Dressed as the last nine-tailed fox

Chapter 347 Death of Xu's Mother
I was totally unexpected about Xu's mother's reaction. Before that, I had no hesitation in believing that she would cling to me, her only 'lifeline', in order to survive.

"Run...? Mother...why don't you ask me first if I have found Fuxing City?"

"What's there to ask?" Mother Xu smiled and said calmly, "If there really is a place as good as Fuxing City in the world, wouldn't everyone be rushing there? How could it be our turn?"

I was a little confused by what Mother Xu said. When Xu Wenfei wanted to go to look for Fuxing City, Mother Xu was very supportive and even urged Xu Wenfei to leave as soon as possible. How come everything has suddenly changed now... "Mother, since you think Fuxing City does not exist, why did you agree to let me go to look for it?"

Mother Xu did not answer my question, but just looked at me quietly. Under the candlelight, my appearance was clearly reflected in her eyes.

I looked into Xu's mother's eyes, and from the countless intertwined emotions in her eyes, I clearly saw the maternal love that I had never felt before... The reason why I was so sure was because I had seen such eyes countless times in Fuxing City - the way my mother looked at my sister was so similar to the way Xu's mother looked at me at this moment, but such a kind and loving look had never been given to me for a single moment when I was in Fuxing City.

For the first time, I felt love from Xu's mother. Then I suddenly understood her good intentions. "You said that at the time so that I could leave Fuxing City as soon as possible, right? You thought Fuxing City didn't exist and I couldn't find it, but you acted full of hope in front of me about finding Fuxing City, just to give me a goal."

"But why?" I guessed the answer, but I didn't believe it. "If I leave, you will be the only one left in this huge Jinling City to face those creditors alone..."

"Silly child..." Perhaps my red eyes moved Mother Xu, she reached out and gently stroked my head, "I am your mother, as long as I live one day, I will protect you one day, even if the sky falls, I will support you, you don't have to worry."

As Xu's mother spoke, she moved her eyes downwards. After talking for a long time, the banknote was still in my hand. I was still maintaining the gesture she made when she stuffed the money into my hand, with no intention of keeping the banknote. Xu's mother couldn't help but frown.

Since she was able to send her son away so easily, Mother Xu was naturally not a person who was indecisive. She took my hand without saying anything and stuffed it into my arms, "Listen to me, keep these banknotes, and then leave Jinling City. Go far away, the farther the better, and never come back."

"Wait... listen to me first... Mother!" After all, I am a man and stronger than a woman. In addition, Xu's mother has been seriously ill for many years, so I easily stopped her actions.

I took out the banknotes that Xu's mother had just stuffed into my pocket and counted them. "One, two, three, four, five... there are actually five hundred taels." After counting, I slapped the five hundred taels of banknotes on the table. "I remember Xu... my father lost all the family property. Where did you get these five hundred taels, mother?"

"Mom has money." Xu's mother said sincerely, not wanting to talk about this topic any more. "Besides, it's only five hundred taels. There's no need to make a fuss."

"Only five hundred taels?" I raised my eyebrows. "To us before, five hundred taels really meant nothing, but now..." I looked up and looked around at the dilapidated environment, and said seriously, "Five hundred taels is definitely a huge sum of money for us. Mom, where did you get this money from?"

"You kid, what's the big money..." Seeing me staring at her, Xu's mother avoided my sight and said, "You're questioning me? It's not right for a child to question his mother in this world. You really learned some bad habits on this trip. You need to change them."

Knowing that Xu's mother would not tell me the truth, I simply ignored the rest of her words and analyzed to myself, "Dad owes too much gambling debt, and I am a good-for-nothing who has not passed the imperial examinations in all these years. Given your family's character of not doing anything without profit, they naturally won't help... In addition, when we left the Xu Mansion, you and I were together, and your baggage was checked by the creditors one by one. I know exactly what was in it, and there was no trace of the five hundred taels of silver..."

"Don't guess, it's just the little treasury I've been hiding out for all these years."

Seeing me looking at her with eyes that seemed to see through everything, Mother Xu was stunned for a moment and said unhappily, "Does it mean that if your father is allowed to have a concubine outside, I can't hide a little treasury outside?"

"I can hide it, but..." I pointed at the five banknotes on the table and asked sincerely, "You only hid this little? Back then, our Xu family was very wealthy. What slipped through our fingers was more than five hundred taels."

"Besides, why did you hide the money, mother? You have never been short of money... Could it be that you knew that father would become addicted to gambling? If you knew, why didn't you just divorce father and get more money?"

"I...I...I am...cough cough cough..." Mother Xu was about to explain when she suddenly started coughing violently. She quickly took out a handkerchief and covered her mouth, and then covered her face with the sleeve of her other hand.

I looked at the five hundred taels of silver on the table and frowned. I thought I knew where the five hundred taels of silver came from - medicinal herbs, Xu's mother's medicinal herbs.

In Xu Wenfei's memory, Xu's mother had always been in poor health, and she was able to survive only with the help of various expensive medicinal materials and careful care. When he was kicked out of Xu's house, Xu Wenfei's hands were filled with Xu's mother's medicine.

Even the most vicious creditors have a soft side, and leaving the medicine to prolong Xu's mother's life is the soft side of those creditors. Or maybe they don't know the value of those medicinal materials, I couldn't help but think darkly in my heart.

Even if Xu's mother covered her face with her sleeves, she could not hide the fact that the blood from her mouth had already stained the handkerchief red. When Xu Wenfei left, he specifically determined how long Xu's mother's medicine would last. Logically speaking, there should still be some medicine left for Xu's mother from the time Xu Wenfei left until now. Even if no one was taking care of her, she would never reach the point of vomiting blood.

Listening to Xu's mother's coughing and looking at her red-stained handkerchief, I felt a strange feeling in my heart, "Mom, you sold your medicine, right?" "I..." Looking at my serious expression, Xu's mother finally told the truth, "I did sell the medicine." "How can you be so confused? Those medicines are life-saving!" For some reason, I felt more genuine anger.

"Fei'er, don't be angry first, listen to me." Seeing that I was staring at the blood-stained handkerchief, Xu's mother put the handkerchief away, drank some water, moistened her throat, and said softly: "I know my mother's health. Over the years, I have been relying on those precious medicinal herbs to prolong my life. I have to stay in bed to recuperate at any time... I am not actually happy. Now, your father is dead, all the concubines have been dismissed, and all the mistresses he kept have run away. In such a big Xu family, there are only you and me left. I don't want to be a burden to you and I shouldn't be."

"That's why mother asked you to go to Fuxing City and leave Jinling. I thought I would never see you again in this life, but I didn't expect to see you for the last time." Mother Xu's tone was more pleading, "Just listen to mother and take these five hundred taels of silver notes and leave Jinling, okay?"

"I won't leave." I ignored the dirt on Xu's mother's hands, held her hand, and said sternly: "Mom, you are wrong. Fuxing City does exist. I found Fuxing City. We are rich. I can afford your medicine. I can also pay back the debt owed by Dad."

"You...you found Fuxing City?" Mother Xu couldn't believe it and said, "Fei'er, you are not lying to me, are you?"

I shook my head and said, "Mom, our Xu family has become rich again."

……

After talking for a long time, Xu Wenfei couldn't help feeling dry in the mouth, so he stopped, poured himself a cup of tea, and drank it slowly.

"So what happened next?" Kaitian was listening intently when Xu Wenfei suddenly stopped, making him feel itchy. So he asked, "Since your family is rich again, why don't you continue to live in Jinling City, but move to the slums instead? And how did you and Miss Awang get together? Where is your mother? Why are you and Miss Awang the only ones living here?"

Hearing the word "mother", Xu Wenfei's eyes darkened, and then quickly returned to normal. After putting down the teacup, Xu Wenfei spread his hands helplessly and said, "Don't worry, I will tell you everything when it is decided naturally... As for why we moved here, it is naturally because my family is not rich anymore, but it is not right to say that... To be precise, we became poor, too poor, so poor that even Jinling can't accommodate us."

"Poor?" Kaitian said in surprise, "I always thought that the word 'poor' has nothing to do with you yellow-eyed monsters."

Hearing this, Xu Wenfei just smiled helplessly, and then continued, "After the gold arrived, I took my mother... Xu Wenfei's mother, and moved back to the previous mansion. I paid off the gambling debts owed by Xu's father and continued to refill Xu's mother's medicine..." As he spoke, Xu Wenfei suddenly fell silent, and his eyes couldn't help revealing loneliness and unconcealable sadness. Yi Changle and the other two looked at each other, and just when they were about to ask, Xu Wenfei spoke again. He said self-deprecatingly, "At that time, I naively thought that I could become Xu Wenfei, or even replace Xu Wenfei, but what's fake is fake, and it can't become real after all. The motherly love that belongs to Xu Wenfei cannot fall on me... Maybe I don't deserve it, and everything is my retribution, which makes the people I care about leave me one by one."

"I thought that if I continued to take the medicine, I could save Mother Xu's life and let her live a long and healthy life. But I didn't expect that these days without the medicine had made Mother Xu's body so weak that she couldn't recover... No matter how much medicine she took or how expensive the herbs were, it would only increase her pain." Xu Wenfei couldn't help but sigh, "But Mother Xu kept holding on and always smiled at me. It wasn't until the day she collapsed in front of me that I realized that her body was so weak that she couldn't even stand steadily."

"I will never forget... When she was lying on the bed, unable to breathe, she looked at me, and reached out her trembling hand to me. I quickly leaned over, but could only watch her hand slip away powerlessly when it was just inches away from my face." Xu Wenfei's eyes seemed to have tears flashing, "I didn't feel the last warmth of Xu's mother's hand, but I heard her last murmur, 'Fei'er, Fei'er, if you were really my Fei'er.' I don't know when Xu's mother saw that I was not the real Xu Wenfei. I think this may also be a reason for her accelerated death. Later, I recalled countless times, during the days I spent with Xu's mother, where exactly did I reveal the flaws..."

Recalling the past, the sadness between Xu Wenfei's eyebrows became more and more intense. He lowered his head and tried to calm himself down.

Kaitian really didn't understand where Xu Wenfei's sadness came from. After all, he was capable of doing such a thing as peeling off someone's skin. So in Kaitian's opinion, Xu Wenfei's behavior at this time could be summed up in four words - pretentious.

Kaitian curled his lips, then blinked and asked, "What place is it?"

"What?" Xu Wenfei raised his head and looked at Kaitian in a trance.

"Where did you reveal the flaw?" Kaitian asked impatiently, "Don't you have all of Xu Wenfei's memories? How could you still reveal the flaw?"

"I do have all of Xu Wenfei's memories, but I..." Xu Wenfei lowered his eyes and said with regret, "I was possessed by a ghost and was unwilling to be just Xu Wenfei. I mixed in some of my own selfish desires, so I didn't follow Xu Wenfei's memory completely in terms of diet and daily habits. I thought that since Xu's mother was the only one left in the Xu family, I could just find an excuse to fool people."

"I killed Mother Xu." Xu Wenfei looked grief-stricken. "After Mother Xu died, every moment I spent with her kept coming to my mind. These moments showed Mother Xu's love for me, or rather, her love for Xu Wenfei."

"You are quite clear-headed and can recognize your position." Kaitian couldn't help but interrupt.

Xu Wenfei glanced at Kaitian without any emotion, and then continued: "After Xu's mother died, I dismissed all the servants of the Xu family... Xu's mother's death made me extremely sad, and I chose to get drunk all day to numb myself. I lived a dark life in those days. I drank when I woke up, and passed out when I drank. Anyway, I lived alone in a huge house, and I had endless money, so I drank however I wanted."

"I would wake up in Xu's house every day, sometimes in the garden, sometimes in the toilet, sometimes by the bed... No matter how strange the place I woke up in was, it was always in Xu's house. But one day, when I woke up, there was no wine in my hand, and what I saw was not Xu's house, and my hands and feet were tied up."