Chapter 32: Natural Birth

“Mu Luo was just here?”

Even though it had already been confirmed that the cub wasn’t sick, Mansendis still wasn’t completely at ease.

The commotion from Merita carrying Mu Luo all the way over had been anything but small. Quite a few Saint Clan in the palace had seen it, and the news that the little Highness might be sick spread almost instantly—there was no way to hide it even if someone tried.

The council hall had been holding the morning meeting at the time. Through his mental perception, Mansendis sensed the agitation outside, realized something had happened on Wen Yuzhi’s side, and immediately decided to bring Mond over to take a look first.

Seeing that, Alvin guessed that the only thing that could make the king leave in such a hurry was probably the little Highness, so Alvin also chose to follow.

And when the other Heimo saw it—when both the king and the adjutant had left—if they stayed here, all they could do was stare at each other. They might as well go together to check on the little Highness too.

In the end, like a snowball rolling downhill, the visiting group grew larger and larger.

By the time they reached the door to Wen Yuzhi’s room, an imposing crowd of Saint Clan had already followed behind Mansendis.

Everyone was clearly worried about the little Highness’s condition.

Wen Yuzhi hadn’t expected Merita going to fetch Mu Luo would alarm so many Saint Clan—much less that even Mansendis, who was always buried in affairs, would come.

With so many pairs of eyes staring at him at once, all filled with earnest concern, Wen Yuzhi couldn’t help feeling a kind of secondhand social death embarrassment.

The teenager silently lowered his head bit by bit, hiding the lower half of his face in the fluffy collar, leaving only a pair of eyes still carrying traces of sleepiness and moisture.

That little cowlick that usually always stuck up was drooping now too, as if it had lost all energy, and the silver strands fell softly on both sides of his cheeks.

“I’m not sick. I just didn’t sleep well last night.”

Wen Yuzhi repeated the same explanation he had just given Mu Luo.

His voice was muffled, the emphasis landing hard on the words didn’t sleep well.

“Was this bed not comfortable enough for you to sleep in?”

Mansendis furrowed his brow.

Wen Yuzhi hurriedly shook his head. “No. It’s because I had a dream.”

A dream?

Mansendis asked, “What did you dream about?”

Wen Yuzhi didn’t really know how to describe it. Thinking back now, it felt like a lot of the details had turned hazy, as if separated by a sheet of glass.

“I was trapped in a really small place and couldn’t get out. It was dark, and kind of warm.”

“Later I heard voices talking outside... one of them was a woman’s voice, and they mentioned you, so I thought she was your...”

When Wen Yuzhi reached this point, his voice dropped abruptly. He looked toward Mansendis with apology and then apologized to the silver-haired sovereign for his wild guess just now.

“Sorry. I misunderstood.”

“That isn’t your fault.” Mansendis, unusually, slowed his tone. Looking at the cub who was watching him so carefully, Mansendis couldn’t help lightly ruffling that silver hair.

The touch was very light.

But the cub in front of him abruptly widened his eyes like a startled cat, those pale-gold pupils rounding perfectly.

There wasn’t the slightest intimidation in that look—if anything, it only made someone want to “bully” him even more.

Mansendis held back the urge to ruffle it again.

Mansendis continued, “It isn’t wrong for you to think that. I’m the one who didn’t explain it to you beforehand.”

As the sovereign of the Saint Clan, Mansendis rarely had moments like this, speaking out to soothe someone.

Only with Wen Yuzhi, he always had a little more patience than he did with everyone else.

“I don’t have a companion. Do you want a mother?”

Wen Yuzhi didn’t say yes or no. He pressed his lips together and said firmly, “I have a mom.”

—Mom was his mother.

Mansendis understood what Wen Yuzhi meant.

He thought of Kanirila: even when the cub was burning with fever and unconscious, even when his mind wasn’t clear, he had still been calling for Mom.

Mansendis fell silent for a moment.

He didn’t go on to ask, then what about a father?

If there was a dad, did that mean there was no need for a father?

Mansendis had a faint premonition that if he asked that question, the answer he got would very likely be one he didn’t want to hear.

As it turned out, Wen Yuzhi was tense after he finished speaking too. He was afraid that mentioning Madam Jilanya would make the silver-haired sovereign displeased, so he kept secretly measuring the other with the corner of his eye.

But Mansendis clearly didn’t say anything.

That made Wen Yuzhi let out a small breath of relief.

After all, in his heart, he had called Wen Che and Madam Jilanya Dad and Mom for so many years, and he had always loved them. Even now that he had a new family, he didn’t want to forget Wen Che and Madam Jilanya.

Only...

Even though the misunderstanding about “mother” had been cleared up, Wen Yuzhi still felt confused.

If Mansendis didn’t have a companion, then how could—

Back when Wen Yuzhi still lived with the Wen family, there had been no shortage of messy, chaotic conduct, and women showing up at the door.

He hated that kind of behavior, but he also had a gut sense—

At the very least, the silver-haired sovereign didn’t look like someone who would be irresponsible.

Thinking that, Wen Yuzhi lifted his head and tried to sneak a look at Mansendis’s face, only to find Mansendis had been watching him the whole time.

“...”

Wen Yuzhi blinked and wanted to lower his head again.

But Mansendis’s hand moved faster than he did.

The silver-haired sovereign cupped Wen Yuzhi’s chin, lifting the shy cub’s head so his face was visible.

Then, under Wen Yuzhi’s slightly flustered gaze, Mansendis released his chin and shifted that palm to the teenager’s head.

A gloved hand gently stroked that soft hair.

Mansendis met Wen Yuzhi’s gaze and said in a low voice, eyes lowered, “Don’t let your thoughts run wild. You aren’t some illegitimate child. You are my child.”

Wen Yuzhi’s little thoughts were simply too easy to read—every emotion showed on his face.

When Mansendis saw that tangled unease in Wen Yuzhi’s eyes, and connected it with the earlier mention of “mother,” Mansendis could more or less guess what the cub was thinking.

Wen Yuzhi wanted to know his origins, to know why he had been born.

Mansendis looked to Mond at the side.

Mond immediately understood the silver-haired sovereign’s meaning.

Mond bent slightly and gave a small bow, then smiled and explained to Wen Yuzhi, “Little Highness, the way the Saint Clan are born is somewhat different from humans. The birth of royal blood generally falls into two types: one is pregnancy through reproduction and union, and the other is non-reproductive—natural birth.”

“Natural birth?”

Wen Yuzhi could understand the first, but this natural birth... did it mean what Wen Yuzhi thought it meant?

Mond tapped the light-brain and played an image for Wen Yuzhi.

It was a place that looked like a volcano. All around were large stretches of exposed black rock, dense like honeycombs.

But if you zoomed in to look, those rocks looked more like some kind of animal’s nest.

Going further down, deep underground, there was a vast expanse of golden, magma-like liquid. In the center of it stood a towering stone platform.

The platform was wrapped in red crystals, forming a half-dome nest structure, and inside were eggs—each one covered in scales, with golden patterns.

Wen Yuzhi’s attention was instantly caught by those uniquely shaped eggs.

The person filming even deliberately captured close-ups of every single egg.

They looked as if they were sleeping. You could clearly see the shell rise and fall with breathing, and the surrounding crystals continuously transferred heat to the shells.

“This is...?”

Actually, the moment Wen Yuzhi saw those eggs, he already had an answer in his heart, but he still couldn’t help looking to Mond.

“These are all ‘royal cocoons,’” Mond said.

Although royal blood had two ways of being born, with the Salilaino’s aloof and cold nature, most would choose the second way—using their own blood to form an embryo and placing it into the royal pool to be nurtured.

But even so, royal blood that successfully hatched was still extremely rare.

The innate predatory nature in the bloodline would make those royal-blood embryos begin slaughter and competition while still inside the shell.

The strong would seize more crystals, siphoning away their energy, while the weak could absorb only a pitiful amount.

So among the eggs Wen Yuzhi was seeing, the vast majority would never truly hatch. Without enough energy to develop, they would soon become a dead thing, then fall into the royal pool, and slowly turn into that kind of red crystal.

In a certain sense, the birth of a Salilaino was an especially cruel process.

Only the strongest young had the right to live.

Sometimes, not even a single one would hatch successfully.

It wasn’t as if the Saint Clan had never tried to intervene, but no matter what they did, the hatching rate of those “royal cocoons” remained terrifyingly low.

It was Wen Yuzhi’s first time hearing of a birth method like this.

And the brutal competition between “royal cocoons” made his scalp prickle even more.

He couldn’t help glancing toward where Mansendis stood, then asked Mond curiously, “Then... was the king also born this way?”

Wen Yuzhi’s wording was a little vague, but Mond still knew exactly who the {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} little Highness meant.

Mond answered, “The king was indeed hatched from a royal cocoon.”

Mond didn’t add that Mansendis and Tasiya’s case was a little special: they weren’t formed from an embryo made by some royal blood, but from blood personally bestowed by the Mother Goddess of Prosperity.

They were different from other royal blood.

This pair of siblings displayed exceptional dominance even while still inside the royal cocoon. They practically seized all of the energy in the crystals.

Brand, who was born a bit later than them, had even nearly failed to hatch.

And after birth, Mansendis and Tasiya’s innate talent was also stronger than other royal blood by quite a bit.

Take the bone spines, for example: normal royal blood generally only began to gradually awaken their talent ability after reaching adulthood, but Mansendis could summon bone spines the moment he was born.

Mansendis’s true-form body size was also the largest among all royal blood.

Even the father of Brand—the Saint Clan’s previous-previous sovereign, that royal blood known as a Titan—couldn’t compare.

Tasiya’s true form was only a little smaller than Mansendis’s, but still far surpassed other female royal blood. Physical ability, talent ability—everything about her stood out. She was an extremely outstanding Salilaino.

Only later...

Thinking of what that queen did while on the throne, Mond couldn’t help sighing inwardly.

Wen Yuzhi didn’t notice Mond’s momentary shift.

He looked at Mansendis and asked in a low voice, “So I was also an embryo you made from your blood?”

No mother—only a father...

Wen Yuzhi didn’t even realize it, but there was tension in him when he asked that.

Mansendis watched Wen Yuzhi’s pale-gold eyes, the exact same color as his own. Same eyes; different gaze.

The teenager’s gaze was clean, clear—like a gemstone that hadn’t been stained by any filth.

At the core, he was soft and kind.

Looking at a cub like that, Mansendis ultimately couldn’t bring himself to say the truth.

And Mansendis’s silence was taken by Wen Yuzhi as a kind of tacit consent.

From what Mond had said, you could tell that royal blood would only draw blood to create embryos when they wanted descendants, so for a child’s birth, they should also have been looking forward to it.

Wen Yuzhi thought uncertainly.

Then what about him?

...Had he, too, been born within Mansendis’s expectations?