An Ao Yin crouched beneath a cluster of sturdy elder wood trees. Its white fur had become mottled and dry beneath winter's ravages, its long hair tangled and hanging messily from its body. The four horns atop its head had also lost their former sheen and luster.
Beneath its body lay a layer of ghastly white bones, stripped of every shred of flesh and grease. Even the marrow had been sucked dry through its repeated chewing and gnawing.
Ao Yin half-closed its eyes, its mouth working as it regurgitated what little sour food remained in its stomach. In its mind, it imagined a Xing Xing it had caught deep in the forest last autumn. Ah, what a strong Xing Xing that had been—its muscles plump, its blood sweet. Even its two eyeballs had burst with juice when bitten into, wonderfully chewy.
At the thought, its throat wriggled. The mouthful of bone fragments it had been chewing for so long mixed with the saliva that had just welled up, and it finally swallowed them with difficulty.
Then it lowered its head and picked through the pile of bones beneath it for a while, finding another small rib bone and biting down on it, holding it in its mouth. Though the rib bones were not difficult to crush, a whole winter's freezing had made them harder than stone. It needed to soften this rib in its mouth before chewing it slowly.
No hurry. Winter was still long, and it had more than enough patience and perseverance to finish this task.
A hoarse, dry birdcall came from the nest amid the elder wood branches above. Ao Yin snorted, blowing out a cloud of white mist, and turned a deaf ear to the Grey Owl's plea for help.
It was not that it lacked