Chapter 088 Chapter 88
After dinner, Mo Xuanji and Grandma Mo sat together in the courtyard to digest their food. Mo Xuanji's face was wooden, and he looked like a human bird.
"Grandma, do we have to be in the yard?" Mo Xuanji curled up silently.
"It's not fun to chat in the house." Grandma Mo grabbed a handful of melon seeds and started cracking them while talking about Mo Xuanji's childhood.
In the past, Mo Xuanji would have simply thought that his grandmother was fooling him—just like adults always fool children by saying they picked them up from the garbage dump. But now he had to analyze every word, fearing that he would miss some details.
The system stared at the melon seeds in its sea of consciousness and silently wiped away the non-existent saliva.
"Do you remember the Pear Mountain to the north of our home?"
"Remember, it's all pear trees up there."
"I picked you up on that mountain back then." Grandma Mo said, her eyes gradually becoming blank, as if she was recalling the situation back then.
"A few years ago, I was digging wild vegetables in the mountains when I stumbled upon you on a large stone platform. Back then, you were a gray egg, about the size of this." She stretched out her hand to gesture, revealing it was about the size of two human heads. "I figured it was a goose egg, and since it looked like it wouldn't hatch, I decided to pick it up and make some soup."
Mo Xuanji was horrified. "That's not what you said before. You said you took pity on me and brought me back to be hatched by the old hen."
Grandma Mo chuckled, "Is that so? Oh, I'd have forgotten if you hadn't mentioned it. Actually, we didn't even have any hens back then. I put you in a pot and boiled you for three days and three nights."
Mo Xuanji: "Ah?"
System: “Ah?”
That one sentence silenced the two non-human creatures.
They clearly know every word, so why can’t they understand when they put them together?
"Wasn't it popular to eat medicinal food for health at that time? I even put a lot of herbs in it." Even today, when Grandma Mo mentioned that pot of herbs, her tone was still full of regret. Obviously, she didn't get to drink that pot of soup in the end.
"I don't know what happened. Originally, your eggshell was gray and looked like a dead egg. But when the soup started to boil, you started to glow, and then a little chick popped out." Grandma Mo gestured to him again: an egg as big as two human heads, hatched - no, boiled out a chick the size of a chicken egg.
"ah……"
"Pfft, hahahaha sorry, I couldn't help it."
"You probably don't remember, but when you were little, you always liked to run at my heels, and our big goose would chase you. Seeing you were so skinny, I thought I'd raise you first, and then I'd raise you until you grew up to be a big fat grandson."
Mo Xuanji wiped the cold sweat from his forehead silently: "Thank you grandma for showing mercy."
Grandma Mo continued, "You know what! The little baby looked so innocent and fair, and quite adorable. Later, I thought, maybe the Bodhisattva saw that I was an old widow, and sent wild geese to give me a child as a companion."
"Aren't you afraid that I might be some evil spirit?"
Grandma Mo gave him a loving look, as if to ask him what nonsense he was talking about: "Our big goose can peck you to the ground with one beak. What can you do with your little body?"
“…” Grandma was heartbroken.
"Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha...poor thing." This is the system.
Grandma Mo suddenly remembered something and looked at Mo Xuanji with eyes full of anticipation: "Jizi, can you change back now? It's been so many years since I've seen you, little Jizi. I miss you so much."
"...Yes." Faced with a request from someone close to him, Mo Xuanji couldn't refuse. He sighed softly, and with a "pop," the red-faced cool guy disappeared, leaving a chubby, white little kid on the wooden stool.
The birds that landed on him immediately flew away in all directions, then came back and mixed in with the chickens, ducks and geese, squatting not far away.
"Oh, my little cub is getting cuter and cuter." Grandma Mo quickly picked him up, weighed him twice, squeezed him on the left and right, and finally revealed a satisfied smile: "He's getting fatter."
This is probably the highest evaluation that the elderly can give to their children's health.
"Oh, I almost forgot about something important." As soon as these words came out, Mo Xuanji suddenly became nervous.
"What's the big deal?"
Grandma Mo patted her forehead and searched all over her body for something. After a while, she finally pulled out a small cloth bag. Inside was a brand new longevity lock, tied with a red string for easy wearing.
"I should have given this to you on your nineteenth birthday, but it's difficult to send it by express here, so it's been delayed until now." As she said this, she hung the small lock around Xiaoji's neck and adjusted the length of the red rope.
As she put it on, she chanted, "Buddha, may our cub grow up healthy and live a happy life..."
Mo Xuanji's nose suddenly felt a little sour: "Grandma..."
"Did Jizi make friends at school?"
"Yes, there are a lot."
"Are they all the same as you?"
Mo Xuanji thought for a moment and said, "Almost?"
"That's good. It's a good thing to make more friends." Grandma Mo breathed a sigh of relief and rubbed Xiaoji's head with her warm palms again.
When it comes to making friends, Grandma Mo is even more worried than Mo Xuanji herself.
Due to Mo Xuanji's special situation, he started school a year later than other children. In addition, he was dull and taciturn, so for many years, he had few friends around him.
This worried Grandma Mo deeply. She felt that her age was too advanced, now approaching eighty, and she wouldn't be able to spend much time with her child. If she were to pass away one day, and Mo Xuanji didn't have many close friends around her, how miserable would she be alone?
Although Grandma Mo didn't know how long the lifespan of the demon race was, the monsters in mythology could live for hundreds of years. It seemed that these few short decades were just a small part of Mo Xuanji's long life.
Grandma Mo continued to smile and asked, "Have you contacted your family this time?"
Mo Xuanji raised his head and stared at her blankly for a moment, then turned away, hiding the emotion in his eyes: "I guess we're in touch now. I just know there's a connection."
Although everyone firmly believed that he was the fruit of love between Phoenix and Dragon Lord, Mo Xuanji's sixth sense told him that this was impossible and he would never have any blood relatives in his lifetime.
"No rush, there's still plenty of time." After a while, Grandma Mo asked again, "Do those people like you? Are they good to you?"
“It’s very good and I take it very seriously.”
Mo Xuanji lowered his head. Grandma Mo's warm hands stroked his head again and again, as if to comfort him. He heard her say, "Go over there during the New Year, build good relationships with the family there, and make more friends like you."
"... Let's talk about it later. I want to celebrate the New Year with you."
Although his mind told him that he had to go no matter what, Mo Xuanji was still full of resistance to it at this moment.
Grandma Mo smiled and patted his head. "Stay with grandma next year, okay? Grandma will stay here and won't go anywhere. This way, whenever Jizi comes back, he can see grandma."
The "people" there are all the same as you. They can accompany you through your long life... You will find your home there.
Grandma Mo looked at him tenderly.
Mo Xuanji didn't say anything. After a long time, he said "hmm" in a muffled voice.
The next day, Mo Xuanji woke up early and wandered around Pear Mountain, but found nothing. After all these years, even the few remaining traces had faded away with the passage of time.
But deep mountains and old forests have always been the best places to hide things. Mo Xuanji's intuition told him that there must be something hidden here, but he just couldn't find it.
…
A few days later, the Feather Tribe took the initiative to invite Mo Xuanji. Under Grandma Mo's gratified and encouraging gaze, Mo Xuanji finally chose to accept. After bidding farewell to Grandma Mo, Mo Xuanji followed Yan into the teleportation array to the Feather Tribe.
While waiting to be transported, Yan complained to Mo Xuanji about his tribe's bizarre behavior: "When these guys heard you were coming back, they were so excited that they couldn't sleep. They jumped up and down all day, saying they wanted to train their muscles to perfect shape so that they could impress you... A few idiots even wanted to knock themselves unconscious, saying that if they opened their eyes, they would be able to travel back to today..."
It seems that the people of the Feather Tribe are quite "colorful".
The scene shifted, and what came into view were a series of bizarrely shaped treehouses. True to the Feathered Tribe, they even built their houses in trees. Of course, the trees here were not ordinary tall and sturdy; they looked like they had been growing for thousands of years, their thick branches perfectly supporting the "bird's nests" they contained.
The gatekeeper, a large, bright yellow bird, was dozing off. A large bubble of snot popped, and as he drowsily opened his eyes, he saw their amiable leader staring at him, followed by a stranger.
The bird guarding the gate was so frightened that it jumped up into the sky and roared, "Stop sleeping, Master Yan is back with the children!"
"What! The master is back, and with him comes the cub!"
"Where? Where? I'm coming!"
As soon as he finished speaking, a bunch of bird heads suddenly appeared from the surrounding grass, treetops, ponds, and other unexpected places. They looked around with strange lights flashing in their eyes.
If you ignore the impact of the environment and moral integrity, the scene before you can be said to be exactly the same as that at the bird market. Some brave people even gathered around to see the birds up close.
Mo Xuanji silently hid behind Yan, trying to isolate herself from these fiery gazes.
Yan: "Go, go, go, do what you need to do, don't scare the little one."
"Oh, sir, please let us have some fun. We haven't seen any cubs in ages." At Yan's signal, the birds transformed back into human form. Mo Xuanji shuddered silently as he watched the muscular man flee.
The system's vision went dark and it let out a scream.
One of them flexed his muscles with immense confidence: "Look, little one, this is the standard aesthetic of our Feather Tribe. Strong and powerful, one punch can make an enemy cry for their ancestors. Even if you don't move your hands, you'll still scare them. Do you want to learn? If so, uncle will teach you~"
"This guy is not good at training. Pick me, little bastard. I'm the fitness champion of the last Golden Mop Cup!"
"How dare you show off like that? Your true strength can only be demonstrated on the battlefield. Little boy, do you still remember me? We've been on missions together." The burly man said as he made a gesture of opening a ghost back.
The corner of Mo Xuanji's mouth twitched: "Uncle Nanming."
Nan Ming held his heart exaggeratedly, tears in his eyes: "Ah~ Little bastard actually remembered my name, I have no regrets in this life."
Yan hesitated to speak, and finally couldn't help but beat him up: "Behave yourself!"
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