My Wolf Lord - Chapter 1

Standing before me was… the miniature version of the second male lead, He Li. The not-yet-grown edition of that brooding young man.

He stared at me without blinking. It made me want to pat his round little head and, while I was at it, ask what color sack he preferred to be kidnapped in.

I was about to lift my hand when I realized he was holding my thumb.

Kind of cute.

Huh?

Why was my hand so tiny too?

This was not a dream. I had transmigrated.

Before falling asleep, I really had wished I could be He Li’s mother. I was getting too old to watch a gorgeous, powerful tragic character meet a miserable end without ever being loved.

But the moment he opened his mouth, his words came out adorably muddled. “Sister Shu, I’m hungwy.”

Who in the original novel had the family name Shu again?

Whatever. Feeding the kid came first.

Only after he polished off my meal as well as his own did I belatedly check my pockets.

No money. Now what?

He looked utterly content, his smile like a happy little quokka’s.

The restaurant manager drove us home, because my family owned the place.

The mansion before me stirred up some complicated feelings.

Being the eldest daughter of the Shu family, rich and beautiful, was admittedly wonderful. Unfortunately, as He Li’s unattainable first love, I was destined to take a knife for him one day.

Right now, he gazed at me with absolute trust.

I clenched my fists and resolved to defy my stabbed-and-hospitalized fate.

“Huff… I can’t keep going, Sister Shu.”

“Run, run! One more lap!” I bounced along the edge of the track, cheering loudly enough to sound like an entire team by myself.

I also pulled out the towel I had prepared and wiped his sweat.

He Li awkwardly pushed my hand aside. “I’ll do it myself.”

What?

You’re in elementary school. What’s with the attitude?

I missed his unnatural blush. Drawing my hand back, I happily checked off the first item on my Plan to Defy Fate: Improve Physical Fitness.

I was still going to save him when the time came, but hopefully the kid would be able to run faster if danger struck.

Then I would not have to get stabbed.

He Li was beastkin, as well as the Shu family’s adopted son.

In this world, the few beastkin who existed were treated as property by the wealthy.

Some people used special, brutal methods to control them and force them to protect their owners and their owners’ children.

My parents, however, had adopted He Li simply because he was beautiful. They could not bear to see a lovely boy like him fall into malicious hands.

Chin propped in one hand, I curiously watched He Li demolish his meal across from me.

By the time He Li met the heroine in the original novel, he could already conceal his beastkin traits. The author had never explained what animal he actually was.

That was his third bowl.

What was his true form?

A taotie, the mythical glutton?

He seemed to notice my stare and struggled to slow down.

“Sister Shu?”

He looked up at me cautiously, so heartbreakingly sweet that my voice softened without my noticing. Wiping a grain of rice from his cheek, I coaxed, “Eat more. You’ll grow faster.”

His delighted eating immediately turned into sulky eating.

On our way out of the dining room, he secretly rose onto his toes and edged closer to me. When he found he was still shorter, he pouted and stalked away.

My parents were always busy, so once He Li entered middle school, I attended every parent-teacher meeting for him.

At first, homeroom teachers who did not know us tried to stop me. Eventually, all his teachers recognized me.

The job was easy: find the classroom, sit down, and endure lavish praise from every subject teacher.

A model guardian. Attentive and responsible. If not for my age, I suspected they would have congratulated me on raising my son so well.

The perfect-score exam papers spread across the desk made me feel surrounded.

But I had hardly done anything. Mostly, I just kept He Li company while he ate. Had I somehow fed him into becoming a genius?

At last, I escaped the enthusiastic parents and their endless questions.

I took off my jacket, revealing my school uniform beneath it, and prepared to climb over the wall back to the high school campus.

Just as I sat atop the wall and got ready to jump, I heard someone call, “Sister Shu?”

I turned stiffly, as slowly as a windup toy in desperate need of oil.

It was He Li and his friends.

So many middle school boys. They nearly blurred together.

“The school scheduled our physicals during the parent-teacher meeting. We just got back,” he explained as he came closer.

Yes, yes. Even without the explanation, I knew you had not deliberately staked out the exact spot where I was climbing the wall.

“Back up a little,” I whispered. Talking down to him from the top of a wall felt strange.

“Sister Shu.” Instead, he opened his arms and kept coming, his eyes curving with his smile. “Jump this way, and I’ll tell you a secret.”

I intended to land neatly in front of him. Being watched by a whole row of astonished middle school boys was embarrassing enough already.

But He Li anticipated my anticipation.

At precisely the right moment, he stepped sideways and caught me, so I fell straight into his arms.

Magnolias were blooming, and a sweet, intoxicating fragrance drifted through the air.

The boy whose voice had begun to crack steadied me gently by the shoulders. In a slightly hoarse voice, he said, “The secret is…”

His eyes narrowed as he smoothed the windblown hair from my face. Then he smiled again, looking just as satisfied as he had as a child whenever he received his favorite fruit candy.