TFBAT – Chapter 25

After the meal, Chi Yuyang gently pinched Hu Jin’s tail.

He had actually tricked her, calling it his tail—when in fact, that part of his was obviously much thicker than a tail.

Thinking of this, she unwillingly kneaded the tail in her hand.

Hu Jin didn’t retract his tail. Instead, he even shifted it closer toward her palm so she could touch the very tip.

It was said that tigers’ tails must not be touched. Yet, holding Hu Jin’s tail in her hand at this moment, Chi Yuyang felt an odd sense of satisfaction.

But thinking carefully, she had already become the mate of a tiger. Touching a tiger’s tail wasn’t really anything extraordinary.

Hu Jin’s tail was no different from when he was in beast form.

But unlike other tigers, his tail had no black stripes—it was entirely white, covered in soft fur, and felt very much like the fluffy bunny keychain Chi Yuyang once had hanging on her schoolbag.

However, Chi Yuyang no longer dared to compare Hu Jin to any other animal.

After spending the whole day and night together, she had finally realized: Hu Jin was a real, genuine tiger—vigorous and full of endless energy.

“Hu Jin, I want to take a bath. Can you take me to the hot spring again?” Chi Yuyang had just tried to get up, but found she didn’t have the strength to even stand.

Seeing this, Hu Jin moved his tail and lifted her into his arms.

“Wife, do you still want to go to that hot spring?”

Looking at the tail she had just held, seemingly harmless, but able to lift her so easily in an instant, Chi Yuyang sighed inwardly. This tail really was just like its owner.

With that innocent baby-face, he looked harmless, but in truth, he was much stronger than the other tigers of his age in the tribe.

“Mm.” She nodded.

As a human, Chi Yuyang couldn’t help but have a tendency to admire strength. And Hu Jin just happened to fulfill this desire of hers.

——

When they arrived at the hot spring again, Chi Yuyang’s anticipation was far less than before.

All she wanted now was for the hot water to soothe her exhaustion and wash away the traces Hu Jin had left on her body.

Last night’s activities had indeed been painful at the start, but slowly she had gotten used to it, and even tasted pleasure.

But her partner was a beastman.

Hu Jin was not only tireless, but also insatiable—so much so that, in the end, she had simply let him move on his own.

“Wife!”

As soon as Chi Yuyang stepped into the water, she saw the human-shaped Hu Jin walking toward her.

Her legs trembled involuntarily.

Thankfully, upon entering the spring, Hu Jin merely accompanied her to bathe.

“Hu Jin, was your father a white tiger?” Chi Yuyang leaned against him, doing her best not to think about what his burning hot body temperature might imply.

“The chief said yes.” Hu Jin obediently lay in the hot spring.

Before his wife gave permission, no matter how much he wanted to, he couldn’t move recklessly.

But he feared he wouldn’t be able to hold back, so he forced himself to remain completely still, lest he accidentally touch her.

Yet, his body refused to listen to his mind. In his head, it was as though two tiny Hu Jins were arguing.

One said: Just try, maybe wife will agree.

The other retorted: Wasn’t she tormented enough by you yesterday?

“Then the chief didn’t tell you where your father’s tribe is?” Chi Yuyang, oblivious to his inner turmoil, curiously continued asking.

Because of their deeper intimacy, she wanted to know more about him.

“No.” Hu Jin hesitated for a moment, but then decided to tell the truth. “The chief said, when my father wandered into our tribe, he was injured. My mother saved him. But after he recovered, he left and never came back.”

Chi Yuyang froze.

Coincidentally, she had also saved him once.

But from the sound of it, his father seemed like a faithless tiger.

Perhaps that was why Hu Jin’s mother later abandoned him.

“That’s why I want to find him. I want to ask—he promised my mother he’d return, so why did he never appear again?”

Perhaps it was the reflection of the water, but Hu Jin’s eyes looked bright.

Yet, to Chi Yuyang, it didn’t seem like excitement.

It looked more like dissatisfaction toward a father who had made a promise, but never kept it.

“My father left without dissolving his mate bond with my mother,” Hu Jin added.

On this continent, even though different races had different ways of forming mate bonds, as long as two remained bonded, one side could not abandon the other.

And he knew his mother still kept the token of affection his father had given her.

Which meant their mate bond had never been broken.

Chi Yuyang also knew from the chief’s lessons about mate bonds in the beastman world.

Because of the imbalance between male and female beastmen, in some tribes, a female could choose to have multiple mates in her lifetime.

However, in some tribes where the population was already large, even if females weren’t as numerous as males, they weren’t treated as treasures to be hoarded.

That was one reason why, when she had visited the Sheep Tribe, their chief had treated her with such indifference.

But the Tiger Tribe was different.

Their numbers were small to begin with, and Hu Zhuo, the tribe chief, strongly upheld the ideal of long-term mate bonds.

Under his influence, not only the males, but even some females came to accept this belief.

And having grown up under such teachings, Hu Jin had firmly decided that in his tiger life, he would only ever have one mate.

Thinking of his ungrateful father, Hu Jin looked earnestly at Chi Yuyang and said: “Wife, I will treat you well.”

“I know…” Chi Yuyang had just been touched by his sincerity when, the next second, he leaned toward her.

“Hu Jin! Focus on bathing!”

By the time the bath was done, Chi Yuyang hadn’t relieved her fatigue at all—in fact, she felt even more exhausted.

Her body was tired, and her heart even more so.

Hu Jin had tried multiple times to cross the line, but she had blocked him every time.

Yet when they were leaving the spring, his drooping expression made her heart tremble.

So she asked: “Hu Jin, what’s wrong?”

“My heat cycle is in two days,” he said, turning away as she dressed. “So, it’s uncomfortable.”

Chi Yuyang saw his tail dragging on the ground, his ears half-drooping, and before she knew it, she blurted out: “If you can restrain yourself a little when you do it, I guess I wouldn’t mind mating with you again.”

The moment she said it, Hu Jin didn’t even give her the chance to regret—he had already pounced.

This time, not only was the bath wasted, but her legs hurt even more.

——

Waking up in the stone house, Chi Yuyang recalled last night’s scenes and sighed.

At least Hu Jin had restrained himself somewhat, or else she wouldn’t even have been able to wake up the next morning.

But if things continued like this, would she end up pregnant with tiger cubs this winter?

Thinking so, an image of Hu Jin’s round little cub form surfaced in her mind.

That kind of cub didn’t seem so bad.

“Awroo!”

Just as she was thinking this, the familiar cry reached her ears—the white tiger beside her had also woken up.

“Hu Jin, it’s rare that you woke up later than me today.” Chi Yuyang reached out and rubbed his head.

Who would have thought that with just one touch, several strands of his fur fell out?

“Hu Jin, why is your shedding getting worse and worse?” She rubbed the white fur between her fingers, then felt an itch on her face. Reaching up, she touched again and found several strands of soft white fuzz.

After a moment’s thought, Chi Yuyang decided to start collecting the tiger fur.

Hu Jin’s fur was very soft to the touch—maybe she could sew it into pelts for making warm clothes in the winter.

So, she gathered the fur from both his body and the animal skins, rolled it into a ball, and soon it had already become the size of a fist.

“Wife, do you like my fur?” Hu Jin, now in human form, looked at Chi Yuyang placing the fur ball into a plastic bag and asked happily.

“Mm, your fur is very soft. I’ll save it up. Maybe I can use it someday,” Chi Yuyang replied.

“Wife, then I like your fur too.” As usual, Hu Jin came over to hug her, speaking what he thought was romantic.

“……” Chi Yuyang froze mid-movement.

Her fur? Where would she have fur!

…

That day, Chi Yuyang had originally planned to experiment with spices and the food they had to see how much of a dish she could manage.

But since she had been overexerting herself for three days straight, she had no energy left to roast meat, so she could only let Hu Jin handle it.

In truth, she wasn’t even sure if she could make something tasty. And with the tribe leader giving her only a small supply of spices, she didn’t dare waste them recklessly.

Still, since the ape tribe had access to these spices, there must be other ways to acquire them.

If nothing else, next time she went to the ape tribe, she could probe Yuan Wu a little to see if she could get some useful information out of him.

At the thought of Yuan Wu, those eyes appeared in her mind again.

She quickly shook her head. That mental control of his was terrifying.

Honestly, she didn’t even want to see Yuan Wu again. He was clearly far more unfathomable than he appeared.

—

After lunch, Hu Jin went to fetch water at the creek as usual.

Chi Yuyang lay on the animal skins, sorting the spices and putting them into bamboo tubes.

Just then, she heard a strange coughing sound outside the stone hut.

She turned her head, and by the bamboo door, besides Hu Jin, there was someone else.

“I’m here to see your wife.”

No way…

The more she didn’t want to see someone, the more they just showed up.

Next came Hu Jin’s voice: “Get lost!”

“Hu Jin?” Chi Yuyang got up and walked over.

As expected, Yuan Wu stood there alone, face to face with Hu Jin.

He still leaned on that cane, his complexion even paler than last time, but his eyes were still piercingly bright.

Chi Yuyang instinctively hid behind Hu Jin, avoiding his gaze.

When Yuan Wu saw her, his face first lit up with joy, but almost immediately, regret took its place.

As a beastman, he could naturally smell the change in her scent.

She had already mated with her partner.

And more than once.

That scent was heavy—far heavier than the last time he’d met her.

Since Chi Yuyang didn’t look him in the eye, she missed the flicker of emotions on his face.

But Hu Jin caught Yuan Wu’s abnormality. The fact that he came saying he wanted to see Chi Yuyang only stoked his anger further.

“Hu Jin, don’t be rash,” Chi Yuyang whispered.

The tribe leader had said he didn’t fully understand the principles of mental control, but what he did know was that the more agitated someone became, the easier it was for them to be controlled.

The regret on Yuan Wu’s face lasted only a moment before disappearing completely.

Clearly, he had decided he had to get rid of this troublesome tiger first.

“I heard you’re searching for your father?” Yuan Wu turned his gaze toward Hu Jin and smiled gently.

“None of your business.”

Hu Jin’s eyes flickered uncertainly—even Yuan Wu couldn’t read what he was thinking.

Chi Yuyang guessed that those three tiger brothers of his must have spilled everything they knew about Hu Jin.

A bunch of dumb tigers—always siding with outsiders.

She cursed them silently in her heart.

“What if I told you I know where your father is…” Yuan Wu drew out the words, his tone sweet like honey.

But to Chi Yuyang’s ears, those words were laced with poison.

Last time, it was by listening to him that she was inexplicably controlled. She feared Hu Jin might fall into the same trap.

Fortunately, Hu Jin ignored him.

“Wife, go inside.”

He raised his hand, ready to gather his power to strike down this beastman in front of him.

The last time in the ape tribe, he’d been forced to retreat because Chi Yuyang was under mental control.

But this time, Yuan Wu had come knocking himself—so he couldn’t be blamed for being merciless.

Seeing Hu Jin’s stance, Yuan Wu guessed his intention, yet the smile on his face didn’t waver.

He even took a few steps closer, almost as if in provocation.

“If what I said is false, how could I have found this stone hut? This is the dwelling your father left behind.”

At that, even Chi Yuyang, who was about to step back into the hut, froze in her tracks.

Still, her expression showed no surprise.

Yuan Wu’s abilities were too strange—she dared not act rashly.

Hu Jin’s eyes narrowed, and the oppressive aura of a tiger beastman surged toward Yuan Wu.

The latter quietly gripped his cane tighter, coughing a few times as if unfazed.

“This stone hut is so out of the way. Cost me plenty of time to find it,” Yuan Wu went on casually.

As he spoke, he coughed again—louder and softer, one after another, until even Chi Yuyang was annoyed by the sound.

“You dragging around that sick body—if you just stayed put in the ape tribe, you might live a few more years.”

At those words, Yuan Wu’s smile brightened even more.

But Chi Yuyang hadn’t finished: “…and now you’ve come here just to court death.”

“Cough, cough…” Yuan Wu’s coughing grew harsher for a moment.

But soon, he recovered, and quickly spat out a full sentence: “If you want to meet your father, within three days, come to the ape tribe and find me.”

With that, a gust of wind swept through—and Yuan Wu’s figure vanished completely into thin air.

“……” Chi Yuyang stared in shock.

She had thought mental control was already bizarre enough—yet Yuan Wu’s powers extended to splitting his own presence.

That was also why Hu Jin’s attack never landed.

From the moment Yuan Wu appeared, something had felt off.

Now that he had vanished, it explained everything.

“Hu Jin, what do you think?” To her, his opinion mattered more than Yuan Wu’s.

“Don’t mind him.” Hu Jin pulled her back into the hut.

But the faint tremor of his hand betrayed how much he cared.

Inside, he held her as they sat, staring blankly at the fire.

“If you can’t decide, should we ask the tribe leader?” Chi Yuyang suggested.

Hu Jin remained silent, but the conflict and helplessness in his dim eyes spoke volumes.

From her perspective, his father was the root of his tragic past.

If he hadn’t abandoned them, Hu Jin’s mother wouldn’t have left him behind.

The tribe leader had taken in more than just him—she herself had seen at least five other cubs in that cave.

And since tiger females usually bore only one to three cubs per litter, the difference between being nurtured by a mother or being abandoned was drastic.

From the way Hu Jin clung to her so desperately, it was clear how deeply he feared losing someone again.

“…Alright.” After a while, Hu Jin finally spoke.

Then he rubbed his face against her neck.

“Wife, I feel awful.” His voice carried grievance, his expression pitiful.

“……” Chi Yuyang admitted that Hu Jin’s backstory was tragic enough—but coupled with his masterful ability to play the victim, it was impossible for her to resist.

“Hu Jin, how about we wait until tonight, okay?” She stroked his ears. “Before that, let’s go to the tiger tribe and consult the tribe leader.”