Gentle Beast

Gentle Beast Chapter 44

Outside Ryan’s house, Olympus did not return directly to her residence.

Under the guise of visiting Suzanna, she went to Elder Scarlet’s house.

Scarlet had just fed Suzanna a bowl of gruel. With her throat injury, she could only eat these liquid foods.

Scarlet went into the kitchen to wash dishes and Olympus stood at the door calling out to him, “Elder.”

Scarlet looked back and saw her standing formally in the courtyard. She smiled, “I came to see Suzanna, I don’t know how bad her injury is?”

The women rescued from the tiger clan were timid, and Olympus had suddenly took the initiative and come to see Suzanna, so Scarlet found it somewhat unexpected.

But she was cheerful and had a good relationship with the tribe so far, so Scarlet didn’t think much of it and said, “I’m sorry. Suzanna just went back to bed. I’ll pass it on that you came when she wakes up.”

Olympus nodded without regret and should have gone away, but she did not move a step, “Right. . . Elder, I have one more thing.”

Scarlet said, “What’s the matter?”

Olympus’ eyes drooped and she stared at the floor, slowly saying, “I heard that Chief Ryan was also injured. I went to see him but he seems to live with a female. One that doesn’t look like we do.”

“Oh, you saw her,” Scarlet said placidly, as if having answered this many times, “Ryan brought her back from outside. She saved our leader before. She’s not a leopard. . .”

Olympus was stunned when she heard that. She had thought that she and Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu were the same, both saved by Ryan. But she had saved Ryan’s life?

Ryan was so incredible though, so how could he need a female to save him?

Olympus looked up in surprise and adjusted her face, “Is she going to stay in the leopard family?”

Scarlet said, “Should be.” He knew that the female had escaped two or three times, but was brought back by Ryan.

She was Ryan’s treasure, how could he let her leave?

Olympus slightly bit her lip, a little puzzled, “But. . . the tribe females live in the back, and she lives with Ryan Chief. Won’t that cause dissent?”

After all, the females of the leopard race were scarce and they had their own females, which every male dreamed about.

Scarlet pondered.

“She doesn’t seem to be good at taking care of people. . . When I went to see Chief  Ryan, she was cooking but she nearly burned down the kitchen. . .” Olympus saw Scarlet was wavering and smiled kindly. “There is an empty room in my place. If she moves in, I can teach her how to cook. I’m rather good at it.”

Scarlet seemed to realize this problem after Olympus had left.

Ryan never proposed to share Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu with the race, so did he want to monopolize her?

With Ryan’s skill. . . it wasn’t impossible.

However, the rules of the leopard race had been in place for hundreds of years. Once disrupted, the entire balance of the race would be broken.

Then, with the proportion of males to females so imbalanced, even procreation would become a problem.

Scarlet could not let this happen.

*

Since the last time Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu nearly burned down the stove, she hadn’t dared to use the stove. At noon, she took out the gas tank, an aluminum pan and some ingredients from her space. She steamed the rice with her materials, and she made two stews and a beef chop. She filled up a bowl and brought it into the house.

The wounds on Ryan’s body were much better, and only her left arm was still wrapped in gauze.

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu handed over a pair of chopsticks to Ryan and asked, “Can you use them?”

Ryan didn’t answer and looked down at a black leaf, “What is this?”

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu said, “Kelp, ah. It’s good for your wounds.”

The carnivorous species tended to eat only meat all year round and not vegetables at all and their nutrition was uneven. While Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu thought, she helped Ryan clip some and put them in his bowl, “You eat more.”

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu thought this was probably the first time he saw this kind of food, and she explained it all to him again, “You can’t just eat meat, eat them properly.”

Ryan lifted a brow slightly, noncommittal.

He didn’t tell Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu that the carnivorous species would sometimes eat plants to help ease digestion.

But there was not the wide range that humans had. The plants long buried in the water and ground could be dug up and be eaten.

After eating, Ryan picked up his dishes and took them to the kitchen.

The girl had underestimated the appetite. Two dishes and soup were but an appetizer. Most of them were vegetarian, so eating them didn’t give him any satiety.

While Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu was in the middle of a nap, Ryan became a beast type and went to the back of the tribe. He quickly caught an antelope and cut it open, eating it up and leaving the bones in the corner.

Before returning, Ryan washed away the smell of blood.

The little one was timid and sensitive, so if she knew that he had killed a herbivore again, she would probably panic again.

Ryan returned to the house and, unexpectedly, Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu hadn’t taken a nap.

She was in front of the fireplace holding her backpack and looking through it.

Hearing footsteps, she looked up and her eyes were slightly red. She raised an eyebrow, “Ryan, you moved my backpack?”

Ryan stepped into the threshold a little and quietly asked, “What?”

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu turned the backpack over and over, everything inside falling to the ground. Her flashlight, the binoculars, the knife, her notebook and a pen. . . but she did not see the map she had drawn before.

“I had a piece of paper in my bag, like this.” She opened the book and showed it to him, “I had something important on it, did you see it?”

Ryan was the opposite of Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu’s anxiety, “How important?”

“. . .” Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu was paralyzed. Of course, she cannot say that it was her way of leaving Camuda Valley so she said, “Very important.”

Ryan had guessed what she was looking for. The little girl thought he wouldn’t know what a map was.

He sat that table and calmly said, “Haven’t seen it.”

The map had been thrown into the fireplace yesterday. But really, there was no one to blame.

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu bit her lip and looked as if she was going to cry, depressed.

The compass was broken and the map was gone. Could she really rely on Ryan to held her find Pat?

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu looked at Ryan, “That, that one, Winter. . . did he find Pat?”

Ryan said calmly, “Even if Winter is fast, it isn’t possible to return from the east in three days.”

“. . .” Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu asked again, “When will he come back? If he finds Pat, will he bring him back?”

Ryan said, “Maybe.”

He did not tell her that the turtles didn’t have a fixed settlement in the east and it was a bit of a problem to find them.

While Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu was melancholy, there was a knock on the door.

Ryan opened the door and went outside with a leopard called Wilbur, a neighbor of Elder Scarlet.

“Chief Ryan, the elders have something to ask you. Is it convenient now?”

Ryan asked, “What’s the matter with Scarlet?”

Wilbur: “I don’t know. . . but he seems very anxious.”

Ryan did not ask again. Scarlet often came to him with the race’s issues.

Before leaving, Ryan called Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu to the front and pinched her tender face, “Don’t think about running around and wait for me to come back.”

In front of an outsider, Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu felt embarrassed and slapped his hand, muttering, “. . . I know.”

Ryan left and Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu went back inside to find her map.

Looking in all the possible places, Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu still couldn’t find it, but she did inadvertently find her menstrual cycle book.

Every month, she recorded the date of her menstruation. Even after coming here, she had kept up the habit.

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu saw last month’s record and her eyes were drawn to words drawn in red “Ovulation Period.”

——If she wasn’t mistaken, today began her ovulation?

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu remembered the situation on Holden’s ship last time and could not help but shiver.

Before she had been on a boat and could escape, but now, she was in the leopard race. How could she hide?

With this in mind, Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu quickly closed the windows and doors and took out the remaining catnip from her space, adding some more flavorful spices to make a sachet at her waist. She was still not reassured and searched throughout her space until she found a bottle of mosquito repellant. She smeared it from head to toe and finally felt at ease.

No one should be able to smell the estrus on her?

On second thought, she felt even more melancholy. Even if she escaped the “estrus” this time, what was she going to do the next time her great aunt visited?

She already used up her tampons the last time, was she really going to use ash??

A moment later, there was a knock on the door.

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu thought that Ryan was back and she wanted to confirm the scent on her body, so she walked out to open the door.

However, on the other side, it wasn’t Ryan, but another leopard male.

Wilbur said to Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu in the standard human language, “Chief Ryan sent me to take you to the back of the mountain. Winter came back and he knows where Pat is.”