50: You actually doubt me?

"Tu Nan!"

It was Gaia outside the tent.

"How did I hear there's an injured Male Beast with you? What's going on? Should I come and keep watch with you?"

Ji Yu sighed dramatically.

Tu Nan understood what she meant.

In Ji Yu's eyes, Tu Nan had gone through so much trouble to disguise her identity, so regardless of anything else, she shouldn't have chosen Li again.

Ji Yu clearly felt that the noble Hain was the first choice, and if not him, then this honest and cheerful Gaia should have been the second choice.

But Li was half-dead, looking both burly and fierce, and he was a Chaotic Beast to boot. Not to mention how he would take care of Tu Nan, who would be even weaker during pregnancy; Tu Nan might even have to take care of him.

"Come in," Tu Nan said.

Gaia rushed into the tent impatiently and asked suspiciously, "I don't know what Ken and the others are talking about, saying that you were given by that noble to..."

His gaze swept in front of Tu Nan, and his voice cracked.

"Li? Why is it Li!"

He dashed to Li's side in one step, crouched down, and skillfully checked Li's condition.

Then he let out a long sigh of relief.

"He's alive..." A look of pure joy appeared on his face.

A glint of moisture flashed at the corners of his eyes, and he couldn't help but whimper, covering his face as his shoulders shook uncontrollably.

He was actually crying?

"...Why are you crying? Aren't you happy?"

"I'm too happy, I mean." Gaia's words were jumbled. "I, I always felt that I shouldn't be the one alive; it should have been Li. If only he had been the one following you back then."

Tu Nan had never heard him say this before.

Before this, she had always assumed that Gaia felt she was the one who shouldn't have survived.

After arriving at the caravan, Gaia had never mentioned the past or Li again, and he seemed to get along happily with the guard team, so Tu Nan had thought he had completely moved on from that period.

"Tu... Tu Nan..."

When the first call sounded, no one heard it.

Even Ji Yu couldn't help but laugh and cry at Gaia's sudden change. Tu Nan guessed that after this, Gaia's reliability in her eyes would probably drop.

"Tu Nan..."

Gaia stopped his chaotic outpouring, and Tu Nan realized that there was someone else calling her.

The three of them looked down.

Li struggled hard to break free from the dark void, lifting his heavy eyelids.

Tu Nan was before him, just as she had been before he closed his eyes.

He closed his eyes again and opened them.

Tu Nan was still there, still there—it wasn't a dream.

He hungrily collected everything about Tu Nan. The place was filled with her scent, rich and lingering—traces that could only be left after living here for several days.

She hadn't lost weight; she had even gained a little.

Wearing gauze? She looked beautiful, Li smiled. It was wonderful. In that icy water, his lungs had nearly burst, and before the last bit of air ran out, the Tu Nan that appeared before him was just like this.

He thought stubbornly that she was exactly the same, not any thinner than before. Of course, he had taken good care of his Foster Mother. No one was more qualified than him.

Suddenly, a thought popped into his mind.

"Did you say something earlier about... being pregnant?" Li wasn't quite sure.

"Yes. Are you happy, Lord Li?"

Ji Yu noticed that Tu Nan's attitude was very subtle.

Towards this so-called Lord Li, Tu Nan's words and actions seemed to be separated by a veil.

She had once heard Tu Nan personally express her dissatisfaction with her identity and her ambitions for the future; she had been radiant back then.

But now, she clearly lacked a sense of vitality. But at the very least, Tu Nan was looking forward to the arrival of the Child.

She took one of Li's hands and placed it on her lower abdomen.

"Child, can you feel them?"

She smiled, preparing to welcome Li's joy or excitement.

But unlike before he fell unconscious, Li had recovered from the initial shock.

He thought he was being subtle when he glanced at Gaia, who was kneeling beside Tu Nan, looking at a loss and unconsciously sitting very close to her.

He also thought of that terrifyingly strong Male Beast who seemed to have a very superior background.

He spoke with difficulty.

"This Child... cannot be born."

His fingers tightened slightly; he wanted to pull his hand away, unwilling to keep it pressed against her lower abdomen.

But he failed; Tu Nan suddenly pressed down hard, holding his hand firmly in place.

Her eyes fluttered, and the curve of her smile didn't change in the slightest, but the light in her eyes was very cold.

"What do you mean by that, Lord Li?"

Li felt he had been very magnanimous and didn't understand why Tu Nan needed him to continue speaking.

Especially since there were others present.

He felt embarrassed, but seeing that Tu Nan was very persistent, he hesitated for a long time before speaking to her, thinking himself magnanimous.

"You are just a Foster Mother; you have no autonomy. That you survived when I wasn't by your side..."

"...was already very difficult."

"As for this Child, I won't pursue how it came to be. Get rid of it, and I will let you conceive the next one."

Hiss... Ji Yu gasped softly. Gaia's eyes widened in shock.

He had just learned that Tu Nan seemed to be pregnant, and now he immediately learned from Li that the Child might not be Li's?

But that wasn't right... Tu Nan hadn't been with anyone else; Grey had been sent away by him with a single blade. He asked foolishly, "Someone else... who?"

Li's gaze turned to him.

Although he didn't have the strength to get up, that look was clearly filled with disgust and... killing intent. Gaia was horrified.

"Me?" He pointed at his own nose, unable to believe he would be suspected.

"No! I... it was you who told me to take Tu Nan and run first... Me?"

He realized he couldn't produce any evidence at this moment.

How could there be evidence? Who could prove that nothing had happened between him and Tu Nan during such private time?

Look, this was Li, a native Male Beast of this world. The heart of Tu Nan, which had wavered slightly due to Li's return, once again froze hard.

Fortunately... she hadn't been moved by those superficial "kindnesses." Those expressions of care and protection were just so cheap.

To Li, she had always been a suitable commodity, a Foster Mother in name and reality. Li wanted her to kill her own Child?

This Child weighed much more to her than Li. Only the Child was a life truly connected to her by Bloodline, one that needed her protection and all of her devotion.

What was Li? He was once a stepping stone for Tu Nan to survive here, and now he had just gained one more function: nourishment for her Child.

Did he think Tu Nan would get rid of the Child to gain his fraction of trust and prove herself? Dream on.

Tu Nan laughed up at the sky, as if she had heard something unbelievable. As she laughed, her tears flowed down completely out of control.

"You are doubting me." She lifted the hem of her clothes, showing the scars on her thigh to Li.

"Do you know how I made it all the way here?"

"Grey dragged me into the tent, saying you were dead, saying he would provide for me, giving me Sand Fruit, saying that anything you could give me, he could give me too."

"I wanted to stab him, but... I didn't even know how to resist; I only knew how to plunge the knife into my own body."

"And what was the result? You doubt me? Hmm?"

She took two steps back, as if her heart had been broken by Li's suspicion.

"If it weren't for Gaia rushing in, and me remembering that bracelet... would you... still be able to see me now?"

"We fled into the desert; I couldn't eat anything and almost starved to death."

"Back then... I didn't regret it. I just thought that I was yours, I was yours!"

"Now I regret it!"

"I would have been better off dead back then, it would have been better than now, having you doubt me."