Hong Kui cut off a small piece of steak with his knife and put it in his mouth with his fork. His movements were elegant, which was quite incongruous with his rugged physique and appearance.
Setting down his knife and fork, Hong Kui gently wiped his mouth with a napkin and said, "Yes, I have entered the forbidden area."
"What's there?" Qingmu knew it was impolite to ask, since it was someone else's family's forbidden area, but he couldn't help but ask anyway.
"It's a mysterious place." Hong Kui turned to look out the window. The sun had completely set, leaving only a magnificent sunset hanging in the western sky. "I smelled the scent of my ancestors there. The moment I set foot on that land, I felt like I had finally come home. Like a wanderer who has been away for many years, upon hearing news of his hometown, all the glitz and glamour of the city could no longer hold his heart."
"This doesn't seem to contradict your status as the heir," Qingmu said.
"Are you trying to say this is just a dream?" Hong Kui laughed. "Yes, it is indeed a dream. But I'd rather live my whole life for such a dream than waste it on political intrigue and be a slave to money. When you have to manage hundreds of billions in assets and take care of hundreds of thousands of gang brothers, what right do you have to dream? How miserable is a life without dreams! You're just a thinking machine."
"I understand you." Qingmu had no concept of how much money hundreds of billions were, but his intuition told him that it must be a lot of money, enough to open many bars. However, the accounts of just one Ruhua Bar, already gave him a headache that made him want to bang his head against the wall.
Hong Kui said, "Actually, my current father, Mr. William Mr. Wolf, and I are not direct relatives. In terms of blood relations, we are at least four generations apart. That is to say, I am a distant relative of a distant relative of the Wolf Family. My biological parents were not gang members, but just ordinary workers at a restaurant in Vancouver."
"So how did your family find you?"
"I've had vivid dreams since I was little, and they're lucid dreams. So I often can't distinguish between dreaming and reality, which has caused some mental and behavioral problems. As I got a little older, no one my age wanted to play with me anymore; they all said I had a mental illness. I felt lonely and depressed, with nowhere to vent, so I often locked myself in my room, tearing my pillows and sheets to shreds."
"As I grew older, my strength increased, and the room was no longer enough for me to vent my anger, so I started destroying public property—fire hydrants, manhole covers, and park benches. I was arrested by the police and later forcibly committed to a mental hospital. After treatment, my mania improved, but I became more taciturn. Finally, one day, the doctor said I was cured and could be discharged. The night before I was discharged, I dreamed of the white wolf for the first time."
"Do you know what it feels like for an autistic person to finally have a friend they can confide in? That's how I felt. Even though we were thousands of miles apart, even though it was just a dream, I felt like it was my friend. I started confiding in it, telling it my inner secrets, telling it about those strange dreams that adults never believed. It slowly walked towards me from afar, just stood in front of me and listened quietly, like a real friend."
"My story went on and on until gunshots rang out, and a group of the United Kingdom in sleds came into view." Hong Kui's body trembled slightly as he said this. "They were chasing a pack of wolves, and the white wolf had to leave me to help its people."
Qingmu was curious about what happened after the dream, so he asked, "And then? Do all the people in your family who have this dream experience the same process and ending?"
Hong Kui said, "It's not quite the same. I asked my father, and he never saw the white wolf appear alone in front of him, nor did he witness the White Wolf King's end."
What is the ending?
Hong Kui's eyes suddenly darkened. "The white wolf used itself as bait to attract as many humans as possible, and with a long howl on that cliff, it triggered an avalanche."
Hong Kui spoke calmly, as if he were telling a long-ago story.
"Its final gaze was filled with longing and reluctance. It wasn't longing for its own life, but regret for an unfulfilled mission. I knew it must have lived with a mission, and from the moment it looked at me before it died, I inherited its mission."
"So you went into forbidden territory?"
"Yes," Hong Kui said, "I believe there are things in that icy world that I'd pursue my whole life. So, I'm really not interested in inheriting any family legacy."
"Does your father, Mr. Wolf, know what you're thinking?"
Hong Kui shook his head and said, "He has a different opinion from me. He believes that the White Wolf King is the guardian deity of the family, existing to strengthen our family. Therefore, his lifelong ideal is to expand the family business all over the world and establish a family kingdom with the white wolf as its totem."
"That sounds good too." Qingmu finally understood why Old Wolf was so eager to make him his successor as soon as he heard that Hong Kui had met the White Wolf King. It turned out that Hong Kui had already developed a desire to leave the world because of this dream. Not wanting to dwell on the topic of succession, he reminded Hong Kui, "By the way, you haven't told us how the Wolf Family discovered you."
Hong Kui said, "The wolf king's experience made me very depressed, and it ignited a flame of hatred in my heart. After I woke up, my manic episode relapsed, so I wanted to go to the doctor's office to ask him for some medication. Because I was about to be discharged, the hospital didn't restrict my freedom of movement. In the doctor's office, I saw that hypocritical guy molesting a female patient. She was a beautiful girl, and like me, she was still a minor. I was so enraged that I rushed up and snapped the doctor's neck."
"According to the hospital's diagnosis, my illness was cured, so I committed murder and was taken away by the police again. During the trial, apart from endless arguments about whether I was mentally ill and whether I had full capacity for civil conduct, no one believed that I was doing something righteous. The girl had severe depression and committed suicide in the hospital, unable to testify for me. Everyone blamed me for the girl's death, believing that my murder had frightened her. Her family kept shouting for the death penalty on the day of the trial."
"I finally reached my breaking point. My family's disease manifested at that moment. It's said that those close to me in court that day witnessed the changes in my body. My eyes turned green, fangs emerged from my mouth, and my face grew long hair and Tushu. I broke free of my shackles and injured more than a dozen policemen."
"This matter reached the ears of my current father, William Wolf. He hired the best lawyers for me and spent a large sum of money to obtain the forgiveness of the two victims' families. The court ultimately acquitted me, but I had to be placed under strict supervision. Thus, I became Quai Wolf, the current heir to the Wolf Family."