"Su Yuan, what did you just say to that strange person?"
Zhaozhao let Su Yuan hold her hand and obediently followed behind him. After leaving the red maple forest, they entered the human realm. There were incandescent streetlights illuminating the ground. She carefully avoided Su Yuan's shadow on the road and walked very slowly.
"You heard it?" Su Yuan paused, turned around, looked down at Zhaozhao and asked softly.
Zhaozhao nodded and shook her head alternately. "I guessed it, but I didn't eavesdrop."
Eavesdropping was bad. It was impolite. Zhaozhao still remembered that she had to be a polite little demon.
"You're so good." Probably well aware of Zhaozhao's innocent thoughts, Su Yuan couldn't help smiling. Then he coaxed her, "I'll tell you later, okay?"
"Okay."
Although they were capable of flying and moving through the earth, Zhaozhao and Su Yuan tacitly didn't choose to use magic to go back. They just simply held hands, as if they were a young human couple taking a walk downstairs on an ordinary night.
There were actually very few such peaceful moments between them. Since Zhaozhao came to the human society and met Su Yuan, it seemed that they had always been pushed forward by various unexpected situations, walking too fast and too hurriedly.
"Su Yuan, I like this." Zhaozhao shook the hand that was clasped with Su Yuan's, smiling with her eyes bent.
"Then move in with me after we get back. We can do this often in the future. How about it?"
The word "future" sounded so appealing.
Zhaozhao tilted her head and thought for a while. She thought Su Yuan's suggestion made sense and readily agreed. "Okay! But I have to tell my cousin. I haven't seen her for a long time..."
Thinking of Song Yao who had disappeared for a long time, Zhaozhao's voice gradually became low.
Su Yuan saw this and wanted to divert her attention. So he said, "Our Zhaozhao didn't understand that report today, right? Do you want to hear about it now?"
"Yes!"
"That report is called a paternity test. It's a technical means in human society to detect blood relations. The report shows that Zhuang Ming and that person today are blood - related. According to the matching degree, they are father and son biologically." Su Yuan's unhurried voice sounded in the silence, like the cold water in an autumn river.
"Oh..." After a two - second reaction, she suddenly exclaimed, "He's Zhuang Ming's father?!"
Although Zhaozhao still didn't quite understand terms like "technical means" and "biology", she could understand the "father - son relationship".
"Yeah."
Zhaozhao was completely confused now. This seemed different from the human relationships she knew, and it almost made her dizzy.
"Some relationships can't be simply generalized by theoretical knowledge. Because humans and demons have thoughts and desires, they are not machines running on a set track."
Forget it. Zhaozhao sighed dejectedly. She had a vague understanding and decided not to dwell on this. She was more concerned about another thing now.
"Does Zhuang Ming know?" Did he know that his father was actually someone else?
If he knew, would he feel better?
He used to wonder what he had done wrong so that he couldn't get his father's love. If that man wasn't his real father, would everything make sense?
"No. And now is not a good time for him to know. Maybe one day his biological father will tell him."
"Why?"
Su Yuan thought more than Zhaozhao. Zhuang Ming was still a child. He couldn't view many things comprehensively.
He didn't know and couldn't understand the grudges of the previous generation. In his eyes, Zhuang Tingzheng and Liang Yueshu were a couple, and they had an unhappy family.
He loved his mother very much. For this reason, no matter what the entanglement was, he should be told at an appropriate time after he grew up.
"So that's how it is..." Zhaozhao nodded thoughtfully after listening to Su Yuan's explanation.
But this wasn't their concern anymore. They probably wouldn't see each other again in the future.
The two returned to Su Yuan's home together. Considering the strange words of Zhuang Ming's mother tonight, Su Yuan was most worried about leaving Zhaozhao alone at this time.
After Su Yuan came out of the bathroom, he seemed to have something to do and went out. After Zhaozhao took a bath, she sat cross - legged on the bed alone, playing with the small leaves she had plucked. She propped her face up boredly and stared blankly.
The more she thought about it, the stranger the so - called "goddess" seemed. Zhaozhao remembered the feeling when the fragment of the tree spirit's heart merged into her body tonight, and she had the idea of going to the Wuhuang Valley again.
Her master said that there was another fragment of hers in the Wuhuang Valley. If she retrieved it, would she be able to remember more things?
Just do it. Zhaozhao immediately made up her mind. Then she took out her small conch. Before going, she still needed to talk to her master.
The sound - transmitting conch was connected, but it was the gentle voice of her senior brother that came from the other side. "Zhaozhao, is everything going well in the human world?"
"Senior brother? The conch is in your hand today!"
"Yeah, it's with me. Your senior sister has gone into seclusion."
"I see... Brother, actually I wanted to find master this time. Can you give the conch to master? I have something to ask master."
While chatting with her senior brother, Zhaozhao took out the alchemy furnace and skillfully threw her leaves into it to refine them into spiritual pills and ate them.
"Master hasn't been on Wutong Mountain recently. Didn't he go to find you?"
Zhaozhao was stunned. She had just met her master not long ago, and then her master returned to Wutong Mountain. How could he come to find her now?
"No."
The senior brother on the other side suddenly fell silent. Zhaozhao only heard his breath pause for a moment, and then the sound - transmitting of the conch was cut off. "I see. Then stop talking for now, Zhaozhao. Brother will contact you next time."
"Hello? Hello? Senior brother?"
There was no sound. Zhaozhao shook the conch and frowned tightly. Why did she feel that her senior brother was acting so strangely?
And what about her master? If he wasn't on Wutong Mountain, where did he go? Could it be that he had gone to drink with the Queen Mother of the West again?
She couldn't figure it out, so Zhaozhao simply got up and placed an order for a lot of big - mac snack packs for the Taotie taken away by Nan Jia.
At the same time, on the other side, Su Yuan looked at Fufeng who seemed hesitant to speak, and his patience ran out. "What on earth do you want to say?"
Fufeng opened his mouth. After making the eight - hundredth mental preparation, he closed his eyes and said with a tone of resignation. "I said, Lord Dragon King, maybe you and Zhaozhao should call it quits."
"..."
The air around them seemed to freeze. Su Yuan was expressionless. Dark clouds immediately covered the sky, and lightning flashed and thunder roared.
"You've been living too comfortably these days and want some excitement?"
Fufeng gritted his teeth and held out a thin book in front of Su Yuan. He stiffened his neck and said, "I also want you two to be well, but look for yourself! There's no name of Zhaozhao in this Book of Fate at all! Among all sentient beings in the world, anyone who exists is listed in it. You know what it means not to be in the Book of Fate, right?"
Su Yuan stared at the Book of Fate but didn't take it. Seeing this, Fufeng simply went all the way and said directly, "The fact that she's not in the Book of Fate means that such a non - existent being can't exist in the entire Three Thousand Worlds."