Chapter 78: Cute Lion Cubs
By the time Feng Yiren came stomping back with an angry face and a few early red bumps already rising on his shoulders and neck, the group had already decided to head back to the tribe.
Mu Qingyi had cooled the fox’s stings with crushed leaves despite Feng Yiren acting as if he had not asked for help, and Hu Baiyu had made sure Lin Huahua was back on safer ground, because Lin Huahua requested not to be carried again.
Then all four of them started walking back together, or in Feng Yiren’s case, stalking back like an offended prince who had just lost a war to insects.
The closer they got to the tribe, the busier the village looked.
Primitive-age life was already in full motion by the time they returned. Smoke rose from fire pits. Males with broad bare chests and hide beast skirts were skinning prey near stone tables.
Some were carrying water in large hollowed gourds, while others were cutting hides, weaving baskets, sorting herbs, or hanging strips of meat to dry.
Females sat in shaded places with cubs, some braiding one another’s hair, some cleaning fruits, some being hovered over so much by the males around them that Lin Huahua almost wanted to roll her eyes.
One male was literally holding a fruit to his female’s mouth while another shaded her from the sun with a giant leaf.
The whole place was alive.
Loud, wild, rough, warm.
Lin Huahua looked around curiously as they walked, and although she was still getting used to the primitive world, there was something about seeing everyone doing their work like this that made the village feel more real than before.
Then she saw them.
At first, Lin Huahua only noticed a woman standing near one of the stone paths with a woven basket hanging at her side.
Then she noticed what was inside.
Tiny little lion cubs.
For one full second, Lin Huahua stopped walking.
Her eyes widened.
Her mouth opened.
And then her heart almost exploded.
They were so small.
So fluffy.
So round.
So ridiculously cute that for one horrible moment she almost thought they were some kind of little dogs, because how could lion cubs look this tiny and helpless and soft?
Her little white rat ears shot up at once.
Her tail went stiff.
Then, before any of her males could stop her, Lin Huahua ran.
She ran straight toward the basket.
"Ah!" she cried in pure excitement. "What are these? They are so cute!"
The woman holding the basket blinked in surprise, then smiled at once because Lin Huahua’s reaction was too open and too genuine to be ignored. She was a lioness beastwoman named Shi Yan, a sturdy pretty female with warm eyes and the patient face of someone already used to handling cub drama.
"These are my cubs," Shi Yan said.
Lin Huahua bent down immediately until her face was almost level with the basket. Her entire body became soft with delight. Even her white rat tail curled in happy loops behind her as she stared at the tiny lion cubs, who mewed and wriggled and looked so unbearably adorable that her heart clenched.
Her males arrived behind her quickly.
Of course they did.
Mu Qingyi came first and stood protectively close, his body angled in a way that shaded her from part of the sun without her even noticing. Hu Baiyu stood on her other side, huge and quiet and watchful as always. Feng Yiren came last, looking half annoyed and half wounded, with bee stings visible enough to make the whole thing even funnier.
He looked terrible.
Not terrible in an ugly way, because these beastmen were too unfairly good-looking to become ugly so easily, but terrible in the sense that his proud fox face was currently decorated with enough swelling that Lin Huahua nearly laughed again on the spot.
He saw her looking and glared.
Lin Huahua looked away immediately and focused on the cubs.
That was safer.
Safer and much cuter.
The cubs, meanwhile, had taken one look at the excited little white rat female and decided she was interesting, because one of them rolled onto its back and waved its tiny paws around, while another climbed over its sibling and let out the smallest growly sound Lin Huahua had ever heard in her life.
Her whole chest melted.
She reached out carefully and looked up at Shi Yan first. "Can I touch them?"
Shi Yan laughed. "Of course."
That was all Lin Huahua needed.
The next second she was gently petting one of the cubs, and when it rolled over into her hand and squirmed against her palm, she nearly died right there. The soft fur, the tiny paws, the warm little body, everything was too much. She touched another and another, and soon she was smiling so brightly that even the woman holding the basket stared at her in surprise.
The cubs liked her too.
They nuzzled into her fingers, rolled around, and one even tried to bite her knuckle with a mouth too tiny to be dangerous.
Lin Huahua’s heart clenched again.
Now she wanted her own beast babies.
The thought came so naturally and so suddenly that it slipped right out of her mouth before she could stop it.
"I want to..."
She stopped.
Too late.
Her males had heard.
All three of them.
The reaction was immediate.
Mu Qingyi went still.
Hu Baiyu’s lion ears shot up.
Even Feng Yiren, swollen and offended and still deeply angry at bees and life in general, straightened with a completely different look in his red eyes.
Ideas exploded in their minds at once.
Very dangerous ideas.
Hu Baiyu, in particular, nearly lost what little peace his lion heart still had left. The moment those words came from her mouth while she was holding little lion cubs and looking that soft, his whole body heated in a way that was both sweet and deeply alarming. His face became red so fast it was almost painful to watch, and his eyes, those usually quiet gentle blue eyes, suddenly filled with enough warmth and devotion to make Lin Huahua feel it before she even turned.