Vol 4. Chapter 5: A Hair’s Breadth from Disaster

Although they knew that what they were doing was wrong, that betraying Mother's expectations and taking advantage of her trust was bad, and that it left them with a considerable sense of guilt, Liyu and the others had still resolutely embarked on their daily lives of secretly eliminating the Child of Destiny while deceiving Mother and hiding the truth from her, all for the sake of keeping Mother alive.

To keep Mother from finding out,

Saiboke had deliberately given every Demon King-class existence except their eldest sister special training in acting, thereby teaching them to construct a false world of information around Mother. That way, everything they secretly did behind her back could be concealed from her.

However,

after all that training,

they discovered one very serious problem. There was one enormous loophole in this fabricated world of information, a loophole that could expose them at any moment and get every single one of them beaten with the feather duster.

And that loophole was none other than their foolish big sister, Limo.

To put it nicely, Big Sister Limo's behavioral patterns were closer to those of a wild beast.

To put it less nicely,

'My big sister is way too clueless...'

Who knew whether it was because she was simply too clueless, or because she only cared about running around and playing and had never seriously studied?

In any case,

after completing Saiboke's acting lessons, one couldn't exactly say that Big Sister Limo had achieved some modest success. It would be more accurate to say that the training had been completely fucking useless.

Even after several rounds of remedial lessons, there was still no saving her. In the end, Saiboke himself had even begun questioning his entire life. At one point, he sat on the edge of a cliff and started wondering how exactly he had ever managed to obtain a 'Special-Class Teaching Certificate'...

No matter how flawless their plan to fool Mother was,

one instinctive interruption from Big Sister Limo could make everything go up in smoke.

For example, there had been that time when Second Brother had taken Liyu and Big Sister Limo on what was supposedly a vacation, while conveniently launching surprise attacks and wiping out twenty Asumos Church reconnaissance camps near the Great Winter Forest. Afterward, Second Brother had worked out with them exactly what story they would use to fool Mother.

Everything had originally gone smoothly, and Second Brother successfully left Mother completely bewildered by his lies.

But then,

at the worst possible moment, Big Sister Limo suddenly blurted out,

"Mother, Mother! Second Brother was super amazing! He destroyed an entire camp with one sword strike!"

Liyu: ???

Piere: ?!! WTF?!

Yumo: Hm?

...

After that,

unsurprisingly, both Liyu and Big Sister Limo received a harsh scolding from Mother. Of course, they had actually gotten off rather lightly. After all, for the entire week that followed, Second Brother Piere hadn't dared sleep lying down...

--

Therefore,

if their grand deception was going to succeed, they absolutely had to keep the unstable factor known as Big Sister Limo under control.

The most common method was simply not letting Big Sister Limo know what they were doing.

Normally, this method worked quite well.

However,

whenever Liyu herself needed to carry out a mission, that method stopped working. After all, Big Sister Limo and Liyu were practically inseparable. The moment Liyu started secretly carrying out some mission, Big Sister Limo would inevitably find out. Besides, even if Liyu wanted to keep it from her, as soon as Big Sister Limo put on that pitiful little expression, Liyu couldn't stop herself from revealing the details of the mission to her...

Who could blame her?

She's my foolish big sister, after all.

Sigh...

Therefore,

whenever they encountered this kind of situation, they had to resort to the second method.

Turn into an adorable pet!

Big Sister Limo didn't particularly like having a human body in the first place and preferred moving around in her original beast form. Therefore, even if Limo transformed into a little white wolf, it wouldn't arouse Mother's suspicions. If anything, Big Sister Limo was actually more normal this way.

After transforming into an adorable little white wolf, Big Sister Limo could only run around making 'meow-woo' or 'awoo' noises. There was no longer any need to worry about her accidentally exposing their plans. And with Big Sister Limo's carefree personality, she would probably forget everything about the plan after a few days anyway. At that point, they could simply let her meet Mother in her human form again.

That was why, when they had been fooling Mother over the past few days, Big Sister Limo had remained in her little white wolf form the entire time.

However,

Liyu could never have imagined that Mother would, for once, suddenly take an interest in what form Big Sister Limo was using today?!

Watching as the black-haired girl slowly grabbed Limo by the scruff of her neck and lifted her up in front of herself, little Liyu suddenly felt as though her heart had stopped beating.

The girl knew perfectly well just how unreliable her big sister was. And for the first few minutes after changing from her wolf form back into her girl form, Big Sister Limo's mind would become even more confused, caught in a chaotic overlap between human and beast instincts.

If Mother asked Big Sister Limo even a couple of questions while she was in that state,

then they...

Perhaps they should hurry up and find a few steel plates to put over their butts.

Uh,

but considering Mother usually pulled down their pants before beating them, that probably wouldn't be fucking useful either.

Besides, the feather duster came with an armor-piercing effect...

No matter what! She had to stop Mother immediately!

Although Liyu still looked calm on the surface, inside, the girl's heart was bouncing all over the place as though a ten-ton rabbit were throwing a dance party in there...

And Liyu wasn't the only one panicking. Qiu Mingtong beside her was equally frantic.

After signaling to Liyu with her eyes to stall for time while she went to find the Duke, Qiu Mingtong abruptly transformed into a streak of pale-blue light and shot out of the tent.

Seeing this,

Liyu nearly burst into tears. But for the sake of preserving her image in Yumo's heart, as well as protecting her poor little butt, she had no choice but to bite the bullet.

Taking a deep breath, Liyu hurried over to Yumo and anxiously tried to persuade her.

"Mother, don't worry about Big Sister Limo. Big Sister doesn't really like using her human form anyway, so just let her stay like this."

"Hm?"

Hearing that, Yumo couldn't help frowning.

"That's true, but... every time I transform into human form, doesn't this girl always turn human too and throw herself at me for a hug? Why is she suddenly...?"

"Uh..."

Liyu was momentarily speechless.

However, the little girl was exceptionally quick-witted. When one excuse failed, she immediately switched to another.

"Mother, it's not like you don't know that Big Sister Limo still isn't very good at controlling her Shadow of Silence Power. If she directly transforms into human form, the power she releases might attract the attention of nearby experts!"

"You don't need to worry about that. There aren't any other Seventh-Tier or higher people nearby right now. Besides, if I help suppress her power, no one will notice."

"Uh..."

Fuck.

Were none of those Seventh- and Eighth-Tier experts who'd gotten their asses beaten by the Abyss Demons recuperating somewhere nearby?

Liyu's eyebrows twitched.

"This place is too small! The shockwave from her transformation will mess everything up inside!"

"Then we can just have the Black Rose Family's people clean it up afterward."

"B-But if the storm is too strong, it'll blow the tent away! Then you'll be exposed, Mother."

"You don't need to worry about that either. I already said I'll help suppress her power."

"But even then..."

...

...

Just like that, Liyu used every trick she could think of to persuade Yumo.

Unfortunately,

none of her arguments seemed to have any effect...

"Um, once Big Sister Limo changes back into human form, she'll be completely naked! Big Sister will be embarrassed!"

"Uh..."

Hearing this excuse, Yumo's eyebrows couldn't help twitching slightly. Then, with a complicated expression, she looked at the little white wolf dangling from her hand.

"This girl? Embarrassed? Back in the forest, she ran around naked in front of me every single day. I never saw her feel embarrassed about it..."

As she spoke, Lady Yumo narrowed her scarlet eyes slightly and thoughtfully glanced toward the gray-haired little girl beside her.

"But Liyu, why are you so determined not to let your big sister change back?"

Truthfully,

at first, Yumo had wanted Limo to return to her human form simply because she hadn't seen her wolf cub in human form for quite a while and wanted to take a look at her.

Besides, there were quite a few members of the Black Rose Family nearby, and Yumo wanted Saiboke °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° and the others to help make properly fitted clothes from memory fibers for the two sisters.

That way, whenever they returned to human form after releasing their powers, they wouldn't always end up awkwardly stark naked.

Asking the husky—

Ah, fuck!

Asking Limo to transform into human form was also so Qiu Mingtong could properly take her measurements.

However,

Liyu kept coming up with excuse after excuse to obstruct such a perfectly ordinary request. It was inevitably starting to make Yumo suspicious.

Why was this girl so determined not to let her big sister return to human form?

And why had Qiu Mingtong suddenly rushed out of the tent just now?

Enmm...

After thinking for a moment, Lady Yumo frowned and fixed the sweating little white wolf before her with a slightly stern gaze.

"You two girls... aren't hiding something from me, are you?"

Hearing those words,

Liyu immediately sucked in a sharp breath.

Even the usually clueless little white wolf sensed an indescribable feeling of danger at that moment, and her entire body instantly shuddered.

"Limo, hurry up and change back into human form."

Yumo spoke with some displeasure.

Faced with Mother's command, the husky looked extremely conflicted. After all, before they came to see Mother, Liyu had repeatedly warned her over and over again that she absolutely must not transform back into human form in front of Mother.

On one side was Mother's command.

On the other was her little sister's warning.

Caught between the two, the husky began frantically waving her paws around in indecision. Her eyes even started rolling back as her entire brain seemingly crashed.

Meanwhile, Liyu beside her had also begun trembling all over from guilt.

However,

at this absolutely critical moment,

an adorably cute voice suddenly came from the entrance of the tent.

"Um... Can I come in?... Mommy??"

Liyu: ??

Limo: ??