Building a Civilization and Raising Cubs in the Beast World – CH88

Chapter 88

What had initially been just a guess was now almost a certainty after seeing Lang Shun’s behavior. The truth was clear.

Noticing that Lang Shun, who had been calm for a moment, was beginning to show signs of struggling again, Bai Tu quickly called out to Lang Zuo: “Go get some food, and make sure there’s extra meat.”

After all, the boy had run such a long distance, going back and forth, and had been struggling against them for a good while. He was likely starving and needed to be well-fed.

Lang Zuo let out an enthusiastic howl and dashed down the hill to fetch the food. Perhaps it was because he heard the words “food” and “meat,” but Lang Shun immediately quieted down again. With no new orders from Hu Bu, he remained still until Lang Zuo returned with the food.

Dinner, as usual, was plentiful. 

The moment Lang Shun caught a whiff of the food, his previously cloudy eyes seemed to clear up a little. Bai Tu picked up a bowl of meat, planning to feed him since all four of Lang Shun’s paws were tied.

“I’ll do it,” Lang Qi said, taking the food from Bai Tu’s hands.

Bai Tu assumed Lang Qi would also feed Lang Shun, but the next second, he watched in confusion as Lang Qi grabbed a small stool, placed the food on it, and pushed it toward Lang Shun.

Without hesitation, Lang Shun began to eat.

“Is this how you’re feeding him?” Bai Tu asked, dumbfounded. This was not at all what he had in mind.

“This is how we feed him,” Lang Ze chimed in, nodding in agreement. Following Lang Qi’s example, he brought over another stool and placed a bowl of soup on it.

Bai Tu fell silent for a moment. He decided not to argue. At least they were using stools, he thought to himself.

Whether they were adults or cubs, beastmen tended to feel sleepier after a hearty meal. 

Lang Shun was no exception—he began yawning as soon as he finished eating. Considering the physical toll of Lang Shun’s activities that afternoon, Bai Tu decided to let him rest while he thought of a way to help him.

Leaving Lang Shun alone, Bai Tu led Hei Xiao outside. As they walked, he quietly asked, “When was the last time this kind of mind control was used? Is there a way to break it?”

Hei Xiao sighed. “It’s been more than twenty years. The last recorded case involved the son of a witch doctor who had previously controlled a tribe leader. The son tried to learn the technique from his father and used it to control the leader’s mate. But he was discovered, and he was burned to death. Since then, no one has dared use this method again.”

The term “mind control” carried terrifying implications. 

Most tribe leaders could accept the presence of a witch doctor/healer in their tribe, even if the witch doctor’s status was higher than their own. This was because witch doctors could heal injuries and cure illnesses, and even leaders were not immune to illness or harm. 

For those who were often injured, having a witch doctor nearby was like having extra lives. Many leaders even led the efforts to provide offerings to witch doctors, believing that trading resources for health was a fair exchange.

However, witch doctors who practiced mind control were a different matter entirely. 

The history of witch doctors who had controlled tribe leaders—or their mates—had left a deep scar on the collective memory of beastmen. 

Even though those two events were carried out by different individuals, the fear they inspired lingered. 

The ability to control others meant they could potentially control anyone, including the person listening to this tale. As a result, witch doctors who possessed such secret drugs were not just unwelcome—they were actively hunted. After the son of the witch doctor was executed, no other witch doctor had dared to use such methods.

Hei Xiao hadn’t expected Hu Bu to have this as a trump card. Though Hei Xiao wanted to kill Hu Bu immediately, it was clear Bai Tu still had use for him.

Bai Tu mulled over what Hei Xiao had said. However, there didn’t seem to be a direct connection between the current situation and past events. 

The witch doctor’s son had been dead for over twenty years, and the witch doctor himself had died even earlier. There was no way Hu Bu could have had contact with either of them.

So where had Hu Bu obtained this drug? Bai Tu frowned, unable to figure it out. He also couldn’t shake the feeling that Hu Bu’s tone when speaking to Lang Shun sounded oddly familiar.

Turning to Hei Xiao, Bai Tu asked, “Brother, can you tell me more about the past? I’d like to see if I can find any clues based on my own experiences.”

The single word “Brother” nearly made Hei Xiao lose his bearings. 

He had always feared that Bai Tu had only acknowledged him as a sudden older brother out of courtesy or their previous camaraderie. 

Knowing that Bai Tu had lost memories of the first ten-plus years of his life, Hei Xiao had been careful not to bring up too much about the past, worried that mentioning too many unfamiliar things would make Bai Tu uncomfortable. 

To Bai Tu, the “himself” from before losing his memory was essentially a different person. Bringing up things he couldn’t recall wouldn’t do him any good.

Earlier in the day, in the cave, when Bai Tu said he needed some time, Hei Xiao decided to let him process things at his own pace. 

Hei Xiao had prepared himself for the worst—if it came to it, he was willing to stay by Bai Tu’s side indefinitely, even if their relationship remained in a state of limbo between familial and distant, friendly and aloof.

But now, with that single word of acknowledgment, Hei Xiao’s heart, which had been on edge all day, finally settled. 

No matter the circumstances, as long as Bai Tu was willing to call him “Brother,” it was enough. Especially since there was no one else around—this wasn’t Bai Tu trying to appease Lang Qi by recognizing Hei Xiao’s identity. That realization made Hei Xiao even happier.

“Brother?” Bai Tu called softly again, noticing Hei Xiao hadn’t responded. 

Was it possible that what happened in the past was too sensitive to discuss? But Bai Tu truly wanted to uncover the truth as quickly as possible—he felt an inexplicable sense of urgency, like a voice in his mind urging him to dig deeper.

Hei Xiao snapped out of his thoughts and nodded. “I can tell you—anything you want to know.”

The evening chill was setting in, so Bai Tu led Hei Xiao back to his cave. He left Lang Qi to look after the cubs while he and Hei Xiao went into another room to talk.

Lang Qi shot the two of them a look full of suspicion.

Bai Tu sighed and explained, “We really do have something important to discuss. Please take good care of the cubs.”

Although Bai Tu trusted Lang Qi, the past they were about to discuss wasn’t just his own; it was a shared history. Furthermore, Bai Tu had noticed that whenever Hei Xiao and Lang Qi were in the same space, there was a tension that felt almost combustible. 

To avoid unnecessary conflict, it seemed better to separate them for now.

Lang Qi didn’t respond verbally. Instead, he turned around, picked up the two cubs, and carried them into the inner chamber. His retreating figure inexplicably carried a hint of desolation, like someone abandoned by a heartless lover.

Bai Tu immediately shook his head, forcing the absurd comparison out of his mind. He grabbed Hei Xiao’s arm and said, “Let’s focus on the matter at hand.”

Hei Xiao, who had always been forthright, didn’t hold back now either. Since Bai Tu was asking him directly, he had no reason to hide anything.

“Our father’s name was Bai Luo. You share his surname. My beast form is a black rabbit, and Father had me take the tribe’s surname. Most members of the Black Hawk Tribe have eagle forms, but a few of us are different. The year you disappeared, you were only three years old. You had just learned to shift into human form, but it wasn’t stable—you’d often accidentally revert to your beast form.”

Hei Xiao paused, his expression darkening as he continued. “Our beast forms were smaller than those of other cubs. Father was worried about leaving you in the tribe, so he took you with him everywhere he went. But despite his precautions, he was captured by the Red Eagle Tribe while protecting you.”

Young beastmen around the age of three could usually shift into human form, but the duration they could maintain it varied. 

Weaker cubs could only hold their human form for a short while, while stronger ones might manage half a day or longer. Bai Tu, as a child, couldn’t maintain his human form for long; whenever he got startled or distracted, he’d revert to a tiny rabbit.

Exposing such a diminutive beast form was extremely dangerous, not just because it revealed his small size but also because the playful roughhousing common among cubs could be lethal to a rabbit his size.

At the time, Hei Xiao had already matured enough to understand the importance of keeping his beast form a secret. 

Bai Luo was similarly cautious. He avoided bringing both cubs out at the same time, fearing it would draw too much attention. Using the excuse that his younger son was more delicate and needed extra care, Bai Luo always kept Bai Tu by his side. While most beastmen preferred to raise their cubs more freely, no one criticized Bai Luo for being overprotective.

But despite his care and caution, Bai Luo’s secret was discovered. He and Bai Tu were captured by the Red Eagle Tribe.

The Red Eagle Tribe had too many people. Even when several tribes worked together, they could only drive them away; none of the captured beastmen or cubs were ever found.

Hei Xiao wanted to search for his father and younger brother, but he was far too young at the time. Without his father’s protection and with no other relatives to rely on, he became an easy target for bullying within the tribe. Looking for his missing family was out of the question.

Fortunately, the Black Hawk Tribe had enough food. Even as a child, Hei Xiao was never in danger of starving.

A few years later, the tribe was thrown into turmoil when a power struggle broke out between the leaders. 

During this time, Hei Xiao found and took in Hei Yan, a cub around the same age as his younger brother, raising him as his own. The two young boys kept a low profile within the tribe, often scavenging for their own food and avoiding interactions with others whenever possible.

Hei Xiao frequently looked for opportunities to venture outside the tribe, but entering unfamiliar territory was dangerous. 

Coupled with his lack of combat ability in his beast form, he didn’t dare stray too far while Hei Yan was still a child. For years, he confined his searches to the area surrounding the Black Hawk Tribe, but his efforts yielded nothing.

Hei Yan was the son of the previous leader’s predecessor and the nephew of the previous leader. 

That leader had killed his own older brother to seize power. When Hei Yan came of age, the first thing he did was challenge and defeat the leader, avenging his father’s death.

With Hei Xiao’s help, Hei Yan stabilized the tribe, allowing Hei Xiao to resume his search, venturing to farther places. Last year, he finally obtained some news, but it wasn’t good. None of the beastmen taken to the Red Eagle Tribe had survived.

This news dealt a heavy blow to Hei Xiao. Perhaps it was because a sliver of hope still lingered deep inside him, or perhaps it was simply habit after so many years, but Hei Xiao continued to visit marketplaces across the continents.

When Hei Xiao met Bai Tu, his feelings mirrored Bai Tu’s: an inexplicable joy that came from deep within. 

Adding to this was the fact that Bai Tu seemed about the same age as Hei Yan, which meant he was likely the same age his younger brother would have been. Because of this, despite knowing that approaching strangers in the marketplace was incredibly risky, Hei Xiao had taken the chance. 

He stopped Bai Tu and asked if he was one of the captured beastmen brought back by Lang Ze and his group.

On the Beast God Continent, there was a long-standing belief that beastmen with small beast forms were not favored by the Beast God. But for some, there was an even greater danger: certain tribes specifically targeted such beastmen. Because their small beast forms made them weaker fighters, there was little concern about them escaping. In human form, they were usually thinner and frailer, making them easier to control.

At the sight of Bai Tu, Hei Xiao couldn’t help but imagine that, if his younger brother were still alive, he might look just like this. Learning that Bai Tu wasn’t a captured beastman brought him relief, but also an inexplicable sense of disappointment.

The way Bai Tu interacted with his companions gave Hei Xiao a fleeting hope. 

If Bai Tu wasn’t their mate or someone belonging to their tribe, the only other explanation for their closeness would be that they had grown up together. Still, Hei Xiao dismissed the possibility that Bai Tu could be his brother.

As time passed and Hei Xiao got to know Bai Tu better, that faint hope returned. But at the time, he chose to keep it buried deep inside. 

As long as he didn’t voice his suspicions, he could continue treating Bai Tu as though he were his younger brother. If he said it out loud and was met with denial, he wouldn’t even be able to deceive himself anymore.

When Hei Xiao encountered another beastman from the Red Eagle Tribe at the Iron Elephant Tribe, this person, who was trusted more by Wu Lai, revealed another truth.

The first group of captured beastmen actually had a survivor—just one. When he was taken, he didn’t even have a name, and it was only later that his father gave him one.

Beastmen and cubs from the first group died off one by one over time. 

Bai Luo, knowing that he and his child wouldn’t survive much longer, couldn’t bear the thought of his child dying nameless. That’s when he gave him the name Tu. 

Later, Bai Luo passed away, leaving Bai Tu as the sole surviving cub from the first group. He was kept in a secret chamber within the Red Eagle Tribe, a place only Wu Lai could enter, until last year, after the snow season, when Hu Bu took him away. Since then, no one in the Red Eagle Tribe had seen him again.

Hei Xiao was utterly stunned when he heard this. 

The fact that Bai Tu was also a rabbit tribe member with a smaller physique could be a coincidence. After all, there were still a few smaller rabbits in the Black Eagle Tribe, and this was why Hei Xiao hadn’t outright assumed Bai Tu was his younger brother. Instead, he had cautiously harbored the idea in his heart, keeping it to himself.

But when the name also matched, it could no longer be dismissed as coincidence.

Hei Xiao asked the beastman about Bai Tu’s departure from the Red Eagle Tribe, his appearance, height, and any other details he could think of. 

The answers all lined up with the Bai Tu he knew. There was a very slim possibility that it was still just coincidence, but Hei Xiao had a gut feeling—this was his younger brother. He hadn’t been mistaken.

As Hei Xiao recounted these events, he occasionally observed Bai Tu’s expression for any reaction.

Bai Tu listened carefully and noticed that Hei Xiao kept glancing at him more frequently, which made him curious. 

“Brother, what’s wrong?” Bai Tu asked. 

He couldn’t help but feel that Hei Xiao had returned to being overly cautious, as he had been in the beginning.

Hei Xiao hesitated for a moment before deciding to speak honestly: “That beastman from the Red Eagle Tribe said that when you were captured, you were different from the other cubs. Even as you grew older, you never spoke.”

The Red Eagle beastman’s exact words were that Bai Tu was a fool, but Hei Xiao felt that this was an exaggeration. 

Looking at the current Bai Tu, it was clear that he couldn’t possibly have been foolish. 

The more likely explanation was that the Red Eagle Tribe had treated him so harshly that it had traumatized him. Just look at Bai Tu now—so clever that he could even make iron tools, something only the Iron Elephant Tribe knew how to do, not to mention all the other things no one had ever seen before.

Hei Xiao’s impression of his younger brother was limited to the small rabbit from his childhood. 

He had only seen Bai Tu take human form once, and before he could get a good look, Bai Tu had shifted back into his beast form. As a result, he didn’t know if his younger brother had been different from other cubs back then.

Because he hadn’t gotten a good look at his human form as a child, Hei Xiao hadn’t recognized him at first. Now, he deeply regretted not paying more attention back then. If he had, they could have reunited six months ago. Hei Xiao had completely forgotten that cubs’ appearances change significantly as they grow older.

Bai Tu blinked. “Are you saying I used to be… a fool?” So, he’d been a fool from the start?

Hei Xiao shook his head, clearly disagreeing with this assessment. “You weren’t a fool. You just didn’t like to talk.”

But Bai Tu felt his description might not be far off. He began to consider a possibility he’d overlooked until now.

Up to this point, he had always believed that the original host of this body had been injured when Bai An found him, losing part of his memory and becoming a “fool.” Or perhaps it was that he, Bai Tu, had arrived in this body at the time of the injury, but because of the trauma, his memories of modern times hadn’t yet returned, leaving only the name Bai Tu.

But if the original host had been unable to speak since childhood, never communicating with others, then could there be another explanation? 

Could it be that there was no original host at all and that it had always been him? Perhaps the only difference was that, in the past, he was himself without his modern memories, and now he was himself with those memories restored.

Bai Tu thought of the dreams he’d had, where he saw a young man who resembled Hei Xiao, and realized that the man was likely their father, Bai Luo. Was it possible that his recent bouts of shifting into beast form had triggered these fragments of memory?

Considering the possibility that he truly was the original, Bai Tu connected it with Hei Xiao’s mention of Hu Bu taking him to the eastern continent. He decided to interrogate Hu Bu again.

Bai Tu stood up. “Let’s go find Hu Bu.”

Hei Xiao was startled, not expecting Bai Tu’s first move after hearing the truth to be going after Hu Bu. “Why?”

Bai Tu shared his theory. “He might’ve used a secret drug on me.”

Hei Xiao’s expression changed dramatically. “What?!”

“I think the tone he used to manipulate Shun sounded very familiar, like I’ve heard it somewhere before. And…” Bai Tu paused, recalling some things that hadn’t added up. 

His earliest impression of this world came from a book. But that raised a question—why did the topic of a book randomly come up during a class reunion?

At the time, he’d been so focused on the survival of the tribe that he hadn’t thought much about those odd details. But now, the more he thought about it, the stranger it all seemed. 

Even if they were just a group of recent graduates chatting and venting, why would a few classmates go out of their way to discuss a book’s plot in such excruciating detail, right in front of him—a person who happened to share the same name as the book’s character? 

They’d even described the protagonist freezing to death in the snow with shocking clarity, as if afraid he’d miss a single detail. Now, he couldn’t even recall who those classmates were—only that the conversation had happened.

From the beginning, Bai Tu’s inexplicable familiarity with the book’s content made him wary of its so-called protagonists, Hu Bu and Shi Hong. 

On closer reflection, though, his knowledge of these two characters seemed too thorough—almost unnaturally so. It felt as if someone had forcibly planted a perfectly detailed memory of them in his mind. 

It was almost as if someone was screaming: They’re the protagonists. Don’t mess with them. Everything will work out in their favor, and your fate is to freeze to death in a snowstorm.

Previously, Bai Tu hadn’t been able to pinpoint what exactly felt off. Even though he found it strange, he’d attributed his detailed knowledge to the nature of his “transmigration.”

But today, after seeing Lang Shun’s behavior, a new theory began to form in his mind. 

What if those memories had been artificially implanted into him? Just like Lang Shun, who had been bewitched into only obeying Hu Bu’s commands, what if someone had drugged him and fed him false memories? Over time, his brain may have unconsciously filled in the blanks, solidifying those false memories into something that felt real.

If this theory were true, then the root of the problem lay with Hu Bu—the person who had inexplicably taken him from the Red Eagle Tribe.