Chapter 5

After all, Meiqiu was a wild animal. Where could it have gone off to play...?

Xia Lingze had possessed an exceptionally sharp intuition since childhood. The moment he thought, “I want to find Meiqiu,” it was as if a GPS system activated in his mind. Driven by a powerful impulse, he cut through the thicket to his right, taking the shortest route. After thirty minutes and crossing three mountain ridges, he finally found the black bear sprawled on the ground, fast asleep.

The black bear had no eyelids; its eyeballs were exposed, easily misleading an unknowing observer into thinking it was awake.

But as before—Xia Lingze’s “super intuition” told him the bear was in a deep slumber.

Sure enough, it had simply played itself out.

Normally, he could wait, but he had to sow seeds today.

So, Xia Lingze gently nudged the black bear with his foot and called out, “Meiqiu! Meiqiu!”

The bear was sound asleep and even dreaming. In its dream, Xia Lingze was trapped beneath its “Five Finger Mountain,” tears streaming down his face as he begged for mercy.

Serves you right—the wheel of fortune turns.

The bear curled its lips into a fierce grin and opened its mouth, ready to swallow Xia Lingze whole. Suddenly, a familiar voice, as if muffled by a thin veil, whispered in its ear:

“Mei… Meiqiu…”

What Meiqiu! It refused to answer to such a tame name. As the lord of the Black Ghost Mountain, how could it possibly have such an unworthy nickname?

The bear’s fury surged.

…Wait.

Wasn’t Meiqiu the name given to it by that human-like monster?

Its heart stopped momentarily. The bear snapped its eyes open. Before it lay a pair of warm, glistening eyes that seemed to brush away the bear’s weariness and burden. It was easy for the bear to become intoxicated by them, enveloped in a profound sense of safety, and drown in this illusion.

“Roar!”

The bear’s roar startled a flock of ghost birds nearby into flight. It sounded so fragile, so helpless.

“Meiqiu, let’s go. We’ll play when we get back to the village. I have things to do today, and the longer we delay, the worse it’ll be,” Xia Lingze explained, not caring whether the bear understood.

In truth, it probably didn’t. Animals don’t understand human speech, but Xia Lingze was used to speaking to them as if they did, since they were often surprisingly perceptive.

For instance, the chickens, ducks, and geese he raised would notice when he was conflicted about which one to choose. One of them would then bash its head against something until it died, putting on quite a chaotic show before passing.

—Though there were no dogs, the scene was roughly the same.

In short, Xia Lingze wanted to say: let’s hurry back.

What the bear heard: Hurry up, or I’ll slap you.

On the way, the bear tried to escape thirteen times but failed each time. Whenever it fell behind or even slightly shifted a toe to change direction, the monster would warn it in a low, sinister voice not to run off.

The bear gradually gave up, deciding to resign itself.

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