Xiao Xiao lowered his head and stroked Little White Fox's head.
The faint air of irritation surrounding Little White Fox immediately faded.
Xiao Xiao's fingers gently brushed the white snake's head as well.
After soothing the two impatient demons, Xiao Xiao looked at the boy.
He didn't want to discuss again how the boy couldn't prove that the maple leaf was his, so how could he demand compensation from him?
After all, once someone decided something was true...
Call it stubbornness or obstinacy...
It was hard for anyone else to talk them out of it.
He didn't want to go to the trouble.
"...It's very important to me..."
The boy's emotions had clouded his reason.
He clung to Xiao Xiao with near-obsessive determination, as if he'd grabbed the last lifeline...
Xiao Xiao was the only person besides him who'd had contact with the maple leaf.
At least, the only one he knew of.
He couldn't just let Xiao Xiao leave.
Otherwise, wouldn't all the excitement he'd felt at discovering and finding it today have been for nothing?
"It's really important..."
"Please..."
"Give it back to me..."
The boy seemed trapped in an emotion he couldn't escape.
He spoke incoherently.
His body remained motionless in front of Xiao Xiao.
Xiao Xiao didn't like this sort of plea, where someone used their own emotional breakdown to beg—
A plea...
He felt it was really a kind of alternative "coercion."
As if anyone who refused such a "heartfelt" request was especially coldhearted.
Especially... bad.
If the crux of this matter weren't the maple leaf...
Spirit Maple's maple leaf.
A leaf Spirit Maple used to send messages, visible only to a small number of special people...
He would probably have walked right past the boy.
But since this involved a