Chapter 347: 347 Treasure and Handkerchief

"Mother!"

While Emma and Li Ang were talking, little Ai Li did not come over to disturb them, though she would occasionally cast a longing glance in their direction.

Once Emma entered the garden after finishing her conversation, the impatient girl finally couldn't help but run over, tugging gently at Emma's skirt and offering up something she held in her hands as if it were a precious treasure.

"Look, look!"

These are... holly berries?

After identifying the tiny orange-red fruits, Emma smiled softly, bent down, and plucked a leaf that had snagged on Ai Li's soft hat.

"Wonderful. I thought all the holly berries in the garden had been eaten by the little animals... Where did you find these?"

"Over there!"

Pointing to a patch of bushes that had been pushed aside, little Ai Li, whose forehead was covered in fine beads of sweat and whose nose was smudged with dirt, said with excitement,

"Mei Lan Ni sister took me to crawl inside and look, and there were these red little fruits, and lots of little dog-like footprints!"

Little dog-like footprints?

Emma paused, puzzled.

"Are there dogs in the garden?"

"I don't know... but there really were lots of little footprints!"

Little Ai Li shook her head, her eyes sparkling with excitement.

"I've looked at every part of the garden so many times, but this is the first time I knew there were little dogs! Wei Lian and the others are so amazing! They found the footprints behind the bushes with just one look, and they even found a secret passage!"

A secret passage? Are there secret passages in the garden?

"It's true! There really is a secret passage!"

Seeing Emma's skeptical look, little Ai Li urged anxiously,

"I'm not lying to you. After finding the passage, Mei Lan Ni wanted to crawl in to take a look, but Auntie An Na wouldn't let her, so Wei Lian went around to the other side and climbed a tree to trick Auntie An Na... Oops!

No! That... that wasn't a trick! It was... it was just..."

"..."

I see. So it was a "lure the tiger away from the mountain" tactic, was it!

These two troublemakers, they've even started coordinating their schemes!

Seeing little Ai Li cover her mouth in panic after accidentally spilling the beans, Li Ang sighed inwardly. He walked quickly into the garden and circled to the front of the bushes.

Sure enough, Mei Lan Ni's wiggling bottom was half-stuck in the bushes, her upper body buried inside the so-called secret passage, as she muffledly shouted,

"It stinks! It stinks! Pull me out!"

"Waaah! It stinks to death! Ai Li! Ai Li, help!"

"..."

I knew it, you two would definitely stir up some trouble for me!

After pulling Mei Lan Ni out of the passage by force, Li Ang looked at his mud-monkey of a sister and said with a dark face,

"What did you promise me yesterday? Forgot?"

"Huh? Big Brother?"

Seeing Li Ang's darkened expression, Mei Lan Ni felt a pang of guilt. Caught red-handed in her mischief, she laughed awkwardly and pointed behind her.

"Well... there's a secret passage! And there seemed to be things inside, I even grabbed a handful! Maybe it's treasure!"

Treasure?

Looking at the little hand Mei Lan Ni was offering up as if it were a precious gift, Li Ang was skeptical, but seeing her expectant expression, he let her place the so-called treasure into his palm.

Hmm... dark brown, relatively hard, slightly flat cylindrical shape, about a centimeter in diameter, and it smells a bit stinky...

"This looks like a badger's dropping."

After identifying the "treasure" in Li Ang's hand, Emma, who had followed with her daughter, pointed at the footprints on the ground and said with a suppressed smile,

"The footprints on the ground don't look like dog paws; they have five toes, and the front paws are larger than the back ones, which is characteristic of badger tracks. So, what they found wasn't a secret passage, but a badger den.

As for the treasure in your hand... um... would you like to wipe your hand?"

"..."

Treasure dug out of a badger's den... that's just dried poop, isn't it?!

Upon hearing Emma's judgment, Li Ang's hand trembled violently. He hurriedly shook off the dried dropping, his face darkening several shades further.

Little Ai Li had found berries and diligently brought them to Emma, while Mei Lan Ni had crawled through a badger hole and brought her big brother a handful of badger poop.

The contrast was stark enough...

As Li Ang glared at his sister and tried to scrub his palm clean with a handkerchief, An Na also dragged Wei Lian around from the other side, slightly out of breath.

"I knew you two were up to something!"

Seeing the mud-covered Mei Lan Ni, An Na, who had spent years playing cat-and-mouse with her younger siblings, realized instantly that she had been tricked. She grabbed Wei Lian by the ear and said through gritted teeth to the sheepish Mei Lan Ni,

"The gifts I promised you two are gone! And your allowance for next week is docked!"

"Waaah! No, don't!"

Although she had guessed the gifts might be canceled, she hadn't expected her allowance to be docked too. Mei Lan Ni looked toward her big brother, the one who doted on her most, blinking her big eyes pitifully in hopes that someone would stand up for "justice," but unfortunately...

"Don't look at me!"

Recalling the sensation of those dried droppings, Li Ang hardened his heart and said,

"The allowance must be docked. And that's not all—you have to wash the dirty clothes yourselves! Don't you dare ask An Na for help!"

"Waaah!"

After the minor disturbance caused by the "secret passage treasure," the Li Ang family entered the small wooden house built on the side of the garden at Emma's invitation.

Once the dust had been brushed off the three children, Emma took two slightly damp towels, handed one to An Na, and began gently wiping little Ai Li's face.

An Na, meanwhile, pinched her mischievous sister's cheeks with her left hand and used the wet towel in her right to scrub vigorously.

"Gen... gentle! It hurts!"

"Suck it up! I can't be gentle!"

"Then... ugh... just do it like you're doing for Ai Li!"

"No!"

Scrubbing Mei Lan Ni's forehead with force until her little head was bright red, An Na said sharply,

"Ai Li only had a bit of surface dust on her face, but your sweat mixed with the dirt to form mud. If I don't use some force, how am I supposed to get it off?"

"But... it hurts!"

While resisting her sister's "brutality," Mei Lan Ni held onto a final hope and requested,

"How about... you wipe Wei Lian's face first? I can wait until Auntie Emma is done, then you can..."

"Suck it up!"

"Oh..."

Hmph, my foolish sister!

Seeing Mei Lan Ni still trying to drag him into the mess even at a time like this, Wei Lian, who was also covered in mud, shot her a sidelong glance. He stood with his hands behind his back and smiled proudly, a sense of intellectual superiority welling up inside him.

Although having mud plastered on his face was uncomfortable, An Na was currently in a fit of rage, and the first person to get their face wiped would definitely suffer. So, he had deliberately stepped back half a step to let her go first. Once An Na's anger had subsided a bit, then...

"Wei Lian, come here!"

Seeing his sister and Emma busy with the children, Li Ang, who had nothing to do, felt a bit awkward. He took a handkerchief out of the Mirror World and beckoned to Wei Lian.

"Don't wait for An Na. I'll help you wipe your face!"

Big Brother?

Upon hearing Li Ang's call, Wei Lian thought for a moment and decided that having his big brother do it didn't seem like a bad idea. He nodded, walked over with a cool expression, and tilted his little face up toward Li Ang.

"Ugh!"

"Big Brother, your handkerchief seems a bit stinky..."