No Meat

Lifen and Xinyi reached the middle of the cave. There, Shijian and other animals waited around a table laden with various types of fruits in different colors. With apples alone, there were green, red, orange, and purple ones. With pineapples, there were white, orange, yellow, and red. Mangoes had almost all kinds of colors in different sizes, even a blue one.

There were odd-shaped looking fruits, such as a black hook-shaped but a very sweet one, butterfly-shaped that floats on air, a crystal-look white fruit where you could see the seeds inside, and much more. Then a pitcher of milk and another container of sparkling fruit juice were at the side, ready for them to drink as they like. But… no meat.

Lifen gulped hard, thinking she should have expected this since they have an animal as a server. However, her gaze went to Xinyi, who ate the fruits heartily, enjoying every bite. This bothered the mother-in-law.

"Xinyi, can I ask you something personal?"

"Sure, Ma." She made a crunching sound with her every bite of a purple apple juice extracts dripped the sides of her mouth. Her tongue leaked the juice while eating.

"Do you eat meat?" Lifen asked but giggling inside, staring at the way Xinyi ate. She understood the young wife needed a noble lady's training like her before she married into the Lei family, but that could wait for later. The most important thing now was finding meat.

"Nope." Xinyi continued to munch, enjoying her fruit, not thinking about the other person's dumbstruck expression after knowing she never eats meat.

Lifen sighed. 'As expected for someone who loves animals and communicates with them.' And added, "Not even fish?"

"Hmm," Xinyi's forehead furrowed, "if there's no other choice, only fish." She hurried eating one apple and wiped her mouth with her sleeve again and pulled down a floating butterfly fruit. "Any more questions, Ma?" And drank a glass of sparkling juice that changed colors as she drank.

Lifen's expectations deflated like a balloon, thinking she had to abstain from eating meat while she was with Xinyi. However, her mind protested, 'No, I can't live without meat. I'm the number one customer of the best meat producers in Roshi Chang.'

Roshi Chang was a city known for its animal farms, where they produced the best breed of animals in whole Chiji. This was under the jurisdiction of the Lei clan, so she was free to eat meat as she liked.

When Lifen didn't answer, Xinyi realized her mistake. "Oh, Ma, I'm sorry. I should have asked Xionmao for a fish for you. I'm so thoughtless as a daughter." Xinyi faced Xionmao and spoke the bear language. The animal nodded and grunted.

"No, no, it's fine. This is a healthy diet anyway," Lifen said, forcing a smile, but underneath, she screamed in agony. 'This is torture. No, but I must endure. I have to hurry with my task here so I can go back to the mansion."

"No, Ma, we'll let Xionmao get some fish for lunch but don't expect me to eat it for now." She said with a sad face.

"Eh? You grew up not eating meat?" This sounded more alarming to Lifen.

"I did eat before when I was still small but I stopped after…" Xinyi suddenly felt nauseous and covered her mouth after recalling something in the past.

"Are you okay? Did you choke?" Lifen poured a glass of juice for her. "Here, drink this."

Xinyi drank the juice and brushed her lips with her sleeve. "I didn't choke, Ma. I'm fine. I just recalled why I stopped eating meat. There was a long drought at that time and men started hunting animals in the valley since vegetables were scarce. Then, I saw a family killed and cooked one of my deer friends out of hunger but I couldn't blame them since the wife was pregnant and they don't have money to buy food."

She spoke very fast to keep her stomach going upside down. But after talking, Xinyi couldn't hold it in and puked everything from her stomach. Lifen patted her back, feeling sorry for bringing up the topic.

"Stop thinking about that," said Lifen and turned her head at Xionmao. "No need to bring in fish for lunch."

Xionmao scratched his head. This is the best time to eat fish, and now he was deprived of eating. The panda sat and ate a bamboo stalk, sulking. Xinyi understood the panda even though he didn't speak. This was part of her powers, knowing the feelings of animals.

"Ma, thank you, but you better let Xionmao get fish. He needs it for energy as guardian of this place. He also eats eggs. So we can also have eggs too." Xinyi said after drinking a whole glass of juice and burped very loud.