“Phew… seems a stretch without cooking’s made my hands rusty.” Linyue Yao let out a breath like a puff of winter mist, eyes on the feast spread just beyond the courtyard like a painted scroll.
She’d dragged the table near the gate because a wolf with a bottomless belly was lurking outside, like a shadow under a snow eave.
She’d never actually fed it before, but that hulking frame screamed appetite, like a mountain that ate clouds.
And sure enough, the truth bit down like frost.
“Let me introduce someone~ The kid by my side is Ling Yehan. He’ll live with us from now on. He’s a boy, so please don’t mix it up.” Linyue Yao sat like a willow on a chair, arms cradling the little one like a warm bundle.
The little one was busy with roast meat, cheeks shiny like glazed buns, ignoring her words like falling rain on stone.
Only when he noticed everyone staring did he lift his head, eyes clear as a spring, a pork rib still hanging from his mouth like a twig in a cub’s teeth.
“Pfft.” The kids cracked, laughter bubbling like a creek over pebbles. What child doesn’t chase cute things like butterflies chasing blossoms?
Especially Xiaohu and Peng Peng—after waking up, they’d grossed each other out like oil and water, and now a cute “girl” felt like balm after a winter wind.
“Hi, little sister Yehan! I’m our Kids’ Gang’s strategist. I’m Pulei—call me Brother Lei!” Pulei puffed himself up like a sparrow pretending to be an eagle.
“…He’s a boy,” someone muttered, like a pin in a balloon.
“M-me, I’m Xiaojing. Little Yehan, you can call me big sister.” From height alone, Xiaojing towered like a sunflower; the smallest sprout here was the little one.
“B…big sister?” His voice trailed like a thread in the wind.
“Mm~ Little Yehan’s voice is sweet, like a flute under the moon.”
“Lin… big sister.” He turned, eyes earnest as morning dew.
“…”
“It’s Sister Jing,” Xiaojing said, cheeks flushing like peach petals.
“Alright, alright, no need to split hairs like rice chaff. Eat up. Bear paw’s no good once it’s cold.” Linyue Yao clapped her hands like wooden clappers in a street play.
“B-bear… paw?!” Bookish Pulei’s jaw dropped like a chopstick slipping from fingers; he’d heard bear paw cost a fortune, and their orphanage was poor as a winter field.
He didn’t dare finish the thought, the worry drifting like smoke.
“Don’t overthink it. I did well in the forest this time, like a fisher with a heavy net. Oh, and there’s someone else to meet~” Linyue Yao turned and whistled, the note slicing the air like a reed in wind.
‘Please let it get that. If it doesn’t show, I’ll look so awkward—like a drumbeat with no dancers.’ Her heart tightened like a knotted cord.
Her worry proved needless. The white wolf must’ve been delayed like a cloud snagged on a peak, because it soared in with one leap and lunged for the roast like lightning to a tree.
But the moment it met the little one’s look—sharp as a chef’s knife sizing ingredients—it wilted like frost-bitten grass.
It was a proud white wolf, a crest of snow and moonlight, yet now it lay down like a big sulking mutt, wronged and obedient on the side.
It gave a soft “woo-woo,” like a winter wind seeping under a door.
“Don’t lie on the ground, dumb wolf.” Linyue Yao clicked her tongue like a pebble on a drum. “This is… uh, A-Bai. Just call it A-Bai.”
“…”
“Mama Lin, A-Bai… is it a wolf?” A child’s eyes rounded like lanterns.
“Yep. A white wolf from the White Snow Forest, born where frost writes on pine. Because of some things, it’ll be at our orphanage now. Treat A-Bai well. It’ll guard you like a night watch fire.”
‘Hey, did you hear that? Give me something, you dumb dog!’ Linyue Yao’s stare was a blade of ice.
A-Bai rolled its eyes like a cat under the eaves, then dipped its head to the children, a stiff nod like a carved mask come to life.
“…”
After that, A-Bai waited out the storm of the little one’s appetite, then finally tasted roast meat like a pilgrim at a shrine.
Good thing Linyue Yao had cooked enough for a small village; even A-Bai’s cavernous stomach filled like a lake after rain, with leftovers still glinting like coins.
The rare lunch stretched till four in the afternoon, sunlight slanting like warm tea, and dinner felt spared by fate.
For the orphans, it was the first time they’d eaten till their bellies were boats on calm water. The Bear King’s paw brimmed with strength like marrowed snow, and drowsiness drifted over them like a soft cloud.
Even lively Peng Peng curled up obediently, sleeping like a pup in straw.
Sleep is the best tonic, rain for a thirsting field, and the little one and A-Bai were no exception.
But Linyue Yao, self-styled old auntie, needed no nap; she stood like a pine that doesn’t bend.
She had work to do. She had to process the bear paw in her pocket space, or it’d spoil like fruit in a forgotten basket—and then she’d cry like a summer squall.
After hours of steady work, blade flashing like moonlight on water, she cut away and marinated a third of the paw like a careful winter pickle.
‘Phew… rest for now. I’ll finish the rest tomorrow.’ The thought slipped through her like steam from a cup.
Light rippled, and Linyue Yao stepped out of her pocket space like a fish breaking the surface.
“It’s dark already…” Her brows knit like storm clouds. “Can’t I get a proper rest? Trouble even knocks at night like a stray wind.”
She sighed, the sound thin as a reed, and her figure vanished like a swallow into dusk.
At the White Snow Forest’s outskirts, a giant bear’s shadow moved toward the orphanage like a mountain on legs. Once towering like a peak, the Demon Bear King looked shrunken now, as if water had drained from a great lake.
One arm was translucent as ice on a window, and its fur had lost its sheen like snow turned to ash.
‘Coming to pick a fight with the little one?’ Linyue Yao’s gaze chilled like a sword dipped in winter, killing intent leaking like cold fog. ‘Forget it. Talk first. If we can avoid a clash, we should.’
Two Ninth Tier sovereigns trading blows is a storm that rips roots, a disaster for land and sky, especially with the orphanage and White Snow Forest so near.
She sheathed her edge and blinked forward, appearing before the Demon Bear King like a lantern flaring on a dark road.
“Human… you took something that wasn’t yours, didn’t you?” Its voice rumbled like stones in a river.
“…?”
“Give me back my bear paw!”
‘Ah… you meant the paw. I thought you meant the little one…’ Her heart sank like a pebble in a pond.
“Sorry, well… your paw, I… uh, do you want to eat it?” Her words fluttered like startled sparrows.
“…”
“Human!! You seek death!!!” The Demon Bear King’s roar split the air like thunder, and Linyue Yao’s ears ached like drums under hail.
“How was I supposed to know you’ve got a hobby of collecting your own limbs? With a paw that big, am I dumb if I don’t pick it up? If I didn’t, some wild beast would’ve gnawed it clean like wolves on a carcass!”
“I don’t care! Damn human, today it’s you or me!” His aura swelled like a blizzard rolling off a cliff, and his shrunken frame seemed to push outward like dough rising.
For the White Snow Bear clan, the body is a jar for cultivation, a treasured vessel of strength. Losing an arm was a wound like a tree split by lightning.
Worse, someone had eaten that arm—it was insult and ash. Add to that the humiliation from the little one before, and rage boiled like a kettle left on coals.
So he set Linyue Yao up as a lightning rod, a target for his storm.
“Die, human! Freeze in this endless blizzard and—”
“Shut it.” The girl’s voice rang cool and clear, a bell in fog. The starry sky went gray like ink in snowmelt, and time ran slow, a candle’s drip caught mid-fall.
The Demon Bear King’s snarling face, and Linyue Yao’s backward step, stretched like slow-motion shadows on a wall.
“Your magic core—I’ll be taking it.” A gray-haired girl drifted forward through thickened time and space, her hair like ash-silk, a flute in hand like a moon-bright reed.
From her sleeve, a forearm showed, inked with strange floral patterns like winter blossoms. Her expression was lazy as a cat in sun, her pace as casual as steps on a garden path.
Linyue Yao and the Demon Bear King could only watch her move, trapped like insects in amber, even their expressions frozen like frost on glass.
The gray-haired girl ignored the bear’s massive body like a cliff ignores a bird, and plucked a white magic core from its chest as if from thin air, like a pearl from a shell.
Time snapped back like a bowstring.
“You—!” The Demon Bear King’s word hadn’t finished when gray bled over his snowy fur like smoke over snow. Power drained from him like tide from shore.
With a single earth-shaking crash, a king of beasts fell like a toppled pine.
