Gentle Beast

Her face was wet as if someone had rubbed sandpaper against it, washing her face with something coarse. Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu couldn’t help but frown.

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu rolled over and buried her cheek in the quilt, trying to avoid the annoyances bothering her sleep.

But it didn’t work.

The other person only paused slightly and shifted the target from her cheek to her ear. He swept his tongue gently over her ear then stuck her entire ear in his mouth. The tongue slightly scrapped against her ears and Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu’s ear slightly hurt.

The felt kind of like she was back home.

The short-haired cat she kept at home liked to lick her face in the middle of the night.. She was too sleepy to think about it though. The next day, half of her cheek would be red with blood but also tracing around her mouth.

This tongue was as rough as her cat’s.

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu did not want to experience that again, so she groaned and stretched her hands out from the blanket to fend it off.

The palm of her hand touched plush fur, which was much larger than the cat she raised. Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu pushed and pushed but it didn’t move.

The licking of her ear continued, but Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu’s itch slowly stretched down to her neck and she reluctantly opened her eyes. . .

In front of her eyes was dark grey fur spotted in lighter shades. Further up, she saw a leopard lying on his side with his tail hanging off the bed, leisurely sweeping back and forth.

He saw her wake up and stretched out his tongue to lick her cheek again.

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu stayed styll and faced his blue eyes, waking up all at once. She hide her face behind her hands, “You. . .”

Perhaps because he was deliberately light, but she wasn’t in much pain but a little itchy. However, Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu was ashamed and quickly said, “Didn’t you promise yesterday that you won’t casually kiss me. You. . . how can you do something like this?”

The large leopard jerked his tail and felt no shame in hearing her say such. His voice in his animal form was deeper and rougher, “Don’t think too much about it. I’m just waking you up.”

Since shifting to his beast form, all the gauze on his body was cracking and the deep wounds were particularly obvious in front of Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu.

“. . .”

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu suddenly remembered that animals, especially cats, really liked to lick each other’s wounds or use their tongues to clean their fur.

. . . But her face was hairless! Why did he wake her up this way?

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu felt depressed and looked out the window. The sky wasn’t bright yet and was marked by a cyan shell in the distance. She looked down at her watch and it was only 5:40.

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu raised her hand to wipe away the saliva on her face. It was sticky, so her mouth pursed into a tight line.

Anyway, she couldn’t sleep anymore. She got out of bed and went outside to wash her face, taking out toothpaste and a toothbrush to brush her teeth.

Ryan saw her coming back and said, “Come here.”

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu walked over and he waited until she was in front of him to raise his injured arm and said, “Make a knot for me.” His hands weren’t convenient.

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu looked at his arm and hesitated.

However, thinking about the severity of his wounds yesterday, she still leaned over and obediently took care of it.

She didn’t make the knot too complicated and only tied an ordinary bow. Before, she didn’t notice it on Táo Táo’s wounds but looking at the bow hanging on Ryan’s strong arm, she felt it somewhat uncoordinated and funny.

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu forced herself not to speak and tears squeezed out of her eyes.

The girl’s cheeks were tender and lingering with her fragrant scent. Ryan looked down at her face and saw the tears on her feathery lashes. They were thick and curled, like hooks.

Ryan couldn’t help but reach out and brush under her eyes with his claw, brushing them away.

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu immediately frightened and retreated in panic, watching him like an enemy, “What?”

Ryan looked at her small, scared look and slightly smiled, deliberately asking, “If you don’t let me kiss you, now I can’t even touch you?”

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu was embarrassed at his words “touch” and shook her head in earnest, “no.”

“I thought about the conditions you set yesterday,” Ryan said, biting the end of the gauze with his fangs, and casually tied a knot, looking up at her, “I can agree with them, but in exchange, you need to promise me something.”

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu asked, “What?”

“Take care of me like you used to take care of ‘Táo Táo’ while I’m injured.”

“. . .”

“You can’t?” Ryan raised his eyebrows slightly, “You have asked so much from me, but I only have this one for you.”

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu bit her lip, thinking about it. Either way, it wasn’t all that difficult a request.

However, she forgot that she made her requests so that her decision to leave or not was in her hands. Ryan, as the passive party, didn’t have the qualifications to make requests.

*

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu thought while she added wood to the stove. She shouldn’t have just promised Ryan?

What if he asked her to do something strange?

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu quickly pondered what she had done to Táo Táo and ended up thinking for a long time. She only gave him gauze and fed him, not anything too special.

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu was relieved. Fortunately, she didn’t give him a bath, or taken his temperature. . .

Her nose smelled something a little burnt and Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu returned to her senses. She bowed her head to take a look at the porridge in the pot was almost gone dry and thick smoke was rising up from the bottom, circling upwards.

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu hurriedly put out the fire, but she had never used this type of ancient stove before and wasn’t too skilled, so instead of putting out, the entire kitchen became shrouded in smoke.

Coughing, Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu couldn’t do anything in the end and she poured a pot of water onto the stove, finally extinguishing the fire.

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu stood in front of the pile of mess and heaved a long sigh. She felt a little embarrassed. The porridge she had boiled couldn’t be drank. Even if she cooked it again, it would take a long time and she really wasn’t that good with the stove, so what if there was another fire?

After a little thought, Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu decided to use her burner and her gas tank. She had just taken it out of her space when she suddenly heard a knock outside.

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu rushed to stuff it back into her space and went to open the door.

A female beastman was standing outside the door. She had blue-green eyes and a straight nose with deep facial features, and she was a bit tall.

——It was that woman Olympus coming back.

Ignoring the scars on her body, Olympus was a lot more beautiful and she smiled a lot.

“Is Chief Ryan here?” Olympus raised the pot in her hands and spoke in the leopard tongue. “I made some pigeon soup and I heard Chief Ryan was injured. This soup will help heal the wound. Can I go see him?”

Although Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu had lived with the leopards for several days, she had been talking with Ryan in the human tongue. There weren’t many words she could understand in the leopard tongue and she barely understood Olympus’ first sentence, so she nodded her head lightly, “Un.”

Olympus gratefully thanked Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu and walked straight through the courtyard and into the only bedroom inside.

Inside, Ryan was sitting by the bedside and swinging Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu’s backpack.

Every time the little girl left, she always took it with her. Was it really that important?

Ryan dug out a piece of paper from the pocket and saw it was a map of the entire Camuda Valley and surrounding mountains. The valley exit was marked with a red mark.

Ryan’s eyes dimmed.

“Chief Ryan,” there was a buoyant voice in the doorway and Ryan looked up. Olympus stood in the door and explained, “I cooked some pigeon soup for Corey and didn’t expect to have so much left over. I had this left. If you don’t mind, you can drink it.”

She walked into the house and set the bowl on the table, bowing her head in wait of Ryan’s response.

Ryan crumpled the paper in his hand and threw it quietly into the fireplace. Then looking at her Olympus again, his eyebrows wrinkled slightly, “Who let you in?”

Olympus said slightly, “It, it was the female that opened the door. . .”

Without waiting for her to finish, Ryan walked around her to the kitchen.

The dense smog in the kitchen had vanished but the stove was still a miserable sight. Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu had a bucket of water beside her and was cleaning the stove with a rag.

But the stove was too tall and the iron pan inside was too heavy. Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu could not move at all and it was too hard to clean.

When Ryan stepped in, she saw her cleaning the bottom of the pot with her toes. Her whole head was almost buried in the pan. He looked at her pursed buttocks, like the mouse that stole an oil lamp.

Ryan walked up to her and fished her out of the pot with his unharmed hand. He put her on the ground and saw her cheeks and nose was covered in ash. He wiped her face with his thumb and whispered, “What were you doing? Wanted to cook on your own?”

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu touched her cheeks with embarrassment, “Cooking porridge.”

Ryan looked at her, “What about porridge?”

“I wasn’t careful. . .” Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu said, feeling a little shameful. She whispered, “I set it on fire.”

Ryan couldn’t hold a temper with her, and he suddenly picked up this little girl covered in ash and went outside, “Why didn’t you call me?”

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu pursed her lips, silent.

Outside the house, Olympus hadn’t left yet and saw Ryan skillfully and spontaneously carrying Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu out. “Chief Ryan. . .”

Ryan paused and looked askance at her, saying, “I want to be alone with my female now. If there’s nothing else, you can go.”