Chapter 45

“Xiu Niang.” For the first time, Hua Qi showed a lost expression in front of Xiu Niang. “Yun Shan got hurt, and I feel awful. It feels like something stabbed me in the heart.”

“He is flesh that fell from your own body. Mother and child are joined at the heart, and you love him most. How could you not feel awful when he is hurt?”

“But, but…” But he was not Yun Shan’s mother. Yun Shan was nothing more than the cheap little disciple that rotten Daoist Master Lingyin had picked up. He had only sworn a heart-demon oath to raise Yun Shan. Why would he feel so distressed over this human little cub?

The last time Yun Shan cried, he had felt this way too. Back then, it had not been this strong. This time, the feeling of heartache was especially obvious. It left him completely unable to understand.

“But what?” Xiu Niang looked at Hua Qi in confusion. “What are you trying to say?”

“What if… what if Yun Shan wasn’t born from me?” Hua Qi asked Xiu Niang tentatively. He wanted to know the answer.

“What?” Xiu Niang glanced toward the west room and frowned, unable to sort out this family’s relationships for a moment. “If Yun Shan wasn’t born from you, then where did he come from? No wonder you don’t have milk.” No wonder she had felt before that some of the things this family did were strange. It turned out they really were not one family after all.

“Picked up,” Hua Qi told her truthfully.

Xiu Niang lowered her voice and asked, “Does Xi Jue know?”

“They all know.”

Now Xiu Niang did not know what to say. In the past, she had thought Hua Qi and Xi Jue favored Yun Shan because Yun Shan was the youngest son, and also their child. Now Hua Qi was saying Yun Shan had been picked up. She could not understand why Xi Jue would leave his own children unloved and instead dote on a child he had picked up.

“Xiu Niang, tell me, why exactly is that?”

Xiu Niang sighed softly. “After you spend enough time together, who wouldn’t develop feelings? Never mind you. I feed Yun Shan every day, and I half take him as my own son too. When he hurts on his body, my heart hurts along with him. Even if he isn’t your own, after being together long enough, you become true mother and child.”

“It’s Yun Shan’s good fortune that he was picked up by you all. His birth parents might not have done as much as you have. Especially Dou Ming, Xiao Cong, and Tuo Tuo. They don’t fight or snatch, and they even help take care of Yun Shan. Even toward a blood-related little brother, that would already be about all anyone could ask.”

“Where did you pick the child up? You’re still young. Why not have one yourself?”

Hua Qi lowered his eyes, his tone flat. “A child someone we knew picked up. That person later died and entrusted the child to us.”

“You’re raising a child someone else picked up?” This was the first time Xiu Niang had heard of such a thing. Even if she tried to imagine it, she never would have thought such a thing could exist in this world. “A child is still raised the same way. But you need to take advantage of being young and have a child with Xi Jue.”

“Raising this one child is enough.” How could he and Xi Jue give birth to a child? He was a male snake, and Xi Jue was a male leopard.

Xiu Niang said anxiously, “Aren’t you just being foolish? Although a child is raised the same either way, in the end, it still isn’t the same as your own flesh and blood. When you’re old, you’ll have to rely on your own child to support you.”

“No need. This one is enough.” He had no intention of finding a female snake to give birth to little snakes. Once Yun Shan grew up, he still had to return to Yunling Mountain to cultivate in quiet.

Xiu Niang straightened the vegetables and said, “You people are the first of your kind I’ve ever heard of. From top to bottom, your whole family has nothing bad to say about Yun Shan. You all treat him like a treasure. If you said he wasn’t your own child, I wouldn’t even believe it.”

“Yun Shan is still young now and doesn’t remember things. If you treat him as your own son, then he’ll be your own son in the future. His father and mother don’t want him, so if you raise him, then you are his real mother, and he is your cub. Xi Jue is Yun Shan’s real father, and Dou Ming, Xiao Cong, and Tuo Tuo are Yun Shan’s real older brothers. You are a family.”

Hua Qi suddenly lifted his head. Xiu Niang said that if he raised Yun Shan, then Yun Shan was his little cub.

“Yun Shan recognizes you, you know. When he cries, only being held by you works. Right now, Yun Shan recognizes his mother.”

Hua Qi’s breath caught. Yun Shan recognized him. Yun Shan was his little cub. At this moment, when he thought of the human little cub sleeping inside the room, Hua Qi’s heart turned incomparably soft. Such a soft little human cub, without any ability to protect himself, was his cub.

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