Had those people left?
It didn't know. It had to wait a little longer.
The next day, it lay on the ridge again and looked down.
The mountain path was deserted. Not a single person was in sight.
The Wolf Demon stayed there all day. Only after it was sure everyone had left did it slowly make its way down the mountain.
It went back to the rock.
It lay on top of it, letting the moonlight soak into its body, but no matter what, it couldn't calm down.
It thought of those people carrying spears, of the sound of the gongs, of the gong-beater's face, drenched in tears.
It suddenly understood that old tiger a little better.
The beast hadn't been stupid. It just hadn't expected people to be such a pain.
Kill one, and two more came. Kill two, and four more came. Kill four, and a whole crowd came.
They could never be beaten, never be wiped out.
The Wolf Demon was different.
It had survived for decades with one lame leg by keeping out of sight. If it couldn't hide, it ran. If it couldn't run, it found somewhere to lie low.
The mountain was huge, the woods thick. If it disappeared into them, who could find it?
When those people left, it would come out again. When they came back, it would hide again.
It had all the time in the world.
It had lived for decades and could easily live for decades more. How long could those people last?
A few decades, at most.
Once they grew old and died, it would come down the mountain, dig up their graves, and eat their flesh.
The Wolf Demon lay on the rock, eyes narrowed as it gazed at the hazy village below. Suddenly, it grinned, baring a row of newly grown, pearly white teeth.
It was smiling.
Later, the Wolf Demon learned to breathe Black Wind.
It tried it on a wild boar in the mountains. One blast of Black Wind, and the beast went blind on the spot. It crashed around the mountain until the Wolf Demon finally bit it to death.
It was very pleased with the changes in its body. Eating human flesh really was more effective than basking in the moonlight.
But as time went by, those people stopped coming up the mountain.
The Wolf Demon lay behind the rock and licked its lips.
It had been so long since it had eaten a person that it was almost starting to forget that tangy, sweet taste of blood.
Sometimes it wanted to go down the mountain and prowl around the village, snatch someone up, and run.
But it was also a little afraid.
There were too many of them, and they had hoes and sickles. No matter how strong it got, it couldn't take on a whole crowd.
It really didn't want to get hurt.
All it could do was wait.
Wait for some foolhardy soul to come up the mountain again.
And then, that man came.
The Wolf Demon narrowed its eyes and watched the fair-skinned man.
He walked differently from those woodcutters. His back was ramrod straight, and he took one unhurried step after another, as if he were strolling around his own courtyard.
The Wolf Demon watched him, and something stirred inside it.
The man made it uneasy. It couldn't say why. It just felt that getting close to him would mean trouble.
But that pale, tender flesh...
It swallowed again.
Then it would push a rock down on him and crush him.
That was what it thought.
If he dared chase after it, it would breathe Black Wind and blind him.
After all, this whole mountain belonged to it. It had lived here for decades and could find a hiding place with its eyes closed.
It watched the man draw closer and closer. The unease in its heart was gradually drowned out by something else.
Hunger.
A craving squeezed out from between its bones.
It pressed itself lower, digging its claws into the snow and the frozen earth beneath it.
Its old, decades-lame leg trembled uselessly, but it didn't care.
Now it could run, breathe Black Wind, and even speak like a human.
It stared at the fair-skinned man, with only one thought in its mind:
He must taste delicious.
It had to eat him.
The man slowly approached.
He walked at an unhurried pace, glancing around as he went, as if searching for something.
The Wolf Demon narrowed its eyes and pressed itself lower.
Closer.
Closer still.
Click to view.
The man had reached the spot directly below, no more than a dozen steps from the rock. The Wolf Demon could even make out his face.
Fair and clean, unlike the deeply lined faces of those woodcutters.
He even looked up at the mountain, straight toward the direction where it was hiding.
The Wolf Demon's heart jumped. It thought it had been spotted.
But the man only glanced up, then lowered his head and continued on his way.
Idiot.
Those two words surfaced in the Wolf Demon's mind.
It leaned forward, planted both forepaws against the rock, and heaved with all its might. At last, it shoved the rock out of its hollow in the snow.
The rock shifted, but it rolled only half a foot before getting stuck against a clump of bushes.
The Wolf Demon's heart lurched. It was afraid the noise had alerted the man, and afraid he would walk past the right spot.
It peered down and saw that the man was still glancing around.
Well, he really was an idiot.
It put its back into it again.
At last, the rock broke free of the bushes and rolled down the slope.
At first it moved slowly, then faster and faster, crushing through the snow and knocking aside smaller stones. With a deep, rumbling roar, it hurtled toward the man, unstoppable.
The Wolf Demon stopped hiding. It rose without a care on the slope and stared straight at its prey.
It saw the man look up at the rock rolling toward him. He looked at the Wolf Demon, too.
It thought he would run, dodge, or panic like those woodcutters, shitting himself in terror.
But the man didn't.
He simply raised a hand, formed a strange sign with his fingers, and muttered something.
Was he scared stupid?
The thought had barely crossed its mind when a vertical line of fire appeared out of nowhere.
The line was as thin as a strand of cotton and as red as molten iron. It shot straight toward the rolling rock.
It was impossibly fast. Before the Wolf Demon could even blink, it heard a soft hiss.
The rock split in two down the middle!
The Wolf Demon was dumbstruck.
The two halves of the rock flew past the man and crashed into the snowy ground behind him, leaving two enormous craters.
The cut surfaces were perfectly smooth and still smoking. Snow landed on them with a hiss and instantly turned to vapor.
Rocks could smoke, too?
The thought flashed through the Wolf Demon's mind.
Then it instinctively looked at the man again, only to find him staring straight back at it.
The Wolf Demon froze.
The man's gaze was strange. There was no fear or anger in it, only cold indifference from on high.
It was like... like he was looking at a rock, a dead branch, or a rotten leaf fallen in the snow.
In all its decades of life, the Wolf Demon had never been looked at by a human that way.
A fear it couldn't explain rose in its heart.
The fear came out of nowhere.
It could breathe Black Wind. It could kill a wild boar with a single bite. It wasn't even afraid of tigers. How could it be afraid of a man who seemed so slight?
And yet the fear had appeared abruptly, leaving it utterly bewildered.
It was like a bamboo shoot forcing its way through the greed piled up in its heart, bursting out among dead branches and fallen leaves.
And something really was forcing its way out from within.
But it wasn't a shoot.
First, its belly grew scalding hot, as if it had swallowed a lump of red-hot iron.
Then its throat burned, as if something were about to burst out from inside.
It opened its mouth to breathe Black Wind, but no Black Wind came. Instead, a flicker of flame spilled from its throat.
Then fire burst from its nostrils, and from its ears.
The Wolf Demon's eyes widened. It wanted to scream, but couldn't. It wanted to run, but its legs wouldn't move.
All it could feel was fire burning inside its body, scorching its organs until they smoked, boiling its brains, burning away the meager Dao Xing it had painstakingly built up over the decades.
In the blink of an eye, there was only one thing left in the Wolf Demon's world.
Pain shook its whole body. Its eyeballs felt ready to burst.
It strained to open its mouth, but in the end, it managed only two words:
"It hurts—"
The voice was human speech, but it sounded more like a wolf's howl.
Then it saw another line of fire flying toward it, slicing across its neck.
The Wolf Demon rose into the air.
It saw its body lying on the slope, all four legs still twitching, flames licking at its neck.
It saw its head roll away from its body and tumble down the slope, faster and faster, until it came to rest at the man's feet.
It saw the man lower his head and look at it without expression.
It saw them.
A pair of icy eyes, cold as snow.
Then it saw nothing more.
It was dead.