Chapter 14
Chapter 14: Battle Wolves
The three of them traveled through the Xiao Han Mountain Range for days without meeting anyone—no pursuers, no hunters, no living soul at all.
Grandpa Ling kept their spirits up, smiling and promising the range would end soon.
The weather warmed. Hunger and cold were still threats, but less deadly than before.
No matter how Grandpa Ling improved the traps, no matter how he muttered to his coins, they still couldn’t catch a single wild chicken.
Grasshoppers and pupae had to do.
One thing Jin Sui learned fast: Grandpa Ling was terrified of snakes.
One day, he yelped and sprang out of the stream, splashing water everywhere, then bolted for the bank with shocking speed.
Jin Sui laughed.
“Grandpa, why are you so afraid of snakes?”
Grandpa Ling instantly looked around, as if the word itself might summon one.
“Don’t say that. It’s bad luck. Say it and it comes.”
He rolled up his trouser leg and showed them an old scar on his calf.
“When I was young, one of those things bit me. I nearly lost the leg.”
He snorted.
“Once bitten, you fear even a rope.”
Jin An giggled, face reddening. To him, Grandpa Ling seemed capable of anything.
It was strange, almost comforting, to learn Grandpa Ling had something he feared too.
But nights were harder.
In sleep, Jin An often cried—soft, swallowed sobs, as if he was trying not to let grief escape.
He whispered one word again and again.
“Mother…”
Grandpa Ling would pat Jin An’s back, steady and silent, but he never tried to talk the pain away.
Jin Sui didn’t know what to say either.
Sometimes crying was the only release.
“Mother… don’t go…”
Jin Sui’s throat tightened. She pulled him close and, in a quiet voice, copied Madam Jiang’s tone as best she could.
“Mother is here. Good child. Don’t be afraid.”
Jin An’s crying slowed. The tension in his small face eased. He sank back into sleep.
Across the fire, Grandpa Ling stared at Jin Sui in surprise.
When he finally spoke, his voice was careful.
“When did you learn that kind of voice trick?”
Jin Sui didn’t blink.
“It’s not a trick. I’m just mimicking someone. I can’t mimic cats and dogs.”
She smiled faintly.
“We’d never make much. Your fortune-telling is more reliable.”
When Jin An slept soundly again, Jin Sui took the chance to ask what had been gnawing at her.
“Grandpa… be honest. You don’t plan to go to Chang An, do you?”
Grandpa Ling sighed long and deep.
“Sui Sui is sharp. I can’t hide it from you.”
He stared into the fire as if reading fate in the coals.
“Your father’s case involves the imperial family. That’s not something we can fight.”
His voice went quiet.
“You and Jin An want to fulfill your mother’s wish. I understand. But I’d rather you both grow up alive.”
Jin Sui understood too.
The case was tied to the deposed crown prince—judged by the emperor himself. Overturning it while the emperor still lived felt impossible.
And what were they?
An old man, a child, and a girl in a world that loved to swallow women whole.
If they rushed to Chang An now, they’d be crushed.
She searched for a way between death and betrayal.
“How about this,” Jin Sui said carefully. “We don’t go to Chang An yet. But we prepare.”
She kept her voice low.
“The case involves the deposed crown prince. He was sent to the Frontier Pass in the Yan Lands. We could go there first—ask him what really happened.”
“If we can’t reach him, then we go to Lan Tian and find Huang Yi Zhong. Find a way to dig up something.”
Grandpa Ling fell silent for a long moment.
“We’ll talk after we leave the Xiao Han Mountains.”
Jin Sui heard what he didn’t say: he still wanted to take them home and hide.
Neither Grandpa Ling nor Jin Sui noticed Jin An’s breathing had changed.
At some point, the boy in Jin Sui’s arms had grown still—not asleep, only listening.
The deeper they went, the harder the mountains became.
Spring growth had exploded—vines and weeds tangled so thick the road vanished. Jin Sui used the machete she’d taken from her pocket space, tied to a bamboo pole, to hack a way through.
The mountain ridges in the central plains weren’t as sheer as other ranges. Streams wound between slopes, and there were fewer cliffs.
Otherwise these three wouldn’t have made it at all.
But the beasts were a constant threat.
Tigers and leopards were dangerous, but Grandpa Ling could smell their territory and steer wide around it.
Wolves were worse.
They moved in packs, appeared without warning, and didn’t always fear fire.
They ran into wolves again and again.
Once, Grandpa Ling used flame and Daoist sleight-of-hand with flint to drive them off.
Another time, Jin An spotted a lone small wolf and wanted to kill it, afraid the pack would come back for revenge.
Grandpa Ling refused.
“We don’t provoke what we don’t have to.”
Then came the night Jin Sui would never forget.
They were asleep when a low, hungry whimper crawled into her dreams.
Jin Sui jolted awake.
In every direction, green eyes glowed in the dark—dozens of them, watching, waiting, patient as death.
But she’d prepared.
After the earlier encounters, Grandpa Ling had taught them to collect pine resin and pine oil. Before sleeping, Jin Sui had poured it in a circle around the rock wall where they lay.
She struck flint and lit the ring.
Flame leapt up, forming a burning boundary.
This time, the wolves didn’t retreat.
They paced at the edge, clever and hungry, testing the line.
Jin Sui’s mouth went dry.
“Grandpa,” she hissed, shaking him awake. “Wolves.”
Grandpa Ling came up instantly, eyes sharp.
Jin An woke too, wide-eyed but silent.
They armed themselves with whatever they had.
Grandpa Ling took the bamboo-pole machete.
Jin Sui grabbed a thick wooden stick—heavy, good for smashing wolf waists and keeping distance.
Jin An clutched the medicine powder Sister had given him and a sling.
His hands shook once, then steadied.
When he aimed, he aimed for eyes.
The first wolf lunged through the fire ring.
Grandpa Ling hacked it down.
Another surged in—Jin Sui smashed it sideways, felt bone give under the blow.
Jin An flung powder into a wolf’s face. It yelped, shook its head blind, and Grandpa Ling finished it.
They killed every wolf that crossed the flames.
The fire ring dimmed.
The pack pressed closer.
Then the wolf king howled—deep, commanding.
The pack faltered.
And then, finally, they backed away into the darkness.
Jin Sui’s blood was up. Her breath came hard and fast.
She grabbed the machete from Grandpa Ling and chased after the retreating shadows, hacking twice at a wolf that ran too slow.
Only then did she stumble back, panting.
“Damn it,” she rasped, voice raw with rage. “Try that again. You think I’m your dinner?”
Jin An stared at her back, stunned.
He turned to Grandpa Ling, who was half-crouched and gasping.
“You said Sister was weak and sickly.”
Grandpa Ling waved a shaking hand, too tired to scold Jin Sui, too tired for anything except breath.
“Before,” he panted. “Before she was.”
Jin An blinked, trying to understand how “before” could turn into a sister who chased wolves with a blade.
They were three people who, alone, weren’t as strong as one healthy young man.
Together, they were something else.
And now—now they stared at the bleeding wolf bodies, hunger twisting their guts.
Jin Sui hadn’t tasted meat since she arrived in this world. Grandpa Ling and Jin An were no different.
They swallowed hard just looking at the fresh blood.
Grandpa Ling forced himself to look away first.
“Blood draws bigger beasts,” he said, voice grim. “We move. Now.”