Wagging My Tail in the Ice Queen CEO’s Embrace - Chapter 24

The aroma of the garlic-dressed pork belly wafted into her nostrils. While Ming Ying’s mind was still preoccupied with the thought, “Why is Fu Anyu suddenly feeding me?” her mouth had already obediently accepted the meat.

“Since you’ve already bathed today, I’m feeding you,” Fu Anyu explained, noticing the fox’s puzzled gaze.

Ming Ying chewed the meat, feeling even more bewildered. “So, if I hadn’t bathed, it would be okay to dirty my fur?”

“You could think of it that way,” Fu Anyu replied, placing some vegetables on an empty plate and pushing it toward her.

Ming Ying felt awkward about being fed and couldn’t shake the strange feeling. After hesitating for a few seconds, she decided to stand up to eat.

But standing on the table to eat felt even weirder. If she crouched down, she’d risk dirtying her fur, and if it got greasy, she’d have to bathe again.

Ming Ying never imagined she would one day agonize over such a trivial dilemma as “standing or crouching while eating”!

It seemed that no matter what, she needed to prioritize her transformation into human form soon.

The only question was when Fu Anyu would have time to assist her. Without any spiritual herbs to aid her transformation and only the four spirit-control artifacts Fu Anyu had just given her for protection, attempting the transformation with just these would be far from safe.

Lost in these thoughts, she remained standing on the table, head lowered as she focused on eating from the plate. Even Fu Anyu didn’t notice her zoning out several times and even served her a bowl of tofu pudding with black chicken soup.

“If you like soup, we can have it with dinner from now on,” Fu Anyu said.

Ming Ying took a sip of the soup and mumbled through a mouthful of chicken, “I’m fine with that.”

As soon as she said it, the strange feeling intensified.

The reason seemed to be, Fu Anyu’s sudden gentleness?

It had to be. After all, just last night, Fu Anyu had scolded her off the bed. How could her attitude change so drastically in just one day?

The thought sent a shiver down Ming Ying’s spine. She believed there was no such thing as unconditional kindness, and Fu Anyu wouldn’t treat her gently without a reason.

But what could Fu Anyu possibly want from her? Previously, she had been hunted because of her identity as the Nine-Tailed Fox Princess. But now, with her spiritual power gone, being an outsider, and having concealed her nine-tailed identity, what could Fu Anyu possibly gain from her?

Even after dinner, as she followed Fu Anyu back to the room, Ming Ying still hadn’t figured it out.

Exhausted from a long and busy day at work, and with a troublesome fox at home, Fu Anyu turned off the lights and went to sleep right after her bath.

Curled up in her little nest, Ming Ying felt another bout of insomnia coming on. After a moment’s thought, she went to the guest room, fetched the tablet with her mouth, and planned to pass the time by reading an e-book. She hadn’t finished learning about the local customs of H City yet!

But as she set the tablet down, her teeth slipped, causing it to hit the cool mat. It must have pressed something unintentionally, because when she flipped the screen over, she found herself on a reading page she had never seen before.

Ming Ying had developed the habit of checking the book title first when reading e-books. Her eyes scanned the screen and landed on the top left corner, where it read: The Ice-Queen CEO’s Fierce Love.

The blunt title left Ming Ying stunned. Unable to resist, she read a few lines, then patiently finished the first chapter. Placing a paw on the screen, she lifted her head and glanced at Fu Anyu sleeping soundly on the bed, beginning to question her entire existence as a fox.

This is so unrealistic. How could an “ice-queen CEO” be such a frivolous and arrogant speaker? Whether it’s her behavior or her words, she’s just asking to be punched. How can the other female lead endure it without hitting her?

Although the content is bizarre, curiosity ultimately draws Ming Ying to keep reading.

She just wants to know when the female lead will finally stand up and muster the courage to throw a punch at that smug “fake icequeen CEO.”

When Fu Anyu was startled awake by a nightmare in the latter half of the night, she opened her eyes and noticed a glow coming from under the bed.

Rubbing her eyes, she quietly shifted to the edge of the bed and peered down, bleary-eyed. With just one glance, she recognized the novel from the protagonist’s name.

The nightmare that had been haunting her like a fog instantly dissipated. Startled, Fu Anyu instinctively reached out, intending to snatch the tablet away. But as her hand neared Ming Ying, she suddenly changed her mind.

Ming Ying, completely engrossed in her reading, suddenly felt a cool breath in her right ear, accompanied by a feather-light touch that sent a shiver down her spine.

“What are you watching in the middle of the night?” Fu Anyu’s voice drifted into her ear, soft and lazy. The bedside lamp flickered on as she spoke, yet Ming Ying didn’t hear the faint click of the switch.

Ming Ying had just reached the part where the female lead was being flirted with by the ice-queen CEO. Since the CEO was also a woman and had spoken the exact same line, the entire situation felt unsettlingly surreal to the little fox. For a moment, she couldn’t distinguish between the novel and reality.

Turning to meet Fu Anyu’s gaze, she saw the woman lying on her side near the edge of the bed, resting her head on her arm. A few strands of her dark hair cascaded down, and the top button of her pajamas was undone. Ming Ying stammered involuntarily, “I-I was… reading… accidentally…”

Suddenly, she felt as if she’d forgotten how to speak. After a long, dazed pause, she finally managed to blurt out, “I opened it by accident.”

“What’s so interesting that you’d skip sleep for it?” Fu Anyu asked with a faint, ambiguous smile.

Ming Ying glanced at the novel, then back at Fu Anyu, struck by an eerie sense of deja vu, Fu Anyu’s questions were exactly what the ice-queen CEO in the novel had just said. And… and Fu Anyu had blown into her ear!

Fu Anyu was a real “ice-queen CEO”, cold and unfeeling. How could she lean over the bed and blow into her ear?!

It was already late, and Ming Ying often confused dreams with reality at this hour. For a moment, she thought she was dreaming about reading the novel and then being caught by Fu Anyu. Without answering, she silently turned off the tablet screen, placed it aside, closed her eyes, and curled up in her little nest, hoping to fall asleep in the dream and escape this bizarre scenario.

Watching the fox pretend to fall asleep right in front of her, Fu Anyu let out a soft humph. Before returning to her spot to rest, she casually picked up the tablet from the fox’s nest to prevent the little fox from secretly reading that yuri novel again while she slept.

Ming Ying was actually quite tired. After closing her eyes, she soon fell into a deep sleep. When she woke up, it was already broad daylight, well past the time Fu Anyu would ever be at home.

Stretching in her nest, she was about to crawl out for breakfast when she glanced down and saw the tablet lying on the floor beside her nest. Instantly wide awake, she immediately recalled the strange dream from the night before.

She looked up toward the edge of the bed. In that strange dream, Fu Anyu had been leaning over the bedside, gazing at her with a lazy yet intrigued expression, much like a well-fed leopard basking in the sun, calmly assessing its next prey.

Just the thought sent a shiver down Ming Ying’s spine. Her right ear, the one Fu Anyu had blown on in the dream, felt itchy and warm.

Flustered, she snatched her tablet back into her little nest and stumbled out the door.

Following Fu Anyu’s instructions, she had temporarily stopped gathering spiritual energy. After the meal, she accompanied Du Yunxin to the backyard to watch her water the flowers.

This was Ming Ying’s first time stepping into Fu Anyu’s backyard. As soon as Du Yunxin opened the door, she saw the garden filled with jasmine trees, their delicate fragrance drifting through the air. A small path stretched from the doorway to the far end of the yard, with a large stone table shaped like a tree stump halfway along, surrounded by three stump-shaped stone stools.

Spotting a swing not far from the door, Ming Ying curiously pushed the wooden seat. Finding it movable and hearing no strange sounds of broken mechanisms, she hopped on, using her spiritual energy to gently set it in motion.

Du Yunxin had just finished watering a pot of plants when she returned to find the fox amusing herself on the swing, swinging dangerously high. Alarmed, she called out, “Stop that! If you want to play on the swing, at least wait until President Fu is back!”

“I’m not a little fox!” Ming Ying was having too much fun to get down. Her fluffy tail swayed in the air one moment and drooped beneath the swing the next, the bells on her spirit-control bracelets jingling softly. “Don’t worry about me falling off!”

Even if she did fall, her spiritual energy would protect her. As a nine-tailed great demon, getting injured from swinging would be utterly ridiculous.

Still, considering Du Yunxin’s concern wouldn’t easily fade, Ming Ying gradually slowed the swing and reluctantly hopped off.

But the moment her feet touched the ground, she recalled the novel she had read in her dream the night before: an icy CEO holding the heroine as they sat together on a backyard swing, gently swaying.

For some reason, when she looked at the swing again, she imagined Fu Anyu sitting there with her curled up on her lap, swaying together.

Why was she having such terrifying thoughts?

Ming Ying shook her head and gave her whole body a good shake before catching up with Du Yunxin, following her as she strolled among the jasmine trees.

“These are all edible jasmine flowers,” Du Yunxin explained as she plucked blossoms and placed them in a small cloth pouch she had produced from somewhere. “You can use them to make tea, pastries, or even stir-fries. Have you ever tried jasmine flower cakes?”

“Yes, I have,” Ming Ying replied, greedily inhaling the refreshing floral scent. “Are you planning to make some?”

“I’m considering it,” Du Yunxin said, bending down to place a jasmine flower on the fox’s head. As she picked the blossoms, she hummed a slightly off-key tune.

Seeing how happy Du Yunxin was just from gathering flowers, Ming Ying didn’t need to think hard to guess who the jasmine cakes were for. A pang of envy struck her, and she shook the flower off her head, silently following along.

How wonderful it would be if someone would specially make something for her one day.

But alas, bound by her identity as a member of the nine-tailed clan, she couldn’t even freely seek out such a person.

After gathering the flowers, Du Yunxin cheerfully returned to the kitchen to make flower cakes.

Ming Ying lay sprawled on the living room sofa, munching on freshly cut apple slices while watching TV.

Today was not her lucky day. After flipping through dozens of channels, she found nothing but dull programs or long-winded product advertisements. The monotony made her drowsy, and coupled with her late-night restlessness the previous night, she decided to give it one last try before turning off the TV to catch up on sleep.

Unexpectedly, the next channel she landed on featured Fu Anyu in an interview.

Instinctively, Ming Ying pushed the remote control aside to avoid accidentally changing the channel by stepping on it.

On the screen, she saw the host wearing a gossipy smile as they asked Fu Anyu, “President Fu, after managing Shengwei Group for so many years, have you ever considered stepping away from the ‘strong woman’ role and returning to the life of an ordinary woman?”

“What do you define as the ‘life of an ordinary woman’?” Fu Anyu countered.

“For instance, finding someone to fall in love with, regardless of gender, and if it works out, getting married. Or perhaps…” The host paused briefly, “raising a cute little pet and caring for it as meticulously as one would a child.”

Ming Ying inexplicably felt her heart leap into her throat. She had heard from Du Yunxin that both romance and pet ownership were Fu Anyu’s “taboo topics”, subjects that would inevitably provoke her anger.

She stared intently at the screen, fearing Fu Anyu might start an argument on the spot.

“Then, I suppose I’m already living the life of an ordinary woman,” Fu Anyu replied, a faint smile gracing her lips. “Lately, I have indeed been taking care of a cute little animal.”