I decide to try a new fic that pops up in updates, but I did today.
Cheers,
Fool
ElderDragonRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Do give this story a chance, Piri won't disappoint you with her antics.
The story follows Piri, formally a fox, who has been unjustly, according to herself, been punished with death and sent to the circle of reincarnation.
Now she must do what she had never done before, be helpful to other so that she can increase her karama to get better reincarnation each time.
Astral CrystalRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
The True Confessions of a Nine-Tailed Fox is a wonderful story that follows Piri as she tries to reincarnate back into a fox.
Style: The style is good it's well written and I can always follow what's happening.
Story: The story is very special and original following Piri's efforts to become a fox again by cheating the system and performing good deeds. This part of the story is very fun mainly being a slice of life with schemes to gain good karma. It's entertaining and funny and even has some sings it will involve a bigger overarching part of the story with a form or progression as Piri's lives affect people. There's also a side plot about heaven's very inefficient system which is very interesting in my opinion.
Grammar: The grammar is good I didn't see any errors.
Character: The characters are the best part of the story. The protagonist is a much different protagonist from what you usually see considering at the start of the story she's a bi-... She has character developed throughout the story and I quite like her. The side characters are also equally charming and it's very fun to see them interact.
In the end this story is a very charming story and a slower pace slice of life. If you like sassy characters I'd definitely recommend.
The OxRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
This a really great story with a unique (for English-speaking readers) setting. An earlier critical review complained about not understanding the motivations of the reincarnating characters, but gaining karma from reincarnation to ascend to immortality is a very standard Xianxia trope, especially within the context of a story that directly includes the Jade Court/Celestial Temple in its plot.
Piri is a fox spirit cast down from her lofty position in Heaven for being to enthusiastic at her job and destroying many well laid plans of higher ranking Celestials. She more or less ascribes to a Seinfeld ethos "no hugging, no learning" but as the story progresses you can see her amoral Grinch heart growing a few sizes, unwittingly.
I feel like this story is hugely under-read given how high quality it is in all aspects. There are so many poorly written gamelit and litrpg fics on rr that are more popular but don't have a tenth of the craftsmanship.
iced_lightRoyal Road
★★★ 2.5
The True Confessions of a Nine-Tailed Fox held back by there not being incentives or driving forces for any of the character's motivations. Not for the main character, who's only goal is to farm karma because reasons*. Not for the clerks of the celestial bureaucracy, who are apparently born out of the aether, work for wages in a job they don't particularly like, and are forced to work unpaid overtime because reasons. Not for the almost uniformly corrupt or apathetic officials in said bureacracy, who are corrupt because reasons.
If you're the kind of reader who cares about what the stakes are for the characters, prepare to be disappointed. If you care about worldbuilding and questions like "why is this world broken?", prepare to be extra disappointed.
It's not a story without some redeeming qualities — the writing is better than average, I suppose, and some might find the antics of the MC amusing — but the sheer inanity of the setting is a huge turn-off for me. It doesn't help that little happens within the first 25 chapters, after which there's signs of a plot thread starting to emerge oh-so-slowly.
* Why does our fox care about going up the reincarnation chain? Why does she care about how fast or how slow it's going, when each reincarnated life doesn't actually matter, and subjective time only passed for her between reincarnations? Does she actually have a goal beyond "reincarnate into something better"?