Zuo Xiaonian shuddered at those words. She suddenly straightened up out of her mother's arms, her little face darkening as she fell silent.
Her beautiful brows slowly drew together, and a fierce aura actually flashed past.
After that, no one in the family spoke again. They ate in silence.
Zuo Xiaoduo pondered for a long time, but none of his thoughts were on romance. His focus... was on that million. After quite a while, he finally worked up the courage to ask, "Dad, you spent a million buying pills for my sister?"
Zuo Changlu had also composed himself by now. "What, do you have a problem with that?" he asked mildly.
Putting on a shameless grin, Zuo Xiaoduo said, "Dad, my own dear dad, buying pills for my sister was perfectly reasonable, entirely justified, and couldn't have been more appropriate. But... I'm your son too. Surely it's perfectly reasonable and entirely justified for me to be just a teensy bit envious... I certainly wouldn't dare ask for sooo much as a million... How about... you give me ten thousand?"
Zuo Changlu frowned and slowly turned to look at him. "Hmm?"
"...Or eight thousand... Five thousand, five thousand would work too!" Zuo Xiaoduo weakly raised a hand. Seeing that his old man was about to glare, he hastily changed his tune again. "Dad, hehe... Three thousand. Just three thousand..."
"Still that strange dream of yours? Your old man doesn't have a single cent left!" Zuo Changlu leisurely picked up a piece of meat, put it in his mouth, and chewed with relish.
"Over these past few years, your old man has sunk tens of thousands into that strange dream of yours. The first time you tried it, you said you hadn't prepared properly, and everything was ruined. The second and third times, there were other reasons... This is the fifth time you've asked for money. I really don't have any left. Your mother even confiscated my private stash so I couldn't secretly give you money."
"Let me point you toward a way out... Go ask your mother."
Zuo Xiaoduo looked utterly miserable. "If Mom would give it to me, would I need to ask you...? You're being way too unfair..."
"Yep, you're not getting any this time. What are you going to do about it?" Zuo Changlu answered offhandedly.
"My standing in this family..." Zuo Xiaoduo let out a long sigh.
"So you actually wanted standing in this family?" Wu Yuting gave her son a sidelong glance with a smile. "Tell me, what position do you want? You're still not satisfied with being number four? Want to be number five?"
"..."
"Hahaha..." Zuo Xiaonian couldn't help laughing, rocking back and forth.
"Your image! You're a girl-mind your image! Be ladylike, ladylike!" Wu Yuting shot her a glare.
Zuo Xiaonian immediately stuck out her tongue, lowered her head, and ate, behaving herself too.
Zuo Xiaoduo sighed and groaned, but said nothing more, calculating inwardly where he could get some money that afternoon. Though he was a youth, he had lived an entire lifetime in the dream world. Although he had died rather young in that life, and didn't even know whether his experiences in that dream world were real or false, his state of mind was by no means comparable to an ordinary seventeen-year-old's.
He had begun dreaming at eleven, having the same dream without interruption for six years. Six years that had hindered his cultivation, delayed his progress in the Martial Dao, and left him drowsy every day...
Otherwise, however poor his aptitude, he wouldn't have ended up like this!
The final scene in the dream, that immense explosion across the entire starry sky... still seemed to thunder in his mind.
Countless stars had exploded in an instant, and a streak of dazzling light had rushed toward him... Then he had awakened from the dream.
And the broken jade pendant that had suddenly appeared on his chest after the dream-everything proclaimed that all of this was definitely more than just a dream.
Now he only needed to buy the necessary things, and he could test whether his extraordinary encounter was real or an illusion.
But he had already tried several times before, without success...
Although this time, he was quite confident it would be the last, the problem was that his parents refused to believe him anymore-he had already tried several times, and each time, the chickens had flown off and the eggs had smashed. How could they believe him?
Even the pocket money he had saved through his fine habit of never parting with a penny all these years wasn't enough... He only had five thousand, while that piece of white jade he had his eye on cost eight thousand...
What a headache.
After the meal.
Zuo Xiaonian returned to her room, giving Zuo Xiaoduo a meaningful look before she left.
Zuo Changlu went back to the shop too. "I'll go get some stock this afternoon. We're out of star soul stones... This time, I'll have to get some high-quality ones to make up the shortfall."
Father and daughter had both left.
Wu Yuting sighed and looked at Zuo Xiaoduo. "Xiaoduo, don't be disappointed. This... this is a world of the Martial Dao... You can't cultivate... You and your sister Xiao Nian are destined to belong to two different worlds..."
"I understand. I really do," Zuo Xiaoduo said calmly.
When his mother called him Xiaoduo, it meant they were having a serious conversation, and Zuo Xiaoduo didn't dare grin and joke around either.
In fact, after the life of hardship and wandering he had lived in the dream world, Zuo Xiaoduo was utterly content with the family he had now. He couldn't have been more satisfied.
He wished for nothing more than to spend his whole life just like this, peacefully and ordinarily.
A human life was like a single autumn for grass and trees. What could be more important than a happy family, peace, and joy?
He was willing to protect this peace and warmth forever, living like this all along.
Of course, if he could possess great strength on top of that, so much the better.
Yet inwardly, he was still thinking, I knew she was going to be my wife when I was six... Now I'm seventeen, and you're telling me to forget about it, and not to be disappointed... You really are my own dear mother.
Good thing I never planned on it in the first place... Hmph!
Wu Yuting let out a long sigh.
She looked at her son lovingly.
She felt that her son truly had a hard lot in life.
On the Star Soul Continent, the Martial Dao reigned supreme.
The continent had endured the tempering of several eras, passing from the primordial world into the age of immortals and gods, then into the age of emperors, and then into the age of declining martial arts. After that came the Technology Era, followed by the age of falling stars, the apocalypse, the revival, and finally the current age of star martial arts.
Surviving in this world wasn't very easy for ordinary people.
In every period, in every era of the Star Soul Continent, one thing had remained the same: ordinary people with no aptitude or poor aptitude had always made up the majority. And her son was... one of those countless ordinary people.