247: Useful Enough

Useful Enough

"Yang-Yang!" the mother paled. "Don't speak such nonsense!" She bowed to me and then to Bai Ye, fear overwhelming her face. "I-I am so sorry. Please forgive him for being so rude, he's too frightened to think straight."2

It took me a moment to remember that most commoners felt uneasy in the presence of cultivators—naturally so, since what we could do with the bare flip of a hand was too formidable to those without the power. The woman must be worried that we'd be offended by her son's bold request and do something to harm him. "Oh, he is the opposite of rude." I reassured her with a smile and patted the boy's back to calm him down. "I can see how frightened he is though, poor thing."

"Please trust us, we are only here to help." Bai Ye spoke next, seeing the uncertainty in the woman's eyes. "Has the village elder notified Mount Hua of what happened?"

The woman nodded after a little hesitation. "He told us that someone will come help us in a few days. But I have no idea how the village will survive those few days …" Her eyes were filled with tears as they landed on the boy in my arms. "Or how my boy will survive it. He's been startling at every sound since he came back home yesterday. We can't get him to eat or sleep. He barely even talked … What he just said to you was as much as all he had said to us in the past day."

I winced. How terrified was this boy? There was no way we could simply leave him in such a vulnerable state. "Do you want us to come have lunch with you?" I asked him softly. "If I help you keep the devil away, will you eat with me?"

The boy lifted his head from my shoulder. "You can keep the devil away while we eat?" He wiped his tears and asked. When I gave him a confident nod, his cry turned into a grin. "Yes! Mommy makes the best food. You can have as much as you want if you stay with us!"

The woman's expression turned a bit awkward again at the boy's bargaining. But I only laughed. "I hope you'll forgive us for inviting ourselves," I said to her. "My daoist companion doesn't need food, and I'm not—"

"Oh, please, if only you can get our boy to eat, I'll be grateful for the rest of my life!" The woman bowed to us again and gestured for us to follow her. "I only hope that you won't mind our boring meals."

~ ~

The woman's house was small, not too much larger than our cabin, but it was clean and organized, clearly the home of a lovely family. The tight walls in the living room didn't offer much space to fit more than the few pieces of furniture they had—a four-person dining table with chairs, a couple of storage shelves—but those walls were bright and lively with papercut animals and sketches glued all over, obviously the boy's proud work, whereas the mother's more intricate New Year's pattern hung in the window. I couldn't help but smile at such a homely scene.

"Is the boy's father home?" Bai Ye asked as the woman wiped down the dining table and readied our chairs.

"He is out searching for the devil with other men," the woman explained without slowing. She must've understood the purpose of the question—in many parts of the country, it would be considered inappropriate for a woman to host male guests without her husband around, and we didn't want to get her into any trouble. "He might not be back for lunch … But don't worry, he is not the type to make a fuss about nothing. We will only be grateful that both of you are here to help our son."

The boy had already climbed into the chair next to me as we spoke. "Daddy never gets angry," he said proudly and looked at me with expectant eyes. "Do you like our house? You'll stay with us for the night, right?"

"Yang-Yang!" The mother hushed him again before turning back to me. "I'm sorry … Please ignore him. I will be back with the meal in a minute." Giving the boy a warning stare, she turned and strode into the kitchen behind us.

I exchanged a look with Bai Ye, and I was still contemplating how to comfort our little host when Bai Ye knocked on the boy's forehead. "Only she is invited to stay with you?" he pointed at me and asked. "What about me?"

The boy blinked. "You want to stay too?" He studied Bai Ye intently. "W-Who are you?"

"…"

I failed to bite back a laugh. Was this the first time I had seen Bai Ye neglected by someone? And so completely at that? A small part of me felt entertained by the novelty of it, though I thought it'd be best not to let the boy think too little of him. "He's my husband. We live together," I said. "He can keep the devil away from you as well."

"He can?" The boy snapped his head towards me. "Is he as good as you are?"

"He's—"

"She's better than me," Bai Ye cut me off and patted the boy on his head. "But I can help her if she gets too busy. Or if other devils show up, I can deal with the easy ones while she handles the big one."

The boy turned back to stare at him, as if trying to determine if those words were true. "So you could be useful enough." Our little host chewed his fingernails and concluded. "Then you can stay with us too … But the bed is too small for all of us. She can sleep next to me, you'll have to sleep on the floor."

I gaped at the boy. Master Bai Ye, once the most legendary immortal at Mount Hua, has just been deemed "useful enough" and granted a floor to sleep on tonight?

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