“Chirp chirp chirp chirp…” Dragon Cub came running toward him at top speed with a sand-gravel worm, a local specialty, held in his beak. Before Su Xing woke up, this was what Dragon Cub had relied on to barely keep himself fed.
Going out to search for food whenever he was hungry was probably an instinct Dragon Cub had been born with. He somehow knew naturally that this thing was edible, knew how to catch it, and could catch one almost every time he tried.
Dragon Cub had been the one to discover the sand-gravel worms. There were a few of them in the surrounding area, though not many. The fact that Dragon Cub could use his instincts and sense of smell to dig them out from beneath the sand was genuinely impressive.
Back when Su Xing was still unconscious, Dragon Cub had relied on this skill to fill his own stomach. He had even tried putting some into Su Xing’s mouth, only giving up when he found he could not feed him. His survival instincts were astonishingly strong.
Now that Su Xing was awake, the dutiful Dragon Cub would run over and offer him some every time he found a few sand-gravel worms. Unfortunately, the creatures were genuinely far too hard. Su Xing’s stomach simply could not digest them.
The name “sand-gravel worm” had actually been given to them by Su Xing. If he had not sensed the breath of life from them after awakening his ability, he really would have thought Dragon Cub was eating little stones.
“Be good, Dragon Cub. You eat it yourself. Daddy doesn’t like this.” Dragon Cub might be able to express himself fairly well now, but if Su Xing told him that Daddy could not digest the worms, the child would not understand. All Su Xing could do was coax him.
Su Xing had never been a picky eater in the first place. Someone who had survived ten years of the apocalypse had eaten plenty of expired food, so a few insects certainly would not bother him. He refused them only because he genuinely could not digest them.
Dragon Cub’s stomach was extremely powerful. Once Su Xing confirmed that eating the sand-gravel worms did him no harm, he stopped trying to prevent it. More importantly, Su Xing had only just awakened his ability, and none of the plants he could force to grow tasted good. He might as well let Dragon Cub eat the worms.
“Chirp chirp chirp chirp…” Dragon Cub continued trying to persuade Daddy. That grass tasted awful. He wanted Daddy to eat some delicious little worms instead.
“But Daddy thinks the grass is quite tasty.” Su Xing refused again. In truth, he had eaten so much grass that he was almost ready to vomit, but what else could he do? There was nothing else in this miserable place that he could eat!
Although the ability Su Xing awakened this time was stronger than when he first awakened during the apocalypse—he had reached level three immediately—no matter how powerful a plant-type ability user was, without seeds there was little he could do. Su Xing did not possess the ability to create plants out of nothing.
He had nearly searched the entire nearby area and found only two kinds of nonpoisonous grass and one kind of fungus that were barely edible. As for vegetables and fruit, there was not so much as a shadow of either.
He would have liked to explore in another direction, but with Big Dragon’s enormous weight, there was no way Su Xing could move him. Until Big Dragon was healed, the family of three could not leave this place.
That was assuming Big Dragon could be healed, of course. Su Xing was confident about that, because he had already examined the injury inside Big Dragon’s brain and confirmed that he truly could treat it. If there had been no hope of recovery, Su Xing would already have started considering other options.
Under normal circumstances, Big Dragon’s injury involved severe damage to the brain. Whether on Earth or in the interstellar era, the final outcome would ordinarily have been brain death. But Su Xing’s ability happened to be unusual.
A healing-type ability could only treat injuries, whereas Su Xing’s life-type ability could replenish life force. Once life force increased, the body’s own repair ability would gradually strengthen. Three days ago, Su Xing had begun repairing Big Dragon’s damaged brain little by little.
Aside from the energy he had to spend forcing plants to grow for his own food, Su Xing used all his ability on treating Big Dragon. Every minute earlier that Big Dragon woke meant one less minute of suffering for their family. Su Xing had had more than enough of the violent winds and endless sandstorms here.
His determination to heal Big Dragon had nothing to do with any deep affection. To put it plainly, he and Dongfang Zhan could hardly even be considered acquaintances. Su Xing was saving him in order to save himself, because right now he desperately needed Big Dragon’s deterrent presence.
While exploring the surroundings earlier, Su Xing had already discovered that the danger level of this planet was not low. If not for the pressure Big Dragon unconsciously radiated, there was no telling what the area around them would have been like.
Su Xing strongly suspected that this was not an exile planet at all, but a wasteland planet. A planet officially designated for exile might have a harsh environment, but it would not normally be this barren.
A wasteland planet was different. All intelligent life would already have been evacuated, which meant the planet had been judged unsuitable for intelligent species to survive on. Naturally, such a place could not ordinarily be used as an exile planet.
Still, that was not absolute. Su Xing had heard that criminals guilty of especially heinous crimes were sometimes thrown onto planets like this. Judging by their situation, perhaps their family of three had been treated as though they were such criminals.
Su Xing knew all of this thanks to a servant from the Dongfang family. After he married into the family, the servant responsible for caring for him liked watching documentaries about law and geography whenever no one else was around. Su Xing had been forced to watch along and had unintentionally learned quite a lot about the interstellar world.
A patient incapable of perceiving or responding to the outside world had no human rights. As that servant had once said, the fact that no one secretly abused him already counted as having a conscience. Su Xing had agreed with that assessment.
Thinking back now, Su Xing was genuinely grateful to that servant. The man’s small hobby had ended up helping him. Otherwise, Su Xing would have known absolutely nothing and would never have been able to analyze what kind of place this was.
Even if a once-high-ranking planet had become a wasteland planet, the mutated animals that survived on it would certainly not be low level. That made the planet extremely dangerous.
Take the sand-gravel worms, for example. Dragon Cub might catch them easily enough, but they were actually difficult to capture. Su Xing had tried. Even with his unusual ability allowing him to sense them, catching one was still very hard.
Measured by ability-user standards, a sand-gravel worm should have been level two, but its jumping power and defensive ability far exceeded that level. Calling it a level-three creature would not have been an exaggeration.
Dragon Cub might be small and fluffy, but his genes were powerful, and his beast form was naturally suited to suppressing sand-gravel worms. That was why he could catch them so accurately.
If even the lowest-level strange insect like a sand-gravel worm was this difficult to deal with, Su Xing did not dare overestimate himself. That was another reason he was pouring everything into healing Big Dragon. Both he and Dragon Cub urgently needed Big Dragon as a bodyguard.
His current ability level looked impressive, but his actual combat power was poor. If it were only him and Dragon Cub, they would be in real danger. Saving Big Dragon was therefore equivalent to saving himself.
Before the exile, Dongfang Zhan had depended entirely on nutritional solution to sustain his body. Calculating the time, it had already been a full week since he last received any. That was why Su Xing was in such a hurry to wake him.
Su Xing had tried many different ways to give him nourishment, but none had succeeded. All he could do now was wait until Big Dragon woke up.
“Chirp… chirp…” Every time Su Xing treated Big Dragon, Dragon Cub would ask when Father was going to wake up.
Su Xing could only tell him that Father would wake soon, so Dragon Cub had been waiting patiently for Big Dragon to regain consciousness. Recently, he slept beneath Big Dragon’s forelimb every day, and his affection for Big Dragon had gradually deepened.
“He’ll wake up tomorrow.” Su Xing was very confident about this, so he gave Dragon Cub a definite answer.
Although Big Dragon’s injuries were severe, the Dongfang family had maintained his condition extremely well over the years. Even after remaining in a vegetative state all this time, he had not progressed to brain death. Su Xing only needed to repair the damaged areas of his brain, which meant he could naturally estimate when Big Dragon would regain consciousness.
There were healers in the interstellar era. As a general, Dongfang Zhan had even had a high-level healer permanently stationed at his residence. The fact that his condition had not deteriorated further was largely thanks to that person.
Su Xing’s judgment proved extremely accurate. During the second round of treatment the next day, Big Dragon’s eyes finally began to move.
“Chirp… chirp… chirp…” Dragon Cub had recently developed a habit of watching Big Dragon closely. The moment he noticed movement, he became so excited that he repeatedly cried out for Daddy, wanting to alert Su Xing that Big Dragon was about to wake up.
