gentle beast

26

【开至荼蘼 – Opening of the Tea Millet】

The snow capped mountains had little sign of habitation. Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu walked for two hours, but felt more and more as if something wasn’t right.

When she had been thrown out of her space yesterday, there had been many small animals nearby. The ferrets, sparrows, mink rats. . . they all foraged for food and left myriad of footprints in the snow.

But now, not only has she not seen an animal,  she hasn’t seen any more footprints either.

Looking around, she found that hers were the only ones.

Was the weather too cold for them to come out?

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu thought it wasn’t without possibility. With the weather so cold, it was only her, homeless, wandering around.

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu took a deep breath, wrapped her clothes tighter around her, and continued moving forward.

To keep warm, she had put on all the warm clothes she had but she was still rather cold and numb, her lips purple.

A layer of snow was frozen on her eyelashes, and she could not see the road ahead. Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu dared not to rub them, in fear of their roots falling off, and she bowed her head to bury it in Ryan’s neck.

Ryan’s body temperature was higher than hers, and soon the lashes began to melt.

She blinked and rubbed at his fur lightly, brushing off the melted snow, and asked, “Táo Táo, are you cold?”

The girl’s cold cheek was pressed to his skin, and Ryan did not utter a sound.

Animals had a thicker coat of warm fur which was much harder than hers.

Not to mention she had even put him inside her clothes to keep him warm. She fended off most of the cold for him.

. . .

She had done much more than was required.

Ryan silently looked at the girl in such close proximity. Her skin that was usually porcelain white was even more white now, almost transparent.

He thought, was she this kind to all without even a hint of reservation?

After a long time, Ryan took his eyes from her face and closed his eyes, letting her hold him to keep warm.

Walking still, Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu finally saw a snow squirrel.

The little squirrel stood not too far away, with a short-clawed paw holding tight to a pine cone, looking at them both blankly.
Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu’s mood relaxed a little.

It turned out there were other living things here. It wasn’t just her alone!

She was about to go say hi to the little guy when she made a single step and the small critter suddenly tossed the pine cone and with a grumble of his stomach fled into the distance.

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu stared distractedly at the place it had been, “??”

She didn’t look like an aggressive beast, so why did the squirrel run when it saw her?