Chapter 4: The Warmth of Dependence
Absolute darkness, like thick ink, instantly drowned her vision.
Lin Youyou held her breath subconsciously, as if even this tiny sound might disturb everything lurking in the dark.
The roar of the storm outside was blocked by this heavy shroud of blackness, or perhaps, infinitely amplified, becoming a dull drumbeat pounding against the walls of her mind.
She huddled by the cold cave wall, not daring to move.
Deprived of sight, her other senses became acutely sharp. Especially her hearing, straining to catch any faint sound within the cave—besides her own too-fast heartbeat and suppressed breathing, the clearest was the weak yet regular respiration of the massive creature not far away. It was soft, labored from injury, but undeniably present, like the only steady buoy in a dark ocean, keeping her from being completely swallowed by panic.
Time crawled with excruciating slowness in the darkness, and the cold began its relentless assault.
Without the heat generated by movement, her still body quickly felt the biting chill seeping from the depths of the cave. She pulled her windbreaker tighter, burying her face in her knees, but it did little good. Her teeth began to chatter uncontrollably, her hands and feet growing icy and numb.
This wouldn't do. She might succumb to hypothermia before the storm even stopped.
A thought, both absurd and immensely risky, surfaced in her mind—move closer to it, the silver wolf.
Its massive body radiated intense heat, like a huge, living heating stone.
The realization was tantalizing, yet fraught with extreme danger. It was still a wild beast. Even severely injured and unconscious, who could guarantee it wouldn't wake the next moment and launch a fatal attack on the approaching 'prey'?
The will to survive and raw fear warred within her once more.
"I... I just bandaged your wounds... You... you wouldn't bite the hand that helps you, right?" she whispered towards the darkness, towards the sound of breathing, her voice trembling with cold and fear, the words barely audible.
The only response was the wolf's steady (or so it seemed) breathing and the tireless howl of the storm outside.
The darkness and silence magnified her loneliness. She desperately needed sound, even her own, to dispel the suffocating atmosphere.
So she began to speak, haltingly, as if talking to the wolf, or merely muttering to herself for courage.
"My name is Lin Youyou... I study art," she began softly, her voice unusually clear in the dark.
"I'm graduating this year... but, I think I still don't know what I want to paint."
"People say my paintings lack soul... the technique is okay, but they don't have the power to move anyone. That's why I came here, to see if the most magnificent nature could give me some inspiration..."
She paused, listening. The wolf's breathing rhythm seemed unchanged.
"Didn't find inspiration, but found you first..." She gave a wry smile.
"You, big guy, are really... way beyond my sketching scope. But your fur color is so beautiful, the purest silver I've ever seen, like satin woven from moonlight... Pity it's covered in blood and dirt now."
She rambled on, topics ranging from fanciful painting concepts, to trivial campus life, to her confusion and hopes for the future.
She talked about her ever-worrying best friend Su Yuqing, her strict but responsible art professor, her desire to create works that could touch hearts, and her frustration at being trapped by reality.
She didn't know that her soft, slightly mellifluous narration was like a faint glimmer of light captured by a consciousness adrift in an endless sea of darkness and pain.
Yin Ye (this was his name as the Wolf King) felt his soul floating on a cold ocean, torn to shreds by agony and weakness. The betrayer's ambush, the fierce battle, the crushing fall from the cliff... his memories were chaotic and blurred. He instinctively marshaled his meager strength to sustain his life force, but the lighthouse of his consciousness was nearly extinguished.
Yet, a gentle voice, like ethereal song, pierced the heavy fog, reaching him intermittently.
He couldn't make out the specific words, but the voice held no malice, no greed, none of the complex emotions he was accustomed to hearing from humans or his own kind. It was just a clean, worried, even somewhat silly ramble.
Simultaneously, a unique scent lingered in his perception—not blood, not medicine, but something like sun-warmed grass mixed with a faint, sweet fruity fragrance. It was subtle, yet strangely soothing to his狂暴 pained spirit, like cool water flowing over a burning desert.
He struggled, trying to gather his scattered awareness. His heavy eyelids, weighed down as if by lead, were forced open a crack by sheer willpower.
In his blurred vision, the outline of a huddled human form gradually resolved. Very weak. A human.
A... female? She wasn't too close, but in the absolute darkness, his silver eyes, those of an apex predator capable of night vision, still captured her general shape and movement—she was shivering. From the cold.
Was it her... speaking? Was it her who had... moved over him? (Referring to the bandaging)
Yin Ye's mind was a chaotic whirl. The pride and instinct of the Wolf King made him displeased by such proximity, even stirring a flicker of anger at the audacity.
He tried to summon his power, even just to lift his head, to project the King's dignity, to drive away this reckless human.
But the moment the thought formed, heart-rending agony erupted from all over his body, especially his back, as if being torn apart again. His power was like a severed stream, impossible to gather.
He couldn't even manage a proper growl, only producing a nearly inaudible breath in his throat before exhaustion claimed him, his eyelids falling heavily once more, sinking back into the abyss of semi-consciousness.
But he remembered that voice, that scent. As if a faint, yet indelible, mark had been stamped deep within his soul.
Lin Youyou was completely unaware of the silver wolf's brief moment of awareness and inner turmoil.
She only felt colder and colder, her body heat rapidly draining, her thoughts becoming sluggish. She knew she couldn't wait any longer.
"I... I'm too cold..." she explained to the darkness, as if seeking permission, or convincing herself. "Just for a little while... to get warm... If you don't object, I'll take it as agreement..."
Mustering the greatest courage of her life, she moved on her hands and knees,极其 slowly, towards the source of heat. With every inch gained, her heart climbed higher into her throat.
In the darkness, she could feel the waves of heat radiating from the massive body more clearly, like a warm fireplace.
Finally, her back carefully, tentatively, came to rest against the silver wolf's relatively uninjured side, against the fur of its flank and abdomen.
Instantly, a powerful warmth enveloped her nearly frozen body. The fur was thicker, softer than she had imagined, carrying its body heat, driving away the biting chill.
The warmth was so real, so redemptive, she almost sighed in relief.
But she didn't dare relax, her body still rigid, ears pricked high, alertly sensing for any reaction from the wolf.
Fortunately, aside from the steady breathing and the slight rise and fall of its body with each breath, there was no unusual movement. It seemed... to be tolerating her proximity and dependence.
Her taut nerves finally began to relax, bit by bit.
Overwhelming fatigue washed over her like a tide. Cradled in the warmth, the dam of her consciousness began to crumble. Physical exhaustion and immense mental strain made it impossible to hold on any longer.
Her head drooped, little by little, until it finally came to rest lightly on the warm, soft fur of the wolf's abdomen.
The rhythmic rise and fall was like the gentlest lullaby.
In the darkness, the cold was banished, the loneliness strangely diminished by the presence of this immense life beside her.
She was like a small boat finding harbor in a storm, finally able to catch its breath.
Before sinking completely into sleep, one last vague thought drifted through her mind: It's... so warm...
Outside, the storm showed no signs of abating.
And inside the cave, the human girl nestled against the mysterious Silver Wolf King, forming a fragile, extraordinary picture of dependence that transcended species and understanding, born of survival instinct.
Yet, neither of them knew that when the moonlight of the deep night pierced through the storm and rock crevices, spilling into this cave, changes far beyond reason were only just beginning to stir...