The White Tiger Clan’s Baby Cotton Ball - Chapter 159

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 159

Thud.

Jeok Ayun’s knees buckled and his body collapsed straight onto the room floor.

Fear gradually filled his two eyes as he stared at the stiff gray feather.

“N-no…”

His thick Adam’s apple bobbed noticeably up and down.

“No, that’s… Why is that…”

Unable to keep looking at it, he squeezed his eyes shut then opened them, looking around with a bewildered face.

“Ah… Aah…”

Soon his face gradually turned deathly pale.

This room… was the room where Soya had stayed until she was six years old.

“Aaaah…”

Just as birds in nature build nests for their young, bird beast-people also considered decorating rooms for babies to be born a very important matter.

He remembered.

The times he had waited for the child to be born, pondering together with his pregnant wife about what furniture to put in this room.

Madam had woven a Baby Bird’s nest with straw she had personally gathered, placing it beside the baby’s crib.

She did this even knowing there was still a very long time left before the child would grow up and perform their First Beast Transformation.

After Madam died, it was none other than him who completed the Baby Bird’s nest.

He had flown all the way to Madam’s hometown to gather straw and flowers to decorate the Baby Bird’s nest.

However, he could find neither Madam’s touch that should have remained throughout the room, nor any traces that Soya had once stayed here.

“Ugh, huk, uk, uhuk…”

Everything, he could find nothing.

“Uaaaaaaah!”

Jeok Ayun’s anguished cry echoed through the room where only the cuckoo’s feathers remained.

Jeok Ayun pounded his breaking chest with his fists.

He struck violently enough to leave bruises, but even so, he couldn’t control his emotions.

“Soya. Soya. Soya. My baby. I, I did this to you… Uhuk, huk, huk uhhuuk…”

As he sobbed, the cuckoo feather that had been flaunting its presence in the same spot came into his view.

“Cuckoo…”

Jeok Ayun, who had been staring at it blankly, suddenly stood up and staggered toward the cuckoo feather.

“I need to remove the cuckoo… I need to erase the cuckoo’s traces…”

Then suddenly his legs swayed, and his large body fell ungracefully to the floor.

Crash—!

This caused the side table to overturn, pottery to break, and the entire room to become a disaster.

Even so, he staggered up again and this time fell toward the bedside, stepping on pottery shards.

Thump—!

The pillowcase placed on top tore, and the gray feathers hidden inside all spilled out at once.

For the past two years, Lili had been suppressing her Beast Transformation, and she had secretly hidden the gray feathers that occasionally fell from her body here.

“…”

Lili’s gray feathers, his undeniable karma, fluttered gently in the air.

Jeok Ayun sat down again with a devastated face and stared at them.

One of them settled on the back of his hand.

Thick tears flowed down along his eyes.

How much time had passed?

Crackle—

A small flame sparked on the damp floor.

Crackle, crackle— Whoosh—!

The small flame that started in Lili’s Room gradually grew and engulfed the entire estate.

“Fi-fire!”

“Family Head! Family Head, you must evacuate quickly…!”

The screams of the Household Members could be heard from outside, but Jeok Ayun remained unmoved in the same spot.

Crack, thud!

A burning rafter fell down, and hot flames clung to his body.

“Kugh, huk…”

In the terrible pain of his flesh melting away, he was gritting his teeth and letting out only agonized groans when

Someone pulled him out of the flames.

“Have you truly lost your mind!”

A familiar voice rang in his dazed ears.

However, Jeok Ayun could not see the other person’s face.

The hot flames had melted the flesh of his eyelids so one eye couldn’t see, and his other intact eye also had blurred vision.

“Don’t you think that if you die, that child will carry a burden in her heart for life?”

The man who had rescued Jeok Ayun from the flames gritted his teeth and shouted.

That voice seemed both like he was angry at him and like he was crying sadly.

“You don’t even have the right to die.”

It was such a strange voice where sorrow and anger coexisted.

“So don’t die.”

The man supported Jeok Ayun and moved forward while sobbing like that.

“Live.”

He gradually felt the hot flames growing distant.

“Please live for a long, long time. Even if it’s for Soya’s sake.”

“So…”

Jeok Ayun, who had been silent the whole time, reacted to that name and squeezed out an agonized voice.

“ya… My, ah…”

A fishy smell of blood came up from his severely damaged throat.

“Ga, uk… Huk, uhhuuk…”

Beast-like cries of anguish occasionally leaked through his teeth, and bloody tears mixed with pus dripped from his crushed eye.

In a hell fire more devastating than the hot flames that had devoured the estate, a father who had abandoned his child shed tears of blood.

* * *

“Look at this! Jjaedori seems to be all better now!”

Gayul, who had woken up in the morning and was rubbing his eyes while checking the sparrow’s leg, exclaimed in a proud voice.

“Really, it’s walking well while chirping.”

Su Ri quietly approached Gayul’s side and looked with curious eyes.

“Hmph, this bean-sized little thing. I got hurt like this because of you!”

Then he immediately showed his finger that had been injured by the sparrow’s pecking recently and made a reproachful sound.

“You really have nothing nice to say to a small sparrow.”

“I’m not saying anything wrong, am I?”

“Still, how can you whine like this to such a tiny sparrow? And you’re supposed to be a wolf.”

“It’s not whining, it really hurt. Even though I look like this, I’m still a baby wolf who hasn’t undergone Second Growth Stage yet.”

“What kind of baby are you? Where in the world is there a baby as big as you? You’re even older than me.”

“But Young Master, even though you’re fifteen, you smiled happily when Cheongha called you ‘our baby.'”

“Anyway, don’t act like a baby. You’re not cute at all, just disgusting.”

Gayul and Su Ri bickered with the sparrow in front of them.

But the sparrow couldn’t understand their words and just chirped cutely.

“Chirp chirp!”

The sparrow flapped its small wings, asking for attention from him too.

“Aww, our Jjaedori. You were bored because Elder Brother was only talking to that wolf.”

Gayul tended to the sparrow with a gentle voice quite different from when he dealt with Su Ri.

“Come here, Jjaedori! I’ll introduce you to Cotton Ball!”

Gayul spoke in a triumphant voice while extending his hand.

“Chirp?”

However, instead of perching on his palm, Jjaedori only tilted his head.

“Cotton Ball is, you know, tiny like you, cute, pretty… But she’s the bravest and most wonderful little sister in the world!”

“Chirp?”

“The recent incident at the Imperial Palace was all resolved by our Cotton Ball! Jjaedori, if it weren’t for our Cotton Ball… Ugh, I don’t even want to imagine it.”

Gayul shook his head vigorously.

“Chirrrp?”

Gayul quickly scooped up Jjaedori, who still couldn’t understand his words and only made bird sounds.

Then he rushed toward Soya’s room, carrying the chirping Jjaedori.

“Cotton Ball!”

Gayul burst open the door and beamed at Soya.

“Look at this, Jjaedori has gotten completely healthy!”

“Oh my, really?”

Soya, who had been sitting by the window, smiled brightly and approached Gayul.

Then Jjaedori, who had been chirping and struggling in his grasp, gradually stopped his wing flapping and…

“Trill, trillll—”

Began to sing prettily along with Soya.

It was quite different from how he acted toward Gayul.

“That sparrow seems to like Young Lady more than Young Master, doesn’t he?”

Su Ri, who had followed Gayul, poked his head out and asked.

“Of course! All birds love Cotton Ball!”

Though Su Ri’s words contained a playful intent to tease him, Gayul, who didn’t catch on to that intention, proudly puffed out his chest.

“Actually, isn’t Cotton Ball the prettiest bird among all birds? That’s why she’s so popular with birds. Just like how I’m the most handsome tiger among all tigers.”

“Who says that? That Young Master is the most handsome tiger?”

“Mother said so.”

Gayul answered with a giggle.

“Ah, yes…”

Su Ri replied in a somewhat irreverent tone and turned his gaze away from Gayul.

“But Seolyeo is nowhere to be seen again?”

“Seolyeo probably went to the pond area again.”

Soya, who had been stroking Jjaedori’s head feathers, looked back at Su Ri and said.

“That guy has been looking for something for several days now, right?”

“Yes, even when I offer to help, he keeps running away by himself, you know?”

Remembering Seolyeo from this morning who had sneakily run away to avoid her following, Soya felt somewhat hurt and pouted.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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