He pulled out his folding entrenching shovel. The blade sliced through the packed snow with a crisp crunch.
Swing, scoop, toss.
His movements were mechanical and efficient.
Cotton Candy poked halfway out of the pocket, watched the two-legged beast shoveling snow, and called out twice before taking the chance to jump into a snowdrift and roll around.
Ten minutes.
A path just wide enough for one person had been cleared.
Su Wei put away the shovel, his breath bursting into a white cloud before him.
Overhead was a clear polar sky, and snow-covered peaks rose in the distance.
"Keep up."
He stepped over the threshold without looking back.
Cotton Candy shook the snow from its fur and trotted eagerly after him, stepping in his footprints.
The way down the mountain was treacherous.
He had to probe ahead with a branch before every step. One careless move could send his foot into a rocky crevice capable of breaking his leg.
Su Wei walked slowly.
His thigh muscles ached and burned from repeatedly pulling his legs out of the snow. He gasped for breath, his lungs on fire.
Cotton Candy, on the other hand.
The little thing looked as though it were strolling through its own backyard.
Its broad paws made walking through the snow easy, and its white coat was the perfect camouflage.
One moment it ran ahead to sniff beneath a fir tree; the next, it darted back to Su Wei's feet with a frozen red-backed €€ in its mouth.
It placed the red-backed €€ on Su Wei's mud-and-snow-covered boot, its tail wagging furiously.
[For you... eat...]
A simple thought came through.
Su Wei looked down at the frozen red-backed €€.
It was a species rather like a mouse.
Surprise flashed in his eyes. It had actually caught a red-backed €€ that had frozen to death?
That was a surprise.
Although he didn't eat the stuff, it proved one thing:
This fox hadn't forgotten how to hunt, even if it did act cute.
Su Wei bent down and kicked the little mouse back in front of it.
"Keep it for yourself."
Cotton Candy tilted its head, seemingly not understanding, but soon stopped being polite and swallowed the little mouse in a few bites.
Su Wei's shoulders, which had been tense all along, relaxed.
He watched Cotton Candy finish eating, then hold out a paw and lick it, occasionally rubbing its head to wash its face.
The adorable sight still brought a smile to his face.
But that was only natural.
Anyone who saw such a cute little thing would have been unable to resist an angelic smile.
Three hours later.
The terrain grew gentler, and several crooked fence posts protruded from the snow among the sparse trees.
It was an abandoned buffer woodland.
Beyond the trees, a lonely two-story log cabin came into view on an empty patch of grassland.
Beside the cabin, a lake frozen by the cold also came into view.
(Su Wei's home looked roughly like this. Pillar Mountain was behind it. In reality, the forest behind the cabin wasn't this close...)
That was his inheritance, and his debt.
At the sight of the gray-brown door, Su Wei quickened his pace.
No matter how rundown this place was, once he lit a fire and shut the door, it would be his shelter in this world.
As for the debt, he still had a month. Even without hunting, he was confident he could pay it off with the Gathering Module.
Cotton Candy seemed to sense that this was where it would live from now on, and it took off running toward the cabin.
Su Wei reached the yard gate, of which only the frame remained, but his footsteps suddenly halted.
Click.
Every muscle in his body tensed instantly, and his right hand went straight to the stock of the gun on his back.
There were tire tracks in the snow.
Very fresh.
Even though the wind had partially blurred them, the two wide tire-tread marks pressed into the snow were still conspicuous.
A heavy pickup truck, with off-road tires.
In weather like this, aside from tourists courting death, only one kind of person would show up here.
Someone from the bank?
No, there were still more than twenty days until the final repayment date. Those vampires would just be sitting in their offices drinking coffee.
Then who was it?
Su Wei narrowed his eyes and followed the tracks with his gaze.
A black Ford Raptor was parked beside the cabin.
A person was leaning against the black pickup.
That truck was worth half his debt.
The man wore a bulky reindeer-hide coat and an old-fashioned leather earflap hat, with an unlit cigar clenched between his teeth.
He was tapping at a tire with a crowbar.
Hearing the noise, the man stopped.
He turned around.
His face was red from the wind, and ice clung to his messy gray-white beard.
When he saw Su Wei, he showed no embarrassment at being caught. Instead, he grinned, revealing a mouthful of smoke-yellowed teeth.
His deep-set eyes gleamed with shrewdness and greed.
"Hey, Su Wei."
His voice was rough and hoarse.
"I thought you'd already turned into Kodiak brown bear shit."
Su Wei's finger rested on the trigger. Though the muzzle pointed down, he could raise it at any moment.
Old Jack.
A merchant in the town of Kodiak who specialized in buying mountain products and game.
In Su Wei's memories, he actually hadn't had much to do with the man.
His father, on the other hand, had been a hunter too, and had dealt with Old Jack.
"Jack."
Su Wei called him by name and quietly adjusted his backpack straps, making it easier to use his shoulders.
"What are you doing here?"
"Passing through, seeing if there was any good stuff to buy. Thought I'd check on you while I was at it. Heard you went up the mountain to hunt?"
Old Jack casually stuck the crowbar into the snow and pulled a lighter from his pocket.
Ding.
A flame sprang up, lighting the cigar.
He took a deep drag and exhaled a cloud of smoke, his gaze roaming unabashedly over Su Wei.
Finally, it settled on Cotton Candy, who was at Su Wei's feet, baring its teeth at him.
Old Jack's fingers, holding the cigar, froze.
His expression changed in an instant.
The casual look vanished from his face. His eyes locked onto the white fox, and even his breathing grew heavier.