His little mouth babbled, circling Mo Lingxi: "Mommy was so mighty just now, so powerful..."
After hearing her son's words, Mo Lingxi looked at the woman at the door with surprise and strangeness.
The woman at the door was wearing a patched cyan dress, her plump body almost bursting the seams. Her face, full of fat, no longer held the usual annoyance and ugliness, but instead, a gentleness towards Xiao Feng.
Had Tao Lengshuang truly changed, or was this her doing?
Mo Lingxi still didn't quite believe it, but after Tao Lengshuang protected Xiao Feng, he no longer treated her with such disdain and coldness, though his attitude hadn't improved much.
If Tao Lengshuang was truly willing to be good to Xiao Feng, he was willing to let Xiao Feng experience maternal love.
However, she was still going to die.
"Xiao Feng, if anyone bullies you again in the future, just hit them back, understand?" he admonished with a stern face.
Xiao Feng obediently nodded, repeatedly promising to fight back in the future, for he too had parents to support him.
"Daddy, please don't find me a stepmother, okay?"
His sudden words caused Mo Lingxi's eyes to turn cold as he glanced at Tao Lengshuang.
"What are you looking at me for?"
Tao Lengshuang secretly rolled her eyes, squatted in front of Xiao Feng, and lightly tapped his nose: "Xiao Feng, you mustn't talk nonsense."
Xiao Feng stuck out his tongue, nestled into his mother's embrace, and momentarily forgot what he had just said.
Mother's embrace felt so warm, so comfortable.
So, this was mother's embrace.
Tao Lengshuang gently picked him up, patting his back twice: "From now on, Mommy will be doubly good to our Xiao Feng, and make up for all the regrets, okay?"
Xiao Feng heavily said "Okay," and clung to her, unwilling to be put down, wanting to stay in his mother's arms.
This was the first time his mother had held him.
Tao Lengshuang's lips curved into a doting smile, patiently holding Xiao Feng, occasionally chatting with him.
This scene of motherly love and filial piety, falling into Mo Lingxi's eyes, made him look at Tao Lengshuang several times, his heart still guarded and disgusted with her.
Completely unaware that she had just walked through the gates of hell, Tao Lengshuang was preparing to go to the kitchen to cook when she heard a woman's angry shout.
"Tao Lengshuang, you wicked creature, get out here!"
Tao Lengshuang looked up and saw Old Master Tao, Yu Shi, and Tao Fangfang storming in with furious expressions, looking as if they wanted to devour her.
She knew why these three had come.
Sensing Xiao Feng's slight tremor in her arms, she shot a fierce glance at Old Master Tao and the other two, handing Xiao Feng over to Mo Lingxi.
"Xiao Feng, stay here with Daddy and wait for Mommy. Mommy is going to fight the bad guys and will be back soon."
Xiao Feng, worried and scared, clutched her hand, his eyes red as he shook his head: "No, no!"
"Mommy, they are so scary and fierce. I don't want you to get hurt. Let them take the things from the house."
As much as Tao Lengshuang cherished her son, she hated the Tao family even more. She gently soothed him: "Mommy is so powerful, she won't get hurt."
"Besides, your Daddy will help Mommy, won't he?"
Xiao Feng looked up at his father expectantly: "Daddy, you will help Mommy, right?"
"Xiao Feng doesn't want Mommy to get hurt. Mommy is very, very good."
Mo Lingxi faintly grunted.
Xiao Feng instantly gained courage but worriedly cautioned: "Mommy, be careful, they are very fierce."
Hearing her son's soft, childish admonishments, Tao Lengshuang's heart melted: "Okay."
Before her words had even fallen, she heard Yu Shi's angry and accusatory words.
"Tao Lengshuang, are you a beast? Tao Dagou, such a young child, and you, his aunt, you hit and scolded him, and even tried to chop him with a sickle, scaring my eldest grandson into falling ill."
Tao Lengshuang stroked Xiao Feng's face and turned to face Yu Shi.
The moment she turned, her aura turned cold, her eyes like poisoned blades.
"My Xiao Feng is only a few years younger than Tao Dagou, and Tao Dagou beat him to within an inch of his life. It's a mercy I, as his mother, didn't kill Tao Dagou."
Yu Shi spat and pointed at Tao Lengshuang's nose, scolding, "That little beast Xiao Feng..."
The rest of her words, upon sensing Mo Lingxi's murderous gaze, abruptly changed course.
"It was just children playing, it's not as serious as you say. Stop trying to scare us here."
Yu Shi, thinking of the suffering her eldest grandson endured, wished she could devour Tao Lengshuang: "I'm telling you, this matter is not over today!"
Tao Lengshuang found a wooden stick, held it, and swung it a few times forcefully: "Children playing? Tao Dagou and I were also children playing."
"I am also a child of parents. How can it be said that I bullied him? It's a good thing he has the face to run to the adults to complain when he loses at play."
Yu Shi, hearing such twisted logic for the first time, stared with wide, disbelieving, and enraged eyes: "Good for you, Tao Lengshuang, you are becoming more and more unfilial."
"When it comes to unfiliality, I can't compare to you."
Tao Lengshuang sneered with disgust, "Back then, how did you two treat your own parents? Aren't you afraid your parents will turn into vengeful spirits to find you?"
Everyone in the village knew that Old Master Tao and his wife had worked their own parents to death.
Both sets of parents, before they died, were still working in the fields, so thin that they were less than skin and bones.
For the sake of profit, this old couple had relentlessly exploited their parents.
Old Master Tao and his wife were not afraid of ghosts at all; their hearts were rotten through and through, and all they thought about all day was how to gain more benefits from others.
"What are you shouting about? Are you afraid outsiders won't hear?"
Old Master Tao, who valued his reputation, drew on his pipe and reprimanded her, not giving Tao Lengshuang a good look: "Look at yourself, what are you saying?"
"A woman relying on her maternal family, yet she scolds and beats her nephew like this, and has no filial piety. You've truly disgraced me."
Tao Lengshuang crossed her arms and said coolly, "It's not my face you're disgracing, so what does it matter?"
If anyone in the Tao family was the most detestable, it was Old Master Tao.
This old man was a typical selfish, self-centered person.
Although it seemed like Yu Shi and the others were the ones doing bad deeds daily, in reality, it was all him instigating and plotting in secret, yet he had the audacity to put on a good person's facade.
Old Master Tao heard this, his face turned stern, and he stared at her with阴翳 eyes.
Usually, when he was like this, no one in the Tao family dared to defy him.
Unfortunately, Tao Lengshuang was not afraid, and she looked at him mockingly: "Oh, I'm so scared. Really, I'm very, very scared."
"Perhaps if you painted your face to look like a ghost, I would be even more afraid."
Now Old Master Tao truly believed Tao Lengshuang had changed. A trace of malevolence flashed in his cloudy old eyes: "Did you get possessed?"
"My Lengshuang would never do such an unfilial thing. Speak, what kind of demon are you?"
Tao Lengshuang, without a hint of fear, shouted at the top of her lungs: "Everyone, come quickly and see how the Tao family forced our family to death!"