Chapter Eighty-Six: The Medicinal Guide

A clear ringing of bells drifted from somewhere, no one could tell where. At the sound, the werewolf shut her eyes tight, knotted her brows, and clutched her head with both hands in agony, as though struck by some violent stimulus.

The old woman stood bewildered.

Looking at the werewolf with deep concern, she reached out to soothe her, but the instant her hand touched the werewolf’s arm, she was shoved away with a single palm strike. The werewolf shot her a vicious glare.

The next moment, her expression changed back again, and she seemed about to help the old woman up. Just then, another ring of bells sounded.

She drew back her hand, sprang onto a vendor’s stall in a single bound, and leaped to the rooftop. Before leaving, she glanced back at the old woman, then fled across the tiles.

The old woman lay on the ground, reaching after the direction in which the werewolf had gone, her heart full of worry. What had happened to her? Where was she going? Would she come back?

After the werewolf left, passersby helped the old woman to her feet. She began searching the area for the werewolf, fearing something had happened to her.

On the other side.

Following the sound of the bells, the werewolf found its source. She dropped from the rooftops and appeared before a black-clad, masked figure standing with his back against a wall, arms folded across his chest, wearing a bamboo hat.

The man raised his left hand. A red thread was tied to his index finger, and from the other end of it hung a bell. It was the very bell he had rung, the signal sent to the werewolf.

The moment she saw the black-clad man, the werewolf suddenly knelt before him in reverence, too afraid even to lift her head and meet his gaze, as though she were terribly frightened of him.

The man looked at the werewolf, then brushed aside the hair that covered her neck. There, he found a black triangular mark.

He had confirmed it: she was indeed the test subject that had escaped.

The werewolf was taken away by the masked man, carried to the outskirts beyond Lanzhou and into the cellar of a hidden estate.

Drip. Drip.

The sound of two drops of water striking the floor was especially clear in the profoundly quiet basement. There were two rows of cells below, each one holding a person.

The werewolf was locked in the farthest corner, shut out from sun and sky. Endless darkness devoured all hope of life, pressing down so heavily that it was hard to breathe. This was the very place where she had once lived.

A single thread of light fell upon her face. Her hair was disheveled, and her complexion was ghastly pale. She had been tied to a wooden chair, with a copper basin placed before her.

A thin bamboo rod had been sharpened, hollowed out in the middle, and used as a conduit, driven deep into the werewolf’s waist. Bright red blood flowed down through a bamboo tube and into the copper basin.

When it seemed about enough, the man beside her pulled out the slender bamboo, took it away, and untied her. As compensation for the blood she had lost, he tossed a piece of raw meat onto the floor as a reward.

The man carried the copper basin outside, locked the door, and then stood beyond it shaking a bell. At the sound of the signal, the werewolf’s eyes instantly turned blood-red, and a beastlike growl rose from her throat.

She seized the bloody, fur-covered slab of raw meat from the floor with both hands and tore into it madly, swallowing mouthful after mouthful.

In no time at all, the raw meat was gone. Her hands were stained red with blood, and blood smeared all over her mouth.

At the sight, the man stared with bulging eyes, the corners of his mouth lifting as he let out a series of chilling laughs.

As he climbed the basement steps, his face was finally revealed. He was none other than a court minister, a pupil of Li Heyan: Minister Fang.

Minister Fang carried a basin half-filled with fresh blood and returned to the hidden manor. Pushing open the door to a side chamber, he stepped inside.

With a creak, the door opened, and a shaft of moonlight followed him into the room. There was no light within. A shadow sat silently in the chamber.

Turning back to close the door, Minister Fang lit a candle, then set all the others alight as well. The room immediately grew bright.

The shadow seated in the room was actually an old woman with a head full of white hair and a face aged beyond recognition.

This was Minister Fang’s wife, Liu Yunhui.

“Yunhui, I’ve brought back the thing that escaped. Your illness can be cured now.”

Minister Fang was overjoyed. He hurried forward with the basin of blood and set it on a table. On the table sat a food box, inside of which were several pieces of meat.

He picked up a piece of meat with his hand, sliced off a thin portion with a small knife, then夹 it with chopsticks and soaked it in the basin filled with the werewolf’s blood.

Once the blood had fully soaked into the meat, Minister Fang caught it in a bowl, walked over to the woman with his chopsticks, and fed it to her.

She suffered from rheumatic pain and a blood disorder, and in a single night her hair had turned completely white. Every day she endured unimaginable torment.

He had consulted countless physicians, including many famed doctors, yet all they could do was shake their heads helplessly. None could offer a cure.

One blunt and outspoken doctor even said what should not have been said: that he ought to prepare for her funeral. In a fit of rage, Minister Fang killed him.

After making inquiries, he learned that there was an exalted master who knew how to treat her. So he spent a great deal of silver and invited that master to his home.

According to the master, there was indeed a remedy for his wife’s strange ailment, but the required medicinal ingredient was difficult to find and hard to obtain.

The moment he heard that there was a cure, he would have seized at least half his own life as the price if necessary; he could not possibly give up such hope.

The master said that his wife had been afflicted by an evil creature, and that her vital essence and energy were being slowly drained away. Only by replenishing what had been lost could she find relief.

But what had to be used for that replenishment could not be ordinary matter.

It required the flesh of a three-tailed white wolf beast, together with the blood of a werewolf, a rare thing in this world, to serve as the medicinal guide. Only then could it work to its fullest effect, and with long-term use it would effect a complete cure.

As for the three-tailed white wolf beast, it could not be an adult wolf. It had to be the flesh of a wolf cub.

At first, Minister Fang had thought it too cruel. But for his wife’s sake, he cast everything else aside.

“Hungry. I’m still hungry. Give me more to eat! Quickly, give me something to eat! I’m hungry... I’m hungry!”

After devouring all the pieces of meat, Yunhui was still ravenous. Suddenly losing control, she smashed the bowl to the floor and laughed crazily.

Minister Fang was already so delirious from his desire to save her that he failed to notice his wife had been fed into a monster.

In the glow of the candles, the woman opened her mouth, revealing a full set of fangs. The veins on her face swelled, and her eyes had turned completely black.

She was no longer the gentle, virtuous wife he had once known, the woman who had loved and cherished him.

By the corner of the room lay a cloth sack, something living shifting inside it. Minister Fang stepped forward and untied the sack, and a wolf cub poked its head out to breathe.

Expressionless, he reached out and seized the cub by the neck with one hand, while lifting the small knife in the other. The cub looked at him innocently, its ears twitching, oblivious to the danger.

It stretched out its tongue and licked his hand. Minister Fang froze for a moment, a trace of hesitation seeming to surface in his expression.

Then he looked back at his wife, who was writhing in agony, and hardened his heart. The blade came down.

In the shadow cast by the candlelight, Minister Fang struck with lethal force. Blood sprayed upward, dyeing the wall a vivid red.

In the basement, the wolf mother seemed to sense that disaster had befallen her. A tear slipped from the corner of her eye as she lifted her head and howled toward the window.

That mournful cry seemed to awaken the werewolf in the cell. She slowly rose from the floor and rushed to the wooden bars before her, gripping them with both hands and shaking them hard, trying to thrust her head through, howling at the top of her lungs.

Having lived with the wolf pack for ten years, she seemed to have long since learned to understand their calls and their voices. As she cried out, tears of grief streamed down her face.