Chapter – 55
Estrus Period
Li Qingqing hurried after him.
“Why do you care about that little brat? With his strength, nothing will happen to him!” Xiao Ziye shouted as he followed behind her.
Chi Lin and Ling Mo also caught up.
As soon as they entered the Netherworld Forest, thick fog surged around them.
“Bai Yuan!” Li Qingqing shouted loudly.
But no one answered.
Ling Mo wasn’t worried. “His strength is above ours. There’s no need to worry about him getting into trouble.”
Chi Lin nodded. “Besides, this isn’t his first time coming to the Netherworld Forest.”
Li Qingqing knew all this, yet she still felt uneasy, as if Bai Yuan had been upset by something.
She felt she should catch up and comfort him.
Xiao Ziye suddenly caught a familiar scent nearby. “That bastard Mo Li is here.”
He said it through gritted teeth.
Ling Mo didn’t know about Mo Li feeding Li Qingqing the passion fruit. “What did Mo Li do to provoke you again?”
“He made Qingqing eat a passion fruit.”
It was Chi Lin who said this.
Xiao Ziye immediately looked at him, surprised that Li Qingqing had told him about it so quickly.
Ling Mo frowned, unable to believe that Mo Li—who usually looked harmless—would do such a thing.
“I’m going to kill him right now!” Xiao Ziye said as he turned to go look for Mo Li.
Ling Mo rationally grabbed him. “Don’t be impulsive. We can’t kill our own kind!”
Xiao Ziye shook him off. “Relax. I won’t go for the kill.”
Chi Lin was no calmer about the matter. Thinking that Mo Li absolutely couldn’t be let off, he followed Xiao Ziye as well.
In an instant, only Ling Mo and Li Qingqing were left where they were.
Ling Mo’s way of doing things was very old-fashioned, like a seasoned cadre. It was hard to tell that he was the same age as Xiao Ziye and Chi Lin.
Being alone together made things a little awkward.
Suddenly, Li Qingqing felt a sharp pain in her abdomen.
She frowned and squatted down.
The sudden spread of a bloody scent in the air made them both understand what was happening.
Ling Mo’s face flushed at once. The smell of blood was extremely tempting to him.
To be precise, in this world, a female’s menstrual period was also her estrus period. The scent of menstrual blood would stimulate males.
During estrus, the abdomen would ache intensely, and only mating with a male could relieve the pain.
Ling Mo’s self-control had always been strong, but even so, the smell made his heart race. “I… I’ll take you back?”
Li Qingqing was already in so much pain that she couldn’t stand. She looked at him with watery eyes. “It hurts…”
Ling Mo could only hoist her onto his back with one arm.
He forced himself to stay rational and not breathe in her scent.
Along the way, Li Qingqing’s scent attracted many males from other tribes.
They hadn’t mated with any females for days—how could they endure the sudden smell of estrus?
After following the scent with great effort, they discovered that the one in heat was actually Li Qingqing, lying on Ling Mo’s back.
“Get lost!” Ling Mo roared.
He frightened all those males away.
Li Qingqing’s lower abdomen felt as if it were being stabbed by needles, fine beads of sweat forming on her forehead.
“Ling Mo, it hurts so much…” she cried weakly.
Ling Mo was also extremely uncomfortable, but he didn’t want to take advantage of her.
He carefully put her down. “I’ll go find you some motherwort.”
After watching him leave, Li Qingqing propped herself up and sat upright.
If some male suddenly appeared now, she’d be done for.
“Qingqing?”
She looked over to see Bai Yuan emerging from the fog.
He was holding prey in his hands. When he caught the scent on Li Qingqing, he immediately covered his nose—it was far too tempting.
“You’re in heat?”
Li Qingqing was in too much pain to answer.
Bai Yuan squatted down and placed his large hand on her lower abdomen.
He gently kneaded it. “Does this feel a bit better?”
Bai Yuan’s hand was very warm, and the massage really did ease her pain somewhat.
For some reason, as he kept rubbing, the atmosphere began to change.
The distance between them grew smaller and smaller, until they were almost touching.
Bai Yuan seemed to be intoxicated by the scent. His eyes were tinged with desire, his breathing uneven.
The hand that had been on her abdomen began to move upward unconsciously.
“Qingqing!” Ling Mo’s voice rang out.
Bai Yuan hastily pulled his hand back.
Ling Mo returned with the motherwort and saw Bai Yuan. “Good that we found you. Don’t keep sulking and running off.”
He brought the motherwort to Li Qingqing’s mouth. “Chew it. Swallowing it will help.”
Li Qingqing obediently put the herb into her mouth. After chewing a few times, the strong herbal bitterness spread.
Bai Yuan’s heart was still burning. He irritably brushed his hair back.
“Bai Yuan.” Li Qingqing supported herself as she stood up.
Her steps were unsteady.
Both Bai Yuan and Ling Mo quickly moved to support her.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have treated you like a child. I won’t do it again.”
Bai Yuan lowered his head and gave a soft hum, his thoughts unreadable.
When the three of them left the Netherworld Forest, Xiao Ziye and Chi Lin still hadn’t returned.
“They won’t have run into trouble, right?” Li Qingqing asked worriedly.
“If I were you, worrying about this and that all day, I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night,” Ling Mo said.
He wasn’t wrong. Maybe she really was overthinking things.
Some males outside the Netherworld Forest were eyeing her greedily.
Li Qingqing told the two of them to stand guard, then went behind a tree and changed into a sanitary pad.
She didn’t know if this would help.
“Do I still smell that strong?” she asked.
Ling Mo sniffed the air a few times. “Not really. How did you manage that?”
Li Qingqing didn’t answer. She suddenly missed the tribe. For some reason, she had a bad feeling.
Yet she also felt that something was about to happen here.
They waited and waited, but Chi Lin and Xiao Ziye still didn’t return. Night was about to fall.
“They didn’t lose to Mo Li, did they…” As she spoke, Li Qingqing looked around. Indeed, there was no sign of Mo Li either.
Nor of Xiao Ya…
None of the White Snake Tribe members had returned.
A bold guess suddenly formed in her mind. Could it be…
“Oh no, something’s happened…” Li Qingqing looked at the two of them. “This was a trap set by Xiao Ya and Mo Li!”
At that, Ling Mo understood. Pan Da’s death was probably connected to them as well.
There was no time to hesitate. The three of them re-entered the Netherworld Forest.
The sky was already darkening, making the forest even harder to navigate.
The three of them held onto a wooden stick together, afraid that one of them might get separated.
Ling Mo and Bai Yuan sniffed around for the two men’s scent.
They kept moving deeper inside.
Something was definitely wrong. When Xiao Ziye and Chi Lin had gone to look for Mo Li, the path they took was clearly toward the exit.
But now, following their scent, they were heading further inward.
As the scent grew stronger, the sound of fighting suddenly reached their ears.
“Something really happened,” Li Qingqing cursed under her breath and quickened her pace with them.
She lit a torch. The fog dispersed somewhat, and before long, they saw a crowd gathered ahead.
Xiao Ziye was badly injured, his clothes soaked in blood.
Because of exhaustion, he couldn’t maintain his beast form.
Chi Lin lay on the ground. Whether he was alive or dead was unknown.
