Chapter 1 Extra (Part 1) Amo seems to have really gotten into it...

A strange couple arrived in Jinxi City.

The woman was a carpenter, and the man was a doctor. They were generally kind and honest; if anyone in the family had a headache, fever, or if a table or chair was missing a piece or a leg, they would usually come to them for help and wouldn't charge them. Logically, such a kind-hearted family should have a good reputation, but strangely enough, ever since they moved in, the neighbors have heard mournful cries every night.

The strange noises echoed all night again. The next morning, neighbors went out into the street, exchanging glances and gleaning information: "Hey! Did you hear that last night?" "I did! It was terrifying, like a vengeful spirit crying!" "Tsk tsk tsk, I knew that house was eerie, not a safe place to live!" "...Could it be one of those seemingly ordinary people who do filthy things behind the scenes...?"

As the group huddled together, animatedly conveying their "implied meaning," a hand suddenly landed on one of their shoulders, startling him into screaming.

"Mother!!!"

Du Zhijin was so startled by the loud voice that he kept rubbing his ears and explained, "Uncle Liu, I am not your mother."

Uncle Liu choked, about to retort that of course she wasn't his mother, but out of the corner of his eye, he noticed blood dripping from the basket she was carrying, the bright red blood blooming like tiny red flowers on the ground behind her. Seeing the woman's sinister expression, his heart skipped a beat, and he was speechless. His legs trembled as he ran home to find his mother.

Seeing that the people had run far away, Du Zhijin scratched his face, puzzled, and then asked the remaining people, "Auntie, what were you talking about just now? I think I heard something about me?"

What do you mean by seemingly ordinary? Her and Amo's disguise has become so masterful.

"No, no, no," the aunties denied repeatedly. Finally, the one who was generally considered the boldest ran away, making an excuse that the pork shop was having a discount today.

"Wait!" She was about to say that the pork shop was sold out and it would be a waste of time to go, but the aunties were all walking briskly and didn't give her a chance to speak.

As the crowd dispersed, she spotted the person leaning against the door, and her eyes crinkled into a smile as she walked away: "The sun is scorching outside, so you can wait for me inside. Or is it that Doctor Ying can't even wait a moment longer and is eager to see me?"

Several years have passed, and now no one in Jinxi City remembers the Ying family of Wuling Village. The two of them simply reverted to their original names and made no attempt to conceal them.

Upon hearing this, Ying Jianhua glanced at her sideways and snorted, "Why would I be looking forward to a demon that others are eager to leave?"

After several days of speculation, the rumors have become increasingly bizarre, with all sorts of claims being made. The most rampant rumor now is that she is actually a demon who transforms into her true form every night to eat children.

Du Zhijin blinked after hearing this and pointed at him from a distance: "You're not much better. Let me think what people are saying about you... Oh, they said you're a painted-skin ghost, a beautiful appearance that's all been peeled off from a person, how scary."

Before Ying Jianhua could speak again, she laughed and said to him, "That's good now. You're the painted-skin ghost, and I'm the yaksha. We're in the same den, so neither of us should look down on the other."

His intention was to provoke her and get her to get rid of that thing in the house, but he didn't expect her to be quite satisfied with the current situation.

Yakshas and demons, they actually sound like a good match.

He shook his head to clear his mind of the jumbled thoughts, sighed helplessly, and was about to say something when, in just a moment, the sound of a baby crying began to rise again from inside. The two had no choice but to put down what they were doing and hurry inside.

Walking over to the cradle, sure enough, the little guy was fussing again, howling loudly with his mouth wide open, but without a single tear—clearly playing a trick on him. Seeing Ying Jianhua return, it made a few "ah ah" sounds and stretched out its arms towards him, but perhaps in its haste, its tongue "plop" fell to the ground.

It was dumbfounded; in less than a second, its eyes filled with tears, and its mouth trembled as if it were about to cry. Du Zhijin reacted quickly, throwing a basket of meat he had just bought at the market into its mouth to silence the cacophony that was about to erupt.

It opened its mouth wide, its two rows of crooked teeth gleaming with a chilling light, the teeth digging into the flesh and drawing out a trail of blood. Ying Jianhua couldn't stand the strong smell of blood. Her face pale, she walked to the window, breathing in the fresh air as she asked, "What are you going to do? Keep keeping it?"

Du Zhijin was also worried.

They found the baby, who looked like a ghost but wasn't, in the courtyard. On their first night there, Du Zhijin noticed a faint smell of decay, and eventually they dug out a skeleton wrapped in yellow talismans from under the locust tree.

After asking around, Yingjian deduced that the painting was probably a stillborn child born to the previous owner's wife during a difficult childbirth.

The wife died in childbirth, and soon after, the husband, overwhelmed with grief, drowned. The family's relatives claimed that the unborn child was unlucky and had brought about a series of misfortunes. Instead of performing any rituals to help the child pass on, they hired sorcerers to trap it in this place, ensuring it would never be reincarnated.

What a terrible curse it is to be condemned to eternal damnation! The two were deeply saddened by this and, moved by compassion, wanted to send it into the cycle of reincarnation. However, reincarnation has a condition: one must let go of the past and relinquish all attachments. But when it died, it couldn't even speak, let alone tell them what its attachments were. Later, Ying Jianhua managed to coax the answer out through some means.

Its obsession is simple: it wants to be with its parents.

However, its parents had long since been reincarnated as flowers and blades of grass, swaying in the wind on the grassland. Even Du Zhijin could no longer turn them into humans. Helpless, the two had no choice but to take on the role of parents themselves and play house with it.

The crying that the neighbors hear every night is the little guy making a fuss in the middle of the night.

Thinking about everything she would face that night, Ying Jianhua couldn't help but frown.

He used to look forward to the night, but now... now he wishes he could pack Du Zhijin and this guy up and throw them out together.

Although he thought this to himself, when he caught a glimpse of Du Zhijin's incorrect way of holding the baby, he still reached out and took the baby. The little guy, who had been whimpering because he was uncomfortable, immediately quieted down upon smelling his familiar scent, opening his big, grape-like eyes and giggling at him.

He unconsciously curved his lips into a smile, skillfully wiping the blood from its mouth with a handkerchief, his movements gentle and his gaze warm, showing no sign of finding its appearance strange. After doing this, he instructed Du Zhijin, "Go and milk the cows."

Du Zhijin knew the cows were full and thirsty, so she quickly put on gloves and went to the backyard to work as a milkmaid without complaint. As she milked the cows, her thoughts drifted away, accompanied by their protesting moos.

At first, they had no experience and didn't know why the child was crying. Until it kept nuzzling against Amo's chest, its drool soaking the fabric and revealing the erection underneath. Perhaps thinking it had found the right spot, it eagerly opened its mouth and bit, causing Ying Jianhua to scream in pain.

There was no milk, neither Ying Jianhua nor she could produce any. So she flew to the grasslands on her sword that very night, and secretly brought back a cow, from which she was then responsible for feeding the cow every day.

What's amazing is that, besides needing to drink milk like a normal baby, this creature has a particular fondness for meat. Several times she saw it bite Amo in that area until it bled, but she was stopped just as she was about to scold it.

He said, "The child is still young, what does it know? It lost its parents at a young age and had no one to teach it, so it is naturally a bit naive."

Innocent?

Du Zhijin looked at its two rows of blood-stained teeth and thought to himself, "Savage is what it should be."

If she hadn't checked repeatedly to confirm that the little guy had almost no demonic power, she would have thought Amo was under an illusion. Normally, men don't have special feelings for babies, while women are more likely to be soft-hearted towards weak creatures. In their family, it was completely the opposite; she was indifferent to the little one, but Amo was very attentive.

But she didn't dare say it out loud, because she felt that Amo seemed to have really put herself in the role of "parent".

Even, "mother".

Author's Note: The next chapter will still be about raising kids. I'll also be collecting suggestions for any side stories you might want to see; I'm currently experiencing a creative block. [poor thing]