Feng Si was busy from the moment she got home in the morning all the way until noon.
It was clear that when she was busy, all her anxious thoughts disappeared. But the moment she stopped, Mao Qiu’s words about ’morning sickness’ echoed relentlessly in her mind.
As she grew more and more anxious, Feng Si unconsciously opened her Light Screen—she started searching for symptoms of pregnancy.
Dizziness, fatigue, nausea, vomiting, drowsiness...
Searching for symptoms online was just like the modern-day phenomenon of looking up a headache and diagnosing yourself with cancer. The more she read, the more the symptoms seemed to fit—and she had all of them.
Feng Si rubbed her forehead. After searching online, she saw that all the posts began with "The Sacrificial Hall confirmed the pregnancy...," so she just went ahead and posted an anonymous question:
"I think I might be pregnant. Is there any way to check besides going to the Sacrificial Hall?"
Since the post was about pregnancy, replies started pouring in almost immediately.
[Tch, lucky enough to be pregnant? And you only ’think’ you are...? Are you some precious, high-and-mighty female who needs to go to the Sacrificial Hall for a test? If you’re just a sub-female, stop pretending to be a real female online! Just buy a pregnancy tester outside the Sacrificial Hall. It won’t even cost you ten coins, you know!]
[Posing as a true female on the Light Net... I hope you never get pregnant your entire life.]
...
Feng Si’s eyes were fixed on the words "pregnancy tester." She was in no mood to read the other hostile comments. After a moment of hesitation, she grabbed her motorcycle keys and ran up to the attic.
’Ten coins for peace of mind? I can afford that!’
Forty minutes later, Feng Si was back on her sofa, having ridden from North District Thirteen Mountains to East District One Mountain and back. She clutched the two-finger-wide pregnancy tester in her hand.
The white pregnancy tester had a display screen on its pointed end. Having followed the instructions, she now had to wait one minute for the result.
After a minute that felt like an eternity...
Seeing the bright red text that appeared on the display, Feng Si froze completely.
’No way!’
’An egg?’
’The test must be wrong. It just has to be.’
As if struck by lightning, Feng Si stared down in utter shock.
Red text on a white background: Embryo detected. One egg-born cub.
Feng Si: "..."
’Oh my god!!’
She looked again, convinced her eyes were playing tricks on her. Then, in a flurry, she used up all five of the testers she had bought. The results were all identical.
She hadn’t panicked when she first transmigrated, but now, Feng Si was in a state of utter panic, her mind a complete blank. The only thing she could hear was the frantic pounding of her own heart.
She had never, ever imagined that she would become... a mother, with absolutely no preparation.
’A single mother, at that!!’
’What am I going to do??’
She unconsciously placed a hand on her lower abdomen, the panic in her eyes impossible to hide. Maybe it was because she was so flustered, or maybe she was just being overly sensitive, but as she touched her stomach, she thought she could feel a small, hard lump.
’A life born completely from me, connected by my own blood!’
At that thought, the frantic Feng Si instantly softened.
She lowered her gaze to her flat stomach. Her hand trembled slightly, yet her touch was incredibly gentle as she caressed her abdomen.
Back in her original world, her family had died in a car accident when she was in middle school. After that, she was all alone; she had no family.
Her great-uncle’s family collected the compensation money from her parents’ accident, so naturally, they took her in as well, since she was still a minor.
Living with her great-uncle’s family, she experienced what many minors do after losing their parents and being taken in by relatives. She wasn’t treated with overt cruelty, but indifferent neglect was the norm.
She studied hard and got into university. She tutored in her spare time to save some money and did whatever chores she could at home to avoid being a burden. Even though she wasn’t yet able to live independently, her life was more or less manageable.
But Feng Si could feel it—no matter how hard she tried to play the part of a well-behaved, outstanding young relative, a great wall still stood between her and her great-uncle’s family.
She saw the barely-concealed disdain in the eyes of her older relatives and noticed how her cousins treated her differently. She could only try her best to ignore it all, knowing she was just an outsider in their home.
She was diligently saving money to one day rent her own little place. It was okay if she didn’t have the warmth of a family; she would just love herself twice as hard. That way, her parents, watching from heaven, could be at peace.
She had always lived life on her own terms.
And then... she’d suddenly been transported to the Beastman World.
But now, because she had come to this Beastman World, she had also realized her dream of owning her own home—a very, very big one—much earlier than planned.
And now, it had given her a family member of her very own!
The corners of Feng Si’s mouth lifted into a smile. Now, she felt truly lucky.
’She has a house, a baby on the way, and she can earn money!’
Since she was pregnant with an egg, she no longer had to worry about the sudden onset of a female’s heat cycle. Plus, there was no Beastman around to spend her money, sleep in her house, and tease her kid.
’She was totally winning at life!’
She rubbed her belly, then gathered all the pregnancy testers from the coffee table. She wrapped them carefully in a cloth bag as if they were treasure and placed them in her personal storage space.
She took a deep breath. Since she didn’t know what Beast Clan the male beast belonged to, her only option was to do a broad search for all kinds of information about egg pregnancies. She grabbed a pen and paper and began jotting down anything she thought was useful.
First: The pregnancy results in laying an egg. (Gestation period is typically 1-2 months.) Need to buy and prepare an Incubator in advance.
Second: The Incubator requires constant attention. The egg must be turned twice a day.
Third: The hatched cub will be a male beast. It will be in a small, easy-to-raise beast form and will change into its human form within a month.
Fourth: Prepare clothes, milk fruit, diapers...
Feng Si spent the whole afternoon picking out and writing down what she thought was useful information. Because she was now pregnant with an egg, she cooked herself a bone stew with green potatoes and ate a green fruit.
The green fruit had a thick skin and looked like a green mangosteen. After cutting a small hole in it, she found it only contained about two mouthfuls of a coconut milk-like liquid.
The entire right wall of her kitchen was a walk-in freezer, as large as a ten-square-meter bedroom—bigger than her kitchen itself.
—It made sense, of course. The Beastmen here had huge appetites and valued large families.
After finishing her lunch, Feng Si put all the green fruits into a basket and moved them to the storage room. ’This is my baby’s future food,’ she thought. ’I need to stock up on more of it soon.’
The thought of her upcoming baby energized Feng Si. She rolled up her sleeves, put on her apron, and returned to the stove to start making Green Potato.
The green potatoes she had cooked and sun-dried from previous batches already amounted to over a hundred pounds, filling two large cotton sacks stored in a lower kitchen cabinet.
She didn’t know the first thing about pregnancy, but she figured that if she was craving this lately, maybe her baby liked it too?
If it were just her, she could have made it through the cold season with minimal preparation.
But now, she had a baby to think about.
Feng Si felt that her current food stash wasn’t nearly enough. The long cold season was coming, and fresh food would be scarce. In addition to making more Green Potato to store, it was also time to gather more wild vegetables to dry and store for the long term.
’On my list for this afternoon: buy wild vegetables and fruits. And even though it’s expensive, I need to stock up on tender meat!’