Monster Cub Live Stream – CH4

Chapter 4

Feng Wu’s expression changed slightly.

“Fourth Brother’s condition has worsened badly over the past few days. The doctor said…” The burly man’s eyes reddened. “At best, he has a week. At worst, only three days.”

Feng Wu’s hand hanging at his side abruptly clenched into a fist. “When I saw him last time, his condition was still relatively stable.”

“It only happened in the past two days. Fourth Brother kept hiding it and refused to say anything. I only found out how bad he was when I went to see him today…”

People afflicted with Alpha Syndrome could only walk toward death. From the moment they arrived on Sin Star, they had already prepared themselves mentally. But when faced with death, no one could truly remain calm.

Xiong Yingjun cursed under his breath. Full of pent-up anger, he could not help kicking at the grass. A small pit immediately appeared in the ground, sending dirt and grass clippings flying all over the dazed little cub.

Lin An’an: “…Yingji!”

Ptoo, ptoo, ptoo!

It all got into my mouth!

The little cub finally snapped out of his shock and bounced twice on the spot, shaking all the grass off himself.

Xiong Yingjun did not notice that he had accidentally harmed the little black blob. He was still cursing away. “To hell with this damned Alpha Syndrome—”

Lin An’an: “?”

Alpha Syndrome?

What kind of thing was that?

The unfamiliar term made him freeze. Instinctively, he turned to look toward the silver wolf—the silver-haired man—and saw that although the other party said nothing, his expression was equally terrible, and burning anger was suppressed in those dark golden eyes.

Xiong Yingjun forcibly reined in his emotions. “Fourth Brother’s thinking is that even if it’s fake medicine, the situation can’t get worse than doing nothing. And if by some chance the medicine really works… then even one extra day is worth it.”

Feng Wu thought for only a few seconds before saying in a low voice, “We’re going to C City.”

Lin An’an, who had only caught half the conversation, realized the two of them were about to leave. He immediately jumped high into the air, trying to attract their attention.

“Yingji!”

I want to go too!

Brother Wolf, my good big brother, take me with you!

Feng Wu was the first to change back into his silver wolf form. Gently catching the little cub by the back of the neck, he tossed him onto his thickly furred back.

Xiong Yingjun asked in puzzlement, “Boss, whose cub is this?”

The silver giant wolf replied in a low voice, [Picked him up.]

Xiong Yingjun nodded in understanding. “Then let’s bring him to C City too. It’s too dangerous for such a little cub to stay out in the wilderness. Boss, are you planning to send him to the cub welfare home?”

Feng Wu paused slightly. Recalling the soft touch between his brows during his last mental power riot, he said, [We’ll talk about it later.]

Xiong Yingjun nodded. “Alright. Fourth Brother’s matter is more important.”

The little cub lying on Feng Wu’s back raised his head in confusion, muttering inwardly.

He suspected people in this world had some special way of communicating. In his ears, what he heard was just ordinary wolf growls, yet this man turned from a bear seemed somehow able to understand them perfectly and converse with Brother Wolf without any difficulty.

“How old is this cub?” Xiong Yingjun was very curious about this unfamiliar juvenile. “Can he use mental speech yet?”

Feng Wu did not answer. He did not know anything about this cub’s background either.

The burly man tried his best to soften his brows and eyes. “Little guy, can you talk yet?”

Lin An’an: “…Yingji.”

“Looks like he can’t.” Xiong Yingjun wanted to reach out and pat the little black blob, but the giant wolf suddenly took two steps forward. Whether intentional or not, he just happened to avoid the hand.

Feng Wu tapped the bunny-print box lightly with his paw. [Bring this too.]

“Got it.” Xiong Yingjun stored the box in his terminal space, then before turning into a black bear he said to Lin An’an, “When speaking in your second form, remember to use mental power.”

The little cub’s bean-like eyes immediately lit up. “Yingji!”

Thank you, Brother Bear!

A little while later, the cub tried opening his mouth again while using mental power.

“Ji… ah-pff!”

Lin An’an: “……”

Forget it. Talking is so hard.

It really was difficult for a little cub like him.

The group of three traveled by moonlight. Both the bear and the wolf were extremely fast. At first Lin An’an still felt a bit wolf-sick, but later Feng Wu noticed his discomfort and placed a mental power shield around him.

Partway through the journey, Lin An’an fell asleep again, and even had a dream.

In the dream, besides himself, there were other figures. One of them had silver hair and golden eyes—it was Feng Wu in human form.

The setting of the dream was a very large house. Feng Wu was downstairs in the yard outside the main gate, while Lin An’an was upstairs in a room.

Feng Wu downstairs was talking to someone. From this angle, Lin An’an could not see who it was. He raised his hand, wanting to push open the window, but touched only something cold and hard.

Cold chains were fastened over the window, and even the frame had solid metal bars embedded into it. He seemed to be trapped inside this room.

A powerful sense of helplessness surged up from his heart. Lin An’an wanted to cry out for help, yet no sound came from his throat.

At the very end of the dream, someone pushed open the room door and said to him, “Third Highness, it is time for your meal.”

Lin An’an woke from the dream with a start, nearly rolling straight off the wolf’s back.

Third Highness? What Third Highness?

A faint white glow had begun to spread across the distant horizon. Dawn was close at hand.

The little cub sat up from the thick wolf fur. The slightly chilly wind of the night made him shiver, fully waking him up.

What he had just experienced was a dream, but not entirely a dream. It felt more like long-lost memories of his, returning in this way.

In his original world, Lin An’an had once lost his memory by accident, and later recovered it through treatment. Because of that, he knew very well that the scenes in the dream were his own memories, not someone else’s.

The Brother Wolf in the dream looked younger than he did now, and the dream-self was also a youth, not the young child Lin An’an had assumed.

Lin An’an sank into deep thought.

After a long while, the little cub—his head a complete mess—flopped back down with a plop and buried himself in the thick, soft wolf fur.

Too complicated. I can’t figure it out. Better to just lie flat and give up.

Anyway, right now he was only a little monster cub.

Lying flat.jpg

Feng Wu and Xiong Yingjun arrived in C City just as dawn was breaking.

The two of them shifted into human form. The little cub who had been riding on the giant wolf’s back suddenly found himself suspended in the air. He instinctively flailed twice midair before Feng Wu caught him and set him down on his shoulder.

Lin An’an looked at the city before him.

It was called a city, but C City was nowhere near as bustling and prosperous as the cities in his memory. Instead, it looked more like a human base built in the middle of the wilderness.

At the entrance to the base stood several robots serving as guards. Feng Wu and Xiong Yingjun took out their Sin Star identity cards and scanned them before the eye of one of the robots. The robot’s chest immediately lit up with their identity information.

[Name: Feng Wu
Alpha Duration: 2 years
Alpha Symptom: Intermittent mental power riot…]

[Name: Xiong Yingjun
Alpha Duration: 2 years
Alpha Symptom: Hair loss…]

So Brother Wolf’s name is Feng Wu, the little cub thought. When he saw Xiong Yingjun’s name, he could not help laughing out loud.

To Xiong Yingjun’s ears, that laughter came out as an extremely soft little “yingji.”

Xiong Yingjun leaned close to the little cub and said in a rough, husky voice, “Cub, use mental power to talk. Call me big brother.”

Lin An’an: “Yingji… pff!”

What kind of strange creepy uncle is this?!

Feng Wu pushed Xiong Yingjun’s big face away with one slap. “Go get him an identity card.”

The little cub had clearly never been to the urban districts of Sin Star and obviously did not have a Sin Star identity card. But entry and exit required identity registration, so they could only have the robot process one on the spot.

“Alright.” Xiong Yingjun tapped open the light screen on the robot’s chest, then suddenly frowned. “Boss, what do we fill in for the cub’s name?”

The moment he said this, the two men and the robot all found themselves looking at each other.

Xiong Yingjun gripped the stylus eagerly. “Black Ball? Black Charcoal? Coal Ball? Little Blackie?”

Lin An’an could not listen any longer. He jumped onto Xiong Yingjun’s arm, snatched the stylus away with one tentacle, and crookedly wrote the character ‘An’ on the light screen.

Xiong Yingjun was delighted. “Oh ho, so you can write!”

Lin An’an rolled his eyes inwardly, returned the stylus to Xiong Yingjun, and tapped the screen with his little tentacle, indicating that he should continue filling in the other information.

Xiong Yingjun muttered as he filled it out. “Gender?”

The little tentacle pointed at male.

Xiong Yingjun: “Age?”

The little tentacle did not move.

Feng Wu lowered his head to look at him. The little cub also raised his head and widened his bean-like eyes, looking innocent and confused.

“Leave it blank for now,” Feng Wu said. “Next.”

“Doesn’t even know how old he is, huh, cub.” Xiong Yingjun sighed. “Alpha duration… forget it, next. Alpha symptom?”

In response, all he got was the little cub’s innocent bean eyes again.

Feng Wu rubbed at the space between his brows. “That’s enough for now. We’ll fill in the rest later.”

Lin An’an returned to Feng Wu’s shoulder, his mind full of the word Alpha, which had appeared far too frequently.

It sounded like some kind of disease, yet each person’s symptoms seemed different.

Feng Wu’s mental power riot he could understand, but Xiong Yingjun’s hair loss… The little cub glanced at Xiong Yingjun’s head. That wild, messy hairstyle showed no sign at all of someone troubled by hair loss.

Lin An’an withdrew his gaze. Thinking of how even he had needed to fill in Alpha-related information when making the identity card, he wondered whether that meant people in this world generally suffered from this disease.

Lin An’an could not be sure.

After getting the identity card, Feng Wu and Xiong Yingjun took the little cub straight to the auction hall in the center of the city.

Xiong Yingjun had already obtained entry qualifications in advance. There were still two hours before the auction began, so the two of them made a stop at a nearby trading center and bought the little cub a juvenile terminal.

The terminal’s wrist strap could adjust in size. The moment Lin An’an took it with his tentacle, the strap automatically tightened to fit snugly around it.

“See if anyone is selling apples,” Feng Wu suddenly said. “Other fruits and vegetables are fine too.”

“Alright,” Xiong Yingjun responded softly. His eyes instantly reddened again. “Fourth Brother likes apples best.”

Fresh fruit had an extremely low yield. Even in the vast interstellar markets, it was a rare sight—let alone on Sin Star. After making a full round, the two of them found not only no apples, but not even a single bottle of fruit-flavored nutrient solution.

Lin An’an did not know exactly what had happened, but he could feel that both of them were in a very bad mood.

“Yingji?”

If there are no apples, would tomatoes do?

Feng Wu and Xiong Yingjun could not understand what he was saying, so Lin An’an tugged at Feng Wu’s clothes and pointed toward a nearby stall. Beside the stall, a robot soliciting customers was shouting mechanically, “Seeds! Fruit and vegetable seeds with extremely high survival rates! Don’t miss them as you pass by!”

Feng Wu asked, “You want that?”

Lin An’an nodded. “Yingji!”

Feng Wu stepped forward and asked, “How much?”

The stall owner was slacking off and playing on his terminal. It was only when Feng Wu asked a second time that he realized he had customers.

“One hundred star coins for a small packet. Buy two, get one free.” The stall owner rubbed his hands together. “Today I’ve got tomato, cucumber, and potato seeds. Which kind do you want? And how many?”

One hundred star coins a packet? What kind of sky-high seed price was this??

Lin An’an was thoroughly shaken. But what shocked him even more was Xiong Yingjun muttering under his breath, “That cheap? Must be fake seeds.”

Lin An’an: “???”

Cheap? Was he crazy, or was this world crazy?

Feng Wu, however, did not care. “One packet of each.”

The stall owner beamed with delight and grabbed three packets of seeds, ready to wrap them up, when Lin An’an suddenly tugged on Feng Wu’s clothes.

“Yingji!”

“What is it?” Feng Wu paused.

Lin An’an slid down from his shoulder, took out the packet of potato seeds, and began picking through the pile with his little tentacle. Then he selected another packet of potato seeds and packed that one instead.

After they had gone farther away, Xiong Yingjun asked curiously, “Is there some difference between those two packets of seeds?”

Lin An’an answered seriously, “Yingji!”

The first packet was full of dead seeds. Nothing would grow from them.

Xiong Yingjun could not understand him and continued muttering to himself, “Tomatoes are fine too. Fourth Brother likes tomatoes as well. But just seeds… on this lousy planet, where are we supposed to find someone who knows how to grow tomatoes?”

From the way he spoke, fruits and vegetables in this world seemed to be something extremely rare.

Lin An’an picked out a few tomato seeds and jumped onto Xiong Yingjun.

In Xiong Yingjun’s hands was a small flowerpot. The little clay pot had been kindly thrown in by the stall owner, who said it was for them to grow vegetables in.

“With this tiny broken pot, what could possibly grow?” Xiong Yingjun complained. “Even if an immortal came down, they couldn’t grow so much as a lousy blade of grass with this thing.”

Feng Wu had remained silent the whole time. Perhaps because he was thinking of “Fourth Brother,” his lips had been pressed into a thin line, and his eyes were heavy with emotion.

Lin An’an buried the seeds in the small flowerpot, then lightly patted Feng Wu with a little tentacle.

“Yingji!”

Brother Wolf, watch me do a magic trick for you!

The little cub took a deep breath. Two little tentacles rested on the flowerpot, and a pale green power, brimming with vitality, overflowed from their tips and poured entirely into the pot.

A tender green sprout broke through the soil. Growing taller and larger at a speed visible to the naked eye, it turned into a vigorous vine and even bore several clusters of bright red tomatoes.

Feng Wu’s pupils contracted slightly. Xiong Yingjun’s mouth fell wide open, and after standing there dumbfounded for a long while, he finally blurted out two words:

“Holy shit!”