"That's good, then."
Xi Qingyan was inwardly relieved that Lan Xiangxian was still easy to talk to, and immediately spilled everything he knew:
"I don't know where you grew up, but Gu Chupei grew up in a village tucked away in the mountains.
The first time I met him was because he stole my wallet.
He barely had any clothes on then, with his ears and tail exposed, and he was terribly thin.
I was only there with my father to do some business. We were both very young."
Just hearing those opening descriptions from Xi Qingyan, Lan Xiangxian already found it a little hard to believe.
Although he had come from a small village too, he had never been so poorly clothed as Gu Chupei.
"Later, I learned from my father that Gu Chupei's mother was a well-known local... prostitute? Is that what you call it?"
Xi Qingyan thought for a moment, then shook his head:
"I don't know what to call it, but she made a living selling her body, so Gu Chupei didn't have a father of his own. His mother didn't really raise him either. After giving birth to him, she kept having fun with the men who kept her.
She even wanted to use Gu Chupei as a bargaining chip and sell him to those sleazy men.
I was furious at the time. Because of him, my father scolded me for not keeping an eye on my wallet, so I beat him.
Gu Chupei was so thin back then that he barely had any strength, but even so, he kept clutching my wallet tightly to his chest.
After that... I became a little interested in him."
Xi Qingyan's voice grew quieter as he spoke, as though he had recalled something painful, and his expression gradually