After they returned to the courtyard,
with a bit of indirect probing, Xiao Mo more or less figured out what had happened.
He was honestly quite touched that Jingci had argued with those little girls because of him.
But Xiao Mo did not think it had really been necessary.
How other people saw him was their business.
How he acted, and how he regarded himself, was his own business.
If Jingci wanted to go play, then she should just go play.
And besides, Xiao Mo felt that having more time to cultivate was a good thing.
“I don’t want to! We’re friends. If they won’t be friends with you, then I won’t be friends with them either!”
After Xiao Mo told Jingci what he thought, Tushan Jingci puffed out her cheeks and turned her little head away.
Seeing how adorable she looked, Xiao Mo only smiled and said nothing more.
But a few days later, those demon-race little girls came to Tushan Jingci again.
They apologized to her and said that Xiao Mo could come along with them to play, and that they were willing to be Xiao Mo’s friends too.
Tushan Jingci had always been a softhearted, kind little girl.
When she saw that they knew they were wrong, apologized to her, and even agreed to let Xiao Mo come play with them, she found it hard to stay angry.
“Xiao Mo, are you angry with them? If you are, then I won’t go play with them.”
After returning to the courtyard, Tushan Jingci asked Xiao Mo.
“It’s fine, Young Lady. I’m not angry. It’s a good thing for you to make more friends.”
Xiao Mo spoke slowly. He had never taken the matter to heart in the first place.
And besides, what did these demon-race little girls really understand?
At most, they were just listening to their parents, trying to build a good relationship with Tushan Jingci so that their two families might have some connection.
As for their dislike of humans, it was not because they had hated humans from the start. It was simply that this was what the environment of the demon-race world was like.
Children only copied what they saw, and then passed it down generation after generation.
“Humans... the demon race...”
That night, while Xiao Mo cultivated in the courtyard, he thought about that question, but could not arrive at an answer.
Half a month passed.
Tushan Jingci gradually adapted to life at Cold Mountain Academy.
And because Tushan Jingci was pretty and had a good temperament,
she truly did make quite a few close little friends.
Still, Tushan Jingci had not spent all her time playing.
She listened to her mother: study when it was time to study, play when it was time to play.
Xiao Mo had never expected that Tushan Jingci would actually be the most diligent student in the entire hall.
Whenever Tushan Jingci did not understand her homework, she would immediately ask Xiao Mo, and Xiao Mo would naturally explain it to her with patience.
Every time Tushan Jingci listened to Xiao Mo go over what the teacher had taught in class, her pretty eyes would blink and blink.
She thought Xiao Mo looked especially nice when he was explaining lessons seriously.
And she also thought Xiao Mo was truly amazing.
He was only listening from outside and did not even have a teacher answering his questions, yet he had learned it even better than she had.
In the blink of an eye, a month had passed since Tushan Jingci came to Cold Mountain Academy.
Every so often, Tushan Xinhua would come to visit her daughter.
Each time Tushan Xinhua came, she would also test her daughter’s lessons and ask the teacher how her daughter had been performing.
That made Tushan Jingci a little unhappy.
It was one thing for her mother to test her, but the teacher would also complain to her mother from time to time.
And once the teacher complained, she would end up getting the paddle from her mother.
So whenever Tushan Xinhua came, Tushan Jingci would hope her mother left quickly.
But after her mother left, Tushan Jingci would start hoping again that her mother would come back to see her soon.
During this period,
aside from going to the school hall every day to listen to lessons, Xiao Mo spent the rest of his time in the courtyard cultivating Great Dream of Yellow Millet.
Madam Tushan had given Xiao Mo a token. With that token, he could collect whatever spiritual herbs, medicines, and pills he needed from Cold Mountain Academy’s storehouse.
As a result, Xiao Mo had ample cultivation resources and did not need to run himself ragged like an independent cultivator over the smallest scraps.
And every time Madam Tushan came to Cold Mountain Academy, she would spend some time answering Xiao Mo’s questions.
A total of seven months passed, and Xiao Mo’s realm had already reached the twelfth layer of the Qi Refining Realm.
He was only one step away from foundation establishment.
Over the past half year or so, the maid Yueshi’s opinion of Xiao Mo had changed greatly.
At first, Yueshi had thought Xiao Mo would grow arrogant from favor, relying on the trust of the madam and the young lady to become overbearing.
But every day Xiao Mo behaved properly and kept to his place. Aside from studying with the young lady, playing with the young lady, and cultivating on his own, he did nothing else.
Xiao Mo’s learning was also excellent.
All the other book boys dozed off outside the school hall, but Xiao Mo alone listened attentively every single day.
He could even turn around and teach the young lady himself.
Xiao Mo’s cultivation talent was also astonishing.
From the moment he stepped onto the path of cultivation to the point where he was now about to enter foundation establishment, at the fullest count, he had spent no more than eight months in total.
Yueshi had to admit that the madam’s judgment was impressive.
This human child was genuinely not bad.
Still, what Yueshi found most different about Xiao Mo was his attitude toward the demon race.
At Cold Mountain Academy, there were also many human servants. They were all extremely afraid of the demon race, shrinking in on themselves, terrified that if they made even the slightest mistake, they would be turned into a dish.
But Xiao Mo was different. He did not seem afraid of the demon race at all.
Even though Xiao Mo often heard those demon-race book boys secretly cursing him behind his back, calling him a pretty boy, saying he had lucked into a miracle, saying that if he had not entered the Tushan residence, he would not even be fit to wipe their shoes,
Xiao Mo simply did not care.
Yueshi felt it was not that Xiao Mo did not dare talk back.
It was that, to him, all of it was just dogs barking in his ears, and there was no need to bother with wild dogs by the roadside.
“Sister Yueshi, I’m going to collect some pills to prepare for foundation establishment. If the Young Lady wakes from her nap this afternoon and asks where I went, please let her know.”
That day, Xiao Mo felt that his twelfth layer of the Qi Refining Realm was already complete, so he planned to go fetch some Foundation Establishment Pills and make his breakthrough.
The academy’s pill room happened to be right at the top of this peak, so the round trip would not take long.
“Go on.” Yueshi waved a hand. “Come back early for dinner, or the Young Lady will keep talking about you.”
“I know.”
Xiao Mo nodded and walked toward the mountaintop.
Half an hour later, Xiao Mo had obtained the pills. The process had gone very smoothly.
But just as Xiao Mo stepped out of the pill room, he heard shouting and curses coming from not far away.
He turned his head and saw several book boys serving young demon masters hurling abuse at a girl who looked to be around fourteen or fifteen.
The girl was terrified and kept backing away, but before long she was surrounded, trapped with nowhere to retreat.
In the heat of his anger, the lead demon book boy actually picked up a stone and hurled it at the girl’s head.
The girl turned her face aside, hunched her neck, and squeezed her eyes shut.
But after a long moment, she felt no pain.
When she opened her eyes, she saw that a little boy was standing in front of her, gripping the other boy’s wrist tightly.
Author’s note:
Recommended: the Harry Potter fanfic Hogwarts’ Old Hand.
It’s very well written. The quality and prose are both excellent.
