“Hua Yi.” He stomped the mud off his feet, then continued walking along his path. “Then I’m off—you all take care.”

The surviving sub-beast man was named Zhe Yan. He used a strip of coarse cloth to tie the baby to his chest. After all, he only had one arm left. Even though the enemies had left in the opposite direction, the forest was still full of dangers—and he was only a sub-beast who had little combat ability even when whole.

Since he was very young, Zhe Yan had always had a question: why was he born a sub-beast? Why had those once all-powerful gods made people unequal from birth, leaving him separated by a vast, insurmountable gap from those who differed from him by only a single character? (NT: “ya”, 亚 , meaning sub-)

But later, as he grew up, he learned to keep his head down and work, without complaint.

Complaining could not help a person survive.

Zhe Yan stumbled through the mud, running. From time to time, he lowered his head to look at the child in his arm—he had heard that several babies had been born in the tribe this year, and he could not quite tell which one this was.

But this little one was so quiet. He neither cried nor fussed, curling up in his arm, his breathing so faint. Only occasionally, when Zhe Yan stopped to feed him water or mashed wild fruit, would the baby open his eyes and look at him.

The child had pitch-black eyes, with the clarity unique to infants—the only lively feature on his bluish, unhealthy little face.

Zhe Yan suspected this was not a naturally quiet temperament. More likely, the child was sick and did not even have the strength to cry.

After walking an unknown distance, Zhe Yan felt utterly exhausted. Only then did he see a narrow path cutting along the edge of the forest.

He knew it led farther north. It was said that packs of wolves roamed there, and every winter the land was buried under endless snow. Apart from the strongest warriors, no one dared go to such a dangerous place.

His knees gave out, and he collapsed onto the road. Darkness flickered before his eyes. For the whole night, he had eaten nothing but fruit. His blood loss had pushed his body to its limit, and he even felt numbness spreading across his chest.

Only then did the baby finally make a sound—crying softly, like a kitten.

Zhe Yan lay sprawled on the ground, struggling to lift half his body. With trembling, frost-pale fingers, he held the tiny life and awkwardly rocked him.

But the baby, who had been so quiet before, now cried incessantly. His voice was weak, tears streaming down his wrinkled face.

Zhe Yan guessed he was hungry. In the rainy season, fruits in the forest rotted from excess moisture and contained little sweetness—but where could he find food for the child?

Their home was gone. And he himself could not even catch a rabbit.

The man curled his body, futilely wiping away the baby’s tears with his fingers.

“Don’t cry,” he said. Yet his own tears fell, dropping onto the baby. “We both have to live, you understand? Even if we’re both useless—does being useless mean we don’t deserve to live?”

Injury, illness, rain, and a night of fleeing caused Zhe Yan to develop a fever. With his last bit of clarity, he forced himself to stand and stagger along the edge of the path.

Each step felt unreal, as if walking on cotton. Insects bit into his skin, itching painfully. When he scratched, it left bloody marks, and sweat stung the wounds like fire.

He did not know what he was muttering to the child. Whether the baby understood did not matter. He was not expressing anything—perhaps just rambling nonsense at the end of his road.

At last, on that lonely road, a rider appeared—judging by his attire, perhaps a messenger.

Zhe Yan’s eyes suddenly lit up. As if strength had been drawn out of him, he ran forward, trying desperately to catch the galloping horse. “Wait! Save us! Please, save us!”

But the lightly equipped, arrogant rider did not even turn his head and rode away in a cloud of dust.

A crippled sub-beast man, and a dying child whose cries could barely be heard—only someone out of their mind would stop on such a dangerous road.

Who knew if they were bait set by beastmen bandits?

After all, this was the north. The forests were filled with savage tribes, and such things happened again and again.

Next came a caravan. In the centre were sub-beasts, while outside were beastmen in animal form, clearing the way and keeping watch. They pulled carts with horses, likely carrying goods to trade furs with northern tribes.

Zhe Yan did not dare approach—the leading beast could crush him with a single step. Instead, like livestock, he knelt humbly by the roadside, repeatedly knocking his forehead against the ground, begging the passersby to stop and show them mercy.

Even just a mouthful of food…

But they acted as if they had not seen him at all, passing by without stopping. Mud splashed onto his face from hooves and paws. Zhe Yan hurriedly checked the baby, making sure he was unharmed, before raising his head to watch the caravan disappear.

In his fever-clouded eyes, there was only a lifeless confusion.

This world… this ugly, filthy world…

At that moment, a pair of sinister eyes locked onto the man and the child.

Behind Zhe Yan, on a large tree, a brightly coloured venomous snake flicked its tongue, raising the poisonous tumour on its head. It had turned purple with excitement and slowly slithered down the trunk, aiming at Zhe Yan’s exposed neck.

Having lived long in migrating forest tribes, even without hunting strength, Zhe Yan had developed keen instincts for danger. At the moment the snake lunged, he smelled the foul stench from its mouth.

He tried to dodge—but his weakened limbs betrayed him. He fell to the ground, only managing to raise his remaining arm in front of himself and the baby.

The poison gave him a dizzying illusion.

A roar exploded in his ears.

A beastman, transformed into a massive beast, lunged from the side and bit the snake at its vital point, rolling with it across the ground.

The beast’s body was covered in armour-like scales, too hard for even the snake’s fangs to pierce. The snake quickly died.

The beast raised its head in the dawn light and roared proudly beside its prey.

From the snake’s poison sac, an essence could be extracted—rumoured to keep women eternally youthful, highly sought after by the wives and concubines of powerful and wealthy beastmen.

The beast then transformed into a young man. Carrying a simple pack, he looked like a hunter. Efficiently, he cut out the snake’s poison sac, stored it in a special pouch, then stood and glanced at the miserable man nearby.

“Hm!” The young man raised his brows in mild surprise. “A cripple and a little thing?”

Zhe Yan looked at him, lips trembling.

“Please…” he said weakly, “please save us… save us…”

“What, was there a tribal war nearby?” the young man asked casually while wiping his dagger clean. “You escaped from that forest behind, didn’t you? I heard there was a decent tribe there… You northern forest people—so primitive.”

“Please… just a little food…”

“Alright, let me take a look at this little thing,” the young man said, crouching down. He uncovered the baby, examined him carefully, then pulled out the baby’s hand and searched for beast markings.

Finding none, a trace of disappointment appeared on his face.

“He’s not a beastman.”

“Please…”

The young man stood up and looked down at Zhe Yan’s mud-covered face. “I’d advise you to give up. A sub-beast like this—what use will he have when he grows up? And look at him, he’s probably born with some defect. He won’t live long anyway. But honestly, you’re not much better. Stop struggling. Go die where you came from. Go find whatever god you believe in—if he’s pleased, maybe he’ll give you a strong, healthy new life.”

With that, the young beastman turned and left.

Zhe Yan’s grip on his clothes was weaker than that of an ant.

It wasn’t that the hunter was especially cruel—he had simply seen too much. Food was precious. How could it be wasted on a useless sub-beast child?

And besides…

Who doesn’t want to live?

But whether one can live depends on fate.

The last light in Zhe Yan’s eyes finally faded. He collapsed beside the giant snake’s corpse, staring blankly ahead, his lips still murmuring: “Save us… please…”

At last, a fourth person appeared on this desolate road.

He still looked like a boy. Though not short, his face retained the childish softness unique to youth. Usually, young beastmen would grow to the height of an adult sub-beast man by the age of eight or nine.

The boy wore a small suit of armour, and around his waist was tied a finely woven vine belt—something a mother would personally make and fasten on her child the first time he travelled far from home.

He stopped beside Zhe Yan. On his wrist was a rare, feather-shaped silver beast marking, which seemed to glimmer in the slowly rising sunlight.

“What are you saying?” The boy noticed him and crouched down, looking at the miserable sub-beast man.

Frowning, he tilted his ear and listened carefully for a while. Then he rolled up a large leaf, collected some rainwater pooled on it, and fed it to the man.

The boy had clearly never taken care of anyone before—half the water spilled onto Zhe Yan’s face. The cold water startled him back to a bit of awareness. Clutching the tree trunk, he struggled to sit up, revealing the baby he was protecting in his arm, and fed the water to the child mouth-to-mouth.

The young beastman, on his first journey away from home, stared at the baby without blinking, finding it fascinating. He had never seen such a small child before. Though curious, he simply watched and did not comment.

The baby kept his eyes closed and let out a weak whimper.

Zhe Yan raised his head and pleaded hoarsely to the boy: “Young master, do you have any food? Please, I beg you, give us a little—save us.”

“Oh, let me check.” Without hesitation, the young beastman untied the pack on his back and rummaged through it right in front of the stranger, showing no wariness.

After a while, he finally found a packet of dried meat. The boy even looked a little embarrassed as he handed over a handful. “This is all I have left.”

Zhe Yan snatched the food and tore into it, devouring it in large bites, barely chewing before swallowing it whole. Then he bit off the softest part, chewed it up himself, and again fed it to the baby mouth-to-mouth.

But even so, the dried meat was too much for the infant. His reaction was immediate—he spat it out.

“Eat, eat it,” Zhe Yan said, stuffing the chewed meat back into the baby’s mouth by force.
“Eat it, please! Only if you eat can you live!”

The young beastman watched silently for a while, thinking to himself: Can this little thing even survive?

Without a word, he left his dried meat behind and turned into the forest.

At first, Zhe Yan thought he had already left. After all, leaving food behind was already an act of great kindness. But after a while, he heard a heavy thud.

Startled, Zhe Yan turned around—and saw that the young beastman had returned. With a “thump,” he dropped an adult horned deer onto the ground.

This kind of animal had extremely tender meat and little gamey taste. Whether roasted or eaten raw, it was considered delicious.

But horned deer were fierce and agile— even very strong hunters might fail to catch one.

The boy expressionlessly wiped the blood from his cheek, then knelt on one knee. He drew the dagger from his waist and skillfully butchered the deer into pieces, then pushed it toward Zhe Yan.

“Eat.”

Zhe Yan stared at him blankly.

The boy produced a small metal bowl from somewhere, filled it with fresh blood, and handed it over. Nodding toward the baby in Zhe Yan’s arms, he said: “Give him this to drink. My father says that children who grow up drinking blood will become the strongest warriors.”

Then, apparently feeling there was nothing more to say, he untied his pack, poured out all the remaining dried meat, and stuffed it into Zhe Yan’s arms all at once.

“Take it. I’m going.”

“Wait!” Zhe Yan suddenly called out. “Wait, child! If you give it all to me, what about yourself? You can’t travel without food—didn’t your father tell you—”

“Oh, I’ll just hunt more,” the boy said casually, wiping his dagger clean on a tree trunk before returning it to his waist.

Zhe Yan stared at this strange young beastman for a long moment, then finally asked softly: “What’s your name? I will repay you—even if I don’t live to see it, when this child grows up, I’ll make sure he remembers to repay your kindness.”

The boy didn’t take it seriously. A crippled sub-beast man and a tiny child not even as long as his forearm—what use could they be?

Still, since it was said in goodwill, he did not show any disdain. He simply smiled, revealing two small canine teeth, along with a child’s unspoiled innocence. “Hua Yi.” He stamped the mud off his feet and continued along his path. “Then I’m off—you take care.”

 

Translator : DarNan