Aunt Rat

Huo Yuqing leaned quietly against her mother's grave. After a while, she continued, "Maybe it was a blessing in disguise. Last night, my Soul Power broke through level ten."

"I should go find a Soul Ring. Once I obtain one, I can become a Soul Master. Only by becoming a Soul Master, a powerful Soul Master, can I make something of myself and seek justice for you."

She paused, resting her head against the gravestone with a smile. "I know this journey will be dangerous, so I'll disguise myself as a boy first. A boy traveling alone is safer than a girl, so, Mom, you absolutely mustn't worry about me!"

"Look, I'm quite slender now. My build is almost the same as a boy's. Maybe I can try tanning myself a little darker?" Counting on her fingers, she said, "My voice is a problem... but I probably won't need to pretend to be a boy forever. I should be able to fool people for a few years. Two or three years will be enough for me to obtain a Soul Ring and settle down somewhere safely. Once I have strength, even as an orphaned girl, I won't be in such danger! So, Mom, you really don't need to worry about me!"

"Mom, didn't you say that if I were a little boy, you would name me Huo Yuhao? Then from now on, my name will be Huo Yuhao."

"Mom, if you don't say anything, I'll take that as you agreeing." Huo Yuqing spoke softly. She still wore a smile, but her eyes had reddened again.

A breeze swept past, rustling the branches and leaves. For an instant, the shadows of the trees on the ground truly seemed like a graceful woman nodding with a smile.

"Mom, I miss you so much..."

"Plop."

A teardrop fell onto the ground, stirring up the dust around it before everything eventually returned to stillness.

"Oh, right. If I'm pretending to be a boy, I should cut my hair short..." Huo Yuqing smoothed her ponytail. Her fine, soft hair obediently curled around her hand.

A short dagger appeared in Huo Yuqing's hand. It was the White Tiger Dagger her mother had left behind.

Holding the dagger, the girl carefully began cutting her hair bit by bit from the base of her braid.

I really can't bear to part with it. Looking at the severed hair in her hand, she recalled the few beautiful, shining moments she had experienced in the Duke's Mansion.

Her mother would stand behind her with a crude little wooden comb, patiently combing her hair into a lovely style. Without pretty hair ornaments, her mother would pick wildflowers from the forest and pin them into her hair.

Then her mother would kiss Huo Yuqing's cheek and say with a smile, "My girl must always look beautiful."

Yet during the final week of her life, every time Huo Yun'er regained consciousness, she would hold her daughter and weep bitterly.

"It's Mom's fault... It's all Mom's fault. If I had given birth to you as a boy, you wouldn't have had to suffer like this."

Pain and fever had robbed the woman of her last shred of reason. The guilt she had always hidden in her heart, unwilling to let her daughter notice, all came pouring out at once.

"If you were a boy, how wonderful that would be..." Huo Yun'er lay on the cold, hard bedboards, staring blankly at the mottled ceiling of the woodshed. Cloudy tears streamed from the corners of her eyes, already lined with fine wrinkles.

"I wanted to name you Huo Yuhao. Your name could carry his name too... Only boys can inherit the White Tiger Martial Soul... If you awakened a powerful White Tiger Martial Soul, you could receive the Duke's Mansion's support and become one of the strongest Soul Masters in the world. The Duchess would never dare lay a hand on you... It's all Mom's fault..."

With guilt and concern for her daughter, Huo Yun'er departed this world in pain.

Even now, the woman's anguished muttering still seemed to echo in Huo Yuqing's ears.

But she understood clearly that what she and her mother had suffered had nothing to do with whether she was a boy or a girl.

How could this possibly be her mother's fault?

The girl lowered her eyes, concealing hatred as fierce as blazing flames beneath them.

That man... he had already been a Soul Douluo then. By now, he should have become a Titled Douluo, shouldn't he?

No matter the cost—ten years, twenty years, thirty years... even fifty years—one day, I will return to the Duke's Mansion and seek justice for Mother.

Huo Yuqing loosened her hand, and the bundle of hair drifted away on the breeze.

Cutting her hair with a dagger did not feel good, but as though she could not feel the pain of her hair being tugged, the girl expressionlessly made cut after cut until her beautiful hair was roughly even in length.

At this age, if boys and girls developed a little later, there was not much difference between them. With a tomboyish haircut and coarse dark-blue clothes, Huo Yuqing no longer looked like a little girl at all.

She hugged the gravestone and gently kissed her mother's name.

"Mom, I'm leaving. I'll come back to see you in a few years."

The girl climbed to her feet. Ignoring her numb legs, she staggered forward.

"Squeak, squeak."

A tiny sound suddenly rang out by her feet.

A rat as long as Huo Yuqing's forearm, entirely milky white with a silver-gray stripe running along its back, was looking up at her. Its black, bean-like eyes seemed to carry a hint of reproach.

Beside it lay a broad green leaf holding several berries.

"Huh? Aunt Rat?" Huo Yuqing stared at it in surprise.

This rat had been saved by Huo Yun'er when she was six years old, making it even older than Huo Yuqing.

Not long after Huo Yun'er completed her Martial Soul awakening, she had been assigned to serve the young Dai Hao as a little maid. Although she possessed an Eye Martial Soul, she had no Soul Power, but her life was still somewhat better than that of ordinary servants.

At the time, the white rat had only been as long as a palm. Dazed by the sun, it lay limp not far from where Huo Yun'er lived. Seeing that its fur was unusually beautiful and clean, unlike the dingy gray of other rats, Huo Yun'er brought it home and fed it water and food.

The white rat was quite intelligent. After being released, it often returned to visit Huo Yun'er, bringing her small things from the mountains and forests each time, such as nuts and bird eggs.

Thus, a human and a rat became friends.

For over twenty years, the white rat had remained alive, and its body had slowly grown larger.

Ordinary rats could only live for two or three years, so Huo Yun'er occasionally suspected that this beautiful rat was a Soul Beast.

But didn't Soul Beasts all live in great forests? How could there be Soul Beasts where humans lived? Huo Yun'er merely assumed that this white rat had lived longer than usual.

After Huo Yuqing was born, Huo Yun'er had even jokingly told her daughter to call her white rat friend Aunt Rat.

And after the White Tiger Duke left the estate, when Huo Yun'er was persecuted by the Duchess, the white rat became the only friend the mother and daughter had left.

Over the years, the white rat seemed to have grown increasingly intelligent. It also seemed to vaguely understand the difficult circumstances Huo Yun'er and her daughter faced. Each bit of food it brought made the mother and daughter's hungry nights a little more bearable.

It would not be wrong to say that the white rat was Huo Yuqing's only remaining family.

"Aunt Rat, I'm leaving." Huo Yuqing bent down and stroked the fur along the white rat's back. "Didn't I tell you last night? I'm going somewhere very far away. We'll have to part for now."

Aunt Rat squeaked twice and dragged the leaf holding the berries beneath Huo Yuqing's hand, clearly intending not to move unless she accepted them.

"Thank you." Helplessly, the girl took a few berries and put them in her mouth. The moment they entered her mouth, they turned into sweet, clear juice, leaving behind a trace of coolness as she swallowed.

The white rat squeaked several more times, stepped forward two paces, and raised its pale little paws to rest them against Huo Yuqing's pant leg.

"Do you want to come with me?" Huo Yuqing asked tentatively.

Aunt Rat nodded in an extremely human-like manner, then climbed up the girl's pant leg and burrowed into her pocket.

There was nothing wrong with bringing Aunt Rat along. Huo Yuqing gently stroked the little white head peeking out. If she were never to see Aunt Rat again, she would not be able to bear it either.

Then she left, forcing herself not to look back.

She did not notice that the swift perched on a branch, slightly larger than an ordinary swallow, also took flight at that moment, transforming into a streak of light and vanishing.

Nor did she know that shortly after she left, a group of rats very similar to Aunt Rat, each with silver lines on their backs, emerged from the surrounding bushes.

They dug a shallow hole behind Huo Yun'er's gravestone and pulled from it a sphere engraved with a strange formation, emitting a faint, hazy glow.

Woohoo! Huo Lolita disguised as a boy!

But she wouldn't be able to keep up the boy disguise for more than a few years XD