Xiao Xiao smiled.
He thought that after the young servant had taken the painting back, the Scholar must have found it and asked him to bring it here, to the cliff at the top of the mountain.
The Scholar, naturally, had been confined at home by his parents.
Until he returned to what they considered normal.
As for how the Scholar's parents had learned of his interactions with Little White Fox...
That was probably thanks to the young servant.
The person Little White Fox had spotted hiding in the bushes and tailing the Scholar back then must have been the young servant.
The sight of the Scholar talking with Little White Fox must have frightened the young servant.
When he went back and told the Scholar's parents, they must have been frightened too.
And so the Scholar's connection with Little White Fox was cut off.
It was hard not to feel a little wistful that even the proof of their connection—the painting the Scholar had made for Little White Fox—had been destroyed in a natural disaster.
I wonder if that Scholar ever painted Little White Fox again later in his life?
Xiao Xiao mused.
But...
Even if the Scholar had painted another one, there was no telling whether it would have survived to the present day.
And there was no telling whether they would have gotten to see it.
"Third Brother?"
A familiar voice, and... a familiar way of addressing him.
Xiao Xiao turned.
"Lao Mo."
His gaze fell on someone else who wasn't entirely unfamiliar. "Zhou Yao."
"Ah, hello."
Zhou Yao was a little surprised that his class monitor's roommate still remembered him.
After all, they'd only run into each other once before, at an art supply store.
As expected, people with good grades