Chapter 12: Aren't You Bullying an Honest Fox? (Please Vote, Please Follow)

“Ying?”

Ansheng was momentarily stunned as she saw Yuxueqing’s wish in her mind, then fell into deep thought.

The basic condition for the wish to come true was family happiness. Ansheng knew that Yuxueqing’s father had the habit of worshipping gods regularly.

For Yuxueqing’s father, keeping a fox at home was clearly a taboo and an act of defiance against the natural order.

In the northern summer district, there was a legend that the red fox was a spiritual fox associated with the revered Hu Santai grandmother, while in the eastern summer district’s Taoism, there were myths about white fox spirits.

Foxes were beings of spirit and nature’s own elves.

Raising a fox was equivalent to inviting a deity. Ordinary people could not do it; at the very least, those without strong fate roots should never attempt it.

No matter what, Yuxueqing’s father would never allow his daughter to keep a fox.

When Yuxueqing’s father saw Ansheng, the inevitable ending would be to ignore her wishes and, with great fanfare, return her to the wild like delivering a spirit back to nature.

“Bah—I've already come out of the mountains twice, and you’re still planning to stage a ‘three visits to the thatched cottage’ with me?”

Having understood the difficulty behind Yuxueqing’s wish fulfillment, Ansheng finally grasped why there was a ghost-fire ending option in the wish’s condition bracket.

Because, for her, Yuxueqing’s father was indeed an ‘old demon.’

And the fate of an old demon was naturally a ghost-fire boy.

I struggle to run out of the forest to beg for food cutely, hoping to experience a standalone mansion, yet you want to send me back to the mountains?

I don’t even care for the state-protected animal park’s steady meals or the big dormitory beds; you want me to gnaw on hedgehogs?

“Wailing—”

Knowing the truth, Ansheng couldn’t help but scold the ‘old demon’ for being an unfilial son. It’s just a bit of rice a day, is it really necessary to go through the trouble of sending me back to the valley?

Try sending me to the mountains, and I’ll be back the next day pushing a wheeled water-cooled Maxim gun!

“Xiao An!”

Returning to her senses, Yuxueqing looked at the fox peeking from the windowsill with a serious expression.

“The situation ahead is extremely severe and difficult... My dad is coming with a pressure cooker; he says he’s going to give you a bath.”

Yuxueqing exerted all her animal empathic ability, trying to make Ansheng understand how terrifying a pressure cooker was to small animals.

As Yuxueqing’s empathic power activated, strange images suddenly appeared in Ansheng’s mind.

At the ancestral home at night, an indistinguishable middle-aged man, shirtless and wearing a butcher’s apron, grinning broadly, holding a pressure cooker filled with hot water, cheekily said to Ansheng:

“Oh my, whose lovely little darling is this? Want to take a bath in uncle’s pot? Uncle’s pressure cooker has never received bad reviews since its debut.”

Ansheng was dumbfounded, her brain almost shrinking from the sudden vision.

Where did this image in her mind come from?

Ansheng could swear by her bell that no matter what happened, she would never imagine any male figure in her mind, let alone a middle-aged man in a naked apron...

If someone ran up to her inviting her to bathe in a pressure cooker...

Ansheng was sure a fox could only emit soft cries or maybe loud sounds like “Long live the great Chu, Chen Sheng the king!” and “Are kings and generals born privileged?” kind of loud noises.

In other words, the images in her mind... might have come from Yuxueqing!

Ansheng looked at Yuxueqing with suspicion.

“Ying?”

“No, girl, why do I feel like some crazy strong alkali is corroding my brain?”

“Master~ I’m scared...”

“Xiao An, don’t be afraid...”

Yuxueqing bit her lip, her face hardening as she said fiercely, “Hide well later. If my dad really finds out I’m keeping a fox... I will cry as loudly as possible!”

“When I was little, I was known as a big crybaby; I once cried for three hours straight until my eyes were swollen!”

“Wailing—”

Hearing this, Ansheng first felt a wave of speechlessness, then suddenly was moved.

For Yuxueqing to stubbornly argue with her father for her sake, wasn’t this a kind of promise of love and elopement without a bride price?

Ansheng was almost moved to tears.

In her past life, to get married, the starting price was half a million, followed by three taels of pure gold, plus a car, house, and a nanny.

At the time, Ansheng wondered what three taels meant.

The other party said it was pure gold jewelry weighing three taels with 999 purity.

............

Yuxueqing temporarily placed the fox on the fourth floor, set out food and water bowls, then hurried down to the first floor to tidy up the fox-related items, fearing her father might notice anything when he arrived.

While Yuxueqing anxiously awaited her fate, Ansheng stealthily ran to the second floor, slid down a drainpipe, and ended up in the alley next to the neighboring house.

“Don’t worry, Yuxueqing. I, Ansheng, am not a cold-hearted person who would let you suffer!”

“The Qingdu has been dead for a long time, yet your old man still clings to superstitions. If he doesn’t politely lift me up to the altar later, I’ll shave my head and sleep in the animal park’s big dormitory the next day.”

Ansheng curled her fox face in disdain. If she could transform, she would immediately borrow a ghost fire motorbike.

Her tail flicked as she climbed over the wall into the Fu family home, rummaged through a pile of old farming tools, and found a bottle of nearly fifteen-year-old Maotai liquor.

Ansheng dusted off the gift box, grabbed it in her mouth, and headed toward the Linying home, ready to navigate the complex social dealings.

Not long after Ansheng left, an old Tianfu pickup truck pulled up in front of Yuxueqing’s house.

“Ah Qing!”

From the passenger seat, a middle-aged woman with semi-short side-swept bangs stepped down, her face beaming as she greeted Yuxueqing waiting at the door.

Though in her early forties, the woman’s lightly made-up cheeks showed no trace of age, resembling a beauty in her late twenties.

“Mom.”

Yuxueqing called out and hurried forward to take the vegetable basket from her mother’s hands, helping carry it inside.

“Ah Qing, I remember you said yesterday that the lock on the old house’s front door had some issues, right? I brought a toolbox just in case.”

Yuxueqing’s father stepped out of the driver’s seat. His face was broad and kindhearted, smiling happily, his skin sun-darkened, clearly a muscular man who worked outdoors.

However, no matter how tanned a sportsman’s skin, the ravages of time are merciless. Yuxueqing’s father clearly didn’t care much for managing his belly.

“Ah! We’ll talk about those things later! Look at the time—let’s finish cooking and eat first.”

Yuxueqing’s mother rolled her eyes at her husband and pulled Yuxueqing inside.

It was nearly noon; if they didn’t start cooking soon, they might miss lunch altogether.

She had bought plenty of ingredients for the family gathering and even some barbecue supplies for the evening.

“Hmph, what do you know... Do you think the countryside is full of surveillance cameras like the city?”

“Do you understand what safety means?”

Yuxueqing’s father muttered to himself but didn’t dare argue openly with his wife.

After seeing the mother and daughter go inside, Yuxueqing’s father, Yu Zhenghong, approached the front door and fiddled with the lock for a while.

With a confused expression, he called inside, “Ah Qing, what’s wrong with the lock? I checked inside and out and found no problem.”

“Ah? It’s the lock cylinder! After unlocking, it often doesn’t pop back out; you have to fiddle with it by hand.”

Wearing slippers, Yuxueqing ran out from inside to explain the lock’s problem to her father.

However, after fiddling with the lock for a while, it returned smoothly and perfectly every time, like a silky Dove chocolate.

There was no sign of sticking or failure to reset.

“Uh...”

Yuxueqing looked puzzled, tapped the lock to try to replicate the fault, but the lock’s operation remained as smooth as ever.

There was absolutely no sign of the previous jamming problem.