Little Pink Starfish

Xiao Zhuang Is a Furry Fanatic

After learning that Xiongxiong’s gang had kidnapped the Seventh Prince, Li Yuanle quietly said to Gu Xinglang, “We can’t kill this group, but we also can’t send them to the Dali Temple.”

Gu Xinglang nodded in agreement.

“Little sister-in-law!” Gu Xingyan shouted from the top of the tree, “Help me down!”

“Is Second Brother injured?” Gu Xinglang asked Yu Xiaoxiao. With his brother’s skills, how could he not be able to jump down from that crooked tree?

“He was drugged with a tranquilizer,” Yu Xiaoxiao replied.

Xiao Wei chimed in beside her, explaining, “Second Young Master was dosed with ‘Boneless Powder.’”

Besides making someone weak and limp, it wasn’t really a harmful drug, so Gu Xinglang relaxed and turned to look at Xiao Zhuang.

Before Gu Xinglang could even open his mouth, Xiao Zhuang leapt up into the tree and helped Gu Xingyan down.

Er Gouzi, still the only one left sitting on the tree, shouted to Yu Xiaoxiao, “Sis! Sis!”

Gu Xinglang looked at the bloody-faced young man on the tree and couldn’t make out his features. He asked, “Who’s he calling ‘sis’?” Why did it sound like he was calling his wife “sis”?

“He’s calling me,” Yu Xiaoxiao said. “Xiao Gu, that’s Er Gouzi.”

Gu Xinglang instantly thought—maybe just leave that guy up in the tree.

“Wait there, I’ll come get you,” Yu Xiaoxiao shouted to Er Gouzi as she got ready to climb the tree.

But Xiao Zhuang couldn’t let his princess do that, so he climbed up again and brought Er Gouzi down.

“You… you’re a princess?” Er Gouzi stared at Yu Xiaoxiao as soon as he touched the ground.

“I am. You got a problem with that?” Yu Xiaoxiao retorted. She didn’t want to be a princess either—blame fate.

Er Gouzi burst into tears.

Yu Xiaoxiao turned to Xiao Wei and asked, “Is me being a princess really that upsetting to him?”

Without a word, Xiao Wei smacked Er Gouzi back into the pirate crowd. The guy had fallen in love at first sight, only to discover his dream girl was royalty—how could he not cry?

“Let’s go home,” Yu Xiaoxiao said to Gu Xinglang.

“What about these people?” Gu Xinglang asked, clearly troubled as he looked at the bandit leader’s gang.

“Take them home too,” Yu Xiaoxiao replied simply, “Let Grandpa question them.”

“Better the Gu Manor than the Dali Temple,” Li Yuanle muttered to Gu Xinglang.

Gu Xinglang looked at his second brother, silently asking his opinion.

At that moment, Gu Xingyan was glaring at the bandit leader and growled, “You just wait, I’m gonna skin you alive.”

Gu Xinglang sighed. “Take them home.” Right now, there didn’t seem to be any better option.

Bai Zhao and several guards were still stationed at the mouth of the mountain valley. They hadn’t moved in, but when they saw the pirates lining up obediently, Bai Zhao spurred his horse forward to meet Li Yuanle and Gu Xinglang.

“They surrendered?” Bai Zhao asked.

Gu Xinglang gave a bitter smile. “We’re taking them back for questioning.”

“To the Dali Temple?” Bai Zhao asked.

“Gu Manor,” Li Yuanle said as he flicked his whip and rode ahead.

Upon hearing that they were heading to the Gu Manor instead of the Dali Temple, Bai Zhao wisely said no more.

“Bring the bears!” came Yu Xiaoxiao’s voice from behind the carriage.

Gu Xinglang leaned out and saw his wife leading several Gu family guards—who were struggling to carry bears.

Gu Xingyan, lying inside the carriage, muttered, “What could possibly happen to your wife? I heard everything that bandit leader said.”

“Second Brother, I didn’t know about Yuanle’s family situation before,” Gu Xinglang quickly said.

Gu Xingyan replied, “No kidding. You think Little Le would ever dare speak of something like that publicly? Didn’t you notice the people he brought into the mountains didn’t look like regular guards?”

Gu Xinglang shook his head. He had stayed inside the carriage and hadn’t paid much attention to the others.

“I thought they looked like army soldiers,” Gu Xingyan said. “He probably came intending to kill people from the start.”

Gu Xinglang didn’t respond. Honestly, he’d be surprised if Li Yuanle hadn’t planned to kill for the sake of his family.

Gu Xingyan didn’t speak again. He had been under high stress these past few days, like Madam Wei. Now that the danger had passed, his tense nerves relaxed, and after saying those few words, he drifted off to sleep.

Meanwhile, Xiao Zhuang was holding two bear cubs and asked Yu Xiaoxiao, “Princess, what about them?”

Yu Xiaoxiao looked down. The mother bear had died at some point, and these two orphaned cubs wouldn’t survive long alone in the wild.

Xiao Zhuang knew this too and asked, “Princess, can I raise them?”

Yu Xiaoxiao frowned. “They’re bears. They eat a lot. You still want to raise them?”

Xiao Zhuang nodded. “I have my monthly pay. I’ll use it to raise them.”

His message was clear: Princess, I’ll pay out of my own pocket. It won’t cost you a thing.

Yu Xiaoxiao shook her head. Raising two bears—how much food would that take daily? “I don’t think it’s enough,” she told Xiao Zhuang.

Xiao Zhuang pointed at Xiao Wei. “There’s Xiao Wei’s pay too.”

Xiao Wei didn’t say a word. Sure, Xiao Zhuang was a soft-hearted fool who acted like a girl sometimes, but how could he not back his brother in a moment like this?

Yu Xiaoxiao looked at the two fuzzy little black furballs in his arms. That’s when she realized—Xiao Zhuang’s a furry fan!

One of the Gu family guard captains hesitantly said, “Bears aren’t easy to tame, are they?” There were a lot of women in the Gu household. Raising two bears sounded like a really bad idea.

Xiao Zhuang replied, “We have the princess.”

The guard captain rolled his eyes. Sure, the princess wasn’t afraid of bears—no bear could match her—but was the princess ever home? Ever since marrying the Third Young Master, had there ever been a day she stayed quietly at home?

Yu Xiaoxiao tried to reason with him. “We ate their mom. Now you want to raise the kids? Doesn’t sit right with me.”

But Xiao Zhuang refused to let go of the bear cubs.

“You really want to raise them?” Yu Xiaoxiao asked.

Xiao Zhuang nodded firmly.

“Fine,” she gave in. Between money and Xiao Zhuang’s dream, she chose to fulfill her subordinate’s wish. “We’ll keep them for now. We’ll see when they grow up.”

“Yes!” Xiao Zhuang beamed. “Thank you, Princess!”

Yu Xiaoxiao shook her head. She couldn’t understand this guy. He didn’t save up to find a wife, but he’d spend his money raising two male bears? That made zero sense.

Five guards tried to lift the dead mother bear, but no matter how many times they tried, they couldn’t get her up.

“You can’t lift it?” Yu Xiaoxiao asked.

The five guards blushed and tried again.

Yu Xiaoxiao waved them off. “Forget it, I’ll just butcher it here.”

“W-what do you mean, ‘butcher it here’?” the guard captain asked.

Not just the guards—even Xiao Zhuang and Xiao Wei looked confused.

Without a word, Yu Xiaoxiao pulled Xiao Wei’s saber from its sheath. Butchering was her specialty, after all.

Everyone watched as the princess waved the blade a few times. In the blink of an eye, the bear’s skin was peeled clean off. Most of them wanted to puke and also desperately wanted to ask:

Princess, is it really okay to skin a mom bear in front of her cubs?