Clumsy Beast, Keep Your Paws Off

Su Qinglan felt the stabbing pain in her head intensify. She looked at the options.

The "Neural Synthesizer" would make her forget and sleep, but she would stay in the dark.

The "Memory Unlock" would tell her the truth about why she felt so much pain seeing her mother.

"Second life..." she whispered in her mind. "Xuyu has been hiding my past life from me. He was afraid of me knowing."

The faces of her husbands appeared in her mind... She couldn’t live a lie anymore. She needed to know who she really was.

With a mental surge of determination, she ignored the warning about trauma. She reached out with her mind and clicked the first box.

[COMMAND RECEIVED: INITIATING MEMORY RESTORATION]

[DECRYPTING DATA... 1%... 5%... 20%...]

[WARNING: BRACE FOR IMPACT]

Su Qinglan’s body on the grass gave one final, violent shudder. Then, she plummeted into a dark tunnel of light and sound, heading toward a past she had once been forced to forget.

Before she plunged deeper into the darkness, Xuyu’s voice rang out in her mind.

This time, he sounded more terrified than she had ever heard him. He was almost sobbing.

"Host! Please! Remember you are pregnant!" Xuyu cried out.

"Your body is fragile right now. If the pain is too much, just quit! No one is forcing you to see this. Think about your cubs, host. Please, don’t let the trauma hurt them!"

Su Qinglan’s eyes widened in the darkness of her mind.

Pregnant?

Again?

The news hit her like a lightning bolt, but she had no time to process it.

The pull of the memory was too strong. Her soul was being sucked away from the present and thrown into the distant past.

When she finally "opened" her eyes, she wasn’t on the grassland anymore. She was staring up at a cold, pitch-black ceiling made of rough stone.

She tried to move. She wanted to sit up and look around, but she realized with horror that she couldn’t feel her limbs.

No matter how hard she tried to wiggle her fingers or toes, there was nothing. She was completely paralyzed. The only thing she could do was roll her eyes to scan the room.

The space was dark and freezing. The only source of light was a single, thin beam of moonlight cutting through a hole in the cave wall. It was a lonely, silent place.

Suddenly, a shadow moved. A woman’s face enlarged in front of her vision, blocking out the moonlight.

Su Qinglan felt her heart stop. It was her...the woman in the white dress. But she looked much younger here, perhaps only eighteen or nineteen years old. Her face was full of a soft, glowing light as she looked down.

Su Qinglan realized then that she was seeing through the eyes of a baby. A small, delicate veil was draped over her face, blurring the edges of her vision.

The young woman reached down and scooped the baby into her arms, rocking her gently. Her touch was warm, but her eyes were filled with a strange, lingering sadness.

"My baby," the woman cooed, her voice as sweet as honey. "Are you all right? Don’t cry, my sweet Lan’er."

She pressed her cheek against the baby’s forehead, stroking her tiny face with a trembling finger. "Your name will be Lan Lan. My sweet daughter... my precious little flower."

Su Qinglan felt the warmth of the woman’s embrace, but she also felt a deep, chilling sense of dread coming from the memory.

This wasn’t a happy dream. It was the beginning of a tragedy.

The cave was cold, but the heat of Wang Mulan’s body was the only thing keeping the tiny fox cub alive.

As Su Qinglan watched through the eyes of her infant self, she felt the overwhelming weight of a mother’s love.

Wang Mulan looked down at the bundle in her arms, her heart breaking at how small and fragile the baby was.

The fox cub was so tiny it could fit in the palm of a hand, its fur soft and shining under the dim light.

Suddenly, the air in the cave changed. The silence was broken by the sound of heavy, rhythmic footsteps echoing against the stone walls.

Wang Mulan’s breath hitched. Her eyes widened with a primal fear. She didn’t hesitate. She clutched the baby tightly against her chest, her protective instincts flaring like a wildfire.

She turned and ran, her feet skidding on the loose gravel as she fled the safety of the cave into the dark, uncertain night.

The little baby began to wiggle, sensing the mother’s panic. A small, high-pitched whimper left the cub’s throat.

"Baby, don’t cry," Wang Mulan whispered, her voice trembling but urgent. "Don’t cry, my love. Mommy is here. Mommy will protect you. I promise, no one will hurt you."

Su Qinglan felt the world bouncing as Wang Mulan sprinted. Her vision was mostly blocked by her mother’s body, but she could hear everything.

"Aeeeeehhee"

Suddenly, a piercing wail tore through the air...a sound that didn’t belong to any animal. It was a sound of pure malice.

Wang Mulan screamed as a force slammed into her back. Su Qinglan peeked from the gap in her mother’s arms and saw a flash of something horrific.

It was a black figure, but it had no solid shape. It moved like a wisp of oily smoke, darker than the deepest night. It felt disgusting and dangerous, as if it had crawled straight out of the bowels of hell.

The black energy lunged again, trying to swallow them both. Wang Mulan stumbled but didn’t fall. She muttered a frantic prayer, her fingers glowing with a faint, desperate light.

She splashed a handful of energy toward the shadow, and the black wisp shrieked...a sound so loud and sharp it made the baby’s ears ring with pain.

Wang Mulan didn’t look back. She ran until her lungs burned and her legs felt like lead.

She found a small, circular clearing beneath the full moon and finally stopped. She looked down at the baby in her arms.

The cub was deadly silent, its large eyes reflecting the silver moonlight.