After coming out of the tutoring class teacher’s office, Wu Ming and Dai Qian’s hands were both swollen like steamed buns.
But Wu Ming turned his head to look at Dai Qian and discovered that her hand seemed even more swollen than his. Immediately, he felt dissatisfied toward the weird teacher responsible for hitting him.
He really hadn’t eaten!
This time, he did not use his power to recover quickly. Instead, he continuously suppressed the recovery of his palm all the way until school let out at noon. His palm remained swollen high.
Such a high swollen palm was perfect for piling high with candies.
Su Ximu discovered that the teachers in this world all seemed to like punishing students by inflicting pain.
After unexpectedly running into the three kids playing outside again, they received even more candies amid the children’s sparkling gazes.
However, the candies were not placed in their palms this time. Instead, they avoided the injured areas and went straight into pockets.
This time, Su Ximu asked more carefully.
He first asked Dudu, who appeared the youngest: “Dudu, when you went to kindergarten, did teachers hit you like this too?”
Dudu’s age was roughly that of a middle or senior kindergarten class.
Dudu eagerly popped a candy into her mouth and shook her head. “No. The teachers can’t beat my dad or mom.”
Ordinary weirds were subtly influenced by powerful weirds around them or in their affiliated dungeons, but Dudu’s parents had settled down on Wealth Avenue. They themselves were weirds of no small power.
However…
Dudu carefully glanced left and right before cautiously leaning close to Xiao Mu Brother. She whispered into the ear of this big brother who gave her candy, played with her, and earned her trust. “But brother, I don’t like it when Dad and Mom come back.”
If Dad and Mom never came back, she, her big brother and sister, and her little brother would definitely live very happily. It wouldn’t even matter if teachers hit them at school.
Bought off by the candy, Dudu had accidentally shared a huge secret with Xiao Mu Brother. After saying it, she regretted it a little and began to warn him. “Xiao Mu Brother, don’t tell Dad and Mom, okay?”
Su Ximu squatted down until he was roughly eye level with Dudu. He looked into the little girl’s eyes, where a hint of fear and regret leaked out, and nodded solemnly. “Okay. Brother promises you. I won’t tell anyone.”
With that, he extended one finger. “Like last time, pinky promise?”
The somewhat anxious little girl saw Xiao Mu Brother’s gesture and let out a huge sigh of relief. She hurriedly extended her own finger and hooked it together with his.
While the big one and the little one whispered secrets to each other, it left Dai Qian and Wu Ming—who Dudu had vigilantly kept on guard against—extremely anxious.
What exactly were they talking about?!
Was it related to their dungeon?
What secrets did they have that they couldn’t let them hear?! They even pinky promised to keep it confidential!
Wu Ming had always felt that in the Harmonious Loving Family dungeon, the biggest problem was this little girl Dudu.
It was clearly while she played with her little friends that she lost her little brother Teng Teng. Yet she stubbornly insisted he was just playing hide-and-seek and refused to admit what she had done.
Not only that, after losing her little brother, the little girl could keep playing carefree with her friends. She had blocked the key link they needed to clear the dungeon.
No matter how he looked at it, something was off.
After returning “home,” Wu Ming even tried to probe Dudu indirectly. Who knew this little weird was truly quite vigilant? The moment he asked what she had said to Xiao Mu Brother that day, she shot him a guarded look. She didn’t proactively speak to him for the entire dinner.
The Du Family’s dinner was made by the nanny. After eating, the three siblings each returned to their rooms to rest.
Both Wu Ming and Dai Qian’s rooms had computers. Before bed, Wu Ming wanted to log into the community website with Dudu’s account as usual to check their family rankings.
These computers could only access the community website. Nothing else was visible. He had coaxed the account and password out of Dudu.
Who would have thought the login—which had always gone smoothly before—hit a snag today.
A major snag.
Forget logging in. The entire community website seemed to have vanished from the internet entirely. Even searching the browsing history turned up no trace.
Had the website disappeared? This was clearly his life on the line!
Wu Ming’s eyes bulged. Bloodshot veins visibly appeared in them as his nerves stretched taut.
He refused to give up. He kept typing in the URL and refreshing nonstop. He did this for nearly two hours until the website finally reacted differently.
Wu Ming let out a breath before sucking in a deep one. He stared intently at the spinning circle in the center of the computer screen.
Finally!
The circle stopped spinning.
The website app—
?!
A black screen on the website?!
Wu Ming’s hand stiffened on the mouse for a moment. He nearly fainted from hyperventilation syndrome.
Su Ximu felt his current life was truly just like what he and Ox Grandpa had hoped for back when he was little.
No bad people who might show up at any moment to wreck his home.
No one dragging away his brothers or grandpa to carve up their flesh for no reason.
No eternally foggy skies or endless deserts.
He lived together with his brothers. Ox Grandpa lived next door. He really kept the little yellow dog Ox Grandpa had given him. Every day was just like when he was little—he could head over to Ox Grandpa’s house to play without needing to knock much.
Because aside from mornings, Ox Grandpa’s door was almost never closed.
Little Ah Huang had been raised by Ox Grandpa too. Afraid Ox Grandpa might miss Little Ah Huang sometimes, Su Ximu occasionally carried the little dog over next door, along with the hamster cage.
He felt quite at ease at Ox Grandpa’s house. No matter what he did, Ox Grandpa never corrected him. He just chuckled and watched, sometimes even joining in.
On the third day of attending the tutoring class, Su Ximu brought his latest masterpiece next door once more.
He unfurled the large painting and showed it to Ox Grandpa.
It was a watercolor landscape painting full of vibrant colors. Most beginner art students preferred ones with lots of color like this.
The old man stood before the painting and stroked his white beard. He bent down and examined the painting meticulously from left to right, top to bottom, with eyes full of amazement.
After a long moment, the old man straightened up and declared directly, “This old man has decided.”
Once Ox Grandpa finished looking, Su Ximu set the painting aside and waited to hear what he had decided.
The old man clapped his palms together. “This old man has decided! The backyard of this house should be redone exactly like in your painting, Xiao Mu!”
With that, he even asked the boy in front of him for design plans. “Xiao Mu, can you leave this painting here with Grandpa for now? Grandpa needs to reference it constantly while fixing up the backyard.”
Su Ximu did not quite catch on at first to what Ox Grandpa meant.
His painting was just random scribbles.
A pink lake, yellow tree leaves, blue clouds.
Of the whole painting, only the yellow leaves looked somewhat normal.
The old man saw it differently, however. “Kid, Grandpa might not understand art, but over these years, I’ve heard a thing or two. That’s right—art! What is art? Art has to be one of a kind.”
“I think this painting is great. It could even go to auction!”
Those words sounded familiar.
Half an hour earlier at home, his third brother had said the exact same thing.
His big brother and second brother had not put it quite that way, but they indicated that if it really went to auction—even if he had not painted it—they would pay top dollar for its artistic value alone.
He had almost believed them.
Though he was thrilled by the family’s praise—and that Ox Grandpa wanted to remodel the yard based on his painting—Su Ximu thought to himself that sticking with the tutoring class had truly been the right call.
The old man grew fonder of the painting the more he looked at it. Renovating the yard was better sooner than later. So the old man and the youth simply headed straight to the backyard.
Even after seeing it many times before, Su Ximu still had to sigh upon entering Ox Grandpa’s backyard once more. Ox Grandpa’s yard was truly huge.
Yet from the outside, it did not look anywhere near that big.
He could not help suspecting some kind of spatial folding or compression at work inside.
Ox Grandpa held up the painting and planned excitedly. Su Ximu did not rain on his parade. As he listened, he found it interesting too and could not resist chiming in. “You could raise fish in the lake! Lotus flowers too.”
The old man took the suggestion very seriously and jotted it down right away.
A thin layer of white mist shrouded the entire perimeter of the backyard.
As Su Ximu planned alongside Ox Grandpa, Little Ah Huang ran and played on the grass. The two little hamsters accompanied it.
According to Ox Grandpa, these two hamsters would not run off recklessly. They were smart ones.
They chatted idly with Ox Grandpa while wandering the yard like this when suddenly Su Ximu noticed Ox Grandpa’s expression shift slightly. He continued in his usual light chuckle of a tone. “Seems like another little guy wants to come into this old man’s yard.”
Little guy?
Another one?
Su Ximu originally assumed Ox Grandpa meant some wild small animal or the like. Instead, footsteps sounded from the mist—tap tap tap—drawing nearer from afar.
The footsteps were very light and slow, carrying a hint of fear and caution.
Before long, a small figure passed through the mist and appeared.
“Dudu?” Su Ximu called out.
“Xiao Mu, you know this kid?” The old man’s booming voice rang out.
In an instant, the daze in the little girl’s eyes began to dissipate.
Dudu snapped back to herself. She realized she had truly passed through the white mist and arrived at Ox Grandpa’s house.
She had only meant to come in a tiny bit. How had she gone so deep?
Remembering the terrifying legends about Ox Grandpa, the little girl felt a bit scared.
But once she spotted Xiao Mu Brother there—walking right toward her—she felt much less afraid.
Su Ximu nodded in answer to Ox Grandpa’s question while striding forward.
After these past few days together, Little Ah Huang had grown close to him. Seeing its owner head forward, it trotted happily after.
The moment it moved, the two little furballs—one yellow, one silver—followed suit.
Su Ximu himself did not notice it, but his single step forward became twelve little paws trailing behind him in a fluffy procession.
Dudu saw it, though.
She stared at the silver little furball, her expression uncertain. But seeing it hopping about lively, she seemed greatly relieved.
Sensing Dudu did not feel safe at the moment, Su Ximu walked right up, squatted down, and scooped the little girl into his arms.
He asked, “Dudu, why did you run out here all alone so late? It’s very dangerous for little kids out at night by themselves.”
The same went for little weirds.
Where there was a little weird, a big weird was sure to follow. Rounding it off, no difference.
Dudu wrapped her arms around Xiao Mu Brother’s neck. A bit afraid he would scold her, she could only chatter about something else to distract him.
“Xiao Mu Brother, if a little kid deliberately lost her little brother—but now she can’t quite recognize him anymore—what should she do? Because her little brother seems to have turned into something else.”
Su Ximu: ?
What? Dudu, what on earth are you talking about?
Great. What other surprises did your weird world have in store that he did not know about?
