Chapter 62: Priestess Yuan: Changed Demeanour
"I understand," said Chief Xie. Even though she couldn’t understand why the Beast Goddess would put the fate of their tribe in the hands of a fool, she still had some trust in Priestess Yuan. Since she said that Ruan Chanchan was the one who was going to bring glory to their tribe, she was going to trust her words.
Soon, Chief Xie left the cave, and Yuan Ni returned. He peered inside the cave and asked, "Can I come inside, Grandma?"
"Come if you want; can I stop you?" Priestess Yuan looked at her grandson. Her eyes were filled with a hint of annoyance. Even though her grandson was old enough to make his own decisions himself, she couldn’t help but frown when she smelled the scent of a certain beast woman. Priestess Yuan turned and looked at Yuan Ni, who lowered his head at once, realising that he had made a mistake.
"Did I not ask you to stay away from that woman, Shao Xia?" Priestess Yuan asked angrily. "Why are you getting entangled with her even now? That woman was once related to Xie Daiyu, and yet you are still eagerly trying to win her affections."
"She and Brother Daiyu are no longer together—"
"And don’t you know why they are not together?" questioned Priestess Yuan as she got to her feet and smacked her grandson with a thin willow-like branch. Yuan Ni jumped on the spot the second the branch struck him. He rubbed the spot where his grandmother had hit him, and he pouted. He said to his grandmother, "How can you blame Sister Xia for that? Brother Daiyu was being too overbearing. He stopped her from taking any other mer as her partner. As a warrior-beast woman, she has the duty to sire a lot of children and strengthen the tribe. Yet Brother Daiyu stopped her from doing so. It’s really not fair."
His words earned him another smack around the back. This time, Priestess Yuan didn’t hold back, causing the mer to jump up in the air. Yuan Ni rubbed his back with both of his hands while looking at his grandmother with shock in his eyes.
"Grandmother!"
"Shut up!" Priestess Yuan was so angry that her face turned blotchy. She pointed the stick in her hand at Yuan Ni and scolded him fiercely, "Did Daiyu not tell her that if they were to imprint on one another through the sacred ceremony, she was not allowed to take any other mer? Did he hide the truth from her? No. He told her clearly that he was looking for a woman who would live with him and won’t take another mer as her partner."
"He was quite clear when he said that unless Shao Xia met with her destined one, she was not allowed to take another mer. Where did he cheat her? How could Shao Xia even have the face to say that Xie Daiyu had treated her unfairly? If anything, ever since the two of them got together, how many times has Xie Daiyu helped the Shao family?"
Priestess Yuan was truly angry when she thought about how her grandson was getting fooled by that woman. She raised her hand and smacked Yuan Ni on the back once again. "I told your mother not to get involved with your foolish father, but she didn’t listen and imprinted on him. Look at this; she actually gave birth to a fool like you."
Priestess Yuan was breathing quite harshly once she finished speaking. When she thought about how her only daughter was imprinted on a foolish mer, Priestess Yuan’s heart started to ache. She had told her daughter again and again that if she imprinted on someone like Daddy Yuan, things wouldn’t end well.
But her daughter was adamant about taking that fool as her mate. In the end, the two of them did hold a sacred ceremony and ended up getting together. No sooner did they get together; they gave birth to Yuan Ni, and after the birth of their son, her daughter met with a tragedy and passed away, while her husband followed her soon after.
Priestess Yuan thought that with her teaching Yuan Ni, the mer would learn better things, but who would have thought that the mer learned all kinds of stupid and crooked things?
"Grandmother, you are being too much," Yuan Ni spoke with an aggrieved tone. "At least I am not trusting a fool with the destiny of the tribe. I am smarter than that, aren’t I?"
He was standing outside when Priestess Yuan was talking about the great skills that Ruan Chanchan had, but just like Chief Xie, Yuan Ni didn’t believe a thing. How could a fool like Ruan Chanchan bring glory to the tribe? Worse, how could she even think of getting their ancestral lands back? That woman was someone whose beast nucleus was broken, and she couldn’t even morph into her beast form.
How could she help them get their ancestral land back?
As soon as Priestess Yuan heard the words of her grandson, she turned sombre. She raised the willow-like branch in her hands and smacked Yuan Ni hard. This time around, she was not at all gentle, like the previous two hits, which left Yuan Ni to scream in pain. Yuan Ni dropped to the floor and looked at Priestess Yuan in shock and confusion.
Even though his grandmother had often lost her temper with him, this was his first time seeing her lose her temper with him for real. "Grandmother?"
"You have no idea what kind of person Ruan Chanchan is. Just because you believe that she cannot do it doesn’t mean that she cannot. That girl has her own secrets and would release them when she needs to," said Priestess Yuan. "Don’t try to pry into matters that have nothing to do with you. Do you understand?"
With age came wisdom; she could see that Ruan Chanchan’s demeanour had changed, and the sharpness in her eyes was not something a girl around her age would have. If Ruan Chanchan was unqualified to take down the Black Snake Tribe, then no one else was worthy of doing so.