There was something inexplicably familiar about this scene.
Herta gently shook her head, snapping out of her daze.
She gave Chu Mu a long look, comparing the figure before her with her memories, but found no matching image.
It seemed she had merely spaced out.
Relieved, Herta began considering how to answer the question Chu Mu had posed.
Fortunately, she had already asked old Charles about the south and had spent the intervening days cramming some knowledge of the region.
"You want to hear a story from the south?" Herta asked lightly. "I do know a story about a shepherd. Would you be interested?"
"Yes!" Chu Mu immediately lifted his head. "That's the one!"
Herta nodded and began her tale.
It was a story about a shepherd and a wolf.
Once upon a time, on a vast, lush green grassland, there lived a carefree shepherd.
Every day, he took his flock out to graze, singing cheerful songs as he watched the lambs chase one another and play together.
Then, one day, a vicious wolf came to the grassland.
The wolf was as big as several oxen, and every creature on the grassland feared it.
It took control of the entire grassland and penned the sheep behind fences.
Unwilling to watch the creatures of the grassland be enslaved, the shepherd secretly gathered all the brave souls willing to fight for freedom.
They slipped into the wolf's den and defeated it with their wisdom and courage.
From then on, all the fences were torn down, and the winds of freedom once again swept across the grassland.
And the shepherd's legend continued to unfold.
Herta paused when she reached this point.
As far as she knew, stories about the shepherd were very popular in the south, and some had even spread to the