Chapter 324: Chapter 312: Water Blue Dress
The Golden Crow in the space was suddenly clamoring to be let out, and it seemed extremely agitated.
Flora, confused, let it out, only to see it ZIP into the two holes in the muddy ground.
The two tots, a boy and a girl, didn’t panic or get annoyed when they saw something fly into their holes. The two adorable children didn’t seem afraid of Flora at all, unlike their last encounter when they had transformed into gophers and fled in fear.
"Alright, spit it out. Why are you two in the base?"
"Ee-ya..."
"Ee-ya-ya..."
The two tots babbled "ee-ee-ya-ya," under the impression they were having a serious conversation with Flora, all while extending their pudgy, chubby arms toward her.
"Ee-ya... ka-ka... hoh... hoh..."
"Howd... howd... ee-ya."
It took Flora a moment, but she finally understood from the baby girl’s babbling that they wanted to be held.
Flora scooped one up in each arm, then turned to Caleb and Lisa.
"You two, I told you to bring them their food and watch the farmland. How did you end up crawling into the holes with them?"
"And you!" Flora shot a glare at the Golden Crow. It ZIPPED back into the hole. Flora assumed it had fled, afraid of being scolded. But to her surprise, it emerged a moment later with a long dress dangling from its mouth.
"A dress? What the hell?" Flora grumbled, setting the two toddlers down on the ground and taking the dress from the Golden Crow’s mouth. It was a shimmering aqua blue, with a row of tiny diamond flecks on the collar and cuffs. The dress had a classical cut, looking both elegant and demure.
Flora felt the material. It was soft, smooth, and cool to the touch. Just holding the dress seemed to make the surrounding temperature drop by several degrees.
’Don’t tell me this is some kind of treasure?’
Flora looked over at the two carefree tots, who were giggling while digging for seeds in the mud. "This dress... was it from your hole?"
The two tots looked up, their eyes brightening when they saw the dress in Flora’s hands. "Mama... ma... mama."
"Mama... mama, mama."
Watching the dress in Flora’s hands, the two tots suddenly rushed forward and began nuzzling their faces against her calves, still calling out "Mama" in their unclear speech.
Flora stared at the two tots with a troubled expression. ’Don’t tell me they’ve mistaken me for their mother? Or... could this dress belong to their *actual* mother?’
"Where’s your mother?"
The two tots paid her no mind, continuing to hug her legs tightly. They wouldn’t let go even when she shifted her feet.
Flora stood awkwardly in place. She tossed the dress into her pocket dimension, then tossed the sneaky Golden Crow back in as well.
Flora picked the baby girl up into her arms and then lifted the boy, intending to hand him to Lisa. But the little boy started wailing and desperately reaching for Flora.
In the dead of night, the residents of the base, who had already been sound asleep, were abruptly woken by the sound of a child’s cries.
Flora scooped up the baby boy and tucked him under her arm. She shot a glare at the mud-caked Caleb and Lisa. "I’ll deal with you two when we get back!" With that, she quickly herded the two children and the two tots back to Villa Number Three.
Jade was woken by the commotion downstairs. When she went down to look, she almost thought she was sleepwalking and seeing things.
Her own daughter, Flora, was holding a mud-covered baby girl in one arm, while another baby boy was clinging to her shoulder, struggling to keep from falling off.
"Oh, my sweet girl, you’re pregnant! You can’t be roughhousing like this! Get those two little terrors down from there, quickly! Don’t let them hurt you!"
Jade rushed over to Flora, intending to take the child clinging to her shoulder. But as she drew near and got a clear look at the two tots’ faces, she froze.
Weren’t these the children from the other night, the little seed thieves who had suddenly turned into two white-furred gophers?
"De... demons?"
Jade swallowed nervously. "Flora, how did these two end up in our house? Are... are they dangerous?"
Flora shook her head. "I don’t think so. I have no idea where these two came from. It’s weird. Hey, hey, hey, kid, stop pulling my hair! Watch it, or I’ll skin that gopher hide off you and throw you in a stew, you hear me!"
The baby boy, losing his grip, grabbed a handful of Flora’s hair. Wincing from the sharp tug, Flora snatched him with one hand and dumped him into Jade’s arms.
"WAAAAAH!" It was unclear whether it was Flora’s threat or her rough handling that did it, but the baby boy suddenly burst into tears. When the baby girl saw him crying, she started to wail too.
Flora’s villa was the middle one of the three. In the dead of night, the sound of crying instantly woke up the people in the other two villas.
By the time Sherman Lynch, Neal Wallace, Shauna Wallace, and the others arrived, Caleb Bloom and Joel Bloom were also downstairs. The two tots were still crying.
Worried their continued crying would draw the attention of the entire base, Flora pulled a bag of nuts and a head of cabbage from her pocket dimension.
"Cabby!"
"Nutsies!"
Upon seeing what Flora was holding, the two tots got so excited that they somehow transformed back into gophers. They had white fur, chubby little bodies, two big buck teeth typical of rodents, and a pair of huge, round black eyes.
One clutched the cabbage and the other hugged the bag of nuts, chirping and crunching away—SQUEAK, MUNCH—while their eyes narrowed in pure bliss.
The onlookers were left at a loss. Many of them had experience raising children; there was even an expectant mother, Selina, as well as obstetricians and nurses in the group.
And the expert gopher catchers, Caleb Bloom and Jade, were also there. Gophers, the bane of farmland crops, were one of the biggest headaches for farmers. Of course, there were many simple ways to deal with them.
But who could tell them how to handle children who could turn into gophers?
Eventually, the crowd dispersed and went back to bed, leaving only the three women—Flora, Cynthia Grant, and Jade—along with Lisa and Caleb. And, of course, the two gopher babies, who Flora didn’t even know how to classify.
Lisa and Caleb each went to the bathroom to change out of their mud-caked clothes and take a shower. Meanwhile, Flora and the other two women watched the two large gophers still munching on cabbage and nuts on the living room floor, unsure of what to do.
Perhaps because they were full, the two gophers’ eyes began to close as they ate, and they started to snore right there on the floor. It was actually quite an adorable sight.
Flora wiped the two mud-caked gophers clean with a warm, damp towel, placed them on the sofa, and covered them with a blanket.
"Cynthia, these two... why don’t you keep them as pets for now?"
Cynthia Grant shook her head frantically. "No, no, no! I can’t stand rodents, and I have no experience raising kids. Spare me!"
Jade also looked uneasy. "Are these two... gophers? Or humans? Sigh, whatever they are, are we really just going to keep them?"
Flora was also very conflicted. These two little ones must have parents, right? It was very likely they had just gotten separated from them. They were caught stealing seeds because they were hungry, and if that was all there was to it, it wouldn’t be a big deal for Flora and the others to take care of them. Food was the one thing she had in abundance.
But there was another issue: after entering her pocket dimension, that aqua-blue dress had left a white imprint on her spiritual link.
That imprint was filled with an unknown energy, an energy that felt uncannily compatible with her soul, and remarkably gentle.
