Gentle Beast 60

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The door slammed open, hitting the wall with a loud bang.

. . .

The other side was empty and quiet.

Looking around at the houses across the street, the doors were all closed, like no one had come back at all.

Ryan’s brow stretched, then he turned to Winter and eyes glinted coldly, “If you day saw those words again, you won’t live long.”

Winter touched the top of his head, “Your female is at the back of the mountain and won’t hear it anyway. . .”

Ryan looked at him and his dark blue eyes seemed to carry a stormy sea.

Winter immediately shut up and respectfully said, “Yes, Chief.”

*

On the other side, beyond the hill.

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu was “thrown” out of her space and dropped onto her knees, palms pressed against the rough grass. Her thoughts were in disordered.

All she could think about was Winter’s words.

They were deceiving her?

What did they mean, Pat wasn’t dead?

Why did Ryan do this? Didn’t he promise to help her find Pat. . . were they fake?

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu tightened his fingers and raised his eyes to find that she had reappeared at the back of the mountain.

Just as Ryan pushed the door, she hid in her space reflexively.

——Now that she had been “moved” by the space?

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu remembered the last time she had used the space’s teleportation that she had almost been killed by Laurence.

Why did she do it this time? Every time her mind began to fluctuate wildly and wanted to escape something, her space would make the decision for her?

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu was utterly confused.

“Hey, why are you still here?” a voice called out to Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu from overhead, suddenly interrupting her thoughts.

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu looked up and saw Suzanna standing in front of her carrying a bamboo basket. There were two grey hares inside, and in her other hand, she dragged a few palm leaves. She looked in a rush to get home.

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu hesitated, “. . . what’s wrong?”

Suzanna pointed to the sky. Heavy dark clouds hung over the valley, looking as though rain could fall any moment. “Rainy season is coming. There will be torrential rain over the next few days. The terrain is low here. If you don’t hurry back, then heavy rain will come and you’ll drown.”

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu stood up, “But I haven’t spoken to Walker yet. . .”

“They’ve already gone home long ago!” Suzanna said the truth. Once the sky darkened, Walker, Joel and Selwyn left. “Who else do you see here? You’re staggering on the floor. . . by the way, why are you lying here?”

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu tacitly didn’t tell the truth, “I went home to get a few things, accidentally fell over.”

Suzanna’s mouth curled, undisguised disgust, “You really are useless, can’t even walk without falling.” She said so while reaching out a hand to lift her off the ground, “The rain hasn’t started yet, you’d better hurry and go back with me.”

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu slightly stalled. Going back meant facing Ryan, and she wasn’t ready to face him yet. . .

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu looked up at the distant peaks and the black clouds rolling over, the hazy fog a sign of the oncoming rainstorm.

Suzanna urged her, “Hey, can you walk?”

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu have her hand to Suzanna and nodded, “En.”

Suzanna walked quickly home, and Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu hurried to catch up with her, soon reaching her doorstep.

Rain was already beginning to fall, and they hit the ground, like ink from above.

Ryan’s house was at the end of the road and Suzanna told Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu goodbye, planning to go on home.

“Wait a minute, Suzanna,” Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu suddenly stopped her, her dark eyes full of sincerity, “I have a question for you.”

Suzanna raised the palm leaf over her head. Her kitchen roof was leaking and she wanted to use it for repairs. “What’s the problem.”

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu weighed carefully, “If. . . i mean, if Winter deceived you, would you be angry with him?”

Suzanna immediately said, annoyed, “What? Did he deceive me of something?”

“No, no. I mean, if.” Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu hurriedly waved her hand, fearing that Suzanna misunderstood, “He isn’t lying to you. It’s just an analogy.”

Suzanna calmed down, the raindrops hitting the palm leaves over her head giving a crisp sound.

“It depends on his reasons. If it’s for my sake, I won’t dispute about it. If he’s guilty and wanted to hide something, I’d certainly be angry.”

“If he deliberately concealed news of your family? Like Scarlet. . .”

“He dared to do that, and I’d immediately be looking for another spouse!”

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu: “. . .”

. . .

Saying farewell to Suzanna, she stood at the gate in front of Ryan’s house. The rain was getting heavier and heavier.

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu raised her hand to knock on the door and it was soon opened from inside.

Ryan stood at the doorway, a thick circle of mud on the edge of his boots, as if he had been looking for her.

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu raised her face but, before she could speak, she shivered and sneezed.

“Where have you been?” Ryan immediately took her into his arms and covered her head with his hands, striding into the house.

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu rubbed his nose and dropped his eyelashes, “I went to the hill to teach Walker and the others about gunpowder. . . “

“I went down to the hill and Walker said you were coming back for something,” Ryan said.

When he said that, Ryan stared at Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu to see all of her expressions.

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu restrained her emotions and clamped her fingers on Ryan’s shoulders, “I met Suzanna on the way. Suzanna said the rainy season was coming soon. I didn’t come back to get something, instead walking with her. Her roof is leaking and she needed to pick up some palm leaves to fix it.”

Those were what Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu guessed after seeing the leaves in her hands. She hadn’t actually told her those details.

Ryan’s face eased slightly and walked into the house, taking Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu’s blanket from the side cabinet and wrapped her in it. “As Suzanna said. It’s going to rain for the next few days. Don’t teach them for the time being. It’s best to stay at home.”

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu looked at him, “What about you?”

Ryan: “I’m going to lead the tribe on a hunt tomorrow.”

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu’s hands under the blanket were cold and she couldn’t find the words, “You aren’t afraid of the rain?”

“The rainy season has little effect on animals.”

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu nodded and stopped talking.

Ryan stretched out his hands to rub the rain off her lashes and found her face was cold. He went to rekindle the fire and took her into his arms, sitting in front of the fire. He wrapped up her little hands. “Cold?” Her body trembled slightly.

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu buried her head and she subconsciously moved closer to him, nasally voicing, “En.”

Ryan heard that and simply turned into his animal form, wrapping up her entire body.

The body temperature of leopards were high, running even forty degrees or higher.

Soon afterwards, Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu forced her head up from under him, “Enough Ryan. . . I’m getting hot.”

Ran touched her hands and it wasn’t as cold, so he let her go.

Switching back to his humanoid shape, Ryan asked her, “What do you want to eat tonight.”

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu sat up and thought hard, “Braised eel.”

She had watched her mother cooking and it left a bit of an impression. She told Ryan how to do it and finally, asked expectantly, “Will you?”

The words in Ryan’s mouth “won’t” were quickly taken back and he said instead, “I’ll try.” Then he added, “No eel, catfish will do?”

Eel only lived in eastern Bornia, thousands of miles from here.

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu paused and said with regret, “Okay.”

Ryan turned and walked out the door.

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu sat cross-legged next to the fireplace and soon heard the sounds of cooking in the kitchen.

Ryan had no experience with human food and was very unskilled. The only thing he could cook was the stewed catfish soup from when Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu was sick.

. . .

Sure enough, she soon saw the kitchen chimney billowing out smoke.

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu did not go back to help and went to the bedside cabinet, taking out the stone Winter had brought back.

The stone was still engraved with lines that Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu couldn’t understand. At the beginning, Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu had been thinking hard about it for a long time. What did it mean? Now that she knew, perhaps there was no “meaning.”

——This was just the cover they used to lie to her.

*

Ryan came out of the kitchen and walked into the bedroom to see her standing in front of the cabinet, motionless.

When Ryan saw what she was holding in her hand, his face slightly changed and his voice was low, “What are you looking at?”

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu turned her head and pursed her lips, shaking her head, “Nothing, just looking at it.”

Ryan saw there was nothing abnormal in her expression and his mood sank, putting the bowl on the table. Just before he could speak, Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu scuttled behind him without warning, “Ryan, my map. Did you throw it away?”

Ryan’s actions stilled.

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu looked at him, clearly, “When my compass was broken, was it you?”

When the compass was bad, Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu felt it was strange. Why couldn’t she use it?

The map that was later drawn was placed in her backpack, no one had moved it, but it could not be found.

She wasn’t dull, but she had been unwilling to speculate about it.

She had always believed in Ryan, and even when Winter told her Pat was dead, she never doubted him.

Today, however, she heard him and Winter talking about Pat and how they were deceiving her.

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu didn’t get Ryan’s response and stubbornly asked again, “Is it not?”

After a long time, Ryan’s voice was heavy, “Yes.”

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu swayed and raised her face, throat choking, “Pat isn’t dead, is he?”

“Right,” Ryan said.

“So why did you lie to me?”

Ryan bent over and slowly raised his eyes, “I wanted you to stay here with me and be my spouse forever.”

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu shook her head, her emotions a bit out of control, “I can stay beside you. . . but it cannot be this way. You can’t lie to me. Pat’s obviously not dead, why’d you lie to me that he was dead. . .”

When she learned that Pat was dead, that feeling of helplessness and desperation, she still remembered.

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu could not accept that Ryan apparently knew what she cared about most but still cruelly deceived her.

How could he be so selfish if he just wanted her to stay?

Ryan clasped her shoulders, blue eyes staring at her, “If I didn’t say that, would you willingly stay?”

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu’s silence was answer enough.

Ryan lifted the side of his mouth, cold and cruel, “That is also my answer.”

Perhaps this sentence triggered her, perhaps Ryan’s attitude was too strong. Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu suddenly broke free from Ryan and ran outside.

Outside it was pouring rain and just the short distance from the bedroom to the door, Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu was drenched.

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu had her hand on the door, but she didn’t have the time to open it. She was caught from behind by the shoulder and Ryan pulled her back into the room.

“Let me go, you let me go!” Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu desperately struggled, her voice whimpering with tears, “Ryan, I hate you!”

Ryan paced and asked, “This is why you didn’t want to mate with me?”

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu said, “Yes. I don’t want to mate with a leopard!”

Ryan suddenly stopped, his face separated by the rain, and was dark and difficult to distinguish.

. . .

*

That evening Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu had trouble going to sleep, and Ryan felt helpless. He simply lifted a hand to her neck and knocked her out.

The next day, Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu woke up and Ryan was no longer at home.

The heavy rain was still falling outside and was even heavier than the night before, falling from the sky like pillars.

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu dressed and wanted to go out and take a look.

However, when she placed her hand on the door and pulled gently——

The wooden door didn’t move.

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu tried again but it still didn’t open.

She quickly realized that the door was locked from outside.

Ryan locked her up at home?

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu was shocked and frustrated. Originally, after a night of thinking, she had calmed down a lot. But now, looking at the closed wooden door, there was a certain kind of panic.

Why did he lock the door? Afraid she would escape?

She had thought about it last night. It was rainy season, and she couldn’t have gotten far even if she fled.

If they could, they should try to communicate with each other. No matter what, it was wrong of him to deceive her.

But now. . .

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu staggered over to sit in a chair and inadvertently touched the backpack next to her. The contents were all spilled out.

Flashlight, selfie-stick, taser, mobile phone. . .

The phone was knocked onto the floor, and had just powered back on, the screen lighting up.

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu picked up everything and put them back into her backpack. She planned to wait for Ryan to come back and try to talk to him.

However, Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu waited until six that afternoon from six that morning and Ryan did not return.

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu looked at the minute hand on her watch and her mood sank bit by bit.

Did he deliberately not come back, or was there something wrong?

At 5:59pm, the second hand passed through the final frame and the sky outside darkened, becoming night.

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu stood up and walked to the window to prepare to close the window.

Suddenly, there seemed to be a familiar sound.

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu motions stiffened, and she waited. But the sound continued.

The ringing bell was the most common melody.

——From her backpack.

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu quickly left the window and took her phone out of the backpack. Even if she couldn’t see the “Caller ID”, she clicked the answer button and put it to her ear.

She was afraid the phone would suddenly hang up.

The person on the other side didn’t seem to think that they would get connected. They froze, and a soft voice asked with excitement, “Ōu, is that you?”

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu’s hands holding the phone trembled, and, very slowly, she asked inconceivably, “Mo, Mom?”