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The Strongest Fox-Demon (21)
Li Yufeng laughed unconsciously. “Chu Xiang, do you like this form? It’s round, not to mention it’s quite cute.”
Bai Yi beamed and said, “Xiang’er, you are the same color as me now. I wonder what name Benefactor will give you if he sees you.”
All three laughed at the mention of names. Chu Xiang also returned to her human form. Bai Yi laughed and said helplessly, “Benefactor is obviously a scholar, so he should be very good at naming. Why did he name us Xue’er and Hong’er? Did he choose our names based on our colors?”
Chu Xiang glanced at her and replied, “Maybe he can pick nice names. He gave us our names just because he doesn’t care. After all, he just picked us up and raised us casually.”
Bai Yi couldn’t accept this statement. It sounded like the importance she attached to Zhuang Yulang was all wishful thinking, and it seemed that Zhuang Yulang didn’t really care about her that much.
Chu Xiang saw through her doubts. As she was not in a hurry to catch up with the Daoist masters, she pulled her out and said, “Don’t you believe me? Shall we go and take a look to find out? We’ll not let him find us.”
“I’m coming along too!” Li Yufeng couldn’t stand the life of having no one to talk to, so he immediately chimed in and said with a smile, “I’m just a mortal. You can ask me if you don’t understand anything.”
The three secretly made their way to the Zhuang residence. The Zhuang mother and son just got up. Zhuang Liu went to the kitchen to make breakfast, passed by the yard and casually swept a glance. To her surprise, she found no fox on the straw nest. She frowned and stopped to look around. She briefly searched around the yard the second time, “Little beasts, they have gone running around again!”
Bai Yi’s hatred towards Zhuang Liu intensified. She always scolded them for no reason. She looked up and saw a bird flying by. She waved her hand to control that flying bird, let it hover over Zhuang Liu’s head, and let it release bird droppings three times, all which landed on Zhuang Liu’s face!
Zhuang Liu froze for a moment. She reached out to wipe and her expression drastically changed. She could not help but scream and rushed to fetch water to wash her face.
“Mother, what’s the matter?” Zhuang Yulang hurriedly put on his clothes and came out when he heard her screams. Seeing Zhuang Liu’s appearance, he flinched. He wanted to step forward to help but hesitated.
Bai Yi was stunned when she saw this. She looked at Chu Xiang and sent her a voice transmission, [Benefactor… what does this mean?]
[Don’t you understand? She’s too dirty, ah.] Chu Xiang held her chin and looked at the mother and son inside, cruelly poking Bai Yi’s fantasy of her benefactor once again.
Bai Yi didn’t speak, looked at Zhuang Yulang, and only breathed a sigh of relief when he rolled up his sleeves and stepped forward to wash Zhuang Liu’s face. She said in a whisper, [He still cares about his mother, but… It may be the first time he encountered such a thing, so he doesn’t know what to do.]
Li Yufeng gave her a sympathetic look, but said nothing. Mortal’s hearts were complicated, so how could they make such judgments?
The first thing Zhuang Liu said after she washed her face was, “Son, those two foxes are gone again. This time they seem to have run away. There is no place for them to hide in our small house, hai.”
“What? They ran away?” Zhuang Yulang hurriedly looked at the straw nest, searched every corner of the yard once more and said in frustration, “They are really gone. Why did they run away all of a sudden? By the way, Mother, did you catch them yesterday? Did you scare them?”
“Me? I didn’t. I was afraid that they would run away, so I wanted to put them in a cage but then they didn’t flee at that time. Who knows what happened?” Zhuang Liu felt a little guilty when asked. Could it be that she indeed scared them away?
Before, Bai Yi would have felt that her benefactor valued her and thus spoke to Zhuang Liu like this on her behalf. But perhaps due to Chu Xiang’s frequent reminders, her first reaction this time was actually — Zhuang Yulang treated his mother like this, then wouldn’t he treat others even worse? If there were other little foxes in the future, would he criticize her for that little fox?
Zhuang Yulang was still talking to Zhuang Liu, “Mother, we agreed from the very start that I will raise them. Why…why do you keep troubling them? They don’t bother you at all!”
Zhuang Liushi was speechless. “Yes, they are not in the way, but I also did it for you. See? You are always distracted by them. I was afraid they would escape and make you upset, so I wanted to keep them locked up so you could look at them at any time. See how distracted you are now? Are you still in the mood to study?”
Speaking of studying, Zhuang Liu’s confidence was full and her voice grew louder, “Are you going to take the imperial examination or not? Are you going to be an official? How else can you bring honor to your ancestors?!”
Zhuang Yulang was upset. He wiped his face and replied, “Mom, I understand. I’ll wash my face and go to study.”
Bai Yi said: [This woman is really annoying, Benefactor doesn’t necessarily like to study. She claims that she loves him, but why does she always force him to do something he doesn’t like? If only I could help Benefactor study. I’ll let him do everything he likes, freely.]
Li Yufeng said in surprise: [White Fox, you’re amazing. Can you tolerate this? Your benefactor didn’t even go out to look for you, which means he doesn’t care about you. If you’re lost, then that’s the end of it. He didn’t find it necessary to search for you at all.]
Bai Yi frowned and reasoned, [His mother won’t let him go. What does it have to do with him? I don’t know. I’m not a mortal. I don’t understand. I only know that he got angry with his mother because of me, and he still favors me. Hmm…it should be, right?]