Deviant: No Longer Human-Chapter 807: Mantis stalks the cicada, the sparrow behind it… and a hunter behind them all? (3)

Chapter 807: Mantis stalks the cicada, the sparrow behind it... and a hunter behind them all? (3)

Far away—

"Haha..."

While mother and son stared at each other in a silence so painful it could fossilize souls, the culprit had already drifted far, slipping westward toward Qingpu district as leisurely as a god taking an evening stroll.

Then he left Shanghai entirely, sliding over the boundary like the city meant nothing, heading toward Suzhou near Taihu Lake.

It wasn’t that Wang Xiao had gone mad after the realization of his identity. He simply decided to finish the half-done things he’d ignored for too long; and since they were all along the way, today felt convenient.

A distraction, yes.

But a useful one.

He crossed the river in a single step, reached Sanshan Mountain, those three lonely islets floating in the southern expanse of Taihu, Suzhou on the east, Huzhou on the west, and winter mist wrapping everything in pale green dew.

The loghouse he headed for stood far from the tourist areas, guarded heavily under the shadow of an old clock tower. It was dark, quiet, smelling of damp wood and lake wind.

Outside, on a bench overlooking the lake, beneath the soft cascade of golden ginkgo leaves, sat a lone figure, legs swinging idly like a bored teenager.

Her appearance was almost too gentle for the cold dark night, long, pale-gold curls spilling over her shoulders, a light cream dress with delicate lace trimming her sleeves, looking more like a princess who wandered out of a painting than someone guarding an empty cabin.

In the faint moonlight, she seemed to glow just a little.

By this season, the ginkgo golden leaves should’ve fallen long ago, yet this was the only tree still shimmering full and gold, quiet, stubborn, and strangely alive.

Much like the woman beneath it.

"Where are they?"

Wang Xiao’s voice echoed through as he appeared behind her.

"They were here an hour ago. Where’d they run off to?"

"Humph. Your daughter doesn’t listen to me. She left."

Anran jerked awake instantly, though she clearly hadn’t been asleep, rubbing her misty lashes and puffing her cheeks, looking genuinely offended.

Wang Xiao wasn’t surprised; Fiona never listened to anyone.

But seeing Anran sulking there under the golden leaves, looking like a wronged little fox spirit trapped inside a princess-like body, he didn’t know whether to laugh or sigh.

"Only one of them is my daughter. How did you fail to stop the second one?"

That jab hit home.

Her brows twitched twice.

"I... slept."

"..."

Wang Xiao froze for a second, then rubbed his forehead.

"Sometimes I genuinely suspect you mess with me on purpose..."

Anran turned around, hopping lightly on the bench to face him, her bright, mischievous eyes sparkling.

"Then why don’t you just read my mind? It’s faster!"

Zero shame.

Not even a hint.

Wang Xiao closed his eyes, letting out a long exhale. When he opened them, Anran had shifted her gaze past him.

She noticed the girl standing behind, Yin Yue, watching quietly with crimson eyes.

"Is this... your secret daughter?" Anran’s eyes widened with divine excitement. "Are you finally going to reveal all your hidden mistresses to this old lady?"

The woman looked smug, painfully smug, like someone who had always suspected he kept a whole collection of wives hidden somewhere and had simply been waiting for the day he slipped up.

What made it worse was how she called herself an "old woman."

By age, maybe.

But in appearance?

She looked younger and smaller than her own daughters.

Her words were so absurd that Wang Xiao genuinely couldn’t decide whether to smack her into the lake with a single slap... or admire the sheer creativity of her imagination.

Yin Yue, however, made everything worse by calmly stepping forward and taking his hand.

No explanation.

Just taking it.

"!!"

Wang Xiao’s glare shot toward her, but Yin Yue only squeezed his hand tighter, her silent revenge for him refusing to tell her what he saw.

Something her old, cold self would never have done.

Anran’s mouth dropped open like she’d seen an angel descend on a pole. "I... I need to leave!"

Wang Xiao closed his eyes again, already sensing where her delusional brain was sprinting.

"Anran," he said flatly, "if you spread rumors, I’ll break your legs."

Anran’s nonchalant voice drifted back as she walked away.

"Okie~"

"...," Wang Xiao’s face blanked.

But she paused, stretching lazily as if she hadn’t just detonated a scandal and sprinted off.

"Oh right, Helena’s in Moganshan," she yawned, "I told her to go there earlier... hmm, maybe she’s frozen by now. Also, there’s been some lightning show on the mountaintop for the past hour. Very flashy."

"Lightning show?" Wang Xiao narrowed his eyes at her tone.

She smiled innocently.

Not her problem.

"And when are you planning to release that girl Estelle? Or should I prepare some beautiful prisoners for yo—"

WHOOSH!

A shoe flew at her head.

She dodged with a yelp and ran, her mission apparently completed.

Wang Xiao glared at her retreating figure.

"I didn’t imprison her..."

He shook his head.

Estelle.

The fourth daughter he and Eveline had, tomorrow was probably her birthday.

This was Anran’s extremely inappropriate way of reminding him.

And no, he did not have a prisoner kink.

It was simply a misunderstanding he never bothered to clear up, which resulted in Estelle voluntarily locking herself inside a courtyard and refusing to step out.

Estelle was Eveline’s only mortal daughter.

He never understood why the girl insisted on giving up her powers and dying like a normal human.

But she wanted to try "the mortal experience," so he allowed it.

Why?

Because when she caught a cold or fever, he could finally beat some sense into her stupid mortal skull.

"She wants you to take a break," Yin Yue said softly, watching Anran vanish into the distance. "She moved fast... I didn’t know she had powers."

"How so?" Wang Xiao asked, finally breaking his silence as he crossed Huzhou in a single leap, heading toward the snowy bamboo mountains of Moganshan.

Yin Yue pondered for a moment.

"She sent the girls to the mountains herself so you’d follow... then tomorrow she wants you to visit Estelle. Why not recognize her good intentions? You scold her, you hit her, but she waited for you and fell asleep there..."

Wang Xiao closed his eyes, exhausted.

"You think you’re smart or I’m dumb?"

Yin Yue shrugged. "You’re smarter. But you pretend to be dumb."

He was definitely smarter, so why indeed?

Wang Xiao nodded; she wasn’t wrong.

But Anran had a fatal flaw: she dared to tease him yet had zero defenses when teased back.

She handled almost everything in his life flawlessly.

A few hugs as payment wouldn’t kill him.

But the problem was, if he hugged her properly, that woman would faint on the spot and think her life’s purpose had been achieved.

"??"

Yin Yue blinked, genuinely confused.

She didn’t remember any incident like that.

Wang Xiao didn’t bother explaining.

A faint memory flickered in his mind,

a summer night in Korea, the two of them on a bench outside a noodle shop... and the moment she fainted on him like a Victorian widow meeting God.

He sighed inwardly.

Fortunately, they had already arrived before the mountain.

RUMBLE! RUMBLE! RUMBLE!

And indeed, red lightning tore through the night sky, flaring across the snow-capped peak and washing the bamboo forest below in a soft, eerie glow. The thin layer of white snow shinning under the crimson light, strangely calm beneath the violence above.

When Wang Xiao recognized the source of this "lightning show," his lips couldn’t help but curl into a slow smile.

Wang Xiao didn’t even need to get closer to know what he was seeing.

He simply stared upward.

"...It’s a fight between those two?"

He couldn’t believe it.

Far above the peak, where frost stuck to the wind itself, two figures clashed violently in the sky, one a streak of gold, the other a storm of red.

Ning Xue.

The golden-haired woman who had stormed out of the house, furious after being harassed by him countless times... and Fiona, who apparently decided "family conflict" meant "open aerial warfare."

Moisture vanished from the air.

Animals below collapsed like puppets with their strings cut as their blood rose upward, swirling into Fiona’s grasp.

She compressed it into hundreds of red spikes, then unleashed a sheet of blood-forged projectiles, cascading like an orchestra of red lightning arcs, exploding on contact with Ning Xue in flashes of white and crimson.

Wang Xiao blinked.

He had never actually seen this daughter fight, so he assumed Ning Xue used sword aura or some elegant blade... Like Athene.

But no, she was bending energy and matter hurled at her as if she were some deity.

He let out a soft chuckle, watching this little goddess of his fight against the bloodthirsty Fiona.

Ning Xue was surprised to see herself holding on for so long, but Fiona was clearly holding back.

The battle overhead continued.

He continued too.

Not his problem.

Not yet.

Ignoring the mountaintop battlefield, he drifted down to Luhuadang, a high, open clearing encircled by bamboo.

Last night’s snowfall had turned the entire field into a single white canvas.

A small open shrine stood under a wooden shed, quiet and serene against the distant thunder of destruction.

Wooden benches lined the overlook.

On one of them sat a woman with long dark-blue hair, wrapped in a thick brown coat, legs crossed, gaze calm as she looked down the mountain, not up.

It was the calmness of someone who had seen worse, survived worse.

The new President of the United States, appointed after the previous one was violently murdered in front of the entire world.

"Enjoying your life as president already?..."