Chapter 313: Xuan Long is back

Su Qinglan woke up suddenly in the middle of the night. The treehouse was dark, illuminated only by the faint glow of the dying embers in the fire.

She sat up, her heart racing, as she heard a muffled thud followed by a low groan coming from the clearing outside.

She looked down at the bed. Her two cubs, Xiao Er and Xiao Yi, were sleeping soundly, their little chests rising and falling in perfect rhythm.

But when she looked around the room, she realized she was alone. The spots where Hu Yan, Rong Ye, and Han Jue usually slept were cold and empty.

Where did they go? She wondered, a cold sweat breaking out on her forehead. They would never leave the house in the middle of the night without telling me.

Another heavy sound...like a fist hitting skin...echoed through the night air.

Su Qinglan felt a bad premonition in her heart. She didn’t have time to put on proper clothes; she simply grabbed a thick fur cloak, wrapped it tightly around her body, and stepped out of the treehouse.

The scene outside shocked her into silence.

Under the moonlight, she saw her three husbands. Han Jue was in a state of pure rage, his fists flying as he punched a figure. Hu Yan and Rong Ye were not stopping him; instead, they were holding the person down, their faces grim and full of hatred.

"You traitor!" Han Jue hissed, his voice a low growl. "How dare you show your face back here after what you did?"

The person on the ground didn’t fight back. Su Qinglan’s eyes widened as she recognized the dark hair and the familiar silhouette. It was Xuan Long.

She didn’t care about the cold or the darkness. She hurried down the ladder, her feet hitting the grass as she ran toward them.

If she wasn’t so afraid of waking the cubs and the rest of the tribe, she would have been screaming at the top of her lungs.

"Stop! Stop it right now!" she whispered urgently as she reached the group.

The four men immediately froze. The three husbands looked at her, their expressions full of guilt and stubbornness.

Xuan Long, his face already slightly swollen and his lip bleeding, looked up at her with a complicated gaze.

Han Jue was the first to react, stepping in front of her to block her view of the snake man.

"Lan Lan, go back inside. Don’t worry, we are just teaching this traitor a lesson he won’t forget."

"What nonsense are you saying?" Su Qinglan snapped, reaching out and slapping Han Jue’s chest to push him aside.

"What traitor? Did I not tell all of you? I told you Xuan Long would never do something like that! Why are you beating him?"

Han Jue’s eyes flashed with anger and grief. "But Lan Lan, he ate the egg! He stole our third child and swallowed it! How can you still defend him?"

Su Qinglan glared at him, her heart aching.

On the other side, Xuan Long sat up slowly.

He looked incredibly nervous. He had spent days in another domain, unable to turn back into his human form after swallowing the egg to protect it.

He knew he looked like a criminal. He had no way to explain in his snake form that he was actually protecting the child’s aura from his own clan. To the others, he was just a thief who had "eaten" his own offspring.

Su Qinglan ignored her husband’s protests and walked straight to Xuan Long. She knelt in the dirt next to him, her hands reaching out to check his injuries. "Are you hurt? Let me see your face."

Xuan Long flinched slightly but didn’t pull away. "Lan Lan... it doesn’t hurt," he whispered, his voice raspy.

Looking at Su Qinglan’s gentle actions toward the "traitor," the other three husbands felt a surge of murderous intent.

They wanted to tear this snake apart. How dare he come back after "killing" the third cub? How dare he take her kindness?

Su Qinglan’s hands trembled as she finally asked the question she was most terrified of.

"Xuan Long... where is the egg? Where is our child?"

At her question, the air seemed to leave the clearing.

The throats of the three husbands tightened. They truly didn’t want to believe that their third child was gone, but they had seen Xuan Long swallow the egg with their own eyes.

Their eyes grew teary as they waited for the confession of death.

But Xuan Long didn’t look guilty. Instead, he let out a soft, vibrating hiss.

Su Qinglan’s eyes widened.

Suddenly, behind Xuan Long’s shoulder, the collar of his dark clothes moved. A tiny head poked up from the clothes. It was so small, so fragile, that Su Qinglan’s breath hitched in her throat.

The other three were stunned. Where did this snake cub come from? they thought. Did this snake kidnap someone else’s baby to cover his tracks?

But as the tiny snake crawled out further, resting on Xuan Long’s shoulder, they saw the look in Xuan Long’s eyes.

It was filled with the same deep, overwhelming love that Su Qinglan had.

The tiny cub was barely the size of a finger, its scales shimmering with a soft, healthy glow. It sensed the familiar, warm aura of its mother and suddenly became energetic.

It let out a tiny, silent hiss and wiggled its way down Xuan Long’s arm toward Su Qinglan.

Su Qinglan couldn’t wait a second longer. She extended her hand, and the tiny snake immediately wrapped itself around her finger, rubbing its small head against her skin.

"My baby..." Su Qinglan choked out, her voice breaking as tears finally spilled over.

The cub looked up at her, and Su Qinglan’s heart nearly stopped. The tiny snake’s eyes were not the deep emerald green of Xuan Long.

Instead, they were a beautiful, light green with a tint of yellow...exactly like her own eyes.

Hu Yan, Han Jue, and Rong Ye crowded around, their mouths hanging open. They couldn’t wrap their minds around this.

The egg hadn’t been eaten; it had been hatched. This tiny, delicate creature was their third child.

"He... he didn’t eat it?" Han Jue whispered, his voice filled with a sudden, crushing shame. "He was... incubating it?"

Rong Ye looked at the tiny snake rubbing against Su Qinglan’s finger and felt a wave of guilt so strong he had to look away.

They had spent days hating Xuan Long, and tonight they had beaten him for the very act of saving their child.

"It’s a snake cub," Hu Yan murmured, his eyes softening as he realized the tiny creature had the Tribe Leader’s bloodline’s eye color. "It’s really ours."

Su Qinglan held the tiny snake close to her cheek, feeling its cool, smooth scales against her skin. She looked at Xuan Long, who was still sitting in the dirt, covered in bruises from her other husbands.

"You did it," she whispered to him. "You brought him home."

Xuan Long gave a small smile. He didn’t care about the bruises or the pain anymore. That’s why he did not resist when they were beating him; after all, he deserved this for making Lan Lan worried.

He had successfully protected the most precious thing in the world, and now, his family was finally whole, and no one would take their child away.