Chapter 3

Chapter 3

I almost instinctively wanted to cry out for my grandmother.

But the man beside me grabbed my wrist. His palm was burning hot, as if he were running a high fever. Those vertical pupils stared at me coldly, and he was practically mouthing the words: Don’t believe her.

It was quiet above the floorboards for a moment.

Rong Duyue spoke again, her tone even gentler this time. “Good child, it’s cold outside. Open the door, and Grandmother will take you home.”

My lips turned pale, and my palms were slick with sweat.

From the time I was small until now, Rong Duyue had never called out to me so tenderly. She had raised me, taught me, and fed me, but she had also given me her hardest rattan switch and her coldest face. If I scraped my skin, she would only say I deserved it. If I had a high fever, she would simply soak me in ice water, saying that a child with a red mark behind the ear was tough and wouldn’t die.

So, at this moment, that gentleness was more terrifying than a wolf’s howl.

The footsteps above circled twice more before finally, slowly, fading away. Only when the silence was absolute did I feel like I’d been fished out of water; my legs gave way, and I nearly collapsed onto the floor.

The man braced himself against a wooden crate to stand up, reaching up to pull the silver blade embedded in his shoulder.

I instinctively pressed down on his hand. “Don’t move. The barbs will tear your flesh.”

He glanced at me and actually stopped.

Using the faint, dim light, I began to dress his wound. As I peeled away the layers of bloody cloth, I realized the knife wound was black-not because the blood had dried, but because the blade was poisoned. When Xing Zhaoming had handed me the knife, his hands had been shaking so visibly. At the time, I thought he was just afraid; it turned out he knew exactly who this blade was meant to kill.

“Did he give you the knife?” the man suddenly asked.

I remained silent.

“Then it makes sense,” he said faintly. “The people of Baiyu Village have always liked to use the hands of girls to kill wolves.”

I looked up and stared at him. “Who are you, exactly?”

“Jing Guanming.”

I had heard that name before.

The oldest hunter in the village once said while drunk that a wolf who had become a spirit lived in the Black Pine Forest, and his name was Jing Guanming. Thirty years ago, a girl from the village with a red mark behind her ear ran away with him. The next day, only an embroidered shoe and half a finger were found in the snow. After that, no one in the village dared to mention that girl’s name again.

That girl was my mother.

I recoiled suddenly, my throat tightening. “You’re the one who ate her.”

Jing Guanming looked down at me, his expression unreadable. “If I had truly eaten her, you wouldn’t be standing here.”

“Nonsense!”

He didn’t argue. Instead, he reached into his robe, pulled something out, and tossed it to me.

It was a wolf’s tooth, polished smooth, with a faded red thread threaded through the end. When I was little, I used to wear it around my neck, but Rong Duyue eventually took it away, saying it was bad luck. I had always believed it was the only memento my mother had left behind.

“Your mother tied this on you with her own hands the day you were born,” Jing Guanming said, his voice low. “She said that if you ever entered the forest, I would recognize the child.”

My head throbbed.

The cellar was freezing, yet my back felt waves of heat. Fragments I had forgotten for many years suddenly began to surface one by one. Someone had held me on a snowy night; their chest was warm, smelling of pine resin and blood. Someone had pressed close to my ear and sung a very soft lullaby-and it wasn’t Rong Duyue’s voice.

“You’re lying to me.” I gripped the wolf’s tooth tightly. “If you knew my mother, why didn’t you save her?”

Jing Guanming remained silent for a long time before saying, “Because I arrived too late.”

Those five words were spoken softly, yet they felt like a nail driven into my heart.

Suddenly, a loud crash came from above.

It sounded like something had slammed into the house door.

Jing Guanming’s expression changed instantly. He jerked me up. “She didn’t leave. She’s waiting for us to come out.”

“Who is she?”

He looked at me, a cold, ghostly fire reflected in his eyes.

“The thing you’ve been calling ‘Grandmother’ for nineteen years.”