After walking around Doll Cat, Li Xian never glanced back at it. Ji Xie, on his shoulder, instead shook himself and grew an eye from his tentacled body, silently meeting Doll Cat's gaze.
A few seconds later, the doll turned its head away, then ran off toward the Toy Factory.
Li Xian walked a few meters down the road when a door ahead suddenly opened. A middle-aged man who seemed to own the house shoved two children out, cursing all the while.
He looked closer and realized they were Jiang Qiuyue and Song Qingzhang.
Clearly, the two had just been rebuffed. After being thrown out, they were discussing something with sour expressions. Song Qingzhang spotted Li Xian first and called out as he approached:
"Bro."
At that, the tentacle on his shoulder grew another eye. After studying the child nearby with half-lidded eyes, Ji Xie said to Li Xian:
"Why does that brat keep calling you something so familiar?"
Bro, bro, bro. Was he calling chickens over to feed them?
While thinking this, Ji Xie completely forgot how shamelessly he had called himself Li Xian's "big brother."
Even if he had remembered, though, this high-and-mighty fellow probably wouldn't have reflected on it.
Li Xian glanced at the tentacle on his shoulder. He hadn't noticed when Ji Xie was tucked in his pocket, but now that Ji Xie sat on his shoulder where they could communicate easily, he realized Ji Xie was something of a chatterbox, suddenly dropping a comment into his ear whenever he had nothing else to do.
Since he was about to reach his teammates, Li Xian ignored Ji Xie and asked Song Qingzhang instead:
"What happened?"
Song Qingzhang scratched his head in frustration.
"After those bears left, we couldn't find you, so we thought we'd look for