Karlia had a sharp look in her eyes, as if anything that did not suit her taste would result in swift punishment for Ziran. The man seemingly knew this as well, probably having gone through it a few times already.
"Darling, I had to go through an expedition to an uncharted plane. You know how those go—the time can easily get skewed, and things get winded," Ziran tried to explain.
"You said a decade was what you needed. Sure, I get that expeditions like that can take longer, but this wasn't just twice or thrice as long." Karlia's eyes gleamed with fine sparks of embers. "It's been over forty years!" she roared.
Her voice was loud enough to shake not only Ziran but everyone within a two-hundred-meter radius. Lin Mu felt like his head was throbbing as well while his ears ached. At the very least, he confirmed that Ziran's darling wife, Karlia, was not a calm person.
Ziran could only hold his tongue and endure the verbal lashing he got from his wife as she erupted in a flurry of expletives. Lin Mu could only watch as Karlia used rather exquisite curses that even put Lin Mu's imagination to shame.
It took a whole fifteen minutes before Karlia managed to somewhat 'calm down.'
"Do you know how long the children have been waiting for you? Your youngest went through their entire infancy without you being there!" Karlia shouted at the half-elf.
"I'll... I'll make up for it. I'll take them on a trip!" Ziran quickly said, trying to mend the situation.
"A trip, you say? Don't try to fool me." Karlia caught on quickly. "You just wish to find a method to slip away again, don't you?" She turned her sharp gaze toward Lin Mu.
"You can't fool me this time. You're coming back home with me, and you're grounded!" Karlia declared.Hearing that, Ziran could only smile wryly and throw a pleading look at Lin Mu that was immediately ignored.
'Can't help you here, Ziran. You gotta handle your own family,' Lin Mu thought to himself.
"Yeah, Daddy! You have to play with us for at least the next forty years!" the demons behind Karlia, as well as those in the giant flying skull, all said in unison.
Hearing that, Lin Mu was surprised. He took another look at all the demons and finally realized the similarities they had with Ziran and Karlia. Due to his unfamiliarity with demons, he couldn't tell it just from facial features before, but now he was sure they were all related.
"These are all your children?" Lin Mu asked, feeling rather shocked.
"Yeah they're my beloved children." Ziran said with a smile.
"Very beloved." Karlia emphasized.
He had initially thought that Karlia had come here with a troop of her own army, but now it was clear that it wasn't a militaristic visit but rather a 'family' visit. It couldn't be helped that demons had an entirely different kind of growth, making them indistinguishable from other human children at first glance.
'If I compare their vitality, they do seem rather younger,' Lin Mu estimated. The youngest demon among them was barely thirty years old, while the oldest was over two hundred years or more. He had known Ziran to have over eight hundred children, and this number matched up rather well.
What Karlia had done was the same as a single mother finding out where the runaway husband was hiding to avoid paying childcare support.
'Don't think he'll be able to come with us,' Lin Mu thought to himself. The original plan had been for him to head to the Silent Lotus world with Monk Hushu, Ziran, and perhaps Daoist Chu. But now that seemed like a distant dream. The demoness would never let her husband out of sight anytime in the next few decades.
He continued to watch as the demoness fought with her husband, totally cementing Ziran's position as a henpecked husband. The whole debacle went on for an hour, during which a lot of commoners and cultivators had gathered around, all of them relishing the drama. The fear they had initially felt had long since disappeared, and they behaved as if they were watching any other common fight between a husband and wife in the streets.
This made Lin Mu curious as to how they were placated so quickly. He gestured to one of the guards nearby and inquired about it, only to learn that the Imperial Court had already known about the arrival of the demons. In fact, the Temple of the Guardian Beasts and other powers had also been made aware of it.
He discovered that the demons had not come here at the last moment without permission. In truth, they had put forth a request to the Immortal Court as well as the Imperial Court of the Dao Wind Empire, citing the reason as 'escorting a member back.' They had also provided a detailed account of Ziran in this, and as such, there was no lack of proof.
There was no way they could reject it, and even Crown Prince Feng Shun had vouched for it, knowing that Ziran had a demoness as a wife. This was why the giant skull had managed to enter the Capital Region without being stopped. ȑÅɴȯ𐌱Ɛȿ
Lin Mu had a lot more questions, but they would have to wait for now as he watched the drama unfold. It was a learning experience for Lin Mu as Ziran dealt with his wife using multiple methods.
They ranged from diplomacy, pleading, bargaining, and outright begging. But Karlia ran a hard bargain and would not budge at all, standing firmly on the fact that Ziran needed to come back with them. At the end of it, she had enough and stated one thing.
"That's the end of it. Children, take your father away and explore the city with him. We've never been here before," Karlia declared, causing Ziran to be manhandled and taken away by his rather enthusiastic children.
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