Gray rushed onto the execution platform. His sudden appearance scared the townsfolk into a chorus of screams as they retreated. It also made the guards draw their guns one after another, aiming their muzzles at his head.
Gray was utterly oblivious. He charged up to Hans, grabbed Hans by the collar, and glared with bulging eyes as he demanded, “Repeat what you just said! What do you mean by five werewolves?!”
“It means exactly what you think it does, Gray.”
Lang leaped over the crowd onto the execution platform as well. He pulled Gray away, making Gray release Hans. Hans immediately dropped to his knees at Gray’s feet. Trembling, he looked up and asked, “Could you be that child’s older brother? …When the child was sold away, she kept crying and shouting ‘Brother,’ ‘Brother’ … Your eyes look just like hers, really just like hers … I let you down. I caused your family to be torn apart …”
As he spoke, Hans covered his face with both hands. Tears poured continuously from between his fingers.
In order to give his young miss a relatively smooth married life, he had served a demon he did not want to serve and become the devil’s lackey. He was not without pangs of conscience, but selfish desires had erased his sense of right and wrong.
At this point, Hans only wanted to end it all with death. He believed only death could absolve his sins.
“Enough, witness. Instead of spouting useless words, think about how to atone.”
The young count extended one finger. “I’ll give you two choices. One: Spend the rest of your empty life in prison. Every day, you only need to do two things—unpaid hard labor, and closing your eyes to sleep.”
The young count extended a second finger. “Two: Find back the werewolves you trafficked and reunite them with their families. If you fail to find all the werewolves or try to run away, I’ll have someone chop off your head and hang it next to Tobias’s. But even if you recover all the werewolves, you’ll still have to serve twenty years at Lem Mine. During that time, the mine won’t give you a single penny. All your wages will go toward compensating the werewolves you sold. The mine will only provide two meals to keep you from starving to death.”
“Which of the two choices do you pick?”
Ulysses was asking Hans, but Gray excitedly tried to interrupt and ask if his parents and little sister could really be brought back. Lang yanked back the impulsive Gray. Thus, Gray’s left ear heard Hans say, “Count, thank you for your mercy. I choose to find back the werewolves, reunite their families, and serve twenty years at Lem Mine …”
And Gray’s right ear caught Lang’s voice: “Actually, the count already sent people a few days ago to track down your parents, your little sister, and my parents’ whereabouts … They’re all still alive. Only the count and his inner circle know this news. I only heard about it yesterday.”
Gray felt as if struck by lightning. He whipped his head around to look at Lang. It had been a long time since he had looked closely at his old friend, and only now did he notice the redness at the corners of Lang’s eyes for the first time.
The count’s benevolence was not free. With apology and deep gratitude, Lang smiled and nodded to Ye Tang. He could not calculate how much brainpower Ye Tang had racked for the count behind the scenes to make all this possible.
His long muzzle trembled nonstop, and bean-sized tears rolled down nonstop. Gray, who always claimed he never cried because crying was for cowards, sobbed uncontrollably.
Below the execution platform, Gray’s companions also reddened their eyes one after another, wiping at their eye corners. The townsfolk, who had been clutching each other, poked their heads out from behind alley walls as well.
All the townsfolk felt somewhat moved upon seeing Gray’s tears—turns out, werewolves could cry too. Like humans, they worried about family and wanted to protect their loved ones.
In the past, they had only seen werewolves’ wolf heads and treated werewolves as savage, brutal “wolves” incapable of reason. They had never considered that werewolves were also “people” with normal emotions, capable of feeling joy, anger, sorrow, and parting.
Seeing the werewolves who were happy for Gray and Lang’s chance to recover their families, the townsfolk were no longer so afraid. They even felt that werewolves, with their loyalty and righteousness, were more human-like than inhuman scum like Tobias.
“—Is this your plan, miss? To make werewolves accepted by humans, so humans no longer reject living alongside werewolves.”
Ulysses parted his lips slightly and asked Ye Tang, who stood at his side.
Ye Tang’s expression did not change. She still wore that warm, gentle smile. “I think it’s a good thing, no? Werewolves and humans won’t attack each other anymore. Once the pacifist beastmen see this, will they keep letting the war-mongering beastmen who harbor hostility toward humans and itch for war manipulate them?”
“I think you just like fluffy beastmen and don’t want to see them go extinct.”
“Oh dear, exposed?”
Ye Tang and Ulysses exchanged smiles. Lang, seeing this scene, felt somewhat defeated.
‘…Y-Yeah, compared to me, Mary is of course more suited to humans. Besides, the count is human nobility. Mary being with him is far more logical than being with me …’
But—
No, there was no “but.” The choice was in Mary’s hands, and he … with his wolf head and fur all over his body, did not even qualify to compete.
…
Two months after Tobias Gordonworth and his personal valet Petty were hanged, Lem Town had fully returned to peace. Werewolves began freely walking the streets of Lem Town, entering and exiting its various shops. The townsfolk of Lem Town would proactively greet the werewolves who often ran errands from nearby villages to Lem Town. The werewolves had at first been startled and jumpy, but now they had grown accustomed to high-fiving and fist-bumping with the townsfolk.
The former mine chief and overseer of Lem Mine, brothers Francis and Francois, had been Tobias’s accomplices and thus faced trial as well. The two were now lifetime miners at Lem Mine—of course, without wages.
In the past, these brothers had not treated miners as people. They exploited miners, whipped them, cursed them, and kicked them around for fun. Now, all the evil they had wrought returned upon them. Their meals were thin gruel like mud, and other miners would spit into them. If they exhausted their strength and failed to dig enough coal, they got no food and were kicked into the mine shafts to stay there. If they fell asleep in the shafts, other miners doused them awake with cold water. In short, for twenty-four hours a day, these brothers could not count on more than two hours of peace.
Gray’s parents were in a place two counties away. After reuniting with his parents, Gray went with them to the capital—his little sister had been sold there. Now Gray’s whole family had reunited.
Lang’s parents had been sold to the distant Eternal Frostlands, and the couple had been separated. Hans sent a telegram saying he had found Lang’s mother and was now on the road with her to find Lang’s father.
Fortunately, neither Gray’s parents and sister nor Lang’s parents had suffered severe abuse. This was enough to prove Hans was not rotten to the core. Back then, he had secretly chosen buyers behind Tobias’s back. He had not sold Gray’s parents and sister or Lang’s parents to the highest bidder, but to those who seemed like they would treat werewolves decently.
If Tobias had known Hans dared to make such decisions on his own, he probably would not have merely skinned Hans but broken two of his bones as well.
During this time, the collection items of Tobias’s that Lang had retrieved from the attic on the top floor of the west gallery before the fire at Tobias’s mansion played a huge role. After all, without money, who would willingly let go of pets they had paid a fortune for?
After redeeming Gray’s parents, sister, and Lang’s parents, plenty of Tobias’s collection items remained. Lang had originally planned to return the leftovers to Tobias’s wife, Lorena, after everything was over. But Lorena flatly refused to take them.
“Those are ill-gotten gains to begin with. I failed to stop Tobias’s evil deeds, and now to consume the people’s fat and oil he collected … that would make me a hypocritical devil. From now on, I want to live as an upright person, just like Rosemary. … I want to live by my own strength and wait with my daughter for the day we reunite with Hans!”
Lorena raised her arm as she spoke, smiling brilliantly.
Originally from a mere middle-class family, she now looked completely like a village woman. As Tobias’s wife, even without participating in his crimes, Lorena could hardly continue living in Lem Town. Tobias’s deeds had made the newspapers and spread through streets and alleys nationwide. Lorena did not want to bring shame or trouble to her family, so she simply followed Ye Tang’s suggestion and moved to Abe Village.
The villagers of Abe Village would not discriminate against or bully Lorena just because she was Tobias’s wife. After all, there was also Ginny here, who had once been Kevin’s wife.
“A woman is herself first, before being anyone’s wife. Shouldn’t we judge a person based on who they are?”
As Tobias’s nephew, Kevin had done his share of petty thefts. Now that Ginny had cut ties with him completely, she naturally had the right to stand tall and say such words.
When Jasmine heard Ginny say this, she could not help but retort, “That’s something Mary said when speaking up for you, right?”
“Shut up, Jasmine!”
“I won’t shut up! Ahh! Where did that mean, bullying Ginny of the past go? The current Ginny actually listens to her arch-nemesis and organizes people to build some ‘suspension bridge’!”
So Ginny chased after Jasmine, hitting her. “Shut up, shut up! I only agreed to the suspension bridge because it’s good for the village! Haven’t you noticed that after it’s built, half the village goes to Lem Mine to sell things!?”
The villagers were used to this scene, and many laughed. With the high-and-mighty village head’s wife gone, the villagers’ hearts settled down.
A village woman pushing a crude cart got distracted, and the cart veered to one side. The vegetables in the cart were about to spill into the mud when a fluffy arm reached out from the side to steady the cart for her.
“Th-Thank you, Lang!”
“No need to thank me.”
Lang smiled and let go. A few children behind shouted “Lang—” and ran over like little whirlwinds. They tugged his arms and hugged his legs. Lang raised his arms for them to climb like monkey bars and put the tiny one hugging him onto his shoulders to ride his neck.
Angeline ran over too, with Mimi, Kiqi, and Ben.
“Lang! Read us a storybook!”
Angeline handed Lang a thick storybook. Beside her, Mimi and Kiqi bounced with shining eyes too.
“‘Storybook! Storybook!’”
“Okay~ Okay~”
Lang took the storybook, held Angeline’s hand, and walked toward the tree. But the mischievous boys were unhappy.
“We don’t want stories! We want Lang to sing! Lang, sing!”
Lang, tugged by his clothes, smiled helplessly. He ruffled the boy’s head, really wanting to tell him: To attract a girl you like, this is the wrong way. Look, Angeline had lowered her head sullenly.
He sat down under the tree with the children. Lang smiled and said, “How about this—I’ll sing the story.”
The children’s eyes lit up at once, and they nodded around Lang.
His gentle baritone melted into the wind, and the sweet melody wafted through the village.
A nearby village woman clutched her chest. She puzzled over it: In that instant just now, why had Lang—covered in fur, with a huge maw and sharp fangs—seemed so handsome and dashing? Ah … she must be too strange.
…
“Won’t you really come back to the capital with us? I think Your Majesty would want to meet you.”
Ulysses asked once more, only to receive Ye Tang’s shake of the head again.
“Count, occasionally please let me take a vacation, to rest a bit with my daughter somewhere without annoying work.”
“You actually dare to say the work I gave you is annoying…”
Though he said that, Ulysses smiled. Everyone could see he was just joking with Ye Tang.
Even the Count’s confidants had their hairs standing on end—the master who joked like a normal fourteen-year-old boy was simply too terrifying!
“Then we’ll set off for the capital tomorrow. If you change your mind, just come straight to the train station.”
Ulysses’s words once again filled his confidants with the urge to complain: She had refused multiple times already, yet he still extended the olive branch? Who was it that always claimed, “I don’t do futile things”…
“As you command, Count.”
Ye Tang lifted her skirt and curtsied.
Though she absolutely would not go to any train station.
Lem Town · Train Station—
“Is this the place? What a long journey…”
A knight in chainmail clumsily stepped down from the train. A crucifix hung on his chest, and behind him a group of similarly dressed knights rushed out, removed their barrel-like helmets, and began vomiting nearby.
No helping it; knights of old rode horses. The Cross Knights’ headquarters lay in very remote countryside, and these Cross Knights knew nothing of advanced transport like trains—much less had ever ridden one.
These country knights suffered terrible motion sickness and paid no heed to the disdainful stares from onlookers who saw them as bumpkins.
The only knight not afflicted sighed and scolded his subordinates in bitter disappointment: “How are you supposed to subjugate those damned witches like this!? I think you all want to get your throats torn out one by one by werewolves!”
The knights wanted to reply to their leader, but the moment they opened their mouths, retching sounds poured out nonstop.
The lead knight felt utterly helpless: “…Fine, fine, hurry up and finish vomiting. We move tonight. Before then, you must recover your strength!”
“Yes… urp urp—”
Pressing his temples, the knight let out a pained sigh.