Chapter 10 (2.4) Misunderstandings Arise, Mother and Son Become Divided

The moon’s shadow danced gently.

Time spent with a loved one always seems to flow by unnoticed, leaving little trace of its passage. Everything done is done quietly, like a gentle spring rain nourishing the earth.

Click, the door opens—

”Oh, you two are back from shopping?”

When the older sister on the sofa saw Xinyu and me enter, she smiled and touched her philtrum with her hand covered in medicated wine. Then, she was so agitated that she wailed and ran to the sink.

Aunt Lu, who had just been sitting with my sister at my house, saw us return and quietly lowered her skirt, trying to cover her ankles which were smeared with medicated wine. She said softly, “You’re back? Have you eaten?”

Aunt Lu often comes over to visit when she’s not working or when my dad isn’t home, so I wasn’t too surprised by her appearance. On the contrary, I feel guilty about what happened this afternoon, as if I had kidnapped her daughter.

Of course, there’s also the thrill of getting her daughter to call her “Dad”…

However, just as I was about to reply, Xinyu, blushing, noticed her mother’s unusual behavior and, ignoring her own embarrassment, hurriedly went to the sofa:

”Mom, we ate out, don’t worry… But why are you covering your face? Oh… Mom, did you sprain your ankle?”

Hearing Xinyu’s voice, which sounded younger than Aunt Lu’s, I frowned slightly and quickly walked over to accompany her to Aunt Lu’s side to observe her condition.

Aunt Lu’s once fair ankle was now a dark purple patch. Her sister had just applied some medicinal wine to it, and her entire foot was still trembling slightly, indicating that it must still be in pain.

But Aunt Lu’s feet are really beautiful… They’re crystal clear and white, with beautiful arches, and the faint veins on the back of her feet exude an irresistible allure. Her rounded toes are also delicate and adorable.

I stared at her for a moment, then my thoughts inexplicably shifted, and I began to observe Aunt Lu’s delicate feet. It was only when my mother’s voice came from behind me that I snapped back to reality.

”On the way back after dinner, Xiuyue saw Jiuming running around and almost ran off the road. In her haste, she chased after her and twisted her ankle. Since we got back, Shuang’er has already applied some medicated wine for her.”

My mother, now dressed in casual home clothes with her hair in a ponytail, appeared beside me holding a bottle of medicine and simultaneously told me to leave.

”Alright, alright, Xiao Qiu, move aside. Stop overthinking things. It’s fine if you don’t help, but I’m afraid you’ll just make things worse. And what kind of respect is it to stare at the feet of an elder of the opposite sex like that? Where’s the respect?”

Aunt Lu looked a little embarrassed after her mother said that, and she pulled her jade feet back and remained silent.

I pursed my lips, wanting to immediately retort, but seeing Xinyu’s pained expression, I didn’t disturb them as they applied medicine to Aunt Lu. Instead, I turned around and went to find Gepi to avenge Aunt Lu.

Hmph… Xia Yunhan, what have I done for you all these years, massaging your feet and shoulders? Aren’t you my elder of the opposite sex? Don’t your feet count as feet?

Just because you’re my mother doesn’t mean you can belittle me. One day I’ll treat you like I’m just messing with your own death!

Arriving menacingly at the corner where the cat had died, I looked at it curled up in a ball resting and gently nudged it with my foot.

The hiccup instantly snapped back to reality, its fur standing on end, but upon seeing me, it meowed: “Heh, indulging in debauchery in broad daylight? Be careful, disaster may befall you. Don’t chase thrills without considering the location.”

I raised an eyebrow, squatted down, and whispered, “Oh ho, you even know what Xinyu and I did?”

Gepi wagged his tail, genuinely smug: “Of course. Putting aside the fact that your little girlfriend came back in a new outfit, the simplest thing is the scent on both of you. I can smell the mingled lust emanating from you.”

I raised an eyebrow again.

Who would believe such mysterious and absurd words?

But considering that this cat can talk, I didn’t dwell on its words. Instead, I grabbed the scruff of its neck with one hand and said, “Are you a dog? Your nose is so sensitive! My sister really made the right name for you, calling you Wangcai (meaning ‘prosperous wealth’).”

It wanted to explode, but I held it by the scruff of its neck, so it could only wag its tail helplessly.

I snorted, put it back on the ground, stood up, and kicked it over: “You run around like that, you made my Aunt Lu sprain her ankle, and you look so wronged. I’m not taking care of you anymore, believe it or not?”

It puffed up its fur and bared its teeth at me, but I couldn’t tell if it was in response to my offensive action or my statement that I wouldn’t keep it.

However, after only a few seconds of its fur standing on end, it suddenly lay down docilely at my feet.

It lay down, which suited me perfectly. Just as I was about to kick it over again, my sister, who had just come out of the bathroom, saw me and yelled, “Stop! What are you doing to Wangcai?”

As she spoke, my sister rushed past me, kicked my foot away, squatted down, held the hiccup in her arms, and looked up at me angrily.

I stared into my sister’s eyes, then fixed my gaze on her dead face, and laughed in exasperation.

Alright, alright… even this damn cat knows how to counteract something…

But this isn’t my mom, it’s just my sister. Why would I be afraid of her?

So I started arguing with my sister.

But halfway through the argument, our mother yelled at us, and we siblings obediently watched her and Xinyu help Aunt Lu back to the apartment across the street. Then we waited for her to return, only to be grabbed by the ears and scolded by her.

”I’m not trying to criticize you two, but can’t you learn from Xinyu? What a refined lady she is! Quiet, gentle, and filial. You two, on the other hand, are like itchy skin if you don’t annoy me for a day or two. You never show any filial piety, but you’re always making me angry. Is the difference between people really that big? How did I give birth to two such things…”

Mom had a headache, so she dragged me and my sister who was holding the cat to sit on the sofa. She continued to pull on our ears, one on each side, but after a while, she pulled her hands back and snatched the cat from my sister’s arms.

The older sister instinctively tried to take the cat back, but seeing her mother’s sullen expression, she didn’t dare to touch it rashly. Instead, she clung to her mother’s arm and started to act coquettishly.

”Mom~ How am I unfilial? I’m the most filial. I always think of you when I have something good. Haven’t I always been the one sharing your burdens? Unlike someone else… Besides, isn’t Xinyu also your daughter? One is quiet and the other is lively, they make a perfect match, Mom, don’t you think? They say a daughter is her mother’s little cotton-padded jacket, and that’s no lie.”

Hearing my sister’s mushy voice, I got goosebumps. On the way, I noticed Hiccup was hitting me with its tail, and I angrily grabbed it. But facing my mother’s gaze, I could only silently let go and, like my sister, link arms with her other arm.

”Mom, a daughter is a father’s little cotton-padded jacket, but a mother’s black-hearted cotton-padded jacket. I am the most filial to you. If it weren’t for me, how could Xinyu really be considered your daughter? Let’s not talk about the future. Just in this respect, I am already better than Bai Yushuang.”

After hearing what I said, my sister was quite indignant. She let go of my mother’s hand, pointed at me, and said, “You, Bai Chuqiu, what else can you do besides make our mother angry?”

”There are so many things I can do.”

I also let go of my mother’s arm, put my hands on my hips, and said: “When Dad’s not home, don’t I do all the heavy housework? You’re just a little girl trying to compete with me on these things?”

Besides, I can also take care of people, right? What can you, a newbie, do?

My sister got so angry that she started rambling and got up to tell me to fight.

How could I let her be so presumptuous? I readily accepted the challenge.

Just as my brother and I stood up one after the other, and tensions were about to rise, our mother, who was sitting, looked even more somber and suddenly stood up.

She was about the same height as her sister, but she had an extraordinary aura like a two-meter-tall giant, which made my brother and me dare not compete with her, and we both lowered our heads.

“Go ahead and fight! Aren’t you going to keep fighting? Instead of arguing about who is the most filial, why not just kill the other one? Then the one left will be the most filial. I must have been incredibly unlucky to have given birth to you two siblings, who argue all the time.”

Upon seeing my brother and me, they immediately cowered. My mother angrily patted our bottoms, then kicked each of us.

”Why did you stop? Huh? Bai Yushuang? Bai Chuqiu? Are you two really asking for trouble? How old are you? You’re still acting like two little kids!”

My sister and I exchanged a glance, instantly understanding each other, and simultaneously flashed smug smiles. We each put our arms around Mom on either side and said in unison, “Who told us children to never grow up in our parents’ eyes? There’s no one better than Mom in this world…”

”Stop, stop, stop! Stop singing! I’ve figured it out, you two siblings become incredibly united when there’s an enemy, don’t you?”

Mom emerged from between us, wanting to get angry, but seeing our grinning faces, she really wanted to laugh, but for the sake of saving face, she held it in.

I touched my nose and whispered, “Mom, how can you be considered our enemy?”

The older sister nodded in agreement, bobbing her head vigorously: “That’s right, that’s right, it’s clearly our guiding light.”

”haven.”

”backing.”

”Home.”

Under our barrage of analogies, Mom was clearly embarrassed and her anger subsided. But true to her nature, she glared at my sister and me, tossed the burp to my sister, and turned to leave.

”I’m so ashamed! Alright, alright, you guys are always making a fuss. Go take a shower and get some rest. And remember to do your laundry last.”

After saying that, Mom hurried back to her room as if fleeing, leaving my sister and me to exchange a smile.

But after that laugh, my brother and I quickly started wrestling on the sofa again. It wasn’t until Mom came out of her room to get dressed and prepare to take a shower that we, dressed in rags, quickly separated and huddled together like obedient children, making a face-planting noise.

Hearing the door close, my sister and I breathed a sigh of relief. After exchanging a glance, we decided not to continue fighting.

My sister pinched my thigh, picked up the cat, and stood up: “I’m going back. I’ve given Wangcai to you.”

I’d be more than happy if the bad cat got taken away, but my legs hurt now.

Whose older sister pinches her younger brother’s thigh so hard?

I rubbed my aching thigh and said angrily, “If you’re so tough, why don’t you twist my crotch? You might as well cripple it!”

My sister turned around, glanced at my crotch, seemed to remember something, blushed slightly, spat at me, and went back.

Feeling confused by her behavior, I rubbed my thigh and heard the bathroom door open again. Curious, I peeked out from behind the wall to look.

The mother, who had forgotten something, was walking out of the bathroom when she saw a head peeking out from not far away and was immediately startled.

But after recognizing me, she patted her plump and firm breasts, leaned over and pinched my cheek in an annoyed tone: “You’re trying to scare your mother, aren’t you?”

”Ouch… Mom~~~ That hurts! I was just curious about what you were doing out here!”

Why are you curious about these things?

”How would I know? Why would I be curious about these things? Ms. Xia, put yourself in my shoes. If you were sitting here, and you heard me come out of the bathroom, wouldn’t you look?”

”Why would I look at you? Aren’t you curious… And, you’d better not be tempted to do something again, Bai Chuqiu.”

Even after ten days or half a month, my mother still held a grudge against my previous offense and remained extremely wary of me.

Seeing my mother’s expression, as if no one else could even have a thought of her, I said irritably, “Mom, do you know how loyal you are? He didn’t even stay home for a single day last week before going on another business trip… Who are you trying to impress with this?”

After a slight pause, Mom’s beautiful eyes widened, her silver teeth clenched her sexy red lips, and her eyes were filled with anger, as if she had been stepped on and her whole body was bristling with fur.

After that, she remained silent and just kept pinching me.

They didn’t even give me a reason…

I winced in pain, a nameless rage rising within me: “What kind of mess have I made? Not long ago, my own sister beat me until I was covered in sores, and just now she pinched my thigh, and now my own mother is pinching my face. Xia Yunhan! Let go! If you don’t, I’ll get angry!”

I was double-teamed by my mother and sister, and even with my good temper, I couldn’t help but feel angry.

Seeing that my mother wouldn’t say anything and was still pinching me hard, I got angry and grabbed her hands, pulled her into my arms, and then held her tightly.

Realizing I was holding her face-to-face in an extremely intimate position, Mom panicked instantly and began to struggle. However, perhaps afraid that her sister inside would hear and come out to see our ambiguous posture, she stopped struggling after a short while. She lowered her voice, leaned against me, stared at me with cold eyes, and said, “What are you doing! Let me go!”

After I tightened my grip on my mother, I wrapped my arms around her slender waist, feeling her plump, soft breasts against my chest, and said in a strained voice, “Who told you to pinch me without a reason? Am I not human? I feel pain too, okay?”

Mom struggled a few more times, panting as she leaned against me, tilting her head back and resting her chin on my chest: “I have no reason? Aren’t the things you said your reasons? What kind of child talks to their parents like that?!”

I lowered my head to observe my mother’s face, which showed no signs of aging, and swallowed hard. But thinking of what I was about to say, I dared not meet her gaze and could only look away.

”What mother? I only saw a woman, furious that her husband’s long-term absence from home had been exposed.”

After the words were spoken, the mother was visibly distracted for a moment.

But a moment later, she clenched her fists, suppressing her anger as she stared at me: “Bai Chuqiu, if you want to be reasonable, you’re the one who said you were loyal first… Would a child say that about their mother?”

”Mom, I’m very reasonable.”

I kept my hands firmly on her, afraid that she would break free, and continued, “Before I said that, you were the one warning me not to have any more wicked thoughts. Would a mother say such a thing to her son?”

Mom took a few deep breaths, her eyelashes lightly covering her beautiful eyes: “Xiao Qiu, you’re bringing up old grievances, aren’t you? Fine… then let’s go back to the past. It was when you used the excuse of giving me a massage to look at my chest. Wasn’t that offensive? Also, you’ve always been unreliable since you were little. Can I have reason to suspect that you’ve had inappropriate thoughts?”

If it had been a month ago, I probably would have denied it on the spot if my mother had said that to me.

But now I do have feelings for her that I shouldn’t have. A certain straightforward young man never wants to lie and only changes the subject.

I closed my eyes, turned my face away, and didn’t dare to answer her: “Mom, what you’re saying has any logical connection to how you got angry and hit me? It doesn’t make sense; these are two different things. From the beginning when you were scared and pinched me, to when you thought I had other ideas about you, weren’t these all just your imaginations? The real reason you got angry was because I said Dad doesn’t come home often, wasn’t it?”

Because of my job, my mother, who often needs to negotiate, immediately sensed that my words were meant to change the subject. However, she hesitated for a long time before finally asking:

”Fine, the reason I got angry is that your dad is often away from home, and I took it out on his son, on the person whose affair was exposed. That was wrong of me. But tell me, Bai Chuqiu, what about you? Don’t you have designs on your mother?”

I, an old monk, sat down and refused to speak, practicing silent meditation.

My mother snorted a few times and struggled again, finding that she easily escaped my embrace this time. She sneered, “You have the desire but not the guts? Ha, other people have the guts to do something, but you don’t even have the guts to admit it.”

I opened my mouth, suppressing my aroused lower body, and made a difficult eye contact with my mother. Suddenly, I activated the Favorability Visualization feature, and I watched as the pink glow around my mother gradually faded, and my mood plummeted.

After hesitating for a long time, I finally spoke, in a tone similar to before: “Mom, what about you? Do you want me to have this wicked thought, or do you not want me to?”

And her mother’s reaction was the same as last time: her eyes widened in disbelief.

Her reaction was as if she were asking me what kind of joke I was making?

Trying to calm myself down, I took a deep breath, took my mother’s slender hand that she couldn’t pull away from, and whispered, “I admit I have feelings for you, Xia Yunhan. So what? How are you going to treat me? To your own son?”

She swayed her body, and the pink glow emanating from her body rapidly faded, eventually even turning slightly blue.

Pink light represents positive feelings… blue light represents negative feelings…

My mother started to dislike me a bit because of that one sentence.

I waited quietly for my mother to react.

”You’ve gone mad…you’ve gone mad…Bai Chuqiu, you’ve gone mad.”

Muttering to herself, my mother pulled her hand away and resolutely stood up. As if sensing my rise, she turned to look at me, her eyes as cold as ice: “Bai Chuqiu, you’d better think about what you just said. I don’t know if you were just saying it out of anger, but even if you were, you still make me feel disgusted and nauseous…”

Towards the end, Mom’s voice trembled slightly for no reason. After glancing at me a few times, she lowered her hand, which she had raised to hit me, and left me with the words “Take care of yourself” before going back to her room.

I watched the figure whose pink light had faded and whose blue light had become more prominent, but I didn’t chase after it. Instead, I fixed my gaze on the cat licking its fur in the corner.

[Hehe, lust takes over, and chaos ensues.]

Faced with this assessment of my death, I remained silent, turned around and left home, went to the apartment across the hall where Xinyu lived, and knocked on the door a few times.

Thump thump thump—

”Wait…wait a minute…”

I heard Aunt Lu’s slightly flustered voice coming from inside the house, but I didn’t think much of it, since my mind was still focused on my mother’s series of reactions just now.

”You’re here, Xiao Qiu? What brings you here?”

Snap—

After seeing it was me through the peephole, Aunt Lu immediately opened the door.

Her long hair was loose, her face was rosy and radiant, and she wore a purple bathrobe that resembled a nightgown, suggesting she had just taken a bath. A belt tied around her waist, restraining her two large, balloon-like breasts, and the skirt, which reached her knees, covered her full, round hips. The skirt was slightly slit in the middle, revealing her fair and alluring thighs.

Aunt Lu’s outfit looked exceptionally alluring, perhaps because purple has a more refined charm, which amplified her maturity and caught my eye.

However, when my peripheral vision caught sight of her swollen ankle, I suddenly remembered that Aunt Lu had sprained her ankle and was having difficulty moving around.

Xinyu didn’t say anything, probably because she was busy with something else, so Aunt Lu came over alone, staggering, and opened the door.

I took Aunt Lu’s hand with a guilty conscience and whispered an apology.

Aunt Lu is the most understanding person; I even learned her innermost thoughts. After hearing my apology, she smiled gently, and noticing my expression, she touched my face with concern.

”Aunt Lu, it’s nothing serious, but Xiao Qiu, what happened to you? Your face is swollen? And you look so sad, did you quarrel with your mother again?”

Feeling the gentle spring breeze and drizzle, so different from my mother’s, and smelling Aunt Lu’s intoxicating fragrance, my heart was in turmoil when my hand accidentally touched Aunt Lu’s breast.

”Um… Aunt Lu, I’d like to stay here for the night… Is that… okay?”