Chapter 38: Good Child

Xing Yue realized that the guards at the lord's mansion had indeed all been dispatched by Jiefulun. She hadn't even seen the old mage mentioned in the intelligence. Knowing that she had been fighting with an imaginary enemy for so long, she felt her face flush with irritation.  

‘This guy is on his home turf, but he doesn’t have any sense of crisis at all!’  

However, thinking from another perspective, his arrogance was actually a good thing. At least she didn’t have to figure out how to deal with so many guards. Tonight’s decapitation operation went extremely smoothly.  

Xing Yue casually pulled down the tie of the ornate bed curtain, swiftly bound the limp Baron Jiefulun hand and foot, then picked up the rope, ready to drag this bulky “trophy” directly back to the basement where Debbie was.  

“W-Wait...”  

“Benefactor, thank you for saving me... May I know your name?”  

A weak yet urgent voice came from behind.  

That was the beastman slave she had just pulled back from the brink of death.  

Xing Yue paused in her steps.  

‘Ah, the classic trope comes.’  

‘The rescued person asks the benefactor’s name with gratitude, and then the protagonist should walk away without looking back, leaving a cool silhouette that hides his merits and reputation...’  

‘Hmm, no, no!’  

‘In this situation, wouldn’t it be better to say something cool, to establish an aura of a mysterious and powerful figure?’  

Xing Yue composed herself, tilted her head slightly to let her silver-white hair cover half of her face, and deliberately lowered her voice to a flat and distant tone.  

“You don’t need to say thanks, nor inquire about my name. You’re safe now. Leave while it’s chaotic.”  

With that, Xing Yue cast a Levitation spell on herself and the Baron Jiefulun on the ground, then leaped out of the window they had entered from, quickly disappearing into the night.  

Xing Yue left coolly, her heart full of joy.  

Even though many unexpected things happened tonight, causing the process to be completely wrong, the result was good. The decapitation operation was exceptionally smooth.  

Xing Yue in the Demon King Castle was already celebrating prematurely under the covers.  

However, the joy didn’t last long. Xing Yue suddenly heard the sound of a door opening.  

Who would come to her room in the middle of the night?  

Yang Dazhuang and Yang Ersha were always guarding outside her room, but they never entered. It couldn’t be them.  

Xiao Du was even more impossible. It always appeared suddenly; Xing Yue felt unsure if it even had a physical form, let alone opened a door. That was too unrealistic.  

If it wasn’t them, then the only person in the Demon King Castle who could freely enter her room...  

“Ara~ So Yue Yue isn’t asleep yet?”  

A light, saccharine-sweet childish voice with a sugary laugh suddenly sounded from beside her ear.  

Xing Yue, hidden under the covers, stiffened all over. Feeling the delicate body appear out of nowhere behind her, she even stopped breathing.  

The feeling was exactly like sneaking a peek at a phone in the dead of night under the covers. The screen light just illuminates your face, and the next second, your mother’s gentle smiling face pokes in from the edge of the blanket without warning, meeting the bright screen you didn’t have time to hide, and your instantly frozen expression.  

“M-Mother...”  

Xing Yue’s throat tightened, her voice as soft as a mosquito’s hum. Even as she felt a pair of cold little hands reaching from behind, she didn’t dare move at all.  

“Hmm~”  

“What’s wrong, Yue Yue? Your body is trembling so much... Is it because you haven’t seen me for a few days and are too excited to see me again~ Or could it be...”  

Those soft, boneless little hands hovered at the edge of her pajama hem for a moment, then, like two slippery snakes, they slipped inside, pressed against her warm skin, and encircled her waist.  

Xing Yue could even feel the other’s fingertips slowly drawing circles on her flat belly, the cold touch sending shivers through her skin.  

“...You’ve been doing some ‘bad things’ behind your mother’s back, and now you’re feeling guilty, huh?”  

That overly sweet voice came closer; she could feel the gentle, warm breath almost brushing against her ear.  

Xing Yue’s pupils suddenly contracted. Her body trembled uncontrollably.  

She forced herself to calm down, slowly turning her head. The smile she struggled to maintain was as stiff as a mask, and her voice was dry: “H-How could that be... Mother... I just missed you so much, I’m so excited...”  

Swallowing a nonexistent saliva, she added in a small voice, her tone weak: “Yue Yue is a good child, how could she do any ‘bad things’ behind mother’s back...”  

“Oh~ Is that so?”  

Phyllis’s voice still maintained that sweet and intimate tone: “But mother feels that Yue Yue has been hiding something from me lately...”  

The hands around her waist didn’t tighten, the fingertips still drawing circles unhurriedly, yet it brought a sense of inescapable confinement.  

“Since you are mother’s good child...”  

Phyllis’s voice dropped lower, with a coaxing gentleness, yet every word was clear: “Then you should... completely confess to mother... right?”  

Xing Yue’s heart pounded wildly.  

‘It’s over! The matter of being accidentally summoned to another place by the forbidden book must have been discovered by Phyllis!’  

She could almost imagine Phyllis smiling and placing that pitch-black book in front of her, then asking with a “gentle” expression, “Can Yue Yue explain what this is?”  

At this moment, the cold touch around her waist felt like shackles before an interrogation. Xing Yue’s voice grew quieter, her confidence completely gone. Her mind raced but could only come up blank.  

“I-I really didn’t...”  

“Really not~”  

Phyllis seemed to enjoy her flustered appearance. The circling fingertips stopped leisurely and tapped gently to the rhythm of her heartbeat: “Dugui told me that you went to the dungeon these past two days, not only interrogating that Holy Maiden~ but also learning some... hmm, quite interesting little tricks from her~”  

‘Eh? It’s about the Holy Maiden?’  

Xing Yue was stunned. The tense nerve suddenly snapped, and a sense of relief instantly washed away the previous panic, making her body go limp.  

‘So it wasn’t about that forbidden book...’  

‘Good, good...’  

‘Although secretly learning healing magic from the Holy Maiden isn’t exactly something to be publicized, compared to sneaking out of the Demon King Castle with the forbidden book, the two are nothing alike.’  

“Ah! That, that is...”  

Xing Yue’s CPU finally started running again. Her tone became more lively, though still a bit stuttery: “I’m just... a little curious! About what kind of healing magic Wei Anna knows! Pure research for dealing with enemies! Really!”  

She tried to make her voice sound full of curiosity, even adding a hint of justified spirit: “Know yourself and know your enemy, and you can win every battle, mother! I’m making technical reserves for the future of the demon race!”  

Phyllis’s voice drawled, with amusement: “Oh~ Technical reserves?”  

“I didn’t expect Yue Yue to be making such far-reaching considerations for the future of the demon race~ Looks like mother has wronged you~”  

Seeming to see hope of muddling through, Xing Yue nodded like a garlic pounding, and continued: “Yes, mother, think about it—if we later encounter enemies skilled in holy magic, wouldn’t knowing in advance give us an advantage? We must ensure far-reaching strategic vision!”  

“And most importantly, Wei Anna doesn’t even know that her actions are betraying her own kin; she has no idea I’m using her!”  

“How about it? Mother, isn’t my scheming against the Holy Maiden quite evil? Doesn’t it already show the demeanor worthy of a demon princess?”