The moment Ziqing had used Liuguang to cut the umbilical cord, the great foolish bear had come charging in.
Though this foolish bear had never been a parent before, it had dutifully licked every trace of blood clean off the baby’s body, cleaning up everything around them thoroughly.
Ziqing had originally meant to send it to fetch the prepared beast-hide clothing, but instead the little foolish bear simply sat there, staring fixedly at the baby.
Immersed in the joy of new motherhood, Ziqing hadn’t noticed the bear’s strange behavior earlier, assuming it was simply being silly again.
Later, once Zizhu and the others arrived and the bear got roared out of the way, no one had paid its odd behavior any mind either.
But now, everyone was staring straight at the great foolish bear.
What was this foolish bear doing — wasn’t it worried about frightening the baby?
They watched as the great foolish bear pressed its long snout right against the baby’s little arm, nostrils flaring open and shut, as though catching some kind of scent!
“What are you doing?” Howling Hare asked, suspicious.
“Does it really think this is its own cub?” the Nine-Tailed White Fox murmured timidly. Since they couldn’t communicate with the great foolish bear, its behavior always left the four top-tier poison beasts baffled, and combined with how highly Ziqing regarded it, the four had never truly warmed to the bear despite outwardly tolerating it.
Ziqing, puzzled too, nudged the great foolish bear’s snout aside — but it immediately let out a low whimper and kept right on sniffing, working its way over every inch of the baby’s body, all the while glancing repeatedly back at Zizhu.
“Master, tell it to get lost — it’s going to scare the baby!” Henggong Fish said, displeased.
But Ziqing was already looking at Zizhu instead. “Could it have noticed something?”
Zizhu had been mulling the same thought, and stepped forward at once. The moment it did, the great foolish bear obediently backed off, only jutting its chin toward the baby.
In that instant, both Ziqing and the four poison beasts felt a strange sense of unreality — this bear seemed less like a bear and more like a dog, faithfully reporting something to its superior.
A flicker of unease crossed Ziqing’s heart. Zizhu seemed to sense her worry, and after a long hesitation, cautiously extended its qilin-like head, leaning in close to sniff the baby.
But the moment it did, Zizhu’s expression changed drastically. Seeing this, Ziqing grew even more anxious, saying nothing.
Zizhu sniffed over every inch of the baby’s tiny body, then turned silently to the Nine-Tailed White Fox. “Come here and smell for yourself.”
The Nine-Tailed White Fox hurried forward and, just like Zizhu, sniffed the baby thoroughly from head to toe. Gradually, all nine of its tails rose bristling on end, one by one, and it couldn’t help shivering, turning to look at Henggong Fish.
“What’s going on?”
Under that stare, Henggong Fish’s heart pounded with dread, and it let Howling Hare go first instead. Howling Hare cautiously sniffed the baby once more, not even daring to meet Ziqing’s eyes, immediately slinking off to the side.
Ziqing’s hands were visibly trembling. She had no idea whether she could withstand another blow.
That left only Henggong Fish. Like the others, it cautiously leaned close to the baby’s red, wrinkled skin, working its way down — not sniffing for the baby’s scent, but for the scent of its blood.
This was a unique ability of poison beasts — the power to detect the smell of blood.
Logically, of these five poison beasts, the great foolish bear’s sense of smell was the weakest. Yet it had been the one to first notice something was wrong, having licked the blood off the baby’s body earlier!
Henggong Fish moved slowly — very slowly — because it knew that the moment it finished, it would have to give its verdict.
For a moment, the entire cave, once filled with joy, was overtaken by tension, everyone staring at Henggong Fish. Even Ziqing found herself holding her breath!
As for the baby himself, he’d stopped crying the moment the great foolish bear leaned in close, showing no fear at all of the poison beasts around him — seeming, if anything, to enjoy the feeling of their furry snouts brushing against him. On his small, red, homely little face, his eyes barely opened a slit, and it was impossible to say whether he saw or sensed anything at all — but every so often, his tiny mouth curled open in what looked unmistakably like a sly little smile.
Smiling slyly right after being born — heaven only knew what kind of temperament he’d grow into!
Finally, Henggong Fish lifted its head. It looked first at Ziqing, then at the other four poison beasts, and without a word, gave a solemn nod.
“Don’t tell me… everyone caught the same scent?” Zizhu asked, unable to believe it.
The moment the words left its mouth, Ziqing, who’d remained silent all this while, suddenly spoke, her voice cold and deadly serious. “What exactly is going on — tell me!”
She was angry now.
No — she was furious.
All four poison beasts turned at once to look at the great foolish bear. The great foolish bear had wanted to say something all along, but all it could manage was a low whimper directed at Ziqing.
“Zizhu, tell me!” Ziqing was truly enraged now, and her emotion seemed to reach the baby too — the instant she spoke, he burst into a loud wail.
Ziqing had no choice but to force herself calm, murmuring soothing words to the child, even as her dark, stormy eyes stayed fixed coldly on Zizhu, fury blazing in them — if a glare alone could kill, Zizhu would already have been torn limb from limb.
It didn’t dare delay any further, and paying no mind to the baby’s crying, it hurried to explain. “Master, this child… this child… how should I put it! Though the baby has no poison marks on his face, the blood in his body…”
Before Zizhu could even finish, Ziqing cut it off with a shocked cry. “The same as mine?”
Zizhu nodded helplessly. “Yes. Blood immune to a hundred poisons — once cultivated into a human Gu, it becomes blood of pure, lethal toxin…”
Ziqing’s grip on the baby went slack, nearly letting him slip, and for a long moment she simply froze before she began shaking her head. “No… you must be mistaken. Look at his face, his face is perfectly fine! You must be wrong!”
Ziqing refused, absolutely refused, to accept this reality. She herself had lived through exactly what a human Gu had to endure, both physically and mentally, exactly what dangers it meant facing.
The very last thing she wanted was to see her own child trapped in the same nightmare she’d suffered.
“No! It’s impossible, you must all be mistaken!”
“How could that be — look how beautiful he is, in a few more days he’ll only look even better, his face is so clean and clear, how could this possibly be true?”
Ziqing refused to believe it, refused to accept it. She clutched the baby tightly to her chest, but no matter how tightly she held him, he wouldn’t stop crying.
Having spent a full ten months in his mother’s womb, the baby had absorbed every fluctuation of her joy and sorrow, and was exquisitely sensitive to her emotional state. Still far too young to do anything else, sensing his mother’s distress, all he could do was cry.
Seeing this, everyone grew anxious. The great foolish bear, foolishly following the baby’s lead, began whimpering right along with him. Zizhu, brow furrowed, spoke urgently, “Master, a poison mark alone isn’t enough to draw a conclusion — because in three more days, the baby’s face will still change. If he truly were immune to a hundred poisons, within these three days the toxins would gather on his face and form a poison mark… but the blood in the baby’s body doesn’t lie…”
But the moment it finished, Ziqing roared back, fierce and unyielding, “I don’t believe it! He is not! He is absolutely not!”
Faced with such ferocity, Zizhu didn’t dare say another word. The five poison beasts exchanged glances, and silence fell over the cave — a silence that would stretch on for three full days and nights…