Unedited chapter
97. Gluttonous Little Hamster
The hole in the eggshell was now about the size of a fingernail. The little hamster tried to get out but found that he could not, so he stopped moving.
But after a short pause, he moved again and began to gnaw at the eggshell with difficulty.
"He actually has teeth!" Shu Shu stared at the little hamster with some surprise. The hamster babies he had seen before had no teeth when they were just born, and it was simply impossible for them to bite off an eggshell.
"Beastmen don’t breastfeed and generally develop their teeth while inside the egg." Edgar explained while fixing his eyes on the little hamster.
Shu Shu nodded and continued to stare at the egg without blinking.
By this time, the child had already gnawed the hole a little bigger and was slowly crawling out of it.
A newborn baby hamster was normally unable to open its eyes and had no hair on its body, looking extraordinarily immature and tender. But this was really not the case for the little hamster who crawled out of the eggshell. Although he also looked pink and tender, his body was already covered with a layer of short fur, and his eyes could open as well.
He was only the size of Edgar's thumb and seemed to be extremely delicate, making it very hard to believe that such a small thing could actually open the eggshell and drill out of it . . . . Shu Shu once again felt indescribably sorry for the child, whose mode of reproduction had changed from viviparous to oviparous.
"He's so cute." Edgar only felt that his heart had melted looking at the tiny child, but he did not dare to reach out and caress his child. "He’s so small . . ."
"Yeah, why’s he so small? Such a big egg only contains such a small hamster?" Shu Shu picked up the eggshell in puzzlement, looked through the hole, and saw that the inside of the egg was completely empty.
There was really only a thumb-sized little hamster inside such a big egg.
"You’re also not much bigger than him." Edgar glanced at Shu Shu, and then his gaze fell on the newborn child again. At this moment, the snake-shaped Xiao Bao slithered over and flicked his forked tongue toward the little hamster.
A snake and a newborn little hamster who looked tasty with not much hair in the way . . . . Seeing this scene, Shu Shu was so nervous he grabbed Xiao Bao subconsciously. "Xiao Bao, turn into a person!"
He knew that his first son was not malicious to his second son, but this scene really made him feel a little overwhelmed . . . .
The little snake gave Shu Shu a questioning glance. Under the nourishment of spiritual power, he could already control himself to transform into a human shape or a beast shape, so after hearing Shu Shu's words and flicking his snake tongue again, he turned into a baby and then looked at the little hamster curiously.
The little snake became a white and tender baby, and Shu Shu had no psychological barrier anymore. Picking up the little hamster, Shu Shu put him in the little snake’s hand. "This is your younger brother. You must take good care of him, okay? "
"Xiao Bao hasn’t learned to control his strength yet. How can you give him the child?" Edgar frowned. He kept an eye on the little snake to prevent him from harming the little hamster while educating the little snake like Shu Shu had done. "Xiao Bao, this is your younger brother, and you’re the older brother. In the future, you must take good care of your younger brother, and you must not let your younger brother get hurt . . . ."
At first glance, it was plain to see that the little snake had rough skin and thick flesh and was capable of enduring falling and beating. But this child . . . . Edgar always felt that he could not use any force at all when touching the child.
The little snake nodded without really understanding it. He had only been born not long ago. Although beastmen developed quickly, and he had the assistance of spiritual power to develop faster than ordinary beastmen, he certainly didn’t understand everything.
However . . . feeling the warmth in the palm of his hand, the little snake vaguely felt that he had to protect this little thing in the palm of his hand well.
Such a mouthful of edible little thing, if he did not protect it well, it might be accidentally gone!
Staring at the little hamster in his palm, the little snake frowned tightly, and his little face looked very serious.
At this time, the little hamster in the hollow of the little snake’s hand moved and lifted his head in Shu Shu’s direction.
"Little guy, do you want your mother?" Shu Shu plucked the little hamster from the hollow of the little snake’s hand and held him in his hand. He loved to get close to people, so he really wanted to kiss this little guy who looked like himself. But . . . this child was too small!
Looking at the child in the hollow of his palm, Shu Shu was a little at a loss. The child, however, was still moving incessantly and tried to climb down from Shu Shu's arm. At the same time, he kept raising his head in one direction while his eyes opened wider and wider.
"What the heck are you looking at?" Shu Shu was very puzzled.
Edgar did not dare to touch the child, but he kept watching the child attentively as well as observing all the child's behavior. At this moment, he suddenly said, "He’s looking at the fried rice."
"What?" Shu Shu stared blankly.
"He should be looking at those foods." Edgar said. This child was truly exactly the same as Shu Shu. Didn’t Shu Shu just want to rush over when he saw food?
Shu Shu stared at the child in his hand for a while and finally placed him on the table. Then he saw the child quickly run to the plate with fried rice and try to climb up the smooth plate by holding onto it with his paws. It was a pity that the plate was quite big, and the edge was also not low. With his clumsy movements, there was no way at all for him to climb in. He could only watch the plate helplessly.
". . ." Shu Shu was temporarily speechless while suddenly thinking of one thing—this child had stayed inside the eggshell for a long time without any movement; later, his fried rice was brought to him, and the child suddenly began to fight the eggshell and soon drilled out of it . . . . Could it be that it was because he smelled the fried rice?
Why was his child like this, ah?! Was it really okay for him to be so gluttonous? Shu Shu was depressed.
"He's like you, fixing his gaze on food." Edgar commented, the corners of his mouth giving rise to a smile.
". . ." Shu Shu was even more depressed.
The little hamster went around the plate once and was still unable to see the food. Finally, he stopped moving.
"Be good, Xiao Bei. You’re just born and unsuitable to eat fried rice . . ." Shu Shu wanted to get the child back upon seeing this, but unexpectedly, Xiao Bei suddenly turned into a person at this moment.
A naked baby with only a few sparse hair on his head appeared on the dining table and then plunged his whole face into the plate with the fried rice. To say nothing of plunging his head into the plate, he also took a mouthful of fried rice.
My son was amazing! Shu Shu hugged the child and found that his face was full of rice grains, but the child hardly cared about it and started to chew the rice. Shu Shu suddenly admired him somewhat.
When he was just born, he would only fight over breast milk with his brothers and sisters. His son, however, was much more powerful and directly fought over food with him, his mother.
"I'm going to get some baby food." Edgar said. The spaceship had brought a lot of supplies, which included various kinds of foods suitable for beastman and sub-beastman babies to eat. As for fried rice . . . . Little beastmen could immediately eat meat as well as all kinds of foods that adult beastmen ate, but they should not eat seasonings, not even salt. As it happened, Shu Shu's fried rice contained a good deal of seasonings.
When taking care of the little snake, Edgar felt that it did not matter if the child ate a bit rough. The little snake liked to eat some fried rice, and he would not stop him. Yet when it was this child's turn . . . . Thinking of the little hairless guy, Edgar grabbed the beastman baby food and then stuffed the food prepared for sub-beastman baby into his space button as well.
"Edgar, the child’s been born? Is it a beastman or a sub-beastman?" Jones always paid attention to Edgar and Shu Shu’s situation and immediately came to find them.
"It's a little beastman." Edgar said.
Another little beastman? Jones was somewhat disappointed, but recalling that he did not even have one little beastman now, he was rather envious. "Congratulations."
Edgar smiled and nodded. "I still have something. I’ll go back first."
Edgar quickly left. Jones stood still yet could not help but stroke his own belly.
"You also want a child?" Reynolds suddenly appeared behind Jones. He picked Jones up and carried Jones back to their room. "I must work hard!"
After Edgar left the room, the child whose head was planted on the plate became a little hamster again.
Shu Shu breathed a sigh of relief. He put the little hamster on the table again and then moved the fried rice to the cupboard on the side . . . . Even if it had already been eaten, and there was spiritual power that could protect the child, he still wouldn’t give him the opportunity to eat a second mouthful.
However, when he turned his head to look at the child after doing all this, he suddenly found that the little hamster actually took a grain of rice out of his mouth, held it with his paws, and began to nibble at it.
It felt like this child had already seized the opportunity just now to hide the rice in his food pouches and was currently about to taste it slowly in his little hamster form!
Shu Shu glanced at the little snake on the side who was staring at the little hamster curiously and suddenly realized that his eldest son was in fact very cute, too.
After Edgar returned, he first took out the rice paste for sub-beastman babies to eat. As a result, the little hamster turned up his nose at it. Only when he took out the meat chunks for little beastmen to eat did the little hamster deigned to eat them. As the little hamster ate, he also stored the food in his food pouches.
Although this child had just been born, he had learned to store food, which was self-taught, as well as being picky about food.
By comparison, the little snake was much more well-behaved. After Edgar handed him the opened rice paste for sub-beastman babies to eat, he did not refuse it at all and spooned himself big mouthfuls of it until it was completely finished.
The little hamster was a bit gluttonous but had no other problems at all and was very easy to raise.
However, he was really so small that Shu Shu was always very worried. He worried that he would be careless and accidentally lost the child. It was still fine if he only lost the child, but if he accidentally stepped on him . . . .
In the evening, Shu Shu found a box, put the little hamster in it, and placed the box on his headboard. Only then did he get into Edgar's arms to sleep. At the same time, the news of him and Edgar having another little beastman spread in the base.
The fallen beasts were very happy and spontaneously celebrating for Edgar and Shu Shu. Looking at the great celebration scene outside, Myer felt terribly bitter and sour.
He always felt that he was much more outstanding than Shu Shu, but in the end? Not only did Shu Shu possess such an innate skill of "healing", but he also came up with a method to help the fallen beasts restore their beast cores.
Now, he even had two children.
Edgar and Shu Shu's second child had come out of the shell. After the people in the base heard this news, they began to raise their heads and look around, hoping to see the cute little beastman.
However, the crown prince and the crown princess, who never restrained the little snake from running around, had actually hidden their second child well out of sight. It had been a few days since the child was born, but everyone still couldn’t see the appearance of the little beastman.
While people in the base were being very curious about the mysterious little beastman, Shu Shu was currently in a quandary as he looked at the snake and the little hamster in front of him.
The little hamster would crawl after he was born, and his movements had become extremely flexible in just a few days. After that, he became more and more naughty.
It was originally not a big deal for him to become naughty, but the scene right now . . . .
A little hamster was running in front, and a four-legged little snake was chasing behind and would roll up the little hamster when he caught up . . . . Even if this was not the first time Shu Shu saw this situation, he still felt that his heart could not stand it.
He wanted to stop the little snake from chasing the little hamster, but he initially hadn’t been very friendly to the little snake's beast form, and if he was like that again, the little snake would surely feel deeply hurt, right? After all, he only wanted to play with his younger brother . . . .
After pondering for a while, Shu Shu suddenly thought of an idea, and his eyes brightened.
TL's note: Xiao Bei means little baby.
And this pic from IG that I've kept since last year especially for this chapter O(≧∇≦)O