As they blurred through the trees, Qin Mo’s mind was a whirlwind of plans and emotions. He was ecstatic—although the logic of the beast world told him the children likely belonged to Wang, he didn’t care.

In his mind, they were already his. He would raise them, protect them, and teach them.

He was more than pleased with the knowledge that Lin Wan was so fertile; it was a rare and precious thing for a female to conceive so easily, but then again, he had always known she was special. She was a female who experienced her heat every month, a miracle of nature.

He looked down at her as he leaped over a fallen log, his heart swelling. He was determined. The moment they reached the safety of her cottage, he would not wait another hour.

He would seal the mark. He had spent weeks worried that she would reject his beast form, fearing she would find his scales or his cold blood repulsive. but after seeing her survive the Whispering Woods, he knew her spirit was unbreakable.

He would mark her tonight, before that "stinky dragon" had a chance to make a move. It was painful enough to be second to Wang in her heart, but he would be damned if he allowed himself to become the third or fourth husband. He would secure his place as her king before the moon reached its zenith.

The journey back to the Orycto village was a study in repressed violence and unsettling silence.

Qin Mo moved with the fluid, predatory grace of a serpent, his boots barely whispering against the forest floor despite the speed at which he carried Lin Wan.

Above them, the rhythmic ’thrum-thrum’ of Long Zhan’s massive red wings acted as a constant, heavy reminder of the dragon’s presence.

As the dense, suffocating fog of the Whispering Woods finally gave way to the more familiar, pine-scented air of the village outskirts, a grim aura settled over the party.

On getting to the tribe, the atmosphere was a jarring contrast to the bustling, productive community Lin Wan had been fostering only hours before. The village square was deserted, giving off a grim, hollow aura that felt like a place of mourning.

The cooking fires had been neglected, and the usual chatter of the rabbit-females was replaced by a heavy, expectant stillness. Qin Mo slowed his pace, his eyes narrowing as he scanned the empty paths.

"What happened here?" Qin Mo asked, his voice a low, dangerous melody. He could smell the lingering scent of smoke—not the sweet smell of a cooking fire, but the acrid, oily stench of something burnt.

By then, Davy and the rest of the Dragon warriors had felt Long Zhan’s powerful, draconic presence approaching. They surged out from the shadows of the storage sheds and the perimeter of the cottage, their hands on their weapons, ready to report.

However, they all stopped dead in their tracks, their eyes widening in shock. They had expected their Lord to return with Lady Lin in his arms;

instead, they saw a travel-worn man with silver-white hair and a lethal, imperial aura carrying her with a possessiveness that rivaled their master’s.

Davy, the most senior of the warriors, stood frozen for a heartbeat. His gaze shifted from the unconscious, pale Lin Wan to the unfamiliar male, then up to the descending form of Long Zhan.

’I thought Kray was intelligent,’ Davy couldn’t help but mutter under his breath, his jaw tightening. ’How did he lead Lady Lin’s male here so quick?’ He looked around the gathering, searching for the dragon warriors he had sent out earlier to track her history.

’Where’s that Kray and Juro?’ Not seeing them among the ranks, Davy resolved to teach Kray a lesson when he finally saw him again. To allow another High-Ranked male to intercept their Lord’s treasure was a failure of the highest order.

"My Lord," the warriors greeted Long Zhan as he landed, his wings folding with a sharp, leathery snap.

Long Zhan ignored the formalities, his eyes fixed on the cottage door. "Has everything been settled?" he demanded.

"Yes, it has," Davy replied, standing at attention. "The fire is fully extinguished, with not a spark lit, the perimeter is secure, and the... instigator... is in custody."

Long Zhan nodded curtly, then turned his gaze toward Qin Mo. The air between the Dragon and the Snake King was thick with unspoken challenges. "I’ll lead the way,"

Long Zhan said, his voice clipped. Although Qin Mo was sure he could locate Lin Wan’s home through the lingering scent of jasmine and the faint, lingering trail of her essence, he kept the thought to himself.

He was determined to let this stinky dragon suffer the sight of him hugging Lin Wan close, asserting his own claim with every step.

As they moved toward the cottage, the silence of the village was broken. Lily and Ember, who had been huddled inside a nearby burrow under guard, saw the party and ran out, tears streaming down their faces.

Their terror for their friend was written in the frantic way they called her name.

Seeing the girls’ distress, Lin Wan shifted in Qin Mo’s arms. She felt a wave of guilt for the panic she had caused.

She tapped Qin Mo’s shoulder, her voice weak but insistent. "Put me down," she whispered. "The girls... they’ve been so worried."

But Qin Mo refused. He didn’t even look at her; he simply stared at the two rabbit-females and their approaching husbands.

His imperial aura, cold and suffocating, spilled out from him like a physical wave.

It was a warning—a declaration that he was a being of a higher order, and no one was to touch what was his.

The girls’ husbands instinctively stepped in front of them, their own lesser beast auras flickering in a futile attempt to shield their mates.

They realized in that instant that the travel-worn man carrying Lin Wan was not just another wanderer; he was a powerful being, one they could not mess with.

Long Zhan and Qin Mo entered the house together, the doorway barely wide enough to accommodate their combined presence.

The moment the door was opened, it was clear the Dragons had been busy. They had cleaned everything up, erasing the signs of Su Mei’s ransacking. The furs were straightened, and the scattered belongings were back in their places.

Qin Mo placed Lin Wan gently onto the makeshift bed of soft furs. As he pulled his arms away, she felt a sudden, hollow chill.

She looked down at her tattered, dirt-stained tunic and felt a wave of revulsion. She felt profoundly uncomfortable, covered in the filth of the Whispering Woods and the sticky residue of the Spirit-Draining Vines.

"I want to bathe," she murmured, her voice trembling. She needed to wash the scent of rot from her skin. She needed her scented soap—the one thing that made her feel like a person rather than a piece of prey.

She closed her eyes and called out to the one constant in her life since arriving in this world. ’Weiwei?’ she called in her mind.

There was no response. The familiar, slightly sarcastic mechanical voice was silent.

’Weiwei, I need a scented soap, I want to bathe for hours,’ she tried again, her internal voice rising in pitch. Still, nothing but a vast, empty silence met her request.

She called out three more times, her mental shouts becoming a frantic scream. Weiwei didn’t respond. Panic, cold and sharp, set in.

Lin Wan was terrified. Weiwei was the only person she could truly talk to—the only entity that understood her origins and the bizarre reality of her situation.

The system was her only link to her home, her only guide through the " Beastworld" and its strange rules.

She remembered the desperate moment in the woods when the vines were draining her life. She remembered Weiwei’s voice distorted and crackling as it poured the system’s own energy into her heart to keep it beating.

’Did she kill Weiwei?’ the thought echoed in her mind, a crushing weight of guilt. Did the system sacrifice its own "life" to save hers?

The males, seeing the sudden, wild panic in her eyes, grew deeply worried. They crowded around the bed, their faces etched with concern. "Wanwan, what’s wrong? Are you in pain?" they started asking, their voices overlapping.

But Lin Wan didn’t answer them with words they could understand. She simply started crying, a broken, hysterical sound. "I can’t find Weiwei," she sobbed, her hands clutching the furs.

"Weiwei?" the males thought, exchanging confused glances. Who was that? They searched their memories of the people she had mentioned, but the name meant nothing to them. They didn’t know of Weiwei’s existence.

"Who is Weiwei?" Long Zhan asked, his voice soft but urgent. "Don’t worry, we’ll help you find the person. Was it someone from your old tribe?"

But the more they spoke, the more anxious Lin Wan became. Their offers of help were meaningless because they couldn’t reach into her mind and fix the silence. Her crying became heart-wrenching, her body shaking with the force of her grief.

In the midst of her emotional collapse, she felt it, a sharp, stabbing pain in her belly. It was different from the hunger of the cubs; it was a warning.

The stress and the essence-drain of the day were finally taking their physical toll. Cold sweat broke out across her forehead, and her breath hitched.