Ye Chuqi's eyelid twitched. She had sent Xiaojiu to help the injured Tree Fern Eagle mainly to give him somewhere to hide, so he would not get caught up in the fighting or spotted by the adventurers. Whether he could save the eagle was beside the point. If he managed to help and pick up something valuable along the way, so much the better. Demon beasts that survived in the Lost Forest usually had a few treasures tucked away.
But Ye Chuqi had not expected Xiaojiu to bring back a Tree Fern Eagle chick whose feathers had barely grown in, rather than some treasure.
Ye Chuqi had already imagined an entire saga when she heard Xiaojiu say, "Before it died, the Tree Fern Eagle entrusted its chick to me..."
Tree Fern Eagles always appeared in pairs. Mates were deeply devoted to each other and fought side by side, with no notion that outnumbering an opponent was unfair. That was why the Horned Python could pick them off one by one once they were separated, even though Tree Fern Eagles could resist its venom.
The sight of the patchy-feathered chick told Ye Chuqi that the Horned Python had struck while the Tree Fern Eagle was giving birth. Incidentally, here was an obscure fact: Tree Fern Eagles had wings, yet they gave birth to live young instead of laying eggs. Strange, but true.
One Tree Fern Eagle had already fallen, and the other would not live on alone. So it had entrusted its newborn chick to the human who had appeared out of nowhere to help it.
Xiaojiu cupped the Tree Fern Eagle chick in his hands. It had not even opened its eyes. Its soft, slightly prickly down tickled his palms, and he looked utterly at a loss. "Can it survive?"