Lin Muyu, realizing she was the only "medical" professional present, scrambled to Su Qinglan’s side.
Her hands were trembling with guilt because her mother was nowhere to be found, but she forced herself to be steady.
"Breathe, Qinglan! Breathe with me," Lin Muyu urged, guiding her through the next wave. "The next one is right there. Push! Slowly, push!"
Su Qinglan remained the calmest person in the room. With Xuyu monitoring her vitals in her head, she knew she was safe. With one final, agonizing heave, a second bundle slipped out into the warm air.
Before Han Jue could even reach for it, Rong Ye moved with lightning speed. He snatched the second cub, immediately shifting into his fox form. This time he didn’t hesitate because he knew what to do.
To the horror of the others, he began licking the baby with a ferocity that looked like he was trying to seal his scent on the cub.
"You stinky fox!" Han Jue roared, his protective instincts flaring. "That’s not yours to claim!"
Licking the cub was the sacred duty of the biological father to establish a bond; by doing this, Rong Ye was shamelessly claiming the child as his own from the first breath.
He was actually more angry that he didn’t think about this himself...he wants to strangle the fox.
Su Qinglan watched them bicker with a tired, happy smile, watching her fierce protectors turn into bumbling, jealous fathers.
But the joy was short-lived. A sudden, violent cramp seized her entire abdomen; this was stronger than both previous births combined.
A scream tore from her throat, making everyone freeze.
Lin Muyu’s eyes went wide as she placed her hand on Su Qinglan’s distended belly. "Wait... Qinglan! I think... I think there’s a third one!"
The room went silent. They had only ever felt two sets of kicks. Where had this third little one been hiding?
Xuan Long, seeing Su Qinglan’s face turn pale from the unexpected exhaustion, didn’t care about the cubs or the bickering.
He placed his cool palms on her lower back, beginning to channel his soothing energy directly into her spine to numb the white-hot pain of the third contraction.
"Stay with me, Lan Lan," he hissed, his voice trembling with fear. "Just one more. Just one more and it’s over."
The atmosphere in the room, which had been filled with the joyous chaos of two crying cubs, suddenly went deathly still. With one final, sharp contraction, a third object slipped out from Su Qinglan.
But it wasn’t a soft, furry bundle.
A small, perfectly oval egg rolled onto the soft hides. It was breathtakingly beautiful, glowing with a deep, translucent light like a piece of polished green jade.
The moment it appeared, an immense, crushing pressure filled the room...an aura that made the tiger cubs wail in terror. They couldn’t bear the sheer weight of the energy radiating from that tiny jade shell.
Su Qinglan leaned up on her elbows, her eyes wide with wonder. "An... an egg?" she whispered, her heart swelling. "Xuan Long, look, it’s..."
Before she could finish her sentence, Xuan Long moved. His eyes had turned into vertical slits of pure emerald, glowing with an unrecognizable light.
In a blur of movement, he shifted into his massive, terrifying emerald snake form. His shadow loomed over the bed, and before anyone could react, he lunged forward, opened his great jaws, and swallowed the jade egg whole.
Su Qinglan’s heart stopped. The world seemed to tilt on its axis.
"Xuan Long..." she gasped, her voice trembling with horror. "That... that was our baby... how could you eat our child?"
The shock was too much for her exhausted body to handle. Her vision darkened, her strength vanished, and she slumped back into the furs, fainting from pure exhaustion and heartbreaking fury.
As soon as the egg was inside Xuan Long, the crushing pressure in the room vanished.
The cubs instantly stopped crying, and the air became breathable again. But the silence that followed was even more terrifying.
"YOU MONSTER!" Han Jue roared, his face contorting with a rage so deep it shook the very foundations of the treehouse.
He launched himself at the giant snake, his fist connecting with Xuan Long’s scales with a sound like a thunderclap. "SPIT IT OUT! SPIT OUT LAN LAN’S CHILD!"
Han Jue had heard the dark stories of the serpent tribes...how they were feral, cold-blooded, and would consume their own offspring if they felt threatened.
He never thought their own companion, the silent protector of their home, would be capable of such a heinous act.
Xuan Long didn’t strike back. He didn’t even hiss. He ignored the blow, his emerald eyes fixed on the fainted Su Qinglan, and it seemed a tear appeared in his eyes.
But soon the tears disappeared, and a hard resolution took their place. With a flick of his massive tail, he knocked Han Jue aside and bolted.
He moved with a supernatural, lightning-fast speed that no beastman could match, disappearing into the dark, rainy forest in a heartbeat.
"GET BACK HERE!" Han Jue screamed, shifting into his massive wolf form and leaping out of the house in pursuit.
"I’LL KILL YOU, YOU COLD-BLOODED DEVIL! I’LL TEAR THAT EGG OUT OF YOUR STOMACH MYSELF!"
Inside, the house was left in shambles. Hu Yan was left holding a crying tiger cub and his unconscious female, staring at the empty doorway in shock, while Rong Ye clutched the younger cub to his chest, his eyes filled with tears.
Su Qinglan lay unconscious, her face pale, unaware that her "snake husband" had just become the most wanted criminal of the house.
Even Lin Muyu was stunned; she had never imagined she would witness something so devastating.
Watching Qinglan’s unconscious body cradled in Hu Yan’s arms, a heavy sadness filled her chest... yet even that grief was nothing compared to the pain of a mother...
A mother who had watched the man she loved devour their newborn.