His speed compared to Qing Lian's was like that of a cheetah to a snail. There was no way she could harm herself with him so close. Right before the sharp rock could crush her windpipe, Liu Xing was in front of her. He swung his arm like a whip, aiming to deflect her hand and the rock. He controlled his power just as his hand was about to land, ensuring he wouldn't sever her arm with the force of the blow. His hand struck her wrist with a sharp slap, and the rock flew from her grasp, arcing high into the sky as if trying to reach the sky.

Qing Lian looked at him with a sharp, cold gaze. Realizing the rock was gone, she grabbed her own neck with both hands and began to squeeze. Judging by the bulging veins on her arms, Liu Xing had no doubt she would succeed in suffocating herself, but he wouldn't let her. He reappeared behind her, aimed for the pressure point on the back of her neck, and swung his hand. His arm moved like a blur and, in a fraction of a second, hit its intended target. A soft thud echoed, and Qing Lian crumpled, her eyes closed, though her hands were still trying to choke her.

As she fell, Liu Xing extended his arms and caught her, then repositioned her into a princess carry. As the sun shone down, illuminating the small valley and the woman in his arms, Liu Xing could not help but sigh.

This was hard. It seemed words alone could not change her heart, which meant he needed to do something else to make her want to live. But what? He didn't know. He was quite sure that once this woman woke up, she would rush to another cliff to jump, find a knife to stab her own heart, or grab a rock to smash her own head.

He observed her face. In her unconscious state, she looked calm. The madness that surrounded her was suppressed, but the ambient qi was still trying to harass her. He decided she was under his protection and, with a sharp gaze and strong will, chased the annoying qi away.

Liu Xing looked up, calculated the force he needed to get to the top of the cliff in a single leap, and kicked off the ground. He shot into the air until gravity slowly pulled him down again, lessening his momentum. The angle he chose was perfect, and when gravity finally won, he landed softly on the clifftop. He then raised his head and came face to face with a baby floating in the air. His little face looked calm, yet Liu Xing knew that behind those serene eyes, hundreds of thoughts were swirling, threatening to overwhelm the miraculous child.

"I got your mom," Liu Xing said as he gestured to the woman in his arms.

The baby nodded. "Thank you."

This time, he didn't create words from light. Instead, he vibrated the ambient qi around him until it produced a deep and calm voice, like that of an adult. Liu Xing raised his eyebrows. "I didn't know you could do that. Why did you choose to show me words earlier if you could do this?"

Liu Xing began to walk toward the floating baby and the white pillow, then passed them. The baby turned and positioned himself at his side. Together, they moved toward their shabby little hut.

"It's harder to do," the baby said, though his mouth never moved. "However, I think you deserve more effort from me."

Liu Xing kept walking, his face pointed straight ahead, as if he didn't acknowledge the floating baby beside him. As he walked, he could see the destruction he had wrought on the area. Several trees had fallen, some at angles that avoided hitting anything, but many had crashed over other trees. Some of them were small saplings, their bodies snapped and utterly broken. Hopefully, they could overcome the damage and regrow.

"Qing Yuan," Liu Xing said as he jumped over a fallen tree. "Is she a bad mother?"

The baby was silent for a long moment, and the silence was oppressive. No insects dared to make a sound, and even the wind stopped, ceasing the creaking of the trees.

"Bad is an understatement," he said after a while. "Have you ever been beaten by your own mother, Liu Xing? Have your lips been split open, your skull cracked, and your ribs punctured your own lungs?"

"That bad, huh?" he commented, then looked at the woman he carried. She looked peaceful now, her chest rising and falling rhythmically. She looked more like she was sleeping than passed out. She talked as if she were the only victim in her life when, in reality, she too had made severe mistakes.

"Is that why you hesitated? You wanted your mother to die?"

The baby looked down as if ashamed of himself. Liu Xing admitted that he hadn't been paying close enough attention to Qing Lian and had missed the signs of what she was about to do. But Qing Yuan knew for a fact that his mother had moved toward a cliff, and yet, he had hesitated for a moment.

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"I don't," he said. "That's why I asked you for help."

Liu Xing nodded. In the end, while he was the one who had caught Qing Lian, the baby was the one who had alerted him. If he hadn't spoken up, the woman would now have a cracked skull, and her blood would be flowing between the rocks, staining the little river red.

"Do you regret it?" Liu Xing asked, gesturing toward the mother in his arms. "Alerting me, I mean."

"It's complicated," he replied, his lips curled down, his eyes grimacing. "How old are you, Liu Xing?"

"I am twenty," Liu Xing answered.

"You have twenty years of experience," he continued. "But I, while I sound like an adult and can regulate my feelings better than my mother, am merely two years old. I have no experience. I don't know what to feel because there's no one to guide me. What am I supposed to do with her?"

Liu Xing tried to imagine his position. He imagined that instead of transmigrating into an adult Liu Xing, he had transmigrated into a newborn Qing Yuan. The first year was supposedly normal. Though they were poor, his father and mother loved and cared for him. This was also the time his memory gradually came back. Everything went wrong when his father went on his journey. His mother became more feral, unstable, and began abusing him. She needed to look for food but couldn't leave her baby alone. This made her life harder, and she lashed out. He imagined her fierceness gradually increasing. First by grumbling and shouting. Then, she slapped him when he cried and berated him. Knowing that crying would bring harm, he decided not to cry, which only enabled her more. After all, if he stopped crying when she hit him, she would hit him on almost every occasion, resulting in him suppressing his emotions. This creeped her out and pissed her off even more, making her hit him harder. This also made her neglect him. But since he didn't want to die, he began reaching out for food. When some kind of energy answered his call and animals began helping him, he survived. But when his mother saw it, she was angry and creeped out and hit him again.

Liu Xing closed his eyes to calm his emotions. It was just his imagination, but there was a chance that the baby was suffering more than he thought. After all, he had imagined his past self transmigrating into a baby with a difficult mother. However, this baby claimed to have no prior memories, meaning he had to learn everything from scratch. He must have been confused about many things.

Soon, they arrived at the hut. Liu Xing put her down on the shabby little bed inside, grabbed a mug, and filled it with water. As he gulped it down, a refreshing feeling spread through his throat. He hoped the feeling would spread to his whole body, but it didn't. So, he walked outside, found a tree, and sat down, observing the stain of Qing Yuan's blood on the ground, the result of the wild dog attack. The baby floated to his side, his face also in deep contemplation.

At that moment, Liu Xing realized that the baby was not well in the head either.

"You let that dog bite you," Liu Xing said. "Why?"

"She was starving," the baby vibrated the qi around him. "Madness had consumed her, and I couldn't communicate well with her. So, I planned to give her my leg. One time, I lost my pinky." He showed him his right pinky. At a glance, there was nothing special about it, but upon closer inspection, Liu Xing could see a faint, thin line on it, like a ring. "But I successfully regenerated it. I thought I could regenerate my whole foot too."

"What if you couldn't?" Liu Xing asked.

"Then I would live the rest of my life without a foot. Not an impossible thing to do. I've seen a man living with a wooden right foot."

Liu Xing could not help but shake his head. This baby was also seeking death. He had lied. He didn't plan to give the dog only his leg. He planned to give the wild dog his entire body. It was the stuff of legends. A miraculous baby, letting a wild dog eat him because the dog starved. He would not be surprised if a story like that already existed. Hell, perhaps it did. He had a vague recollection of one, though it was a monk and a buffalo.

"How about you letting her try to kill you?" Liu Xing asked.

"I thought it would make her happy," he instantly replied.

Again, it wasn't fully because of his mother. It was about him, too. Liu Xing sighed. "What am I supposed to do with both of you?"

"You can leave us alone," he said, "just like my mother said."

"That's not an option," Liu Xing said. "I cannot let you die. Also, I'll tell you straight. Your clan, the Qing clan, is hunting your mother right now. They want her dead."

At this, the baby raised his eyebrows. "Truly? Why? I know that family thought of my mother as a disgrace. However, they also saw her as a mere maggot. Did she do something foolish?"

"No," Liu Xing shook his head. "In fact, she did nothing wrong. You see, today is the day the servants and workers of that family get their monthly wages. A cultivator decided to exchange a spirit stone for their money. He thought it was harmless. However, a worker decided to hide the spirit stone and claim their wages had been stolen. The first person they suspected was your mother. One thing led to another, and now they want your mother dead, as well as to capture the cultivator, since they want something from him."

"And that cultivator feels guilty," the baby added, "so he decided to protect my mother and her creepy baby. Is that right?"

"Yeah," Liu Xing said. "That pretty much sums it up."

The baby smiled. "Well, then I will not resist. It sounds like an adventure."

And an adventure, it was.

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