“You say you’re Neo?”
“Then this hall master asks you, how many bites does this hall master take to finish a bowl of rice?”
After bringing Neo back to the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor, the girl named Hu Tao looked at him suspiciously after hearing his explanation.
Her hands, however, were already skillfully making tea.
“…”
“One bite per bowl.”
Neo was speechless for a moment.
Hu Tao clearly hadn’t even considered whether anyone could answer that question, but after thinking about it, he still gave her a firm answer.
“?”
“When did this hall master become such a big eater? How come this hall master doesn’t know?”
A question mark appeared above Hu Tao’s head.
“Phew…”
“Don’t remember? Because you secretly ate candy and weren’t hungry at dinner, so while Grandpa Hu wasn’t paying attention, you shoveled all the rice from your bowl into mine.”
“You only put one bite in your mouth, then opened your mouth for everyone to see, pretending you had eaten everything.”
Neo smiled, picked up his teacup, and blew on it before telling her this story from long ago.
“…”
Hu Tao was clearly stunned.
“You really aren’t Neo.”
“With that dull and silly look of his, how could he possibly remember something that happened when he was this young?”
Hu Tao quickly came back to her senses, crossed her arms over her chest, and said with certainty.
“Hey, hey, you’re implying I’m stupid, aren’t you?”
Neo looked speechlessly at Hu Tao sitting opposite him.
He felt that what he had just said should have been enough to prove his identity.
Since even that didn’t work, he could only bring out something more serious.
“Then Hu Tao, do you still remember how, when we played horse-riding games back then, you would cheat and refuse to play every time it was your turn to be the horse?”
“And there was that one time playing hide-and-seek when you hid inside a coffin and fell asleep. I searched for you outside for two hours…”
“Oh, right, back then your favorite was the one with the little bear pattern…”
“Mm?!”
Halfway through Neo’s sentence, Hu Tao finally couldn’t take it anymore and pounced on him.
“Stop, stop! This hall master believes you, all right!”
Hu Tao tightly covered Neo’s mouth with both hands.
There were still employees in the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor.
If she let him continue, this hall master’s dignity would be completely gone.
But dignity was secondary.
Most importantly, he absolutely could not mention the little bear pattern. This chapter is updated first at g.com.
“Mmph!”
Neo could only obediently nod, and only then did Hu Tao let go.
“Phew…”
“Neo, can you tell me about what happened all these years? Have you been doing well? And how did you find your way back to Liyue?”
After letting go of Neo, Hu Tao sat back down in her original seat and couldn’t help asking him these questions.
When Neo was eight years old, Hu Tao was only six and a half.
After he disappeared, the two of them had not seen each other for ten years.
Hu Tao couldn’t remember much from before that, so what Neo had just mentioned was basically all from that year.
“Mm, actually, I don’t remember the details of what happened back then very well either. At that time…”
Neo nodded and then told Hu Tao about the things he still remembered.
Although Neo had transmigrated eighteen years ago, when he was still young, even though he had memories from his previous life, he had always been rather clumsy and dull.
Perhaps a child’s brain simply couldn’t contain an adult’s way of thinking.
Under those circumstances, Neo’s actual performance was that of a somewhat silly child whose intelligence didn’t seem quite normal.
Even though he actually recognized everything, he only got better once his brain had mostly developed in his teens.
This also resulted in something ridiculous: as a transmigrator, he actually got kidnapped and sold.
He didn’t remember anything in between.
He should have been controlled by some kind of drug.
By the time Neo’s memories became continuous again, he was already a homeless child on the streets of Snezhnaya.
Not only had he been kidnapped and sold!
He had even been thrown away by the traffickers because nobody was willing to buy him.
Thinking of this, Neo became quite angry.
It wasn’t until five years later, when he was arrested by the security officers for knocking more than a dozen adults unconscious with a brick during a turf dispute, that he was recruited into the Fatui and given training.
“Eh? Then you’ve done much better than this hall master. Other than this Wangsheng Funeral Parlor, this hall master has nothing…”
When she heard that Neo had risen to the rank of lieutenant in Snezhnaya, Hu Tao was somewhat surprised.
That was a military officer, after all, completely different from an ordinary “common citizen” like her.
“No matter how well I was doing, it’s useless now. In order to come back, I already applied for early retirement.”
Neo shook his head and explained.
That part wasn’t wrong.
Although finding his family back in Liyue wasn’t his main purpose, if he hadn’t done this, he wouldn’t have had a chance to return.
“That’s such a shame. I was actually thinking of asking Lieutenant Neo to help promote our Wangsheng Funeral Parlor’s overseas services.”
“But when I think about it carefully, it’s kind of touching. Neo, you were actually willing to give up such a bright future just to come back and find this hall master!” Enjoying the story? Read on at novelping . com.
After learning that Neo had already retired, Hu Tao first put her hands on her hips and sighed regretfully, but soon became somewhat moved as she spoke.
Neo had no relatives in Liyue Harbor.
Or rather, Grandpa Hu, Hu Tao, and their three-generation family were Neo’s only relatives, despite having no blood relation.
So when Neo returned, Hu Tao felt that he could only have come back to find them.
“Pfft… Maybe I came back to compete with you for the precious inheritance?”
Hearing Hu Tao’s words, Neo didn’t feel it was much of a shame and couldn’t help joking.
“Hmph, no way. Your name isn’t in Grandpa’s will, and you have no inheritance rights.”
Hu Tao didn’t mind Neo’s joke.
She crossed her arms over her chest and spoke smugly.
“Aiya, then there’s nothing I can do.”
“Speaking of which, it seems to be getting late. Hu Tao, have you eaten?”
Neo smiled and nodded, then glanced outside the window to check the time before asking Hu Tao.
“Fine, fine, this hall master understands. This hall master’s buying lunch. Let’s go to Wanmin Restaurant.”
“But wait, I’ll leave a message for the guest. He still has things to do this afternoon…”
Hu Tao agreed, then stood up and walked to the side.
“The guest?”
Neo knew exactly who she meant, but still pretended to look confused.
When he was still at the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor ten years ago, there had been no such guest.
“Mm, a very capable guest of our Wangsheng Funeral Parlor. He knows the heavens above and the earth below. Other than spending money like water, he’s good at everything.”
Hu Tao explained, picked up paper and pen, and quickly left a message before turning around and leaving with Neo.
“A very capable guest? How capable? Is he as capable as the Geo Archon?”, Neo followed beside Hu Tao.
He felt like teasing her a little, so he asked.
“Heh, there really is one thing he’s better at than the Geo Archon. With the way the guest spends money, even the Geo Archon couldn’t learn it.”
“Speaking of which, what did you eat in Snezhnaya? I remember you didn’t dare eat spicy food when you were little. Can you eat it now?”
After responding, Hu Tao continued chatting with Neo and asked about his eating habits.
“My diet in Snezhnaya was pretty varied. Sometimes I could even eat at restaurants run by Liyue chefs. And I can eat spicy food now.”, Neo answered.
He had now completely conquered “spiciness.”
But it wasn’t because his tolerance for spicy food had become particularly strong.
It was because “spiciness” was a sensation of pain, and the continuous health regeneration effect of the Rules of Survival in the Snow could quickly stop the pain.
So Neo only had to endure it for a moment, after which he could balance things out.
Even if his mouth was still burning, it wouldn’t be especially painful.
Probably…
“Hehe, then this hall master has to take you to challenge Wanmin Restaurant’s extra-spicy boiled fish. Don’t get scared~”