She looked incredibly hesitant, her fingers twitching at her sides. She didn’t dare to reach out or touch the cubs, a deep, lingering fear in her chest whispering that she had no legal right to them after what her tribe had done to her in the past.

Lin Wan looked up, noticing the older woman’s painful hesitation. Without a word, she gathered Second Son gently into her arms, stood up from the rug, and carefully passed the plump, wiggling baby directly into Lanying’s arms.

The moment the baby’s warmth touched her chest, Lanying’s breath hitched. She couldn’t help but begin to cry silently, large, silent tears rolling down her flawless cheeks as the painful memories of her past came flushing back like a violent tidal wave.

Decades ago, when she had given birth to Wang, the brutal elders of the Leopard tribe hadn’t even allowed her to hold her newborn cub for a single minute.

She hadn’t even gotten to touch his soft fur before he was violently ripped away from her bleeding body to be raised by a monster. She had spent her entire life grieving that lost touch.

But now, holding this tiny, perfectly healthy grandson who possessed her exact sea bloodline, the hollow ache in her soul began to heal.

The more she looked down at the boy’s chubby face, the more a terrifying, unyielding determination hardened in her chest.

She would protect these children from the upper realms even if she had to drain the entire ocean to do it.

Long Zhan finally managed to breathe easily now that Lin Wan was back to manage the cubs, but his violet eyes were still darting suspiciously toward Lanying. He leaned closer to Lin Wan, his voice dropping into a low rumble. "Wanwan... who is this female? Her energy is... heavy. Very heavy."

Before Lin Wan could answer, the hallway door clicked open. Qin Mo had finally come out of the kitchen after realizing that the living room had gone completely quiet.

He had honestly thought that Long Zhan had finally been driven fully crazy by the infants and had perhaps passed out from the stress.

But the moment he stepped into the light of the sitting room, his silver eyes landed straight on Lin Wan.

Lin Wan looked up at the sound of his footsteps, and the moment her eyes adjusted to his figure, she froze.

Standing in the doorway was a tall, silver-haired, jaw-droppingly handsome hunk of a Sovereign King, and he was currently wearing a bright pink, ruffled kitty apron strapped securely over his chest, the little cat ears poking up right past his collarbones.

Lin Wan didn’t know whether she should laugh hysterically or just openly admire how incredibly aesthetically pleasing to the eye Qin Mo looked even when dressed in ridiculous pastel merchandise.

In the end, she decided to do both. She let out a bright, amused laugh and pointed at his waist. "Qin Mo... where on earth did you find that apron?"

Qin Mo’s cheeks flushed a very faint, charming pink, but he didn’t look ashamed.

He smoothed down the ruffled fabric of the apron with his long fingers.

"I found it inside a wooden box beneath the metal washing basin in the kitchen. It had a strange picture of a beast-cat on it, but it kept the grease off my inner robes. Is... is everything over outside, Wanwan?"

"Yes," Lin Wan said, her laughter softening as she gestured toward the older woman holding the baby. "It’s completely over. Qin Mo, Long Zhan... this is Lanying. She is Wang’s mother."

Qin Mo’s silver eyes widened slightly, a sudden look of clarity washing over his face.

He had already had a faint hunch the moment he saw her blue gauze wear and her striking features, as he had seen and lived alongside Wang in the Beast City for years and recognized the structural similarity in their facial lines.

Long Zhan, however, had never seen Wang’s true face or spent time with the Leopard King before his disappearance.

He simply let out a low grunt, giving Lanying a respectful but cautious nod of acknowledgment before shifting his entire focus right back down to the wiggling, leaky cub he was currently carrying in his left arm.

"Wang’s mother or not," Long Zhan muttered under his breath, carefully wiping a bit of drool from First Son’s chin with his thumb. "She needs to tell her grandson to stop using my face as a target."

On hearing Long Zhan’s grumbled words about his face being a target, Lin Wan and Qin Mo couldn’t help but snicker simultaneously, the light sound echoing pleasantly against the smooth kitchen entrance.

Lanying, however, felt her face heat up with a sudden, uncharacteristic flush. She shifted her hold on Second Son, her gaze traveling between the two towering males.

Although Qin Mo and Long Zhan were officially Lin Wan’s marked males now, the fact that they were so naturally, selflessly taking care of Wang’s cubs was an incredibly rare occurrence in the beastworld.

In normal families across the continent, a male strictly took care of his own biological cubs.

If a male died or vanished, and the female didn’t particularly care for the cubs left behind by that dead male, she wouldn’t bother about them, which instinctively caused the remaining males in the household to completely ignore the life and death of those children.

In other words, those cubs would become complete outsiders in their own family, left to starve or fend for themselves.

Seeing these two legendary sovereigns sweating and bickering just to feed another man’s bloodline filled Lanying with a profound, quiet sense of gratitude.

Lin Wan, still holding onto Third Son, gave Lanying a reassuring nod before walking past her into the kitchen to see exactly what kind of mess Qin Mo had been making.

To her surprise, when she stepped across the threshold, it wasn’t such a huge, disastrous mess as she had initially expected from a primitive snake king.

Over on the sleek kitchen cabinet, a bright glowing screen was playing a video on a loop.

It was a step-by-step visual manual detailing exactly how to operate the gas stove, ignite the burners, and where to find the various cooking ingredients stored throughout the pantry.

It was, for all intents and purposes, a customized kitchen’s manual,a parting courtesy left behind by her digital assistant before she went dormant.

"Ah... I really miss Weiwei," Lin Wan exhaled softly under her breath, rocking the wiggling cub gently against her shoulder as she looked around the neat counters.

Her throat felt incredibly dry after the agonizing five-hour delivery, and her body was demanding fluids.

She walked over to the large refrigerator, pulled the heavy door open, and grabbed a bottle of chilled water.

She had barely twisted the plastic bottle cap open when a sudden, violently blaring alarm rang out through the kitchen speakers, followed instantly by bold, flashing crimson words materializing across the refrigerator’s digital screen:

[WARNING: HOST SHOULD NOT TAKE SOMETHING COLD AFTER GIVING BIRTH! HOST IS REALLY TROUBLESOME!]

It was Weiwei’s distinct, sharp digital voice echoing loudly through the room.

Hearing the sudden, frantic alarm, Qin Mo and Long Zhan immediately ran into the kitchen at full speed, leaving Lanying in the sitting room to handle the other two cubs.

When the two males burst through the doorway, they froze, hearing Weiwei’s voice thoroughly scolding Lin Wan from the wall panels.

"Does host not remember that host isn’t like the native females of this world?!" Weiwei’s voice berated, sounding incredibly exasperated.

"Don’t you know you need to properly have your postpartum rest? You just gave birth to three divine cubs all at once! I am currently looking at your vital stats, and it is only because of that high-grade numbing pill you swallowed that you don’t realize your internal body functions are actively declining!

Are you trying to kill yourself?! If the mother system hadn’t received an automatic notification of your health rapidly dropping and forced me awake early, you wouldn’t even know how you died!"

"Weiwei..." Lin Wan called out guiltily, her head lowering as her defense completely crumbled under the system’s scolding. She tightly gripped the water bottle, looking like a caught child.

"Host, I am far too young to be acting as a mother to you!" Weiwei sighed loudly through the speakers, her tone shifting into a deeply stressed groan.

"In system age, it has been 500 years since my initial creation, but in human calculations, I am just twenty years old! Can’t you let me rest and undergo my upgrade without constantly making me worry about your survival?!"

It was the very first time the two males had ever heard Weiwei’s voice speak so clearly and with such raw emotion.

They stood completely shocked, their jaws slightly slack as they listened to the system’s words.

The more they heard about Lin Wan’s declining health and her internal body suffering beneath the surface, the more inadequate, guilty, and deeply useless they felt as her mates.

"Guardian Weiwei..." Long Zhan began lamely, stepping forward with First Son in his arms, wanting to explain their ignorance.

But he was cut short instantly by a nagging, furious Weiwei.

"Don’t you even start, dragon!" the system snapped, her voice echoing sharply. "I had a strong feeling that choosing the two of you as my host’s husbands wasn’t such a good idea in the first place! Because tell me why two powerful sovereigns don’t even know how to properly take care of a human female who just gave birth?! Dumb males!"

"Weiwei, I’m sorry," Lin Wan muttered softly, trying to defuse the digital firestorm.

"Don’t ’Weiwei’ me! You know I am not close by right now and cannot physically force pills down your throat! You need to take care of yourself. . ."

The system hadn’t even finished her sentence when Qin Mo’s silver eyes turned incredibly dark with protective urgency.

Moving with a fluid, blinding speed, he reached out and took the curious, babbling cub from Lin Wan’s arms, dumping the baby directly into a waiting, startled Long Zhan’s secondary arm.

Before Lin Wan could even gasp, Qin Mo leaned down and scooped her up effortlessly in a tight, secure princess carry.

Ignoring her soft exclamation of shock, he carried her out of the kitchen, marching straight into the master bedroom where he and Long Zhan had been staying since entering the space, Lin Wan’s primary room.

He walked over to the massive bed and gently dropped her onto the plush, soft mattress, immediately pulling the heavy cotton blankets over her pale legs.

Meanwhile, back in the silent kitchen, a deep, heavy sigh suddenly echoed through the digital void. It didn’t come from Weiwei, and it didn’t come from the house speakers.