A moist sensation kept licking across his face, and urgent whimpers lingered in his ears.
Something fuzzy brushed against his neck and face, as if also pushing at him.
Lu Xuan struggled to open his eyes, but the light made him squint them back into a slit.
He was lying beneath a giant tree. The branches above were dense and blotted out the sky.
Through the gaps between the intertwined branches, he could see that the sky was very blue, as clean as if it had been washed, with a few wisps of white clouds drifting around.
For a moment, Lu Xuan thought he was still on the African savannah and that the helicopter hadn’t crashed.
Whimper whimper…
Urgent, terrified, frightened, worried.
Lu Xuan accurately distinguished that this was the sound only animal cubs would make when they were extremely frightened.
He struggled to sit up, leaning against the thick tree trunk.
Ow~~
Woo~
Ow~
Before Lu Xuan could even recover from the pain all over his body, three cubs had already pounced onto his chest.
“Cough… cough…”
He felt like he was about to cough up blood from the impact.
Suddenly, a flood of memories rushed into his mind. Lu Xuan’s head throbbed with pain. He closed his eyes, hung his head, and breathed weakly.
Ow!
Woo woo!!
The three furry little ones were so anxious that they jumped up and down. They climbed onto Lu Xuan’s shoulders and chest, constantly licking his cheeks while letting out endless mournful whines from their throats.
As the headache gradually subsided, Lu Xuan understood that he had transmigrated, into a place called the Beastman Continent.
Those who could switch between human and beast forms were called beastmen. Those who could not fully transform into a beast, normally appearing human but retaining certain beast traits on specific parts of their body when partially shifting, were called sub-beastmen.
There were no men or women here, only beastmen and sub-beastmen. From Lu Xuan’s perspective, their physical structures all appeared male, yet sub-beastmen were capable of bearing offspring.
The original owner of this body was a leopard cat sub-beastman. In his beast form, his ears would turn into cat ears and a cat tail would grow behind him.
The original owner’s tribe was a small tribe of only thirty feline beastmen. A few days ago, the tribe was attacked by a group of rogue beastmen. He was the only one who managed to escape, taking three cubs with him.
To avoid the pursuing rogue beastmen, the original owner fled in panic and desperation, plunging deep into the dense forest and stumbling into the territory of a giant python.
While protecting the three cubs, the original owner was struck by the python’s tail, sent flying into a giant tree, and died instantly. That was when Lu Xuan took over the body.
Lu Xuan lifted his chin to dodge the cubs’ continued licking and removed them one by one from his shoulders and neck.
“I’m fine. Don’t worry.”
The three furry cubs froze for a moment, then all stared at him with wide, round eyes.
Lu Xuan’s heart trembled. So… so cute!
In the next instant, the three cubs launched themselves like cannonballs into Lu Xuan’s arms.
Ow ow~~ Ow ow ow Woo woo woo~
Lu Xuan hurriedly and somewhat clumsily pulled them into his arms. Never having received such affection before, the corners of his mouth were already stretched all the way to his ears.
“Not dead, not dead. None of us are going to die.”
Because of the original owner’s influence, Lu Xuan could understand the cubs’ meaning.
The three cubs were only three or four months old. Once they turned three years old and could switch between human and beast forms, they would be able to speak.
Lu Xuan was a veterinarian. His family had been veterinarians for three generations and were well-known throughout the surrounding villages.
After working for two years, he went to serve wildlife in an African wildlife protection area.
Unfortunately, less than a year later, the helicopter he was riding in crashed.
Maybe because he was a veterinarian, Lu Xuan had never been well-liked by small animals.
Cats and dogs aside, even the baby shark at the aquarium had smacked him with its tail.
This was the first time he had been clung to by three furry cubs. Lu Xuan felt flattered, an animal lover finally receiving some spiritual comfort.
Lu Xuan stroked them one by one and discovered that the cubs were a lynx, a leopard cat, and a fishing cat.
Their names surfaced in Lu Xuan’s mind one by one from the original owner’s memories.
After several days of fleeing, the cubs hadn’t had a single full meal. Their fur had become dull and even matted in places.
Lu Xuan’s eyes were full of sympathy. How could he let the cubs go hungry?
A cool breeze blew past. The cubs, who had been cuddling in his arms moments ago, jumped down from him and growled lowly toward the dense forest.
Their small bodies trembled with fear as they backed up step by step to his side, pressing tightly against him.
Lu Xuan grabbed the animal hide bag beside him, quickly stuffed the three cubs inside, and ran.
He had only taken a few steps when he heard a loud crash. He instinctively looked back and saw a massive, greenish-gray python with its mouth wide open, biting down on the very tree he had been leaning against.
Lu Xuan gasped and ran for his life.
If he had been a moment slower, the python would have been biting him and the cubs instead, swallowing them whole in one bite without even chewing.
The moss was slippery and wet. Leaves brushed past his ankles, and with every step, he splashed up large, murky puddles of water.
Lu Xuan stepped over knee-high plants and ducked into the bushes.
The python was enormous, over ten meters long. It shot swiftly across the moss-covered ground. Several times, Lu Xuan could feel the stench of its forked tongue touching the back of his neck.
His breathing grew heavier and heavier, and his steps became more sluggish. But he didn’t dare slow down for even a second.
His head started to spin, and his surroundings began to blur.
His body, having gone hungry for days, couldn’t handle this kind of running. He was about to give out.
His feet gave way beneath him as he tripped over a vine. Lu Xuan clutched the animal hide bag tightly to his chest and fell hard.
He tumbled down a slope all the way into a depression. The momentum slammed him into a tree root before he finally stopped.
The hide bag was thrown to the side. The three cubs crawled out, shaking their little heads, clearly dazed from the fall.
“Come to me, quick.”
Ignoring the pain in his back, Lu Xuan braced himself against the tree root with one hand and gathered all the cubs into his arms with the other.
The giant python stopped not far ahead of them, raised its head high, and stared at them with cold, icy eyes, flicking its forked tongue.
Lu Xuan’s scalp tingled, and his whole body tensed up. His heart felt as if it had fallen into an ice cave. He didn’t expect that, after being reborn once, he would still end up dying in a snake’s belly.
The giant python seemed to sense that its prey could no longer fight back. It slithered forward a few times, opened its massive jaws, and lunged straight at them.
Lu Xuan’s breath caught in his throat. He squeezed his eyes shut and instinctively wrapped his arms tightly around the cubs.
He had only been reborn for less than an hour, and now he was about to die again.
God, could I at least get a different way to die?
Thud!
There was a sound as if something heavy had crashed through the ground.
Lu Xuan opened one eye and cautiously observed.
Then his eyes flew wide open. A black bear, five to six meters tall, was locked in a tangled fight with the giant python.
He carefully crawled a few steps on the ground, retrieved the animal hide bag, and ignoring the cubs’ protests, stuffed them all back inside.
Over there, the bear and the snake were fighting fiercely, flattening a large swath of surrounding vegetation.
Lu Xuan slowly crawled behind a tree, stretched his neck out for a look, then immediately hunched over and ran.
With two beasts battling it out, he, an ordinary mortal, was not about to get involved.
Hold on a little longer, Mr. Black Bear, just long enough for him to run a bit farther.
He had no idea how long he had been running. Lu Xuan’s breathing sounded like an old-fashioned bellows, huff, huff.
Finally, just as he was about to pass out, he found a hollowed-out dead tree trunk. There were no signs of wild animal activity, it was relatively safe.
Lu Xuan stumbled and fell into the hole. He lay on the ground in a sprawled position, his chest heaving continuously. With each breath, he felt like he was suffocating.
He opened his mouth wide, trying to let more air into his body, but his chest still ached with a dull, suffocating pain.
Whimper whimper whimper…
The three cubs nuzzled against the hollow of his shoulder, their young voices filled with worry and fear.
Lu Xuan wanted to comfort them, wanted to reach out and pat each of their little heads. But he was too tired, he couldn’t move a single finger.
He involuntarily fell into darkness, the smell of earth and rotting leaves mixing in his nose, along with what seemed to be a faint scent of blood.
The scent of blood?
Lu Xuan jolted awake and sat up. The light outside the hole had already dimmed.
Had he fallen asleep?
How long had he been asleep?
Where were the cubs?
The tree hole wasn’t very large. He could see the whole space at a glance. The animal hide bag was right beside him.
Where were his three little ones?
Panicked, Lu Xuan scrambled out of the hole. Not far ahead, under a tree, a massive dark shape was leaning against the trunk.
The three cubs were not far away, watching that dark shape warily.
The tufts on the tips of the lynx cub’s ears twitched. It turned its head toward the tree hole, and its eyes instantly lit up with delight. It dashed toward Lu Xuan, leaping up eagerly mid‑run before it even reached him.
Ah~ ah~
Its young call sounded like a bird chirping, or like a dolphin’s voice pitched an octave higher.
Lu Xuan bent down and stretched out both arms to catch him.
“Why are you running around?”
He had no idea how terrified he had been when he woke up and didn’t see them.
All three cubs ran to Lu Xuan’s feet and climbed up his legs.
Lu Xuan: What a sweet burden.
One cub squatted on each of his shoulders, and he held one in his arms. Lu Xuan faced off against that dark shape. He now knew that the dark shape was the black bear that had fought the python.
From the cubs, he learned that the black bear was a beastman, not a wild animal as he had initially thought.
Lu Xuan breathed a sigh of relief but remained cautious. Still, this creature had saved him and the cubs, so it was only right to at least offer a greeting.
Thinking back, he felt a bit ashamed, when the bear was fighting the python, he had run away.
His cheeks flushed slightly.
He took a few steps forward, but didn’t dare get too close to the black bear, keeping a safe distance that would allow him to turn and flee if necessary.
“Where are you injured?”
Even while sitting, the black bear was still taller than Lu Xuan, let alone in terms of sheer bulk.
He cracked one eye open just a sliver, then closed it again, clearly not intending to respond.
“My grandfather was a priest. He taught me how to heal injuries.”
As he spoke, Lu Xuan took a few more steps back. Given the bear’s size, he figured the distance he had just been standing at wasn’t necessarily safe.
Only then did the black bear open his eyes.
“Leg broken. Can you heal it?”
His voice was rough and hoarse, as if he hadn’t spoken in a very long time.
Lu Xuan thought: A beast speaking human words, now that’s amazing.
But wait, his leg was broken?
Had it broken during the fight with the python?
Lu Xuan’s expression turned serious. He settled the cubs at the entrance of the tree hollow.
“Stay right here and don’t run off,” he instructed carefully.
Then he went over to the black bear. Partly because the bear had saved him, and partly out of professional habit.
The black bear had one hind leg broken. After examining it and confirming that the bone hadn’t become misaligned, Lu Xuan felt a bit more at ease.
“I can heal it. But the injury is already a few days old, so the treatment will work a bit slowly.”
Wait a minute…
The leg had been broken for a while, which meant it hadn’t happened during the fight with the python. In other words, the bear had saved him and the cubs while already suffering from a broken leg.
Lu Xuan felt even more grateful.
“Don’t worry. I will definitely heal you.”