What If...I Remember?

Chapter 73

"Qian Qian, you're back?"

Ye Hua sounded rather relieved, and Bai Qian couldn't blame him. She had walked straight into his study and had almost been whacked by a flying memoir, and the culprit had been none other than Bai Jing. "Jing'er!" Bai Qian exclaimed, in both shock and disapproval, "Whatever are you doing to your father's memoirs?!" "Father was mad at them, so I thought I'd help him get rid of them." Bai Jing blinked innocently, and Bai Qian witnessed a black shadow flit behind the two hundred year old, "Jing'er, what is that?"

"My tail, Mother." Bai Jing glanced behind her, and a black tail waved back at Bai Qian. It looked similar to one of Feng Jiu's, except that it was black instead of red, but it was tipped with white nonetheless, and Bai Qian blinked at Bai Jing, speechless at the sight of her tail. After much unneeded silence, Bai Qian turned to her husband, who looked equally as shocked as her, "She...sprouted a tail already?" "No fair! I haven't even become a dragon!" A-Li exclaimed as he eyed Bai Jing's tail enviously, and Bai Qian suddenly felt her heart sink; A-Li had been born when she was a mortal...could it be that that was the reason why he had yet to come to his true form as of yet?

"In due time, Bai Chen." Ye Hua hushed A-Li just by using his full name, and A-Li blinked, before he hunched over the table in disappointment, "What, a thousand years? Must I wait that long, when Mei Mei only needed two centuries for a single tail to reveal itself?" "Perhaps you could help him, Ye Hua?" Bai Qian suggested, hoping that her husband could do something about it with his dragon form, but Ye Hua shook his head, "The rule is that I cannot reveal my true form unless threatened by another being in its true form."

Right as he said that, a ball of white fur bounded into his lap, and Ye Hua raised a single eyebrow as the fully grown white nine-tailed fox curled its nine tails around his lean torso, stretching its snow white fur across his shoulder. Gently clamping her jaws on his neck, Bai Qian maintained a slightly intimidating look in her cyan eyes, and even as Ye Hua kept still, a laugh bubbling in his chest, Bai Jing was already clapping gleefully, "You can reveal your true form now, Father! Mother's threatening you!"

"Are you threatening me, Qian Qian?" Ye Hua asked softly, barely audible and only for Bai Qian to hear, and the growl that the fox had been about to release was instantly swallowed back. "You-! Ye Hua!" Bai Qian shifted back at once, leaving only her nine tails unshifted as she glared at her husband, but Ye Hua merely smiled, "As your husband, I am very pleased that you have offered yourself to me. 作为你的夫君， 为夫很是欣慰。" "You were threatened! You could have seized that chance to shift!" Bai Qian lifted a hand, as though to punch Ye Hua, although Ye Hua seized it quickly enough, "And reduce this Chang Sheng Hall to splinters? Don't be silly, Qian Qian."

And even before anyone could react, their feet met with grass, and Bai Qian blinked in astonishment, "Ye Hua? What did you do?" "We're in Qing Qiu now, thus we shall follow Qing Qiu's rules." Ye Hua's eyes twinkled, and Bai Qian's eyes barely had time to widen in realisation when Ye Hua had already let go of her, stepping backwards into the grand open field behind the Fox Den, mist gathering by his feet as he walked further from them, until he reached the heart of the field.

There was a rumble, one that shook the grounds of Qing Qiu and the low lying clouds of the Heavens, and within moments, the tiny black figure in the distance had already become a colossal serpentine shape reading backwards as it slowly approached Bai Qian and her two children.

And despite how alien his dragon form was to them, its gentle cyan eyes were full of love as the majestic creature craned its neck, lowering his head to Bai Qian's height and pushing his snout against her outstretched palm in an act of affection. "Father!" Bai Jing was already attempting to climb onto Ye Hua's neck, and Bai Qian had to give up the moment of romance as she dived after her daughter, "Jing'er! Be careful!"