Chapter 45 A temporary stall was set up in the spacious courtyard...

A long table and several chairs were temporarily set up in the spacious courtyard. The officers from the Anti-Evil Division stood to the side, looking somewhat like they were interrogating someone.

Before entering the courtyard, Xie Zhuo described to Rong Feng how they met Li Yi.

As soon as Rong Feng entered the courtyard, his hawk-like gaze swept directly at the suspicious basket on Li Yi's back, slowly moving upwards until it settled on Li Yi's overly young face, which was filled with vigilance.

"Can we see the basket now?" Xie Zhuo didn't sit down on the prepared chair. After entering the yard, he walked straight up to Li Yi.

Li lowered his eyelids to hide the frustration in his eyes: "Sir, you have already identified yourself. I showed it to you at the time." He wouldn't have had to go to the yamen again.

Xie Zhu smiled silently and reached out to remove the cloth covering the basket: "I am indeed not a member of the government."

Li Yi glanced at him quickly, her eyes revealing a complex mix of emotions.

The coarse cloth was lifted, revealing the unconscious child in the bamboo basket to Xie Zhuo. Although he had already guessed the answer, his pupils still contracted slightly.

Rong Feng appeared beside the two of them at some point, and with a cold face, took the child out of the basket and examined him: "It is indeed the child who was lost in the capital."

The child was handed over to someone else to be taken away for examination. Facing the gazes of Xie Zhuo and Rong Feng, Li Yi quickly confessed everything about finding the child before being questioned.

When Xie Zhu heard that several children were left behind in the dilapidated temple, he heard Li Yi's words, but his thoughts gradually drifted away.

"Lord Xie." Rong Feng's call pulled Xie Zhuo back to his senses, and he turned his head to look.

"His words still need to be verified. I'll send my men to the ruined temple to check the situation first."

Although Xie Zhuo wanted to rush to the dilapidated temple, he also rationally understood that Rong Feng was right.

As he watched part of the Anti-Evil Division depart, he raised his hand to rub his temples and sat down in the chair behind him.

Li Yi glanced at Xie Zhuo with a puzzled look, and continued to recount the conversation he had overheard while hiding under the altar.

When Xie Zhuo's gaze froze as he spoke about the few people who had been talking in the dilapidated temple being taken away, his Qiong'er was not among the remaining children in the temple.

Rong Feng's thoughts also paused, but his focus was different from Xie Zhuo's. He was concerned that there were cultivators among the kidnapped children, and that they could even use magic to control the kidnappers.

Xie Zhuo then realized this as well, and breathed a sigh of relief, which meant that Qiong'er would at least be safe for the time being.

Both of them had something on their minds, and after Li finished explaining, the courtyard fell silent.

Li Yi quietly raised her head, her eyes meeting Rong Feng's cold gaze. She then silently shifted her attention to Xie Zhuo, who seemed more approachable.

"My lord, I have explained everything clearly. May I leave now?"

Xie Zhuo's gaze fell heavily on him, past the basket on his back, and he turned to the man and ordered, "Prepare a room for him."

This meant they weren't allowed to leave. Just as Li Yi realized the meaning behind Xie Zhuo's words, before his disappointment could even spread, he heard Xie Zhuo's voice again:

"Wait until those children who are still unconscious are alright before you leave."

The rest of the people followed Li Yi closely as he walked out of the courtyard.

For a moment, only Xie Zhuo and Rong Feng remained in the courtyard.

“Lord Xie is indeed kind-hearted.” Rong Feng stood still and turned his head slightly to Xie Zhuo, who was sitting down at the table, and said, “I have made arrangements for the rest of my subordinates.”

Xie Zhuo's gaze swept over the files on the table, arranged by those who were trying to curry favor with him. He reached out and opened the first page, his eyes lingering on the two characters "Li Yi" at the top:

"There is a possibility that he will be retaliated against by that group. The people in the yamen are not as reliable as Rong Shaoshi's men. They are just protecting the witnesses."

...

"Knock Knock".

"Master Xiaomei, Steward Cao has something to discuss with you." The knocking on the door interrupted the two "people" and the bird who were engrossed in their play inside.

Amei stood up, his face covered in strips of paper fluttering as he moved. He threw down the playing card he had just drawn and ripped the strips off his face.

"I'm going to find my master. You stay here obediently."

Without waiting for Xie Baoqiong's reaction, he rushed out of the house.

"Where is Master? Take me there quickly!" Amei's excited voice came from outside the closed door.

Through the shadow on the door, Xie Baoqiong could see that Amei had left a restriction on the door and windows before leaving.

He first peeled off the few remaining pieces of paper from his face and threw them aside, then let his hand fall to the ground:

"He's gone far away, come out now."

A bulge appeared at the cuff of his sleeve, and a white snow goose waddled from his palm to the ground.

Qi Gui glanced at the playing cards on the ground, then looked around the room where only Xie Baoqiong remained. He had only woken up after Amei brought Xie Baoqiong into the room and didn't know what had happened in between.

"Ah-Qiong, where are we now? Where is Young Master Su?"

“They took us to their destination and locked us up. Xiaochun was taken to the dungeon.” Xie Baoqiong said calmly, propping her face up with one hand as she sat cross-legged on the carpet.

After taking a few steps outside to observe the surroundings, Qi Gui ran back to Xie Baoqiong's side and said, "Then, then let's hurry and save him."

Xie Baoqiong shook her head. "He will come to find us later."

Seeing Xie Baoqiong's composed expression reflected in Qi Gui's small, beady eyes, Qi Gui relaxed and sat down, leaning against the latter's legs.

The leaf cards were scattered around. After Qi Gui sat down, the corner of one of the cards poked into the smooth downy feathers of the snow goose, forming a nest.

Xie Baoqiong stared at the dent for a while, then reached out and gathered the cards aside, casually saying, "Qi Gui, I didn't expect you to be so good at playing leaf cards."

The white head shrank back slightly, and the voice was muffled: "My older brother is much better at playing cards. In the past, when my brother went out to play cards with others, he would secretly hide me in his sleeve and take me with him. After watching him a lot, I learned a bit."

Seeing Qi Gui's listless appearance, with its white feathers seemingly dull, Xie Baoqiong asked:

"Amei is gone, why don't you turn back into human form?"

The snow goose's grey downy feathers seemed more prominent, its head buried in the feathers of its abdomen.

"Arjun... I can't turn back into human form again."

Qi Gui curled himself into a ball, his white feathers lifting with his movements to reveal a layer of fine, still-present gray downy feathers that looked incredibly soft to the touch, like the filling of a dessert eaten during a festival. Xie Baoqiong had never tasted it, but Su Xiaochun had told her it was sweet.

He lowered his index finger from his lips and poked the exposed gray down feathers, which felt much softer than the adult feathers on the outside.

"Why can't he turn back into human form?" Xie Baoqiong asked, puzzled. After seeing Qi Gui's appearance, he was certain that Qi Gui was a half-demon, since the demonic aura on Qi Gui's body was so faint when he was in human form that it was almost undetectable.

Half-demons, possessing the blood of ordinary humans, often find it easier to transform into human form than ordinary demons. What ordinary demons need to cultivate to achieve, half-demons can do naturally.

Qi Gui poked his head out, nuzzling Xie Baoqiong's finger that was poking at his downy feathers, and a tear, bigger than his eye, welled up in his large eyes: "I don't know either."

Xie Baoqiong wiped the eyeball away with her index finger, raised the little bird with both hands, and looked it over from all angles: "There's nothing wrong, so why can't it turn back?"

"Little Baoqiong." A low voice broke the slightly oppressive atmosphere in the room.

The two people inside looked in the direction of the sound and saw the reflection of a fox in one of the windows.

The next instant, a fox's head pushed the window open a crack, and the two-tailed fox leaped down from the window, which then closed automatically.

When Xie Baoqiong looked away, a fox was already lying comfortably in her arms.

The snow goose in the palm of her hand froze for two seconds, then flapped its wings and jumped onto Xie Baoqiong's shoulder.

"Arjun, there's...there's a fox demon!"

Xie Baoqiong gently stroked Qi Gui's ruffled feathers:

"It was Xiaochun who used illusion magic to transform herself."

The fox in his arms glanced at him sideways but didn't expose him.

As the fluffy feathers on her hands gradually returned to normal, Xie Baoqiong focused her attention on the fox in her arms:

"Xiaochun, is the dungeon unguarded?"

The fox's triangular ears twitched. Its head rested on Xie Baoqiong's lap, its eyelids remaining perfectly still, and it spoke disdainfully:

"Yes, but they are just ordinary mortals. I left an illusion there, so they can't detect the problem."

However, there were quite a few human children in the dungeon, some of whom were rather strange.

"?" Xiaochun thought all humans looked the same, and even Xiaochun said it was strange, so Xie Baoqiong couldn't help but be curious.

Su Xiaochun seemed to recall something unpleasant, covering her nose with both paws: "They painted some strange patterns on their bellies with a mixture of herbal juices and animal blood, and the smell was so strong it killed the foxes."

"Let's not talk about that." Su Xiaochun shook her fur and changed the subject: "After I escaped the dungeon, I didn't go to the front hall of this fox spirit temple because there were too many worshippers. I searched the entire backyard, but I didn't see a single cultivator, let alone that fox spirit."

Xie Baoqiong recalled what the person who had called Amei away had said: "Isn't the old Taoist priest we met on the way here here either?"

Su Xiaochun opened her eyes, licked the bristles on her paws, and said in surprise, "That old man doesn't have any spiritual energy fluctuations. He's just a mortal, at most a sorcerer."

Xie Baoqiong recalled carefully that he had initially assumed from Amei's words that the old Taoist was a cultivator, but now that he thought about it, he did not feel any spiritual energy fluctuations when he met the old Taoist.

After licking the fur, Su Xiaochun sighed, "In this world, it's rare to see a mortal become the master of a demon cultivator."

Xie Baoqiong felt something was strange, but didn't think about it further. His purpose in following Amei back was always to investigate the person behind it all.

"After the worshippers have left in the evening, we'll go to the front hall to look for the fox spirit."

Su Xiaochun also agreed with Xie Baoqiong, so he changed to a more comfortable position and lay down again.

But before my eyes were fully closed, my nose was suddenly tickled by being rubbed.

Looking closely, Xie Baoqiong held a white sphere in her hand and placed it in front of him:

"Qi Gui can no longer transform back into human form."

Su Xiaochun moved his nose closer, and the little white ball of fluff moved away as well: "Young Master Su..."

Qi Gui's trembling voice came from the white object.

Su Xiaochun leaned closer and said, "I can't see what's wrong. He's just a half-demon who hasn't even started cultivating yet, so he doesn't need spiritual power to support him. How could there be a problem?"

Xie Baoqiong's hand was only so big. After the fox's mouth took up most of it, there wasn't much room left. She flapped her wings and flew away.

However, due to a lack of control over the distance during takeoff, it plummeted straight to the ground.

Su Xiaochun habitually opened her mouth, wanting to grab it, when a flash of white light appeared before her eyes, and where the snow goose had landed, a boy was sitting.

Su Xiaochun, her fox-like face crumbling, turned to Xie Baoqiong after being bumped by Qi Gui, who had transformed into human form. She said, "He's all better now."

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Author's Note: Dr. Su's miraculous healing skills :D