Chapter 44: The Medication Was Changed, But It Still Feels Like There Are Mushrooms

"Let's go, let's go! This round is on me!"

Having made a small fortune, Yu Zhenghong was exceptionally generous. He invited his entire family and the owner of the neighboring tea shop to go out for a meal to thank them for coming over to help at his shop in the morning.

The group of seven—Yu Xueqing's family of three, the two tea shop owners, and their wives—set off in high spirits.

They arrived at the Qiangji Open-Air Food Stall.

Yu Zhenghong wore a solemn expression as he held the menu with both hands and presented it to Ansheng.

Ansheng looked suspicious, raised a paw, and pointed at the Typhoon Shelter Fried Crab on the menu.

Yu Zhenghong pushed the menu a bit further forward. Ansheng immediately brightened up and pointed at the picture of the mantis prawns.

Yu Zhenghong's expression changed drastically. With a flattering, awkward smile, he pulled the menu back to his chest. "Lord Fox Spirit... you cannot blame Ah Hong for lacking piety, it is simply that I cannot afford this!"

"Would Your Elder please consider performing some rituals tonight when we return home to bless my tea shop with prosperity? Once Ah Hong's wallet swells in the days to come, I shall be extremely pious indeed."

The Typhoon Shelter Fried Crab was somewhat reasonable—for seven people, it would cost around four to six hundred.

The mantis prawns, even excluding the cooking fee, cost seven hundred per catty.

If everyone had one mantis prawn each, whether it brought wealth or not was one thing, but the bill would definitely run into the thousands.

It wasn't that Yu Zhenghong was reluctant to spend, but he needed to know whether his family's Fox Deity was actually responsive or not!

Today might have just been a fluke.

If the deity proved miraculous once more, he wouldn't hesitate for a second to grit his teeth and buy out the menu!

Seeing Yu Zhenghong's miserly appearance and his extremely flexible level of piety, Ansheng rolled his eyes.

Aside from Mazu and a few historical human ancestors and immortals with actual historical prototypes, the people of Xiadong did not have blind faith. Their level of piety toward other deities could not be said to be completely nonexistent, but if a wild mountain god wanted incense offerings, it had to prove its efficacy to him first.

Otherwise, his hands were tied!

Top-grade sandalwood wasn't cheap. What if the deity possessed not an ounce of talent? Wouldn't he be wasting incense and candles for nothing?

"Ahqing, go ahead and lose all you want in the future! At worst, just treat it as gaining early experience in society. I, Ansheng, will cover your losses!"

"Of course, steer clear of loans and all-in gambles. After all, I'm just a fox, and my repayment capacity is limited..."

Enjoying a roasted chicken all by himself, the fox chirped with absolute confidence toward Yu Xueqing, patting his chest in assurance.

Since he slept in the same bed as her, Ahqing never needed to worry about his phone being unreachable.

Of course, although Ansheng felt he could cover the losses, he sincerely hoped Ahqing wouldn't use financial leverage; otherwise, a single Fox Deity like him might simply find the burden too heavy to bear.

*Ying ying ying~ Master, come eat quickly! The meat here is so delicious! In the future, I, Little Fox, will also work hard at hunting to bring delicious food to Master every day......*

Ansheng's chest-pounding assurance, after being translated by the simultaneous interpretation software inside Yu Xueqing's head, wasn't exactly faithful, expressive, and elegant, but it was close enough.

Yu Xueqing was deeply moved. Her little An never forgot about her even when eating something good.

Truly, not a single piece of dog food was eaten in vain.

***

After finishing their meal at the food stall, Yu Xueqing did not return to the tea shop.

Originally, she had planned to learn live-streaming sales techniques from her dad at the shop in the morning, and then take Little An to hike in the park in the afternoon to enjoy the beauty of nature.

However, having been busy until nearly two o'clock this morning, Yu Xueqing simply had no energy left to go hiking and tire herself out.

She could only wrong Little Fox a little bit, promising herself that tomorrow she would definitely wake up early to take Little Fox hiking and tea-tasting.

Yu Xueqing drove back to Changxi Town.

However, as she approached her front door, Ansheng keenly noticed that something seemed slightly amiss in front of Lin Ying's house.

Several black commercial vehicles were parked outside Lin Ying's house, and the villa's front gates stood wide open.

"Sister Lin Fu hasn't gotten into trouble, has she?"

"Surely not, right? Didn't she say recently that she's been steadily increasing her medication dosage?"

Ansheng muttered to himself in his heart. After giving Yu Xueqing a brief greeting, he walked over toward Lin Ying's house.

Hiding beside a pillar, Ansheng poked his head out and peered into the front garden of Lin Ying's villa.

Confirming there was no one at the front entrance, Ansheng scurried stealthily along the edge of the wall, moving quickly toward the villa. Then, digging his claws into the stone tiles of the exterior wall, he climbed up to the balcony outside Lin Ying's bedroom.

"Ying?"

Ansheng peered into the master bedroom. Lin Ying was wearing casual homewear, leaning against the headboard. Around her king-sized bed, female medical personnel were busy bustling about, and the room was crowded with a variety of strange testing equipment.

Ansheng's chirping sound seemed to wake Lin Ying from her light sleep. She turned her gaze toward the balcony.

Human and fox exchanged a brief glance for a moment.

Lin Ying beckoned to Ansheng, gesturing for him to come over to her side.

The other medical staff were startled when they spotted a fox. The nurse closest to the balcony door even slid the lock into place immediately, terrified that Ansheng might find a way inside.

"Ying..."

With dark lines running across his forehead, Ansheng looked at the medical staff, then let out a soft chirp toward Lin Ying on the bed.

"Open the door, and then all of you may leave!" Following several days of medication, Lin Ying's hormone levels had been regulated to a certain extent, and her mental state was not as haggard as Ansheng had seen her previously.

Or rather, Lin Ying's haggard mental state and complete insomnia were not closely related to her underlying psychological illness.

The psychological disorder she suffered from had already skipped the most dangerous phase, devolving into severe depression where she had completely lost all desire for anything.

In such a state, for someone like Lin Ying—who possessed a live-in nanny and a medical team—it was actually quite safe.

As for her previous insomnia and haggard appearance, the primary reason was actually that she had constantly been pondering whether she, the world, or the fox had lost their minds.

Was it because she hadn't taken her medication for a long time and was hallucinating?

Or had the fox eaten nuclear waste and mutated?

Or perhaps the world itself had gone mad, which was why it gave birth to a fox with intelligence comparable to a human, capable of shattering negative-pressure tempered glass with a single punch and dragging her ashore.

Ever since that day, Lin Ying had been silently taking her medicine, yet the fox continued to appear even after she took it.

Suspecting that foreign cutting-edge pharmaceuticals might contain prohibited ingredients, she had thrown them all away and switched entirely to domestic medications.

Yet the fox remained, still carrying her in its jaws every night to ride the elevator down to the dining room for meals.

Then Lin Ying concluded that domestic medicines very likely contained wild mushroom components, so she threw those away as well.

After successively cycling through four different national standards of targeted combination medications for depression, Lin Ying became profoundly convinced:

She hadn't lost her mind, and the fox wasn't deranged.

The one that had gone mad was the world she inhabited. Only a world in a state of drunken delirium could possibly give birth to such an insane vixen.

"Come over here!"

Once all the medical staff had withdrawn from the room, Lin Ying looked at the fox, who had already entered, and said calmly, "Nothing has happened to me. It's just that changing treatment medications requires some necessary checkups."

"As for you, what brings you here this early in the morning?"

"Ying ying ying?"

Ansheng looked at Lin Ying suspiciously.

Nothing happened?

But looking at your deadpan face as calm as stagnant water, there's no way this looks like nothing is wrong.

He wasn't too worried about other things; he was just afraid that a single emotional fluctuation of hers might lead to her reenacting "Flying Through the Air."

Though Ansheng hadn't earned any Faith Points from Lin Ying, her recent experiences had truly been tragic enough, and Ansheng genuinely worried that something might happen to her.

If Lin Ying's experiences were adapted into the finale of a Korean drama, nobody would dare film it—even the scriptwriters would fear being hunted down offline by angry viewers wielding daggers.