Chapter 20
Should not touch
After making the proposition, Fuya expectantly looked at the surrounding people, however the staff were all too shocked and failed to respond.
Taking their silence for hesitation, Fuya added. "You don’t have to see this as a reward, I just want my Peipei to live in a more comfortable environment."
She did not lie, it was indeed one of the reasons.
The cubs’ living quarters, or the so called cub house, was the most important building at every nursing club. It was there that the cubs spent all their time and in order to improve the cubs’ daily life, it was of course necessary to construct a well-equipped and high quality cub house.
When the surrounding people finally came to their senses, they accepted her proposal and discussed it in more detail. The current cub house had in fact many shortcomings and after talking, they decided to simply build a second house.
Everything moved along smoothly and an independent architect, hired by the Kuhti cub’s parents, soon showed up at the Yunbao branch.
Fortunately, the property owned by the president was large and their club had a lot of open space to use.
They decided to put the new building next to the old cub house and for the following days, Xie Tao discussed the new house’s design with the architect.
Not long after, the construction team arrived and after confirming that there was no problem with the blueprints, the construction started.
Compared to the last time, this construction team used some kind of soundproofing device and it was much quieter. No matter how much noise they made, it did not disturb the people next door and the cubs had no problem sleeping.
As the entire construction process was silent, Xie Tao almost felt was if the new cub house had magically appeared out of the thin air.
The new house was a second storey villa, with the first floor being where the cubs spent all their time. The overall interior design was very warm and bright, they had used many different warm tones to bring out this feeling and naturally it also had a touch of childishness to it.
The living room was especially spacious and unlike the old house were they could not let the cubs play freely all at once without risking them hurting themselves, they now had enough space to have many different toys and let the cubs play happily.
Hence, even when the weather was bad and the cubs could not go out and play in the courtyard, they would still be able to move about and get enough exercise while indoors.
The living room floor was also covered with a soft carpet to add comfort when they ran around and potentially tripped.
The hatching room in the new house was built on the second floor. In order to minimize the space being taken up by other things on the first floor, an additional storage room was also put on the second floor to hold the spare materials.
There was still a smaller storage room on the first floor, but it only held daily necessities and was not as large or as full as the one in the old house.
Although higher quality, the rest of the facilities were rather similar to the old house. However one of the biggest differences was that according to Xie Tao’s request, an indoor pool had been built in the new house.
Xie Tao installed the previous purchased water temperature regulation device in the new pool and then brought the mermaid cub from the small pool to the slightly bigger one inside.
Since the mermaid race originally lived in the ocean, Xie Tao had considered that an outside environment might be more comfortable for the mermaid cub. But if the pool was indoors, the mermaid cub would be closer to the other cubs and the cubs who could swim would be able to play with him in the water.
As Xie Tao had felt that it would be too lonely for the mermaid cub to be separated from everyone, he had ultimately decided to build a lager indoor pool first.
After carrying over the things that needed to be moved from the old house to the new cub house, Xie Tao and the other employees brought the cubs to the new house.
Entering the new house, the cubs curiously raised their heads and looked around. This new place was much more beautiful and cosy compared to the old one, the cubs were very excited and happy.
In the upper right corner of the living room stood a beautiful wooden structure that caught one’s eye. It had three different levels and at the top stood a cute little house that could be entered. Xie Tao had especially acquired a carpenter in order to build it and was quite satisfied with the result.
In the room were also several climbing frames of different shapes and outside they had two different sets of swings and slides. The trampoline and seesaw was still in the process of being built but would arrive later.
The large playground he had in mind could not be built for the time being. But Xie Tao had managed to make a smaller playground outside the new cub house that he had based off the playgrounds he had seen in his original world.
Right now the playground was just slightly better than what people might have in the garden for their children, but taken into account that they also had other toys for them, Xie Tao felt that the cubs certainly would no longer be bored.
"Do you like this new house?" Xie Tao brought the cubs to the living room and squatted down beside them. Reaching out his hands, he touched the nearest two fluffy cubs and softly said. "You are going
The Takila cub who had been touched by the youth, issued a sound and looked up at Xie Tao, his short tail slightly swaying in excitement.
The cubs had never seen such a place before and in the beginning did not know how to play. But curiosity was the nature of cubs and after exploring for a while, they soon found the new toys purpose and happily played with them.
Even the Kuhti cub’s group had managed to find the wooden structure in the corner. They appeared to be really enjoy themselves as they moved between the floors, inspecting every inch of it, however they seemed a bit hesitant about entering the house at the top. Ultimately, the Kuhti cub braced himself and bravely took the lead, and soon the two other cubs followed him into the little house.
Xie Tao was observing them and when the Kuhti cub curiously stuck his head out the little window and met Xie Tao’s eyes, he happily called out to him, showing how much he liked it.
"Tiuh-tiuh!"
Seeing that the Kuhti cub liked it, Xie Tao smiled and then moved his eyes to the Muka cub who was still standing motionless by the side.
The cold and fierce looking Muka cub had not moved at all, it was only his red eyes that wandered as he quietly watched how the other cubs explored the new place and all its toys.
Xie Tao walked over to the Muka cub and put his right hand on the others cold scales, he then raised his head to looked up at this seemingly dangerous creature.
"Nick." Xie Tao gently stroked the Muka cub and called out to him.
Xie Tao had named the Muka cub "Nick" and after having heard it a few times, the Muka cub knew that when Xie Tao said it, he was calling him and no one else.
Seeing the youth move forward and then turn around to wave to him, the Muka obediently followed.
Xie Tao lead him outside to the large swing. The Muka cub did not move to explore the swing and instead stood still and looked at the youth that had brought him there.
The Mukas were not completely unintelligent, it was only when compared to the other evolved races that they seemed to have lacking intelligence. If for example compared to a dog from earth, they were much smarter.
When Xie Tao pointed to the large swing next to them and patted him, the Muka cub immediately realized that Xie Tao was giving him permission to touch it.
But… how does one do it?
The Muka cub carefully touched the swing with his paw and watched as the swing swayed back and forth from his touch.
"Baby, you should sit here." Xie Tao patted the swing that was hanging from the chains and patiently thought the Muka cub how to use it.
The Muka cub approached the swing once more but hesitantly stopped in front of it. He turned his head and glanced at the cubs who, on smaller swings, were being pushed by other caretakers not far away, he then looked at the hemispherical chair in front of him.
The large swing had actually been specially prepared for the Muka cub and after seeing that the cub had successfully climbed onto it, Xie Tao began to gently push the swing.
The Muka cub had never experienced anything like this before and he made a low humming sound in his throat as his scarlet pupils unconsciously tightened in excitement.
He seem to like it.
Xie Tao felt relieved at the discovery and couldn’t help but smile.
It turned out that it was not that the Muka cub did not like to play, he just hadn’t known how to.
After getting familiar with the new house, Xia Qi took in the sight of the cubs playing happily in the living room and couldn’t help but say with a happy expression, "Although it’s not as good as the top ranked clubs, out branch is definitely better than the standard nursing club."
Several people nearby heard her words and thoughtfully nodded in agreement.
Compared with the general nursing club, their club must be better.
Looking at this new cub house, everyone at the Yunbao branch sensed that lately their club only kept getting better and better.
Particularly those who had seen its originally old and shabby look, felt that the club had massively improved.
They felt that if they continued to develop as smoothly as they had, then sooner or later, their club would certainly reach the highest rank and become the best club in the interstellar!
Most of the cubs were still playing, however the white fluffy cub with two small horns on his head, rested contentedly in Xie Tao’s arms.
After Xie Tao had played with the Muka, the Knox cub had jumped up and occupied Xie Tao’s arms, using his small fluffy tail to half-hook around Xie Tao’s wrist.
Xie Tao did not have any special feelings about the Knox’s habit of half-hooking his tail around his wrist and did not put any meaning into the action, neither did he mind it.
The tail did not hinder him, when he wanted to do something, the tail would automatically withdraw and when he put his hand back in the original position, the tail would gently half-hook around his wrist again.
Xie Tao was already used to this and seeing that the Knox showed no signs of wanting to leave his arms anytime soon, he did not feel troubled. Freeing his hand, he used it to touch the fluffy tail that had just been wrapped around it.
"Meah~" After making this sound, the fluffy cub in Xie Tao’s arms unconsciously tilted the tip of his tail and made a low humming sound in his throat.
The Knox seemed to like it very much when he touched his tail, whether it was in the cub form or…
Recalling the beautiful silver tail that he had touched once before, Xie Tao cut off his train of thoughts.
It was one thing to touch the tail of a cub, but to touch the tail of the silver haired Knox in the adult form, was an entirely different thing.
It was probably the obvious difference between the two forms that made Xie Tao feel that the beautiful dragon like silver tail should not be touched.
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Translator’s note:
Ahh, I have had so many exams this week, but I made it!!
I managed to get this chapter out according to schedule!
Many thanks to my editor, Orphire, for putting up with the stress-written text and helping me fix it. ♡♡♡
I still have many exams up until Christmas (they somehow felt that jamming them all together close to the end made sense????) I will try my best to keep translating but if I reach my limit, I might have to take a break…
If I do, I will notify you here on my blog, but as of now I will fight on.
Now for something fun:
I use Pinterest to find pictures for this story and lately I have been addicted to the "Humans are weird" -posts that keep popping up in my feed.
Luckily our alien cubs liked to play with the human toys, but what if they hadn’t?
(I know that there might a chance that it’s just me that enjoy the alien posts, cough, my friend doesn’t like them, but I can’t help myself from showing you these posts I recently found, especially the first one. o(≧v≦)o)