CHAPTER 90: CHAPTER 82 SI YAN TEACHES THE CUBS LIFE SKILLS_1

Hu Yong informed Ming Yan about the incident. Hu Que was punished, and the punishment was severe.

Dozens of lashes later, he was sprawled on the ground.

"I don’t understand!!" Hu Que shouted.

It was clearly he and Jie Ling who had prepared to slander Si Yan’s younger brothers, so why had the outcome turned against them?

Where did they go wrong?!

"Si Yan hit me. It must have been Si Yan," Hu Que cried his eyes out. "She also slandered me, making me suffer so many lashes. Lord Ming Yan doesn’t like me anymore."

Hu Yong applied medicine to Hu Que.

"When has Lord Ming Yan ever liked you?"

"You!" In his frustration, Hu Que almost sat up, but the pain made him cry out instantly.

"Stop provoking Si Yan. You’re no match for her," Hu Yong said as he applied the medicine to Hu Que’s back with a stick, nearly causing Hu Que to faint from the pain.

Hu Que lay back down. "But she isn’t from Black Tiger City."

Hu Yong said, "Haven’t you realized that our lord is trying to win her over?"

Hu Que’s eyes widened. "She’s so skinny and weak, barely a handful of flesh. Why would our lord want to win her over?"

With another push, Hu Yong said, "Skinny and weak, barely a handful of flesh, and yet she has you lying here. Just admit whether you’re convinced or not."

Hu Que gritted his teeth.

In fact, Hu Yong didn’t know that someone had beaten Hu Que up before, and Hu Que suspected that the person who had done that was Si Yan in disguise.

If Si Yan, this male, has brains and can fight too...

Then indeed, he had nothing to object to...

It was just that he felt a little unwilling.

After all, he had been abused so miserably.

"That Jie Ling, stop going after her," Hu Yong said. "You should have realized by now that the girl is not interested in you. She’s just making you run errands for her."

At this point, Hu Que was thoroughly dejected. "She’s taken a fancy to Si Yan, and Si Yan isn’t interested in her. It’s infuriating."

He couldn’t win in a fight, couldn’t outsmart her, and the female he liked, liked Si Yan instead.

He had lost too thoroughly.

「」

The three cubs pushed Si Yan into the room.

Bei Ji was extremely happy. "Mother, we hunted meat! We’ll cook meat for you to eat!"

Si Yan could tell that all three cubs were quite proud of themselves today.

She did not skimp on her praise and complimented each of the cubs in turn.

In the end, she called Dongchi, Xi Qing, and Bei Ji to her side.

Dongchi was a bit awkward. "Bad female, what do you want to do?"

Si Yan quipped, "You were calling me ’Mother’ just fine before, but now you insist on calling me ’bad female’."

"It just slipped out," Dongchi said, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

Si Yan chuckled.

The fact that Dongchi didn’t deny her as his mother was already a big improvement from before.

"Today, I will teach you how to control fire," Si Yan said.

"Control fire?" Dongchi, Xi Qing, and Bei Ji exclaimed in unison.

Si Yan said, "I’ve taught you how to use fire, but the actual skills of using fire extend far beyond that. Today, I’m also going to teach you how to start a fire, how to prevent flames from spreading, which materials are flammable and which are not, and which will burn and which will not."

Dongchi, Xi Qing, and Bei Ji stared at her intensely, all six eyes fixed on her. Flames seemed to flicker in their eyes. To them, fire was something sacred.

"Let’s start with fire-making," Si Yan said, taking out several items she used to start fires. "You’ve seen this before; it’s a lighter. There’s only one of these, and once it’s used up, it’s gone. It’s convenient, but it’s a consumable."

Having said that, she took out another item. "This is a magnifying glass. On a very sunny day, if you place some wood shavings under the magnifying glass, it focuses the sunlight, concentrates the heat, and can cause the shavings to ignite spontaneously."

Then, she took out two stones. "These are flints. Smell them," she instructed.

Si Yan handed the stones to the three cubs, and they all sniffed them.

"Remember what they look like and smell like, so you can find these flints when you need to start a fire. Then, rub them together like this."

Si Yan struck the flints over some wood shavings, igniting a fire. She then extinguished it.

"Do you understand?" Si Yan asked.

The three cubs nodded.

Si Yan continued, "There’s also a more primitive method: drilling wood to make fire. Like this: carve a hole in this piece of wood, put in some wood shavings, and then use friction to start the fire. But this method is a bit clumsy."

The three cubs nodded vigorously.

Si Yan pushed the items toward them and said, "We probably won’t be setting out today, and there’s still some time this afternoon. You don’t need to practice with the magnifying glass for now; just focus on the other three methods and study them together."

The three cubs quickly took the magnifying glass, the flints, and the wood for the hand-drill method, and started practicing fire-making off to the side.

Si Yan watched and guided them, also teaching them which materials were easily combustible and which were not. She explained how to control a fire to prevent it from spreading, and how to use water and sand to extinguish fires if one broke out.

In this world, fire was so mysterious and sacred that when the three cubs touched and gained control over the flames, it felt as if they had grasped a miracle.

Si Yan’s eyes shone as she watched Xi Qing, who was wearing the silver mask.

Xi Qing, who had once been hurt by fire and thus feared it the most, now faced the flames without any trace of fear. Instead, he felt a thrill in controlling them.

Si Yan smiled in satisfaction.

「」

An annoying female voice said, "Father."

An anxious male voice said, "If you want to speak to me, don’t do it here! The Second Miss is here!"

"Her? HA! She’s just a fool. To think she’s such a fool and still has such a pretty face. Even though she’s useless, Mother still loves her so much!" the female voice said with envy, kicking her fiercely.

"It serves her right to be a fool. Father, rest assured, this is the safest place to talk."

Si Yan felt a sharp pain from the kick and, confused, reached out to the female for help. "Sister, Sister... it hurts, Yan Yan hurts..."

Perhaps because it was a dream, Si Yan couldn’t see the faces of the two people.

The female kicked her again. "Sister? Don’t call me sister! I don’t have a sister like you. It’s disgusting just hearing it!"

Si Yan heard the male trying to comfort the female. Then the female said angrily, "Why?! Why?! Bai Feng, such a perfect male, and Mother is actually planning to give him to *her*! In what way am I inferior to this fool? In what way am I not good enough?!"

"I won’t stand for it! We’re both daughters, and she gets the perfect male while I’m to be fed to the snakes... Father, I won’t stand for this!"

Yelling, the female said angrily, "It’s all because of you! It’s all your fault for not being loved by Mother! Even if her father is dead, *she’s* still Mother’s favorite because of *her* father!"

"I don’t accept my fate! I refuse to accept it! I want to switch lives with her."

"I want *her* to be fed to the snakes, and I will take her place as Bai Feng’s mate! HA HA, HA HA HA!!"

The plot suddenly shifted, returning to a scene Si Yan had dreamed of before.

The female threw her into the Snake Pit.

The dream continued.