"Heave-ho, heave-ho!"
Ms. Jiang Xuan grabbed her eldest daughter's cat tail and yanked hard backward. After pulling for quite a while, she indignantly straddled the other woman's waist.
Her weight and warm, gentle breath pressed against Jiang Han's cat ears, accompanied by utterly undisguised laughter:
"Welcome home, Miss Han."
"Eh? Is that all? Just 'welcome home'?" Jiang Han replied.
"It'd be even better if you had a gift for me, you know?" Jiang Xuan tugged at the cat ears blocking her view and rolled off the cat witch.
Jiang Han patted the grass seeds from herself, stirred her magic to evaporate the grime, then stood and said with a beaming smile:
"Making a child prepare a gift for her mother? Oh my, oh my, that really is..."
She puffed out her cheeks.
Ms. Xuan put both hands behind her back, raised her chin, and gave a humph.
"Because the child has grown up."
Naturally, she was not the sort of witch who could keep up a stern act. The next second, she broke into a smile, leaned over, and kissed Jiang Han's cheek.
"Anyway, welcome home. Now that you're back, do you want Ms. Keshu to cook you a meal? She's recently picked up quite a few good tricks from those big cat dumplings, and I've learned a little too."
"You learned a little too?"
Jiang Han asked.
"Mm, I cooked a meal for Ms. Keshu. She's become much more attentive again lately." As Ms. Xuan spoke, she casually brushed back the long hair by her ear, exposing her pale neck and rosy earlobe. A new sapphire earring hung from that earlobe.
Jiang Han's teeth ached. She should never have asked that question.
"I need to go put down my luggage, and my spoils too," she said, pulling a small