Although surprised that the child who took two hours to reach the transport port suddenly wanted to go back, the driver didn't ask further as the other party clearly didn't want to talk about it, and considerately started the hovercraft again.

On the way back, the snow gradually intensified, quickly forming a thin layer on the ground.
The driver glanced out the window and couldn't help but say, "Winter is here, it came so quickly this time."

The comfortable autumn temperature had only stayed on this planet for a month before being lightly swept away by the gracefully arriving snowflakes.

For the orphanage, winter was undoubtedly the most troublesome season.

Even for the strongest races, their young are delicate little babies, let alone most of the young abandoned at the orphanage weren't that healthy to begin with.

When Su Duan quietly brought the Luota cub in his arms back to the orphanage, the staff inside were busy helping the young set up insulation measures. He spent nearly twenty minutes carefully avoiding everyone before returning to his room.

The blood samples purchased from the Star Network black market had already been destroyed with the system's help, but there was still a faint bloody smell lingering in the air. Worried that other beast people with keen senses of smell in the orphanage would notice, Su Duan took out a bottle of air freshener from the corner and sprayed the room thoroughly.

"Sneeze--" The cub, placed back on the bed, opened its tender red mouth and sneezed lightly, shaking its head.

Su Duan confirmed with the system again, "The ingredients in this air freshener are definitely harmless to the cub, right?"

The system said, "Yes, Host, it's just that the Luota race's sense of smell is too keen, so there may be slight discomfort in the short term, but it's not a big problem. Host doesn't need to worry."

Su Duan: "Mm."

After spraying the air freshener, Su Duan lightly touched the cub's moist nose tip with his fingertip.

The cub let out a "chirp" sound and took the opportunity to hug his finger with its two little paws, licking enthusiastically.

Ever since tasting the flavor of blood on Su Duan's fingertip, the cub had shown extraordinary interest in his fingers.

Su Duan let it lick as someone soon knocked on his door.

Gently withdrawing his fingertip from the cub's embrace, leaving it safely on the bed, Su Duan went to open the door.

It was the old dean.

The old dean adjusted the glasses on the bridge of his nose, his gaze passing Su Duan to linger on the cub behind him for a moment, slowly asking, "Why didn't you go eat lunch? Not feeling well?"

Having honed his lying skills from managing the palace in the previous world, Su Duan lowered his eyes slightly and said softly, "Viji wanted to sleep, so I napped with it for a bit, planning to tidy up and go eat later."

"Viji?" The old dean repeated, smiling gently, "Is that the name you gave this Kaka beast cub?"

Hearing someone call it, the cub lying on the bed immediately perked up its dark little head vigilantly.

Seeing this, the old dean sighed lightly, "It seems to have accepted this name... This Kaka beast really likes you."

Kaka beasts are actually very vigilant creatures. Because they are weak, they are cautious, and find it difficult to fully trust another creature, even when facing their own kind.

Perhaps it's because when it crawled out of its shell, the first one it came into contact with was this quiet human youth.

Young animals always have a special attachment to the first creature they come into contact with or see after birth.

Stepping aside to let the old dean into the room, Su Duan said, "Mm, it's a nickname, I haven't thought of a formal name yet."

In the original plot, without his timely appearance, the cub was carelessly tossed out by Xu Wei, ultimately being born in a desolate patch of grass on this planet, so the beast couple who picked it up named it Vigter.

The meaning of this name is "herbivore", a name as harmless and ordinary as the Kaka beast race itself.

However, in reality, the cub's true race has nothing to do with "herbivores".

Although the Luota race can also eat vegetables, plant-based foods can't provide them with much useful sustenance, with meat being their main energy source.

In the original plot, due to its congenital illness, Vigter fell ill and died rapidly within a few hours of being brought home by the beast couple, before they could even take it to the household registration office.

However, because Vigter spent too long in the cold wilderness after birth, its body was extremely weak, so even the damage caused by its illness wasn't severe. The beast couple just thought it was a sudden illness, and because their family circumstances were average, they didn't have the money for an examination. So after grieving, they could only find a place to bury it properly.

This precious Luota cub, whose birth was delayed by over two hundred years, struggled to be born only to quickly die on a remote small planet.

Hearing the old dean bring up the name issue, Su Duan couldn't help but recall Vigter's brief life in the original plot.

-- In order to prevent the cub from falling ill, he even spent two hundred experience points to buy a "pill" from the system that could cure all negative states in a creature's body at once. But perhaps due to the influence of its birth time and environment, the cub had yet to show any signs of illness.

The old dean said cheerfully, "No worries, you can think about it slowly. The task of giving it a formal name is also handed to you."

He walked to the bedside, wanting to pet this day-old cub, but the cub was even warier than last time. As soon as it sensed his hand reaching over, it quickly let out a chirping sound and burrowed under the covers, raising a small bump in the soft thin quilt.

"It seems more lively than yesterday, with good reaction speed, like a healthy cub." The old dean withdrew his hand and made a professional assessment of the cub's reaction, then continued, "But it's still not opening its eyes after a day, which isn't very normal... If it continues not opening its eyes, we'll have to call a doctor for it."

Su Duan nodded, very calm about the possibility of the cub being sent for an examination.
With the system that could tamper with instrument data, he wasn't worried about doctors discovering the cub's race issue from the examination report. After seeing off the old dean, Su Duan carried Viji to the cafeteria for a meal.

He wanted to leave Viji in the nursing box for cubs, but the problem was that it was fine when he was nearby. However, as soon as he walked a little further away, Viji would start chirping non-stop. If he dared to keep walking at this point, Viji's cries would become more and more miserable, its fur would puff up all over, and it would bump its head and paws against the box walls.

At first, Su Duan was so frightened that he thought it was having a fit. He turned pale and hurriedly fumbled to scoop it out of the nursing box.

As a result, once it was back in his arms, the seemingly ill black furball cub quickly quieted down again. It just used its claws to tightly grip his clothes in front of his chest, raised its head that hadn't opened its eyes yet, and licked his neck repeatedly.

With no other choice, Su Duan could only carry Viji to the cafeteria to eat.

It was now naptime and Su Duan had arrived too late. There was no one else in the cafeteria.

Su Duan struggled to hold the cub with one arm while carrying his food tray with the other. He sat at a seat on the outer edge of a table and placed the black furball and its blanket on the inner tabletop.

It seemed that as long as the "leaving" bottom line wasn't crossed, Viji would be very quiet. It curled up on its little blanket, its short limbs hidden in its medium-length black fur, looking like a furry ball with a tail.

Halfway through Su Duan's meal, suddenly another staff member also entered the cafeteria.

Coincidentally, she was also carrying a cub, but hers wasn't held in her arms. Instead, it followed behind her.

—Because her cub was a lively gray-feathered little bird.

The soft down on the gray bird's body had only molted a little, its coloring looking patchy with mixed gray and white. Its beak was still a tender yellow and its two miniature, jet-black eyes looked very spirited.

Flapping its not-fully-developed little wings, it followed its caretaker. When the caretaker sat down across from Su Duan with her food tray, it also eagerly hopped onto the table, tilting its head to size up the human and black furball opposite it.

"You're Su Duan?" The female caretaker gave Su Duan a friendly smile and asked after he nodded, "Is this the cub you're responsible for taking care of? I heard it's a late-born Kaka beast."

Su Duan nodded again.

"This is the cub I'm in charge of. Let's have them meet each other," the female caretaker suggested.

The orphanage wasn't a kindergarten. Entertainment facilities it could provide for the cubs were very limited. So having the cubs make friends and play together was an effective way for them to have fun.

That gray-feathered chick seemed to already understand adult speech. As soon as the female caretaker finished speaking, it took two steps on its matchstick-like thin legs towards Viji. It flapped its wings covered in a mix of down and feathers, trying to poke this fluffy round fellow's body with its wingtips.

—Then it was mercilessly smacked hard by Viji's paw as it lay on the table.

That smack was accurate and fast, almost beyond what a cub should be capable of. Even though birds were one of the quickest-reacting races among beastmen, it still couldn't dodge in time.

Three seconds later, the black-furred cub shook its paw. A gray-white feather slowly fell out from between its claws, spinning as it landed on the table.

Stunned from the smack, the gray-feathered chick blankly looked at the floating feather, then turned its head to look at the bald patch on its wingtip. Terrified, it plopped down on its butt and let out a heart-wrenching chirp at the black-furred cub who was the culprit—

That was the first and currently only feather that had grown on its wing!

Su Duan: "......"

Female caretaker: "......"

This chaotic lunch ultimately ended with everyone going their separate ways.

After a string of apologies, Su Duan took the black-furred cub, who felt no remorse after hitting someone else's little friend, to the bathroom. Then they returned to his bedroom.

"You can't just bully little friends," Su Duan put Viji on the table, put on a stern expression, and earnestly educated it.

However, Viji was probably not old enough to understand speech yet. Or perhaps, positioned at the apex of the empire, its racial instincts made it feel there was nothing wrong with casually disciplining a cub that tried to offend it. So in response to Su Duan's scolding, it just crawled two steps forward, raised its little head, and enthusiastically licked Su Duan's chin.

"Alright then." Su Duan petted its little head and noted it down, saying, "I'll record it for now and show you once you're old enough to understand."

Blissfully unaware of the black history it was creating for itself, Viji let out an innocent chirp.

After recording evidence of Viji's crimes, Su Duan got a set of blood drawing and storage tools from the system. He took the initiative to draw 300ml of his own blood, setting aside 10ml as Viji's second meal of the day and stuffing the rest into the system's food storage.

—He had already decided to use his own blood to feed Viji.

Delivering himself to the capital star would definitely not be enough to feed the entire Luota race, but just raising one cub shouldn't be a big problem.

The energy contained in blood was much purer than that in mixed foods. For Viji's current size, 10ml twice a day was sufficient. Drawing 300ml could feed it for half a month, which wasn't actually that much.

According to the data provided by the system, his blood had healing properties for the Luota race. So after consuming it for a period of time, once Viji's digestive system improved, it should be able to eat normal food.

If worse came to worst, there was still that "pill" originally prepared for Viji that hadn't been used yet—

When he became anemic to a certain degree, he could take it to restore his health.

He just didn't know if his blood could have any therapeutic effect on Viji's genetic illness...

However, under his watchful gaze, after Viji clung to his hand and drank up those 10ml of blood with contented hums, the healing value on its head remained stubbornly at zero.

Su Duan couldn't help feeling a bit disappointed.

After feeding the cub, Su Duan tidied up and went to take a shower.

Behind him, the well-fed cub quietly lay on the bed, its head intently focused on Su Duan's retreating figure.

It felt very hot... A lazy, comfortable feeling of fullness surged through its whole body. Because it had finally eaten its fill for once, even the weakness that came with its delayed birth seemed to have lessened a lot.

It seemed that something was about to break through the surface—

In the instant the delicious-looking black-haired human's figure disappeared behind the bathroom door, the little one moved its head and suddenly opened its tightly closed eyes.

......

Having just had his blood drawn, Su Duan's body was still a bit weak. It wasn't obvious outside, but after being in the bathroom for a while, engulfed by the steaming water vapor, he couldn't help feeling a bit dizzy.

Reaching out to support himself against the wall, Su Duan took a couple of breaths. He rubbed his face and shook his head, trying to drive that ominous dizziness out of his mind.

Because his mind was a bit hazy, Su Duan didn't notice that the bathroom door, which wasn't fully closed to begin with, was gently pushed open a crack.

Soon, he felt a strange, furry, warm, and soft sensation against his ankle.

—What is that?

Su Duan was startled. He looked down and met a pair of deep blue beast-like eyes.