Was Xiong Bao really in the wrong?

Jun Beiyue had been rather satisfied with how he’d handled things — at least Xiong Bao had ended up letting him hold him, falling happily asleep in the end.

He looked at Ziqing’s furious expression, unable to understand why this woman was still dwelling on the matter!

Hadn’t he already explained himself clearly?

“Yes, he was. He shouldn’t have raised his hands against someone — that’s the most basic upbringing there is,” Jun Beiyue said seriously.

But Ziqing suddenly let out a cold laugh. “Jun Beiyue, your son is barely a year old, and you’re lecturing a one-year-old about manners? About propriety?”

At those words, something inside Jun Beiyue abruptly froze.

Barely a year old!

It was only now, it seemed, that this fact truly struck him.

Their son might be remarkably mature, remarkably precocious — but he was still only just past a year old. Truly, genuinely, still just a baby!

What manners, what upbringing could you possibly discuss with a one-year-old?

Put simply: if an adult teased a baby by poking at its teeth for fun, and the baby, not knowing any better, got carried away and bit the adult hard enough to injure them — could you really call that the baby’s fault?

Just because the child happened to be more precocious than most others his age, did that make it his fault?

The only reasonable conclusion was that the adult had lacked judgment, and had brought it entirely upon themselves!

And the same logic applied exactly to Xiong Bao!

If Ziqing hadn’t caught sight of the little one’s frightened expression in Baili Weisheng’s room, hadn’t worried about scaring him further, she would absolutely have held her ground to the very end — even if it meant fighting with Jun Beiyue, even breaking with him entirely, she would have forced Old Fifth Meng to apologize, no matter what!

The man was well past fifty, and he’d stooped to arguing with a child not even a year old, pointing at the baby’s nose and calling him a curse-bringer — what kind of behavior was that?

If the child had bitten him to death, he’d have had it coming!

That was simply Ziqing’s nature — when it came to her child, a mother’s love sometimes left no room for reasonableness at all.

As for the matter of the Universe Poison Pouch — if Old Fifth Meng wanted to blame someone, let him blame her, for failing to properly raise a child barely a year old. That, she would accept.

But blame placed on her own son? That, she would never accept, not under any circumstances!

What relieved Ziqing was that Xiong Bao truly had been mature enough to accept Jun Beiyue’s explanation, and that she herself had managed to hold back, not arguing or fighting with Jun Beiyue in front of him. Otherwise, who knew what damage it might have done to the child’s development.

She had no wish for the little one to feign maturity out of fear of his parents fighting, forcing himself against his own nature to become a “good child.”

Heaven only knew how much it had ached her heart when Xiong Bao had clung to her, crying and begging to go back to the Poison Beast World — it had hurt worse than a thousand needles piercing her all at once.

That child had once longed, day after day, to leave the Poison Beast World behind, to meet his father, to see the world outside!

Looking at Ziqing’s pale, furious little face, Jun Beiyue suddenly realized he’d made a mistake.

The most sensible, mature children, after all, were often the unhappiest ones.

Children were meant to be innocent, carefree, simple and naive.

Forbidding a child this young from ever making a mistake — how carefully, how painfully would he have to tread through the rest of his life?

He and Ziqing had both grown up treading so carefully, so painfully, every step of the way — how had he so easily forgotten that their own Xiong Bao was still, still so very young!

Watching Ziqing, flushed and breathless with agitation, Jun Beiyue’s heart churned with complicated emotion, his face full of remorse.

Having finally shouted it all out, Ziqing herself had calmed down considerably. After a long silence, she said quietly, “Beiyue, over this past year or so, I’ve carelessly let our son grow too mature, too precocious, too soon. Discipline and growth are necessary, of course — but not this early, please? Let him have a few more carefree, worry-free days to just play, please?”

Better she hadn’t said it at all — hearing it only made Jun Beiyue’s heart ache even more. Not knowing what else to say, he immediately turned back into the room, wanting to hold his son.

This past year and more hadn’t been Ziqing’s carelessness at all — it had been him, the father, who’d been absent.

Inside, the Silly Bear kept watch in the main hall, while the Four Great Poison Beasts had shrunk down and perched on the roof beams, taking turns standing guard. The whole room was quiet, and Xiong Bao was sleeping so, so soundly!

The daytime quarrel had left no shadow on him at all — in his dreams, Daddy was still explaining things to him, so many, many lessons, about what shouldn’t be done, what should be done, how things ought to be done!

All these various matters — priorities, right and wrong — sounded so fascinating to his ears.

In truth he hadn’t understood much of it at all, but he found it fun regardless, loved curling up in his father’s arms, listening to his father’s deep, pleasant voice.

Falling asleep in his father’s arms felt completely different from falling asleep in his mother’s — this was, after all, the very first time!

That warmth was more than enough to soothe away the fright and hurt from earlier in the day. At this very moment, Xiong Bao lay clutching a large pillow, giggling softly, the corners of his mouth turned up, looking utterly silly and adorable!

However this whole affair had ultimately been resolved, Xiong Bao’s smile right now was Ziqing’s greatest relief.

The process hadn’t gone the way she’d wanted, but thankfully, the outcome had turned out well enough.

She glanced at Jun Beiyue, letting out a soft breath. Jun Beiyue said nothing, gently pulling the large pillow aside and turning on his side to gather Xiong Bao into his arms.

Ziqing smiled, relieved, and lay down on Xiong Bao’s other side. Watching Jun Beiyue handle their son with such careful tenderness, she said softly, “There, it’s all right now.”

“Thank goodness he wasn’t scared too badly,” Jun Beiyue said, quite seriously.

Ziqing couldn’t help but be amused, watching this towering, imposing man handle such a tiny child with such delicate care — his embrace so broad, the little one so small — it was such an unimaginable sight, and yet here it was, right before her eyes.

“Beiyue, do you really not intend to rescue your mother-consort?” Ziqing asked quietly. This matter really did need to be settled clearly.

“Of course I intend to,” Jun Beiyue said firmly, though not without reservations. “I’d originally hoped to hold off involving the Meng Clan and search for the lone island first, but given how things stand now, it seems we really do need to make the trip. Xiong Bao’s constitution most likely has something to do with the Meng bloodline. We might be able to uncover a great many secrets about the lone island through the Meng Clan.”

Going to the Meng Clan meant rescuing his mother-consort was inevitable — the only question was how deep the waters of the Meng Clan truly ran, something even Jun Beiyue wasn’t sure of.

The one thing he could be certain of was that Old Fifth Meng’s eagerness to rescue his mother-consort surely concealed some further scheme of his own.

The Meng Clan itself didn’t frighten Jun Beiyue in the slightest — but his mother-consort was another matter entirely, one that gave him a genuine headache. That she’d been willing to seal herself inside a dagger, abandoning him just after he was born, all for the sake of the Universe Poison Pouch, was proof enough that she was no simple woman.

It wasn’t that Jun Beiyue was heartless — it was simply that this revelation had come far too suddenly.

The gratitude he’d carried in his heart all this time had been for that maid who’d supposedly died in childbirth. Now, to suddenly be told all of that was false, that his mother-consort hadn’t died at all but had abandoned him to pursue her own agenda — he genuinely felt none of that mother-son bond that was supposed to exist.

Back then, his line “let her stay put for now” had been both a rebuke aimed at Old Fifth Meng, a way of protecting Xiong Bao, and, in truth, his own way of avoiding the whole matter.

What his mother-consort wanted was the Universe Poison Pouch, and the Universe Poison Pouch was used to cultivate human gu — this tied directly into the lone island, into Nanzhao, and most of all into Ziqing, someone immune to all poisons through negative polarity. He had no choice but to proceed with caution!

Rather than take unnecessary risks, it was far better to hunt down every secret of the lone island as quickly as possible, uncover the whole truth, secure the safety of Ziqing and their son first, and only then rescue his mother-consort.

Of course, all of this Jun Beiyue kept locked away in his own heart. He wouldn’t explain any of it to Old Fifth Meng, who’d already called him an unfilial son, nor would he share too much of it with Ziqing either. His relationship with his birth father, the Solitary Patriarch, was already strained enough — he hoped that he and Ziqing might at least manage to get along well with his mother-consort.

Only, Ziqing was far too sharp for that. She smiled, teasing, “Beiyue, my mother-in-law wants the Universe Poison Pouch — she wouldn’t happen to want to cultivate a human gu too, would she?”