Ch 3: My Wolf Husband

Lin Shuishi was no longer as afraid of the two wolves as before; he had a strange feeling that the man from earlier had instructed them to watch over him. Besides, the wolves didn’t look particularly fierce—just clever and a bit greedy…

He picked up the bone knife and started cutting into the deer’s neck, slicing off a few chunks of neck meat, which he then skewered onto sharpened sticks and placed over the fire to roast.

He was incredibly hungry! But he didn’t dare eat the snake meat in the fire, fearing it might be poisonous, so he anxiously waited for the venison to cook. Lin Shuishi kept turning the skewers, listening to the sizzling of the meat as it cooked, with fat dripping into the flames and occasionally causing them to flare up.

The smell was delicious! As the meat began to cook on the outside, Lin Shuishi cut off small pieces to eat. Even though it had no seasoning, the fresh taste of the meat was the best flavor he could have imagined in his hungry state!

The neck meat was tender and chewy, but stuffing his mouth full of it made him choke a little. Feeling parched, he scooped up some clean snow nearby, melted it in a half-broken ceramic bowl, and drank it. However, unlike the snow from his village, which had a sweet taste, the snow water here had a faint sulfuric flavor! But Lin Shuishi didn’t care; he drank it down in big gulps.

With something in his stomach, he no longer felt as dizzy and shaky as before and now had the strength to work. Lin Shuishi added more wood to the fire, making it burn brighter, then took the somewhat dull bone knife and began to skin the deer. After struggling for a while, he finally found a technique.

He slit the skin at the legs and slowly pulled the hide off from the back to the front, using the bone knife to cut through the tendons and connective tissue. After a long time, he managed to get a fairly complete hide, feeling a sense of accomplishment.

Since he couldn’t eat all the meat, Lin Shuishi decided to separate the limbs from the torso at the joints. As for the bones, he couldn’t break them with the small, dull knife he had, so he left them alone.

The heart, liver, and kidneys inside the deer were difficult to preserve but were highly nutritious. In the wild, only the core members of a wolf pack had the privilege of eating these organs.

Lin Shuishi initially planned to bury the organs in a pit, but after glancing at the two green-eyed wolves in front of him, he reconsidered. He decided to discard the intestines but carefully placed the liver and kidneys on a few vines and cautiously pushed them toward the wolves.

These two sentinel wolves were already on the fringes of their pack, rarely getting to eat such prized parts. Ever since they had found Lin Shuishi, the wolf king’s revered two-legged brother had ordered them to watch over him, and now they were quite hungry.

One wolf initially stepped back cautiously, seeing that Lin Shuishi didn’t approach but rather returned to the fire after leaving the organs behind. It sniffed the air intensely.

The other wolf couldn’t hold back any longer, quickly grabbed the organs, and retreated into the bushes to devour them. Seeing this, the cautious one also stopped hesitating, but it was smarter—it bit onto one end of the vine and dragged all the organs away.

Hiding behind the bushes, the two wolves gnawed on the liver with their front paws, squinting in satisfaction! But they still didn’t forget to look up now and then to cautiously watch Lin Shuishi’s movements.

Lin Shuishi sighed in relief, thinking that if the wolves were busy eating the deer, they wouldn’t be thinking about eating him! He then threw a few more pieces of meat toward them…

After seeing the wolves finish off the deer’s heart and liver, Lin Shuishi carried the few remaining pieces of meat into the wooden house. He roughly wove a large mat from sturdy yet flexible vines, wrapped the meat in it, and placed it in the cold, shady area behind the house. Although there was no salt to preserve it, the cold weather would keep it from spoiling for a while.

By the time he was finished, it was completely dark, and the forest was alive with the sounds of nocturnal creatures. The calls of nightingales and the continuous chirping of crickets made the night seem peaceful. But Lin Shuishi knew that behind this tranquility lay many hidden dangers.

He sat by the fire for a long time, adding wood several times as it burned down to embers, but the man with the golden wolf eyes didn’t return. Lin Shuishi thought it over and decided not to wait any longer. He needed to figure out how to survive the cold night in the forest without freezing to death.

The treehouse was safer, but it was too cold, and he couldn’t light a fire inside. All he had was a freshly skinned deer hide, which could easily lead to freezing to death in his sleep.

Lin Shuishi looked at the pile of hot ashes left by the fire and came up with an idea!

Lin Shuishi spread the warm, ember-laden wood chips and ash evenly on the ground beneath the ancient tree, then covered it with a layer of soil. After that, he laid the raw deer hide on top. In just a short time, the heat rose up, creating a makeshift heated bed, much like a small kang (heated platform)!

It wasn’t difficult to do, and Lin Shuishi sat down on it, leaning against the ancient tree, though the cold wind still managed to cut through. Resigned, he gathered the remaining unburned wooden poles, used the red rope that had been used to bind him for the sacrificial ceremony to tie them into a frame, and then pulled down some of the thick vines from the ancient tree, weaving them into a tight mesh to cover the frame. He mixed the wet, hard mud with dead leaves and spread it over the net.

Finally, after all his efforts, he had fashioned a simple triangular tent! Lin Shuishi couldn’t help but smile—who would have thought that the weaving skills he had learned out of boredom while sitting in his wheelchair would come in handy now? This thought reminded him of the unfinished gloves he had been knitting for his father, filling him with a sense of regret and sadness.

Taking a deep breath, he said to himself, “Enough, there’s no point in dwelling on it!”

Forcing himself to focus on the little shelter in front of him, Lin Shuishi brushed off the dirt and bits of grass from his body and crawled inside to test it out. It worked wonderfully!

The sides were covered with dirt and dead leaves, blocking out the wind. The back was sheltered by the tree trunk, keeping it warm. The only part left open was the front, but Lin Shuishi was too exhausted—his strength and energy were completely drained.

Dragging himself out, he extinguished the fire and covered the deer’s blood with ash and grass to conceal his tracks. Satisfied with his efforts, he crawled back into the small shelter and collapsed onto the deer hide, falling into a deep, warm sleep.

Despite the ache in his body from exhaustion, Lin Shuishi’s sleep was troubled by vague worries about whether wild animals might attack the tent. He wanted to be ready to wake up and escape to the treehouse if needed!

But as his consciousness faded, he found himself oddly accepting the possibility of death, thinking, “Whatever happens, I’ve done my best to survive. I’ll leave the rest to fate!”

The two well-fed wolves watched with boredom as the weak two-legged creature busied himself. They exchanged confused glances as he dug here and there, eventually creating a nest. “Is this a mother beast digging a den to give birth?” they wondered.

But the soft snoring coming from inside the tent soon told the two inexperienced male wolves otherwise—it was just for sleeping.

“…?” They were perplexed.

Despite finding the sleeping creature strange and weak, the wolves recognized that he understood “the rules” well enough, having offered them the prime liver—such a large piece of deer liver!

Alright, they thought, we can work with this!

The wolves, acting like big brothers, decided to guard this weak creature. Even though they were the lowest-ranking members of their pack, they strutted over to Lin Shuishi’s small shelter with a sense of pride. Lowering their heads, they sniffed the warm air coming from the open front.

After a moment’s hesitation, and with another cold gust of wind making their noses itch, one of the more cunning wolves twitched its ears, cautiously squeezing into the tent. It awkwardly turned around in the cramped space, facing outward, with half its body resting on the deer hide.

The other wolf followed suit, curling up warmly at the entrance of the tent. The two wolves took turns keeping watch over the forest, their instincts of caution and vigilance deeply ingrained. Even though this forest was the territory of the wolf god, they couldn’t afford to relax!

Lin Shuishi, fast asleep, knew nothing of this. The descendants of the wolf god in this forest were top-tier hunters, able to approach any wary prey silently, let alone a human who had never experienced the harshness of nature!

All he knew was that he was getting warmer and warmer, as if he were wrapped in a soft, self-heating blanket, feeling incredibly comfortable.

Meanwhile, deep within the wolf pack, Ashina Fuli, a legendary figure among the wolves of Dongshan, sat in his den, frowning deeply.

He watched as the enormous and sturdy white wolf king and his mate, each as tall as a calf, carefully carried yet another pup into his den. Including the two in their mouths, that made six.

With a sudden turn, he faced the two wolves, communicating with them in low growls, his golden eyes flashing as he bared his teeth. His teeth were straight and white, but what stood out were two exceptionally sharp canines that gleamed slightly in the dim light.

There was a reason for his reaction.

The wolves of Dongshan were different from ordinary wolf packs. They were larger, stronger, swifter, and more intelligent. For generations, a white wolf had led the pack, guiding the core bloodline of the group that lived in the wolf den. The most exceptional members of this bloodline could live up to 40 years. Every leader had to undergo rigorous training and education before they were deemed worthy to lead the pack.

It was an unchanging custom for the strongest in the pack to mentor the next generation from a young age.

Fuli, who had been adopted by the previous wolf king as an infant, was raised on the milk of the wolf queen. He was considered the older brother of the current wolf king, and it could be said that he had watched this young wolf king grow into the leader he was today.

When it came to mentoring the next generation, no one was more suited than the “brother” of the wolf king. Moreover, Fuli, though not a wolf in body, had long become the strongest member of the pack, commanding the respect and submission of all the wolves.

Fuli glanced at the newly weaned, still whimpering “nephews” with some irritation. It was clear that the wolf king wasn’t really asking him to mentor the pups but simply didn’t want to raise so many!

Without saying much, he picked the quietest one, tucked it into his fur-lined clothes, and left the den, heading into the forest.

The wolf king and his mate, still in their early teens and relatively young, watched him leave, then awkwardly carried the remaining five noisy pups back into the den.

To be honest, the wolf king still held great respect for this “brother.” As a leader in his prime, both powerful and wise, he still felt a mix of closeness and submission whenever he looked into Fuli’s deep golden eyes.

Carrying the quiet little white wolf in his arms, Fuli thought of the creature he had recently saved. According to hunter He, it wasn’t called a beast, but a human—a creature with a red mark on its forehead, possibly belonging to the female kind. No wonder that little thing was so weak; it must have been abandoned by its tribe.

Hunter He had suddenly appeared in the mountains one day and, with the consent of Fuli’s “mother,” the old wolf queen, had lived among them, teaching Fuli how to speak, shoot arrows, practice martial arts, and use tools.

But he didn’t last more than a few years before he died. So, at the age of ten, Fuli returned to living with the wolf pack. Since then, he had rarely spoken human language.

Fuli knew he was different from the other “brothers and sisters” in the pack. Although he lived among them, he was also independent. Perhaps his younger wolf king brother, who had been raised by the same mother, was afraid that Fuli might feel lonely without pups to care for, which was why he kept bringing them to Fuli’s den. But to be honest, it was incredibly annoying.

Thinking of the “human” he had picked up, and then looking at the white-furred pup in his arms, Fuli frowned. He certainly had a lot to take care of lately.

Might as well put them together…