Look.
Now the leopard was right in front of him.
With that thought, a smile finally returned to Xue Jiamin's face.
That was right.
The leopard was the one he had been searching for all along.
Why, now that he'd finally seen the leopard... was he acting so timid?
He was so strange.
Xue Jiamin shook his head hard.
When he raised his face again, a radiant smile was on it.
"Mister Leopard."
The child's voice rang out, clear and bright.
Zhujian flicked its ears.
It didn't quite understand why this human cub had suddenly perked up.
But it had known for a long time...
Humans were strange creatures.
Human cubs were the strangest of all.
One moment they were crying, the next they were laughing.
Sometimes they were incredibly brave, and sometimes they were incredibly timid.
Contradictory and fragile.
But interesting, all the same.
"Thank you."
Xue Jiamin gazed intently at the leopard.
"Thank you for saving me last time!"
Last time?
Saving him?
Zhujian glanced at Lord Xiao Xiao.
Oh.
Lord Xiao Xiao had mentioned it before...
He'd said this human cub was looking for it...
He'd said it had helped this human cub once...
But Zhujian didn't remember much about it.
After all, it had helped plenty of human cubs—not too many, but not too few, either.
Whatever it did, it did on a whim.
Once something was over, it didn't dwell on it.
There was a concept among humans that it rather liked...
An encounter once in a lifetime.
Its connection with those human cubs ended there.
After meeting once, they were unlikely to see each other again.
Even if they did, the human cubs from before could no longer see it.
So it never lingered or made an effort to remember.