Free Web NovelChapter 141: Chapter 141: The Bizarre God Statue
Ever since Ryder was brought back to Kaelen’s house, the four little ones met every night in the resonance space.
Except for the first two days of amnesia, Ryder also began to remember Edward’s existence. However, his memory was limited to the resonance space; as soon as he woke up, Ryder would completely forget everything he had experienced, making Finnick and Oliver grind their teeth in anger.
Now they deeply sympathized with Edward, truly wanting to swallow this little brat into their stomachs!
"Brother Edward!"
Ryder saw Edward from afar and came running over with thudding steps. Edward also swung his tail to catch the little mouse, taking advantage of the time before his two younger brothers arrived to stuff a light fruit into the mouse cub’s paw.
"This is a new type of fruit I got to eat today. It’s very sweet, try it."
Ryder happily stuffed the fruit into his mouth, slowly savoring it. Edward attentively watched the little mouse eat, occasionally raising his head in vigilance. A moment later, a spiritual energy fluctuation appeared in the resonance space, and Edward hastily said:
"They are here, hide it quickly."
Ryder hurriedly hid the fruit in the pouches inside his mouth.
Oliver and Finnick completely failed to notice anything unusual, only hurrying forward to ask:
"Brother Edward, have you found Uncle Wofu yet?"
Edward shook his head: "Not yet. I used a concealment array to sneak into the Temple Lord’s room, but I couldn’t find any trace of them. That Sub-Beast said he would take Uncle Wofu to the Heavenly Temple; I already infiltrated that place but didn’t see anyone at all."
Edward was so anxious he was about to get a stye in his eye. Five days had passed since he last saw Wofu; during these five days, he had tried every possible way but still couldn’t find any trace of the tiger cub. Furthermore, these servants seemed to have been brainwashed; recently, they didn’t even leave the Temple to go shopping like usual. They also controlled his freedom extremely strictly. Now, he didn’t even have the chance to go out for a walk around the garden.
Among the four children, except for Ryder who was still carefreely snacking in secret, the other three were endlessly gloomy. Oliver said dejectedly:
"I saw that Papa has circled the Southern Continent area. They plan to continue searching in the lower half of the Demonic Beast Forest first before heading to the upper half. I didn’t even see the Northern Continent on Papa’s route..."
Edward said: "Let’s put that aside for now. Today I sneaked into the Heavenly Temple and saw the Beast God statue of the Beast City, but the form of this statue is very bizarre. It made my hair stand on end, not looking like a benevolent God at all."
Saying that, Edward used his tail to wrap around a wooden stick, slowly redrawing the image of the God statue he had seen. Thankfully, Edward was the only one in the family to inherit Kaelen’s artistic talent; his strokes were both neat and realistic, easily sketching out the image from his memory. After finishing the drawing, he asked Oliver:
"Oliver, do you recognize which God this is?"
Oliver stared intently at the drawing on the ground. Countless images of Gods flashed through his mind, finally stopping at one figure. He wasn’t very sure and said:
"It looks somewhat like the God of Harvest, but not exactly. In my inheritance, the God of Harvest is an Antelope clan Sub-Beast, holding a scepter in one hand and scattering seeds with the other. No matter how you look at it, this God statue looks like a beastman, and moreover, the way this figure holds the stone spear is somewhat strange. I can’t figure out what’s strange about it at the moment."
"It feels completely out of place, like he should be holding a different kind of weapon." Ryder, who had been silently hiding within Edward’s coils eating in secret, suddenly blurted out.
"Right, right, that’s exactly the feeling. This posture looks like he should be holding another kind of weapon..." Oliver frowned in thought for a moment, then exclaimed: "A bow and arrow! That’s right, it should be a bow and arrow. This posture is exactly the posture Uncle Walter often assumes before shooting an arrow."
"Also, look here everyone." He pointed at the massive, rough tree stumps and roots wrapping around the God statue’s body: "If it were the God of Harvest, he would be surrounded by water, plants, flowers, and birds. This proves that this is definitely not the God of Harvest. As for which specific God it is, I am truly not sure, because in my inheritance, no one has a prototype like this."
Most of the current God statues on the continent were carved based on prototypes from unofficial history, such as the Water God, Wind God, and Fire God that Collins often told the children in the tribe about. Or the figure of Lac Long Quan that Crimson was worshiping.
Therefore, arbitrarily carving a statue of a God was impossible.
"Tomorrow I will try to scout for some information." Edward lowered his head to stare intently at the God statue, then turned to his two younger brothers and said: "For now, don’t let our two fathers know where I am. First, I need to ensure that Uncle Wofu is safe and is still the original Uncle Wofu. Second, before I can find a breakthrough point in the defense line, we must keep our fathers as far away from the Temple as possible."
Finnick said worriedly: "You won’t run into any danger, right? No matter how you look at it, this Temple sounds purely evil."
Edward rubbed his head against Finnick’s forehead: "Don’t worry, I will be extremely careful. If anything happens, I will immediately escape."
Oliver and Finnick nodded, unable to help but feel a bit worried in their hearts, wishing they could go to their older brother’s side right away. Ryder, listening to their conversation, clung to Edward’s tail and looked up to ask:
"Brother Edward, are you about to go do something very dangerous?"
Edward used the tip of his tail to rub the boy’s head, comforting him in a low voice: "I won’t, don’t worry."
Finnick watched the interaction between his older brother and Ryder, suddenly turning to say to Oliver: "Youngest, look, isn’t their brightness almost identical now?"
Oliver narrowed his eyes to look closely, and indeed discovered the anomaly. Previously, the brightness of Ryder’s mental body could be said to be extremely dim, like a feeble ray of sunlight in the rain. Now looking at it again, the brightness of their mental bodies was not much different; it felt like Ryder was about to catch up to Edward.
Seeing his two younger brothers staring at him, Edward felt a bit guilty and hurriedly covered it up: "Maybe it’s related to Ryder leveling up?"
Finnick and Oliver thought about it and felt it made sense, so they didn’t dig deeper into the cause. The two of them continued to discuss methods to support their older brother. Seeing that they didn’t pursue the matter to the end, Edward secretly breathed a sigh of relief. Ryder also relaxed the hands that were unconsciously covering his mouth. *Phew, I almost couldn’t eat sweet fruits anymore.*
While the four little ones were busy chatting in the space, outside, Sane had quietly returned at some point. First, he went to the crib and took a look at his children, marveling at how fast they were growing.
Next, he gently lay down beside Kaelen, skillfully pulling his mate into his embrace without waking him up. The familiar scent lingered at his nose; even in a deep sleep, Kaelen subconsciously buried his face into the solid chest, nuzzling a couple of times out of habit.
Sane smiled and kissed the top of Kaelen’s head, holding him as he drifted off to sleep.
The next morning, Kaelen woke up exactly according to his biological clock. As soon as he opened his eyes, he saw healthy wheat-colored skin and firm muscles. He was stunned for two seconds, then his eyes widened as he shot up from Sane’s embrace.
Sane was still a bit sleepy. He grabbed Kaelen and pulled him back down, pressing Kaelen’s head into his chest, and mumbled: "Mhm, lie down a bit longer."
Kaelen was held tightly, feeling the warmth and the steady heartbeat transmitting through Sane’s firm chest. He blushed and patted the arm tightening around his waist, complaining in a low voice:
"It’s already bright out, I have to get up to cook breakfast. The little ones will wake up and cry for food in a bit."
"With Ryder here, those two will definitely sleep in." Sane lazily buried his face in the crook of Kaelen’s neck, inhaling the faint herbal scent, and chuckled softly: "Yesterday I hurried home, so I already handed over the task of urging the road progress to Nordhal’s group. You’ve been very tired these past few days, just lie down a bit longer."
Hearing his mate’s coaxing tone, Kaelen also softened. These past few days, because Sane wasn’t here, he had to do double the work, plus the matter of worrying about compensating for his two children destroying public property until his pockets were empty; it was indeed very tiring. He obediently nestled deeper into Sane’s embrace, blinking his eyes as he enjoyed the rare peace.
The sun rose high. It was only when clear babbling sounds rang out from the crib that Sane finally let his mate go.
Kaelen put his animal skin coat back on and went over to the crib. Ryder had just woken up, his eyes still drowsy as he blankly looked around. As soon as he saw Kaelen, the little mouse giggled, spreading his arms and acting spoiled to be picked up: "Brother Kaelen, Ryder is hungry~"
In the corner of the crib, Finnick and Oliver simultaneously glanced at the little mouse with extremely complex gazes. As expected, this fat mouse had completely forgotten all the serious matters in the resonance space last night. Oh well, since they didn’t plan on letting their two fathers go to the Northern Continent too early anyway, it was good that Ryder forgot everything.
The two of them were rubbing their eyes when they saw Sane walking over; their sleepiness instantly vanished. The children babbled, clinging to the edge of the crib, spreading their arms demanding to be picked up.
[Daddy is back!]
[Daddy, hug hug~]
Sane smiled and bent down to pick his two children up. Just as he predicted, the children had grown a lot; holding them felt much heavier than before.
"Daddy will take you to wash up, okay?" Saying that, he conveniently scooped Ryder up as well, raising his eyebrows in surprise: "Oh, it seems our little mouse has gotten chubbier too?"
Kaelen burst into laughter: "He’s not chubby, he just leveled up, skipping a year of his infancy to enter the transformation period straight away."
Sane felt incredibly astonished, frowning as he observed the boy closely. Previously, Ryder was very afraid of Sane because snakes are natural enemies of mice; every time he saw this dark-purple light snake, Ryder would flop down and play dead.
However, this time upon seeing that large Snake, Ryder inexplicably felt a strange sense of familiarity. The eye mark on his forehead flickered with light and dark, and then he softly uttered a name: "Edward..."
Finnick and Oliver’s hearts skipped a beat. *No way, right? When he needs to remember, he doesn’t, but when he doesn’t need to, he actually remembers, what’s wrong with this stupid mouse!*
Hearing Ryder utter this name, both Kaelen and Sane froze. Edward’s matter was a pain in the hearts of the two leaders, so whether in front of or behind their backs, the clan members never brought it up. Kaelen had not even ever mentioned Edward’s existence to Ryder, so why would the boy know this name?
Sane held his breath and asked softly: "Ryder, do you know Edward?"
Ryder raised his two forelimbs to scratch his head: "Edward, Edward... Uh... Who is Edward?"
Ryder ruffled the fur on his head into a mess, so confused that he lost control of his Beast Energy, sometimes transforming into human form, sometimes shifting back into mouse form, flickering on and off like a torch in the wind. A moment later, Ryder finally stabilized and giggled: "Hehe, I don’t know."
Finnick and Oliver secretly breathed a sigh of relief. *Thank goodness, this mouse was just a little short-circuited.*
Sane and Kaelen looked at each other, and Kaelen said: "Perhaps Ryder heard it at the nursery. After all, children are carefree and don’t have as many taboos as adults."
"That’s probably it. I’ll take the children to wash up."
Kaelen nodded, went into the kitchen to pour the millet soaked since last night into the pot, and lit a fire to cook porridge. While waiting for the porridge to cook, he went to brush his teeth and wash his face.
In the bathroom, Ryder bared his teeth to let Sane help him brush them, while in his heart still not forgetting to ponder over the name Edward. This name was too familiar; not only had he heard it somewhere, but perhaps he had even called it out many times.
The mouse cub’s eyes went blank, the two small ears on his head pressing flat against the back of his neck, and he even swallowed toothpaste without realizing it.
