Chapter 36: The Egg Is Laid—Time to Leave
Six months ago happened to be the time when Xue Ming left and the great battle began.
Only then did Nan Xun belatedly go, “Oh,” and say, “No wonder. Lately my body has felt kind of heavy, especially my lower abdomen.”
The Void Beast almost wanted to applaud her for being so calm.
“Little Eight, can I give birth to this child?” Nan Xun suddenly asked, her pitch-black eyes gleaming.
The Void Beast cried out in alarm, “Are you insane? You’re supposed to be leaving!”
Nan Xun gently stroked her belly and said softly, “I always feel like my first child has come back to find me. The first time, I didn’t want him. The second time, I can’t not want him again. Little Eight, didn’t you say I’m too free-spirited and worried I wouldn’t be able to focus on my missions? If I give birth to this child, I’ll have one more goal in the future—finish all my missions and then come back to see him.”
Since the Void Beast could cross into this world once, it could cross into it a second time.
This time, the Void Beast stayed silent for a long while before finally giving a quiet “Mm.”
Nan Xun figured that if her clansmen found out she was carrying the Demon King’s child, they would definitely break her legs and then kill the child in her womb. So after leaving behind a letter, she secretly left the Zui Li Clan.
The Golden-Winged Roc carried Nan Xun northward. Under Little Eight’s guidance, she found a mountain range rich in spiritual energy.
Nan Xun settled there for the time being. The Golden-Winged Roc was unwilling to leave and stayed behind as well, becoming her guardian spirit beast.
Looking at her belly, which had finally begun to show, Nan Xun asked Little Eight worriedly, “It’s already seven months and only now showing—this kid isn’t going to stay in my belly for three or four years, is it?”
The Void Beast replied, “Relax. You’ll give birth in three months.”
Before even three months had passed, the guardian Golden-Winged Roc suddenly came to bid farewell, saying it had found a partner. The two rocs planned to roam the skies and, after having their fun, lay a whole clutch of eggs.
Nan Xun watched the Golden-Winged Roc fly away, feeling a little reluctant.
“If you’re lonely, you can summon a group of spirit beasts to keep you company. You’re a ridiculously powerful beast tamer now,” Little Eight reminded her.
Nan Xun thought it was a good idea and summoned a bunch of companions.
Birds and beasts played and frolicked in the mountain range all day long. Perhaps influenced by the spirit beasts, the spiritual energy there grew increasingly dense.
Touching her belly and looking at her increasingly pale and gaunt face in the bronze mirror, Nan Xun sighed, “Xue Ming once told me that if a human carries a demonic beast’s child, their body won’t be able to handle it—and in severe cases, they might die. I thought he was just scaring me. Now it seems it might really be true.”
The Void Beast snorted. “Of course it’s true. Demonic beast bloodlines are domineering and powerful, let alone a ferocious beast like the Four-Clawed Crimson Blood Teng Snake. If you hadn’t been drinking the Demon King’s fresh blood daily and improving your body, you’d probably have been sucked dry by the little thing in your belly when it was only three months old.”
Nan Xun shuddered, but still gently stroked her belly. “This child is different. Look—he never torments me. Aside from feeling a bit weak, I haven’t had morning sickness or stomach pain. He’s very well-behaved.”
Facts proved that the child in Nan Xun’s belly was indeed very well-behaved—she only felt a brief moment of pain when giving birth.
It was just that when Nan Xun looked at what she had given birth to… that egg, she was completely dumbfounded.
Damn it—she’d forgotten that the child’s father was a snake, and a powerful Four-Clawed Crimson Blood Teng Snake at that!
She’d eagerly waited to hold a chubby, pink, soft baby, but instead she was holding a smooth, glossy snake egg.
The Void Beast gloated, grinning. “Seeing how happy you were every day, I didn’t have the heart to tell you—I knew from the start you were carrying an egg. Hmph~”
Nan Xun ignored Little Eight. She touched the egg, smacked a kiss onto the shell, then carefully placed it in a basket and covered it with a small handkerchief.
The next day, Nan Xun hurriedly made ten egg covers, each sewn from fine fabric.
She put the egg into a cover, leaving just a small portion exposed.
Finding the exposed egg surface too smooth and plain, Nan Xun got playful and drew a pair of cartoon eyes, a nose, and a mouth on it, with the mouth sticking out a little tongue—adorably cute.
Void Beast: …
“Now that the egg has been laid, it’s time for us to go,” the Void Beast reminded her.
Nan Xun exclaimed, “But it hasn’t hatched yet.”
The Void Beast sneered. “You still want to wait for it to hatch? The Demon King’s son is clever as hell. He’s probably sensed that you’re about to leave and decided not to hatch. If he doesn’t hatch for several hundred years, are you planning to wait that long?”
Nan Xun froze, her eyes sparkling. “Little Eight, are you saying this egg has its own consciousness? And—and—how do you know it’s a boy?”
The Void Beast played dead, exhausted and unwilling to speak.
From then on, Nan Xun began her egg-walking life. During the day, she hung the egg—dressed in its little cover—at her waist and wandered around when she had nothing to do. At night, she held the egg in her arms and told it stories.
Eventually, Nan Xun discovered that her egg was very smart. It liked egg covers made of snow silkworm silk best, loved bathing in spirit spring water, and disliked the face Nan Xun drew on it—whenever it had time, it would rub it off against the cover.
A year passed, and the egg still showed no signs of hatching. Nan Xun sighed and said, “Little Eight, I believe you. This egg really is doing it on purpose. I’ve decided—once I finish one last thing, we’ll leave.”
“What do you want to do?” the Void Beast asked.
Nan Xun replied, “The child’s father committed too many killings. I want to accumulate some merit for my egg. The battlefield is still filled with lingering baleful energy; if this continues, resentful spirits will be born. I want to seal that battlefield.”
The Void Beast yelled, “You’re fucking amazing! Do you know how big that battlefield is? Do you think you can just seal it because you want to?!”
Nan Xun chuckled. “There’s a secret technique in the Beast Tamer Clan’s inheritance—it can seal an area of space into a hidden realm.”
And so, Nan Xun went alone to the battlefield.
After three full days and nights, she finally succeeded in sealing the entire battlefield, leaving only a single opening locked by a jade slip.
After some thought, Nan Xun broke the jade slip in half, keeping the smaller piece for herself and sending the other half back to the Zui Li Clan.
She figured it was better not to put all her eggs in one basket—if someone with ill intentions got hold of the jade slip and tried to open the hidden realm, the consequences would be unimaginable.
But after hearing Little Eight’s words, Nan Xun almost spat out a mouthful of blood.
That half jade slip she’d given to her mother somehow split into two again, with the pieces falling into the hands of the Dragon Beast Clan and Teng Snake Heize respectively.
“It’s fine. Heize is seriously injured and basically half-dead—going there would be useless anyway. As for the Dragon Beasts, their ancestor the Azure Dragon is already dead; the rest are insignificant. And they’ve been cursed by the Demon King—they’ll be wiped out sooner or later,” the Void Beast said.
Only then did Nan Xun nod, finally feeling at ease to go die.
