The enormous bovine eyes stared dead at Liang Ye without blinking. Outside the cave, lightning flashed and thunder rumbled, rain pouring down in torrents—as if some lingering resentment had come to claim his life.
Liang Ye nearly fainted from lack of air, his small tail tucked beneath his bottom, trembling uncontrollably.
"The ground is cold. Come back to bed," a low, familiar voice sounded from above.
Liang Ye's brain short-circuited, and only after a long pause did he realize—it was Shan Cang.
He scrambled up from the ground, staggering a few steps in disbelief. Behind the colossal beast stood a tall, slender man.
Waterfall-like black hair clung wetly to his face, bronze skin, a dark beast-hide skirt—everything about the man made him seem like a specter hidden in the darkness.
Rainwater dripped down in droplets, mingling with the beast's crimson blood. His gray-blue eyes held a chilling coldness.
Liang Ye shuddered, feeling that Shan Cang wasn't much better than the unknown creature—he looked exactly like a vengeful ghost crawling out of hell.
"Y-y-you…" Liang Ye stammered, unable to form a complete sentence.
Shan Cang shoved the giant beast he'd tossed aside to the wall. With the obstruction gone, the roaring wind and rain outside the cave slapped Liang Ye across the face several times.
Liang Ye was instantly dizzy, nearly blown away like a cloud in the sky.
Shan Cang picked up the little cub by the scruff of its neck, letting out a soft sigh of exasperation.
The man's hands were ice-cold, the chill transmitting through his fingertips to the skin. Liang Ye shivered, his four little paws kicking at the air.
Shan Cang paused briefly, then tucked the cub into the beast-hide blanket. He walked to the corner to search for dry firewood, starting a fire in the darkness.
Even though the stone bed was sheltered from the wind, the violent storm outside inevitably affected the efficiency of starting a fire.
Shan Cang turned his back and shifted position, using his tall frame to block the wind. Starting the fire indeed became easier, and a faint glimmer of light improved Liang Ye's stifled mood.
No wonder interrogators locked prisoners in solitary confinement—staying in a pitch-black environment for too long seriously affected one's mental health.
"Once the weather clears, we could look for flint," Liang Ye couldn't help but say, watching Shan Cang struggle to start the fire.
Shan Cang lifted his eyelids, gazing deeply at the cub. "What is flint?"
Liang Ye didn't notice the meaningful look in his eyes and answered readily: "A special kind of stone. Its composition is… uh, that's not important. Anyway, it can start fires—much more convenient than rubbing sticks together."
Shan Cang stared at him and continued, "Did the White Wolf Tribe teach you that?"
White Wolf Tribe? What's that?
Liang Ye's face went blank with confusion, then he recalled—someone had mentioned that the White Wolf Tribe had abandoned him, saying things like "how pitiful."
Wait—could it be that Shan Cang and the others mistakenly thought he was a White Wolf cub!?
Liang Ye's soul left his body; he stood frozen like a wooden chicken.
"Gulp—" He swallowed hard, then answered dryly: "Y-yes… yes, it was."
He didn't dare meet Shan Cang's eyes, terrified of accidentally revealing that he was a dog, not a wolf.
So that's why a strange wolf would care for him for no reason—they'd been treating him as a cub of their own kind!
This is bad. If the truth ever comes out…
Liang Ye's neck stiffly turned toward the beast lying nearby with unclosed eyes.
Your today, my tomorrow.
Cold sweat suddenly covered Liang Ye's paw pads. His tail hid tightly beneath his bottom, while he forced a calm expression as he covertly observed the Black Wolf.
Speaking of which—are dogs on a wolf's menu?
Even if he wasn't a wolf, at least he was a close relative. Since they were all kin, they wouldn't wipe him out completely… right?
Liang Ye swallowed frantically, carefully testing Shan Cang: "Have you ever seen beastmen whose beast forms look like… like mine?"
Shan Cang could see through Liang Ye's guilt, but he didn't quite understand what the cub was feeling guilty about, or why he would ask such a question.
After a moment's thought, he answered: "No."
This reply left Liang Ye unsure whether to be relieved or worried.
If there were no dogs in the Beast World, his risk of exposure dropped significantly—but it also meant he was the only dog in the entire Beast World.
Everything about him was unknown.
Was he a beastman or a pure animal? Did he need to feed himself like a real Samoyed?
That would be disastrous—dogs couldn't eat human food with seasonings. Not only had he eaten it, he'd eaten until he was stuffed.
The average lifespan of a Samoyed was roughly twelve to fourteen years. How long could beastmen live?
Liang Ye posed this question to Shan Cang. Shan Cang was drying his hair by the fire, and faced with the cub's sudden thirst for knowledge, he answered patiently.
Beastmen's lifespans reached around 200 years, but due to unstable food sources, backward medical standards, and various natural disasters and man-made calamities, the actual average lifespan was roughly fifty to sixty years.
Beastmen naturally loved to reproduce—birth rates were high, but so were death rates. Cubs and demi-beastmen had low survival rates, and tribes often fought over demi-beastmen.
Liang Ye was speechless. By the standard of a 200-year lifespan, fifty or sixty was the prime of life—yet life had already reached its end. Some beastmen didn't even survive to adulthood.
But considering the Witch Doctor's medical skills, beastmen surviving to fifty or sixty was purely a testament to how tough they were.
If he were a purebred Samoyed who couldn't transform into a human, in the danger-ridden Beast World, he probably wouldn't die a natural death.
“Hmm… are there Beastmen who can't shapeshift?” Liang Ye's eyelashes fluttered rapidly, his puppy face unable to hide a single thought.
His question plunged Shan Cang into silence, his gaze fixed firmly on the little pup.
Wh-what's wrong?
Is this not something I can ask? Did I expose something? Expose that I'm ignorant and uninformed?
But a three-month-old cub being naive and clueless, occasionally blurting out wild ideas, was perfectly normal.
When Liang Ye was little, he used to chase after the village chief's orange cat calling it "Mommy."
Every time there was a village feast, the elders would bring it up to tease him, because that orange cat he chased calling it "Mommy" was male—and had lost its little bells.
Just as Liang Ye thought Shan Cang would dodge the question, Shan Cang told him in a low, hoarse voice, "There are. We call them Fallen Beastmen."
Fallen Beastmen have no reason and are extremely aggressive. In severe cases, they grow into grotesque shapes and are bitten to death and eaten by Demi-Beastmen at birth to replenish the mothers' weakened bodies after childbirth.
For less severe cases, it usually manifests as the cub grows—they cannot shapeshift, have no thoughts, only instinct, no different from wild beasts.
If lucky, they can ask a Divine Envoy to send them to the Beast God Temple for atonement. If unlucky, they might one day completely lose control, run into the forest and be killed by other beasts, or their bodies naturally collapse and perish.
Liang Ye hadn't expected such a heavy topic. His little ears drooped, his mood sinking.
In this world, being born wasn't necessarily a blessing—it could also be a tragedy. A tragedy for one life, and even more so a tragedy for the entire tribe.
The cub was visibly deflated. Shan Cang reached out and ruffled his little head, his voice calm and full of conviction. "You will grow up healthy."
Liang Ye slowly looked up, his dark, round eyes staring straight at the man, faintly catching that familiar scent that made him feel safe—like fire, like blazing sun, like something no storm could ever extinguish.
The heavy boulder on his chest was easily lifted away. Liang Ye launched himself into the man's arms like a little cannonball, his fluffy head nuzzling against the solid chest muscles. "Mm!"
Ye trusts you.
His skin tingled. A faint smile rippled through Shan Cang's eyes. No matter how much the cub understood, he was still just a cub—he could be scared, uncertain, at a loss.
Was the cub worried he couldn't shapeshift?
Why? The cub was only three months old, not yet at the age for shapeshifting. Could it be related to the White Wolf Tribe abandoning him?
Shan Cang didn't know, but none of that mattered. As long as the cub grew up healthy and safe, that was enough.
.
When Liang Ye learned that Shan Cang had gone out hunting in the rain only because he'd eaten through all the food stored for the storm season, his jaw dropped.
What? Had they really eaten that much back then?
Yeye's eyes went wide as saucers as he looked the man up and down, taking in his flat, solid, well-defined abdomen, hardly able to believe it could hold nearly a hundred jin of meat.
Shan Cang thoughtfully explained, "A Beastman eating to his full capacity can devour an entire Moomoo Beast."
His thin lips pressed together briefly before he added, "I eat even more."
He'd had a larger appetite than other Beastmen since childhood, and before coming of age, he'd almost never eaten his fill. Now, though his hunting skills were formidable, he had a tribe to feed, so Shan Cang was used to stopping at half-full.
This time, the food had been too delicious, and he'd lost control and eaten a bit more than usual.
If Liang Ye's round little hands weren't so limited, he would've absolutely given a thumbs up immediately.
Amazing. Truly amazing. In the modern world, he could've bankrupted a buffet owner.
"This is a Moomoo Beast?" Liang Ye curiously examined the big creature whose eyes hadn't closed.
Shan Cang nodded, pulling out a bone knife to process the Moomoo Beast.
Liang Ye climbed onto Shan Cang's shoulder, looking left and right. The more he looked, the more it resembled a cow—just a more ferocious-looking version of one.
The little one's weight was practically nothing. Shan Cang indulgently let the cub climb all over him, his knife moving swiftly and cleanly.
"Like a master butcher—truly masterful!" Liang Ye praised from the bottom of his heart.
Shan Cang didn't understand. The cub was saying strange things again.
The man processed the Moomoo Beast on the platform at the cave entrance, the blood washed clean by the heavy rain. Liang Ye inexplicably felt a chill—wasn't this just like a murderer deliberately choosing a rainy day to make cleaning up the crime scene easier?
Liang Ye spun himself around like a little top. Get out of my head, all you messy plotlines! What if I can't sleep at night!?
Dismantling the Moomoo Beast was done in one smooth motion. In a few quick moves, everything was tidied up, casually tossed into a stone bucket, and done.
Liang Ye's jaw dropped to the floor. His claws slipped, and he nearly slid off Shan Cang's shoulder—luckily the man caught his bottom and set him back up.
"The meat will go bad in a few days!"
Shan Cang nodded expressionlessly. "Mm. We'll make do."
Eating more at the start could sustain them for a while without needing to eat again. Later, they'd have to grit their teeth and choke down the spoiled meat. The storm season wasn't so bad—not as long and grueling as the Ice-Snow Season. Rotten meat could be endured, but during the Ice-Snow Season, they might not even have rotten meat to eat.
"No, absolutely not!" In an instant, Liang Ye's mind flashed with an image of himself having explosive diarrhea, his puppy face deadly serious.
Shan Cang was amused by his earnest expression, the corner of his mouth curving up almost imperceptibly. "You can eat fruits."
Some fruits rotted quickly, but there were also fruits that could last ten days to half a month without spoiling—like the peel fruit, which had little flesh and was mostly rind, hence the name "peel fruit."
Yeye glared at the wolf, little paws patting the ground with a pah-pah sound. "You're not allowed to eat the rotten meat either!"
Shan Cang helplessly patted the little dog's head and explained, "If food isn't eaten, it naturally turns rotten over time. There's no way around it."
Liang Ye rubbed comfortably against his broad, dry palm, proudly puffing out his little chest. "There is a way."
Yeye will teach you.