On the way to the cave they had gathered the captive, Xie Ziyuan passed by the vines which housed the cat siblings. He paused for a bit, frowning. For a moment, he considered calling for the siblings.
However, he decided against it, dragging his sore body back. The faster he solved all of them, the sooner he could take a rest.
Just one more.
"Master Xie!" Lin Yu'an proved to be a very perceptive cat beastman. Just in a few minutes, he already appeared outside the forest of vines.
Soon, his older sister also appeared and stood beside him, a little uneasy. Her face changed when she saw Xie Ziyuan's injury. She bit her lip.
Xie Ziyuan turned around right after he heard Lin Yu'an's voice.
"Master Xie, where are you going? Let us join you." Lin Yu'an grabbed his sister's hand and dragged her toward Xie Ziyuan.
Once they both closed the distance between them and Xie Ziyuan, Lin Yuyao examined the blood-soaked cloth on his shoulder. He had tied it haphazardly, and the blood seeped into the cloth.
Lin Yu'an had expected him to refuse, but Xie Ziyuan's next words surprised him.
"Fine," he muttered succinctly, turned around, and began walking again.
The siblings followed him with trepidation. They forced their legs to move. Silence descended between the three, deafening in the still night.
Even the night critters stopped making any sound. Lin Yu'an kept glancing at his sister with hesitation. He bit his lip. Just as he was about to open his mouth, Lin Yuyao beat it to him.
She gritted her teeth and called out to Xie Ziyuan. "Master Xie… I am sorry for our earlier actions. We didn't mean to doubt you."
Once she spoke, the next words also flowed naturally. "In the place where we lived before, there were a lot of beastmen who would often lose their sanity. Still, it's not a right reason to judge others so quickly. We shouldn't have made a baseless assumption."
The symptoms resembled his—erratic temper, red eyes, and brutal action.
Beastmen would lose their sanity if the contamination level was too high. In most cases, their state was irreversible. Once they became a fallen beast—reverting to their beast form—and weren't immediately killed, they might turn into zombie beasts.
If the zombie beasts bite others, it wouldn't take long for others to suffer the same fate. The difference was that the zombification would be as instant as them losing their sanity.
Lin Yu'an also apologized, "I am sorry, Master Xie. We were wrong."
Xie Ziyuan didn't respond. The two siblings still followed him with some trepidation, but their footsteps never stopped.
Each second felt like an eternity. They didn't even watch where they were going; no matter where he was leading them, they still followed.
After an unknown amount of time passed, Xie Ziyuan saw that the cave was only less than seventy meters ahead. He stopped. The siblings also halted obediently.
"Did you live in an area with a high contamination level?" Xie Ziyuan asked with a slightly hoarse voice.
The siblings glanced at each other with surprise in their eyes. Although he didn't address their apology, they were still delighted he was willing to talk to them. The tone wasn't as distant and cold as before.
"Yes," Lin Yuyao immediately replied. "Our parents have turned into mindless beasts early, so we decided to leave the place to find a better area. We didn't expect to run into traffickers."
Although it was an embarrassing experience, she still told Xie Ziyuan, "They promised to help us to go to an environment with better living conditions… unexpectedly, we were deceived."
She lowered her eyes, and Lin Yu'an also pursed his lips. It was actually him who agreed to it back then. Until now, he still regretted his stupidity which almost separated him from his sister.
Xie Ziyuan nodded in acknowledgement, keeping his silence.
In the apocalypse, some beastmen experienced unique living conditions. Some of them lived according to their human instinct while the rest followed animal instinct.
However, there was one similar thing for sure: most of them liked to gather in groups and fight for survival together.
Those who were driven by human instinct built some bases which housed beastmen from various species, lived in communities like villages and cities, or even built a kingdom and elders council.
Meanwhile, those who were more inclined to their beast instinct often lived with their own species—for the beasts who loved to survive in a pack—forming a tribe. Some lived a solitary life too in a small group, building a nest somewhere in the forest and blend with nature.
"Follow me." Xie Ziyuan said after a while. He started walking again, heading to the cave.
The siblings were very excited yet also nervous.
They had prepared for a tough battle with the remaining three beastmen. However, when they entered the cave, they didn't expect there to be only one beastman trafficker.
With three people ganging up on him, the raccoon beastman was subdued. He died unwillingly; his resentful eyes fell on the Lin siblings, still wide open.
They immediately burned the corpse and blood, not allowing the scent to attract fierce beasts.
Eyes full of disbelief landed on the cat siblings and Xie Ziyuan, but when they remembered there were still four traffickers outside, the hope in their chest was extinguished again.
Although the Lin siblings had found this helper from only God-knows-where, he was injured. They could tell he was no match for the four beastmen. Even if they released the tied, chained, and caged beastmen, they were powerless.
Since the traffickers wanted to transport them away, they had just forced them to drink the drug that severely weakened them.
Xie Ziyuan furrowed his brows. Now, he needed to consider how to bring all of them back. It was impossible to everyone at once or their presence would be too conspicuous.
Lin Yuyao glanced at Xie Ziyuan. "Master Xie, the other two beastmen…"
"Dead."
She blinked in surprise, and then nodded happily, in a good mood. She led her brother to help the other victims.
Xie Ziyuan slumped down to the ground, closing his eyes. He looked like he was asleep, but in fact, his body was still very alert once someone approached him.
The Lin siblings fussed for a while, searching around the cave for keys. They wanted to release the caged beastmen.
The beastmen that they had helped studied Xie Ziyuan's figure, but they didn't dare to approach him. The Lin siblings also let him take a rest and didn't disturb him.
When the sun rose and the temperature became hotter, nearing noon, Lin Yuyao finally approached Xie Ziyuan.
"Master Xie." She called out cautiously, yet her tone also tinged with confusion.
Xie Ziyuan opened his eyes, staring at her sharply.
She swore she would never get used to such an intimidating look from this silver wolf beastman.
Lin Yuyao lowered her eyes and held out her hand. When Xie Ziyuan saw the item in her palm, his pupils abruptly constricted.
He almost couldn't resist from grabbing her hand roughly. Lin Yuyao flinched. Xie Ziyuan's eyes became terrifyingly red…
A thought popped his paranoid mind.
Did he scare off that woman and make her change her target?