The Ger's Contract Marriage [BL]
Chapter 466: If Not You, Then Who?

Chapter 466: If Not You, Then Who?

The scene quieted down considerably, even the quiet whispers had stopped. Everyone was shocked— from the woman’s friends and family to the village chief, there was utter silence. Even the few people who had shown Xu Zeng some sort of kindness in the past were flabbergasted. What in the world was going on?

"Shrew?" Xu Zeng’s stepmother repeated again as the words seemed to hit her deeper the second time she uttered them. The haze was still there, but the thin layer of confusion couldn’t last forever.

Even if it could last forever, Bai Mo was not willing to let it, the woman was still so comfortably attached to his wife! This was his wife shared with Xu Hu Zhe, not with a third person!

"If you are not a shrew, am I?" Bai Mo glared at the woman openly, the disdain uncontainable. She was lucky he was a fox descendant and not a snake clan member. Xu Zeng was certain if he could produce venom, he would have already sprayed it all over the leech.

The offending arms and legs would be scarred beyond repair if Momo had his way.

To take things a step further, as the woman’s face transformed from a flush to a light tint of blush, Bai Mo looked from one side to the other, not particularly looking for anyone in the crowd. He continued this sweeping search for a few seconds before his eyes landed back on the leech— cold with a slightly violent tinge behind them.

"If not you, then who? I see some shameless people, but only one shameless shrew."

...

As the sound of laughter bubbled up from deep within him, Xu Zeng couldn’t contain it any longer. "Pfft!" It burst forth, startling even himself, but there was no shame in it. Soon, his laughter swelled into hearty guffaws, echoing through the encirclement.

"Hahahahaha!" The joyous sound seemed to dance in the air, scattering his tension like leaves in the wind. Some of the villagers instinctively stepped back, taken aback by the unexpected display of joy. It was a rare and enchanting sight, seeing Xu Zeng—usually so reserved and somber—laughing so freely.

How could such a noise come from Xu Zeng?

Xu Zeng was the quiet ger who kept to himself, was hardworking to a fault, and was without a doubt everyone’s free whipping boy.

At some point, the gloom around him had become unmistakable. How could that gloomy minefield produce such a pleasant noise?

He left for some time, and now he turned into this strange creature.

In the midst of the confusion, Bai Mo’s irritation seemed to intensify. His icy gaze bore into the crowd, the flicker of annoyance overshadowed by a protective glare. It wasn’t the laughter that irked him, but rather the audacity of the woman still clinging to his mate like a leech.

He wasn’t allowed to touch his wife— this was his own fault for reminding said wife they needed to be married before skinship, but no one needed to know that part— why wouldn’t he be upset seeing someone else touching him so carefreely?

"Detach your body from my wife before I take you to the yamen!" The shout seemed to snap the woman out of the enchantment Xu Zeng had unknowingly cast on her. She released one hand before coming to her senses once again.

The hand was quickly secured once more around a certain silver-haired ger’s figure, and a scowl was painted on her face. Still, with all the anger in the world, she dared not look Bai Mo in the eyes.

As a bit of a compromise, she had unwound her legs from Xu Zeng and seemingly regained her composure.

Others might not have noticed, but Xu Zeng felt the woman not only ground herself, she planted her feet into the ground unnaturally, trying to firmly root Xu Zeng from moving them once again.

The demon beast rolled his eyes skillfully— he was a self-taught talent who didn’t need teaching in this area.

If he really wanted to move them both, her grip on the ground would be nothing at all. It was only because he was low on energy, and was trying to leave her with some sort of face, that he didn’t struggle with her right there and then.

He couldn’t make it a fight between a demon beast and a village woman, but he could fight with her a village woman versus a village ger— it would be his win eventually, even if he had to get a bit dirty.

"How... how... how dare you call his own mother a shrew...?" She tried to sound proud as she defended herself, but the words fell flat under the stammers.

Shame or not, she wouldn’t give up so easily.

Xu Zeng’s stepmother wasn’t ready to give up this fight so easily, wealthy young master or not, noble or not, she was Xu Zeng’s mother.

"As far as I know, my wife has no mother. My wife also has no father. The only relative he has in this Sun Village is a deceased dad whom we came to visit before our wedding— "

The woman was smart enough not to draw attention to Bai Mo’s statement of Xu Zeng’s lack of a mother and father, even as the crowd began to mutter in disapproval. Their concern made sense in a backward way, after all, how could Xu Zeng have no mother and no father? If he had no mother and no father, did he still have a connection to their Sun Village?

"How can he even dare claim he has a family in this Sun Village? This unfilial son has not come back to visit his family for nearly a year! He did not return for his dad’s death day nor did he come back for New Year’s celebrations! What an unfilial child!!! He only returns to do wicked things, take what does not belong to him, and hurt his father and me. He has two young brothers, and he can’t ever—"

The woman had found her steam again and began a long tirade. Xu Zeng wasn’t sure when it would end. Luckily, he had Bai Mo, and the fox wasn’t above cutting the woman off directly.

"Silence." The power behind Bai Mo’s words felt like a gentle caress as it radiated around Xu Zeng. As soon as the caress left his body, it turned overbearing and fiery, like a scorching whip, both sharp and burning in its lashing.

The crowd once again grew silent as everyone looked at the fox in fear and... awe.

It was clear they were confused. Was this the power of the wealthy and noble, or was this the power of the immortal blood carriers?

The lore of the immortal beasts and immortal bloodline carriers was even more scarce in the rural areas of Dongzhou. It was knowledge only the upper class were privy to, after all, why would one of such great heritage suffer in such a remote area when they could reap benefits among their own kind?

This ignorance wasn’t a shock to Bai Mo, how could it be? The villagers treated a treasure like Xu Zeng and Xu Feng, with their obvious superior lineage, like dirt.

Even if they were all unaware Xu Feng and Xu Zeng were immortal demon beasts, the villagers clearly didn’t even understand how rare and sought after silver hair was in the capital— any kingdom’s capital in Dongzhou would have those who understood the two brothers’s value from a bloodline perspective.

"Don’t think I didn’t hear you earlier." Bai Mo’s glare had taken on a darker light. "No one had visited Xu Zeng’s dad in a year. Is this true or false?"

...

"True or false?" Bai Mo didn’t raise his voice, but the emphasis caused the crowd to shuffle backward once again.

"True!"

"TRUE!"

"Yes!"

The shouts of agreement came one by one, some in unison, as the villagers stumbled over their words to answer Bai Mo’s question.

"How can it be that the husband hasn’t visited his first wife in a year, but the child sold out of the village is rebuked for not visiting?"

...

"There was no visit to the shrine, so the dead have been alone without any comfort in the afterlife. Even if one keeps the memorial tablet at home, the shrine should be visited yearly."

"Hmph." Xu Zeng once again released a sound unknowingly. He agreed with Bai Mo and appreciated the other’s words, but Bai Mo didn’t even know the full story. His disgust couldn’t be held in.

"Am I wrong?" Bai Mo asked, his voice softening as he looked Xu Zeng in the eye.

The demon beast felt his heart flutter, and a sensation tickle the inside of his stomach. He felt... giddy.

"They didn’t even store my dad’s memorial tablet in the house he built for them. In the last five... no six years, my dad’s memorial tablet is the only one in the village shrine. In six years, I’m the only one to ever visit him and bring him offerings."