Monster Cub Live Stream – CH7

Chapter 7

Inside an ordinary civilian home in C City—

It was a very simple house, furnished with only the most basic pieces of furniture. No one would ever guess that the person living here was in fact the richest man in the Empire.

After returning home, Shang Youyuan immediately pushed open the innermost door and entered the room.

Lying on the bed inside was his wife, Wen Shi.

A few years ago, after both he and his wife were diagnosed with Alpha Syndrome, Shang Youyuan bought this tiny house in C City and settled down here with her.

Most cities on Sin Star were divided into the inner city and the outer city. The inner city had richer supplies and a better environment, so naturally housing prices and living costs were also much higher.

It was not that Shang Youyuan had never thought of moving to the inner city. It was just that Wen Shi did not want to go through all that trouble, and even said that before leaving this world, she wanted to relive the simple life they had at the beginning.

The couple had both come from commoner backgrounds. The vast Shang family fortune had been built bit by bit through the hard work of the two of them over most of their lives.

Their Alpha symptoms were similar, but Wen Shi’s condition was far more serious than Shang Youyuan’s.

Shang Youyuan merely had difficulty walking and needed a cane to support himself, but Wen Shi was already bedridden. The only part of her body she could still move was her head, and she needed help with everything—eating, drinking, and even basic bodily functions.

Wen Shi did not want her husband to wear himself out too much, and told Shang Youyuan to hire a caregiver to look after the two of them, but Shang Youyuan refused.

The two of them had stumbled through most of their lives together already—what was there to fear about these last few years?

Shang Youyuan, of course, was not afraid.

Hearing the sound of the door opening, Wen Shi, who had been looking out the window, turned her head. “You’re back.”

“I’m back.” Leaning on his cane, Shang Youyuan slowly sat down by the bedside and reached out to smooth her hair. “How are you feeling today?”

“The same as always,” Wen Shi said. Seeing his brows knit slightly, she added, “I’m just a little hungry.”

Shang Youyuan’s expression relaxed. “Hungry is good. Being hungry means you’ve got an appetite—that’s a good sign!”

Wen Shi smiled faintly. Then she heard the man at her bedside say, “Guess what I brought you!”

“What is it?” Wen Shi thought for a moment. “Could it be tomato-flavored nutrient solution? That would be wonderful. I haven’t tasted tomato flavor in such a long time.”

But Shang Youyuan shook his head. “Nope.” He pulled out a small bag from behind his back and made a theatrical ta-da sound, grinning like a mischievous old man. “Look! It’s your favorite—tomatoes!”

Wen Shi’s face lit up with joy, but less than two seconds later she suddenly frowned and said, “Did you run around too far again? I already told you that you need to rest more and not tire yourself out. Why won’t you ever listen?”

“This time I really didn’t go far,” Shang Youyuan said with a smile. “It was just at the trading hall beside the auction venue. I got lucky and happened to meet a very remarkable little fellow with a plant-type ability, so I asked him to sell me a few.”

Only then did Wen Shi relax. She continued nagging gently, “That’s good, then. Your legs aren’t what they used to be, and you refuse to hire a caregiver, so in daily life you really need to be more careful…”

Shang Youyuan answered her one line at a time while slicing the tomatoes into small pieces and bringing them to her lips.

“This tomato—” Wen Shi’s eyes brightened slightly. “It tastes really good. Better than any tomato I’ve ever had before!”

“Really?” Shang Youyuan fed her another piece. “Then eat a little more. Get some nutrition into you—your body will feel better too.”

Wen Shi said, “You eat some too.”

Shang Youyuan replied, “I already did. I tasted one when I bought them. But I’ve got a rough tongue—I can’t really tell the difference.”

One tomato was soon shared between the two of them. In the end, Shang Youyuan still could not withstand Wen Shi’s soft insistence and ate a few bites along with her.

He did not tell Wen Shi about the miracle medicine. He knew her temperament well: if she learned there was only one pill, she would definitely insist on saving it for him and refuse to take it herself.

For now, Wen Shi’s condition was still more or less stable. Although daily life was inconvenient, there had not yet been any drastic deterioration, so there was no urgent need this very moment.

So Shang Youyuan planned to find a chance to secretly feed the medicine to Wen Shi.

Thinking this, he pushed himself up with his cane and prepared to put the last remaining tomato into the cooling cabinet. But for some reason, his footing suddenly slipped, and in the next second it looked as if he was about to fall to the floor.

Wen Shi’s heart leapt. “Old Shang!”

Shang Youyuan managed to steady himself in time by grabbing hold of a chair. As his eyes happened to sweep over Wen Shi’s hand, he suddenly saw her index finger twitch.

At first, Shang Youyuan thought he had seen it wrong. But the very next second, Wen Shi’s finger moved again.

The movement was extremely slight, but it really had moved.

Shang Youyuan was stunned. “Shi Shi—Shi Shi, your hand! Your finger moved just now!”

Wen Shi froze at his words and instinctively denied it. “How could that be? Old Shang, you must have seen wrong.”

“No! It really moved!” Shang Youyuan said excitedly, yet at the same time he was full of confusion.

She had not even taken the miracle medicine yet, so how could this… Shang Youyuan suddenly paused. The miracle medicine had indeed not been taken yet, but Wen Shi had just eaten a tomato.

…Could it have been that tomato?

“Ah-choo—”

A large hand passed over a tissue. Lin An’an accepted it and blew his nose, looking sickly and wilted, sprawled on the pillow like a flattened little cub pancake.

Xiong Yingjun could not help laughing. “What kind of kid sneezes with an ah-choo like that…”

Before he could finish, Feng Wu shot him a fierce glare. Xiong Yingjun scratched his head and tried to save himself. “It’s… pretty cute, actually.”

Lin An’an ignored him. He felt dizzy and did not want to talk. Ever since helping Si Youlin calm his rampaging ability yesterday, he had fallen ill.

According to Lin An’an’s own analysis, the reason he got sick this time was not only the double overexhaustion of ability and mental power, but also because he had spent so many days sleeping out in the wilderness before, with irregular food, drink, and rest, which had left small hidden troubles in his body. This time, all of them were stirred up together.

It was not a serious illness, just rather uncomfortable.

On the very day Lin An’an got sick, Feng Wu had already booked an appointment with a healer in C City. Unfortunately, healers on Sin Star were far too few, and the soonest available one was only scheduled for the following afternoon.

Feng Wu rubbed the little cub’s head gently with a finger. The heat at his fingertips was slightly too warm, making his brow knit instinctively.

This illness of the little cub had blocked up the many questions in Feng Wu’s heart. No matter how much he wanted to ask, once he saw the cub in such low spirits, he could not bring himself to open his mouth.

“We’ll be able to see a doctor this afternoon,” Feng Wu said. “Do you want to eat anything else?”

Lin An’an said, “Yingji.”

There was nothing he really wanted to eat. The food in this world was far too monotonous—either nutrient solution or all kinds of dry rations. Even the cute little snacks were dry and rough, and difficult to swallow even with water.

Still, when Feng Wu handed him a little bunny biscuit, Lin An’an cooperatively opened his mouth and crunched through it with loud crackling sounds.

No matter how bad it tasted, he could not afford to fight with his own stomach. His mental power and ability were both completely overdrawn. Right now was exactly when he needed large amounts of food and nutrition to recover.

After finishing the biscuit, Lin An’an turned back to look at Si Youlin on the bed next to his.

Since the treatment yesterday, Si Youlin had fallen unconscious. He had already returned to human form. Although he still looked weak to the extreme, Lin An’an—who had forcibly treated him once—knew that the condition inside Si Youlin’s body was actually better than before.

Originally, he would have lasted at most one week. Now… he should be able to hold on for about half a month, enough time for Lin An’an’s ability and mental power to recover so that he could carry out the next life-sustaining treatment.

Having calculated the timing, the little cub finally relaxed and once again collapsed shapelessly on the pillow into a little cub pancake.

Alpha Syndrome… Lin An’an touched the terminal on his little tentacle.

During the past two days of rest, he had used the terminal to browse the star network and learn more about this world. Who knew that the moment he opened the trending search list, five of the top ten topics contained the word “Alpha.”

Lin An’an had no choice but to learn about Alpha Syndrome.

Its cause was unknown. It was contagious. Its symptoms varied from person to person, yet all cases were equally impossible to treat by any means.

And on the planet where he currently was, known as Sin Star, every single person suffered from Alpha Syndrome.

Put nicely, this was a planet specially meant for Alpha patients to recuperate and peacefully spend their final years. But in truth, it was simply because everyone else was afraid of being infected, so they had “abandoned” these patients in another form.

Lin An’an could understand their thinking, but he could not agree with it.

Still… Lin An’an thought back to Feng Wu’s mental power riot, and then to the time he treated Si Youlin yesterday.

Although the effect had been minimal, his healing ability really had worked on both of them.

Feng Wu asked, “Have the other two who bought the miracle medicine been found yet?”

Xiong Yingjun shook his head. “Someone saw Wuhula leave C City, but our people couldn’t find where he went. As for old Master Shang Youyuan… we’ve already inquired through the entire inner city of C City, but no one knows where he lives.”

Feng Wu frowned. “Search the outer city too. His legs aren’t convenient—he won’t have gone far. He should still be living somewhere in C City.”

Hearing their conversation, Lin An’an’s heart tightened as well.

The miracle medicine was a death pill. Taking it was almost the same as asking for your life to end. But at present, only they knew this; the other two buyers had no idea.

The little cub sighed inwardly. For now, all they could do was pray that those two had not taken the miracle medicine yet.

That afternoon, as promised, Feng Wu brought Lin An’an to the only large hospital in C City.

The little cub, his head all foggy and muddled, stayed sprawled in Feng Wu’s palm, too lazy to so much as move.

When the healer saw Feng Wu push the door open and enter, he asked, “Sir, what seems to be the problem?”

“Not me.” Feng Wu opened his palm. “It’s this cub.”

The healer froze when he saw the palm-sized little cub, then unconsciously let out a sigh. “So small, and already…”

There was a trace of pity in his tone.

“Can he return to his original form?” the healer asked. “Running tests in second form is a little more complicated.”

Feng Wu lowered his head to look at Lin An’an. Lin An’an also lifted his head, his bean-like eyes blank and innocent. “…Yingji.”

So Feng Wu shook his head at the healer. The healer frowned slightly. “Is it that he still doesn’t know how to shift forms? Or that he’s unable to?”

Feng Wu did not answer. Thinking of how the little cub had always appeared in second form this whole time, he could not help suspecting that the cub’s Alpha symptom might be the inability to revert to human form.

The healer asked, “What exactly is wrong with the child?”

“Coughing, sneezing, fever, weakness all over, poor appetite…” Feng Wu listed off a long string of symptoms. “Possibly mental power and ability exhaustion as well.”

“Double exhaustion?” The healer’s expression immediately turned grave. “At such a young age, if the double exhaustion is too severe, it could cause irreversible damage to the body.”

There was a trace of reproach in his tone, as though he were criticizing Feng Wu, as the guardian, for not taking proper care of the child.

Feng Wu did not explain himself. He simply listened in silence to the healer’s instructions and placed the little cub into the examination pod.

A stream of data rapidly flashed across the light screen. Aside from a few yellow indicators that disappeared in an instant, the rest were all healthy green.

Feng Wu quietly let out a sigh of relief inwardly.

Lin An’an patted Feng Wu’s finger with a little tentacle, trying to comfort him. “Yingji.”

Brother Wolf, don’t worry. I may look delicate, but I’m actually very sturdy!

But Feng Wu took the cub’s little action as impatient urging from someone feeling unwell. So he crouched slightly and gently rubbed the little cub’s soft forehead with his thumb.

“Minor mental power and ability exhaustion, minor immune system imbalance,” the healer said. “It’s not a big problem. As for the surface symptoms—coughing, fever, and so on—one session in the treatment pod will completely cure them. The mental power and ability exhaustion will require some time to recover, so over the next few days let him drink more nutrient solution. He has mild malnutrition.”

Lin An’an nodded inwardly, thinking that this more or less matched his own self-assessment.

But… why did he still need to use a treatment pod? His coughing, fever, sneezing, and all that were not even serious. A bit of medicine would have fixed it just fine, so why did he need a treatment pod?!

Seeing that Feng Wu was about to place him into the treatment pod, Lin An’an panicked. “Yingji yingji ji!”

Brother Wolf, no! A little medicine is enough! This healer’s got a black heart—the treatment pod is expensive, he’s cheating you out of your money!

Unfortunately, this time Feng Wu did not understand Lin An’an’s meaning. Seeing the little cub struggle so hard, he assumed the cub was simply afraid of lying inside the treatment pod.

“Don’t be afraid.” Feng Wu lightly squeezed one of his little tentacles in reassurance. “I’ll stay right here. I’m not leaving.”

The healer also comforted him from the side. “The treatment pod is very comfortable. Uncle will even play you a song. Once the song is over, your body won’t feel bad anymore!”

In the end, Feng Wu still placed Lin An’an inside the pod. Once the hatch closed, Lin An’an went plop against the transparent door, flattening himself into a soft little cub pancake.

In his ears was the music the healer had kindly put on, the kind of lullaby used to coax little babies to sleep:

“My precious little baby, sleep nicely and grow tall, when you wake there’ll be candy to eat…”

Feng Wu’s finger rested against the hatch door, right opposite the tip of the little cub’s tentacle, and he even curved his lips at him in a faint smile.

Lin An’an sniffed, nearly letting out a tearful little wah-ji on the spot.

His big brother, honestly—how could he get conned out of money and still smile so foolishly like that?!

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