Chapter 47

After the Lantern Festival, life completely returned to normal. All the shops reopened, and the family began packing up to move.

On the moving day, they had no choice but to hire a truck from a moving company.

Thinking back to their last move, when they only had a few clothes and a baby bottle, this time packing clothes, shoes, hats, diapers, formula, and baby bottles alone filled several large boxes. In addition, there were toys, pots, pans, leftover cooking oil, salt, vegetables, meat, various snacks, as well as the cats' and dogs' mats and climbing frames. When everything was tallied up in the end, it shockingly exceeded ten boxes.

Looking at the mountain of luggage covering the floor, the two demons finally felt a sense of reality regarding their life over the past half year.

Hu Yuanfei couldn't help saying, "I can't believe we bought so much stuff. I always felt like the house hadn't accumulated that much."

Lang Xiao made him recall carefully, "Every time we went to the supermarket, you were the one stuffing the most things into the cart."

Hu Yuanfei scratched his head. It seemed that was indeed the case.

Their lease on the old apartment still had a month left. Both demons had originally prepared themselves to forfeit the remaining rent, but to their surprise, the landlord turned out to be very easygoing and returned the deposit along with the unused rent.

By late morning, all their belongings had been moved into the new home. Lang Xiao had come here once before with Hu Yuanfei and hadn't expected the place to undergo such a massive change, but stepping inside now, she still paused in genuine astonishment.

The scuffed, whitened ceramic tiles had all been replaced with wooden flooring, the walls had been freshly repainted, the old yellow cabinets had been transformed into a creamy white, every nook, cranny, and pane of glass looked brand new, and even the curtains had been swapped for a much brighter, light-yellow hue.

Lang Xiao looked around the apartment in disbelief. "Did you do all of this yourself?"

Hu Yuanfei grinned sheepishly. "Of course I found some help. I picked out the colors and hired workers to do it. The cabinets were painted first, and the flooring was finished just two days ago. I also hired a cleaning service to scrub the place down."

This time, he had simply spent money the human way to hire people, because he discovered that doing so was even faster than using demonic energy.

The terrace originally had a concrete floor, but this time it was fitted with outdoor decking and arranged into a cozy rest area, looking much neater. Hu Yuanfei had even added a large, stylish umbrella so they could lounge there and bask in the moonlight or sunlight from now on.

"What do you think of my renovation?"

Hu Yuanfei sidled up to Lang Xiao, eagerly fishing for praise.

Lang Xiao felt it was done to absolute perfection, and she offered rare, heavy praise.

"It's better than I could have imagined. If I hadn't been here last time, I wouldn't have believed such a huge transformation was possible. You're amazing."

Lang Xiao praised him as amazing. This was different from any praise before; she was actually saying he was awesome! Hu Yuanfei basked in joy for the entire day, taking the initiative to unpack and organize things with immense enthusiasm.

He had already designated the three bedrooms in advance: the master bedroom belonged to Qingyao, while the two guest rooms were for the cat and dog respectively. As for the two of them, they preferred spending time on the terrace and had no need for a bedroom.

Qingyao was extremely satisfied with the new home, constantly scurrying back and forth across the rooms. She was particularly fond of the stairs leading to the rooftop and climbed up using all fours, only to realize she couldn't get back down once she reached the top. She lingered at the top of the stairs for a long time, unable to find anyone to help her, before lying flat on the steps and inching backward down the treads, leg by leg.

The yellow dog squatted nearby, wagging its tail with anxious concern, terrified she might tumble down.

On the first night in their new home, the family enjoyed a lavish feast to properly celebrate.

The two demons sent their new address to Officer Yan and Daoist Priest Wenyuan. Daoist Priest Wenyuan had the Five Ghosts deliver a few talismans as a housewarming gift. Of course, most of them were talismans he still owed from last time, but the official gift was a house-pacifying talisman, which was pasted right above the front door.

After Qingyao fell asleep that night, Lang Xiao and Hu Yuanfei sprawled out on the terrace to soak in the moonlight. Each demon had a talisman pinned beneath a paw. The breeze blew from all directions, and the moonlight shone directly down upon them—far more comfortable than lying on a balcony behind glass.

Qing梨 (Qingli) and Qing莱 (Qinglai) rested at the entrance of the terrace without venturing further. This spot allowed them to run downstairs and check on Qingyao at any moment while not interfering with their proximity to the two great demons for joint cultivation.

The cat and dog also had a talisman pinned under each of their paws. Compared to the slow-growing demonic energy of the senior demons, the two lesser demons needed to cultivate with all their might. Therefore, Lang Xiao kept only two talismans for herself and gave the rest to Qingli and Qinglai.

This moved the two little demons so deeply that they were practically ready to prostrate themselves and offer absolute loyalty to Lang Xiao.

Lang Xiao politely declined, "I don't need your loyalty. Just focus on your cultivation. Growing stronger as early as possible is more important than anything else."

A new home, a new environment, and a vast market waiting to be developed—bright and early the next morning, Hu Yuanfei set off with grand ambitions, armed with the promotional flyers he had printed earlier.

Lang Xiao thought he was going out to hand out name cards, but it turned out he was going door-to-door posting flyers.

The property management of this Taohua Residential Area was very lax, and almost every household's door was plastered with various small advertisements, with several rows of locksmith phone numbers stamped along the doorframes.

The residents detested this behavior deeply; no matter how many times they scraped them off, new ones appeared, leaving layers of unyielding adhesive residue piled up on the doors. Despite complaining to the property management for a long time, the residents could never stamp it out.

Hu Yuanfei didn't paste his flyers directly onto the doors; instead, he wedged the cards into the door handles so residents could easily throw them away if they wished.

Midway through, because he ran out of cards, he even made a special trip to a print shop to churn out another batch.

Hu Yuanfei waited in hopeful anticipation of new orders from customers, but what he got instead were several abusive phone calls.

"If you shove another ad into my house, I'll curse your ancestors down to the eighteenth generation! I hope you don't have descendants!"

Hu Yuanfei: "..."

After hanging up the phone, he finally realized that low-cost flyers were truly... truly ineffective.

Lang Xiao calmly consoled him, "We aren't that short on money right now. There's no need to rush if there are no orders; people will seek us out when they're in need."

Seeing Hu Yuanfei's dejected appearance, Qingli and Qinglai secretly exchanged glances.

The two demons noticed that over the next two days, the cat and dog had been slipping out rather frequently. Whenever asked, they claimed they were heading down to the basement to check on the kittens. Their new home was quite far from that place, so making a round trip wasn't easy, and wasting time like that seemed normal enough.

Two days later, Hu Yuanfei's phone rang again. Customers had finally come calling—not just one or two, but several all at once, and all located within their own residential area. It was as if an explosion of mice had suddenly hit the neighborhood over the past few days.

Hu Yuanfei found it a bit strange, but he still cheerfully accepted the orders.

Having been starved of work for a long time, Hu Yuanfei took on all these jobs himself, and once again ate so many mice he felt like vomiting.

This period of pain mixed with joy lasted for about ten days.

Until the day Lang Xiao happened to take Qingyao out for a stroll and bumped into Qingli and Qinglai, who were supposedly heading to the basement to visit the kittens. As it turned out, they hadn't visited the cats at all, but had instead been lingering and roaming around their own residential area and neighboring communities.

Lang Xiao had been suspicious for a while; the two of them were leaving early and returning late far too often. The cats were safe and had plenty of food, so they didn't need to spend large chunks of every day checking on them unless something had happened. Yet whenever she asked, the two insisted everything was fine.

Now that they were caught red-handed, Qingli instinctively wanted to hide, burying her head straight under Qinglai's belly. Realizing hiding was futile, Qinglai nudged the cat out from beneath her stomach.

Lang Xiao sat down in front of the two. "Spit it out. What have you two been up to lately?"

Qingli hung her head and apologized obediently, "I'm sorry, we lied. We didn't go check on the cats."

Qinglai whispered, "We went chasing mice."

Lang Xiao raised an eyebrow. "Chasing mice?"

Qinglai's ears twitched slightly. "Yeah, we, we chased the mice from outside... into humans' houses." She glanced secretly at Lang Xiao's expression, then quickly dropped her head again. "If there are more mice, there will be more business."

Lang Xiao: "..."

She couldn't help massaging her temples, utterly at a loss for what to say.

No wonder the mice had been scurrying around like crazy lately; no wonder the orders had suddenly surged.

"You two... really. If humans find out, we won't be able to do business anymore."

The pair immediately chimed in, "We were very careful! Humans didn't see us!"

Lang Xiao tapped each of their heads. "You can't be too careful. There are security cameras in the neighborhood. It's entirely possible you were caught on camera, and you can't guarantee you won't be discovered. Don't do this kind of thing again, understand?"

The two obediently admitted their fault. "We're sorry."

"Alright, your intentions were good, at least."

Without the cat and dog stirring up trouble, the mice finally quieted down. Coupled with the fact that Hu Yuanfei had caught a large number of them recently, the surviving mice in the neighborhood scrambled to pack up and flee at lightning speed, escaping this terrifying compound. They would probably never want to set foot here again—that fox was simply too terrifying.

Once the mice left, the orders plummeted, and Hu Yuanfei instantly found himself idle again.

Lang Xiao didn't tell Hu Yuanfei what the cat and dog had done. He simply assumed he had caught too many mice and scared the rest away, and he spent his time regretting that he shouldn't have worked quite so hard.

Aside from work, March held one other major event. Lang Xiao had marked the date on the calendar long in advance.

The day of the Vernal Equinox was Qingyao's first birthday.

None of the demons had ever celebrated a birthday before, but this was a momentous occasion for a cub, and it had to be prepared properly.

Lang Xiao searched online everywhere for how to celebrate a child's birthday and discovered that ordinary parents chose to take commemorative photos for their kids, order a cake, decorate the house, and then enjoy a lavish feast as a family.

That was when Lang Xiao realized their family had never taken a group photo together.

"Let's go take a family portrait," Lang Xiao suggested.

Hu Yuanfei raised all four limbs in agreement instantly. He did a playful roll on the floor and popped back up. "Yay, yay! When?"

Mobile phones could take pictures nowadays, and Lang Xiao planned to shoot it herself with her phone. Aside from human-form photos, she also wanted to capture a group photo in their true animal forms, which made hiring a human photographer impossible.

As it happened, Qingli had a knack for photography and could act as the director.

Although Qingli seemed to possess exquisite photographic skills, she had never actually taken pictures of people herself. With slight trepidation, she took the phone handed to her by Lang Xiao, terrified of dropping it. Cautiously, she propped up her upper body, walking upright on just her hind legs.

Even so, the human smartphone was still a bit too big for her. Though she managed to hold it, her paws couldn't reach the capture button at all, forcing her to lower her head and try pressing it with her nose.

Sure enough, the phone slipped and fell.

Qingli hurriedly picked the phone back up to check it. Fortunately, nothing was broken, but the photo she had accidentally triggered not only missed the people entirely, it was also a blurry mess.

"This isn't going to work!"

Qingli handed the phone back to Lang Xiao, holding up her paws in utter frustration. "I can't take pictures."

She genuinely wanted to do a good job, but her physical limitations forced her to give up with a sigh.

Lang Xiao stroked her head. "It's fine. We'll have someone else take it, and you can be the director."

Aside from Daoist Priest Wenyuan, the only people who knew they were demons were Officer Yan Kai and his colleagues. Daoist Priest Wenyuan had been so busy through February that he hadn't even visited, and she had just seen him on the news a couple of days ago attending some academic conference or another—he definitely wouldn't have time to help with such a minor matter.