Chapter 134: Chapter 134: Embarrassing Myself to Death!
The next morning, Kaelen woke up earlier than usual and cooked a fragrant pot of cracked millet porridge for the little ones.
The tribe had now formed the habit of eating three meals a day, so when the fire was stoked in Kaelen’s kitchen, the chimneys of the other houses were also smoking.
Sane had been exhausted for many days, so his sleep was a bit deep, to the point that Kaelen had been up for a long time and Sane still hadn’t woken up. It wasn’t until the children woke up, making a ruckus clamoring to go to the bathroom, that he scrambled up.
After Sane finished taking the children to the bathroom, Kaelen wet a face towel and wiped the faces of the three. For some reason, he felt his own two children looked somewhat listless, while Ryder looked extremely energetic. Finnick and Oliver glared with resentment at Ryder, who was happily munching on a delicious corn cake. Sane thought his two brats were craving corn cake and hurriedly said:
"You two are still young and can’t eat corn cakes yet; you’ll choke. Daddy will feed you millet porridge. Come on, open your mouths. Ah~"
The two children silently gave their silly Daddy a disdainful glare. Was this an issue about food? Your eldest son is crying "boo-hoo" waiting for you to pick him up!
However, when the fragrant porridge was brought to their mouths, the two brats obediently opened their mouths and swallowed. Sorry, older brother, the porridge is too fragrant; we couldn’t resist~
Edward, forgotten by his two younger brothers, was looking at the pile of food in front of him, falling into sorrow. Meat, meat, meat, meat every single day. If it wasn’t grilled meat, it was boiled meat; he had eaten it to the point of being sick to his stomach. It had been six days and he still hadn’t gone number two; was this normal for a child?!
Recalling the delicious dishes in Crimson through the descriptions of his two younger brothers and Ryder, Edward refused to eat these dishes even more. He jumped down from his seat, shifted into his beast form, and slithered out of the room. A few servants immediately stepped forward to block him, saying cautiously:
"Great Holy Son, does the food not suit your taste?"
Edward didn’t say it didn’t suit his taste, only saying: "I don’t want to eat yet; just clear it away for now. I’ll take a walk around and eat when I come back later."
He didn’t complain that the food was bad, because once Uncle Wofu had accidentally complained that the food wasn’t good, and the chef and servants that day were all executed. Therefore, no matter how dissatisfied the uncle and nephew were with the food or the quality of life, they didn’t utter a word of complaint.
Although Wofu had been bewitched into forgetting everything from his past, his kind nature was still there, so he had felt guilty about this matter for a very long time.
Edward also found it inconvenient to talk much with Wofu, because he knew that as long as he accidentally said something he shouldn’t, Uncle Wofu would recount it all to that Temple Master. This charm art was truly terrifying; if he himself didn’t have Demigod bloodline, he feared he would have also been turned into an obedient puppet like Uncle Wofu.
When he slithered outside, passing by the Temple Master’s residence, he caught sight of a gaunt and weak Wolf clan beastman being dragged out by the guards by his hind legs. Edward knew this beastman; ten days ago, he was still a strong warrior beastman, chosen by the Temple as the chamberlain for the Temple Master. He didn’t expect that seeing him again, that strong beastman had become a dying man taking his last breaths.
’Clink clank~’
The familiar sound of stone bracelets and beast fangs rang out; a chill ran down Edward’s spine. He hurriedly steadied his breathing, making his eyes lose focus, turning blank exactly like Wofu’s.
The Temple Master of the Temple, wearing a glamorous outfit, stepped out lazily. At the corner of his eyes still lingered an enchanting allure, making the breathing of the surrounding beastmen unavoidably quicken a few notches. The beastmen had to bow their heads and stare fixedly at their feet to be able to control themselves.
"Hmm?" A soft hum came from his throat, making the people around feel their legs turn to jelly. The Temple Master didn’t pay any mind, walking lightly to stand in front of Edward, reaching his hand out: "Baby, what are you doing out here instead of staying in your room?"
At this moment, Edward’s head swayed slightly, acting as if the illusion spell had just worn off, his eyes gradually becoming clearer. He looked at the fair hand in front of him, very honestly crawled onto it, and rubbed against it coquettishly.
"Your Excellency, Your Excellency... Missed you..."
"Haha, little brat sure knows how to act spoiled." The Sub-Beast, satisfied, extended a finger to scratch Edward’s chin, his red lips curling slightly as he said: "Have you eaten anything yet?"
Edward shook his head: "Don’t want to eat meat, want to eat red fruit~"
The red fruit the little boy mentioned was a type of wild fruit about the size of two fingers, with a slightly sour taste mixed with a hint of sweetness, and an intoxicatingly fragrant smell. Normally, only the Temple Master was allowed to eat it; whenever he was happy, he would reward Edward and Wofu with one fruit each. Edward really liked the taste of the red fruit and would occasionally act spoiled to ask for it. He was a child; liking to eat something and asking for it fit his character setting perfectly.
The corner of the Sub-Beast’s lips curled into an alluring smile: "There are no more red fruits; shall I tell someone to bring you another kind of fruit?"
"Is it sweet?" The little snake asked expectantly.
"Of course it’s sweet."
"Great! Your Excellency is the best!" Edward curled his tail and then rubbed his head against the Temple Master’s arm, constantly retching inwardly.
Damn it, I’m embarrassing myself to death!
Just to survive, having to throw away my dignity, bowing my head to act spoiled to this evil Sub-Beast; if my two younger brothers saw this, they would definitely laugh at me until their noses fell off. If I were still in Crimson right now, not to mention fruits, whatever delicious food I wanted to eat, I would have. Why would I need to lower myself to this extent?
The Temple Master seemed to still have matters to attend to; after petting and teasing Edward for a while, he handed him back to the servants, and with a flash of pink light, vanished on the spot.
"Hey, Your Excellency has already spoken; you must bring sweet fruits to me!"
The servants immediately answered "yes", then took Edward back to his room. In the room, Wofu had eaten his belly full and was burying his head drinking the water brought by the servants. Doing nothing but eating and sleeping all day, unwilling to exercise at all, the once-slender little tiger cub was now about to turn into a perfectly round ball.
Although Edward didn’t want Uncle Wofu to grow up too fast and fall into the clutches of that Temple Master, he also absolutely didn’t want his uncle to turn into a useless person who only knew how to eat and sleep.
Furthermore, according to his understanding of this uncle, if he later escaped the charm art and remembered the things he had done recently, he would definitely vomit for seven days and seven nights.
"Little snake, where did you come back from! Are you going to eat that meat? If not, let me eat it for you!"
"I am eating it; roll away, you fat tiger!"
"I am called plump, a sign of good fortune, unlike a long, lanky thing like an earthworm like you!"
Seeing that the two Holy Sons were about to dive into a fight again, the servants very synchronously picked each of them up and took them in different directions. No one knew what the names of these two Holy Sons were, only knowing to call them Holy Sons; even the Temple Master only called them ’baby’. When the two Holy Sons talked to each other, they also only called each other ’little tiger’ and ’little snake’.
The Temple Master doted on these two cubs very much, so the servants didn’t dare to neglect their duties even a bit.
Edward shifted back into his human form, sitting in front of the dining table; the group of servants once again brought the reheated grilled meat to him.
After struggling to gnaw through that bitter grilled meat, Edward finally got to eat fruits as he wished. As he ate the fruits, he thought about what he had just seen. This was not the first time Edward had seen this matter. Since returning to the Temple, every ten days someone would be dragged out of the Temple Master’s room. Connecting these incidents together, Edward affirmed that the Temple Master getting younger and younger was related to those beastmen going in healthy and coming out dying.
The question was, if this method was effective, then why didn’t the Temple Master do it before, instead having to wait until his lifespan was almost exhausted to use it? What were its drawbacks? Or rather, was the current person no longer the previous Temple Master?
Thinking of this, Edward couldn’t help but shiver.
He still remembered that not long before he broke his shell, the Temple had ordered the hunting down of deviants, but for the past two months or so, that order was suddenly rescinded. Instead, the Temple encouraged sending beastmen and Sub-Beasts with special abilities to Beast City to undergo special training.
Although everyone was very confused by the Temple’s contradictory orders, no one dared to disobey, even considering it a favor.
Edward, however, felt that this kind of favor made people feel apprehensive.
After eating his fill, Edward began to entice the fat tiger to go out to the garden to play.
"It’s just full of flowers and grass, what’s so fun to play with." The fat tiger lazily glanced at Edward once, then let out a very long yawn, lay on his back with his belly exposed, and snored loudly.
The corner of Edward’s mouth twitched, not wanting to pay attention to his old uncle anymore. He led the servants and trotted outside.
Their area of activity was restricted to this backyard; exactly as Wofu said, it was entirely filled with flowers and grass. Edward pretended to walk a few rounds, then probed the servants:
"Where did you pick that sweet red fruit from? I want to go see."
The servant lowered his head, answering cautiously: "Great Holy Son, that fruit is only found on the mountain near the City Lord’s mansion, and there isn’t much of it either. The recently ripened batch has already been offered to the Temple Master."
"Oh, so is the City Lord’s mansion big? Is it far from here? What does it look like? Blah blah..."
Edward asked a barrage of questions; the servants patiently answered each question in detail. If there was a question one person didn’t know, the other person would answer instead.
"Aren’t you guys also staying here with us? How do you know so much?" The fair, chubby child tilted his head; his dimples showed clearly with his sweet smile, his eyes sparkling like stars in the sky.
Toward such a childish question, the servants were completely off guard. They thought the Holy Sons were actually very pitiful, being confined in this tiny backyard at such a young age, knowing nothing about the outside world. The servants were very fond of these two obedient and cute Holy Sons, so many times they treated them just like normal cubs.
"We go out to buy supplies every three days; Mollet’s group went to buy yesterday, it will be us going to buy in three days."
Edward "oh’ed" and "ah’ed" as if he understood, and then, with an expectant look, asked the servants if they could bring back many sweet fruits for him. The servants naturally didn’t dare to decide on their own, saying they had to ask for the Temple Master’s permission first. Hearing that, Edward acted as if his mood had plummeted, no longer wanting to stroll around, returned to his room, and climbed into bed to sleep.
After the group of servants thought Edward had fallen asleep and retreated outside to stand guard, Edward slowly opened his eyes. He stealthily dug out a few dried leaves the size of a hand from under his animal skin skirt, then slipped his hand under the pillow to dig out two juicy berries he had hidden earlier, squeezing them lightly to let the juice flow out.
Placing the leaves on the flat surface of the bed, Edward used the berry juice, trying to replicate the shape of the invisibility charm array that his youngest brother had drawn in the resonant space.
Edward had full confidence he would successfully learn this array within three days. Once he mastered it, he could try to find an opportunity to sneak out of this backyard to investigate the situation.
Currently, Wofu was still under the charm art, so he couldn’t go too far; he just needed to get out of the backyard to inspect the layout of the Temple first, then expand out to Beast City.
The time would probably be quite long; by that time, his younger brothers might also be able to convey the necessary content to their two fathers.
As long as he could redraw the defense map of Beast City and the Temple and hand it over to his younger brothers, and his younger brothers handed it over to their two fathers, when the time came for their two fathers to rescue he and Uncle Wofu, it would be much smoother.
