Chapter Nineteen: The Wolf Child

After a long silence, I said, “Master Chen, you’ve never told me the story of the wolf children before!”

Master Chen paused briefly, glanced outside at the still-dark sky, and sighed deeply.

“It’s still early! We’ll head out later tonight to hunt. Let me tell you the story of the wolf children first.”

“All right!” I quickly pulled the covers over me and listened attentively.

“Oh, and first, let’s prepare our breakfast!” Master Chen added casually.

I hurried out of bed, set up a pot in the room, and mixed some rice with cured meat and white liquor, boiling it into a fragrant broth.

Soon, the scent of the cooking rice mingled with the aroma of the liquor.

This strange ritual was something Master Chen often did during our hunts.

He told me that drinking a bowl of rice porridge boiled with white liquor in the morning would invigorate you and make you sweat all day. I was skeptical at first, but after taking the first sip, I truly felt refreshed and energized.

Of course, this was a practice unique to Master Chen; none of the other hunters ever did this.

Once everything was ready, Master Chen sat opposite me, lit a cigarette, pondered for a while, and then began his tale in a slow, deliberate voice.

He said, “As for the wolf children, I actually saw them once when I was serving in Inner Mongolia. I can’t tell you exactly where I was stationed—it’s a godforsaken place. Our squad was there…”

He vaguely recalled it was his second year in the army. The north wind howled, snow blanketed the land, and we had gone to sleep early. But in the middle of the night, a call came in—there had been a wolf pack attack on a village not far from our post.”

Hearing this, I looked at Master Chen in shock. “A wolf pack attacking a human village? Master Chen, you’re joking, right?”

From what I knew, although wolves roamed fiercely in the forest and even dared to challenge bears, they wouldn’t just attack a village!

Master Chen nodded. “I was curious too. Could those wolves have gone mad? I thought maybe it was false information. But orders are orders. Seven of us, armed, took a truck and headed to the village. The command was clear: if it was truly a wolf attack, we were to execute them on the spot.”

Within ten minutes, we reached the village. Upon investigation, we found clear signs of wolf attacks—several villagers had been bitten. The village chief told us that while no one was gravely hurt, three children had been taken by the wolves.”

At this, Master Chen’s eyes reddened. “Hearing that the wolves had taken children made us furious. Those beasts! That night, our squad and the villagers went up the mountain to search. We combed through the forest for days, almost turning it upside down, but we never found the children. In the end, we had no choice but to retreat.”

I swallowed hard and asked, “So, those three children were eaten by the wolves?”

“Eat my ass!” Master Chen cursed.

“Damn! If they’d been eaten, that’d be one thing. At first, we cursed those wolves as monsters. But with time, we nearly forgot about it. Then, five years later, one night, we got orders to go out again. In a wild forest, we encountered the wolf pack! And do you know what I saw?”

“Don’t tell me… you saw those three children?”

“Exactly! Damn, among the wolves were three kids, about seven or eight years old. They were crouched on the ground, faces filthy, snarling like wolves, mouths stained with blood, even howling like them! Damn it, you can’t imagine the shock I felt seeing those children. Humans… turned into wolves! It was unreal.”

He cursed softly again, then rolled two cigarettes, tossing one to me.

I lit it and asked, “Master Chen, I’m curious—why would the wolves raise human children?”

He snorted coldly. “Why? Let me tell you, I went back to that village later to find out more. Turns out, there was an old bachelor there who liked to steal wolf pups! You know how fiercely a mother wolf protects her young—if you take her pups, she’ll retaliate. She steals human children to raise them as vengeance, I reckon.”

I exhaled deeply, marveling, “Master Chen, the world truly holds endless wonders.”

“No kidding! Strange things happen in the old forests. You’ll see for yourself one day.”

Suddenly recalling something, I asked again, “By the way, Master Chen, what happened to those three wolf children?”

“I don’t know,” he said firmly, shaking his head.

“You don’t?”

“How should I know? They might be dead. Anyway, eat up, don’t worry! Maybe that girl you ran into last night was one of the wolf children!” Saying this, Master Chen ladled a large bowl of the rice-and-liquor broth for me.

I took it thoughtfully, sitting on the bed to sip, but my mind kept racing, sensing something was off.

First of all, the wolf children Master Chen described were different from the girl I saw last night.

The ones he spoke of had become wolves entirely, living as wolves in every way. But the girl I met seemed perfectly human.

Only she was riding on a wolf’s back.

I even felt that the wolf pack’s retreat last night wasn’t caused by anything ordinary.

It was because of… that girl.

After pondering for a long while with no conclusion, I shook my head and drained the bowl of broth in one go.

I said, “Master Chen, about that… evil spirit, what should we do?”

He furrowed his brow, thought for a moment, then said, “First, let’s retrieve the game we hunted yesterday. Then we’ll try to go back to that place and apologize. See if it’s willing to forgive us.”

“Oh,” I replied helplessly, having no experience with such supernatural matters, resigning myself to his plan.

But deep down, I sensed that this evil spirit probably wouldn’t be so forgiving.