Large snowflakes fluttered down from the sky and landed on Ruan Qiuqiu’s hair. Little by little, the snowflakes were melted by her breathing and turned into cold patches of water. It was getting harder and harder to breath.
Her legs had been excessively overworked, and she couldn’t move them anymore. She gradually lost the strength to lift even her arms.
Her exposed skin was frozen stiff. Ruan Qiuqiu weakly tried her best to push herself off the ground with her hands.
The sky was already completely dark. She tried to open her eyes wider to see more clearly, but she could only see blurry shadows.
There was the sound of the howling wind, and there was also the faint sound of footsteps mixed in… Those footsteps sounded uneven and irregular. It was coming from the direction of the cave entrance.
Ruan Qiuqiu’s heart immediately rose up in alarm.
Many thoughts flashed through her mind. Did these footsteps belong to demons that Mr. Gray Wolf had offended in the past and they were coming here to get revenge? Or perhaps, the grim reaper was coming to take her life.
For a moment, Ruan Qiuqiu even thought that Mr. Gray Wolf was coming out here to rescue her, but she immediately strangled that thought as soon as it appeared.
That gray wolf demon’s condition was worse than hers. When she was cleaning his injuries for him, there were many times when she was worried he would stop breathing.
It couldn’t be him.
However, even if logic told her that it was impossible for her wolf husband to wake up and come outside to help, Ruan Qiuqiu still couldn’t resist opening her mouth and tentatively calling out, “Husband?”
The person approaching her paused for a moment. It seemed as if that person had gotten a bit excited. The approaching footsteps were more erratic than before.
The approaching demon or fiend didn’t say anything. Ruan Qiuqiu was even more nervous. She grabbed a handful of snow with her left hand and tightened her grip around the wooden basin with her right hand. She decided that no matter what happened next, she wouldn’t give up. She would fight.
Just as her breathing was slowly getting more agitated, she heard a familiar growl by her ear.
The growl was low and weak and had an eagerness that wasn’t present during the daytime.
The growl sounded like a somewhat unwilling and also somewhat embarrassed acknowledgement to her questioning call of “husband.”
Mr. Gray Wolf.
It was Mr. Gray Wolf.
Ruan Qiuqiu blinked in surprise and warmed up from embarrassment.
Even though that wolf didn’t seem happy, she still called out, “Husband, is that you?”
This time, Ruan Qiuqiu didn’t get an answering growl from Mr. Grain Reserve. She only felt that a large figure was blocking the falling snow from reaching her.
Ruan Qiuqiu widened her eyes. In this cold, dark night, she saw a figure in the dim light.
It really was Mr. Gray Wolf.
His warm breath puffed over her face and brought forth a burst of numbness.
“…”
“… Awoo ~”
In the midst of her daze, Ruan Qiuqiu heard the gray wolf softly call out to her. Perhaps, he did this because she had remained silent for too long. Or perhaps, he called out to comfort her. It was a very short sound, but it sounded different from his low growl. It sounded unexpectedly… young?
While Ruan Qiuqiu was still preoccupied with thinking about her husband’s “Awoo” sound, she felt a weight on her waist, and then Mr. Gray Wolf picked her up with one of his front paws.
The tip of her nose touched some rough fur, followed by the rest of her face being jabbed. It hurt a little bit.
The wooden basin fell from her hand. Pushing her luck, Ruan Qiuqiu ordered the gray wolf that outsiders had called a twisted monster, “The wooden….”
Hearing a somewhat weak voice coming from the human that he was holding in his paw, the gray wolf grinded his teeth. In the end, he lowered his large wolf head.
“Ka-ca.”
The sound of teeth biting wood was very clear. It reminded Ruan Qiuqiu of how this wolf had been silently nibbling on snow during the day, and she couldn’t resist giggling at that imagery.