TFBAT – Chapter 19

The air suddenly grew quiet.

“Hu Jin, if you dare change back into your beast form right now, you’re sleeping as a tiger tonight.” Chi Yuyang spoke before Hu Jin could make any move.

She had already noticed—whenever Hu Jin didn’t know how to express his emotions, he would instinctively choose to escape.

That escape was turning back into his beast form.

And every time he switched forms, he had a little habit of twitching his ears.

Sure enough, Hu Jin’s attempt to transform froze mid-action.

“I…”

Chi Yuyang quietly waited for him to finish the sentence.

In the human world she once lived in, what she had just said would count as a confession.

Chi Yuyang was not someone indecisive.

Since she had decided to be with Hu Jin, she had to first make sure of their feelings for each other.

So she was waiting for his response.

“I…” Hu Jin stammered uncontrollably, the tail behind him swishing uneasily up, down, left, and right, unable to find a place to rest.

This was the first time in his tiger life that someone had ever used the word “like” on him.

And that someone wasn’t just anyone—it was his wife.

After a brief hesitation, he slowly spoke.

“I like you too.”

Hu Jin didn’t deliberately lower his voice.

In the empty cave, Chi Yuyang could even hear the echo of those three words—“like you”—lingering around her ears.

“Wife, are we still sleeping together tonight?” Hu Jin added.

“…” The little bit of emotion Chi Yuyang had just felt was instantly choked off by his words.

Hu Jin didn’t even think—she was so afraid of the cold, how could she possibly not sleep with him?

“Mhm.” Chi Yuyang nodded.

At the same time, she sighed silently in her heart.

Getting Hu Jin to understand what emotions really were was just as long and difficult a road as her accepting the matter of mating with a beastman.

Watching the sparks crackling in front of her, nestled in Hu Jin’s arms, Chi Yuyang couldn’t help rubbing her hands together.

Perhaps it was a racial gift—tiger beastmen, even in beast form, had unusually high body temperatures.

All the more so since Hu Jin was already a fourth-rank beastman.

“Is the clan leader also a fourth rank?” Chi Yuyang took a bite of the pork Hu Jin handed her.

The unsalted, unsweetened meat wasn’t so bland as to be inedible, but compared to what she’d eaten before, the taste had dropped off a cliff.

It reminded her exactly of the plain boiled chicken breast she used to eat when dieting.

She had overlooked this.

Originally, they’d planned to make a round trip that same day, so she hadn’t thought about staying overnight.

These past days, Hu Jin had been handling most things for her, to the point she had developed the illusion that as long as he was by her side, she didn’t need to worry about anything.

When had she started relying on him this much?

Chi Yuyang looked up, only to find Hu Jin gazing at her.

He was so focused he hadn’t had time to answer her question.

“Yes, the clan leader has been fourth rank for many years.” Hu Jin slowly replied.

“Are the ranks divided by strength?” This was something Chi Yuyang had always wanted to ask. “How do you know when you’ve reached a new rank?”

Hu Jin said that each advancement brought about an extraordinary transformation.

But for tiger beastmen, the most obvious and useful change was in their strength.

“According to the clan leader, yes. On my beast form’s back, there are four black stripes.” After answering, Hu Jin noticed Chi Yuyang wiping her mouth with clean water, so he began eating.

When in human form, Hu Jin ate at a steady, unhurried pace, never crude.

Some tiger beastmen had mocked him for this before, but he shut them up with his fists.

Chi Yuyang, for her part, always ate slowly and neatly.

In Hu Jin’s eyes, this meant his wife was perfectly suited to him.

Of course, Chi Yuyang had no idea how thick his “wife filter” really was.

She was thinking back to what she had seen earlier that day.

Tiger cubs all had several black stripes on their bodies, more or less.

So for them, the black markings couldn’t possibly represent rank.

As for Clan Leader Hu Zhuo, she hadn’t yet had a chance to see his beast form.

But she remembered his wrist, circled with four thin black stripes.

Thinking of this, Chi Yuyang lowered her gaze to Hu Jin’s arm.

His pale wrist bore no markings whatsoever.

It seemed that Hu Jin’s kind, aside from fur color, differed in other respects from the tigers of this forest.

Unfortunately, not only had Hu Jin himself never met his people, even the clan leader, Hu Zhuo, had only glimpsed his father once.

…

As night fell, the cave temperature plummeted.

Perhaps because this part of the forest was more remote than Hu Jin’s stone house, Chi Yuyang felt it was much colder here than around his home.

She no longer dared to say things like letting a certain tiger sleep alone.

Even in long sleeves and long pants, she kept trying to burrow into Hu Jin’s chest for warmth.

“Winter really has come…” she murmured drowsily before closing her eyes.

“Awuu.” Yes.

Winter had come—and so had his mating season.

The white tiger waited until Chi Yuyang was asleep before secretly leaning closer, carefully licking her cheek.

It was the only way he could restrain the restless desire stirring in his body.

In her sleep, Chi Yuyang felt a burning presence inching closer and closer.

She stirred instinctively.

“Tuantuan, stop messing around…”

—

“Awuuuuuuuuu—!”

The next morning, Chi Yuyang was startled awake by a tiger’s roar that pierced straight through her ears.

“What happened…”

She opened her eyes to see Hu Jin, already back in human form, beside her.

“It’s the clan leader. Something happened in the tribe.” Hu Jin’s brows were furrowed tightly, even his eyes losing their usual liveliness.

Such coincidence.

He had only just returned yesterday, and already something had happened to the tribe.

Maybe… he shouldn’t have come back at all…

“Don’t overthink. Let’s go take a look.” Chi Yuyang guessed at Hu Jin’s worries.

“Alright.” With that, Hu Jin shifted back to beast form.

Without hesitation, Chi Yuyang climbed onto his back.

Clearly, his beast form was much faster than human form. They quickly reached the place where the clan leader’s roar had come from.

It was a small creek, not far from the clan leader’s dwelling.

At the moment they arrived, the thought flashing through Chi Yuyang’s mind was—had Hu Jin carried her all the way back in human form last night because he was afraid she might reject him, so he kept delaying time?

“Shaman, please, save my daughter…” Chi Yuyang saw a figure with tiger ears, dressed in animal skins, wailing hoarsely. “Hu Ya is my first child, my only child…”

This was the first time Chi Yuyang had seen a tigress in the Tiger Tribe.

Because the woman had her back to her, Chi Yuyang couldn’t make out her face.

But judging from the voice, this tigress sounded surprisingly young.

Standing beside her was another tiger, who appeared to be the Shaman she had mentioned.

The tiger looked about the same age as the tribe leader, Hu Zhuo, and even bore a few resemblances to him.

He let out a long sigh and then shook his head.

That seemed to mean… there was no hope?

“Hu Yu, you can’t do anything either?” Hu Zhuo’s expression was grim.

“I’ve never seen symptoms like this before.” The Shaman, called Hu Yu, stood up and looked helplessly at Hu Zhuo.

They weren’t far from where Chi Yuyang stood, so she could clearly hear their conversation—and naturally, she could also see the condition of the cub lying on the ground.

It looked like…

But Chi Yuyang couldn’t be sure.

She secretly tugged at Hu Jin.

“Hu Jin, can you ask the tribe leader to let me take a look? I might have a way.”

Even if Chi Yuyang was ninety percent certain, that still couldn’t make up for the harsh medical conditions here.

Besides, she couldn’t be sure whether tiger beastmen were exactly the same as what she understood.

Hu Jin, however, thought of the time Chi Yuyang had saved him before, and his eyes immediately lit up again.

“Alright.”