“That’s great, Auntie.”

Zi Yang was truly relieved. This was a 18K ancient dollars investment after all. An effort of over three months.

What he has think about now is how to get more ancient tree leaves from the leafed hat trut in Aunt Jing’s Garden. If I could save another 12000 bucks, why waste it?

“Yang’er, we should leave soon. It will get late and the five babies (pandas) might have woken up by now.”, Mama Mei quipped by the side.

Aunt Lan agreed, “Mei Li’s right, it’s a hassle when you’re out on some work and have part of your mind always worrying about your baby at home.”

“Aren’t there daycare centers around here?”, Zi Yang asked casually.

“There are but you know, services are usually more costly and it is difficult for general populace to afford that.”

A light bulb immediately went on in Zi Yang’s head.

“Why don’t we set it up?”, Zi Yang asked with bright eyes.

Everyone was confused with my question.

“A daycare center. Let’s have it setup in the backyard of my house.”

I stuttered, conceived and explained the idea at the same time.

A daycare center … sort of a cooperative, where different moms work on different days or hours on salary or some hired house help; while everyone pays for maintenance.

Zi Yang and Aunt Lan would prepare minimum infrastructure investment to maintain majority share, and rest could be taken by the mothers in proportion of help.

Uncle Bai and Aunt Lan were dumbfounded with this idea.

In the society where people cooperate with their beasts as partners to take on major endeavors, they hardly ever talk about cooperatives between common people – they would usually either have their beasts help or hire a house help!

Cooperatives are rarely seen.

“It is said that it takes a village to take a village to raise a child. Aunt Lan, let’s build that village.”, Zi Yang was completely excited at the thought of another income source.

“Slow down there, boss. There are a lot of things to consider such as good employees, safety nets. It’s no joke.”, Uncle Bai woke us up.

“Yes, but everyone will discuss it together. The community members and new mothers can serve as sounding boards”.

Uncle Bai looked dubious. He suddenly asked

“You know cooperatives and big words like sound boards. Are you really an eight-year-old kid?”

This question almost made Zi Yang jump on his tail.

Thankfully, Aunt Lan slapped him on the back of his head again, “If not, is he some old monster pretending to be?”

Damn, both husband and wife are a bit sensitive. It’s dangerous.

“ha-ha uncle, I’m looking for income sources quite a lot these days so this idea occurred to me. And, uncle you should also more thesaurus for words. Your vocabulary is not rich.”

Zi Yang also phrased a sentence and shot back.

Then, started Bai house daily soap opera:

“He’s right. My dad told me back then….”

“What your dada, my mom also said….”

“What did your mom say, dare you say….”

K.O. Aunt Lan Wins.

Meanwhile, Mama Mei took the initiative to break the fight and picked up Zi Ming.

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“Lan Yun, we have to go now. Think about what Zi Yang said. We’ll talk later. It’s getting late.”

Then, Bai Lian started crying and looking at Zi Ming as we left.

Next few days, Aunt Lan would frequently discuss the preliminary details at the store at every morning visit.

Next few days, Zi Yang spent regular days – selling products, studying at night classes and massaging Zi Ming.

Next few days, Mama Mei is still going to Pine hill forests for some new products and helping with the house.

Next few days, few more aunts came to the store and discussed the panda cuddle day care center.

Yes, Panda cuddle is the name decided for the center.

Other than that, the saplings for berries have grown a lot with the help of energy stones, but the thunder marked wood he picked up from the firewood store did not show any promise.

Another very important thing Zi Yang did was to collect common beasts’ blood from void net.

He is going to try again if Auntie Jing’s bloodthirsty and evil leafed hat trut would once again give an ancient leaf tree in exchange for blood.

That morning, after selling the berries packs and rose daisies dews’, Zi Yang took his fishing rod and packed the bag full of blood packs of different animals.

He came to a tall tree just outside Aunt Jing’s house and next to the garden. Knocked on the tree, talked and confirmed this tree is not a spiritual beast.

Then, Zi Yang started climbing the tree with difficulty.

With a few scratches on his arms and legs, and few more holes in his clothes, Zi Yang finally climbed a reasonable height to see the trut sleeping on an orange-reddish tree which looked a bit like an osmanthus tree he’s seen in movies.

Zi Yang chose this time because he’s never seen Auntie Jing out of the house in the early morning ever. So, she is most likely sleeping.

After all, Zi Yang was a little guilty. Exchanging products in exchange for blood is not a good thing – after all, it is not a good thing to encourage a beast’s bloodthirstiness.

But thinking that he would not have any money for buying an extra wood resource for the lotion again, Zi Yang had to wrong Aunt Jing a little.

“Mom said Aunt Jing is powerful, so she should be able to deal with it.

And its’ not like the beast blood is particularly powerful, it only a common beasts’ blood – so how serious could the sequela be when he’s already bloodthirsty for human blood?”

Zi Yang comforted himself in low voice.

What Zi Yang did not know was everything he’s done from walking stealthily to the tree, his way of kicking and checking spirituality of the tree, his effort and resolve in climbing the tree despite short breaths and body heaviness, and his soliloquy – were also seen and heard by two people in the house.

“Dark Void, what is this child doing and talking about now?”

But, one of them were a little confused. Yes, Void Empress was confused about all the bloodthirstiness talk and early morning tree climbing.

Dark Void was so ashamed that she dug her toe nails in the ground and even wanted to get in herself.

After all, the leafed hat trut, though not contracted was trained by her, so it could be considered her beast.

She then whispered the story of how the trut sucked some blood from Zi Yang a few years ago under effect of her trial drug, and after coming to its senses – it gave an ancient tree’s leaf to him.

Then she reminded her of the encounter in the forest the other day. Zi Yang most likely wants a life tree’s leaf again.

Sure enough, Zi Yang had already found a position and taken his fishing rod. He opened the bag pack and took out a small packet of blood.

After tying the packed to the hook, he swung the rod about seven times before hitting the leafed hat trut on his head.

The trut screamed reflexively and woke up some young birds and insects. Zi Yang reflexively swung the packet onto its mouth again.

What if Auntie woke up again? How could we do business?

The trut was at a loss until a drop of pig blood seeped into his mouth. He slapped the packet away and then noticed Zi Yang on the tree not far away following the hook and the wire.

“Idiot trut, don’t you know illegal transactions like this need to be quiet.”

Zi Yang reprimanded righteously before the trut could screech anymore, bring the shocked trut to reflexively cover its mouth.

“Good, come close to the tree. See I brought new products today.”

Zi Yang was thinking that those low-grade mafia movies in pervious life were of some use after all. He had gained momentum and should be able to swindle, ah, exchange the leaf from this stupid trut.

Next, the two in audience watched as the trut initially declined taking the blood packets of a pig, cow, camel, snake, eagle etc.

And Zi Yang holding the trut back by various ridiculous reasons – emotional card of waking up early for benefit, ratting out his money seeking behavior of selling household products without permission to Aunt Jing and reporting to beast regiment of a bloodthirsty monster…

Void Empress was even more speechless when she saw the performance of one beast and one human.

The early morning comedy show was a bit quirky.

Dark Void also has several black lines on her forehead.

Engrossed as they were in this amusing performance, they thought the show should finally be over when the trut shook his head firmly once again.

Void Empress has just wanted Dark Void to hand over the life tree’ leaves to Zi Yang later when she saw that he has already taken out a notebook and pencil.

What is going to pull now?

Isn’t this child relentless?