With no other choice, You Nian rose from the grass.
She stood there with her head bowed.
She looked nonchalant, but the bone knife was right at her side, ready to be drawn for defense in an instant.
When Li Yaoyao saw You Nian, she showed not the slightest shame about seducing someone else’s husband. Instead, she pointed at You Nian and cursed:
“What are you doing hiding in the grass? Eavesdropping on Brother Mo Ling and me on purpose? Oh, I know!
“You must be up to something shameful again!
“Brother Mo Ling, how can she treat you like this? Unlike me, who only feels sorry for you, Brother!”
You Nian: ???
She might not think much of Mo Ling, but that didn’t mean someone else could take what was hers.
And then swagger around in front of her! You Nian walked up expressionlessly and raised her hand high at Li Yaoyao. “Smack—!”
The solid slap knocked Li Yaoyao’s whole face sharply to one side.
Tears sprang into Li Yaoyao’s eyes. She clutched her cheek, looking utterly disbelieving.
Mo Ling watched in silence, his gaze unreadable.
“You Nian, who do you think you are? You dare hit me?”
Li Yaoyao charged at You Nian, trying to claw at her, but You Nian easily dodged her with nimble footwork.
Seizing her chance, You Nian grabbed Li Yaoyao by the shoulder, twisted both her arms behind her back, and pinned her to the ground.
Surprise flashed in Mo Ling’s eyes.
You Nian had no time for him. She kept laying into Li Yaoyao on the ground.
“Li Yaoyao, I’m an Inferior Female. If you can’t even beat an Inferior Female, what does that make you? A useless female?”
“You’ve exchanged a few words with Mo Ling and already started dreaming? I’m not dead yet, so get lost!”
Mo Ling’s eyes flickered at You Nian’s words.
But then something seemed to occur to him. The corner of his mouth curled in a mocking smile, and his gaze turned cold as a wintry pool again.
“You! You!”
Li Yaoyao was close to breaking down. She couldn’t win an argument with You Nian, and she couldn’t beat her in a fight. Since when had this Inferior Female become so strong?
“You only won by luck! Everyone knows you’re the weakest. You’ll die after having just a few litters! And you can only have one cub each time. You’re the useless one!”
Not long ago, Li Yaoyao had given birth to a whole litter of tiger cubs with her beast husbands—six black tiger cubs in all—and everyone else in the tribe had showered her with praise.
In the Beast World, a female’s ability was directly tied to her fertility.
She looked down on You Nian, who could only give birth to one cub at a time.
You Nian shrugged.
“Fine, fine. I hope you have a hundred and eighty babies in one litter!”
With that, she walked away without looking back.
“Where do you think you’re going, You Nian?”
Mo Ling, who had always been quiet, suddenly spoke in a cold voice.
“Do you really think you can raise that bastard on your own? With just that little rabbit meat in your basket?”
“Tiger cubs eat a lot to begin with. It’ll only need more and more as it grows. How could you possibly keep it fed?”
“Worry about yourself. Stay out of my business.”
You Nian turned and looked Mo Ling up and down, then let out a cold laugh.
Cold fury surged in Mo Ling’s eyes. His hands clenched into fists so tightly that his knuckles turned white.
Was she really willing to do this rather than come back to him and meekly admit she was wrong?
All this time, he had been searching the surrounding area, but hadn’t sensed the presence of any white tiger male.
That meant the white tiger beastman she’d slept with had abandoned her completely. He hadn’t even come back to see You Nian or Baby.
Was that the kind of male she liked? You Nian had been the one who insisted on feeding him the love fruit in the first place. So why didn’t she want him anymore?
If anyone should be upset about the white tiger cub with those strange wings, shouldn’t it be him?
Why was You Nian acting so aggrieved instead? Before he realized what he was doing, Mo Ling reached out to stop her.
“Are you sure you don’t need me anymore?”
You Nian looked at him strangely.
“Didn’t you say that wasn’t your Baby? If so, then it’s mine alone.”
“What’s wrong with me raising my own cub? You’re not its father, so there’s no need for you to worry about it!”
Her words cut deeply.
Mo Ling’s eyes reddened with anger. He turned and shouted to Li Yaoyao, “Let’s go! We’re never helping her again!”
They headed in the opposite direction, back to the Black Tiger Tribe.
You Nian clicked her tongue. “Tsk, ‘never helping her again’? You’d think you’d ever helped me in the first place.”
Now that the annoying pair were gone, You Nian began humming softly as she made her way to the cave where the white tiger cub was.
She had already cleared all the rotting corpses out of the cave. It still smelled a little, but it was much better than it had been that morning.
The white tiger cub caught the bloody smell of the meat. Its ears flattened back, and it couldn’t help drooling.
“Mother, meat! I want meat!”
You Nian gently held back the little white tiger as it tried to stick its head into her basket.
“Baby, you have to eat cooked meat.”
You Nian had been a devoted viewer of wildlife documentaries, and she hadn’t forgotten the scene with the wild brown bear and the long string of white worms hanging from its bottom.
That was what happened when tapeworms infested its intestines and multiplied until they were packed full! “Cooked meat?”
The white tiger cub tilted its head, seeming to have trouble understanding what “cooked” meant.
After all, since it was born, it had drunk its mother’s milk. When the milk gradually ran low, it had survived on animal carcasses.
“Exactly, cooked meat. Wait here while Mother makes you some.”
You Nian had barely finished promising that when she remembered she had no fire and nothing to cook with!