A loud thud echoed in the hot spring. An ear scraping cry followed after, tearing through the air like a blade.

Mira screamed. A loud shout after the other as an agonising pain shot through every single part of her body.

Ming Tao’s heart stopped beating. He scrambled to the end of the detached part of the spring and looked down.

Blood. Lots of blood. It spilled out onto the concrete floor of the hot spring from the being who looked lifelessly clung to it. Ming Tao’s body trembled and his eyes widened in terror.

His breath quickened, one heavy breath after another as he panicked. This was not what he had it mind at all. This was far from it. He never wanted her to get hurt. He never wanted her to choose to save all three of them at a risk of her own life.

He expected her to be selfish. To choose herself and prove she still was the same. And even if she did something different, he never knew she would choose him. He wanted her different, difficult choice to be her saving her cub. He could have shifted into his beast and clung onto a tree if she followed his plan and he would have been safe regardless of what option she chose but she did something utterly stupid. Utterly unbelievable. Who in their right mind chose to sacrifice herself, not once but twice for other people without considering how it would affect her? Even when the said person in the option was so evidently cruel to her.

Another scream tore out. "HELP!! PLEASE HELP ME!! JIA HAO. JIA HAO PLEASE COME AND SAVE ME, I FEEL LIKE I AM GOING TO DIE!!"

Ming Tao’s heart dropped. Death. . . He did not want her to die. He never wanted her to die. He knew he hated her so much but death was out of the question.

The baby in his hand woke up and began to cry. The cub cried so loudly it also echoed. Ming Tao felt so lost in his head that he did not know what to do. He just made the mother of this baby in his hands risk her life.

He felt so shitty and what ached him more was he was right there, present in the scene yet even in her time of distress the name she called out for was not his. The significance of that hit him deep and he regretted it.

A figure roamed behind him. The woman he let into the pride to play with Mira. A cheetah. He lied it was Hye Yang. He only said that to make Mira’s nerves spike but this was the last thing he ever imagined would happen in all of this.

"The mother of the tribe is badly injured. What do we do?" The female cheetah asked, worry in her tone. She only followed orders from the Mighty cheetah. She had no hand in any of this.

"Take the cub back to the nursery and summon the father on your way. Tell him his wife needs him. Tell him you heard her yell for him and it sounded like she was in the hot spring he built for her."

The female cheetah made her way to Ming Tao’s side and took the cub safely tangled in his hand from him. The cub kept on wailing. The cheetah shifted into her beast and put the cub in her mouth then left with him, swiftly jumping on each spring till she got to the lowest floor and made her way out without leaving a noisy trace of her presence.

Ming Tao was utterly horrified by his actions.

"JIA HAO!! JIA HAOOO!!!" Mira wailed. Deep down, she knew there was no way in hell Jia Hao could hear her but she did not want to be near the man who put her in this demise in the first place.

He was right there. Still safe with her baby while she suffered the impact of his deeds. And even while being in the same spring with her while she bled, he never made a move to come down.

Mira felt like her entire joints were dislocated. Never in her life had she felt this immense pain. Breathing was difficult. Moving was impossible. She could barely speak without hurting her lungs yet she called for the only name of the only person she knew who cared about her enough to want to help her. 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦

"System, system answer me!" Mira called, desperation in her tone. She felt like the only reason she had not died falling down that much height was because of her pregnancy regeneration skill but it was way too slow. Her body definitely secured a lot of damages.

[Yes host?]

"Purchase healing elixir strong enough to rid me of every damage caused from falling. I don’t mind how many system points it is, purchase it quickly." She struggled to say.

[Purchasing special grade healing elixir for 15,000 system points!

Current system points balance; 587,010]

"Please feed it to me, system."

The bottle containing the liquid had its cap popped open and was drawn to her mouth. It fell into her mouth and she managed to gulp it down her throat.

Just then, noise clattered inside the hot spring and Jia Hao came running through.

His body froze at the sight of Mira on the ground. The structure of her body on the ground belonged to someone with so many broken and dislocated limbs. Blood pooled all around her that it soaked his feet.

Jia Hao made his way to her, took off his fur coat and wrapped her body with it. He did not mind being naked, as long as she was covered. He held Mira in his hand, holding her to his chest. He hated seeing her like this. He did not know what happened but that was the least of his worries right now.

"The pride healers are making their way into the hot spring." Jia Hao murmured. His hand secured her head, the only part of her body he could touch without moving her in a way that would make her be worse off than how he met her. "Please hang on till then." His eyes was reddened and glistened with tears which begged to fall down his face. He was plagued with fear. "Please don’t leave me."