When Ling Luo opened her eyes again, the first thing she saw was Mom’s familiar face.

“My good girl, you’re awake. How do you feel?”

A faint smile hung on Mom’s face. She looked as calm as ever, completely unruffled, and that alone made Ling Luo feel at ease.

What Ling Luo didn’t know was that the hand Mom kept behind her back was still trembling a little.

The moment her familiar reported that her precious daughter had fainted by the roadside, Mengya had rushed over at once.

Ling Luo blinked her big eyes, looked around, and realized this was her own living room. She was lying on the sofa.

“What’s wrong, sweetheart? Why aren’t you saying anything?”

Seeing that her daughter was acting strangely, Mom was starting to lose her composure.

Ling Luo suddenly threw her arms around her mother and burst into loud sobs, crying so hard she looked utterly pitiful.

“Waaah... Mom, the little dark room was so scary... sob, sob—”

Her crying rose and fell in waves, so miserable it was just like a child coming out of a haunted house completely scared out of their wits.

“There, there. Don’t be scared. It’s all over now...”

Mom gently stroked her back to comfort her. She didn’t ask what she had gone through. After all, she had been through it herself, so she understood perfectly well.

In a daze, Mom suddenly remembered the days when little Luo Ling used to act spoiled in her arms. How many years ago had that been?

She didn’t think too deeply about it, and simply focused on soothing the little treasure in her arms.

By all logic, this should’ve been a warm scene of a mother comforting her crying daughter. So why did it look more like an older sister coaxing her clingy little sister?

No one knew how much time passed before Ling Luo’s sobbing slowly quieted down and she gradually got her emotions under control.

In truth, she had regained her senses a long time ago. When she realized she was crying in Mom’s arms, she felt terribly embarrassed. But she couldn’t show it, so she had no choice but to keep acting.

Still... being in Mom’s arms really did feel amazing. Warm, safe, comforting...

Even though she knew someone her age still acting spoiled in her mother’s arms was pretty shameless, right now she just wanted to stay like this a little longer.

If it were the old her, she wouldn’t have dared think such a thing even if you beat her to death.

A boy close to 1.7 meters tall curling up in his mother’s arms and acting spoiled—what kind of image was that? Even she didn’t dare imagine it. But now she was just a 1.4-meter loli, so acting a little more spoiled and a little more willful should be fine, right?

“Feeling better now, sweetheart? Is there anything you want to tell Mom? Saying it out loud might make you feel better.” Mom patted her back lightly as she spoke in a gentle voice.

“Mom... am I already a bad kid?”

Ling Luo buried her face in Mom’s shoulder so she couldn’t see her expression.

“Why would you say that?”

“I said something like that... I even encouraged someone else to do bad things... I’m not a good kid anymore...” There was obvious sobbing in Ling Luo’s voice.

“You must feel really conflicted right now.”

Ling Luo nodded, but she still didn’t want Mom to see her face.

“Hehe. Compared to a Succubus, my good daughter, you’re more like a human. When we Succubi do bad things, we don’t feel guilty at all. We might even enjoy it.”

“But... I felt that kind of enjoyment too...” Ling Luo said softly.

“That’s perfectly normal. It’s the influence of your bloodline. It’s not something upbringing can easily erase. You were raised as a human since childhood, so human values and morals are already deeply rooted in your heart. But the influence of your bloodline can’t be removed either. The conflict between those two sides is the source of your inner turmoil.”

Mengya paused before continuing, “But let’s put that aside for now. Mom wants to ask you something.”

Mom’s tone suddenly turned serious, making Ling Luo take it seriously too. She raised her head to look at her, yet Mom’s expression was still so gentle, like flowing water.

“What question?” Ling Luo asked while wiping away her tears.

“Do you want to be human, or do you want to be a Succubus?”

“I... I don’t know...” Ling Luo lowered her head. “If you’d asked me at the beginning, I probably would’ve said I wanted to be a Succubus. Partly because it felt new, partly because I was curious. I wanted to know what a Succubus’s life was like. But what happened these past two days made me realize... I still want to laugh and play with my classmates and friends like before. I want to get along with them as an ordinary human... But that’s already just wishful thinking now, because I’m a real Succubus...”

“Well, actually, Mom had similar troubles before too.”

“Huh?”

“When I was taking care of you, I used to imagine how nice it would be if we were just an ordinary family. If the two of us were just a normal mother and child, or father and son, or mother and daughter.”

“Mom, you just didn’t want to keep running around for my food, right?”

“Hahaha, that’s definitely part of it. But more than that, I wanted to live a peaceful life with you...”

“Uh... the way you say that, did something happen to you before?” Ling Luo asked cautiously.

“Life in the Demon Realm is pretty turbulent. Even if I said more, it’d still be hard for you to understand.”

“Uh...”

“Don’t ask any further. I don’t really want to talk about it... Anyway, back to the point. Even though I dreamed of living an ordinary human life, I also understood that I was a Succubus. I was confused about it before. I struggled with it too. But I never let it affect the life right in front of me. And over all these years, I found my own answer.”

Ling Luo looked at Mom with expectant eyes, waiting for what she would say next.

“Whether I’m human or a Succubus, none of that matters as much as one thing to me: being your mother, Ling Luo.”

Mengya stroked Ling Luo’s little head and continued, “So it’s okay if you don’t have an answer yet, daughter. The road ahead is still long. Take your time and find it slowly. And your answer doesn’t have to be one of those two. You need to find the answer that belongs to you.”

“Mhm, I understand.” Ling Luo nodded hard. “Mom, you mean I should just be myself, right?”

“As expected of my daughter. You caught on so fast!”

“Thank you for explaining it to me.” Ling Luo gave her a bright smile, then suddenly changed the subject. “But Mom, you’re obviously a Succubus, yet you can say something so philosophical. That’s honestly completely unexpected.”

“Hey! What’s that supposed to mean? Just because I’m a Succubus, I can’t say something like that? That’s blatant discrimination! Just see how I deal with you!”

Then the mother and daughter started playfully roughhousing. The scene looked like two little kids having a physical argument.

“Alright, enough fooling around. Let’s talk about you again. Do you regret canceling the contract?”

“Well... if I said I didn’t regret it at all, that’d definitely be a lie. But if it helped Yixiao feel at ease, then it was worth it. Besides... it was also a kind of punishment for encouraging him to do bad things...”

Mengya could feel the guilt in her daughter’s eyes, but she said nothing. She simply listened quietly.

“Wait, no. Mom, why do you know about that? Were you spying on me or something?!”

“Oh my, looks like I got exposed.” Mom covered her mouth and laughed softly. “Xiaoyou, come out and introduce yourself.”

“Yes, Master.”

An eyeball with bat wings suddenly flew out from Mom’s long hair. Then it respectfully introduced itself to Ling Luo. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Little Master.”

“That’s... a familiar, right?!” Ling Luo said excitedly, and immediately pulled Xiaoyou into her arms.

“That’s right. It’s Mom’s familiar, Xiaoyou.”

“Ooh! Mom, I want to learn that! I want to summon a familiar too!”

Right now, Ling Luo looked as excited as a child who had just seen a new toy. But in truth, seeing a familiar had simply ignited her chuuni soul.

“I can teach you, but maintaining a familiar’s existence constantly consumes magic power~” Mom said with a mischievous grin.

“Uh... then I’ll think about it later...”

Without a completed contract, and with no source of magic power at all right now, Ling Luo simply didn’t have the means to indulge herself. She could only bury that romantic dream of summoning a familiar in her heart for the time being.

“Oh right, so Mom really did send it to spy on me, didn’t she? Does that mean you know every single thing I did?!”

Ling Luo was instantly overwhelmed with shame. After all, all the stupid things she had done outside had been seen by Mom through this familiar. It was basically public execution.

Seeing her daughter’s shy, adorable reaction filled Mengya with delight. But to keep her familiar from being hugged to death by her daughter, she quickly explained, “Xiaoyou isn’t that tactless. It only told me the general outline. I don’t know the exact details of what you did. So hurry and let it go, sweetheart. You’re about to suffocate it.”

“Waaah, sorry, sorry!” Ling Luo quickly let go of Xiaoyou and apologized.

“It’s fine... Little Master... To die in your arms... would also be my honor...”

“Don’t say scary stuff like that!” Ling Luo shot back.

Mom set Ling Luo down from her lap, then stood up. “Alright, let’s stop here for now. I should go find something to eat. Feeding you filled you up, but it left me hungry. Your appetite’s even bigger than mine. What a headache.”

Mom’s words made Ling Luo notice the fullness she felt now. After going through that horrible hunger before, having her stomach completely filled brought her a kind of happiness she had never felt before. Even so, she was still extremely resistant to the fact that Mom had fed her.

Ling Luo struggled to squeeze out a thank-you, then said, “I’ll work hard from now on. As for feeding... Mom, you really shouldn’t do that again... I mean, for a mother and daughter to do that, it’s just too... you know...”

“That won’t do. Then I wouldn’t get to taste my daughter’s flavor. And that’s an absolute delicacy!”

“You idiot, Mom! What kind of weird stuff are you saying?!” Ling Luo instantly bristled, and her cute face turned as red as an apple.

Mengya looked at Ling Luo’s bashful expression and felt completely satisfied. If not for the very obvious hunger urging her to go feed, she would’ve kept teasing her a while longer.

“I’m not teasing you anymore,” Mengya said, stroking Ling Luo’s little head. “I really do need to go hunt for food. If there’s anything else, we can talk slowly after I get back, my little princess.”

Mengya deliberately stressed the words little princess.

“Huh?!” Ling Luo cried out.

Did Mom know that she had called herself a princess?! Ahhh, this is so embarrassing...

Ling Luo evolved from a red apple into a steaming little kettle.

“My little princess, what’s wrong?” Mom asked with concern.

“Mom, why did you suddenly start calling me that...”

Ling Luo lowered her head, too embarrassed to look at Mom’s face. The little wings on her head kept fluttering nonstop, fanning her tiny head to cool it down. Meanwhile, Mom wore a completely gloating expression and was practically about to laugh out loud.

“I just felt like it on a whim. Is there a problem with that?”

“N-no problem...” Ling Luo answered softly.

After hearing that explanation, Ling Luo felt much more relieved, and her burning cheeks finally started to cool down.

“Mom really has to go now. Stay home and get some good rest.”

“Mhm...” Ling Luo replied obediently.