“May I kiss… your… hand?”
He discovered that his voice was far too hoarse, so Lang forced out the brightest smile he could manage. He supported Ye Tang’s hand and knelt on one knee before her.
His claws pressed against his chest, with sharp nails pressing against his heart. Lang devoutly lowered his head and said, “With this body, I offer you my loyalty. I swear on my life that as long as I still breathe, I will surely protect you.”
The fluffy sensation on the back of Ye Tang’s hand vanished in an instant.
Lang, who had sworn just like Ye Tang, chuckled softly. It was the same hand-kissing etiquette, but his state of mind now was vastly different from the first time he had kissed the back of Ye Tang’s hand. Back then, he had lightly and frivolously kissed the back of Ye Tang’s hand just to divert her attention, but now he was filled with reverence, gratitude, and unspoken feelings as he sincerely pledged eternal, unchanging loyalty to Ye Tang.
Ye Tang thought of the Western palace movies she had watched in the past. She remembered that at times like this, one should say—
“I permit you.”
Lang’s head was stroked by Ye Tang once again. He knew full well that Ye Tang did not see him as a member of the opposite sex at all, and he smiled bitterly in his heart.
The night was already very deep, and Ye Tang was dressed far too thinly. Lang escorted her to her room door, extinguished the kerosene lamp for her, closed the door, and only then went back downstairs to his younger brother’s side.
Ye Tang walked back to the bedside as quietly as possible, but Angeline still woke up. The little girl drowsily rubbed her eyes and called out, “Mama?”, so Ye Tang went over and hugged Angeline, pulling the covers properly over both Angeline and herself.
“Baby, the sky hasn’t brightened yet. You can sleep a little longer. Mama is right here, right by your side. Go to sleep.”
Angeline was kissed on the forehead by Ye Tang and settled down peacefully. She indeed shrank back into Ye Tang’s embrace and sweetly fell asleep again in just a few seconds.
Ye Tang was also very tired. She urgently needed to rest and recuperate.
If she had not guessed wrong, Tobias would surely make his next move within three to five days.
With Earl Ulysses Grant’s abilities, this young earl had likely already investigated and found that Tobias was hiring workers in his name, spending his money, yet exploiting the miners by raising prices in Lem Town.
In order to ride on Earl Ulysses Grant’s coattails and rush to complete the Lem Mine, Tobias had not hesitated to lead people in massacring the werewolf village and burning away all traces of its existence. A person who resorted to any means for his own ends was the most prone to desperate measures when cornered, going all the way with no turning back.
The earl was not old, and in Tobias’s eyes, he was just a foolish, rich, willful brat. But if such a brat complained to the Queen about him, Tobias was bound to face dire consequences. He would either end up on the guillotine or the gallows. Thus, Tobias had only one choice—kill the earl and conceal the truth.
And conveniently, there was a top-notch scapegoat delivering himself right to the door: the werewolf Gray.
Gray knew that Tobias was protected airtight by others, so he planned to kidnap Tobias’s wife and daughter. However, he had not realized one problem.
As Lang had said, the young werewolves in the werewolf village were all alive because on the day the werewolf village was burned to ashes, the elderly werewolves said they still planned to negotiate properly with the humans, but just in case, they had all the young ones evacuate the village.
In the end, only the young werewolves who had stayed outside the village survived, while the middle-aged and elderly ones who remained in the village all perished that night.
What struck Ye Tang as inconsistent was the phrase “just in case.” Even the elderly and frail werewolves could run faster and jump higher than humans, not to mention there were quite a few of them. Why did the middle-aged and elderly werewolves need to “just in case” and send all the young ones away?
Unless the middle-aged and elderly werewolves had long known that the humans had some trump card.
Connecting this to the pungent scent Lang had smelled on Earl Ulysses Grant. Ye Tang was absolutely certain that Tobias held something in his hands that could subdue werewolves.
That werewolf named Gray had probably never considered this at all. He and his companions would surely be subdued. But they would not die for the time being.
The place where they would die was only the public execution ground.
Yes, Tobias would definitely choose to execute the werewolves publicly under the charge of “plotting to murder Earl Ulysses Grant.” After all, to cut the grass, one must remove the roots. Using Gray and his group, he could lure out more werewolves. And only by turning werewolves into dead people could the dead have no chance to reveal Tobias’s crimes.
Earl Ulysses Grant, favored by the Queen—his tragic death would prompt the Queen to wage war on the werewolves. In this way, Tobias, the persecutor of werewolves, would become the side of “justice.” No one would accuse him of inhumanity for slaughtering werewolves everywhere. In fact, for avenging Earl Ulysses Grant on the Queen’s behalf, Tobias might even be reinstated in noble society.
This was a trap meticulously planned by the chess player. Now, the pieces on the board were all moving according to Tobias’s plan.
What Tobias did not know was that the seat across from him was no longer empty.
Ye Tang would sit across from Tobias for only one reason: she despised this kind of authority figure who climbed to power on the blood and flesh of others, treating racial extermination as an achievement.
Whether werewolves or other beastmen, those who had never actively harmed humans had the right to choose to coexist with humans.
……
Lang sat back by his younger brother’s bedside and was kicked in the waist by someone. Lang, who felt pain enough to bring tears to his eyes, turned around and saw that his younger brother had already woken up and was glaring at him.
Lang helplessly raised his hands in surrender. “Yes, yes, yes, sorry. I broke my word and sneaked off first.”
“Hmph!”
Xiu buried his groggy head back into the pillow and covers. He actually understood that his older brother had been very restrained.
—As long as they still had wolf heads, they could never confess to her, to Mary, the secret blazing heat suppressed deepest in their hearts.
It was just like the beast and the girl in that song.
The beast pretending to be a human boy would never confess to the girl.
……
Gray was thrown into a dusty stone cell. His robust, tall body was now like a ragged rag, its only use wriggling on the ground to wipe away the thick layer of dust.
Damn… despicable… humans… truly… despicable…!
Drool uncontrollably flowed from the corner of his mouth. He had never imagined that humans would just splash a small bottle at him, and he would feel dizzy, unable to muster any strength, collapsing limply like his tendons had been pulled. With his hands and feet tightly bound behind his back, Gray could not even clench his teeth.
The sky was about to brighten; a new day was about to arrive.
Earl Ulysses Grant sat at the desk and finished his final stroke. His butler immediately took the letter, sealed it, and dripped half a spoonful of heated wax onto the envelope’s flap.
“Evan, what do you think of that woman?”
As the young earl pressed his seal into the wax, he asked casually.
“The woman… Do you mean that village girl who was with the werewolf—cough, I mean, that lady?”
Butler Evan tried his best to guess his master’s intentions.
Though their young master was not old, he had seen plenty of the world of romance. Especially during each social season, famous ladies and noblewomen swarmed around him like bees scenting honey, trying to forge deeper ties with the young master favored by Her Majesty the Queen.
The master always played the innocent child due to his youth. Apart from Her Majesty the Queen, who shared close blood ties with him and was old enough to be his grandmother, he treated all other women equally—with no interest at all.
Now, the master had suddenly asked his impression of a village girl… well, a lady… or rather, not so simple countrywoman. This made it hard for him to answer.
“Forget it, no need to answer.”
As if recalling something amusing, Ulysses lightly curved his lips.
Already a beautiful youth with a face like spring flowers, the smiling Ulysses was even more androgynously captivating. With his long golden eyelashes lowered, he let out a soft laugh. “Clearly just a village girl, yet she speaks as if she knows everything, has seen everything… What should I ask her next time? Hmm…”
Seeing his master gazing thoughtfully out the window, Butler Evan truly did not dare to guess Ulysses’s current thoughts.
He feared his intuition would prove correct—the master was really thinking about when he could see that countrywoman a second time.
In fact, Ulysses was indeed pondering how to see Ye Tang a second time.
Sneaking into the mine again was too risky, and directly summoning that woman to Tobias’s mansion was not quite appropriate. Having the guard captain inquire about that woman’s name and residence might alert Tobias to his interest in her. So…
Ulysses imagined many ways to meet Ye Tang, only to reject them one by one.
On a moonless, windy night perfect for murder and arson, two days later, the problem that had troubled Ulysses for days—how to see Ye Tang a second time—resolved itself.
Holding a kerosene lamp, Ye Tang, escorted by Lang to the east side third floor of Tobias’s Mansion, climbed in through the window into the guest room used by Ulysses. Outside the window, Lang, relying on his excellent physical abilities to climb and leap onto the third-floor outer wall, continued to stand guard for Ye Tang.
“Who’s there!?”
Ye Tang, with a silver sword held to her neck by Ulysses’s guard captain, removed the red cloak covering her head. This bright red velvet cloak was identical to Angeline’s and was also a gift from Eva.
“Earl, please leave from here right now. Tobias plans to kill you and your subordinates, then burn down the entire East Corridor. And frame the werewolves, inciting war between humans and werewolves.”
“What!?”
The guard captain was stunned. He exchanged a glance with the butler, both unable to believe Ye Tang’s words.
“You’re lying! How could you possibly know about this!”
Ulysses’s personal valet blocked in front of his master but was waved back by Ulysses.
“Are you a witch? Or a seer?”
Moonlight peeked out from behind dark clouds, casting a soft silver glow on Ye Tang in her red cloak. Ye Tang smiled faintly and extended her hand toward Ulysses.
“Neither.”
“I’m just a village girl.”