Chapter 7: This Cub, He’s Covering Him!
As soon as the Little Tyrant heard Shen Zeyu’s words, the innate rebellious streak in his bones flared up. The more he was told not to do something, the more he was determined to do it. He tightened his hold on the pink egg.
He had grown up as the Crown Prince, born to a life of supreme luxury and nobility. In Ikaruosi, no matter what he did, no one dared to contradict him, which had fostered his domineering and forceful personality. If something had fallen into his hands, how could he let it be snatched back? Where would his dignity as the Crown Prince go?
When he had seen this egg lying all alone in the incubation pod and heard the healer say the pink egg had been left outside for a year without anyone caring, Li Heng couldn’t help but draw a parallel to himself.
A few days ago, he was still the Crown Prince with a transcendent status, respected and flattered by everyone. In the blink of an eye, he was betrayed by everyone he knew. Everyone wanted him dead!
The bloodbath on the day of his coronation had turned the once arrogant and unrestrained Crown Prince silent and taciturn during the days since the Captain of the Guard had found him. No one expected the Crown Prince’s bloodline ability to be so abnormal that he remained conscious even while in a coma. By sheer coincidence, while he was recovering in the nutrient pod, he had intercepted a few of the healer’s most easily misunderstood sentences. Combined with his experiences over the last few days, he had actually developed a sense of empathy for this unhatched cub.
Furthermore, he was currently just a cynical teenager who had lost his father and been backstabbed by his kin. With all these “buffs” stacked together, Li Heng found the pink egg more pleasing to the eye the more he looked at it. He felt that the pink egg was a pitiful little thing.
Because of this trace of sympathy, Li Heng cast a look of disdain at the late-arriving Shen Zeyu.
Faced with Shen Zeyu, a general who had emerged from countless battlefield slaughters, any other beastman would have wanted to press their head into the ground. But the Little Tyrant wasn’t afraid at all. He directed the flame-tipped arrows of his overwhelming hostility straight toward Shen Zeyu’s eyes.
Sang Hu, whose face was pale from the pressure of both parties’ spiritual power, was so anxious he was practically scratching his head. He tried to persuade them: “Major General Shen, don’t start a fight. Let’s not damage the harmony between our sides.”
Shen Zeyu glanced at him. “Harmony? Your Majesty is holding my little brother’s life in his hands. And you’re talking to me about… harmony?”
Sang Hu choked, unable to argue. After all, what Shen Zeyu said was perfectly true; they were the ones who had come to ask for help. And now, before they had even repaid the favor, their Emperor was eyeing the other man’s brother. What a mess!
“We were pursued all the way here. His Majesty overused his bloodline power, and his injuries are too severe, which is why he’s a bit confused about who is friend or foe right now. In a moment, His Majesty will regain his clarity and promises not to harm the Young Master in the slightest. Once we return, we will do our best to compensate the Young Master! If you don’t believe me, you can ask your own healer!”
“Captain, I am very clear-headed!” Li Heng directly dismantled the face-saving excuse his Captain of the Guard had worked so hard to build. “Humph. If you cared about your brother, you wouldn’t have left him outside and ignored him, only showing up leisurely to fetch him when he’s about to hatch. If you don’t want him, then give him to me to raise. It’s just an extra set of bowl and chopsticks anyway. I, Li Heng, can afford to raise him!”
The veins on Shen Zeyu’s forehead throbbed. He gritted his teeth and said, “There’s no need for Your Majesty to worry. This. Is. My. Brother!”
Just as it looked like the two were about to fight again, Sang Hu almost lost his breath from stress. At that moment, everyone clearly heard a sound—
Crack!
The gazes of the two Fierce Beasts simultaneously shifted to the pink egg they were each holding half of.
The crack extended and widened from the existing fissures on both sides, reaching all the way to the top. Everyone held their breath, staring together at a protruding piece at the top of the pink egg. The cracks radiated outward with that top section as the center.
Crack!
Crack, crack!
A soft claw tip, a pink paw pad, and a paw with its own soft, light pink fur broke through the shell. Just as everyone thought the cub would exert more effort and hatch in one go, revealing his full appearance:
He stopped moving.
It seemed that opening a hole at the top just now had used up all the cub’s effort. The pink paw hung down powerlessly. Just as everyone was about to withdraw their gazes in disappointment, he moved again!
As the cracking sounds continued, the opening at the top grew wider. With a “poof” sound, the eggshell piece at the top was pushed up.
The name of the Shen family’s Fierce Beasts was famous throughout the Interstellar. Everyone knew that it was a foregone conclusion that Marshal Shen’s fourth son would be a Fierce Beast.
Shen Zeyu’s adjutant stared at that crack, his breathing becoming rapid. He was already imagining the Young Master’s original form:
Would it be a Primal Black Tiger like Marshal Shen, who broke into the Zerg headquarters alone and tore the Broodmother apart with his bare hands?
Would it be a Black Panther like Major General Shen, who slaughtered his way through the Astral First Military Academy and lurked in the Dead Star Zone for half a month to take down an A-rank wanted criminal?
Or perhaps a Black Mamba snake like the second daughter, Great Councilor Shen, who hid a knife behind her smile and could trick people to death without them knowing?
Or maybe even a Silver Wolf like the current bully of the military academy, who crushed his peers until they couldn’t lift their heads?
No matter what kind of Fierce Beast it was, as long as it was a Shen family bloodline awakening, it would be cool. Cool from every 360-degree angle.
As a member of the Shen Family Army who had grown up following Shen Zeyu, the adjutant had a natural, powerful filter for the Shen family’s awakened Fierce Beast bloodlines.
The reason the upper echelons of the Federation feared the Shen family was not only because they possessed powerful bloodlines but also because the Shen Family Army, which had risen from the bottom-tier Blue Star, was highly supported by the ordinary beastmen of the Federation.
When Marshal Shen first joined the Federation army, the people of Blue Star had pooled all their resources to support him, hoping he could stand out among the various Astral forces. So, when Marshal Shen gained power, he naturally fed back into Blue Star. He gradually pulled up the people of Blue Star, who were a low-tier Astral race, so they no longer had to live at the mercy of others. As a result, the Blue Star people were the last to join but the fastest to gain a solid foothold, becoming one of the most envied and sought-after planets for other Astral races in the Federation.
All these reasons combined made the Astral races of various Federation powers unhappy with Marshal Shen and the Shen Family Army behind him. Everyone else was busy making the weak serve the strong; low-tier beastmen could only be squeezed and exploited by large powers. The weak had no rights, which stabilized their own superior status. Then your Shen Family Army comes along and tries to break the barriers of the upper-class circle? If they didn’t target you, who would they target?
This had led to the Shen family’s current difficult situation, even though Marshal Shen had become a hero and the God of War of the Federation. Those people couldn’t wait to get rid of Marshal Shen and suppress the morale of the Shen Family Army.
The adjutant shook the messy thoughts out of his head and stared intently at the pink egg hatching. The pink egg, flashing with strange golden patterns, finally split open, emitting a piercing light.
The Ghost Vine, which had been acting as a mere decoration, slithered in through the crack. It coiled around a furry wrist, turning into a translucent, emerald-green, intricately carved hollow bracelet.
The light flashed, but the adjutant’s expectation of a ferocious, humanoid battleship Fierce Beast didn’t materialize. Instead, there was a tiny, tiny kitten-like creature that was pink and tender all over?
Adjutant: ????????
Adjutant: Is this right?!
The completely pink “kitten” crawled out from the hole at the top. Exhausted, it flopped directly onto the edge of the eggshell, sticking out a tiny pink tongue to pant for breath.
Raising its head, its damp eyes met everyone’s gazes. It looked lost and helpless. Especially when it met the two gazes closest to its left and right, it felt as if it were being locked on by two Fierce Beasts. That shivering, terrifying sensation of facing a Fierce Beast made the cub’s fur stand on end, and a wave of palpitations hit his heart.
A soft, innocent, and weak cub.
With a “shoo,” he shrunk back into the eggshell. He even pulled the top piece of the eggshell back together. It closed with a precision that left no gaps.
Silence. A strange silence.
“I heard that Marshal Shen’s fourth son also has a Fierce Beast bloodline, and Fierce Beasts are ferocious. Logically speaking, the moment he was born, there should have been an uncontrollable bloodline riot. Forget about blowing up a planet; for a starship, if I’m not mistaken, it should have been destroyed by now, with its parts drifting through the universe. Shouldn’t it be… shouldn’t it be this quiet?”
This wasn’t Sang Hu being provocative; he was genuinely confused. As long as it was a Fierce Beast bloodline, the personality would be violent, and the destructive power would be comparable to a point-blank light cannon explosion. When their Emperor was born back then, he had burned down half the palace. Even now, many places there are still hot to the touch; whatever you plant dies, and it can be described as a wasteland.
The birth of this Shen family Young Master, who was rumored to be a Fierce Beast upon hatching, was far too peaceful. Other than that one flash of light when he hatched, there was no other movement at all.
And… the original form of this Young Master was also… too strange, right? He looked like a cat but wasn’t quite a cat; he looked a bit like an ancient bear species. Speaking of which, do bears even have pink fur?
The quiet, motionless pink egg, while everyone’s attention was drawn away by Sang Hu, suddenly rolled backward with lightning speed. The movement was so fast that both Li Heng and Shen Zeyu—who had been holding the cub as he hatched—didn’t react immediately.
At the same time, the two of them quickly reached out, catching the cub along with his eggshell just before he hit the ground. The cub, who had been hiding in the eggshell, used their support to roll along. The crack in the eggshell, which was originally facing upward, was now facing downward, revealing a pair of tiny pink feet.
From a distance, it looked like a giant egg had grown a pair of small feet. The pink egg wobbled as it ran toward the exit. The scene was strange and hilarious.
“The Young Master is running away, stop him!”
Outside the medical room, there was a commotion.
“Little Four!”
Shen Zeyu called out, and with a stride of his long legs, he appeared in front of the cub. The cub, with the eggshell on his head, couldn’t see the outside. With a “thud,” he crashed solidly into Shen Zeyu’s calf.
The eggshell split open to both sides along the original cracks. The cub’s head was ringing; caught off guard by the impact, he stumbled backward dizzily. A pair of warm hands caught the little cub’s bottom. When the little cub looked up, he bumped into a pair of ruby-like red eyes that burned like fire.
Li Heng let out a long sigh. Catching the cub had been an instinctive action. In the Ikaruosi Empire, every cub was precious. Influenced by this ingrained concept, the Little Tyrant was even more nervous about the cub’s safety than Shen Zeyu, the older brother.
“It’s alright,” he comforted.
The boy had just passed his voice-changing period; his clear voice carried a trace of imperceptible huskiness that made one’s ears itch.
In fact, after Shen Lin woke up, he had first heard Li Heng’s words: “If you don’t want him, then give him to me to raise. It’s just an extra set of bowl and chopsticks anyway. I, Li Heng, can afford to raise him!”
Hearing this familiar voice again, he just felt it was very kind. This was the first person besides the Big Monsters who made Shen Lin’s heart feel warm. Naturally, he had no sense of rejection toward the teenager.
Li Heng held the cub carefully. For some reason, the irritability that had been clogging his heart was swept away, and even the hurricane-like pain that had been shredding his brain inch by inch was slightly alleviated. His gaze shifted from fierce to soft in an instant.
A trace of confusion flashed in Li Heng’s eyes, but it was quickly ignored. The cub in his hands was a soft, tiny, pink ball. He felt like an expensive, fragile item. He thought to himself: As expected of a cub I find pleasing to the eye; the more I look, the more I like him.
The moment he held the cub, the idea of taking him back became even stronger.
Before the cub hatched, our Little Tyrant thought that if the Shen family didn’t want him, he would just take him back and raise him. But now that the cub had hatched and was lying in his palm as a soft bundle, he had a few more thoughts. He would build the best palace next to his own, hire the best cub pediatrician, give him the best toys, and arrange his food, clothing, and travel according to the standards of a prince.
In short, this cub, he, Li Heng, would cover him!
At the same time, a trace of secret joy rose in his heart. It was perfect that the Shen family didn’t want the cub; it was just right for him to raise. He hadn’t tried it yet—what was the experience of raising a cub like?
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