(Extra chapters are not part of the main text == they’re gossip)

When Li Fengdi was twelve years old, he spent all day crawling around the house cleaning the floors. Every time twelve-year-old Hao Hao from next door came to play with him, he either saw him stewing soup and washing clothes or crawling on the ground cleaning floors.

Hao Hao was utterly perplexed. In his own house, either his mother or father did the washing and cooking—he was just responsible for eating and getting fat. Why was Li Fengdi’s house the opposite?

You might say Li Fengdi’s family was poor? His house had carved beams and painted pillars like a palace. Though Hao Hao had never seen a palace, in his worldly twelve years, he felt even a palace couldn’t be more magnificent than Li Fengdi’s house.

After all, whose house was covered everywhere with glittering pearls, gems, gold, and such? One day when Hao Hao and Li Fengdi were cleaning the floor together, he accidentally caught a small pearl on his clothes and took it home. On the way to buy candy, he nearly scared the candy shop owner to death.

The owner said it was some centuries-old sea snail shell pearl worth a fortune.

Hao Hao was so scared he quickly returned the small pearl. Li Fengdi’s difficult-to-please living father casually threw the small pearl into a flower pot.

That’s right, Li Fengdi’s house had a pile of small pearls, all heaped in flower pots as soil.

Just how rich Li Fengdi’s living father was, worldly Hao Hao couldn’t fathom. He was a bit afraid of Li Fengdi’s father. That man was quite good-looking and didn’t look old at all, but he wasn’t affectionate at all. Every time he came, Hao Hao would hide, and only after his father left would he come out to play with Li Fengdi.

Li Fengdi was very disdainful of this, “What are you afraid of him for?”

Hao Hao said, “Afraid he’ll punish me. He punishes you to clean floors every day. What if he catches me and makes me kneel in your house cleaning floors every day too? Wouldn’t I be exhausted to death? I don’t want to clean floors.”

“I don’t clean floors because he punishes me.” Li Fengdi was somewhat disappointed in Hao Hao’s intelligence. “My father is a childish ghost who’s lived too fastidiously his whole life without realizing it. Ever since your mother… oh no… my mother disappeared, he’s been melancholy and sorrowful every single day. If you don’t watch him, he won’t eat. If you don’t chase after him, he can sit there all day without moving, doing that living dead routine, you understand? If I hired a servant to clean floors, seeing strangers would make him uncomfortable. If I don’t clean floors, dust on the ground also makes him uncomfortable. When he’s uncomfortable he doesn’t say so, then he gets even more unhappy, then continues not eating, not moving, not talking. Wouldn’t the unlucky one still be me? So I clean floors for myself—I do it so both of us can be happy.”

This day Hao Hao’s father went to the town teahouse to tell stories, his mother stayed home feeding pigs. Hao Hao brought his freshly roasted sweet potato and ran to the Tang residence again to find Li Fengdi to play.

Li Fengdi wasn’t there.

The Tang residence always had a medicinal smell. Who knew where Li Fengdi went when he spent all day kneeling on the ground cleaning floors. In any case, Hao Hao didn’t like it.

Sneaking into the kitchen, he didn’t see Li Fengdi either, but he saw ingredients he’d cut and soup that was half-stewed. Hao Hao took a spoon and secretly sipped some. Though the soup wasn’t finished cooking, it was quite delicious. Next time he’d have Li Fengdi come to his house and stew one for his old father and mother to taste.

When he turned around, his eyes brightened, and Hao Hao was startled—Li Fengdi’s living father was standing behind him.

It’s over, it’s over, it’s over, I’m going to die.

In his twelve years of life, he’d barely spoken a few words to Li Fengdi’s father, only firmly remembering that he would make children clean floors from a very young age—Li Fengdi had been stewing soup for him when he was very, very small, and he made very, very small children manage accounts. All the things adults should do, he made Li Fengdi do from a very young age.

Now I’ve stolen and drunk his soup.

He won’t catch me and lock me in his house as a slave, making me work for free for twenty years, will he?

Hao Hao trembled with terror and was horrified.

Then he saw the person standing at the doorway with brows slightly furrowed, slowly saying, “Fengfeng hasn’t been here these past few days. He went to Haoyun Mountain for a sword tournament.” He took a step forward, Hao Hao immediately retreated ten steps. The man paused slightly, stopped his footsteps, and said softly again, “He might not return for ten days.”

Hao Hao said, “Don’t come over. I didn’t mean to steal and drink your soup. I thought it was what Fengfeng stewed.”

The man laughed despite himself, his brows relaxing. Hao Hao felt the kitchen light seemed to brighten, and heard him say, “The soup Fengfeng stews, I taught him.”

Hao Hao shook his head repeatedly, “I don’t believe it. If you can cook yourself, why don’t you do it yourself instead of bullying children every day?”

The man’s smiling light seemed to dim somewhat, but he wasn’t angry. He leaned against the kitchen door, the corner of his lips curving slightly, “Yes… I can cook myself. Why don’t I do it myself instead of bullying children every day?” He looked down at Hao Hao, “What do you think?”

“I don’t know.” Hao Hao jumped up with a cry, “Don’t come over. I was wrong, I shouldn’t have stolen the soup. I’ll never dare again. Don’t come over.”

The man laughed again, then sighed very lightly.

Hao Hao fled from the Tang residence rolling and crawling.

That evening he drank that pot of soup at his own family’s dinner table. He was completely puzzled by this, deeply feeling that Li Fengdi’s living father was simply incomprehensible and unreasonable. Living with his father, though Li Fengdi had money, it was purely a nightmare of life.

Hao Hao’s father was a storytelling scholar, his mother was a brave and strong village woman, skilled at raising pigs, chickens, and children. Hao Hao had heard that he’d nearly died of illness several times as a child. Until age three he was just a bag of bones barely alive, but his mother forcibly raised him into a brave and strong little fat boy.

They lived beside the magnificent Tang residence.

Around the Tang residence was a small town. Hao Hao felt the small town often had strange and odd people coming.

Sometimes they would brandish knives and guns in the town, shouting and killing. As long as the candy shop owner came out and yelled once, they would quiet down.

Sometimes even stranger people would come, like black-haired monks and such, staying at Li Fengdi’s house to discuss matters. Hao Hao had eavesdropped several times.

He thought that for a demon lord like Li Fengdi’s father, wouldn’t he discuss some earth-shattering great matters? Like forcibly stealing a mother back for Li Fengdi, or catching many children to lock them up as little slaves.

But every time they came to ask how Li Fengdi’s father had been lately.

Then Li Fengdi’s difficult-to-please living father would smile faintly and answer, “All has been well.”