Chapter 82: The Cursed, Cranky, Very Pregnant Female

[Two Weeks Later]

[Thousand Fang Village]

[Bai Yue’s Patience Level: -5000%]

“This is your fault.”

Bai Yue glared at Han Shān from across the hut. The Snow Leopard Alpha had the audacity to look pleased with himself, a small, satisfied smile tugging at his usually stoic lips.

“It takes two to make a cub,” he rumbled.

“I was TIRED! You ambushed me in a HOT SPRING!”

“You said yes.”

“I said yes to ONE TIME. Not to—” she counted on her fingers, face going red, “—EVERY NIGHT FOR A WEEK.”

Han Shān’s ears twitched. “I was ensuring success. Zhāo Yàn was being competitive.”

“ZHĀO YÀN DOESN’T EVEN—” Bai Yue stopped, sneezed violently, grabbed her lower back and groaned. “I hate everything. I hate pregnancy. I hate that my body is turning into a waddling furnace. I hate that I’m CRAVING things that don’t exist in this dimension. I want RASPBERRY CHEESECAKE and no one here even knows what a CHEESE is!”

From the doorway, a small, scaly head appeared.

“Cursed Female is yelling again,” Shé Yì observed.

“Cursed Female is always yelling now,” Shé Èr agreed. “Father says it’s because she’s cooking a baby.”

“We brought water.”

Two gourds slid across the floor, pushed by tiny snake tails. Bai Yue looked at them. Looked at the twins. Her furious expression cracked, just slightly.

“…Thank you.”

The twins beamed and slithered away.

~

The village had adapted to Pregnant Bai Yue the way one adapts to a volcano that might erupt at any moment.

Han Shān’s strategy: Be present, be useful, stay slightly out of arm’s reach. He would taken to bringing her furs (she was always hot now, so this backfired), snow-chilled rocks (better), and silently standing behind her so she could lean against him when her back hurt. He was also, apparently, making a list.

“I have considered names,” he announced one evening at dinner.

Bai Yue paused mid-chew. “We talked about this. We are waiting until we know what it is.”

“Fifteen names,” Han Shān continued, pulling a rolled hide from his belt. “For a son. Fifteen more for a daughter.”

“How many of them are just ’Snow’ something?”

Han Shān’s ears went pink. He did not answer.

Ruì Xuě, sitting beside his father, bounced excitedly. “Papa let me help! I suggested Snowball Junior!”

“You suggested that six times.”

“Because it’s a GOOD name!”

Beside them, Yòu Lín was sulking. The little fox kit had been sulking for two weeks straight. He sat with his arms crossed, his tiny tail drooping, glaring at Bai Yue’s stomach like it had personally offended him.

Zhāo Yàn, lounging nearby, watched his son with an expression that was trying very hard to be patient.

“Yòu Lín,” Bai Yue sighed. “What’s wrong now?”

“Nothing.”

“It’s not nothing. You’ve been making that face since we got back.”

“WHAT FACE.”

“The ’I’m plotting something but I’m five so it’s probably not going to work’ face.”

Yòu Lín’s lower lip trembled. “You already have a baby.”

Bai Yue blinked. “I… yes. That’s… that’s what pregnant means.”

“Ruì Xuě gets the baby.” Yòu Lín pointed accusingly at the snow leopard cub. “He called it first. He gets to be big brother. I’m just… I’m just HERE.”

The hut went quiet.

Ruì Xuě tilted his head, his purple eyes going wide. “You can be big brother too, dummy.”

“But it’s YOUR baby.”

“It’s EVERYONE’S baby.” Ruì Xuě said firmly. “Mama said families share. So we share the baby. You can teach it to pounce and I’ll teach it to hide in snow and Hóng Yè can teach it to make grumpy faces.”

From the corner, where Hóng Yè was sharpening a stick with unnecessary aggression: “I DO NOT MAKE GRUMPY FACES.”

“You are making one right now.”

“This is my RESTING FACE.”

Yòu Lín sniffled and looked at Bai Yue. “Can I really be big brother too?”

Bai Yue’s heart, which had been a shriveled raisin of pregnancy rage for two weeks, suddenly expanded three sizes. She held out her arms. “Come here, you ridiculous tiny fox.”

Yòu Lín launched himself at her, immediately pressing his ear to her belly. “Hello, baby. It’s me. I’m Yòu Lín. I’m going to be your favorite brother. Ruì Xuě can be second favorite.”

“HEY!”

~

The next morning.

Bai Yue’s Patience Level: Still critically low.

She was hot. She was tired. Her back hurt. Her feet were swelling. And someone, she suspected Hóng Yè, in an attempt to be helpful, had left a stack of firewood directly in her path so she had tripped and nearly face-planted.

“Who put that there?!” she yelled at the empty path.

From behind a bush: “…I was trying to help.”

“HÓNG YÈ.”

The teenager emerged, looking deeply offended. “It’s for the fire! For warmth! For YOU!”

“I am ALWAYS hot! I am a walking furnace! I do not need MORE WARMTH!”

Hóng Yè’s ears flattened. He looked genuinely hurt, and Bai Yue immediately felt like garbage. The pregnancy hormones were making her snap at everyone, and the worst part was she couldn’t even blame them, she was the one being awful.

She took a breath. Let it out. Waddled over to him.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry. I’m just—” she gestured at herself, “—this. It’s not you. You’re being helpful. I’m being a monster.”

Hóng Yè stared at her. Then, slowly, his expression softened into something that was trying very hard to look unaffected.

“You are not a monster,” he muttered. “Monsters don’t apologize.”

He picked up the firewood and carried it to the hut without another word, but his tail was wagging slightly.

Bai Yue watched him go, something warm settling in her chest despite the heat.

~

That afternoon.

The village was quiet. .

Bai Yue sat on a log near the central fire, fanning herself with a large leaf, trying not to think about how her woven skirt no longer fit quite right. Eight more weeks. Eight more weeks of this. She could do this. She could—

“Sssss. Cursed Female.”

She looked down. Shé Yì and Shé Èr were there, holding another gourd of water.

“You look hot,” Shé Yì said.

“Very hot,” Shé Èr agreed. “Like a lizard in the sun.”

“Mother said to bring water and also to tell you that if you need to scream, the snake pits are very echoey and no one will hear you.”

Bai Yue stared at them. “Your mother… said that?”

“Yes. She said pregnancy is terrible and she screamed into a cave for three days when she was carrying us.”

“That’s… actually really comforting. Thank your mother for me.”

The twins nodded seriously and slithered away.

Later that afternoon, when Bai Yue was in her shade and trying to not murder anyone, Han Shān appeared beside her and sat down. He said nothing.

This was, Bai Yue had learned, his version of “I’m here if you need me.” She appreciated it. She also wanted to throw something at his perfectly composed face.

“Stop looking so smug.”

“I am not smug.”

“You’re thinking about names again.”

“…I am not.”

“Your ears are twitching.”

Han Shān’s ears immediately went still. Too late. Bai Yue snorted.

“I am not naming this baby anything ridiculous,” she said. “No Snowball Junior. No Frostbite. No Glacier.”

“Glacier is a strong name.”

“It’s a weather pattern.”

“For a son? Strong. Powerful. Unmoving.”

“I am not naming my child after a large chunk of ice.”

Han Shān considered this. “What about… Icicle?”

“ABSOLUTELY NOT.”

Ruì Xuě, who had been playing nearby, scampered over. “Papa, did you suggest Icicle again? He’s been suggesting Icicle for two weeks, Mama. I told him it was bad.”

Han Shān shot his son a look of deepest betrayal.

“It’s a good name.”

“It’s a terrible name,” Bai Yue and Ruì Xuě said in unison.

Evening.

Bai Yue was trying to sleep. Key word: trying.

Her body was too hot. Her mind was too loud. The cubs had been put to bed hours ago, but she could still hear Yòu Lín whispering to Ruì Xuě about “baby strategies” through the hut walls.

And now someone was at her door.

She groaned. “If that’s Zhāo Yàn coming to ’check on me’ again, I’m going to—”

The hide curtain lifted.

But it wasn’t Zhāo Yàn.

The figure that stepped into the moonlight was massive, broader than Han Shān, taller than any man she had seen in this village. Dark fur lined his massive shoulders. His eyes, amber and cold, swept over her with an expression that was part disgust, part curiosity.

Behind him, two more figures emerged from the shadows. Warriors. Armed.

Bai Yue’s blood went cold. Her hand instinctively went to her stomach.

“Well, well,” the man drawled, his voice a deep, rumbling growl that vibrated through the hut. “If it isn’t the cursed female.”

He stepped closer, and the firelight caught his face.

The Bear King.

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