“Alton Thornheart, you heartless bastard! If you dare show your face again, don’t blame me for cutting you down where you stand!”

“Alton Thornheart, if you crawl back here, I swear I’ll make you a eunuch!”

“No human man is ever worth a damn!”

The sharp voices crashed over one another like birds startled out of the woods, ringing chaotically in the air. In that noise, Caelan Thornheart drifted awake, dazed and confused.

A faint scent wrapped around him—warm, clean, and soft—the kind of delicate fragrance only a young woman carried. Mixed with her body heat, it felt inexplicably soothing, almost enough to drown a man’s soul.

Above him, the sky stretched wide and bright, blue and white like a freshly painted scroll hung across the heavens.

Lying flat, Caelan guessed he must be on his back.

Didn’t I get hit by a car? I’m not dead… I don’t feel pain… Then this scent—who… who the hell is leaning over me? A nurse? Someone trying to save me?

She must be an angel…

His blurry gaze lifted, and all he could see ahead was a soft, round curve blocking half his vision. Warm. Close. Too close.

His eyes instantly stung.

Trying to raise a hand—not to touch, he swore, just to push himself up—he froze the moment his fingers entered his sight.

Two tiny hands. Small, short, chubby… wobbling weakly in front of him.

A baby’s hands.

Caelan’s mind went blank on the spot.

A deeper look inward told him the truth—his body was wrapped tightly in swaddling cloth. Only those pudgy hands were free to move.

Something’s wrong.

Don’t tell me… I crossed over?

Silence swallowed him whole.

Then Caelan tried to shout in shock.

“Waaa… waaah… uuu…”

When he finally heard the sound that spilled out from his own throat, his mind went blank all over again.

I’m… a baby…? Caelan Thornheart felt his whole sense of self wobble.

His thin wail cut through the air. The graceful woman in a lotus‑white dress lowered her head, peering into the bundle in her arms. “Ay, Big Sister, he woke up.”

Big Sister’s voice came slow and cold. “Let him. A wild brat born of some human little vixen… when he grows up, he’ll be no better than his father.”

At once, the other women burst into chatter:

“He’s crying so pitifully. Is he hungry?”

“If he’s hungry, why don’t you feed him?”

“Let him starve. Better that than growing up into a heartless scourge like that father of his!”

“That’s too much, isn’t it? Too cruel…”

Then a woman in a black dress—icy‑eyed, breathtaking in a sharp way—cut through the noise. “If you insist on raising him, fine. But strip him clean first. Raise him as our eighth daughter.”

For a heartbeat, Caelan was actually relieved; their speech sounded like a dialect he had studied deeply back on Blue Star’s Xia Nation. Ancient tongue, they’d said. And here, he could understand every word.

But understanding only made it worse.

Raise him… as a daughter…?

His tiny heart lurched. Beauty, why are you like this?! The chill that crawled through him didn’t stop at his spine—it shot straight to his crotch.

“I agree,” one voice said.

“That’s a fine idea,” another echoed.

Then—clang!

The black‑skirted woman’s pretty, melon‑seed face turned frost‑cold. Without another word, she flipped her hand. A short blade flashed into her palm, gleaming with a hungry white light, and she strode toward Caelan with deadly calm.

Hiss—

The dazed, panicked Caelan snapped awake, terror cutting through the fog in his newborn mind.

If he got his manhood chopped off the moment he arrived, wouldn’t that make him the unluckiest traveler Blue Star had ever produced?

Hey… hey, beauty, can’t we talk this out? Don’t do anything crazy!

System!

System!

System!

Caelan Thornheart shouted in his heart until it almost burst.

No response.

Nothing.

He didn’t have a system—none of the cheats a traveler was supposed to get.

No system.

Caelan nearly broke down.

That meant if this woman really acted, he wouldn’t even have the tiniest hope of resisting.

Trying to protect the entirety of his future “happiness,” Caelan twisted with all the strength of his tiny newborn body, desperately trying to show some sign of protest. But he was too small, wrapped too tightly. He couldn’t move at all—only flap those useless little hands while the black‑skirted woman drew closer step by step.

She wasn’t joking. Eight‑tenths sure she meant it.

Caelan felt terror boil up until he thought he might actually pee himself.

Then he did.

Drip… drip… drip…

A shocking amount of warm liquid soaked through the cloth wrapped around him and pattered onto the ground.

“Ah—!”

The stunning beauty holding him jerked in reflex, loosening her grip as disgust flashed across her face.

Oh no.

Don’t tell me—

I dodge becoming a eunuch only to die from being dropped?!

Caelan’s tiny heart nearly stopped.

Infant Caelan Thornheart felt downright cursed, small and helpless, fear piling up in his tiny chest.

Then—whoosh.

At the critical moment, the elegant woman in a plain dress beside him flickered out of sight. In the blink of an eye she reappeared beneath him, catching his falling body against her chest without a hint of hesitation. Her clear eyes dimmed with worry as she glanced at the swaddling cloth.

Tall and slender, Rosetta Moonwhisper lowered her voice and said, “Fifth Sister, Sixth Sister, Big Sister… no matter what, he’s still Alton Thornheart’s flesh and blood. Can you really bring yourselves to harm him?”

The black‑skirted woman—Fifth Sister—froze. Her voice turned cold and sharp. “His heartless father didn’t hurt us enough already?”

Rosetta gently patted the wailing Caelan to calm him. “Even so, the child bears no fault. And back then, all of you chose to be with Alton of your own will, didn’t you?”

Fifth Sister snorted and turned her icy face aside, refusing to answer.

A good person! This fairy‑like sister is a good person! Caelan felt he had clung to his one lifeline. His little head shamelessly burrowed toward her warmth.

That irresponsible cheap father of his had nearly gotten him killed the moment he was born.

Too damn flirtatious—seven women, all of them stunning beyond compare… No, add the mother he had yet to meet. That made eight.

Eight…

He winced inwardly.

What kind of seductive menace was his father, to make so many extraordinary women fall for him at once?

Big Sister’s anger seemed to ease. Her tone steadied as she looked around at the others. “Calm down. Seventh Sister has a point. He is his child after all. We can’t go too far.”

“So we’re keeping him?”

“Who’s raising him? His mother isn’t here. And we have our own little ones—there’s barely enough beast milk as it is.”

Sixth Sister, the one who probably had a case of severe cleanliness, was vigorously wiping her hands. “Since Seventh Sister insists on keeping him, she can raise him. She’s of the Linglong Divine Beast lineage—closest to human blood.”

Rosetta bowed her head slightly. “I’m afraid… I may not have enough milk.”

Not enough… milk.

Hearing that, Caelan instinctively shifted his gaze toward her figure. His tiny black eyes dimmed at once, and for the first time he began to genuinely worry for his survival.

A woman in red spoke up, her tone light but edged with impatience: “Then why not find a human wet nurse for him?”

The eldest sister cut her off without hesitation: “No. We’re deep in the Great Wilds. A trip out and back takes more than two months. And this hiding place—no outsiders can know of it.”

The black‑clad woman added, her voice as cold as a blade: “I don’t like humans either.”

“Then… we go into the mountains and find some beast milk to feed him?”

“That… could work,” someone murmured, “but if Alton Thornheart returns and hears of this, he might resent it… maybe even get angry.”

The eldest sister said, “Then there’s no choice. We raise the child ourselves.”

After a few soft, brief replies, the five women turned and left without another word.

Rosetta Moonwhisper stood frozen, still holding Caelan Thornheart in her arms.

“Eldest sister…” she called softly.

“Try feeding him first,” the eldest sister replied without turning back. “Human babies don’t drink much.”

With that, she walked away as decisively as she spoke.

Caelan: …

Rosetta stood there in the wind, her hair and skirt swirling in slight disarray. When she looked down, the little one in her arms was staring up at her with clear black eyes, quiet and utterly defenseless.

She let out a long sigh, her voice full of helplessness: “I, Rosetta Moonwhisper… what sins did I commit in my past life…”

To think that she, a dignified descendant of the Luminous Divine Beasts, had to raise the child of that human enchantress who had bewitched Alton Thornheart—Rosetta felt a knot of complicated, indescribable discomfort.

“Waaah… wuu…”

At that moment, the baby in her arms suddenly burst into loud, sharp cries, each like a tiny needle pricking her ears.

“Hungry?” Rosetta frowned, but she was fairly certain. Her own daughter was only three months old; she had some experience with these sounds. This human infant was most likely hungry.

Caelan swore in his heart—in his current state as a baby who couldn’t even babble properly—that he had absolutely no other intentions. Truly none.

He was just hungry.

That was the most primal instinct of any infant.