Chapter 10 - 10 - Little Bear

Lond Aotian woke up to find his entire body covered in slime. He even had a weird taste in his mouth as he smacked his lips. 'Darn that disgusting beast smeared my body in his saliva' he thought as he tried to rub his body against the beast's clothes.

"Ahh son you are awake. This time you really got gravely injured by those rats. I've got more lillium paste to put on you" the beast said as he started smearing more paste on my body. I tried wiggling away but the beast had a vice grip on my body. The crustacean started rubbing vigorously near my reverse scale.

This enraged the little dragon; he bit the abusing hand firmly. This cased Xia ches nails to poke the reverse scale on the little dragon's body. The little scale popped off its body and fell down.

Long Aotian froze completely. His precious reverse scale that he cultivated so hard to grow is broken off that easily. Too much anger caused the little dragon to regurgitate blood and faint again.

"Little son, did you faint because of this ugly scale!!" he shouted but the little snake remained unconscious.

Xia che waited for two days but the little snake did not wake up. He started to get worried. He fed the snake some medical pills but the snake did not respond. "Maybe he is hungry" i thought out loud and started searching for food.

Xia che found some goji berries near a sycamore tree but he remembered the little snake did not like them. "Then what else shall i feed a snake. Ah I know snakes eat rats" he thought out loud as he started searching for rat holes.

"I think my little son will like rats. He did try to attack some mole rats and got hurt. Che my baby is bad at hunting" he said as he squatted and digging through the ground with a stick.

After 20 minutes Xia che found a small rat hole and saw the rat had new babies in her nest. He did not have the heart to kill an innocent rat mom, even if it was a rat. Confused, he sat on the mud floor thinking of what to feed his son.

"Yukiya never had to feed me. I ate planktons and smaller creatures as i grew up. But why is my son so high maintenance to take care off" he complained as he was trying to find food.

As he kept walking he came across a small brook. He saw a lot of dead salmon floating near the river banks. During September, salmons usually start migrating upstream to lay eggs and to procreate. He got lucky and found a few dead ones near the rocks.

As a water creature himself, He never understood these fishes. 'Is it really worth giving their life up for procreation and for having children' He thought as he started cleaning the fish. After cleaning he found some clean sticks and speared the fishes. After some difficulty he started a small fire and roasted the fishes.

Long Aotian woke up with a growling stomach. He could smell a tantalizing smell in the air making his stomach growl. He slithered out of the beasts sleeve and saw three salmons being roasted in fire.

Tongue flickering he slithered to one of the fish on sticks and knocked it down.

"What are you doing son? These are not cooked yet" the stupid beast screamed as I devoured the tasty morsel.

Long Aotian went and knocked down another stick and ate the fish off.

"Come on son, leave your daddy some food" the stupid beast said with his fingers pointing towards me.

'Son? who's your son' Long Aotian though as he bit the beasts offending fingers.

"Aww stop biting me all the time" Xia che screamed as he flicked the snake off his hand. Pouting he started nursing his wounded fingers

The little snake ate off all the fish he had roasted and was giving him the expression of 'I want more'.

"Okay okay, you should be thankful that I am your daddy" Xia che said as he stood to look for more fishes.

Long Aotian watched the beast walk away with a sense of pride. 'See who's your daddy now'

Xia che went to the small brook but this time he was not alone there. A huge grizzly bear was ripping a fish apart with its claws. A sheltered baby he was, Xia che never knew about the law of the jungle. The strong always prevail.

He walked towards the bear and said "Hey little bear can you spare me some fishes?"

The bear saw someone walking towards it in a menacing manner. It roared and ran towards the human which dared cross its path.

"Why are you angry little bear? I just wanted few fishes. I didn't ask for the entire river" Xia che shouted as he ran towards the trees. But the bear kept chasing him irrespective.

Xia che climbed the tree to get away from the bear but the bear started vigorously climbing the tree with gusto. 'This fat bear is able to climb so fast' he thought as he jumped from the tree to the next one. Just like that Xia che played the game of 'who gets caught' with the little bear for almost an hour.

Long che waited for a while then he got tired and rolled his body into a ball and slept.