109 4.26

"Ah!" 

Meng Meng quickly reaches up to steady Tang Muxin, his large warm hands holding her waist and lower back firmly. Tang Muxin however wasn't so self conscious about it, too absorbed in trying not to fall off Mei Mei the horse. 

Once she feels more stable she looks down at Meng Meng gratefully. "Thank you," 

Meng Meng nods curtly, "It isn't a problem, try leaning forward and find your centre of balance."

If a stranger passed by they would find this scene of a handsome man teaching the pretty young girl how to ride a horse rather ambiguous and full of subtle romantic air. Unfortunately Meng Meng was written as a straight steel man who was incompetent with feelings and Tang Muxin was a protagonist who didn't have a male lead and therefore never awakened her awareness to men or some bullshit. 

Jia Hyson tsk-ed, flicking out his little forked tongue. He didn't know if Duan Mengyao will continue to fulfill his destiny as a supporting male lead or surpass the heavens and turn into a proper male lead for Tang Muxin but at the very least they can't ditch him anymore. Even if Jia Hyson felt that the man was a bit too lame to be a male lead, Tang Muxin seems to like him well enough and there was so much playing god he could do given the situation. 

Jia Hyson: 'Hah, you can play with people's lives but it's difficult to play with their hearts.'

Bebe: 눈_눈 'Did you just quote yourself from a previous book?'

Jia Hyson: 'Bebe, cut me a slack, it's still my words okay? Theres a limited amount of poignancy in the world, it's fine to reuse and recycle a bit.' 

Bebe: 'Heh.' 

Seeing that his relationship with his system is full of thorns, scum Hyson immediately ran away to be comforted in the arms of his little lover. 

Wife Bebe: 'Oi, who says Bebe was blind enough to marry you?' 

Little lover Da Gong: '...' This rooster was promised an official title. Don't make laozi into a little three all of a sudden. 

"Brother Gong~" Jia Hyson nuzzled into his neck feathers, chirping coquettishly, "Aiyah, you're really the best~♡, let's hug oka~y?"

Little lover Da Gong: '...'

Da Gong puffed up his feathers to become even fluffier to the touch, "Whatever you want baby." 

"Brother Gong! You're so good to me ahhh!" (」,,,> ♡ <,,)」< p>

Tang Muxin who was in range and can telepathically hear Jia Hyson: '...' 

Fuck! Why is it that she feels her fellow male transmigrator is more of a green tea bitch cheering for her sugar daddy?!

"Is there something wrong?" 

Tang Muxin looks at Meng Meng who looked back at her with faint concern and blushed a little. Over the past few weeks she had accumulated a lot of goodwill towards this man. 

As a supporting male lead, while a bit dull in comparison to the other supporting male leads, Duan Mengyao had a good character. He liked strong independent women and did not discriminate as much as other men of ancient times. There was a natural bias of course, it would be a miracle to find a man who fully believed in the existence of gender equality in this patriarchal era, but he was good enough. Trainable and obedient. In short, very cute. 

"No, it's nothing," she denies with a smile. "I was just looking at Jin Bao and Da Gong spread their daily serving of dog food." 

Meng Meng chuckles. After so many days living together, both him and Cao Huizhong have gotten more or less used to the strange pairing of rooster and lizard. It had become normal to joke about their overly affectionate interactions. "That rooster is really..." he shakes his head exasperatedly. 

While he still didn't have all his memories he can confidently say he had never met such a rooster like this in his life. 

After all, this was a rooster who was as strong as a grown man ah! No, even grown men would struggle to take down a horse with no weapons but this bird, tsk, forget taking them down he can make them kneel and cry daddy! 

A week ago while traveling on the road they encountered bandits. It wasn't surprising. The carriage they used was bigger than before and it was clearly full of items. Plus there were only two able bodied men, a cripple and a woman taking care of the cargo. Who wouldn't normally see this group as a fat pig ready for slaughter? 

Unfortunately, this fat pig had a big wolf.... and that wolf was actually a rooster. 

Meng Meng and Tang Muxin who were ready to fight and show off their innate strength, honed fighting skills and natural abilities could only pull down two bandits each before Da Gong flew up and scratched the flesh off the bandit leader's throat. 

Not only did they not get to flex their character strengths and cement their status as being a useful member of the group, they even had to be stuffed with dog food as the fierce chicken pretended to be a weak chicken feigning injury in front of the damn lizard! 

Jia Hyson who was hidden and guarded by the animals at the time (orders from Da Gong) had genuinely been a bit frightened. He had heard a lot of Da Gong's strength but he had never seen it before. And even if Da Gong was stronger than the average rooster, no matter what, birds had hollow bones and a lack of flexibility due to the their skeletal structure. These bandits had knives and swords ah! 

You can't just bring a chicken to a knife fight and expect to win okay?! 

With his new baby dragon strength Jia Hyson had wanted to rush out to help but the sharp eyed eighth prince had grabbed him at the time. Even if his stats were boosted he was still a baby unfortunately. Maybe he could've slipped out from Ye Cheng or even Tang Muxin's hands who would have hesitated to hurt him but to the rather ruthless and annoyingly strong Yan Huizhong, he could only struggle and squeal in anger. 

Jia Hyson: 'Wuwuwu you beast! Where are you touching? Let go! I need to save my family's Da Gong!'

The beast Yan Huizhong who can only hear baby lizard screeches: 'Huh. This thing is actually pretty cute.' 

Of course in retrospect what Yan Huizhong did was probably the best. Jia Hyson hasn't shown any skills other than selling meng and holding golden (chicken) thighs. He would only needlessly distract and worry others if he made an appearance with his eye catching golden body. 

However that meant Jia Hyson could only hear the fight and didn't have much information. Of course he had Bebe but Bebe's commentary was... very lacking. 

Bebe, eating melon seeds: 'Aahhh! Watch out! No! To the left! Dodge it! Aaaah why didn't you dodge?! Oh damn that's so smart! Fuck! Ah, ah, ah! Too damn exciting!' 

Jia Hyson who got no information: '...' Fucking useless system, why on earth do I even let you steal my data? 

By the time the fighting finally ended Jia Hyson could only rush out the carriage and check the rooster worriedly for any injuries. By now his dependence on the bird after only a few weeks had probably reached what took Sefu years to accomplish (Sefu shard: _:(´ཀ`」∠):_ suddenly hit from nowhere, critical hit). 

Jia Hyson: 'Are you okay? Did you get hurt? Why did you rush out like that? You have to be more careful aiyah!' 

Da Gong stares at his frantic looking little worm contemplatively for a few seconds before immediately pretending to totter around as if exhausted before falling to his side. "Pain," he clucks pitifully.

Tang Muxin and Meng Meng who watched Da Gong take down at least nine bandits without a scratch: '...' 

An emperor on the battlefield and a queen in drama. Is there nothing Da Gong will conquer? 

The pair of animals then proceeded to enact out a scene filled with sweet dog food as Da Gong points out to all the ruffled feathers on his body pretending they're body wounds and Jia Hyson following along by carefully grooming and petting him. 

Jia Hyson: 'Does it still hurt?'

Da Gong: 'Hurt.' ( ಠ⊝ಠ )

Jia Hyson, brushing the broken feathers out carefully with his claws, 'Better?'

Da Gong: 'No.' (,,ಠ⊝ಠ,,)

Jia Hyson, shyly licking the 'injury': 'Now?'

Da Gong: 'En.' ("ˆ ³(,,ಠ⊝ಠ,,) ♡

Tang Muxin, a bruised and battered fellow transmigrator who is literally bonded to the ingrate of a dragon through their soul: '...' Fucking useless mascot, why on earth do I even feed you? 

This memory was deeply engraved into the hearts of everyone but Ye Cheng and his group who were used to the absurd OP-ness of their family's Da Gong merely waved it off as another memory. To them, the only thing unique about this scene is when Da Gong decided to shamelessly spread dog food with his lizard friend which also made them speechless. 

After all, they knew Da Gong was a tyrant, but who knew he was also moonlighting as a film emperor too?! 

It's really inconceivable how talented this fucking rooster was.

Da Gong: 'Cluck.' 

Anyway, the point is, even the physically skilled general and the arrogant eighth prince could not help but feel a bit of respect and awe for such an amazing big cock. 

Not only does the cock have great attack power, he also has stamina and technique, able to easily aim for the weak spots in a man causing them to cry out and kneel. Yan Huizhong and Duan Mengyao (if he had his memory restored) could only admit that even some of their less skilled soldiers could only beg down and worship this tyrannical cock. 

Bebe: '...' For some reason Bebe feels like it should retort but Bebe isn't sure why. Almostbreakingthefourthwall.gif

To be honest, if Da Gong wasn't such a... rooster, Meng Meng and Yan Huizhong would treat him as a fellow warrior comrade or scheme to turn him into a loyal follower. 

In contrast, Tang Muxin who had a useless animal companion with human intelligence as a comrade had long reconstructed her three views and treated Da Gong like a little ancestor with minimum internal struggles by now. 

As for Ye Cheng… that pet slave had lost any trace of normal understanding to the intelligence levels of animals. It was even to a point where, when Tang Muxin finally mustered up the courage to tell Ye Cheng that Jia Hyson's dragon name is Jin Bao, the man didn't fight her but just went up to Jia Hyson to ask for his opinion. 

"They look like they're getting along really well." Ye Cheng mildly comments as he sips on some watery tea. He and Cao Huizhong were sitting on by the campfire, enjoying the evening breeze. Both of them weren't really inclined to athleticism, though in Cao Huizhong's case that was purely due to his current disabilities holding him back. So unlike Tang Muxin and Meng Meng who spend their free time exercising and training their body with Da Gong occasionally tagging along, Ye Cheng and Cao Huizhong were more inclined to chat and play various card and board games.

Tang Muxin, out of pure boredom, had introduced various easy tabletop games to pass the time and had earned her a lot of praise. Ye Cheng and Cao Huizhong were especially fond of them. Right now they were playing chess as they watched idly. 

Yan Huizhong took a glance at Tang Muxin laughing at something the general had said while the general watches her with a quite indulgent smile. He scoffs, "Fools go well with fools."

Ye Cheng maintains his smile, taking another sip of tea as he moves his knight across the board. Maybe it was because Tang Muxin carved the knight pieces as the typical horse appearance, but Ye Cheng was particularly fond of using it the most. 

Yan Huizhong who noticed that Ye Cheng had once again chosen to move his knight can't help but roll his eyes. Still, even though the knight was open to be attacked by his bishop, he silently ignores this freebie and moves a pawn one step forward on the opposite side of the board.

"I really thought you would've taken my knight ba," Ye Cheng sighs in relief, seeing the other man had carelessly failed to notice his disadvantage. Quickly he moves his knight to a safer spot. He protected his two horses better than he protected his king really. 

Clicking his tongue Yan Huizhong uses his queen to take down one of Ye Cheng's rooks skillfully. "I'm still not used to the game," he complains, "That Tang Muxin is really awful at explaining it. Of course I would have a few oversights now and then."

Ye Cheng's cat like eyes flicker over the reddening earlobes of the haughty noble man but doesn't say anything. The only indication to his thoughts was his widening smile. 

Surprisingly quite easy to read, tsk, tsk. It seems like it'll be another win for him ah. 

Under close quarters and the loneliness of long travel, it was inevitable everyone had gotten closer over time. And while there was naturally some preferences and clashes, the group was small enough that the relationships were not too complicated. It also helped there was an assortment of animals that could sell meng and diffuse the majority of any tension created. 

Jia Hyson who was now playing hide and seek with Da Gong and the other animals looked at the rather ambiguous scene between Tang Muxin and Duan Mengyao, and the rather soothing scene of an elderly couple starting Ye Cheng and Yan Huizhong, before sighing. This sort of ancient transmigration slice of life story that didn't solely revolve around cooking was actuality quite popular. It wouldn't be too bad to keep it up like this.

Unfortunately, as the protagonist, Tang Muxin had really not face many trials or tribulations. The only faceslapping that had ever occurred since she came was from Da Gong. It wouldn't be too bad but it was just that Da Gong had a tendency to faceslap Tang Muxin's face.

It was really very unbecoming of a protagonist. 

'Bebe..'

'For fucks sake Bebe is not going to use Bebe's limited abilities to scout out where the other animals are hiding.' Bebe snaps, 'Bebe does not condone cheating. Don't blame Bebe for not helping. It's not Bebe's fault you suck at hide and seek.' 

Jia Hyson: '...' This relationship is falling apart. 

'I wasn't going to ask about that,' Jia Hyson coughs embarrassingly. Though to be fair, he really was not very good at hide and seek. It wasn't that his senses were bad or anything, it was just that these animals were too powerful. They lived their whole lives in nature and their ability to camouflage was vital to their safety and ability to find food. Not to mention, save for Da Gong and Da Shen, everyone else but the horses that were busy with Tang Muxin and Meng Meng, was quite small. 

And he... was also quite small.

In short, hide and seek was very hard for this human in a baby liz- dragon's body! 

Jia Hyson scuttles around to try find someone while conversing with Bebe, 'It already been a while, why haven't we reached any towns yet?' In the past few weeks they've only come across two other rural villages. Jia Hyson felt like, while the story so far is quite comfortable and fluffy, too much may be a bit dull. Other than the bandit fight there wasn't many exciting points in this plot yet. It would be best to enter a town and do some faceslapping or something. 

'Host,' Bebe sighs, 'this isn't modern times where getting to the next city takes a day trip by car. You're using horses and carts now. It'll be impressive if you get to Beijing in three months honestly.' 

From Kaifeng to Beijing in modern times, the shortest distance of A to B is about 653km, loosely estimating about six to seven days travel by foot if you disregard the need to eat, sleep or human fatigue and injury. And this is when there are smooth pavements, roads and easy access to food and water. 

In this time period, Tang Muxin the protagonist, and Pan Shuchun, the original original protagonist haven't made any waves yet. In order for both these individuals to show off their haloes, the current climate of the country wasn't very good, especially in the rural areas. Bad weather conditions, sudden rainfalls and drought, rocky and or slippery roads, constant mountainous hills and bandits are everywhere like sprinkles on a children's birthday cake. 

Plus they had to make time to gather food, to set up camp, and to sleep. Not to mention they would spend a few days to a week in every settlement to stock up and trade for goods. To get from Kaifeng to Beijing would probably take ten times longer. Especially since the Huang River will not have any nice little engine boats to push them across either.

Of course, that stuff about crossing the river was not really a concern currently. Right now they haven't even reached Kaifeng yet. 

Jia Hyson who listens to this explanation with a blank face: '...' It seems he and geography will never be fated to understand each other. 

As a man who was used to taking the plane or taxi, and had also almost failed the map reading part of geography classes, Jia Hyson could calmly and honestly say, he really couldn't comprehend how long it would take to travel across half the county in ancient times. 

"Squeak!" 

Jia Hyson jumps in fright. So into his own thoughts about the travel situation and how the slow plot may affect the interests of the readers, he had accidentally found the hiding place of the fat field mouse Little Fatty and stepped on his tail. "Ah, sorry, sorry!" 

"Wuuu..." Little fatty clutches his tail and looks pitifully at Jia Hyson. "It's fine, luckily you're not as heavy as the others," 

Even though Jia Hyson grew a bit bigger thanks to Tang Muxin's cooking, he was still embarrassingly small as a dragon. It seems unless Tang Muxin improves her cooking technique or gains some ingredients with more spiritual energy, Jia Hyson's body won't grow. 

The only difference is that his scales are now a beautiful shining gold color now and his claws looked like they were carved from white jade. Even his tail hair was like a beautiful white paintbrush dipped in pearl powder. While the humans other than Tang Muxin have grown a little suspicious over what Jia Hyson was, the animals have already instinctively identified Jia Hyson as a dragon baby. 

If they treated him well before, they treated him like a little emperor now. The only one whose behavior was unchanged was Da Gong's, which puzzled Jia Hyson and Bebe somewhat. 

In short, while he hasn't become bigger the more he ate, he had become much more attractive ah. 

"Still," Jia Hyson felt a bit bad, for rodent's their tails are relatively more sensitive and delicate. Even if he wasn't using any strength and he wasn't that heavy, he couldn't retract his claws and and had accidentally gave the poor rat a small cut. "Let me lick it."

It must be said, after a while living as an animal, Jia Hyson has adapted fairly well. His first reaction to every small injury seemed to be using his tongue now. To be fair, his dragon saliva was really good. Not only did it have healing properties, it was antibacterial and still soft on the skin. Honestly, if it wasn't so disgusting and hard to explain, Tang Muxin who had now developed a small interest in being a merchant from Ye Cheng, would have suggested to bottle and sell his spit. 

Of course what wasn't disgusting wasn't really using dragon saliva. After all, bird's nest* is a popular medicinal drink many people love to consume, Jia Hyson included. But knowing that Jin Bao wasn't just an animal but one with a human soul, the thought becomes a little hard to swallow. Tis is the double standards of humanity. 

*Birds nest soup is a sweet medicinal drink that is named thus because the main ingredient is collected from the nests of swiftlets. That ingredient is the hardened saliva swiftlets used to put their nests together. Usually mixed with other ingredients like snow fungus, this dish is particularly prized in Chinese culture due to their rarity, high nutritional value in nutrients such as protein, and rich flavor. Mainly women, especially pregnant women will drink it for the collagen to supplement the skin (and the baby's skin). 

It is not necessarily a cruel practice either, as swiftlets will make nests and discard them 5-6 times a year so humans can pick up the leftovers and free up space for a new bird to build another nest. Of course there are some unscrupulous people but eh, isn't that the same with other things as well?

This author is also a fan and drank it when young. Unfortunately this author lives in Australia now so it's too difficult and expensive to get. Regret.jpeg 

Little Fatty, as a born and bred mouse did not object, and was even very flattered this small boss is willing to lick his injury. After all, one can interpret this as both animals having a good relationship as licking and grooming is often a very communal act for many animal groups. This clearly shows the small boss has him in his heart aiyo! Doesn't that mean he, this simple field mouse, is considered to be viewed on a similar level to this dragon? 

With excitement he lifted his tail and held it to Jia Hyson expectantly. 

His ancestor stepped on an ox* to reach fame and glory, if he became close friends with a dragon wouldn't he ascend straight to heaven?! 

*In the myth behind the Chinese zodiac, the order of animals was essentially determined through a race to the heavenly gate. The quick witted rat was in first place because he literally piggybacked on the diligent ox throughout the journey and when they reached the Heavenly gate, the rat jumped off the ox and dashed into first place. 

Funfact: In the story the rat also screwed over the cat (some stories say they were friends in the past some said the cat originally always bullied the rat) by not waking it up for the race, letting it miss the opportunity of a lifetime and that's also why the cat chases the rat. 

Jia Hyson was unaware of a little mouse's calculations and dropped his head down and licked the wound. 

[Ding, ding! Animal Charmer has increased to Level 3!] 

[Ding, ding! Cinderella's Little Helpers (Active) has increased to Level 2!]

Jia Hyson: ???

Simply put, [Animal Charmer] levels up when you become friendly with three or more individuals of one species. However there's a bit more to the requirements since many hosts have complied about the vagueness of certain skills' instructions on how to level up. For [Animal Charmer] one can improve it by successfully gaining a certain amount of favourability with at least three or more individuals of the same species, unlock a specific prerequisite or gain an incredibly high affection rating for one animal. 

In this case, Jia Hyson had managed to accomplish two of those- gaining a high affection rating and unlocking the prerequisite of healing a mouse and earning its gratitude and acknowledgement. To be honest the two are pretty interconnected as Little Fatty only increased it's loyalty and love because Jia Hyson was willing to heal itself who was of a much lower status than him. 

Of course if Jia Hyson wasn't a dragon, and just some lizard who happened to be doted on by Big Boss Da Gong, Little Fatty would have been a little appreciative but would not have increased his favourability as much. It's the difference between the dragon emperor bestowing favour on a subject and a concubine bestowing favour. One clearly would move an individual far more.

As for [Cinderella's Little Helpers (Active)]… to be honest Jia Hyson had forgotten about this skill. But once it appeared before his eyes he quickly remembered this skill he had randomly bought during the fairytale sale on Bebay. This skill summoned three helper mice who will become more and more capable the more they level up. In order to improve the level, one must shower them with affection, interact with them often, treat them well, and improve favourability. 

Since [Animal Charmer] naturally boosts the favourability of the animals he has befriended… it seems Jia Hyson had gotten lucky and killed two birds with one stone this time ah.

Bebe: 'You are the only host Bebe has seen that could level up this skill without even using it yet.' Even though upgrading from level 1 to level 2 for this skill was abnormally easy, you still had activated it and meet the summoned mice okay?! The whole point of level 1 to 2 was so you get acquainted with the summoned mice! Don't you feel the mice are very pitiful now??

Jia Hyson sensed the silent accusation in his system's words. After so many years with this naggy system he can more or less hear all the unspoken tsukkomi* that it wanted to express. He touches his snout guiltily with a claw.

*Boke and tsukkomi are Japanese terms loosely equivalent to the roles of "funny man" or "comic" (boke) and "straight man" (tsukkomi) in the comedy duos of western culture. It's the person who points out the ridiculousness of somebody's actions/words.

"Little Boss, you're so amazing! My wound is already healing so fast oh!" Little Fatty admires loudly. Little Fatty was genuinely impressed, it had seen the little dragon lick Da Gong a lot but because of the feathers how could anyone tell if the dragon's saliva had such good healing properties? In his heart, Litty Fatty gives two big thumbs up to himself for holding this golden thigh early. Really! So good!

"En," Jia Hyson says absentmindedly, not really bothering to look at how the fat mouse was twirling around, admiring the rapidly healing cut on it's tail. He was too busy looking at the [Cinderella's Little Helpers (Active)] skill in contemplation. "Hey, Little Fatty, want to see a magic trick?"

While Little Fatty wasn't really sure what magic was, the fat mouse with it's simple calculations and now almost blind loyalty to Jia Hyson just nodded it's head eagerly. "Of course! I want to see whatever Little Boss wants to show me!" It cheers.

"Sounds, good," Jia Hyson nods approvingly at the fanaticism. "Okay let me just…"

Suddenly in front of Jia Hyson, a faint light blue magic circle glowed on the grass. The glow seemed to be filled with special effects as you can see sparkles in the light of the glow like a light show at night… it was a little cartoon-y ah. 

The sparkles quickly condense and turn into a swirl of sparkly light, spiralling upwards and producing three mice from thin air. Jia Hyson narrows his eyes at this surprisingly magical summoning. This, wasn't this almost the same effect as Cinderella's dress transformation scene from a certain big mouse's company?! There was even soft music that should be the same as in the movie too!

Fuck, they really aren't scared of copyright ah!

Bebe: '…' ಠ_ಠ

Jia Hyson crawls closer to the three little mice. Maybe because the level is low they look like infant mice. Not so young that they're pink and wrinkly but young enough that they were tiny and seemed like they had just grown in their fur. 

They looked very cute but at the same time, they were clearly just normal brown field mice like Little Fatty. The only thing that made them stand out was that they were all wearing something golden dragon themed in some manner. Mouse 1 was wearing a gold scale patterned vest. Mouse 2 had golden gloves. And Mouse 3 was the most eccentric- it was like his brown fur was lightly sprayed with some gold paint and his back was styled so it looked like it had spikes running down it similar to typical western dragons.

Jia Hyson: '…' Well at least he can pick them out of a lineup then.

'The mice are given the most basic appearance as brown field mice.' Bebe quickly informs him with the attitude of an attentive retail worker working on commission, 'Their default outfits will generally match with host's current identity but don't worry host. Once you level them up or are willing to spend some points we can unlock the wardrobe function and alter the appearance and outfits of the mice. Of course the higher the level or the more you're willing to spend, there will be more options. Personality is randomised though. If you wish to change that you have to reset the skill and re-summon all three again.'

Jia Hyson: '.....' Isn't this just an advanced mouse version of any virtual raise your own pet game ever then?

"Cinderelly!" Mouse 1 squeaks joyfully. The other two mice also follow suit with equal enthusiasm. 

"Cinderelly!" "Cinderelly!"

Jia Hyson: '...….' Fuck, he did vaguely remember that being called this was non-negotiable was in the description. But he really thought it was a joke!

Systems! You can create mice with random personalities and custom outfits but you can't make them change the way they refer to their master?! As if he would believe that ah!

Bebe: '…You can actually change it when the skill reaches level 59.'

Jia Hyson didn't even want to retort at that anymore.

Meanwhile Little Fatty was stunned before become excited. It seems that all dragons have mice servants? No wonder ah! 

Even though the mice were odd looking and were referring to the Little Boss in a strange manner, Little Fatty felt like this is merely because these were a different breed of mouse specially raised to be a dragon's servant. Why else would they have gold on their body? 

Ingratiatingly, Little Fatty quickly made it's way to cozy up and flatter the special mice.

Jia Hyson felt bemused at the scene. However he also felt vaguely like he forgot something rather important. Brushing the anxiety off, he was about to join the fluffy group and acquaint himself with his newly summoned mice helpers when a familiar dark shadow covered the area around him.

He looked up to see a panting Da Gong staring fiercely at him.

Da Gong who had been hiding very carefully from his little worm had been contemplating changing to a more obvious hiding place so his little worm could find him when the paddy snake Little Paddy came and informed him that it saw the little worm licking Little Fatty's tail! Furious Da Gong had rushed to the spot Little Paddy had described . 

Even though in his heart Da Gong felt like the little worm wouldn't cheat on him with some fat field mouse, Da Gong decided that if he acted a little sulky, his worm would pepper him with more affection in the next few days. Maybe if he played his cards right he could even get his little worm to cling to him for a week! 

However when Da gong finally arrived at the scene…

On one side is his little worm looking with a warm affectionate(?) gaze at Little Fatty. On the other side is Little Fatty with three even smaller field mice.

This would have still been acceptable if the three baby mice didn't have parts of them that we're golden or scaly.

Three baby field mice that had characteristics like his little worm….

Da Gong: !!!

Already had children?! How long had he been hiding?!