Later, Vigter was called by His Majesty the Emperor to have afternoon tea alone.

"Those who don't grow up can't protect the things they want." This was what the Emperor told his black-haired tribesman. He slightly raised his chin, revealing a rare hint of arrogance in his emerald eyes, and made a nearly malicious joke, "For example, right now, destroying that Planter or protecting him are equally easy for me, understand?"

Vigter's fur was about to bristle again: "..."

The family elder's merciless threatening words seemed to have a better effect than Su Duan's reasoning. After returning that day, Vigter buried his head in Su Duan's arms and slept gloomily for the whole night. The next day, as soon as he opened his eyes, Su Duan heard him say softly in his ear.

"Will become strong, to protect you." The slightly hoarse words sounded in Su Duan's ear. After a pause, he muttered very softly again: "...Will become someone like Mr. Aiberta."

"Does Viji want to become the Emperor?"

Su Duan turned to face him, their noses lightly touching.

"Mm..." For this lofty goal, the adult Luota seemed a bit embarrassed to speak, lowering his curly black eyelashes, responding with a low voice, some obscure emotions appearing in his icy blue eyes.

Su Duan leaned over and kissed his cheek, curving the corners of his eyes, a hint of a smile in his black eyes, saying, "Our Viji is the best, you definitely can."

As for whether Viji became the Emperor or not, he didn't have much feelings about it. As a plant, he had long been accustomed to taking things as they come with his thousands of years of life. As long as they could live together, it made no big difference to him where.

However, it was always a good thing for the other party to have a goal.

"You have to treat your illness properly." Su Duan took the opportunity to urge him, "You can't hide it secretly anymore."

"Mm." The unusually silent black-haired youth reached out his arms and hugged him, rubbing his cheek against his chest as usual.

Su Duan patted his shoulders, roughly measuring them with his palms, and found that the bones seemed to have widened a bit more.

It should be that the energy stored from the library that day was still being slowly absorbed by the body, promoting his body's continuous growth.

In any case, things were developing in a good direction.

The most obvious change was that after getting up that day, Vigter became a diligent child.

—At least in terms of studying.

Hundreds of professionals had been busy for half a month and finally restored the study, which was like a hurricane had passed through, to its original state. Su Duan and Vigter were granted the right to re-enter.

However, this time the Emperor was more vigilant. Not only did he deploy a large number of guards at the door of the study and monitor the study at all times, but he would also personally come to confirm that his study had not once again become an adult Luota's playground.

—After all, until Vigter was confirmed to be cured, the possibility of relapse still existed.

Because they didn't know how many eyes were monitoring outside, the two people in the study could only study honestly. The beautiful idea of studying for a while and then kissing and touching for a while in the study was completely shattered. Leaning against each other was already the most intimate behavior that could be done under the monitoring of strangers.

Since they couldn't slack off and have a romance, the learning efficiency became amazingly high.

By the time half of the three months before the new school year had passed, the two had almost finished reading all the books listed by the Emperor, and Vigter had also grown to be a head taller than Su Duan.

When the two kissed, the adult Luota had to actively lower his head deeply.

At this time, the three adult Luotas who were studying at the Capital Comprehensive College in the royal family came home for vacation. Their courses for this semester had ended, and they would go to school to register with the two in a month and a half.

Su Duan and Vigter soon met them.

These three Luotas were not old, all of them had just become adults for two or three years and were only in their second year of college.

One had golden hair, one had gray hair, and one had light green hair. Except for the gray-haired one who looked gentle and quiet, the other two were extremely lively.

They all greeted their new companions enthusiastically.

The youth with dazzling golden hair was the most enthusiastic: "Your name is Vigter? Good name! We heard at school that you dismantled Aiberta's study—well done, studying is too annoying, I had this idea at least hundreds of times when I was a child, but I never had the guts to do it. Aiberta is a scary man."

"Yeah, I heard that after dismantling it, he was carried around the house by him like a little cub! Too scary! If it were me, I would definitely have nightmares!" This was the green-haired one.

"...Mr. Aiberta also recorded a video." The last sentence was added by the gray-furred Luota who looked very well-behaved.

Su Duan, who was on the side, didn't quite react: "Huh?"

That day, after Viji told him that the punishment was to tidy up the study, he never doubted that the other party was hiding anything from him, so there were actually... other punishments he didn't know about?

Being carried by the scruff of the neck and walked around in circles sounded quite embarrassing, no wonder Viji didn't want to tell him.

His Majesty the Emperor's hair color was light gold, and his beast form's fur should be the same color.

A peanut-filled glutinous rice ball carrying a sesame-filled glutinous rice ball in circles, Su Duan imagined that scene a little and became inappropriately hungry again...

He didn't know if he could get the video from Mr. Aiberta, but it didn't matter. If he couldn't get it, he could still ask the system to help him.

At this time, Vigter, the party involved, had already collapsed mentally: "......"

However, these three tribesmen did not notice his shattered glass heart at all. After introducing themselves one by one, they began to look at Su Duan with great interest.

The first to greet was still the golden-haired youth: "Your name is Su Duan, right? That Ple-something race... Aiberta said you would probably taste very good!"

"It seems to be the only one in existence, much rarer than us, how precious." The green-haired one looked at Su Duan with the eyes of looking at a rare animal.

"May I smell you? Just once." The gray-furred cub with round eyes politely requested Su Duan.

Vigter: ???

Before Su Duan could even answer the question of whether he could take a sniff, the black-furred Luota whose reverse scale had been poked suddenly puffed up with a whoosh!

...So the pitch-black sesame-filled rice ball quickly started fighting on the ground with another lighter-colored sesame-filled rice ball.

The peanut-filled and mung bean-filled rice ball also quickly joined the battle, but they weren't there to help their little companions. Instead, they were randomly causing trouble, hitting one here and another there. Whoever was unlucky would get hit by the other. The scene became very chaotic for a while, with fur of all colors flying all over the ground.

Su Duan stared with wide eyes, dumbfounded as he watched this extremely complex melee unfolding in front of him, not knowing what expression to make.

......

The meeting with the young members of the same race began with a terrible greeting - of course, this kind of terrible was only for Vigter alone. Those members of the same race seemed to appreciate his courage to play with bookshelves in the Emperor's study and were enthusiastic about fighting.

The gray-haired Luota, who looked well-behaved, was actually incredibly fierce when fighting. Vigter had a tuft of fur on his butt bitten bald by him, and the whole youth fell into depression.

Su Duan helped him rub it for a long time and applied a special effects ointment that was said to promote hair growth to the bitten bald area, but it still couldn't get him out of the blow of "being bitten bald".

"Don't worry, I asked Mr. Aiberta, and he said it will grow back quickly." Su Duan closed the box of ointment and kissed the head of the big cub who had turned into beast form and was lying on the bed to comfort him.

The adult Luota let out a light coo, licked his cheek with the tip of its tongue, got up from the bed, and kept rubbing its body against him, making a purring urging sound from its throat, the suggestive meaning overflowing.

Su Duan had no choice but to obediently put his hand on its back and slowly stroked from the neck to the tail.

The adult Luota under his palm made a purring sound, its beast eyes narrowed, wrapping its tail around Su Duan's wrist, swaying non-stop with his movements.

As Su Duan was petting the big cub in his arms, he thought about its development issue.

Although that fight was playful in nature, it could still be seen that there was some gap in strength between Viji and those three Luota. Now it was just a tuft of fur bitten off while playing around, but if they were to fight seriously, it could be dangerous.

The reason for this situation was not that Viji was less healthy than those three Luota, but a matter of developmental stage.

Strictly speaking, Viji could not be considered a fully adult body yet. For the Luota race, only after the first estrus arrives will the hormones in the body promote a second rapid development, raising the overall quality to another level, before they can be considered true adults.

Those three cubs had already gone through estrus, while Viji had yet to show any signs. Of course there would be some gap.

When Vigter's estrus arrives, the outcome of fighting with members of the same race might be different.

In any case, Vigter had a rather poor impression of these members of the same race, but they seemed to be very interested in him and his little prey, even following them to the study room to learn.

The golden-haired Luota was still the most talkative one. He came to the study room but didn't study, persistently striking up conversations with Vigter.

Although Vigter held a grudge against him for the tuft of fur bitten off and his strange behavior of helping him one moment and kicking him the next during the fight that day, Su Duan had taught him that he should be polite. When the other party approached with a smile, he could only try his best to chat with them.

"Do you know - there are currently eight eggs in the incubation room that are expected to hatch within ten years?"

Vigter frowned, not knowing why the other party suddenly brought this up.

Could it be that they were worried these eight cubs would compete with them for the throne? But it would take at least thirty years for those unhatched cubs to reach adulthood, not to mention going to school and such.

According to Aiberta's intention, the next succession of the throne shouldn't be dragged out for that long. This emperor, who had been in power for nearly two hundred years, seemed to be quite tired of this position.

However, what the other party said next was completely different from what Vigter had thought:

"The four little cubs in the nursing room have just hatched not long ago. It will take at least twenty years for them to reach adulthood. Assuming I... forget it, too scary. Let's assume you become the emperor in ten years, then you will have to deal with twelve hungry and frantically troublemaking cubs. Even if it's a bit later and you take the throne in twenty years, you'll still have at least eight to take care of."

"Raising cubs has always been the responsibility of the clan leader," said the green-haired one.

"Twelve, it will be exhausting to death." The gray-furred Luota who had bitten Viji bald temporarily looked up from the book in his hand and calmly emphasized again.

Twelve ugly rice balls -

Vigter was stunned, his brows furrowing hesitantly.