Lin Ke: ?
S-sonny?
Lin Ke looked utterly bewildered, while Li Chungang was speechless.
Butcher Zhang looked astonished. "Lin Xuanji has quite the refined tastes! Why don't we call him the Tree-Shagging Minister of Rites from now on?"
Lin Ke: Nice.
He couldn't be bothered with Butcher Zhang and hurried over instead, crouching down.
"Why are you calling me sonny? Never mind the pronunciation-you're being really creepy, you know that?"
Lin Ke had his suspicions.
Could it be...
"Lin Ke." Li Chungang walked in and sighed, stroking his beard. "If I am not mistaken, perhaps this Plum Blossom Tree absorbed your mother's three ethereal souls and seven corporeal souls, then condensed a 'spirit.'"
As he spoke, Li Chungang gently patted Lin Ke's shoulder. "Have a good talk with her."
"Is that what happened?" Lin Ke eyed the little girl before him doubtfully.
She looked like his daughter, not his mother!
"No!" Unexpectedly, the little girl spoke up in a clear, bright voice. "I call him sonny because he calls me Mommy every night. Ning Caichen told me that if someone calls me Mommy, I should call him sonny!"
Three pairs of eyes instantly swung toward Ning Caichen.
"N-no, I didn't say that!" Ning Caichen was so startled that he wet himself, reflexively denying it. "She was already calling him that before!"
Lin Ke's eyes were sharp and his hands quick; he tried to collect the tree spirit fluid.
But Butcher Zhang's eyes and hands were quicker, and he had already collected it.
"Good stuff, heh heh." Butcher Zhang grinned foolishly at the porcelain bottle in his hand, then tucked it into his robes.
"Uncouth lout." Li Chungang withdrew the hand he had just been about to extend and glanced at Butcher Zhang.
Meanwhile, Lin Ke looked speechlessly at the little