Chapter 62
Big babies
When the adults in the room "talked" to the youth, the few muka cubs near him, who were relatively small in comparison, followed after and also made low hissing sounds.
The scarlet eyes of these muka cubs were fixated at Xie Luan. It was actually quite easy to see that the three cubs were fond of the youth.
Thank you. Like you.
Reading these two short sentences on the virtual panel, Xie Luan could feel the pure kindness and goodwill of these mukas.
Because he had helped them, these mukas had said and done this.
He was indeed a little hungry, but with the muka cubs looking at him like this, Xie Luan could not bear to just let them watch him eat. Xie Luan's habitual response as a caretaker was to feed the cubs first.
Taking out a knife from the space button, Xie Luan picked up a duoluo fruit from the left wooden plate. Peeing and cutting it skillfully, he fed it to the several cubs around him one by one.
After cutting up the big steak on the other wooden place and feeding it all to the four cubs, Xie Luan began to focus on his own needs.
While Xie Luan ate, the mukas in the room were watching him.
Xie Luan was inevitably a little uncomfortable at first, but what he saw when he met their eyes was a very blunt gaze.
These mukas seemed to wish for him to eat more. Eating more meant that he liked the food, so the mukas in the house would be happy.
As he was eating, Xie Luan also fed the nox nestled in his arms. On this planet, the nox did actually not need to conceal his identity.
Saina was the territory of the muka race. Although there were also other races that came and went, in the end, their number on Saina was relatively small, and Xie Luan believed that the muka race would not reject the nox who came to the planet with him.
Thinking about it, Xie Luan began to undo the knot at the nox's neck and then put the little black cloak away.
Without the cloak covering him, the nox's fluffy and round body was quickly exposed to Xie Luan's eyes. The two small horns on his head were very small and cute. When Xie Luan touched them with his fingers, the ears on both sides moved.
The mukas in the room did not show any special reaction to the nox. Just as Xie Luan expected, these mukas did not have any malice towards the nox race and their attitude towards the latter was no different from that towards other races.
There was a lot of food on the two big wooden plates and Xie Luan became full after only eating a part of it. As the cubs around him seemed to still want him to feed them, Xie Luan fairly divided the rest of the food between these cubs.
While feeding, Xie Luan found that these muka cubs were actually not at all hungry, but seemed to want to be coaxed to eat.
By nature, the mukas were a natural battle race. Although, as parents, the mukas were not indifferent to their cubs, these adult mukas obviously did not have the concept of coaxing cubs.
The adults of muka race could teach the cubs to fight and could provide them with all kinds of resources, but to coax the cubs was not something these adult mukas were good at.
“Well, that's it.”
Patiently coaxing these muka cubs to finish their food, Xie Luan lastly fed one round milk candy each to the four cubs. He then said this with a warm voice.
The youth said that there were no more. The four muka cubs around him responded obediently with a hissing sound and then lined up to snuggle into Xie Luan's arms.
Even the two smaller muka cubs needed to lower their heads and control their strength when they went to snuggle into the arms of Xie Luan. These two barely five month old cubs were still a bit taller than Xie Luan.
These were just four big babies.
A big baby was also a baby. Xie Luan let these muka cubs lightly rub against him and raised his hand to touch their heads as they snuggled.
In the evening, Xie Luan lied down in the room he had set up as a temporary heat preservation room. The bed was very big, Xie Luan had placed the eight eggs on the inside of the bed, leaning against the wall, while he was lying on the outside.
The muka cub who had followed after Xie Luan now rested on another bed that had been pushed to be side by side with his and as usual, the nox's round body was nestled on Xie Luan's pillow. Xie Luan was already very used to this.
The two beds stood close together, it was no different from sleeping in the same bed.
Sensing the gaze of the muka cub resting to the side, Xie Luan reached out and patted the cub's sharp forearm. He then skillfully hummed a lullaby to coax the muka cub to sleep.
Actually, it was not just to get this cub to sleep, the lullaby was also hummed for the eggs in the room to hear.
According to Zarad, doing this was equivalent to a light session of spiritual guidance, which eventually was rather beneficial for the cubs.
Being coaxed to sleep by the youth, the muka cub nestled on the bed listened to the lullaby and issued a very low hissing sound from his throat.
It seemed that the fierce scarlet eyes were closing slowly. Like a good baby, this muka cub peacefully entered the land of dreams.
Making sure that the cub was asleep, Xie Luan turned off the light.
The temperature in the temporary heat preservation room was just right, Xie Luan did not feel uncomfortable when he was in the room. Lying down on his side, his breathing soon slowed down and became light.
The room was quiet and dark, it was late into the night. Xie Luan had since long been deeply asleep. At this time one of the eggs on the bed suddenly shook faintly.
It moved and moved, then moved and moved yet again.
Although very faint, this kind of small movement happened several times and finally, unbeknownst to the sleeping Xie Luan, the egg rolled into his embrace.
By the time Xie Luan found out about this matter, it was already the next morning. Drowsily opening his eyes, Xie Luan who was still not completely awake felt something pressing against his chest.
Because of this, he lowered his head and saw that the egg which was supposed to be lying close to the wall had somehow made its way into his arms.
Fortunately, he hadn't crushed it…. He breathed a sigh of relief, Xie Luan was now fully awake.
Still, he couldn't completely put away the unease in his heart. Xie Luan quickly sat up and picked up the egg, using his spiritual power to examine it.
The result of the examination surprised Xie Luan. The life response of this egg was much clearer than it had been yesterday. When he called, the response also seemed to be a bit more energetic.
"Baby must be trying hard to be born."
Stroking the gray shell of the egg, Xie Luan gently encouraged the baby who had not hatched yet.
His voice might not reach the cub and suppose it did, it was not something the cub could understand. But Xie Luan thought that he should at least be able to convey the feeling of looking forward to its birth.
He did not know if it was an illusion, but after saying this sentence, he felt that the egg he was holding seemed to move.
Xie Luan spent the morning examining the eggs in the room one by one and once again conducted spiritual guidance. He found that among the eight eggs, the one with the strongest and most energetic life response was the one he had found lying in his arms when he woke up.
The life response of each egg was better than yesterday, but the degree of improvement varied.
There was one egg Xie Luan was extra worried about. The egg was probably the one who had been most seriously injured in the accident. At present, the life response was also the weakest among the eight eggs. It couldn't be regarded as out of danger. He needed to care for it extra long every day.
Completing the spiritual guidance, Xie Luan took along the nox and muka cub on a walk around the village and Duke took the initiative to come over to act as a guide.
"Were these buildings all built by the mukas themselves?" Xie Luan looked at the building in this village and found that some of them were actually very elaborate. He briefly ran his eyes over them, they were quite beautiful.
“Not entirely.”
Duke replied, "Some of them were built by the mukas themselves and some were built by other races, the buildings in the city are also like this. Certain buildings are inconvenient for mukas to build by themselves, at that time they will hire people of other races to do it."
Xie Luan did not expect this answer and only reacted after a second, nodding.
"Many people say that mukas have relatively lacking intelligence. I don't agree with them, their way of thinking is too outdated." Duke lightly shook his head in disapproval. "Maybe the muka race was like that a long time ago, but the mukas now have actually regular intelligence, they just can't advance into a humanoid form, that's all."
As a guide, Duke could not help saying these words to the youth behind him as he lead the way. He felt that the other, like him, had no prejudice against the mukas and surely would be able to understand him.
Every race could evolve, and they had gone through a long period of development in order for them to reach their present state. A race without intelligence could gain intelligence, and a race without combat strength could become powerful.
Who was to say that one day, the mukas would not be able to advance into humanoid form like the other races? Xie Luan strongly agreed with what the other had said and once again nodded his head. He then looked around the small village belonging to the muka race.
Actually this village… This planet was still beautiful.
The main problem was the lack of vegetation and the low degree of reforestation. The sand blown by the wind obscured the beautiful scene this planet should have presented.
If they could solve this issue, in the future the mukas would have a home overflowing with green, right?
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Translator's note:
Oooh, is Xie Luan going to change an entire planet?
Also, I think there might be some interesting foreshadowing in this chapter~