CHAPTER 55: CHAPTER 51 ARITHMETIC IS A GREAT SKILL_1

Si Yan successfully returned to her cubs’ side.

She was thrilled to have successfully transmigrated once again. She quickly took out some water from her storage space and carefully moistened her cubs’ lips.

The three Sen Ran cubs gradually woke up with the nourishment of the cool lake water. After opening their eyes, they splashed about, transformed into human form, and hugged Si Yan’s wooden bucket to drink. They gulped down the water one after another, and after drinking their fill, they seemed reborn.

"Mom!" Bei Ji cried out.

"Mom!" Xi Qing echoed.

Two bare cubs pounced into her arms. She caught them one by one, and after patting their little heads, she wrapped them in beast-skin skirts.

"I thought I was going to die." Bei Ji looked at Si Yan with puppy-dog eyes. "Mom, did I drink too much water?"

"Not too much. This time I brought a particularly large amount of water!" Si Yan said with a little pride.

After Xi Qing and Dongchi had properly wrapped their beast-skin skirts, Xi Qing suddenly pulled Si Yan down to squat. "Shh, Mom, there are Beastmen."

Si Yan hurriedly crouched down with the three cubs. They saw a troop of sturdy White Tiger Beastmen passing by not far from them.

"White Tiger Beastmen. Could they be from White Tiger City?" Xi Qing asked.

"White Tiger City?" Si Yan exclaimed. "There are cities in this world?"

The civilization level of the tribes was still quite primitive, but cities already represented a higher level of civilization.

Dongchi said, "Yes, White Tiger City, one of the Four Main Cities of Myriad Beasts City."

Xi Qing mused, "But they might not necessarily be residents of White Tiger City."

Bei Ji added, "Right, they could also be from Black Tiger City."

Si Yan became even more confused. "Black Tiger City? Are the residents of Black Tiger City White Tigers? Are they interbred?"

Bei Ji shook his head. "Mom, that’s not it. In the Beast World, there were originally only White Tiger Beastmen. But twenty years ago, a Black Tiger Beastman was suddenly born. This Black Tiger Beastman broke away from White Tiger City and established his own city, hence the name Black Tiger City."

Xi Qing added, "There is only one Black Tiger Beastman, and he is the City Lord of Black Tiger City, named Ming Yan."

Seeing Si Yan’s eager-to-learn expression, Dongchi looked at her as if she were a foolish female and said, "The affairs of the Four Main Cities are common knowledge in the Beast World."

Si Yan nodded rapidly. "I understand, I understand. Please enlighten me further."

"If we go to Black Tiger City, might we be saved?" Si Yan asked.

"It’s hard to say," Xi Qing replied. "After all, we’ve never seen what a city is like."

"Let’s go check it out," Si Yan proposed.

After some discussion, the three cubs nodded in agreement.

As a city of powerful Beastmen, Black Tiger City would surely have ways to survive under the scorching Flame Day, but the question was how they could join.

"Mom, you’re a female, so it’s very dangerous to enter Black Tiger City," Xi Qing said worriedly.

Bei Ji added, "I also heard that there are very few females in Black Tiger City, so the City Lord of Black Tiger City demands that the weaker Beastman tribes affiliated with him offer females. Mom, you’re so beautiful; it won’t be safe for you to enter Black Tiger City."

Si Yan was also at a loss. "So what should we do?"

Dongchi furrowed his eyebrows, then said, "Disguise yourself as a male."

Si Yan was speechless. Her cubs are so progressive!

Xi Qing shook his head. "No, males can distinguish females by their scent."

Dongchi said thoughtfully, "Silence Grass."

"Silence Grass?!" Xi Qing and Bei Ji exclaimed in unison.

What is Silence Grass? Si Yan wondered.

Later, Si Yan finally found out what Silence Grass was. When her four cubs were young and struggling to survive, they had "borrowed" food from others’ homes to survive. To avoid letting keen-nosed wolves and dogs sniff out their scent, they tried many methods and eventually discovered Silence Grass—a type of wild grass that could erase one’s scent.

The three cubs began to search for Silence Grass nearby.

There wasn’t much vegetation left, so finding Silence Grass wasn’t easy.

After a long search, Bei Ji found a very, very small blade of grass with a tiny, bean-like bud on it and brought it to Si Yan.

"Mom, this is Silence Grass."

Xi Qing said, "Mom is small in stature. If you pretend to be a male, you’ll look like an underage young male—not much older than us."

Si Yan was taken aback. Are you looking down on me?

Dongchi nodded. "As long as you use Silence Grass to cover your scent, pretending to be an underage male shouldn’t be a problem."

"Should Mom change her name?" Bei Ji asked, looking up like an adorable, inquisitive puppy.

Si Yan, looking at everything her children had prepared for her, curved her lips and said, "Just call me Si Yan."

In her past life, when she was on missions and disguised as a man, she also went by the name Si Yan.

Having said that, she prepared to begin the transformation.

Si Yan looked at them, puzzled, and asked, "But, what race of male should I impersonate?"

This question snapped all three cubs back to attention.

Xi Qing’s eyes shone brightly. "Mom, what race are you?"

"I... I also don’t know," Si Yan admitted.

I’m a human, right? I don’t even know what race I am now!

Xi Qing, Bei Ji, and Dongchi were speechless.

They had thought their foolish mother was unreliable, but not *this* unreliable.

The three cubs turned around and got busy.

Dongchi hunted a beast on the verge of dying from thirst. He skinned it and tanned the hide to make a new beast-skin outfit.

Soon, Si Yan was enveloped in a very neutral beast-skin outfit that covered her completely.

Upon changing into the beast-skin outfit, Si Yan felt even hotter.

Sitting on the ground, Xi Qing tied up her hair, Bei Ji meticulously applied mud mixed with Silence Grass juice to her face, and Dongchi supervised from the side.

Very quickly, a rather fair-skinned, delicate-looking young man appeared before the three cubs.

The three cubs were very satisfied with their handiwork.

"Brother," Bei Ji said, blinking at Si Yan.

Oh, that "Brother" melted Si Yan’s heart. No wonder boys like being called ’Brother’, she thought.

"Brother," Xi Qing also smiled and called out. Si Yan cheerfully pulled off a manly "Eh!" in response.

Good, the voice is on point; no one can tell if it’s male or female, Si Yan mentally approved.

"Foolish male," Dongchi commented drily.

Si Yan was speechless. I still prefer the gentle and adorable Bei Ji and the sweet Xi Qing!

Hu Que said to Hu Yong, "The Monkey Tribe is small and weak, yet so arrogant! They have no other skills beyond climbing trees and doing arithmetic. Even so, while relying on our Black Tiger City, they still put on such airs. We went all that way and couldn’t even persuade one monkey skilled in arithmetic to come back with us. It’s infuriating!"

"Forget it, don’t be angry," Hu Yong said, patting Hu Que’s back. "You know arithmetic is a valuable skill."

After Ming Yan, the Black Tiger, built Black Tiger City, a host of powerful Beastmen gathered there.

The powerful beastmen are indeed strong, but they’re all uncultured.

However, Ming Yan of Black Tiger City had his own unique vision. He wanted to cultivate some form of civilization within the otherwise coarse Black Tiger City.

After all, as the city grew larger and the Beastman population increased, so did the number of tribes relying on him. This involved issues like the rational allocation of resources and the coordination of supplies.

But even Hu Yong, the greatest scholar of Black Tiger City, could only do addition and subtraction within ten.

Dongchi, transformed into a tiny snake, relayed everything he had overheard to Si Yan.

Si Yan’s eyes gradually brightened.

Arithmetic! Hey, this is something I’m good at! she thought excitedly. What kind of arithmetic do they need? Addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division with numbers over ten thousand? Geometry? Calculus?