The table experienced a whirlwind of voracious eating. Mimi and Kiqi, the twin wolf pups, ate with mouths dripping oil, both holding their cheeks in utter enjoyment. Ben’s fluffy tail wagged nonstop behind him, so fast that its afterimage resembled a blooming dandelion.
Xiu’s face was full of unwillingness, but unfortunately, his tail had a mind of its own. Even when Xiu used one paw to press down his restless tail, the tip of his gray tail still shook under his palm.
Lang tilted his head to the side, his shoulders shaking nonstop. The more he tried not to laugh out loud, the redder Xiu’s face became upon noticing his reaction. Even though the gray little wolf pup was covered head to toe in thick fluff, a bit of redness still showed on his face.
“Already full? I thought you would eat more.”
Ye Tang brought out two cups of dark, glossy liquid from the kitchen.
“Thanks for your generosity. I really am full.”
Lang said these insincere words with a grin. By human standards, he was already an adult. It wouldn’t hurt him to go hungry a bit—what mattered was that his younger brother and sisters had to eat their fill.
Ye Tang nodded. She sat across from Lang, took a sip of the pitch-black liquid first to show that it was truly drinkable, then handed the other cup of pitch-black liquid to Lang.
Lang’s nose twitched as he sniffed the strange aroma from the cup Ye Tang offered. Sweat beaded on the back of his head. He understood that Ye Tang wanted him to try the dark liquid too, but his instincts shamefully rebelled against that terrifying color.
Ye Tang misunderstood Lang’s hesitation. She swapped her own half-drunk cup with the one in front of Lang and took another sip of the black stuff in the cup.
Her glass-bead-like blue eyes seemed to say: See, I really didn’t poison it.
No matter the race, “trust” was crucial. Lang mustered his spirits, approached the black liquid that reflected his own image with a do-or-die spirit, and extended his paw.
The black liquid gurgled like some alien creature as it surged down his throat. His tongue felt an intensely stimulating bitterness, and Lang nearly spat out the liquid in his mouth. The reason it was only “nearly” was because amid the intense bitterness, he detected an equally intense aroma.
The Lang who had been rolling his eyes as if about to collapse the previous second suddenly perked up and looked at Ye Tang, his eyes shining brightly.
“Looks like werewolves and humans have similar tastes after all.”
Ye Tang nodded in satisfaction. Her words made Lang realize she had just used him for a taste test.
But he wasn’t angry.
“What is this? It’s not some bitter medicine, right? How to put it… It’s hard to drink, but also really good. It has a kind of… a kind of ‘mellow’ flavor—yes! The ‘mellow’ flavor you humans describe!”
Lang, tasting coffee for the first time, racked his brains to describe the flavor he felt. His words filled the twins, Ben, and Xiu with curiosity.
The twins exchanged a glance, pounced on their brother’s arm, and stuck out their little tongues to lick at his cup. The result—
The two little ones tilted their heads to left and right respectively and let out “Oh urp—” sounds. Ben was so startled by the twins’ reaction that his tail drooped. He couldn’t understand why the twins and big brother reacted so differently.
“This is dandelion coffee.”
“Coffee?”
Hearing the novel term, the tips of Lang’s ears twitched a few times.
“Yes. It’s a drink that kids can’t get used to, but adults will love.”
Ye Tang had picked some dandelions along with the thyme and sweet basil. Dandelions were tenacious plants that grew everywhere—not just in the big patch at the village entrance, but scattered all over Abe Village.
Dandelions could be used as medicine or vegetables, or roasted into a brown color, ground into powder, and brewed into dandelion coffee, which tasted close to coffee but without caffeine and richer in nutrients.
—Beverages were an indispensable part of Ye Tang’s plan. But according to the original host’s memories, tea was a luxury item not just in Abe Village but throughout the country. Coffee hadn’t caught on in these lands either. The mainstream fancy drink was still red tea mixed with heaps of sugar and milk, looking like muddy water.
Ye Tang lacked a grinder, so that morning she had only picked a handful of dandelions, roasted them, and chopped the roasted dandelions with a kitchen knife. Later, she planned to go to town and see if she could buy a grinding tool.
After finishing the dandelion coffee, Ye Tang stood up. “Alright, rest is over. Time to get back to afternoon work. Of course, assuming your family still wants to earn dinner.”
“”Dinner!!””
Hearing about dinner, Mimi and Kiqi, who had just been “poisoned” by the dandelion coffee and wore bitter faces, jumped up excitedly again.
That black water called “coffee” was hard to drink, but the meat was delicious! That fragrant, soft, white stuff was delicious too! They didn’t want to go hungry! They wanted to eat more! They wanted to sleep with full, warm bellies!
“Work—”
Ben unconsciously wagged his tail at Ye Tang. This little wolf pup had already learned a truth: work meant food. Following this human woman meant work for his whole family!
The fawning, bootlicking looks of his younger siblings made Xiu want to vomit, but his mind knew clearly: going along with this woman was better than clashing with her or attacking her. The former guaranteed dinner for the family; the latter would bring the whole human village swarming with armed humans to hunt them down.
He could go hungry, but why should he let his well-fed younger siblings starve?
That said, thinking of the stolen hunting grounds, the destroyed home, the dead neighbors in the village… Xiu’s chest still burned with pent-up rage with nowhere to vent. It made him want to hurt Ye Tang, to let her, to let the humans taste the pain of being hurt.
“Miss, is there anything you need me to carry?”
The diligent Lang inserted himself between his brother and Ye Tang. His movements were gentlemanly, but his winking smile was pure flirtation.
Ye Tang smiled too. “Yes. Lots.”
The “lots” Ye Tang mentioned was no small amount.
Straining to pull a wooden-wheeled cart with its tires sunk deep in yellow mud, Lang began to regret his big mouth.
“Mr. Otto, are you home? It’s Mary.”
Hearing Ye Tang knock, Old Otto, who had been bickering daily with his wife, huffed angrily toward the door. Before even opening it, he started yelling.
“Oh heavens! Mary, what trouble are you stirring up now!? I know it’s not easy for a widow raising kids! But is it easy for me!? I told you long ago I have no money for you!! Last time you came, I even gave you a crate of wine! What more do you wa—nt…………”
The instant the door opened, red-nosed Old Otto went silent. The werewolf’s massive shadow loomed like a sky-obscuring dark cloud over his rotund body. Frightened speechless, Old Otto plopped down on his butt, nearly wetting his pants.
“Otto! This time you won’t get to run off midway with some excuse! Even if it’s Mary, today even if Her Majesty the Queen herself arrived, I won’t let you esca—”
Old Otto’s wife, charging out angrily behind him, also fell silent the moment she saw Lang.
The couple successively collapsed to the ground. Old Otto reached his wife first, then she tremblingly hugged him. The two helped each other up into a huddled embrace, shivering under Lang’s overlooking gaze.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Otto, Mrs. Otto.”
With a gentle smile, Ye Tang slowly stepped out from behind Lang. In the couple’s eyes at that moment, she seemed like an angel with white wings sprouting from her back, separating them from the monster.
Ye Tang applied the same routine she had used on the village women that morning to the Otto couple. Only this time, instead of wooden shoes, she offered the finest wooden furniture from her home that the Otto couple had long coveted. And what she wanted from the Otto couple wasn’t meat, but wine.
That’s right—the original host had so much wine at home, every bottle from Old Otto.
Old Otto had been a drunkard since childhood. Unable to afford good wine, he suffered greatly. After coming of age, he resolved to brew his own tasty wine.
Old Otto had people bring back grape seeds of many varieties. He scattered them mixed together in his field, and years, decades later, they became a vast green expanse.
Whether it was Abe Village’s environment suiting grapes or the grapes having hybridized and evolved together to adapt to the climate, Old Otto’s vineyard yielded bumper crops and expanded yearly.
But what was Abe Village? Just a remote little mountain village. The locals had no great demand for wine. Old Otto even had to find people to fire wine bottles and make corks.
Two-thirds of the wine in the original host’s home was what Old Otto had used to pay off cork debts.
Old Otto’s wife Martina bickered with him daily because his wine not only failed to make money for the family but bankrupted them.
Martina and Old Otto’s two sons had run off; this year’s married-out daughter had been mocked mercilessly by her husband’s family for having only wine as dowry.
Last year, under Martina’s threats, Old Otto had let half his grapes rot in the fields, which broke his heart. This year, Martina threatened that if he didn’t plow up the vineyard, she would leave the village to join their daughter in town.
That was exactly what the couple had been arguing about when Ye Tang arrived.
“I’ll take this deal! I want this table! This cabinet, this cabinet, and that cabinet… three cabinets and two stools, all of them!”
Before the exquisite wooden pieces, Martina’s eyes turned red. Recalling her daughter’s humiliation, she only wished she could haul them to town right now and grandly present them to her daughter in front of her husband.
She snatched the wine cellar key from Old Otto’s belt and handed it to Ye Tang.
“No! I object! Who are you to decide!”
Old Otto howled, trying to stop his wife, but she slapped his hand away.
In their argument, the couple had even forgotten the fearsome werewolf family standing nearby.
“Because I’ve been supporting you all these years!”
“……!”
Old Otto froze in place. His face, usually red from alcohol, was red from shame today.
Sniffling, Martina placed the wine cellar key in Ye Tang’s hand and said earnestly, “Mary, take as much wine as you want! Even all of it is fine!”