Frostflower burst into tears.

Jiuying frowned, extremely impatient. If he could, he really wanted to throw this female beast out; her crying was just too ugly.

"Let me go, please let me go, Jiuying, I beg you." Shuanghua began to kowtow.

Jiuying turned to look at Shen Miao, wanting to see what she had to say.

If Shen Miao is willing, he will let her go; if not, he will continue to embarrass her!

Shen Miao glanced at Shuanghua indifferently, feeling somewhat annoyed by her crying, and said coldly, "Let her go, but first make her apologize."

She comes to steal things and expects to get away with it without paying any price; that's too easy on her.

Jiuying looked coldly at Shuanghua, "Did you hear me? Apologize."

Frostflower shrank back and timidly said to Jiuying, "I'm sorry, Jiuying, I was wrong, please forgive me."

"Who told you to apologize to me? You didn't steal mine, so I'm not going to touch you." Jiu Ying was almost laughing in anger.

Shuanghua pursed her lips. She knew she should apologize to Shen Miao, but she just didn't want to. She felt that Shen Miao would laugh at her and make her lose face.

Upon seeing this, Shen Miao immediately said, "There's no need for her to apologize. You should handle it however you see fit."

Frost Flower was terrified and didn't care about anything else. She quickly said, "I'm sorry, Shen Miao, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have come to steal your things. I was bewitched. I was wrong."

As he spoke, he slapped himself hard.

“You’re wrong, so you’ll do it again next time,” Shen Miao said coolly.

Shuanghua shook her head quickly: "I wouldn't dare, I wouldn't dare again."

Shen Miao glanced at him wearily and ignored him. Jiu Ying then stepped forward and threw the slumped frost flower away.

As soon as Shuanghua stepped outside, her expression changed. She got up from the ground, spat fiercely at Shen Miao's wooden house, and then ran away as fast as she could when she heard the door open.

...

The rat-orc is about to give birth, and many orcs from the tribe have gone to watch.

The birth rate of offspring in the tribe is very low, so when a family is about to give birth, all the orcs in the tribe who haven't had children yet will go there, hoping to share in the joy.

Shen Miao didn't join in the fun. Firstly, she felt there was nothing to watch about someone giving birth, and secondly, she wasn't very familiar with the rat-beastmen; she didn't even know where they lived.

By the afternoon, the orcs who had come to watch the spectacle had all returned.

As the bird-beastman Li Chun passed by Shen Miao's house, he saw her and sighed even harder. Shen Miao was speechless, but still asked, "Sister-in-law Li Chun, what happened?"

Li Chun waited for Shen Miao to ask her, and immediately spilled the beans, telling her everything.

"Oh my god, you have no idea, that rat-beastman gave birth to such an ugly thing, with such a big head and such a small body, and it even has several fingers on one hand. It's terrifying."

Shen Miao was confused and exclaimed, "Sister-in-law Li Chun, what are you saying?"

Seeing that Shen Miao didn't understand, Li Chun slapped his thigh and said, "Oh dear, how come you still don't understand? That rat-beastman gave birth to a monster! It's probably going to harm people. I wish I hadn't gone to see it. Now that I have, I'm afraid I'll have nightmares for days. It's terrifying!"

As he spoke, he walked back, muttering words like "monster" under his breath.

From her rambling narration, Shen Miao pieced together a fact: the rat-beast had given birth, but the offspring might not be healthy.

This didn't surprise Shen Miao much. Even in her modern world, deformed children still exist. However, modern medicine is advanced enough to detect them in advance.

There's no concept of prenatal checkups here, so it's not surprising that deformed babies are born.

She wasn't particularly curious about the cub; she'd heard about it and that was that. After all, she couldn't help the other party. She just hoped that the rat-beastman wouldn't treat the cub too badly.

But she never expected that the rat-beastman had no desire for the cub at all.

As evening approached, Shen Miao went to the back mountain to dig for wild vegetables and saw an orc squatting on the ground digging a hole. Next to him was a cub wrapped in a tattered animal skin. She recognized it as a cub because a very small hand was sticking out from under the animal skin.

She was suspicious and couldn't help but walk closer to take a look.

Upon arriving at the scene, they discovered that the person who dug the pit was the rat-beastman who had given birth that morning, and the wet, bruised baby on the ground was already dead.

In that instant, Shen Miao felt a surge of anger rush to the top of her head.

She was trembling all over, and her mind was blank.

"What are you doing?" The rat-beastman spotted Shen Miao, stared at her warily, and kicked the baby on the ground to prevent him from being seen.

Shen Miao's mind went blank. She pointed at the small package and asked with difficulty, "Is that your baby?"

"That's not my cub, that's a monster," the rat-beastman said coldly, curling his lip.

"But he was your son, and you killed him, didn't you? He was a little life, how could you be so heartless?" Shen Miao became more and more angry as she spoke.

The rat-beastman looked at her with a puzzled expression and said impatiently, "He's a monster. Why would I keep a monster around? Besides, everyone does it this way. Who would keep a monster around for free? Get out of my way and don't block my work."

Shen Miao was completely helpless in the face of the rat-beastmen's attitude.

She tried to reason with the rat-beastman, but he wouldn't listen at all. Shen Miao scolded her, but the rat-beastman was unmoved and even said that she was meddling in other people's business.

Shen Miao returned to her tribe in anger.

They encountered some orcs on the road, who advised them, "Don't worry about the rat orc's affairs; she's already had enough to suffer."

"She drowned the baby herself, so what is she sad about? If anyone should be sad, it should be the baby." Shen Miao simply couldn't understand the thought process of these beastmen.

The orcs looked at her strangely, their tone subtle, "Chen Miao, how could you think like that? For so many years, everyone has been like this. If you gave birth to a monster, you would also throw it away, because it's useless. The tribe doesn't need useless orcs."

“I won’t abandon him, I will take care of him!” Shen Miao retorted loudly.

The orcs said leniently, "Alright, alright, you can't do it, okay? But don't bother others."

Shen Miao didn't want to talk to them anymore and went home listlessly.

Qingchen glanced at her face, took the basket she had unloaded, and asked, "What happened?"

“Qingchen,” Shen Miao said sullenly, “you know about the rat beast’s birth of a deformed child, right? She drowned the baby and buried it in the back mountain. There was nothing there but a tattered animal skin.”

The thought of that little boy covered in bruises sent chills down Shen Miao's spine.

Qingchen said calmly, "Not surprising."

"But that's wrong! No one has the right to take another person's life!" Shen Miao couldn't help but become agitated.