Cause where else could he have gone?
Who else would have taken in a broken child with nowhere to belong?
Hei Bao had pulled him back from the edge when he had already given up on himself.
From that day forward, Gou Feng never looked back.
He never questioned where he belonged.
Because, in truth, there had never been another place waiting for him.
The world had spent years teaching him that he was unwanted.
Disposable.
Yet Hei Bao had taught him something entirely different.
That his life had value.
Even now, after everything he had seen. After every life he had taken. After every burden he continued to carry.
When he quietly asked himself where he belonged.
The answer remained exactly the same.
Beside Hei Bao. Beside the very man who gave him home.
It was the only answer he had ever known.
Whether that answer was born from gratitude, loyalty. Or something far more complicated.
Gou Feng could no longer tell.
He only knew that, if one day he was forced to walk a different path. He wouldn't know where to begin.
Yet the same cycle of thoughts continued to cling to him.
Did he truly have to keep doing this?
Retrieving corpses.
Hiding the truth.
Burying the dead beneath the earth as though they had never existed.
Could he refuse?
Could he simply walk away from this life?
The questions came so often that they no longer surprised him.
But every time they appeared. The answer was always the same.
If he disobeyed Hei Bao's orders. What value would he still have?
If he failed to meet the pact leader's expectations. If he disappointed the man who had saved him. Would there still be a place for him?
Gou Feng's fingers unconsciously tightened.
His eyes slowly drifted toward the freshly covered grave.
A cold shiver crept down his spine.
One day, would he end up beneath the soil just like this?
Another forgotten body.
Another secret buried where no one would ever find it.
The thought lingered longer than it should have.
Then another followed.
Would Hei Bao kill him?
He quietly searched for an answer.
The man had raised him.
Would that same man truly have the heart to end his life?
Silence answered him.
After a long while, Gou Feng let out a faint, self-deprecating laugh.
"This is getting ridiculous..."
The words slipped from his lips almost soundlessly.
Perhaps he had never truly understood Hei Bao.
Or perhaps, he simply didn't understand his own place in the man's life.
To Hei Bao, what was he?
A child he had raised?
A subordinate?
A responsibility?
Or merely someone useful to keep around?
Gou Feng couldn't tell.
His thoughts gradually settled on an answer he had convinced himself was the most reasonable.
A weapon.
One that had been picked up from the streets.
A weapon could be maintained. Sharpened. Protected while it remained useful. But if it could no longer fulfill its purpose.
Would anyone continue holding onto it?
He lowered his head.
Despite everything, he couldn't bring himself to resent Hei Bao.
That was the part he understood the least.
Even after all these years. Even after seeing things he wished he had never seen. His gratitude remained stronger than his fear.
"I'm tired..." His whisper disappeared into the quiet forest.
He was not tired from digging. Not tired from cleaning up another tragedy.
Just tired.
Tired of carrying questions that had no answers.
He had imagined leaving. Driving somewhere no one knew his name. Starting over. Living an ordinary life.
But, that thought barely lasted a heartbeat before another replaced it.
What would happen to Hei Bao if he disappeared?
The man had already spent centuries carrying grief that never seemed to fade.
Would leaving him only deepen that loneliness?
Gou Feng slowly closed his eyes.
Then what was he supposed to do?
Stay?
Continue living this life?
Continue burying the dead and convincing himself that none of it mattered?
No. Even if he wanted to leave, and hide where no one could find him, he would still be found.
He knew far too much about their world. Its secrets. Its laws. Its bloodstained history.
Those who carried that much knowledge were rarely allowed to walk away freely.
They were either placed under protection, kept under watch, or quietly erased.
Once someone stepped into their world and learned what lay beneath its surface, whether they stayed or disappeared was no longer a choice they could make.
So, where else could he possibly go?
Hei Bao had given him everything. Even if that came with blood on his hands.
How could he possibly leave the man who had reached out to him when everyone else had turned away?
How could he even think that?
The thought alone filled him with guilt.
Hei Bao had saved him.
Yes, he carried countless flaws. But to Gou Feng. None of that changed what the man had done for him.
If he walked away. Wouldn't that make him ungrateful?
Wouldn't it be a betrayal of everything Hei Bao had given him?
"...I don't know." The whisper escaped his lips.
He truly didn't know anymore.
He wanted to stop, wanted a life untouched by blood and secrets.
Yet every path he imagined led him back to the same place.
Back to Hei Bao.
Back to the man who had become the center of the only life he had ever known.
Without Hei Bao.
Who was he?
Where would he go?
What kind of future was waiting for someone like him?
No matter how many times he searched for an answer.
He found nothing.
Only silence.
Gou Feng breathing gradually became uneven.
A tightness spread across his chest. His hands trembled ever so slightly.
He drew his knees closer and wrapped his arms around them, resting his forehead against folded sleeves.
"It's all right..."
His voice was barely louder than the wind passing through the trees.
"You didn't do anything wrong."
He repeated the words again. Like someone trying to comfort a frightened child.
"You've done this before. It's all right. You'll be all right." He says it over and over again. Until the words no longer sounded like reassurance.
But something he desperately wanted to believe.
Gradually, his breathing steadied.
The trembling in his hands subsided. The storm raging inside his mind slowly settled into silence.
For now, the lie he kept telling himself was enough to help him move forward.
Whether he truly believed those words no longer mattered.
Sometimes, people didn't survive because they had found the truth.
Sometimes, they survived simply because they had convinced themselves of one.
Gou Feng opened his eyes.
Using the rough trunk of the Narra tree for support, he slowly pushed himself to his feet.
His muscles ached from hours of digging beneath the scorching sun.
He dusted the dirt from his pants before he picked up the shovel with his left hand.
Before leaving, however, he looked back one last time to Fei Nian's grave.
The freshly turned earth rested peacefully beneath the shade of the towering trees.
There was no marker. No name. Nothing that would tell anyone a life had ended there.
He lowered his gaze. Not with guilt. Nor relief, only quiet acceptance.
Without another word, he turned and walked away.
He wasn't at peace. He doubted he ever would be. But there was one certainty that never failed to comfort him.
No one would ever find Fei Nian's body. Not because he had hidden it well enough, but because no outsider could survive this place.
The forest itself belonged to the Lycan Clan.
Long ago, under Cheung Qi's supervision, it had been transformed into one of the clan's hidden burial grounds and emergency safe zones.
To prevent outsiders from uncovering its existence, the entire area was protected by an ever present poisonous miasma.
The toxic mist never dispersed. Day or night, rain or shine, it silently drifted between the trees.
Only those carrying the blessing of the Lycan Pact Leader's blood could move through it unharmed.
Everyone else would never make it far.
The poison entered through the lungs and bloodstream with terrifying speed.
Within moments, confusion gave way to paralysis, and before long, the forest quietly claimed another life.
It was efficient, and merciless.
The countless unclaimed corpses hidden throughout the woods had long become part of the forest itself.
The damp earth carried the faint scent of decay.
To an ordinary person, every direction would seem identical.
To Gou Feng, each lingering scent was different.
After years of walking these woods, he could distinguish one location from another by smell alone.
He had never gotten lost. And even if someone somehow managed to survive the miasma.
Finding Fei Nian's remains would still be nearly impossible.
Gou Feng had chosen the burial site carefully. He made sure the soil beneath the grave was rich with insects, and countless earthworms that would quickly reclaim what nature always reclaimed in the end.
Time would erase every trace.
Eventually, nothing would remain.
The forest accepted everything, without question, without judgment, and he knew it pretty well.
Continuing down the narrow trail, Gou Feng soon reached the roadside where his black sedan waited only a few steps away.
The grave gradually disappeared behind the thick curtain of trees.
He retrieved his white shirt he had left on the hood of his car and quietly slipped it back on.
Just as he reached for his car keys, a sudden wave of dizziness struck him.
"..."
His vision blurred.
He immediately stopped walking and steadied himself, one hand instinctively pressed against his forehead.
The world around him tilted for only a brief second.
He shut his eyes tightly and took several slow breaths.
"What..."
His voice came out as little more than a whisper.
After several moments, the dizziness gradually faded.
When he finally opened his eyes again, his attention was drawn to the ground.
A long line of red ants marched steadily across the dirt road, each carrying tiny fragments of leaves and food far larger than themselves.
For some reason, the sight made his chest tighten.
His brows slowly knitted together. A strange sense of familiarity washed over him.
As though he had seen this exact scene somewhere before.
"...Where?"
Before he could think any further.
"Ge!"
A child's voice suddenly echoed through the forest, filled with excitement.
Gou Feng's pupils contracted.
He spun around so quickly that dry leaves scattered beneath his feet.
"Who's there?"
Only silence answered him.
The wind gently stirred the branches overhead. No footsteps, no child. No one.
His heartbeat quickened. He scanned every corner between the trees.
Nothing.
"..."
Gou Feng swallowed hard.
A chill slowly crept down his back.
Without another glance behind him, he hurried toward his car and climbed inside, immediately locking the doors.
His breathing had become uneven.
He leaned forward, gripping the steering wheel as he struggled to calm himself.
"What... is happening to me?"
His thoughts immediately turned toward the Lycan blood flowing through his veins.
Had the Pact Leader's blood finally begun rejecting his body?
Has something changed after all these years?
Or, was the poisonous miasma somehow affecting him?
He quickly shook his head.
"No..."
That couldn't be it.