Unedited chapter
1. Hamster Spirit Shu Shu
Cas planet was a small, remote planet in the Beastman Empire. Its technology was behind, but the environment here was very good, and the coverage rate of land vegetation reached 90%. Because of this, lots of beastmen who didn’t like the city life would choose to live here. It also had the largest nursing home in the whole empire, inhabited by many unmarried old beastmen.
More than a year has pa.s.sed since beastmen migrated to Cas planet. But because the location of the planet was so remote, the total number of residents was no more than a million. In fact, they only occupied a small corner of Cas planet.
Beside the settlements that have been opened up, the rest of Cas planet was covered by vegetation. Lush, primeval forests and oceans surrounded this small planet. Looking down from the sky, you could see that the entire planet was made of green and blue; its beauty would take your breath away.
This was a beautiful and vibrant place. Today, above an area in the primeval forest of Cas planet, s.p.a.ce suddenly twisted. At first, only a small area was distorted. Later, the range became bigger and bigger. Gradually, a s.p.a.ce vortex several kilometers in diameter appeared, and a broken, tattered mech suddenly fell out of it and into the lake.
After a while, a bolt of lightning suddenly came out of this s.p.a.ce crack. Along with it, a small hamster no bigger than the hand’s palm also fell out.
The most magical thing was that after this little hamster fell to the ground, he turned into a naked man!
The sky soon became calm. A bird standing on a branch was looking at the calm sky and chirping loudly, but after discovering the lack of air in the atmosphere, it got scared. Right away, it spread its wings and flew up. It was happy to fly in the sky.
Everything was not the same as before.
Two months later.
The forest that was made up of huge trees was almost boundless. All kinds of known and unknown flowers and plants were spread out on the ground, scarcely any area on the ground was left to walk on.
This was a primeval forest where no one lived, but today, one person was slowly walking in the forest.
It was a round-faced teenager who looked to be about fifteen or sixteen. He had short black hair, a pair of bright, limpid, jet-black eyes, and baby fat on his face. He looked very cute, but there were some weird things—among the hair on his head, two furry ears popped out. It could be seen that he clearly didn’t belong to human race.
Shu Shu wrapped several layers of leaves on his feet, he also wrapped a short, simple gra.s.s skirt around his waist. He was walking step-by-step, deeper and deeper into the woods, his round eyes kept looking around. He was prepared to jump and run away at any time.
It has been two months since he had arrived at this place, but he still couldn’t figure out where this was. After all, his geography knowledge wasn’t very good. He only knew that there should be some people living nearby.
Although he had not met anyone in the past two months, he had seen an airplane flying straight up in the sky. That airplane model looked strange though.
When he saw the plane, Shu Shu unconsciously wanted to call for help, but he soon gave up the idea.
He simply couldn’t let other people see him. No way! His current appearance was too strange….
Taking a look at himself, his hands and feet belonged to human race, but then he touched the furry ears on his head and thought of the short tail above his b.u.t.t, and Shu Shu could not help but sigh deeply.
Did you think you could turn into a human as long as you survived the lightning tribulation? He had waited for a long time for this day, always hoping to become a human so he could be together with his owner as equals, find a job to make money, and then eat whatever he wanted to eat.
And the result?
Didn’t know how it came about, that horrid lightning tribulation had struck him and sent him into a forest nowhere and with no explanation. It had even turned his appearance into half-man half-mouse!
His appearance was like this now, other people could see and knew right away that he was a daemon spirit! How could he ask for help?
If he was captured by humans, he certainly would be sent to research inst.i.tute! It was said that the place was extremely dreadful!
He couldn’t turn into a human being and also couldn’t explain about himself. What"s more sad was that he didn’t know what"s going on. He couldn’t do anything about it, but, to his surprise, he also couldn’t use his daemon power or turn back into a hamster.
To think that trying to find an owner and let himself be a house pet was out of the question now, Shu Shu could not help but feel sad.
Yes, Shu Shu was just a daemon spirit, a hamster spirit.
He did not know how he’d become a daemon spirit. At that time, he had just been a wild hamster. One day, he had gone out looking for food and carelessly eaten a red bead, then after that he’d suddenly had memories.
At that time, he had just been born less than a month before, but he had already begun to live independently. Prior to that, all day long he had only thought of eating and sleeping. He had recognized and not fight with his own male and female siblings just because their smell had been similar to his. In that single instant, he’d suddenly understood so much; he’d become aware that his self had been very much insignificant. Inside his mind suddenly had emerged… cultivation method?
Of course, in the end, he’d just been a hamster, so following that event, his life had been no different from that of other hamsters. He’d strived to collect gra.s.s seeds and to dig up bugs and worms from the ground to eat. At two-month-old, he had begun to look for a female mouse.
However, something had happened this time.
His mother, who had given birth to him, brought him up, and also given birth to two nests of total 12 siblings, had died.
Hamsters bred in rapid speed. Sometimes, just two weeks after birth, the female mouse could regenerate a nest. This way of reproducing was very damaging to the female mouse’s body, that’s why his mother had died so early.
All other hamsters lived the same life. His younger brothers and sisters soon became independent, and his father bared his fangs to him to drive him away from his mother…. At that moment, he suddenly felt that he could not go on like this.
At that time, instead of trying to find a female hamster to have baby hamster with, he had begun to cultivate.
Hamster"s life span was only a little over a year. When he had been cultivating, the fellow hamsters at his side had changed batch after batch. Sometimes he saw a familiar-looking hamster and he wanted to say h.e.l.lo, but when he sniffed at it, the smell was wrong. Then he calculated the time... it might have been his great great great great great great-grandson.
This mouse was as lonely as the snow.
Hamster"s daily life was not easy. Even if they could scratch with two claws, at most they could only scratch those small bugs and worms, while other animals, whether it’s a cat or an eagle or an owl, pretty much considered them as a fat dinner.
Of course, the most awful was the snake.
Anything else, you could still escape, but snakes.... These guys could even crawl into their holes!
Several times he had sensed danger and roused from his sleep only to find himself in front of a snake with its mouth opened wide trying to swallow him.... It was absolutely his most hated animal!
Hamsters were always others" plate of Chinese food, but he discovered that he could become more vigilant through cultivation. While hiding from predators, he’s thinking of letting the surrounding hamsters cultivate, too, so in the future, he would have some company who were the same type as himself.
Unfortunately, his hard work over a long long time was totally useless, even his approach was considered as him wanting to grab their territory and attack them. Contrariwise, the female mice in estrus would come near him, but they’re too “vicious”, and he could only leave them behind and flee.
As a daemon spirit who absorbed the essence of the sun and the moon to make progress in his cultivation, before he succeeded in cultivating, he was better off not looking for a mate, so as to avoid discharging his Yang essence and making things more difficult for him to inch forward….
Couldn’t do anything about it since hamster’s apt.i.tude for cultivation was indeed very bad!
He, a short-lived and small-sized hamster who wanted to step into the cultivation path, had millions of times more difficulties compared to humans. The earth’s spiritual influence was extremely thin; if he didn’t pay the slightest attention to it, even if he got a gargantuan gold finger, then he’s afraid that his fate was only to die an untimely death.
Of course, even if he paid attention to it, he was still out of luck….
Shu Shu couldn"t help but sigh and recall what had happened before.
At that time, he had been living in his owner’s house for a year and a half. He’d planned to fake his death, let his owner throw him away, and then sneak into a pet shop to look for a new owner.
He had been cultivating for so many years. Although his magical power had been inadequate, but this objective could’ve still been achieved.
Seeing his "stiff limbs" lying on the floor of the cage, his owner had taken him out of his cage, put him in a small paper box, and thrown the box away. In the end, he’d just crawled out of the paper box and cleaned himself up while planning to go to the pet shop when he’d suddenly discovered that the long long long awaited lightning tribulation had finally come.
Of course this thunder tribulation couldn’t make human become immortal. It could only make him turn into a human, that’s all. He didn’t hope to become immortal; as long as he could turn into a human, he was already satisfied!
He really wanted to eat those human foods.
He ran to area outside the city and completely concentrated his attention to welcome the lightning tribulation. Then he was struck by lightning; his fur, from head to toe, disappeared and emitted burnt smell. After that... he knew nothing.
Looking at the surrounding trees, Shu Shu sighed.
He obviously had been in the grove on the outskirts of the city! Why had he suddenly turned up in the big forest then? If it were not for him having a lifetime of experience surviving in the wild, with sensitive nose that could always find all kinds of nuts and seeds, he might have been starved to death.
You know what, he’s becoming a man, no changing back, and he was going to eat so many things every day!
As for abstaining from eating cereals... he didn"t even have magical power now, how could he still talk about abstaining?
Shu Shu walked a little further, then he looked towards a tree on his side and skillfully climbed the tree.
This kind of tree was very common here, it could bear fruit similar to chestnut. Shu Shu has been collecting them recently, he planned to store several thousands catties inside his cave.
Looking at the tree full of chestnuts, Shu Shu smiled, his eyes shining as bright as the full moon. So long as he saw food, his mood would be very good.
If this continued, he definitely would be able to store lots and lots of food. Even if winter came, he didn’t need to be afraid!
Wrapping his soft waist with woven gra.s.s that came out of his gra.s.s skirt, Shu Shu skillfully began to climb the tree.
In the underbrush below the tree, a long body thicker than Shu shu"s waist, a big snake with length of more than ten meters was slowly approaching. By chance, it finally saw a certain hamster spirit climbing the tree. And the view under his skirt. Immediately, it couldn’t bear to look straight above his head.
TL"s notes:
1. 妖 (yāo) is translated as goblin/witch/devil/monster/phantom/demon, but I chose to translate it as daemon for more positive meaning.
2. 亚 (yà) can be translated as Asia/Asian/second/next to/inferior/sub-, I chose sub because in the beastman world, there"s no female, only (dominant) beastman and sub beastman. It"s like alpha and omega in Western shifter story.