Chapter 364

One hundred and seventy-second page – Shallow Summer Strikes Again

To implement Orange’s plan, I helped my mother prepare ingredients while splitting off part of the notebook material to sneak into the adjacent room.

The small black mass clung to the ceiling. Aunt-in-Law was pondering the stone slab embedded in the living room floor on the first floor.

The large stone tablet embedded in the living room floor was also an artifact left over from the divine era. Connecting to divine power could suppress the spells around it. Brother Zhú Běihǎi brought Xiao Qianxia here to rely on this suppression of the curse’s activation.

But our擅自 taking Qianxia to school made all of this lose its meaning.

Aunt-in-Law held her chin and pondered for a moment, then asked the manager of the kitchen, Xiao Binyi: “Little Xiao, can your team move this out?”

This was a harsh problem.

“Ah, this…”

Xiao Binyi glanced at the stone tablet and then at the narrow entrance hall, with a pained expression: “Manager Lu, this really puts us in a bind. We’re just a home service company, not a moving company. If I’m not mistaken, this stone tablet is some precious historical relic, right? It definitely can’t be cut, so if we want to move it out, we’d have to make a wide slot in the wall… How did it get in back then?”

More than twenty years ago, to monitor Brother Zhú Běihǎi, who had become my mother, Grandfather bought this house. She tried to control that heavenly punishment by using a teleportation spell to bring this stone slab inside… although it didn’t work at the time.

However, being able to remotely teleport such a large object showed that she wasn’t as weak back then. Her synchronization with the divine altar was decreasing, and her former believers were gradually distancing themselves from her. She herself was under dual punishments of imprisonment and random transformations. Grandfather’s days haven’t been easy either.

Aunt-in-Law knew these things, but she answered Manager Xiao’s question indifferently: “Who knows? Perhaps it was buried when it was built. I originally wanted to transport it to a better place for preservation. Since it can’t be moved out, there’s no point.”

“It’s not impossible, Manager Lu. You can find a construction crew.”

“If I need to find a construction crew, why would I still be asking your home service company to do a deep clean today?”

“… Also, I’ll think of something else later.”

Manager Xiao returned to the kitchen to continue his thorough cleaning, while his two subordinates had already lowered a hoisting board (a kind of swing-like device) from the roof to clean the yellowed brick walls on the exterior. It was quite difficult to do this job in such cold winter weather.

“Little Ying.”

Aunt-in-Law beckoned me with her finger. Since I had been exposed, I no longer hid and flew toward her palm as a black ball.

“You’re quite convenient, but those cleaning staff wouldn’t tolerate such a large dark spot. You hiding on the ceiling would definitely be noticed, and you might be swept away as trash.”

However, Xiao Binyi didn’t notice me, showing he wasn’t very professional. Even dangerous tasks like cleaning the exterior were delegated to his subordinates.

Aunt-in-Law sat me down on the sofa, and I asked, “What do you want with this stone tablet?”

“Qianxia doesn’t need it anymore. It’s just decoration here, but it could be useful in the laboratory to test the resistance of spells to interference.”

“Since it won’t activate, there’s no interference effect. Using short-range teleportation, we could move it outside.”

Aunt-in-Law asked, “Can you still use divine techniques?”

“… Without Xiao Kai, I can’t use any techniques.”

“We’re in the same boat. My physical condition doesn’t allow me to continue using magic.”

She withdrew her gaze from the stone tablet and sighed, “It’s not that I can’t use them, but since my daughter and husband have come back, I can’t do anything that would hurt them… Ah, sorry.”

Xiao Kai hadn’t returned yet, and Aunt-in-Law, fearing I might feel bad, felt she shouldn’t have mentioned it.

“It’s okay, Mom said that if Qianxia can come back, Xiao Kai will surely return too.”

“Sigh, you’re getting more and more like Xiao Kai.”

Aunt-in-Law pinched the soft, gelatinous black ball, similar to some stress-relieving toys.

Of course, I hadn’t set up any other senses, so being played with didn’t affect me.

“Before that incident, Xiao Kai and I maintained fusion. I always felt that the separation wasn’t clean. That ‘me’ forcibly tore apart after sensing danger while the effects of the drugs hadn’t worn off. It was hasty, perhaps my soul still has fragments of his.”

“Before we suffered the heavenly punishment in the operating room, thanks to her, we were saved. So I’m curious, what was it like after you fused?”

So far, I hadn’t interacted with her in a fused state.

“After fusion, it was still me, so it’s hard to evaluate from a third-person perspective… If I must say, she was more lively than me, more confident than Xiao Kai, bold in actions, regardless of consequences, but capable of cleaning up the mess she caused.”

That “me” with a high synchronization rate with the divine altar could do many things Xiao Kai and I together couldn’t, but her destructive power was also astonishing. Leaving her unchecked would definitely cause trouble.

After hearing my description, Aunt-in-Law nodded.

“I wouldn’t have guessed it was Ning Ying if you hadn’t mentioned it.”

“Mm, she’s very much like Mom, so Xiao Kai and I believe that if our souls hadn’t separated, that ‘me’ would be the way we should have been… Of course, it would have to be a boy.”

“Sometimes I doubt it because Ning Ying’s personality is so proactive, that’s why Běihǎi is so quiet. Look at Uncle’s hobbies: growing flowers, planting trees, brewing tea, cooking, and wearing glasses without prescription every day. He has no manliness at all.”

Aunt-in-Law teased her nephew about her husband’s shortcomings, and if I weren’t a black ball in her hand, it would almost feel like a casual family chat.

“All those hobbies require patience. Even if my mother were here, it might not work. Although they share one soul, they have even fewer commonalities than Xiao Kai and I… Auntie, do you remember chasing Uncle yourself?”

“Indeed, I spent a lot of effort back then.”

Aunt-in-Law rarely had the mood to talk, but Xiao Binyi came out of the kitchen wearing rubber gloves and a mask, holding a spray bottle of cleaner and a cloth.

He asked, “Manager Lu, did you call me?”

Aunt-in-Law countered, “Did you hear me calling you?”

“I heard some noise, and there was no one else in the living room, so I thought…”

I transformed into a phone, and Xiao Binyi looked at me and changed his tone, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt your call.”

“It’s fine. If you have something, you don’t need to contact me. Ling Qing handles communications with you…”

Aunt-in-Law barely finished saying everything was fine when trouble found her.

“Brother Binyi! No, not good!”

A worker from upstairs rushed down in panic.

Manager Xiao frowned and asked, “Take it easy, what happened?”

The worker glanced at Aunt-in-Law, looking hesitant, but finally said, “Manager Xiao’s youngest daughter climbed out along the safety rope. Now she and A Jie are hanging on the same rope, and she won’t come back when I call her… It’s too dangerous.”

I wasn’t surprised. Xiao Qianxia was only following Orange’s plan.

Aunt-in-Law didn’t react, but Xiao Binyi panicked.

He asked, “What? How did she get out?”

“She climbed out herself.”

Just then, Miss Ling Qing came in from outside. Despite the boss’s daughter hanging on the wall, the secretary seemed calm.

“Boss, Xiao Qianxia… Oh, looks like you all know?”

Her tone was as casual as reporting lunch menus.

Aunt-in-Law comforted Xiao Binyi similarly.

“Oh, don’t worry too much. My daughter is just like that. She started martial arts training since childhood, and her physical fitness is excellent. Her balance in the air isn’t worse than professionals. Nothing will happen; she probably just wants to swing like a pendulum. I’ll discipline her later.”

Indeed, there was no need to worry.

Although the ground floor of a residential building is high, with Xiao Qianxia’s current physical condition, even jumping from the second floor wouldn’t hurt her. After all, it was a sacred body亲手 crafted by Lord Há, which likely pushed human parameters to their limits.

“How can children be safe climbing so high! We need to get them down quickly!”

Xiao Binyi hurried upstairs but then ran back down in a fluster, not even removing his shoe covers before rushing to the entrance hall, calling out to his subordinates as he took off his coat.

“A Hó, come with me to rescue her! A Jie didn’t secure the safety rope!”

“Rescue her? Oh!”

He intended to catch Xiao Qianxia with his work uniform, and the worker who realized this followed him out. I controlled the black ball in Aunt-in-Law’s hand, sneaking out through the window first, hiding in the lawn to prepare for the next step.

But since Brother Zhú hadn’t returned for a long time, the lawn in the yard had grown lush.

On the other hand, in the kitchen at home, I told Orange, who was helping peel garlic, “Qianxia has started according to the plan. How much ketchup do you think it will take to scare them?”

“Ah? Really!”

Surprised, Orange dropped the garlic clove and ran to the entrance hall to change shoes.

“Hey! Little girl, don’t send your hand!”

At the corner of the second floor, Qianxia was clinging to another worker’s neck. The thin figure clearly lacked strength and could only hang in the air… saying it was in the air, it was actually just five or six meters high since the whole house was only two stories.

But in Xiao Binyi’s eyes, his subordinate and the client’s young daughter were like swinging on a swing at the edge of a thousand-foot abyss, with the slightest misstep leading to endless disaster.

Such a nervous personality, this professional indeed couldn’t be trusted, completely reckless.

Sister Ling Qing reminded, “The hoisting board can hold two people, but your subordinate seems to lack the strength to pull both you and Qianxia up.”

With his coat open to prevent Qianxia from falling, Xiao Binyi looked up and asked, “A Jie, do you still have strength?”

The thin worker nodded and struggled upward… the hoisting board didn’t move at all.

He shook his head this time, indicating he couldn’t pull both of them up by himself.

“Oh dear! What’s going on?”

Exaggeratedly, Orange finally arrived at the scene, covering her mouth in a panic.

“How dangerous! Poor little Qianxia, how could she be hanging outside the wall?”

I wonder if she did it on purpose.

Little Ying’s acting skills were deeply influenced by Xiao Kai.