Chen Ying counted on his fingers and figured, the tiger mother's cubs were roughly about a year and a half old now.
Normally, they would separate from their mother between eighteen months to two years old and begin living independently.
According to the tiger mother's plan, she would drive her cubs away before the fall and then breed again the next spring.
The male tiger, seizing the opportunity while the tiger mother was away, drove the cubs off, probably because their presence was already affecting the food supply in his territory.
After all, "the young ones exhausting their father's resources" wasn't an adage exclusive to humans.
Chen Ying saw the tiger mother pause for a moment, then rush across the bridge, and, in a blink, she disappeared from view.
Big Tiger looked once at the direction where the tiger mother had vanished and then glanced at Chen Ying, tightening his embrace on the cub, as if worried Chen Ying might take the cub away from him.