Su Qinglan was sitting on the wooden floor, playing with her two chubby tiger cubs as they rolled back and forth like round little dumplings. They kept crawling toward the doorway, their round ears twitching as they stared outside.
The rainy season had not fully ended yet. The rain was much lighter than before, only a soft drizzle falling through the forest leaves, but still, she could not let them go out. They were newborns. Their bodies were still weak.
The cubs pressed their tiny paws against the threshold of the gate, their eyes full of longing as they looked at the muddy ground outside, as if they desperately wanted to roll in it.
Su Qinglan scooped them back into her arms.
"Xiao Yi… Xiao Er… not now," she said gently, giving them a soft kiss on their foreheads.
"When you grow a little bigger, you can roll in the mud as much as you like. But now you must stay inside and be good."
The cubs made funny faces at her.
