Translator: Mukyuu
Editor: Mokyuu
QC: Mukyuu
Xiao Lei had been born on the beautiful Softwind Plains. When Zuo Feng caught him, he had only been an average male lion among his pride, and the leader of the pride was his cousin. At that time, there had been a total of 27 lions in his pride, and he had been the second most powerful.
He wondered how his buddies at home were doing.
As soon as Lei Jue landed on the field, he rushed off in the direction his memories told him to go. Lei Jue and the others sat on the flightcraft and locked their sights onto Xiao Lei as they slowly followed.
Zuo Yan watched the main screen inside the flightcraft display Xiao Lei’s strong physique, “If Xiao Lei really does find a partner and successfully mates, are we leaving it behind or taking them with us?”
The people on the scene didn’t know a lot about animal behavior. When Zuo Yan asked the question, everyone pretty much turned around at the same time and looked at Lei Jue. Since Lei Jue was the closest with the animals, everyone assumed subconsciously that Lei Jue would know the most about them.
That was basically the truth.
Lei Jue peeled Kangkang off his head and answered, “Lion mating isn’t that straightforward. A pride usually has between three or fourty lions; usually the average is somewhere around 15 or 20. The strongest lion is the leader of the pride, and most of the female lions belong to the leader. So if Xiao Lei wants the best resources, it first has to defeat the leader of the pride and become the leader. Only then will one have the right to have sex with all the female lions in the pride. Of course, if one wants to sneak around, that is an option, but then there’s the risk of getting interrupted. So I’m guessing that Xiao Lei is going to end up fighting with the leader.”
“But if Xiao Lei wins the fight and becomes the leader, wouldn’t it be a scummy thing to do to leave behind his wife and kids after sleeping with the female lions? That’s not our Xiao Lei’s style,” Di Lin draped himself lazily across Zuo Feng’s shoulder, “Wouldn’t he want to stay?”
“Then I guess we pray that his original pride doesn’t have that many lions,” Lei Jue thought. If there aren’t that many, he didn’t worry about taking them all with him. If it was just a matter of two or three hundred kilograms of meat, they could supply that.
But Lord Lynel, the god of nature, clearly didn’t hear his pleas…
The pride Xiao Lei belonged to was extremely large. When Lei Jue discovered Xiao Lei wandering around a specific zone, he walked out of the flightcraft along with Xiao Lingyu. Then he summoned Xiao Lei back and “talked” with it for a bit to learn that Xiao Lei’s original pride seemed to have grown, and their leader changed as well.
“Do you want to go?” Lei Jue put his hands on Xiao Lei’s body and smoothed its fur.
Xiao Lei lowered his head and gently nuzzled Lei Jue before leaving.
They were pretty far from the pride. Though they could see, it would take a while to reach the pride even by running. Lei Jue watched Xiao Lei run further and further away and slowly followed behind.
“Xiao Lei’s going to fight?” Zuo Feng asked.
“Yeah, the pride leader changed.” Lei Jue put on smart glasses so he could see clearly across several hundred meters. He watched as Xiao Lei got closer, and closer to the pride. In response, many of the lions stood up. They were all females; he didn’t see any male lions.
Xiao Lingyu also put on a pair of smart glasses. He discovered that after those female lions stood up, several of them looked at Xiao Lei and two actually walked over to Xiao Lei. They got close and smelled each other’s scent before wrestling with each other in play.
Yet, very soon afterward, an unexpected male lion suddenly rushed in from the west and shoved Xiao Lei to the ground.
Pipi cried out, “Daddy!” and then followed that with “Hit! Hit!”
He meant that Xiao Lei was fighting.
It didn’t take long for Xiao Lei’s face to get injured and for blood to leak out.
Zuo Feng watched with a frown, “Aren’t you going to help?”
Lei Jue slowly shook his head. Even if he wanted to help, it shouldn’t be now. Otherwise, Lei Jue might win, but it’d be because of an outside force, and the lions might not obey him. Every clan had its own rules, and Xiao Lei’s was no different.
At that moment, Xiao Lei suddenly turned over and pressed the other down. It bit at the other lion’s neck, but the other lion was also very agile and rolled on the ground the split second before Xiao Lei’s tooth reached its neck. That shoved Xiao Lei off of it.
Lei Jue was worried for Xiao Lei. He worried that having been kept indoors for this long had stripped Xiao Lei of its attacking abilities. But the truth was that Xiao Lei was quite good. It stood up after having been tossed aside and raised a claw as it rushed at its opponent. After about 20 minutes of intense fighting with the pride leader, Xiao Lei won. Xiao Lei pushed the other lion against the ground with its ginormous paws and then left a blood hole in the other lion’s leg.
The opponent limped off a bit and, in the end, realized that there was no possibility of victory and left with its tail between its legs. Xiao Lei roared a couple times in its newly won territory to establish his authority and then continued being affectionate with its relatives.
Several lions surrounded Xiao Lei, and played with it for a long time. Then Xiao Lei ran toward Lei Jue.
Xiao Lei nudged Lei Jue with its head and Lei Jue let it do so for quite a while before saying, “It wants to invite us to see its home.”
Without another word, Kangkang climbed ontop of Lei Jue’s head, and Pipi also tried to drag everyone forward. Lei Jue was quite curious about the pride and wanted to get some photos, but a strange feeling forced him to suddenly turn around.
“What is it?” Xiao Lingyu asked.
“Uncle?” Lei Jue called out at Di Lin.
“Hmmm?” Di Lin tilted his head and looked a bit sleepy.
“You okay?” Lei Jue asked.
“Are you not feeling well?” Zuo Feng got nervous at Lei Jue’s attitude.
“Nothing, it’s just warm and comfy, and I’m sleepy,” Di Lin said very softly and then rubbed his head against Zuo Feng’s shoulder. Then he really seemed to fall asleep.
Zuo Feng quietly picked cradled Di Lin and curved his arm so that Di Lin could get more comfortable in his embrace. He knew that Di Lin hadn’t slept well recently, and since it was rare for Di Lin to say he was comfy, Zuo Feng didn’t have the heart to wake him up.
Lei Jue observed Di Lin for a while and still felt like something was wrong. Ever since Uncle suddenly started improving, he’d feel weird about something.
What exactly was wrong?
Lei Jue thought and thought but couldn’t figure it out. Plus, like Zuo Feng, he didn’t want to interrupt Di Lin’s rare moment of peace. So he walked toward the pride with Xiao Lei.
Xiao Lei’s buddies still remembered him. They gathered together in play and mock-fighting. Though some of the female lions who joined the pride later didn’t recognize Xiao Lei, it was normal for a pride to change leaders, so nobody attacked Xiao Lei. Lions were like this — the strongest would become the leader in an unspoken understanding. Since they needed to produce outstanding offspring, they had to have a strong leader.
Lei Jue got to about twenty meters away from the pride and stopped. Xiao Lingyu, Zuo Feng, and Zuo Yan could burn the entire plains to ash, nevermind the lions. He didn’t get close simply because he didn’t want to disturb the lions.
Xiao Lei didn’t invite Lei Jue again. He rushed over happily to chase after the female lions. This season was the mating season for crimson flame lions, and they had to take advantage of every moment to produce offspring.
“Is it trying to find someone it likes?” Xiao Lingyu asked as he watched Xiao Lei sniff around the lions.
“No, it’s checking to see who’s in heat,” Lei Jue had just finished explaining when Xiao Lei jumped on a female lion and got off again after a few moments of shameless humping.
“So short?” Xiao Lingyu looked down at the time. That hadn’t even been a minute!
“Don’t compare it to yourself,” Lei Jue said.
Xiao Lingyu coughed lightly and felt a bit proud. Just then, Lei Jue continued, “You’d lose.”
Xiao Lingyu: “…”
“Lions can have sex fifty to sixty times, can you?” Lei Jue patted Xiao Lingyu’s chest, “You should know what you’re good at.”
Xiao Lingyu gritted his teeth and hooked his arms around Lei Jue’s neck, “Forgive me for being amazingly good in bed and not having problems with premature ejaculation.. I’m so sorry, Babe. But if you continue to heal me, I can get to twenty to thirty times a day. Wanna try?”
Zuo Feng: “…”
Zuo Yan: “…”
In the end, it was Di Lin who couldn’t take it anymore and opened his eyes to say, “You two, could you be any more shameless?”
Xiao Lingyu and Lei Jue immediately shut up. Zuo Feng raised his arm a bit and gently stroked Di Lin’s tiny body. Di Lin’s voice sounded very weak and made him irrationally afraid.
“If you don’t feel well, then let’s go home?” Zuo Feng asked.
“No need, we’re already here, so let’s stay a while longer,” Di Lin said and then glanced up at the sky. He immediately felt dizzy because of the strong sunlight. He buried his head in the crook of Zuo Feng’s arm, successfully hiding the pained smile on his face.
If he had known, he wouldn’t have come out…
His body did improve after arriving at the Zuo family house. He thought it was because Pipi’s healing efforts were working, but he finally realized after coming out today that it was because he had holed up in Zuo Feng’s room and not been exposed to strong sunlight, which is how his health had improved.
It turned out that the blood of the Golden Fruit Clan also damaged him, despite them being from the same clan. Just like Emperor Suron had feared strong light, he would also fear it because he had been forcibly exposed to the children’s blood.
“Lingyu, could you get Pipi to heal Di Lin again?” Zuo Feng’s thumb touched something soft, like a plant that has lost water. But as a tree-person, Di Lin should be firm and hard.
Pipi was very obedient when it came to Xiao Lingyu. After being told to use “mommy ball,” he used the healing energy to cover his granduncle. “Papa ball” was the metal natural energy ball and “mommy ball” was the wood natural energy ball; he could tell the difference between the two.
Every time Pipi healed Di Lin, Di Lin would at least feel a bit better. But not this time. Still, he forced himself to look more lively and crawl inside Zuo Feng’s clothes until he reached the place closest to Zuo Feng’s heart.
Zuo Feng felt it was a bit odd but didn’t protest. Lei Jue said, “Let’s go back first. Xiao Lei might need a few days, and we can come back again to see if it wants to go back. If not, it can stay. If it wants to leave, then we’ll take it back.”
Right then, Xiao Lei was completely absorbed with the female lions and refused to come out.
Nobody objected. Lei Jue called to Xiao Lei to tell it that they’d be back in a few days and then boarded the flightcraft.
“How’s Uncle doing?” Lei Jue asked Zuo Feng.
“Something seems wrong,” Zuo Feng said. As he was about to take Di Lin out, he felt Di Lin, who had been curled up in his collarbone, suddenly let go and slowly slide down his body as if he no longer had the strength to hold on.
“What is it, Feng?” Zuo Yan realized that something was wrong with Zuo Feng’s expression and asked.
Zuo Feng gently took Di Lin out, but Di Lin had already lost all abilities to react.
The air in the flightcraft seemed to freeze. Lei Jue immediately enveloped Di Lin under a healing net of energy, and Xiao Lingyu instructed Pipi to follow suit. But even the double dose of healing powers didn’t improve Di Lin a single bit. On the other hand, his roots were withering at a rate even the naked eye could see. In just a few seconds, his tiny body no longer had any signs of life left.
An extremely sharp burst of piercing pain attacked Zuo Feng’s nerves. He suddenly realized why Di Lin crawled into his clothes and stopped where his heart was.
Had he been trying to say that he’d stay there forever?