The Wolf Demon lay in a hollow in the snow, squinting down the mountain.
It had been crouched behind this rock for nearly half an hour, without moving.
Snow fell on its body, building up in a thick layer that blended its gray-white fur with the rocks.
The hemp robe it had stripped off a dead man was haphazardly wrapped around it. It was soaked through with snowmelt, stiff and icy, making it deeply uncomfortable.
But it couldn't bear to take it off.
It was human clothing, and wearing it made it feel a little more like those two-legged things.
Someone came walking along the mountain path.
Its cloudy left eye twitched.
It was a man, with skin so pale it almost hurt to look at, like a peeled Wild Chicken Egg.
A low growl rolled from the Wolf Demon's throat.
It knew nothing about Taoist robes or the like. It only knew meat.
Even from this far away, it could almost smell the fragrance beneath the pale man's skin.
It wasn't the sour stink of woodcutters or the rank musk of hunters. It was a clean, warm smell, like a young muntjac that hadn't yet opened its eyes.
He had to taste delicious.
It swallowed, and its old, lame leg instinctively kicked backward.
The Wolf Demon sank into memories.
Decades ago, it had been a young wolf, making its living with the pack on the other side of the mountain.
Back then, its legs had been nimble. It ran faster than any of the others, and no wild rabbit it caught could ever break free.
Then one day, it fought another wolf over a bone, and the beast sank its teeth into its hind leg.
The bone shattered, and its tendons tore.
It was crippled.
The pack had no use for cripples.
The day it was driven out, the snow fell even harder than it was falling now.
It limped along for half a month, crossing more than a dozen mountains before it found this region.
Back then, there was nothing in these mountains.
No tigers, no wolf packs, just foolish pheasants and muntjacs that didn't even know to run when they saw it.
Though it was lame, it never went hungry.
Later, it discovered a rock.
The rock sat on a ridge, broad and flat. At night, when the moon came out, its light fell right across it.
It didn't know why, but it liked to lie on that rock and let the moonlight soak into its whole body.
It lay there night after night, for decades.
It didn't know this was cultivation.
It only knew that the longer it lay there, the clearer its mind became and the lighter its body felt. Even its lame leg seemed to hurt less.
Then, not long ago, a tiger came to the mountains.
The tiger was bigger and stronger than it, and it could crush a muntjac's skull with a single bite.
The first time the Wolf Demon saw it, it tucked its tail between its legs and hid for three days, too afraid to come out.
But the tiger didn't eat it. It didn't care much for the other beasts in the mountains; it preferred to bite them for fun.
It would bite a muntjac to death, leave it there, then go bite another.
People from below the mountain took the opportunity to carry the dead muntjacs home.
Lying on its rock, the Wolf Demon watched from afar as those people hauled the muntjacs away. It couldn't understand what they were doing, but it thought those two-legged things were fascinating.
Later, the tiger started eating people.
First, it killed a hunter who'd come up the mountain, then dragged the man's arm into the woods and ate the rest of him.
The Wolf Demon lay on the ridge, smelling the blood, and something inside it stirred.
It didn't dare go closer. It only watched from a distance.
It saw that after eating a person, the tiger's eyes shone brighter and its fur gleamed. Even its roar grew louder.
Blood food.
Those two words appeared in its mind for no reason.
Later, the people from below came up with long spears and vine shields.
There were so many of them, and their shouts shook the heavens as they drove the tiger all over the mountain.
The Wolf Demon hid in a crack between the rocks, watching those two-legged things chase the tiger across the slopes. That thing inside it stirred again.
It didn't seem so powerful.
And they didn't seem... so powerful, either.
The tiger was driven away and never came back.
The Wolf Demon crawled out from between the rocks and circled the mountain. Only after making sure the beast was truly gone did it dare lie on that rock again.
But it found that it couldn't stay still.
It kept thinking about the way the tiger ate people.
It kept thinking about those two-legged things walking upright, talking, and using fire to cook their food.
It wanted to try it, too.
The thought made it restless.
So it ate.
The first person it ate was an infant.
That day, it hid behind a thicket and watched a young couple come up the mountain.
The woman put the baby in a basket, covered it with her clothes, then went with the man to pick mushrooms. The baby slept soundly, its little mouth suckling in its sleep.
The Wolf Demon lay there watching for a long time.
It knew it shouldn't go.
It knew that if it ate this thing, there might be no going back.
But a voice kept saying in its mind: The tiger can eat people. Why can't you?
So it went.
It still remembered the baby's taste.
Tender and soft. When it bit down, it was like biting into a lump of warm, fatty flesh.
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It ate while trembling all over, then lay in the snow for a long time without moving.
When it finally got back up, it felt as though the whole world had brightened.
Its mind had never been so clear. All the things it hadn't been able to figure out for decades suddenly made sense.
It knew what it was called.
Not a wolf, but a demon.
It knew what it wanted.
Not pheasants or muntjacs, but those two-legged people.
So it started eating woodcutters, too.
It found that when people carried firewood on their backs, they walked slowly and couldn't turn around quickly. If it pounced from behind, it hit the mark every time.
It also found that if it shoved rocks down from those two ridges, they could smash people to pulp. It didn't even have to pounce.
The more it ate, the cleverer it became.
Its lame leg didn't seem so lame anymore. New teeth sprouted where the old ones had fallen out, white and sharp, even sharper than before.
It began learning to walk like a person.
At first, it couldn't keep its balance, swaying unsteadily like a newborn wolf pup.
Gradually, it learned to walk, and later, it could run.
It stripped a hemp robe from a woodcutter it had smashed to death and haphazardly pulled it on. It rustled whenever it walked.
It thought it looked mighty impressive.
Once, staring at its reflection in a mountain stream, it suddenly opened its mouth and said something.
"I am..."
Its voice was hoarse and stiff, like stone grinding against stone. But it understood the words.
It could really talk.
It thought that even if the tiger came back now, it wouldn't be afraid.
Then the people from below came up again.
That day, the Wolf Demon was lying on that rock, basking in the sun. The warmth soaked through it until half its bones felt soft.
It narrowed its eyes, still savoring the taste of the woodcutter it had eaten the day before yesterday.
The man had been all skin and bones. He crunched when it bit down, but he tasted far better than muntjac.
Just as it was savoring the memory, a commotion suddenly rose from below.
It pricked up its ears and listened for a while. Its expression changed.
Voices.
A lot of voices.
And the clang of a gong, clang, clang, clang, shaking snow from the mountainside.
The Wolf Demon sprang up, and its old lame leg nearly gave way.
It took a few steps, crouched behind a large rock, and poked half its head out to look down.
A vast crowd of people was coming up the mountain path.
At the front walked several men carrying long spears. Their tips flashed coldly in the sunlight.
Behind them came a crowd carrying hoes and sickles, along with a few people carrying bows and arrows. They banged gongs as they walked.
The gong rang through the heavens, startling the mountain birds into flapping wildly into the air.
The Wolf Demon recognized the man banging the gong. A few days earlier, he'd come up the mountain looking for his son's body, standing on the path and weeping, snot running down his face.
They had come for revenge.
It drew its head back. All that smug satisfaction inside it vanished.
Three months ago, it might have wanted to give them a try.
Back then, it had just eaten the baby and thought itself incredibly powerful. It wanted to pounce on and bite anything it saw.
But over the past three months, it had eaten many people. Its mind had grown clearer, and it knew what it could and couldn't do.
There were too many of them.
No matter how powerful it was, it couldn't withstand dozens of people surrounding it and jabbing at it with spears and hoes.
It didn't want to get hurt.
It thought of the tiger again.
That beast had been so powerful; it could crush a person's skull with one bite.
But what had happened in the end?
People had still driven it all over the mountain until it fled to some remote corner of the range. No one knew where it had gone.
The Wolf Demon didn't want to end up like that.
It quietly backed away from the rock, dropped to all fours, and limped deeper into the woods.
The hemp robe was cumbersome. It wanted to take it off, but couldn't bear to, so it kept it wrapped around itself as it trudged into the mountains, stumbling through the snow.
Behind it, the gong grew louder and louder.
"Search! Search carefully!"
"That beast has to be somewhere around here!"
"Keep your eyes open, everyone! Don't get separated!"
Listening to their shouts, the Wolf Demon couldn't help feeling like laughing.
These people were ridiculous.
They came in such a grand procession, banging gongs as they searched, practically telling the whole mountain they were here and everyone should run.
But it wasn't deaf. Was it supposed to hear them coming and stay put, waiting for them to corner it in its den and jab it to death?
It found a dense patch of woods, slipped inside, and lay beneath a clump of bushes.
The thick leaves on its body blended it into its surroundings.
It didn't even dare take a deep breath. It pressed both ears to the ground and listened for what was happening outside.
Footsteps passed nearby.
Someone cursed. "Where'd that beast run off to?"
Someone else said, "It has to be up ahead. Chase it!"
The Wolf Demon didn't move.
It heard the people walking farther and farther away. It heard the gong grow fainter and fainter, until at last it could hear nothing at all.
Still, it didn't move. It just lay there, until the sun sank toward the west and night fell. In the end, it even dozed off.
Then it slowly got up, shook the leaves off its body, licked its paws, then licked its old lame leg. A hollow feeling settled in its heart.