Chapter 88: The Grandmother Gauntlet

Good morning, little pet. I got tired of waiting.”

Tiě Xióng’s voice rolled across the clearing like thunder, but Bai Yue barely heard it over the roaring in her ears.

Three things happened simultaneously:

Han Shān lunged forward, ice crystallizing on his fists.

Zhāo Yàn vanished, reappearing between Bai Yue and the Bear King with claws extended and nine tails blazing like crimson fire.

And Mo Xiao, who had just been thrown twenty feet, picked himself up, shifted back to human form, and spat blood onto the dirt with a grin.

“That all you got, bear?”

Tiě Xióng laughed, a big, booming sound that made the cubs flinch. “I came for a conversation, not a war. But if you insist on—”

He didn’t finish the sentence.

Because Han Shān’s ice-covered fist connected with his jaw.

CRACK.

The Bear King’s head snapped to the side. He stumbled back a step. Then he turned back, slowly, and smiled.

“Finally. Someone who doesn’t just talk.”

He swung.

Han Shān ducked, but the Bear King was faster than something his size had any right to be. A massive paw, claws extended, caught the Snow Leopard across the chest and sent him flying into a storage hut.

The hut collapsed.

“PAPA!” Ruì Xuě screamed.

“I’m FINE,” Han Shān’s voice came from the rubble. He emerged a second later, looking furious and covered in dried herbs. “That was my favorite hut.”

“Zhāo Yàn, don’t you DARE—”

But Bai Yue’s warning came too late.

The Fox Lord had already launched himself at Tiě Xióng, all nine tails lashing like whips. He moved like smoke, impossible to track, impossible to catch, and for a glorious three seconds, it looked like he might actually land a hit.

Tiě Xióng caught him by the scruff.

“Pretty fox,” the Bear King observed, holding the sputtering, furious Zhāo Yàn at arm’s length. “Very fast. Very angry. Not very heavy.”

“PUT ME DOWN YOU OVERGROWN FUR RUG—”

Tiě Xióng tossed him. Zhāo Yàn sailed through the air, executed a perfect mid-flight twist, and landed on his feet, but ten yards away, hissing like an angry cat.

“Your tails are POOFY now, papa!” Yòu Lín observed. “That means you’re embarrassed.”

“I am NOT embarrassed. I am STRATEGICALLY REPOSITIONING.”

“You’re totally embarrassed.”

“YÒU LÍN.”

From behind a different hut, Hóng Yè’s voice rang out: “Everyone stop fighting! You’re scaring the—” He stopped. Sighed. “You’re scaring the cubs. And also me. A little. Not that I’ll admit it.”

“NO ONE ASKED YOU,” three people shouted simultaneously.

Tiě Xióng stood in the center of the chaos, looking immensely pleased with himself.

“Is this all?” He spread his massive arms. “The great defenders of Thousand Fang? A frozen cat, a fluffy fox, and a panther who hits like a cub?”

Mo Xiao growled, preparing to charge again.

Han Shān was already moving, ice spreading across the ground beneath his feet.

Zhāo Yàn had stopped hissing and was now circling, eyes narrowed, calculating.

And Bai Yue—

Bai Yue was waddling forward, one hand on her belly, the other balled into a fist.

“Bai Yue, NO,” Han Shān snapped.

“Bai Yue, STOP,” Zhāo Yàn added.

“Bai Yue, statistically this is a terrible—” Yàn Shū started.

“EVERYONE SHUT UP.”

The clearing went silent.

Tiě Xióng looked at her, and something flickered in his amber eyes. Interest. Amusement. Something darker.

“You’ve changed,” he observed. “The old you would be hiding behind them. Begging me to stop.”

“The old you,” Bai Yue said flatly, “wouldn’t have needed to start a fight to get my attention. You would have just expected me to come running.”

Tiě Xióng’s smile flickered.

“Things change,” she continued. “I changed. You didn’t. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? Because you heard I wasn’t pining for you anymore. Because you couldn’t stand the thought that I moved on.”

“I came to see for myself.”

“Now you’ve seen.” She stopped ten feet away, close enough to see the surprise in his eyes. “I’m pregnant. I’m happy. I have a family that loves me. You’re just… a bear who couldn’t let go of a toy he never wanted in the first place.”

The silence that followed was deafening.

Tiě Xióng’s face went through several expression, shock, confusion, something that might have been hurt buried deep under layers of pride.

Then he laughed.

“You really have changed,” he said. “The old you wouldn’t have had the guts to say that to my face.”

“The old me was an idiot.”

“The old me was an idiot too.” He shrugged, massive shoulders rolling. “I should have realized what I had. But I was young. Stupid. Thought there’d always be more.”

“More what?”

Before he could respond….

THWACK.

Everyone’s jaws dropped.

Gū Gū stood behind Tiě Xióng, her iron-wood stick raised. The Bear King was frozen mid-turn, one hand reaching for the back of his head where a lump was already forming.

“You,” Gū Gū announced, “are a very stupid bear.”

Tiě Xióng turned slowly. “You… hit me.”

“I’ll hit you again. Don’t test me, cub. I’ve been beating up larger creatures than you since before your grandfather was a gleam in his father’s eye.”

“I could crush you.”

“You could try.” Gū Gū raised her stick. “Go ahead. Make an old woman’s day.”

Tiě Xióng stared at her.

She stared back.

“I’m not here to fight old ladies,” he said finally.

“Then what ARE you here for?” Bai Yue demanded. “Because so far, all you’ve done is attack my family and insult my husbands.”

Tiě Xióng opened his mouth—

And a new voice cut through the clearing like a blade of ice.

“WHO DARES TO DISTURB MY MORNING?”

Everyone froze.

From the tree line, a figure emerged.

Old. Silver-white hair that fell past her waist, braided with beads of frozen water. Piercing blue eyes that held the cold of a thousand winters. Features that were unmistakably, undeniably similar to—

“MAMA?! ”

Han Shān’s voice cracked on the word, like a teenager going through puberty.

The woman’s icy gaze swept over the clearing, taking in the collapsed hut, the furious husbands, the bewildered Bear King, and finally landing on Bai Yue, or rather, on Bai Yue’s very obvious pregnant belly.

Her expression shifted. Just slightly.

Then she looked at Tiě Xióng.

“You,” she said.

Tiě Xióng took a step back. “Now, wait just a—”

THWACK.

The old woman moved faster than anyone could follow. One moment she was at the tree line. The next, she was standing over Tiě Xióng, who was now on the ground, clutching his head where a second lump was forming.

THWACK. For good measure.

“WHO DARES threaten my grandchild before I’ve even MET them?!” Her voice echoed off the huts, rattling the leaves on the trees. “WHO DARES interrupt my journey to see my SON and his MATE?!”

She turned to Han Shān, who looked like he had seen a ghost.

“Mama,” he repeated weakly. “You’re…..here.”

“Of COURSE I’m here. Gū Gū sent word. Did you think I wouldn’t come?” She sniffed, looking him up and down. “You look thin. Are you eating? Is she feeding you? If she’s not feeding you, I’ll have WORDS.”

“She’s feeding me.”

“Good.” Her gaze snapped back to Tiě Xióng, who was attempting to crawl away. “And YOU. Stay down, bear cub, or I’ll use your fur as a rug.”

Tiě Xióng, the most powerful Alpha in the Northern Territory, the terror of a dozen tribes, the bear who had just thrown two Lords like they weighed nothing—

Stayed down.

Gū Gū walked over to the newcomer, leaning on her stick with an expression of deep satisfaction.

“Took you long enough,” she said.

“Traffic,” the snow leopard matriarch replied. “The mountain passes were terrible this time of year.”

The two elderly women stood side by side, looking down at the crumpled Bear King.

From the ground, Tiě Xióng groaned. “Can I get up now?”

“NO.”

Both grandmothers spoke at once.

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