Chapter 1072: Life
Tie Xi took several deep breaths, then turned back to Pakart and said in the Common Tongue, "See, this is what I don't understand. She's always so polite to everyone else, but every time she gets to me, her face changes, like I stole her money—"
"I understand the Common Tongue," Hesta said coldly.
Tie Xi grinned, bit his tongue, and made a face at Pakart.
"Have something to drink," Tie Xi said. "Can you drink tea?"
Tie Xi rose and walked over to the wall cabinet in the open kitchen. From one of its shelves, he took down a stuffed square box filled with more than a dozen long-necked, stiff kraft-paper bags. Each bag bore a handwritten label and was sealed with a metal binder clip.
"I came to talk to you about—"
"Put the foxes in the iron cage over there," Tie Xi said. "They're practically scared to death of you."
Hesta looked down at the little foxes in her arms. Curled up and trembling, they immediately burrowed into the cage as soon as she set them at its entrance, huddling tightly together in a corner.
Hesta stood up again. Just as she turned around, she suddenly spotted a familiar name on Tie Xi's desk—Elf Poetry Selection · Three.
Hesta's brow shifted slightly as she walked over to the desk. The shadows of trees outside fell across its surface. Between sunlight and shade, the woman on the cover was smiling, yet the eyes she fixed on the reader carried a sorrowful air.
"If you're asking me for quarantine certificates, I definitely don't have any," Tie Xi said with a laugh as he made tea. "But the risk should be low. The mother of those foxes was free-ranged on a farm by Parik the carpenter, and