This time's long journey was coming to an end. It had been confirmed that the condition of the eight newborn cubs had stabilized and Xie Luan felt ready to return.

Knowing that the youth was about to leave, the day before Xie Luan had booked the return trip, the adult mukas in the village brought the cubs with them to do something.

Xie Luan saw the adults take the cubs with them in the morning. Nick who normally liked to follow him around took the initiative to join the group as well.

At first, Xie Luan also wanted to follow them and have a look, but Duke stopped him and had him wait in the house.

Since this was all the other had told him, Xie Luan could only stay there so he didn't ruin their plans.

It didn't take too long. After waiting in the house for about an hour, Xie Luan heard the sound of the adults and the cubs returning.

The cubs walked into the house. Xie Luan barely had time to notice this before he at once was surrounded by the dozen of muka cubs who had entered.

Encircled by the cubs, Xie Luan originally intended to coax the cubs like usual. But before he could do it, he was distracted by the blue gems they held with their forearms.

It was baseda ore.

Baseda ore was in fact a kind of blue and semi-transparent gem. Even if you disregarded its important role as a raw material for cores of high-tech weapons and merely relied on appearance alone, after being processed and polished, this kind of stone would certainly still sell at a considerable price.

The gems held in the forearms of these cubs were not mined by the adults, but by the cubs themselves after having studied and imitated the adults' actions.

Considering the cubs' builds, the ores mined by the eight muka cubs who were still only small babies were going to be a bit smaller. Xie Luan squatted down to receive the gems the cubs held up to him with their forearms.

One by one, the cubs let go of the gems and Xie Luan used two hands to catch them with a bit of difficulty. Once finished, the eight cubs seemed very happy and were waving their forearms at Xie Luan, making low hissing sounds.

It was about liking, but also about thanking.

They had been able to be born into this world all thanks to the youth's attentive care.

The biggest gem Xie Luan received was the one Nick gave him. The adults who had gone with the cubs told him that in order to smoothly extract it, the muka cub had diligently chosen to work on it for a long time.

「Which, family, cub?」Word by word this sentence appeared on the floating virtual screen as an adult muka in the room asked Xie Luan this question.

They only knew that this muka cub came to the village with the youth. The mukas in the village didn't know anything else.

Because he didn't think that it was necessary to specially mention it, Duke hadn't told them at that time.

He now had to explain that this muka cub was staying at a cub raising branch, that there were no parents. But just as he opened his mouth, Xie Luan rushed to answer before him.

“He is my family.”

Saying these four words, Xie Luan slightly paused, and then once more confirmed it with a warm voice, "He is my family's cub."

The parent was him. This muka cub also had a parent, just like the other cubs in the room.

Actually, when adopting the mermaid cub, Xie Luan had seriously considered the issue regarding the adoption of the other cubs.

He hadn't adopted Gale out of partiality, he treasured all the cubs in the club equally.

The reason why Gale had been the one to be adopted first was due to the fact that the mermaid cub already fully viewed him as his parent. As Xia Qi had said, basically, the little mermaid would not accept being adopted by other people.

As for the other cubs who were waiting to be adopted, until they truly had a family Xie Luan wished to take on the role of a parent.

Of course, if after some time they still hadn't found a suitable adopter for a cub, Xie Luan and the other caretakers in the club had the intention of adopting them.

The possibility of the muka cub being adopted by others was very low. Thinking about how hard the cub had tried to protect him in the battle, Xie Luan's tone was especially soft as he said this sentence.

After being treated gently by Xie Luan since the beginning, he had liked following after the former. This muka cub subconsciously actually considered Xie Luan as his parent.

Now hearing Xie Luan's words, this large cub with a scary appearance at once looked like an obedient baby. With his head lowered, he issued a very distinct hissing sound from his throat.

The next day, when they boarded the starship at Saina starport, it wasn't just Ya Yi and Nick that departed with Xie Luan.

After talking it over with the other adults yesterday, they at the last moment made the decision to let the newborn muka babies stay at Yunbao Branch as well and have them study and be raised alongside cubs of other races.

As for the cost of their stay, these small ores gifted to him were enough to cover many years.

Listening to Xie Luan's previous suggestion, Duke contacted and persuaded several villages who also mined baseda ore in order to prepare for a unified increase in price of the exported ore.

The darrow tree seedlings planted in the wilderness not too long ago had adapted well to the environment. This type of tree had a very high vitality and grew quickly.

Duke predicted that they might see a lot of vivid green next spring.

Although the thought of this green covering all of Saina was still distant, Duke was now quite motivated. He wanted to unite the mukas living in the other villages as well as the small towns and together spread this vivid color a bit more.

One day in the future, Saina would truly have become green and full of life. When that day came, Duke would invite the youth to visit their planet again.

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Translator's note:

He said Nick was part of his family! o(≧v≦)o