Chapter 46 Xie Baoqiong moved swiftly from…
Xie Baoqiong deftly took out clothes from her sleeve and draped them over Qi Gui.
The soft rustling of fabric could be heard inside.
Su Xiaochun watched as Qi Gui put on his clothes one by one, covering the bruises on his body. When his gaze fell on the wounds on Qi Gui's body, his eyes flickered. His tail lightly swept across Xie Baoqiong's arm, and he said nostalgically, "When you couldn't change clothes properly before, I always kept an extra set of clothes in my sleeve."
Xie Baoqiong raised her hand and casually stroked the fox.
Qi Gui, having fastened his belt, turned around and looked at the man and the fox with suspicion in his eyes: "What?"
Su Xiaochun's ears twitched, and she straightened up in Xie Baoqiong's arms and stretched: "It's nothing. By the way, aren't you a half-demon? Why don't you cultivate? At least you can change your clothes yourself."
After stretching, he changed his position and lay down, nuzzling his head against Xie Baoqiong's palm.
Xie Baoqiong's gaze followed Su Xiaochun's and landed on Qi Gui. Her eyes were burning, as if trying to penetrate the layers of clothing and land on the overlapping scars.
Qi Gui's dazed eyes were covered by his lowered eyelids, avoiding the scorching gaze, and he straightened his coat.
It was a completely unrelated matter between half-demons, so Su Xiaochun asked casually. Seeing the other person remain silent, she had no intention of continuing the conversation.
"Qi Gui, go and cultivate."
The scorching words landed on his heart, and several dark shadows unexpectedly spread across the carpet beneath Qi Gui's feet.
The ticking sound was particularly noticeable in the quiet room.
Tears welled up in Qi Gui's eyes, one after another. He raised his hand to wipe them away, but the more he wiped, the more tears streamed down his face. Through his blurred, tear-filled eyes, he saw Xie Baoqiong sitting on the carpet, frozen in shock, holding the fox.
"I'm sorry... Arjun."
"Little duck, if you don't want to cultivate, then you don't want to cultivate. Why are you crying?" Su Xiaochun flicked her tail irritably twice.
Qi Gui shook his head, opened his mouth and took a few deep breaths, then stammered out:
"No, I want to cultivate, I want to cultivate, I want to go south to find my mother."
He crouched down, hugging his knees, as if he had transformed back into a tiny snow goose chick, the suppressed sobs in his throat sounding like the mournful cries of a fledgling bird.
Xie Baoqiong leaned closer to Qi Gui, looking down at Qi Gui's lowered head with a blank expression. He didn't know why Qi Gui's eyes were watering.
Qi Gui was always crying, but he could never understand why.
Do humans (half-demons) have so much water to flow from their eyes?
If Xie Zhuo were here, perhaps he could answer his questions.
But apart from him and Qi Gui, only Xiao Chun was inside the room.
By the way, Xiaochun knows more than him, so he can ask Xiaochun.
Looking down, the fox in his arms felt the water droplets falling on its head and took a step back. After realizing that its fur would get wet, it stepped on Qi Gui's head and lay down.
Xie Baoqiong watched silently as Su Xiaochun reluctantly licked a strand of Qi Gui's hair.
"Don't cry, I'm looking for my older sister too. Adult demons like to run around. What does your mother look like? If I see her, I'll have her come find you."
Qi Gui stopped crying, but tears still kept welling up and rolling down her cheeks; "I haven't seen my mother. My brother said she left when I was an egg, and my brother was the only one there when I hatched."
Su Xiaochun's fox-like head rested on Qi Gui's head: "You still have an older brother, so you can ask your brother to help you find your mother." Su Xiaochun, who was raised by her older sister, didn't think there was anything wrong with what she said.
"...My brother is a mortal and cannot find my mother. Besides, my brother does not like monsters."
Su Xiaochun's fox-like face revealed a knowing look, and she said with dissatisfaction:
"Humans are the truly detestable thing."
Qi Gui's tears stopped, and his eyes glanced upwards strangely, noticing a section of a fox's mouth peeking out. He then looked at Xie Baoqiong, who appeared indifferent, as if she hadn't heard Su Xiaochun's attack.
He looked away and said weakly, "My brother was very good to me before I took human form."
“So that means you’ll be bad to me after you take human form.” Su Xiaochun seized on the loophole in Qi Gui’s words to refute him, and finally added a conclusion: “Humans are all bad.”
Qi Gui recalled the complex look in Qi Yan's eyes when he first saw him in human form, and remained silent for a long time before saying, "Brother just doesn't like monsters."
Su Xiaochun leaped down from Qi Gui's head, her two fluffy tails swishing across Qi Gui's face: "If your brother hates monsters, then he should prefer your human form."
...
Xie Baoqiong glanced at them, each huddled on one side, treating them like a bird and a fox separated by a partition:
"us……"
Both pairs of eyes looked at him at the same time.
Xie Baoqiong felt that it was inappropriate for him to look at anyone or speak to anyone at that moment. After thinking for a moment, she simply picked up Su Xiaochun and moved to another position.
That's right, he nodded to the two people in front of him:
"Shall we go out and scout it out?"
Su Xiaochun glanced at the window paper, now tinged with a dim yellow hue, and nodded her fox head with an air of superiority.
Xie Baoqiong's gaze shifted to Qi Gui: "Do you want to come with me?"
Qi Gui nodded slightly, then hesitated and said, "Ah Qiong, but I know neither kung fu nor magic. Will I be a burden to you...?"
"It's okay, just hide it in my sleeve like you did this morning."
After discussing it, the three decided to first explore the front hall, which Su Xiaochun had not yet visited, in order to find the fox spirit.
Qi Gui transformed into the shape of a snow goose and slipped into Xie Baoqiong's sleeve.
Xie Baoqiong untied the restriction left by Amei on the window to prevent people from leaving, then used the windowsill to climb out and hold the window shut, waiting for Su Xiaochun, who was a step behind in setting up the illusion.
Before long, the two-tailed fox jumped onto his shoulder from the windowsill, while inside the room, a figure identical to him lay on the couch with his eyes closed.
Avoiding the people in the courtyard along the way, they followed the direction Su Xiaochun pointed out and circled around to... a wall?
"Xiaochun?" He looked at the fox on his shoulder, puzzled.
“The entrances to the backyard require spells of the same energy to open. Although they can be forcibly broken open, it will alert those people,” Su Xiaochun explained. “The barrier near this wall is relatively weak. I will cover us with an illusion spell. You can climb over here and go around to the main entrance.”
He followed Su Xiaochun's instructions and climbed over the wall, then walked around a section of road and arrived at the main gate of the Fox Fairy Temple.
The dim light of the sky shrouded the plaque above the main entrance, where a few words were written in a flamboyant style. Xie Baoqiong looked up at it for a while, then silently walked inside.
The temple gates were about to close, and only a handful of worshippers remained.
Xie Baoqiong took out the mask she had received during the Spring Festival and put it on her face. She then hugged the two-tailed fox on her shoulder, covered its tail with her arms, and swaggered into the courtyard of the front hall.
As he walked toward the main hall, he noticed that the gazes of the worshippers walking out of the temple in the courtyard were subtly falling on him, or more accurately, on Su Xiaochun in his arms.
The fox in his arms then bit his collar and tugged at it.
Xie Baoqiong received the signal, went around to a secluded place, and when the people around her were not paying attention, she climbed up a tree with lush branches and leaves.
"Those people were giving us strange looks. Let's wait until everyone's gone before we go in." Su Xiaochun buried her head in Xie Baoqiong's clothes and snuggled closer.
The colors in the sky faded bit by bit, leaving only the western corner shimmering with golden light.
Xie Baoqiong's sleeve twitched slightly, revealing a barely noticeable glimpse of white from the cuff:
"Ah-Jung, it's Lord Xie."
The people under the tree seemed to sense something and looked over.
Through the gaps in the swaying green leaves, illuminated by the golden light of the setting sun, Xie Baoqiong could clearly see a face that resembled his own by six or seven points.
A few unusual cries of geese reached Xie Zhuo's ears from the treetops, and he calmly withdrew his gaze.
Xie Baoqiong released her grip on Qi Gui's hand, secretly letting out a sigh of relief. How could Xie Zhuo be here?!
A faint gaze drifted into her arms. Xie Baoqiong lowered her eyes and met Su Xiaochun's gaze. After a few seconds, she looked away, slightly guilty.
Several tolls of the temple bell rang out, and the figure under the tree gradually disappeared into the distance.
But Xie Baoqiong did not rush to jump down from the treetop.
The fox in my arms leaped out and landed on a tree branch in front of me, where it sat down.
"Who is this?"
Xie Baoqiong looked at the sky and the ground, but avoided looking into the fox's deep eyes: "Nobody? Someone Qi Gui knows." He knew him too.
Xie Baoqiong wouldn't say the second half of the sentence aloud; he couldn't very well tell Su Xiaochun that he had become someone's son after going down the mountain.
Su Xiaochun's suspicious gaze swept over Xie Baoqiong's face a few times before landing on the small white ball in the other's palm.
Qi Gui felt inexplicably guilty when he met those eyes, even though he clearly hadn't said anything.
He looked up at Xie Baoqiong, who was intently staring at the new leaves on the treetops.
"Little duckling, is that person also from the capital?"
Qi Gui glanced at Xie Baoqiong again, but she still didn't look at him. Qi Gui nodded tentatively.
The wind rustled through the treetops.
Su Xiaochun grinned and sharpened her teeth: "He's from Beijing, surnamed Xie. Don't you know him?"
"There are so many people with the surname Xie, I can't possibly know them all." Xie Baoqiong felt that she had become more and more clever after staying at the foot of the mountain for so long.
Why hide in a tree if you don't know the person?
Su Xiaochun didn't believe a word of it, her eyes filled with worry: "Little Baoqiong, how come you've become like a human?" Before the little tombstone came down the mountain, it couldn't lie. Its older sister had taught it that humans are good at lying. One sentence is true, the next is false. Truth and lies are mixed together, making them completely confused.
He's a fox demon who's taken anti-abduction classes in the fox clan.
"Ah Qiong is a human, isn't it normal for her to look like a human?" Qi Gui, sandwiched between the human and the fox, interjected in the conversation.
Su Xiaochun's face darkened, and she scoffed inwardly.
Xie Baoqiong was unaware that Su Xiaochun was referring to his lying, and said with certainty, "After spending so much time among people, of course you have to act more like a human being. Didn't Xiaochun want that before?"
Before Xiaochun went down the mountain, she hoped that he would not be discovered to be a demon. Shouldn't Xiaochun be happy now? He played the role so well and was not discovered. Shouldn't she be happy for him?
Su Xiaochun choked. He had indeed said that, and even offered some help.
They are clearly different.
His two fox tails twisted together in a tangled mess: "Then...then you shouldn't have lied to me. It's one thing for you to lie, but how could you lie to me?"
“I was worried that you would think I’d been deceived if you heard that,” Xie Baoqiong said, realizing what Su Xiaochun was concerned about. “I didn’t mean to deceive you.”
Su Xiaochun became wary, still feeling that Xie Baoqiong hadn't said anything wrong in the previous sentence, but she was still bothered by the fact that the latter had lied to her. She then turned to Qi Gui and asked, "Little Duck, who is that person?"
The direction of eye movement that creates a sense of pressure.
Qi Gui watched as Xie Baoqiong nodded to him, and out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Su Xiaochun's terrible expression. He immediately felt that it might have been the right thing for Xie Baoqiong not to reveal anything, but now that Xie Baoqiong had agreed, he couldn't help her keep it a secret.
"Lord Xie is Ah Qiong's father."
-----------------------
Author's Note: It's a one-sided meeting. Xie Zhuo will probably meet Xiao Shitou in the next chapter or the chapter after that.
The author is leaving tomorrow and will be writing on the way, trying to maintain a consistent update schedule. Everyone should get some rest and not wait for updates! [pat on the head]
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
