Because he sucked too hard, even making slurping sounds, Su Duan was dazedly held by the cub's paws gripping his finger, the wound feeling a slight pain from being pulled due to the forceful sucking.

However, the wound on Su Duan's hand was ultimately too small. The cub sucked for a long time, but besides the initial few drops of blood, it couldn't suck out anything else. Finally, it reluctantly released Su Duan's fingertip that had already turned a bit pale from its sucking. It raised its head towards Su Duan, opening its tender pink mouth, and let out a loud cry: "Chirp!"

That thin long tail, which rarely moved except to circle around his finger, also excitedly swished a couple times behind it.

It seemed to still be begging him for food.

Su Duan raised his own hand, looking at that finger covered in moist saliva as he fell into deep thought.

Just now, the way Viji licked his blood... was even more eager than when it nibbled on its own eggshell.

If he hadn't misunderstood, Viji had treated his blood as food?

Although the Luota race were indeed carnivorous beastmen, were humans also on their menu?

No... to be precise, humans seemed to be on the shared menu of all meat-eating beastmen. Although in the past nearly thousand years, under the constraints of imperial law, the beastmen had developed the habit of almost never treating pure humans as food anymore, tracing back to ancient times, the positioning of humans was indeed that of "reserve provisions".

Su Duan: "..."

Why did he suddenly feel his situation was a bit subtle?

The cub, having received no response, tilted its head in confusion for a couple seconds, its chirping also slowing down. Sniffing the scent, it walked two steps forward, its body slowly standing up, changing from a round black furball into an elongated black furball. Its two front paws grabbed onto Su Duan's clothing at his waist, using its little head to lightly bump against his body, alternating between light and heavy, while continuously chirping, as if wanting to get his attention.

Su Duan, having his thoughts interrupted by the cub bumping against his waist, reached out to pet its furry little head, and then felt a dampness on his palm, licked by a tender little tongue.

While using his hand to soothe the clearly somewhat abnormally excited cub, Su Duan continued his pondering.

Closing his eyes to drive the strange notions out of his mind, Su Duan began to focus on thinking about Viji's food problem.

It seemed Viji had a good acceptance of his blood. After drinking it, not only did it not show any rejection, it even displayed obvious excitement. However, it was still unknown whether it could only accept human blood or the blood of all races.

If it was the former, things would be a bit troublesome, because pure humans were few in number now and scattered across various star regions. There weren't even many on this planet, so finding blood might be quite difficult.

If it was the latter, things would be much simpler. They could also stay at the orphanage for a longer period. After Viji grew a bit bigger and could withstand the bumps of the journey, they could then take him to the capital star.

He asked the system: "System, can you get me blood from various races within two hours?"

It was already close to 7 o'clock now. It would take two hours to get from the orphanage to the transport port, and their shuttle ticket was for 11 o'clock, so they definitely had to make a decision before 9.

The system said: "It's possible. Although the things the host wants are all prohibited items not allowed for trade, there is a star network black market in this world that sells the blood and even organs of various races. On this small planet with lax oversight, delivery within two hours can be achieved using a small automated transport device."

Unexpectedly hearing the horrifying word "organs", Su Duan blanked for a moment, then weakly said: "Just get me a bit of blood, the smallest portion, one serving of pure human and three servings of random races, thanks."

System: "Alright host, please wait a moment."

System: "The order has been successfully placed, estimated to arrive in one hour and thirty-four minutes, the cost has been automatically reimbursed by the system."

Su Duan said: "Thank you."

An hour and a half later, Su Duan went to the orphanage's security room to pick up his package. The package was disguised very convincingly, completely looking like an ordinary parcel containing clothing from its appearance, but in reality, both the sender and address were non-existent.

Holding this package filled with contraband, Su Duan returned to his room in a good state of mind.

Of course, he also ran into some colleagues along the way, but the original body had a quiet personality to begin with and often bought things online, so it didn't arouse any suspicion.

"Chirp."

As soon as he opened the door, Su Duan heard the familiar cry.

A little black head drilled out from under the blanket on the bed, accurately locking onto his direction.

Because he had gone out to do something bad just now, he had left Viji in the room, tucking it into the blanket and telling it to behave on its own.

There wasn't much time left. If they missed today's starship, the next one heading to the capital star would be in five days. So Su Duan didn't go to comfort the cub and quickly opened the package, taking out the four tubes of blood ranging from light to dark red inside.

Su Duan said to the system: "System, please help me check if there's anything strange inside, okay?"

The system said: "Alright host... The test results show these four blood samples do not carry any infectious pathogens and are all within the expiration date. They can be safely consumed, please rest assured."

Su Duan: "Thank you."

"Chirp chirp?"

The cub, having received no attention, had already self-reliantly crawled to the edge of the bed at this point, stretching out its head to probe left and right, its body leaning forward, looking like it would jump down at any moment.

Su Duan casually scooped it up and placed it on the table, then opened the first tube labeled as human blood, bringing it near its nose.

A faint bloody smell wafted through the small room.

However, contrary to Su Duan's expectations, the cub didn't show much interest in this tube of blood. It merely sniffed a couple times when Su Duan brought it over, then disinterestedly turned its little head away.

Seeing the cub's somewhat unexpected reaction, Su Duan hesitated for a moment and confirmed with the system in his heart: "This is human blood, right?"

The system definitively replied: "Yes, host."

Then why was there no reaction?

It had clearly sucked on his finger very enthusiastically before.

Having experienced Viji spitting out all the milk he forced it to drink yesterday, Su Duan didn't dare to make it eat things it disliked. So after hesitating for a moment, he sealed the blood in his hand and put it back.

He then tried three other tubes of blood from different beastmen, all with the same result.

Su Duan had a vague feeling that the problem seemed to lie with himself. He stroked the head of the cub that had crawled into his arms after rejecting all the blood, and said, "System, can you help me carefully examine my body?"

The system said, "Okay, host."

Five minutes later, the system said, "Host, compared to yesterday, your body data has undergone obvious changes. Whether it's the trace elements or blood composition in your body, they have all deviated from the normal human range... But when you arrived here yesterday, the system confirmed that this body was still a normal human."

Upon hearing this result, Su Duan didn't know whether to be surprised that the race set by the system for him had gone wrong, or to sigh and say, 'As expected.'

The system said, "The system can do a more in-depth examination for the host, but it will take about an hour and a half."

Su Duan glanced at the time, 8:50; they must leave immediately in order to catch today's starship to the capital star.

Su Duan decided, "Let's leave here first, please help me block the surveillance and set a route, thank you."

With the system's help, Su Duan tucked the tiny cub in his arms, stuffed all his luggage into his only spatial button, avoided all the staff in the orphanage, and left through the back door.

The cub seemed to understand that now was not the time to play around, and stayed obediently curled up in his arms the whole time without making a sound.

After walking for a while, Su Duan got on the hovercraft the system had booked for him in advance.

The driver was a gentle herbivorous dinosaur beastman. Upon seeing the black cub in Su Duan's arms, he kindly asked, "Is this a little Kaka beast?"

Su Duan was not used to interacting with strangers, even if this stranger meant no harm, let alone that what he was doing now could be considered the illegal act of stealing a child from an orphanage. So he looked up and met the driver's eyes for a few seconds, only lightly grunting in response.

The driver, receiving his signal of not wanting to talk, smiled and didn't chat with Su Duan further.

But he still couldn't help occasionally sneaking glances at this young passenger through the rearview mirror.

He had a head of pure jet-black hair, and equally pure black eyes without a trace of impurity. Although not stunningly handsome at first glance, there was a clean and comfortable aura between his brows. His figure was a bit thin compared to most people on this planet. Wearing ordinary autumn clothes, he looked young, most likely a cub who had just recently come of age.

The aura on this black-haired cub was a bit chaotic, so the driver couldn't accurately determine what race he was for the time being.

Perhaps the same as the black Kaka beast he was holding.

Although his figure was thin and weak, he was holding the cub in his arms in a clearly vigilant and protective posture.

Even though he himself was not big, he was using that posture to protect another cub.

Perhaps they were relatives, and at the end of the journey was the transport port. Today, there was only one starship heading to the capital star from the transport port. Perhaps this trip of theirs was to go to the capital star to seek out relatives, the driver speculated in his heart.

The hovercraft flew swiftly and quietly along the road. After an hour, the system finally transmitted to Su Duan the complete and thorough examination results of his body.

"In the host's blood, the system detected a unique element of a race that had already gone extinct in this world 300 years ago. And using this as a clue, it screened and analyzed the host's gene map, and finally discovered that the host had an ancestor more than ten generations ago who was a member of this race. Because the purity of the bloodline had been diluted to a few thousandths by the time it was passed down to the host, the impact on the body was negligible and was completely disregarded in the racial assessment, so the system defaulted the host to still be a pure human."

"But that was only before last night. Last night was the 20th birthday of this body, and 20 years old is the age of adulthood for that race. Your internal bloodline underwent an... extremely low probability atavistic awakening at twelve o'clock last night."

"It was a very special race, recorded in the history books as the Planters. They do not belong to the beastman category. Their appearance during their lifetime was no different from pure humans, so they were often confused. But after their death, their corpse would turn into a seed and go through another life in the form of a plant before completely dissipating in this world."

"The only difference between them and pure humans during their lifetime was... they were more popular on the beastmen's menu compared to pure humans, especially to the Luota clan at the top of the beastman race. Their flesh and blood were extremely delicious and also had the function of curing diseases."

"You are still in the awakening process now, and your body is still undergoing continuous transformation. In half a month, the purity of the bloodline in your blood will reach its peak and tend to stabilize. At that time, if there is no effective blocking method, you will smell... very delicious, making it difficult for beastmen to suppress their appetite."

After listening to the system's introduction, Su Duan couldn't help but fall into silence: "..."

So he had really turned into a food reserve now?

He couldn't help but suspect, if he took Viji to the capital star, would he be eaten by those hungry beastmen at first sight of the Luota clansmen.

—Completely in the literal sense of eating.

This assumption was too terrifying. Thinking of that bloody scene, Su Duan couldn't help but shudder.

The Luota cub in his arms licked Su Duan's fingertips in response, successfully making his mood a bit heavier.

With a beep, the hovercraft stopped, and the driver's gentle voice came from the front: "Little one, we've arrived at the transport port, time to get off."

The clock pointed to 10:50, and the starship to the capital star would depart in ten minutes.

Su Duan got off the hovercraft.

The system suddenly said, "Host, the system just detected that winter is about to arrive on this planet."

This planet was remote and strange, and the rotation of the seasons was also utterly unpredictable. Sometimes spring would only stay for less than half a month, while summer could last for nearly half a year. No one could say for sure when this season would end and when the next season would arrive.

However, winter is probably the easiest to recognize because this season has a very distinctive characteristic.

Snow.

As soon as the system's voice fell, the first snowflake of this winter fell, coincidentally landing on the tip of Su Duan's nose, bringing a burst of moist coolness.

The delicious reserve food stood in front of the hovercraft for a few seconds, hugging the warm Luota cub in his arms, then raised a hand and gently knocked on the window behind him. Lowering his dark and slender eyelashes, he said with a strong will to survive, "Mr. Driver, please take us back."