"Uncle, look at this swing. My mother made it for me with her own hands!"
"Look, there's also this wooden horse. I rode it from when I was little until I grew up. It was so much fun!"
"And these little animals—there's a little white fox, little rabbits, little dogs, and little lions. They're all my little companions..."
It was a small courtyard, with firewood piled up beside green wooden doors, yet it had been kept exceptionally neat and clean. Chi Ling'er tugged Ye Zhen along, wishing she could introduce every single thing to him at once.
By the time Hu Qingtong hurried over, Chi Ling'er had already pulled Ye Zhen into the house.
A fragrant medicinal scent permeated the room. Ye Zhen spotted an exquisite Alchemy Furnace in the center.
"Hmm, an Alchemy Furnace. Chi Ling'er, did your mother use this, or..."
"Uncle, my mother is amazing! She knows how to refine pills. Lots of uncles and aunties in our clan come to my mother to buy pills."
Ye Zhen understood. Hu Qingtong probably made a living refining pills within the Fox Clan. Judging from the Alchemy Furnace, as well as the scraps of low-grade fire-attribute spirit stones used in pill refinement beside it, the pills Hu Qingtong refined were likely quite ordinary in grade, with little added value. What she earned was probably the kind of money won through sheer hard labor.
At that thought, Ye Zhen's heart ached again.
All these years, Hu Qingtong and Chi Ling'er had suffered.
Ye Zhen hated himself even more. How could he have been so slow-witted? The Arm-Connecting Fire Monkey King and Xuan Hu had reminded him time and again—how had he failed to think of it?
As for why Hu Qingtong had not told him about the child, Ye Zhen