TFBAT – Chapter 12

After holding Hu Jin’s paw, Chi Yuyang didn’t start trimming immediately.

“Change back into your human form first.”

Of course, she wasn’t going to cut his tiger nails.

Those sharp claws were, after all, one of a tiger’s weapons.

After speaking, Chi Yuyang got up to grab her coat.

“Okay.” After transforming, Hu Jin stepped forward and wrapped his arms around Chi Yuyang. “Wife, whatever you say, I’ll do it.”

“Then can you… not…” Chi Yuyang barely turned her head and met a pair of clear, bright eyes. “Don’t look at me like that…”

She had wanted to say that she wasn’t used to being called “wife,” but Hu Jin simply refused to call her by her name.

Well, “wife” was just a title, after all.

She had been calling him “Tuantuan,” such a childish name, yet Hu Jin never asked her to change it.

“How does it feel?” Hu Jin blinked at her.

“Nothing much. I’m just helping you cut your nails,” Chi Yuyang lowered her head and tucked her coat into Hu Jin’s arms. “Cover yourself up first.”

Taking the coat, Hu Jin wrapped it around his waist just like Chi Yuyang had shown him before.

“All set!”

Chi Yuyang turned her head and realized that Hu Jin had even tied a perfect bow.

This guy… the tiger’s learning ability was just too strong.

“Wife, you said you were going to cut my nails just now?” Hu Jin leaned his head down, reaching for Chi Yuyang’s head.

He glanced nervously at the strange object in the female’s hand—something he had never seen before.

But his wife wouldn’t hurt him.

“Yes.” Chi Yuyang turned and held Hu Jin’s hand.

Although his nails were long, they were completely clean.

According to Hu Jin, the two forms of a beastman didn’t affect each other.

Still, Chi Yuyang double-checked before starting.

“This won’t affect your tiger claws, will it?”

Hu Jin didn’t answer.

He just stared at their joined hands, lost in thought.

“Hu Jin?” Chi Yuyang raised her voice slightly.

“It’s fine, wife. You can cut them.” Compared to before, Hu Jin’s voice was much softer.

Chi Yuyang’s gaze focused on his hands, naturally missing any unusual signs.

And in her eyes, it was just a matter of cutting nails.

“Then I’ll start. Don’t move.”

“Okay.” Hu Jin thought, so a female’s hands were this soft.

Chi Yuyang positioned the nail clipper against Hu Jin’s nail and pressed down hard.

However, her hand was already showing faint red marks from the pressure, yet Hu Jin’s nail stayed firmly in place.

She could understand that a tiger’s nails were incredibly hard.

But now that Hu Jin had transformed into human form, it was still this hard to cut?

“I… can’t cut it.” A sense of frustration rose in Chi Yuyang.

Just as she was about to pull her hand away, Hu Jin gripped it firmly with his other hand.

“Use more strength.”

Chi Yuyang could feel the warmth of Hu Jin’s palm. Hearing the low whisper near her ear, she pressed down instinctively.

Snap.

A piece of nail fell off.

With Hu Jin’s help, Chi Yuyang quickly finished trimming all ten fingers.

“This is so clean…” Chi Yuyang looked down, inspecting the “finished product.”

Taking advantage of her focus on her hands, Hu Jin quickly planted a kiss on her face.

“Wife, thank you.”

Before the words even left his mouth, the person in front of her transformed into a white tiger.

Transforming into his tiger form could hide his shyness, but the tail swishing endlessly behind the white tiger betrayed his current mood.

“Awwooo…”

Chi Yuyang froze.

Was she just… groped by a tiger?

—

It wasn’t until the next morning that Hu Jin returned to his human form.

“Tuantuan, I want to go to the fields we saw that day.”

Just now, Chi Yuyang had finished eating all the snacks she had brought from her world.

The only supplies left at her disposal now were salt and sugar.

“Is that okay?” Chi Yuyang stroked the white tiger’s head. “I want to see if there’s any rice.”

“Awwooo!” The white tiger’s tail stood straight up.

“Tuantuan…” Chi Yuyang’s tone carried a pleading note as her hand unconsciously reached for his ear.

Hu Jin’s ears twitched, and then he rubbed against her hand.

That was his way of agreeing.

Chi Yuyang assumed Hu Jin would change back to human form, so she turned toward the corner of the room.

“Awwooo awwooo awwooo?” Wife, what are you doing?

Hearing the familiar sound, Chi Yuyang frowned.

She looked back and saw Hu Jin lowering himself.

A posture as if inviting her to sit on him.

“Tuantuan, can’t we just walk over together?” Chi Yuyang didn’t want to treat Hu Jin as a mount.

“Awwooo.” Too far.

Seeing that the white tiger still hadn’t switched back to human form, Chi Yuyang guessed the answer.

“Sigh…” She carefully recalled the scene from that day.

Where exactly had Tuantuan brought her?

Or rather, what kind of place was this?

She could only take it one step at a time.

At least, being with Tuantuan meant she didn’t need to worry about safety.

When they arrived at their destination, Chi Yuyang found that every door and window was tightly shut.

After getting off the white tiger’s back, she scanned the rows of houses in front of her.

Although most of the houses were built from thatch, a few were constructed from stone.

But no matter how she looked at them, none of these seemed like modern architecture.

“Wife, this tribe is also made up of herbivore beastmen.” Seeing Chi Yuyang’s confused gaze, Hu Jin finally relaxed.

Clearly, this wasn’t her tribe.

“Tribe?” Chi Yuyang repeated the word.

The word struck her harder than the abruptness of Hu Jin’s “also” in his sentence.

Describing a village as a tribe, combined with what she saw in front of her…

Could this really be a prehistoric era?

Chi Yuyang’s eyes were filled with disbelief.

She suddenly realized that the worst part wasn’t being transmigrated to another world.

It was that the civilization in this world lagged behind her own era by tens of thousands of years.

No wonder her phone couldn’t find a signal here.

Even in her mind, there was scarcely any information about the ancient era.

Hu Jin noticed the astonishment on Chi Yuyang’s face and assumed she was upset because she had been rejected by the same-species beastmen.

So, he briskly walked toward a house.

Chi Yuyang hadn’t fully come to her senses and didn’t react at all as Hu Jin held her hand.

“D-Don’t… come over!”

“Please, spare us!”

A few steps away from the house Hu Jin had chosen, a broken, stammering voice suddenly came from inside.

Chi Yuyang, interrupted in her thoughts, looked up to see Hu Jin beside her staring at her intently.

It was as if he were waiting for her to make a decision.

Only then did Chi Yuyang realize that Hu Jin had just mentioned that this house was inhabited by herbivorous beastmen.

Even she had felt a strong sense of pressure the first time she saw Hu Jin in human form.

For herbivorous beastmen who consider tigers their natural enemy, Hu Jin’s threat was obvious.

“I’ll go knock on the door. Hu Jin, you wait here.” Chi Yuyang was about to step forward but realized her hand had somehow intertwined with Hu Jin’s.

With a sigh, she shook her head slightly.

“Let’s go together, then.” For some reason, she didn’t let go of the hand she was holding.

At her words, Hu Jin’s eyes lit up, and the round ears on his head twitched dramatically in the wind.

Chi Yuyang couldn’t help but think inwardly that feline beastmen really were different from ordinary felines.

“Hello! My name is Chi Yuyang.” She gently knocked on the door of the thatched hut.

Like the stone house she stayed in, this door was made of bamboo.

Seeing the bamboo triggered a thought in Chi Yuyang’s mind, but right now, she was more concerned with the matter at hand.

“We… we just have a few questions.” She tried to speak in a calm, gentle tone.

She glanced at Hu Jin out of the corner of her eye.

His gaze remained fixed on her.

“I’m from the ape tribe. We won’t harm you.” Chi Yuyang continued to coax gently.

She felt it was inappropriate to reveal that she was human, so she made up an excuse.

The ape tribe was probably the closest to humans.

“R-Really?” The bamboo door was quietly opened just enough to peek through, and a head appeared.

Chi Yuyang immediately noticed the ram horns on him.

“My name is Yang Yi. Why are you with the tiger tribe?” he asked cautiously, looking at Chi Yuyang but not daring to stare directly at Hu Jin.

“I’m her partner, Hu Jin.” Like a declaration of ownership, Hu Jin didn’t hesitate to pull Chi Yuyang into his embrace.

“Hu Jin, you…” Chi Yuyang struggled to pull away from his hold, “don’t act up right now.”

Hu Jin, feeling “rejected,” rubbed his nose.

His wife lay in his arms every night—why couldn’t he touch her during the day?

Seeing their intimate interaction, and with Chi Yuyang’s scent matching that of a male tiger beside her, the person inside finally opened the door fully.

“What do you want?” Yang Yi didn’t understand their purpose.

The tiger tribe rarely interacted with the sheep tribe, and he had heard that the tigers had been embroiled in internal conflicts recently.

“It’s like this—I wanted to ask if you grow rice?” Chi Yuyang asked eagerly.

“Yes. Rice is one of the main foods of the sheep tribe.” Yang Yi nodded; he hadn’t expected the question to be related to rice.

But tigers don’t eat rice—it seemed this was the female’s need.

“That’s great!” Chi Yuyang exclaimed excitedly.

But in an instant, the light in her eyes vanished.

Even if she knew they had rice, it was grown painstakingly by others.

There was no reason they would give it to her for free.

Her money was useless here, and her remaining snacks had been used up that morning.

Previously, she had wanted to use her expertise to help them in exchange for food.

But this era lacked medical equipment, and she first had to earn the trust of the tribe to treat them.

Furthermore, abruptly asking if they had injured people could arouse suspicion.

Thinking of this, it was already extremely fortunate that she could successfully heal Hu Jin.

Moreover, Hu Jin’s subsequent recovery had exceeded her expectations.

Hu Jin noticed Chi Yuyang’s change in expression and recalled her previous mentions of rice, forming an idea in his mind.

He first stroked her head, calming her down, then said, “Can we trade fruits from the forest with you?”

He knew fruits from the forest were very popular with herbivorous beastmen.

But the forest belonged to carnivorous beastmen, so those fruits were a significant temptation for herbivores.

“Well…” Yang Yi hadn’t expected such a deal and worried it might be a trap, “I need to discuss this with the chief first.”

“Then go tell the chief. I’ll go pick the fruit first,” Hu Jin said, confident they wouldn’t refuse the trade. “Wife, are you coming with me?”

He wanted Chi Yuyang to go with him but also thought the round trip might be tiring.

Although herbivorous beastmen were mostly non-aggressive, he didn’t want her to leave his side.

So he let her choose.

“I’ll go with you.” Chi Yuyang made her decision immediately.

Though she couldn’t reach the fruits on the tree, she could pick those on the ground.

She couldn’t rely on Hu Jin for everything, especially since this rice was for her own consumption.

“Good.” Saying that, Hu Jin shifted back to his tiger form and ran into the forest with Chi Yuyang.

Yang Yi watched the duo disappear into the forest and exclaimed in surprise, “I didn’t expect even a fierce tiger tribe beastman to be so henpecked.”