Chapter 52: I Am Going To Bed

Hóng Yè scrambled backward in the dirt until his back hit the rough bark of a tree. His chest heaved, his amber eyes wide with a terror.

What was Han Shān doing here?!

The Snow Leopard hated her! He had sworn a blood oath to the elders that he would never let the cursed female near Ruì Xuě again! Why was he standing outside her hut in the middle of the night like a loyal guard dog?!

“I was going to kill her!” Hóng Yè yelled back in a harsh whisper, pointing a trembling finger toward the dark hut.

Han Shān flinched as if he had been physically struck.

The deadly, freezing aura swirling around him faltered for a fraction of a second. “Have you lost your mind?!” he demanded, keeping his voice low so as not to wake anyone.

“You are a kit! You would throw away your life, your honor, to become a killer in the dark?!”

“Why would you stop me?!” Hóng Yè’s voice cracked violently, hot tears spilling over his eyelashes. “Why are you protecting her?! After everything she did!”

“She has made us suffer!” Hóng Yè choked out, scrubbing his face with his dirty sleeves. “See what she did to Ruì Xuě! Look what she did to Yòu Lín! She threw them away like dirt! She left them to freeze! I don’t believe her for one second! I don’t believe this ’new’ her!”

The teenager pulled his knees to his chest, his bushy, white-tipped tail wrapping defensively around himself. “She is just pretending. She’s going to hurt them again. I had to stop her.”

Han Shān fell silent. The biting wind whipped his white hair around his broad shoulders.

He slowly turned his head, his glowing blue eyes locking onto the heavy hide curtain of Bai Yue’s hut. He could still hear her snoring drifting through the night air.

I don’t believe her either, Han Shān wanted to say. I don’t trust her.

But the words wouldn’t come out.

Because when he closed his eyes, he didn’t see the sneering, cruel female who had starved his son. He saw a woman dropping to her knees in the dirt, completely ignoring a Fox Lord and a Dragon Prince, just to carefully blow on a spoonful of hot soup so a snow leopard cub wouldn’t burn his tongue.

He saw her terrified, blushing face in the hot springs.

He didn’t completely believe her.

Or….maybe, deep down, he did. And that terrified him.

Han Shān let out a long, heavy sigh. He tossed the broken stick into the bushes.

“Get up, Hóng Yè,” Han Shān ordered softly.

Hóng Yè sniffled, looking up warily. “Are you going to hit me?”

“Hit you? No,” Han Shān rumbled. “But I am taking you back to your father tonight.”

Hóng Yè froze. The teenager’s jaw unhinged. “Eh???”

“You heard me,” the Snow Leopard crossed his massive arms. “You crossed a dangerous valley with only a feline for protection. You are reckless. I am marching you back to the Wandering River Tribe right now.”

“No!” Hóng Yè scrambled to his feet, panic entirely replacing his anger. “You can’t take me back! I won’t go!”

“Do not test my patience, boy—”

“But……but…” Hóng Yè stomped his foot in the dirt, puffing his cheeks out in a stubborn pout. “I can’t bear to watch Papa cry again! He just sits by the river and stares at the moon and sighs! It’s so annoying! I hate it! If I go back without fixing anything, he is just going to keep being sad forever!”

Han Shān pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling a massive headache blooming behind his eyes.

Yan Shu had always been a deeply emotional, gentle beastman. If the Red Panda was truly that broken-hearted, sending his rebellious son back empty-handed would solve absolutely nothing.

“Be quiet,” Han Shān grunted. “Go fetch Shěn. We will figure this out on the way.”

“No!” Hóng Yè crossed his arms tightly. “I am not leaving! I refuse! You can freeze my legs to the ground, I don’t care!”

Han Shān stared at the stubborn boy. He looked so much like his father, yet possessed the fiery temper of……well, of the old Bai Yue.

A crazy, completely irrational idea suddenly formed in Han Shān’s mind. Zhāo Yàn was right. There was a light in the female now.

If Yan Shu saw it……if the sweet, anxious scholar saw that his mate was no longer cruel……

“Fine,” Han Shān sighed.

“Fine, I can stay?!” Hóng Yè blinked, completely caught off guard.

“No,” Han Shān corrected. “We are not taking you back. We will bring Yan Shu here.”

Hóng Yè’s amber eyes nearly exploded. “Eh?!”

“Quiet!” The snow leopard hissed. “Your father deserves to see this for himself,” Han Shān continued, glancing back at the hut. “He deserves to see whatever spell this female is under. If she has truly changed, Yan Shu should be here. He is her mate, too.”

“Bring Papa here?!” Hóng Yè squeaked, his voice jumping a full octave. “To the cursed female?! What if she yells at him?! What if she kicks him again?! I will bite her ankles off!”

“I will not let her harm him,” Han Shān promised. “I don’t think she will. But we must go fetch him. Go wake the Tiger. We leave before the sun rises.”

Hóng Yè hesitated, chewing on his lower lip. He didn’t want his dad anywhere near this chaotic village, but the thought of seeing his father smile again……

“Okay,” Hóng Yè whispered, his shoulders slumping in defeat. “I’ll go get Shěn.”

The teenager turned and trudged toward the guest huts at the edge of the clearing, leaving Han Shān alone in the moonlight.

Han Shān stood guard outside the hut for another ten minutes, his mind racing with the logistics of traveling to the Wandering River. He would have to leave Ruì Xuě, a terrifying thought on its own.

Suddenly, Hóng Yè came sprinting back across the grass. He was panting.

“Uncle Han Shān!” Hóng Yè hissed, waving his arms frantically.

“Keep your voice down,” Han Shān scolded. “Did you wake the feline?”

“I tried!” Hóng Yè grabbed his own hair, looking as if he were about to spontaneously combust from sheer embarrassment. “But we can’t leave! Shěn is incapacitated!”

Han Shān frowned. “Incapacitated? Did a rogue attack him in his sleep?”

“No!” Hóng Yè whimpered, burying his burning face in his hands. “The Moon-Whisker Weed hasn’t worn off! He is entirely useless!”

Han Shān blinked slowly. “…What is he doing?”

Hóng Yè pointed a trembling finger toward the storage huts. “He…..he broke into the Uncle Mo Xiao’s food stores. He is currently curled into a tiny ball, holding Uncle Mo Xiao’s prized, giant winter-squash, and he is aggressively purring at it!”

Han Shān stared at the boy.

“And,” Hóng Yè added, a single tear of mortification rolling down his cheek, “he tried to make circles on my face when I tried to take the squash away. We cannot travel with him.”

Han Shān looked up at the twin moons, closed his eyes, and let out a long groan.

He was a warrior of the snowy peaks. He was an apex predator.

And he was currently trapped in a village with a blushing fox, a screeching dragon, a snoring female, a kit that wanted to kill said female, and a scary feline who was in a deeply committed, romantic relationship with a vegetable.

I am, Han Shān decided firmly, going back to bed.

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