Under the gaze of countless eyes, the Witch Doctor feigned anger and questioned Chi, "Since you didn't see it with your own eyes, why were you so certain when you told me that Tong stole the food?"
Before his words even faded, he had already adopted the look of a victim—heartbroken, having wrongly trusted someone.
Chi was stunned. He instinctively wanted to retort, "You never asked me either," but before he could speak, the Witch Doctor had already reached his conclusion, leaving no room for argument.
"Chi, a beastman full of lies will be forsaken by the Beast God. Now is the time for you to honestly admit your mistake. I know it takes courage, but you must do it." His gaze was gentle as he encouraged Chi, a sacred radiance emanating from him.
Chi looked around in bewilderment, momentarily doubting whether he had truly misled the Witch Doctor, and that the fault lay entirely with himself.
"Chi, the Witch Doctor is right. Confess your sins to the Beast God, and the merciful Beast God will surely forgive you."
"No… that's not it! Although I didn't see it with my own eyes, I found Gugu Beast meat in Tong's den. If he didn't steal it, then where did he get it?" Chi jolted, barking madly at Tong.
Tong's body instinctively flinched, forming a defensive posture. Liang Ye narrowed his puppy eyes at the sight.
Shan Cang's gaze shifted to Tong. Tong clenched his fists, his chest heaving up and down, his voice as faint as a mosquito's buzz, "I caught it myself."
"Hahaha, listen to him spouting nonsense! How could he possibly catch prey! He's a liar! I didn't wrong him!" The fat on Chi's body jiggled with his movements, his arrogant and domineering manner resembling a spoiled brat from the modern world—extremely punchable.
Liang Ye's hands itched.
The tribe members who had initially sided with Tong looked him up and down, taking in his small frame, and one by one switched sides.
Tong was thirteen years old, but his build was like that of an eight or nine-year-old cub—and not an eight or nine-year-old from the Beast World, but from the modern world. In short, he was skin and bones, so thin he might topple over with a single gust of wind.
Sub-adults did indeed possess the ability to hunt independently, but that didn't include Tong. When the sub-adults went to hunting lessons, he would follow along and always come back empty-handed. The adult beastmen responsible for teaching them even had to keep half an eye on Tong to make sure he didn't get eaten by the prey.
Liang Ye jumped out and asked Chi, "Why are you so sure he stole it? What if it was just leftovers he deliberately saved?"
Chi answered instinctively, "There's no way there'd be leftovers. We all snatched it up and ate it."
The air suddenly went silent, then exploded like cold water dropped into a vat of hot oil.
Chi belatedly realized what he had just blurted out. His face turned ashen, his pupils trembling.
Exactly as suspected!
Liang Ye had noticed Tong's physical reactions were like those of someone who had been bullied for a long time. With just a little probing, Chi's unenlightened brain immediately revealed its true colors.
Shan Cang's face darkened. "Tong, do Chi and Zhuo often steal your food?"
Tong hunched his shoulders, stealing a glance at Chi from the corner of his eye. Chi glared at him ferociously, as if to say that if he dared to tattle, he'd better watch his back.
Scenes that caused him endless pain flashed repeatedly through his mind. His shoulders trembled uncontrollably. Suddenly, a fluffy white ball of fur blocked Chi's threatening gaze.
The little one showed him a clean, adorable smile, his tail swaying in the air like a flower bud dancing in the breeze.
Those memories, which had been like wounds on his arms, suddenly didn't hurt so much anymore.
Under Chi's sinister glare, Tong nodded heavily. "Yes. They not only steal my food, but they also soak my bedding, push me into pits when we're out, and make me fail my tasks…"
Tong's descriptions were simple, but each one was horrifying to the adult beastmen's ears.
They had assumed that cubs being mischievous was normal, never imagining that in places they couldn't see, the cubs' cruelty had already exceeded all expectations.
Chi and Zhuo sat as if on pins and needles, thorns piercing their backs. Finally, they felt regret and fear—but not because they realized they were wrong, but because their deeds had been exposed.
"I… I didn't mean it… I… I just thought it was fun…" Zhuo burst into loud sobs, attempting to end this trial by throwing a tantrum.
Liang Ye angrily kicked a pebble, which hit Zhuo square on the head, immediately raising a lump.
"Waaaaah—he hit me!" Zhuo shrieked at Liang Ye, completely caught off guard.
Liang Ye blinked his round, grape-like eyes, his puppy face innocent and guileless. "Sorry, my foot slipped."
Though he didn't understand what passive-aggressiveness was, Zhuo felt thoroughly passive-aggressed. His chest heaved with fury, nearly causing him to faint as he pointed at Liang Ye and hopped around in rage.
However, he could do nothing to Liang Ye—not only because Liang Ye had the chief's protection, but also because Liang Ye was only three months old.
Shan Cang gently tapped the little cub's head, his attitude indulgent.
Tong, who had been immersed in pain, couldn't help but laugh. The light in his eyes as he looked at Liang Ye gradually brightened.
Chi clenched his fists unwillingly, roaring with self-righteous indignation, "He's a beastman cursed by the Beast God! What's wrong with me stealing his food? Don't you all keep your distance from him too? Stop pretending to be saints!"
Exposed by a cub for their superficial harmony, the adult beastmen couldn't maintain their composure. They turned their heads away, rubbed their noses, and remained silent.
They truly were wary of Tong. The tribe never skimped on Tong's food or clothing, but almost no one would actively interact with him. Occasionally, gossip would reach Tong's ears through the young ones.
In the entire tribe, only Shan Cang refused to believe in the so-called curse of the strange eyes or the Beast God's punishment, but he was the chief of the whole tribe, with endless matters big and small every day. His concern was the tribe's survival, not the mental and physical well-being of one cub.
Even the blazing sun has places it cannot reach, and Shan Cang was, after all, just an ordinary Beastman.
The adults' silence emboldened Chi, who lifted his chin and said to Liang Ye, "His food never has leftovers. Anything extra could only have been stolen. He's a thief and a liar!"
Tong, who had been enduring in silence, saw Chi acting so arrogantly toward Liang Ye, and the anger he had been suppressing surged to his head. He suddenly stood up and strode swiftly to block Liang Ye, his small body taut as a drawn bow. Though his spine trembled, it didn't stop him from roaring back, "I told you, I caught that food myself!"
Chi seemed stunned by his roar, unable to snap out of it for a long while. Tong panted heavily, his face, pale from illness, flushing red. "Yes, my beast form is weak, and I've never been able to catch prey."
"But once, you pushed me into a deep pit, and I unexpectedly found a Jump-Jump Beast in there. Ever since then, I've been digging pits everywhere, and every now and then, if I'm lucky, I can find prey in them."
"What? What prey is stupid enough to jump into a pit on its own?"
"That's fake. No way something like that happens."
"Could be true. I once found a wild beast that fell to its death by the cliff, though it had been dead too long to eat."
Everyone started chattering, voices overlapping in debate.
Chi stood dumbfounded, and only after a long while did his soul return to his body. He burst out cursing, "Liar! Deceiver! Not a single true word out of your mouth! If hunting were that easy, why would we ever go hungry!"
Liang Ye's eyes lit up, his tail spinning like a propeller as he circled Tong several times, making Tong's face flush red.
"Amazing!"
"Brilliant!"
"You're an absolute genius!"
Shan Cang watched thoughtfully as Liang Ye finished praising Tong, then finally spoke, "Can Tong's method really catch prey?"
Liang Ye nodded eagerly like a pecking chick, "Mm-hm!"
"It's called setting traps, laying snares."
Liang Ye gave an example: "Dig a pit on the path prey must take, and cover it with fallen leaves that match the surroundings."
Everyone followed Liang Ye's description and thought it over—huh, it actually seemed possible to catch prey that way!
Someone raised an objection, "How do you know where the prey's path is?"
Liang Ye tilted his little head and answered, "People have people's paths, beasts have beasts' paths. Observe carefully."
The person had a sudden realization, eyes brimming with eagerness to try.
"What if the prey has thick skin and tough flesh, doesn't die from the fall, and runs away?" another asked.
Liang Ye answered without hesitation, "Dig a deeper pit, and stick sharp points at the bottom."
The cave immediately buzzed with noise, and even Shan Cang's gaze flickered, his eyes resting on Liang Ye with an unreadable expression.
"Right! Why didn't I think of that!" Tong regretfully scratched the back of his head, blaming himself for being too stupid.
He excitedly turned around and returned all of Liang Ye's praise: "You're amazing, brilliant, an absolute genius!"
Though he didn't understand the meaning, they were definitely good words.
Praising others came easily, but when it was his turn to be praised, Liang Ye shyly twitched his triangular ears and quietly puffed out his little chest.
Yay, awesome!
Liang Ye's words proved that Tong's claims were true, and moreover, they provided the tribe with a new method of hunting. Far from being the tribe's sinner, Tong was actually its contributor.
Chi and Zhuo were struck as if by lightning, so despairing they couldn't even cry. All strength drained from their bodies, and they collapsed limp as dead dogs.
The Wolf Moon Tribe absolutely did not allow bullying of fellow tribesmen. Had they been adult Beastmen, it would have been enough to drive them out of the tribe, but all three were minors—and the most ironic part was that two cubs had been oppressing a sub-adult.
Through Tong's account, Liang Ye learned why Tong was malnourished: his food was often snatched away by Chi and Zhuo, and the meat naturally all went to the instigators' bodies.
No wonder, in a situation where food sources were unstable and meals alternated between starvation and fullness, Chi was overnourished.
In a society of the strong devouring the weak and survival of the fittest, by all rights, Tong losing to Chi and Zhuo and going hungry was his own problem. But the issue was that they belonged to the same tribe—they were Beastmen, the same kin, already beyond purely bestial thinking. What they should have learned by now was sharing, was unity.
It was normal for brothers to compete over resources, but stripping your brothers of everything and driving them to the brink was wrong.
Raising children at the time still stopped at the most basic level of food and clothing. Education in spirit and character was lacking, leaving them to grow wild.
This incident made Shan Cang realize that a delicate cub like Liang Ye wasn't suited to staying in the big mountain cave.
From now on, they couldn't just feed the cubs and ignore everything else. Adult Beastmen had an obligation to teach the cubs to care for their kin.
"The Wolf Moon Tribe has no place for Beastmen who harm their own kind. Chi, Zhuo, do you know you were wrong?" Shan Cang's gaze sliced across the two cubs' scalps like a blade.
The two of them trembled like sieves, no longer daring to spout nonsense under the chief's oppressive authority, nodding frantically like pounding garlic. "Kn-know… we were wr-wrong…"
Shan Cang gave a slight nod, though it was unclear whether he believed them. "From now on, your food rations will be halved, and the halved portion will be compensated to Tong."
Chi wanted to ask why, but the words died in his throat under the chief's icy glare, and he obediently nodded.
"Tong, how long have they been bullying you?" Shan Cang asked.
Tong made a rough calculation. "About four Ice-Snow Seasons."
Shan Cang's gaze turned cold and piercing, pressing down on everyone until breathing became difficult. "Then they will compensate you for four Ice-Snow Seasons."
"What!?" Chi and Zhuo never expected the chief to be this ruthless.
Going hungry for four days was barely tolerable, but would they even survive four Ice-Snow Seasons!?
"Chief, four Ice-Snow Seasons is too long, isn't it? They're just cubs who don't know any better—a lesson should be enough." Someone couldn't bear it and stepped forward to plead for them.
Shan Cang swept a faint glance at him. "You can share your own food with them."
The man choked on his words and fell silent. Those who had been thinking of offering a word of advice quickly backed down in unison.
"The extinguishing of the Fireseed is the responsibility of all three of you. Before the Ice-Snow Season, you two will be in charge of cleaning the great cave. Tong, you may join once your injuries heal." Shan Cang let no one off the hook.
Chi and Zhuo looked as if they had lost both parents, while Tong gazed up at the chief with sparkling eyes, nodding eagerly. Anyone who didn't know better would have thought he'd just received a reward.
The chief was fair and just, seeing everything with clarity. Only the Witch Doctor was narrow-minded. If only they could swap the Witch Doctor for someone else.
Tong thought he could laugh in his sleep just imagining it. What he didn't know was that his sweet dream would come true in the near future.