Chapter 32: A Devoted Mother and a Filial Daughter

That day at the auditorium, it wasn't until she finished her presentation and was browsing the forums that Ye Sheng realized that discussing silk stockings in such a setting was considered inappropriate behavior in the eyes of most people.

However, Ye Sheng did not feel offended. She was not the kind of fool who wouldn't catch on to a boy's flirtatious remarks; she knew very well which of the men she encountered during puberty harbored impure thoughts about her.

Li Xingming’s eyes were incredibly clean.

From a historical research perspective, Lilith Anor Londo certainly shouldn't have been wearing black over-the-knee socks; pantyhose would have been the correct choice.

Furthermore, thanks to Li Xingming’s suggestion, Ye Sheng had looked into the "Absolute Seal" spirit. It felt like a perfect fit for her. According to Li Xingming’s theory, wearing black pantyhose seemed like an excellent way to nurture this spirit—simple, easy, and aesthetically pleasing.

Li Xingming was, for heaven's sake, a genius.

Ye Sheng hadn't worn pantyhose before. After the lecture at Fengtang City No. 1 High School and before going to Li Xingming’s house, she had bought a pair at a nearby boutique. Once she put them on, she didn't want to take them off.

The sensation of her legs being tightly wrapped in pantyhose was marvelous.

Additionally, she had poor peripheral circulation and her feet got cold easily, so wearing them provided extra warmth.

It was invincible.

Ye Sheng lowered her head to look at her phone while she ate.

The children at her table were silent, as well-behaved as quails. The cold, aloof aura of the older girl naturally suppressed the rowdy kids.

The harmonious silence was broken when a middle-aged woman in a white lab coat approached.

She wore silver-rimmed, rimless glasses and a muted, matte-colored lipstick. Her features bore a slight resemblance to Ye Sheng’s, but her temperament was icy—colder than Ye Sheng’s, and possessed of a gloominess and an air of authority that Ye Sheng lacked.

"Come with me to the private room. I have something to discuss with you."

Ye Sheng looked up, put away her phone, and followed her silently, leaving the bustling banquet hall.

Along the way, she encountered acquaintances from the academic circle who greeted the middle-aged woman politely. The woman maintained a reserved politeness and a stiff, restrained smile.

"Professor Ye, here with your daughter?"

"Yes, no classes today."

"I'm so envious. Sheng-Sheng is already attending Class A conferences as a high school senior. My good-for-nothing kid is still paying for physics tutoring. Sigh, the gap is just..."

"What’s wrong with paying for physics tutoring? Everyone’s children are getting tutored these days. There’s a time and place for everything... unlike some people who, under the guise of public service, go running off to a strange boy’s house and get involved in such unseemly affairs!"

Professor Ye suddenly snapped, her eyes sharp with mockery as she glared at Ye Sheng.

The latter kept her gaze averted, staring blankly ahead.

The woman who had spoken offered an awkward, peacemaking smile: "Haha, it’s not that serious. People on the internet are just spreading rumors. Sheng-Sheng has her head on straight; she’s a sensible girl."

"Wow, she's certainly 'sensible'!"

Professor Ye shot Ye Sheng a sarcastic look and strode away quickly.

Ye Sheng followed indifferently. She was used to being ridiculed by her mother in front of outsiders.

She had long legs and could easily keep up with her mother’s indignant pace.

The small private room was chilly; the heating was inadequate, with only a thin, lonely radiator standing in the corner. Ye Sheng couldn't help but shiver twice.

Seeing this, Professor Ye draped her own cashmere coat over her daughter.

Ye Sheng wanted to refuse, but the intensity in her mother's eyes made her swallow the words on the tip of her tongue.

Whatever.

Let’s indulge this pathetic woman’s pathetic desire for control, heh.

The table was an old-fashioned round one with a glass lazy Susan in the middle. The mother and daughter sat with two empty seats between them, the atmosphere habitually turning cold.

Fortunately, a waiter arrived soon after to serve the dishes.

"West Lake water shield soup, wood ear mushrooms with yam, celery with shrimp—all your favorites."

"I don't like them."

"Eat less spicy food from now on. How can you pursue the Starry Path with such greasy, heavy food in your system? You need to calm your mind and cleanse your lungs."

"Oh."

"Drink up."

"I’m already full."

"Just have some, be a good girl."

Ye Sheng looked at her mother blankly. She understood that her mother had entered the "devoted mother, filial daughter" act. She sighed slightly and picked up her spoon to drink the water shield soup.

It tasted terrible.

It was too bland, and it had an unpleasant, fishy smell unique to freshwater aquatic plants.

Come to think of it, could water shield be stir-fried with chili?

Probably not.

That was why she didn't like it.

However, past experiences with her mother told Ye Sheng that it was better to go along with her, otherwise Professor Ye would only create more trouble.

Better a short pain than a long one.

She could just throw it up when she got home, or wait until late at night when Professor Ye was fast asleep to sneak a bit of the spicy strips she kept hidden under her bed.

Plan successful!

"Do you have nothing to explain to me?" Professor Ye asked, arms crossed, wearing the face of someone interrogating a student suspected of cheating on a final exam.

"Even if I explained, you wouldn't believe me."

"Oh, how do you know I wouldn't believe you if you haven't even said anything?"

"Heh."

"How is it that it feels like I’m the one who did something wrong? Think about it with a clear conscience: the recent academic conferences, the paper publications, all these opportunities to make a name for yourself—hasn't Mom been helping you manage it all properly? And yet, you go running to a male classmate’s house in the middle of the night..."

"It wasn't the middle of the night."

"Then why did someone catch you riding in Li Xingming’s car to school in the morning?"

"I went to his house in the morning."

"To do what?"

"To eat snail rice noodles."

"..."

Professor Ye looked as if she were so angry she could laugh. "Ye Sheng, do you take me for a fool? Running off to some stray man's house first thing in the morning to eat snail rice noodles? Why are you so obsessed with spicy food?"

"I do love spicy food." Ye Sheng paused. "And besides, Li Xingming is not a 'stray man'."

"Say that again?"

"Li Xingming is not a stray man. He has a very profound understanding of extraordinary history and rune configuration. I enjoy communicating with him."

As the words left her lips, the room fell into a thick, suffocating silence.

Professor Ye’s eyes were practically spitting fire, which inexplicably reminded Ye Sheng of the elite extraordinary creature she had cleared in a contaminated zone that night: the granite mechanical hound. It spat fire, too.

Sigh.

In truth, Ye Sheng rarely refuted Professor Ye on the level of value judgments.

What is a "refutation on the level of value judgments"?

For example, when her mother said she went to Li Xingming’s house in the middle of the night, she countered that she went in the morning. That was an objective fact, involving no subjective emotional inclination.

But the question of "whether Li Xingming is a stray man" was hard to keep objective.

His reputation was terrible, and his status within the direct lineage of the Li family was purely that of a roadside passerby, not even as good as some of the favored collateral branches.

Ye Sheng thought he was good, but that didn't matter. It is difficult for people to truly understand one another; the human heart is the most difficult thing in the world to control, much like how she couldn't control the thoughts of those idiotic netizens on the "Anti-Ye Sheng Forum" or the "National Academy High School Insider Forum."

Just like how she couldn't change her mother’s opinion of Li Xingming. She knew this clearly before she even opened her mouth.

Yet, Ye Sheng couldn't help but speak up for him. She was Ye Wanqin’s daughter, and it was her bad luck to be maliciously speculated about by Ye Wanqin, but Li Xingming hadn't done anything wrong.

Even if she had to bear her mother’s wrath for it, it didn't matter.

Li Xingming was worth it.

After all, he was a righteous Sun Knight. Hee hee.