“Brother……do you think that human, she will really come?”
The twelve-year-old Little Wolf Xiu drooped his gray tail inherited from his parents and sat at the cave mouth, gazing into the distance.
On the opposite side, the mountainside that humans had hollowed out bustled with activity. Some unfamiliar men whom neither Lang nor Xiu had seen before carried saws and toolboxes from the foot of the mountain to the mountainside early in the morning. Under direction, they methodically processed the pile of large trees that had been felled nearby.
They cut the large trees into uniform wooden planks, roughly planed them smooth, and then had the smoothed planks carted into the mountainside by hand. Soon, clanging sounds echoed from inside.
The younger Ben and the twins Mimi and Kiqi were still asleep. Lang covered the three little wolf pups’ ears with a thin blanket.
“Perhaps, she will come.”
As if afraid of waking his younger siblings, Lang’s voice was very soft.
But Xiu at the cave mouth suddenly whipped his head around. His young face covered in downy fur bore a ferocious expression far beyond his actual age.
“Then brother, do you think she will bring lots and lots of humans with her, like those humans who invaded our village and killed our grandparents, treating us like livestock and slaughtering us?”
Lang’s shoulders jerked hard. Unstoppably, the image of the village engulfed by flames and black smoke appeared before his eyes, and in his cream-colored long-furred ears rang the hellish wails full of agony once more.
“We shouldn’t have waited here for that human! We should have fled last night!”
Xiu’s voice suddenly rose, waking Ben and the twins, who rubbed their eyes sleepily with their meaty paws.
“Xiu, we already promised that lady last night that we would wait for her. Do you want to break your word?”
“The humans were the first to break their word!! The village is gone, brother, and you still believe humans!?”
“Xiu, calm down a bit.”
Lang slightly furrowed his brows. Last night, Xiu had sneaked out of the cave, but since he returned with no suspicious scents, Lang had turned a blind eye and pretended not to notice.
But today, Xiu’s mood was very strange. This made Lang take a deep breath and sniff Xiu’s scent again, trying to deduce whom Xiu had met last night.
The scents on Xiu were all familiar ones; whomever Xiu had met was definitely a wolf Lang knew and was very familiar with.
“Xiu, last night you—”
“I don’t need you to mind where I went or whom I met, brother!”
Xiu, immediately sensing his brother’s intent, shouted angrily, his demeanor full of bluster to cover his guilt.
The brothers’ fight seemed on the verge of erupting.
“Oh? Did I come at a bad time? Are you busy?”
With a “whoosh,” Ye Tang’s voice sounded behind Xiu. Xiu, who had been confronting his brother, got so scared that his gray fur stood on end, his heart nearly jumping out of his long snout. Ye Tang, who had set up a rope at the mountaintop and slid down it, landed leisurely. Her body swayed slightly before she leaped into the cave, her feet firmly on the ground.
“You, you……!”
Pointing at Ye Tang with sharp nails, Lang was also startled by her sudden appearance.
“What’s there to be surprised about? Didn’t we agree yesterday? I told you to wait here for me, and I would come.”
As Ye Tang spoke, she removed the homemade safety rope from her waist.
From Abe Village to here, one had to cross two hills. The country Ye Tang was in now was no infrastructure madman nation with roads everywhere. The mountain path, no better than a beast trail, was not only muddy and narrow but full of twists and turns, very unfriendly to the body she now used. After sending Angeline to Eva’s house in the morning, if Ye Tang had walked obediently, she probably wouldn’t have reached Lang’s family’s cave until afternoon.
But this cave was not Ye Tang’s final destination; she still had to take Lang’s family to Abe Village. For the sake of saving time and effort, when Ye Tang inventoried the cellar supplies that morning, she also sorted through the original host’s miscellaneous items and found tools she could use.
She brought a hammer and an axe. At the mountaintop, she found a large tree, tied the hemp rope tightly to it with gloves, secured it further with iron nails, then gripped the hemp rope and slid down from the top—yesterday, on the way when Lang brought her to the cave, Ye Tang had already gauged the height of the mountain.
The forest in front of Abe Village was full of wild grass suitable for twisting into hemp rope, and hemp rope was so cheap in Abe Village that one didn’t need to spend money on it deliberately. Ye Tang had traded a small bottle of wine for an ultra-long hemp rope as thick as her wrist.
The hemp rope was heavy and chafed her shoulders raw near the armpits as she carried it. But the reward was visible to the naked eye. A hill that would take at least an hour, even an hour and a half on foot, Ye Tang crossed in less than ten minutes.
“Let’s go.”
“Go, go where?”
Lang stared dumbfounded, his words stammering.
Ye Tang smiled back at him. “Abe Village.”
……
“Humans are dangerous, groups of humans are especially aggressive—never approach a human village.” Such words had always circulated in the werewolf village. Even Lang, whose parents were pro-human, felt deep fear toward human settlements.
This was also why he had resolved only to rob isolated human homes for his siblings’ sake.
“W-we don’t need to hide our ears, tails, and……”
Lang uncomfortably touched his long snout. He knew humans feared their “huge maws.”
“……faces?”
“No need, no need. In fact, it’s better if you stay like this.”
Ye Tang, leading the way ahead, smiled without a hint of wariness. Xiu, following behind her, felt both annoyed and irritated—this human not only made his brother and him follow her but also brought Ben, Mimi, and Kiqi along.
What did she want to do? She wouldn’t really want to kill them, would she? ……Then why didn’t she kill their whole family yesterday? Could it be just as Gray said, that she wanted to skin them, dismantle their bones, eat their meat without wasting a bit? But doing all that alone would be too tiring, so she must call her companions…… She didn’t bring companions today because she wanted to lure their whole family to the human village—
Sharp claws emerged from the gray long fur. Xiu’s killing intent grew heavier.
“By the way,”
Ye Tang suddenly stopped. Xiu immediately hid his claws behind his back. Lang noticed his brother’s suspicious movement and simply stuck close to Ye Tang’s side, somewhat frivolously draping an arm around her from behind in a feigned embrace.
Ye Tang, who had been about to explain what she planned for Lang’s family today, narrowed her eyes slightly and looked at the strong arm loosely around her.
Werewolves had sturdy, lean builds. Even with bulging muscles covered in thick fur, and human clothes worn somewhat properly over the fur, that sleek wildness still burst forth, impossible to conceal.
“What are you doing?”
“I just wanted to compliment the lady.”
Lifting Ye Tang’s hand, he planted a light kiss on the back with a furry sensation, and Lang frivolously winked. “Lady, you look radiant today, even more beautiful than yesterday.”
Yesterday she had been hungover and disheveled; today she had bathed and changed into men’s clothes convenient for movement, so she naturally looked more spirited. Ye Tang didn’t take Lang’s flattery to heart and politely withdrew her hand. “Thank you, your accent is nice too.”
His sharp triangular ears twitched. Having studied human language for so many years yet never praised for his accent, Lang felt his face heat up. Fortunately, his face was full of fur, so no one could see his shyness.
—Except Xiu.
As fellow werewolves and blood-related brothers, Xiu stared incredulously at his brother, who had been coaxed happy by a single sentence from the human woman. In his heart, besides resentment, there was frustrated disappointment.
Ye Tang didn’t mind talking to Lang, responding to whatever he said. Lang unobtrusively positioned himself between his brother and Ye Tang, not forgetting to care for the three youngest siblings along the way. Ben and the twins were still small and got tired after walking a bit. Lang carried the twins himself and had Xiu carry Ben.
Xiu didn’t find a chance to deliver a fatal strike to Ye Tang the whole way, and with Ben in his arms, he couldn’t act even more.
As they talked, Abe Village came into view for the one human and five wolves.
Seeing the human village, Xiu’s fur stood on end in terror. However, the scene he imagined—humans rushing out of houses with hoes and clubs to surround their family—did not appear.
Instead, a few village women who had just returned from washing clothes by the river saw Big Gray Wolf Lang’s family, dropped their laundry basins in fright, and screamed as they ran back home.
Xiu had just relaxed his muscles a tiny bit when they tensed up again. He thought that in the next second, human men would surely rush out from the buildings where the women had hidden, weapons in hand, to chase and surround their family.
But it still didn’t happen.
Not only that, Ye Tang’s eyes darted, she went home to grab something, and then led Lang’s family to knock on one of the houses whose door had just been banged on by a village woman.
“Jasmine, it’s Mary.”
Ye Tang knocked a few times, not minding whether the village woman named Jasmine inside, who made no sound, was covering her mouth and not daring to breathe. Almost to herself, she said, “New neighbors have moved in near Abe Village. They’re Mr. Lang’s family, the ones you just saw.”
“Mr. Lang’s family wants to say hello to you.”
On the other side of the door, Jasmine, one of Ginny’s followers, was already sobbing softly on the verge of tears. Lang’s mountain-like build, huge maw, and the ferocious glare that seemed intent on tearing her apart (Jasmine’s subjective view) terrified her greatly. She desperately wanted to scream at the door, “Get lost!” but fear prevented her from making a sound.
Ye Tang waited for Jasmine’s response but wasn’t anxious. Instead, she spoke slowly and gently, “Jasmine, don’t you think we should treat the new neighbors who just moved in with friendliness? Mr. Lang’s family, who just arrived, has a very, very big problem right now…… They only came to the village because they couldn’t solve this problem.”
……That meant, as long as this “problem” was solved, those terrifying monsters would leave?
Jasmine thought, tears dripping.
Sure enough, Ye Tang said, “You see, Mr. Lang’s family doesn’t want to trouble us either. It’s just that Mr. Lang’s family is unfamiliar with the place and can’t hunt for now, nor do they know where to buy food, so they had no choice but to come to Abe Village hungry and begging for help.”
Ye Tang gave Lang a look, and he immediately understood.
“Oh, respected madam. Please forgive our disturbance. As long as we can buy enough meat to feed my family, I guarantee that my family and I will leave immediately and no longer disturb your peace.”
Really?
Jasmine glanced at the smoked meat hanging on the wall and began weighing her options intensely in her mind.