Lion Hunting - Part 7

"Incompetent^[1]!"

The elderly man frowned at Baili Weibu once and then turned away, leaving abruptly.

"I told you, members of the Baili family cannot have daughters, but you insist on being soft-hearted^[2]," the middle-aged man said with anger towards Baili Weibu's parents. "That year, your branch of the family fled from China to Romania in the name of pursuit, all to save the baby girl in the womb. Now look at what your actions have brought upon you? What have they brought upon our entire centaur clan? Pain, strange illnesses, and even death! Your eldest daughter already missed her chance, and now even your younger daughter... alas!"

Before he turned around and left, he coldly remarked to Baili Weibu's father, "This time, it's imperative. We are hunters, and that is a fact that will never change."

Baili Weibu looked bewildered at these angry guests and at her parents, who stood silently with complicated expressions, like students who had done something wrong.

Did she do something wrong? Wasn't it just because she got lost and didn't return all night? But wasn't she now standing before them just fine? Was it necessary to escalate it to the point of saying 'incompetent'?

However, the only strange thing was that when she woke up early in the morning, she was alone in the cave, and Cen Kaiwen was nowhere to be found. She anxiously searched for him nearby for a long time, but found nothing. It wasn't until she smoothly walked out of the forest along the original path and planned to call the police that her mobile phone, which had regained signal, received a text message from Cen Kaiwen - "There is something urgent at home, so leaving first. You sleep like a pig."

She was stunned, and Cen Kaiwen's teasing smile seemed to appear on the screen of her phone. She couldn't help but stick out her tongue at the text message and hurriedly walked home.

When she got back home, she realized something was amiss. Then came the inexplicable accusations.

"Mom, Dad, what's going on? I was stuck in the forest all night, and you didn't comfort me but let outsiders point fingers and scold me?" Baili Weibu pouted and acted clingy towards her parents, sniffing aggrievedly and pretending to cry.

But this time, her parents didn't pat her head lovingly as before, nor did they console her with kind words.

Her father reached into his pocket and pulled out a bracelet, placing it in Baili Weibu's hand.

"Huh? How did my bracelet end up here?" Baili Weibu was surprised as she touched her wrist. The bracelet, with a pure gold monkey charm, was a gift from her mother on her tenth birthday, and it was now in her father's hand. This bracelet was her cherished possession, and she never took it off, even when sleeping.

"Come with me," her father sighed and turned towards the hidden door leading to the basement.

Baili Weibu followed him, her curiosity piqued.

There was nothing special about the basement of her home. It consisted of a corridor connecting three rooms in the shape of the Chinese character 品 (pin), with the room at the end always locked. The other two rooms didn't even have locks. However, she knew that there was a shrine in the locked room, as well as the memorial tablets of the ancestors of the Baili family. Every Chinese New Year, their whole family would go there to light incense, without any elaborate rituals. As for the other two rooms, there was nothing particularly special about them. One was filled with various books, many of which were as thick as bricks and covered in dust. The other room housed a few unimpressive potted plants. Perhaps because of the lack of sunshine all year round, they always look half-dead.

Her father opened the innermost room. To be honest, in the seventeen years of Baili Weibu's life, she had never been in the basement except for the annual ancestral offerings. Her interest in comics far outweighed her interest in those headache-inducing brick-sized books, and as for plants, she had even less interest. She had no idea why her father had suddenly brought her down here when Chinese New Year was still months away.

There were no electric lights in the room, only red candles placed on the shrine and on the wooden platform where the memorial tablets were.

As her father lit the candles, he spoke solemnly: "Early this morning, a man came to me with your bracelet and said that if I don't hand over the antidote for arrow wounds before dawn, your life will end when the sun rises."

Baili Weibu's heart skipped a beat.

"Dad, I...I don't quite understand." Her heart suddenly shook like the candlelights.

"What are we?" her father turned and extinguished a match that was almost burnt to the end.

Baili Weibu was stunned and said: "We...are descendants of the centaur clan, born...hunters."

Her father gazed at the black memorial tablets on the platform and said, "Since ancient times, the ancestors of the centaur clan have been relentless hunters. We are the most fearless and skilled warriors, and every branch of our clan is born a hunter, with the sharpest bow and arrow in the world being born alongside us."

"I know," she looked at her father's serious face and said cautiously, "One of the most famous figures in the centaur clan is Chiron, the origin of the Sagittarius in the Zodiac."

"Yes, Chiron is the pride of the centaur clan’s ancestors. Besides him, our kin are spread throughout the world, and over time, we have gradually become more like true humans, both in our hearts and appearance. But the natural courage of the centaurs and the responsibilities we must shoulder will never change," her father continued.

"I know that too..." Baili Weibu thought for a moment and then asked, "But, what does this have to do with you bringing me here, Dad?"

"As descendants of the centaur clan in the East, who has been our Baili family’s greatest adversary for centuries?" her father ignored her question and continued to ask.

Baili Weibu pondered for a while and answered with uncertainty: "Is it...the Golden Lions?"

Her father sighed and nodded.

"But didn't you say that the Golden Lions were wiped out by us many years ago?" she asked with suspicion.

"In the early years of the Western Han Dynasty, our ancestors of the Baili family were ordered by Emperor Wu^[3] of the Han Dynasty to hunt down the golden lion tribe and protect the peace of the land. Over the course of millennia, the war between centaurs and lions has never ceased," her father's eyes held the weight of time, and every word was full of vicissitudes of life, "Until a hundred years ago, the golden lion tribe within China were almost entirely hunted down by us, with only one remaining group escaping into the forests of Romania. Your great-grandfather, under the pretext of pursuit, relocated the entire family to the Bucegi Mountains and set up a barrier in the forest where the golden lion tribe were hiding, ensuring that the remaining enemies could never leave this place."

This was the first time her father had mentioned these things to her. In fact, her parents rarely spoke about the history of their entire Baili family and the various centaurs in her presence. For so many years, she had lived like an ordinary person, carefree and living happily in the world. If it weren’t for her father mentioning it so solemnly today, she would have almost forgotten her identity as a centaur hunter.

"Why just trap them?" Baili Weibu's mind was still clear and she pressed on, "Why not just hunt them down directly?"

Her father smiled bitterly. "I asked the same question to your grandfather back then. His expression was just like mine is now." He took a deep breath and continued, "The Baili family's hands are stained with the blood of the golden lion tribe. Your grandfather summed it up with the word 'massacre' to comment on what our ancestors did to the golden lion tribe. Hundreds of years ago, during the Kangxi ^[4]era, the ancestors of the Baili family, a pair of brothers, discovered a Golden Lion hiding in the capital. It was a female who disguised as a woman and became the wife of a local official. She was already pregnant at the time and was about to give birth..."

At this point, her father stopped.

"They still didn’t hesitate to act?" Baili Weibu was stunned.

"She begged them to at least spare her child and not to alert her husband. He was just an ordinary man, timid but kind-hearted. He was unaware of his wife's true identity. They could do whatever they wanted to her as long as her child was born safely," her father spoke slower than ever before. "The younger brother was moved by compassion, put away his bow and arrow, and urged his elder brother to leave. However, as soon as the younger brother turned around, the elder brother's arrow had already struck the woman in the heart."

Baili Weibu's heart thumped anxiously.

"Before she died, she cursed the Baili family with a hatred deeper than the sea," her father's face flickered in the candlelight, slightly pale, "Many years later, the younger brother said on his deathbed that in this life there are very few things that were etched in his memory, but he will never forget the look in the lioness's eyes after she was shot by the arrow."

"What... what curse did she put on the Baili family?" Baili Weibu took a step closer, grabbing her father's hand.

"Henceforth, whenever a daughter is born in the Baili family, she will fall in love with her old enemy, the Golden Lion. She will not have a good end and she will implicate her loved ones," her father said, each word feeling like a knife being driven into the flesh.

"This..." Baili Weibu felt a buzzing in her ears, "What happened next?"

"The wife of the younger brother, who was pregnant, gave birth to a pair of twins. The baby boy is your great-grandfather, and the baby girl..." her father said regretfully. "When she grew up, she really fell madly in love with a Golden Lion."

"Is this the curse?" Baili Weibu felt slightly relieved. If that was all, it didn't seem so bad.

"If it was merely this, it wouldn't be called a curse," her father saw through her thoughts at a glance and continued, "Shortly after they fell in love, a strange illness befell the entire Baili family. They had high fevers and everything they ate tasted bitter; in short, it was unbearable suffering, and this condition lasted for three months before it ended. However, the youngest child in the entire Baili family at the time, her younger brother, was not so fortunate. He died, and when he died, his body was translucent and looked like a piece of opaque glass, as light as a feather. They tried to pick up his body, but as soon as they touched it, the child shattered into countless pieces, like glass that had fallen to the ground."

Baili Weibu's heart sank at the gruesome description.

"After this child died, misfortune struck another child in the Baili family. His eyes started to turn gray, everything he ate had no taste, he was always weak and lay in bed, exactly like the symptoms of the previous child," her father continued, looking at the flickering candle flame. "This curse not only causes suffering for the Baili family but also targets the youngest child in the family, killing them. If not broken, the Baili family members will die one by one in order of their age." He shook his head with sorrow. "The curse of the Golden Lion... in a way, it's our own fault."

"Then... what's the way to break it?" Baili Weibu asked urgently.

"The woman from the Baili family used the Flame Crystal Arrow, which appears once every ten years in the Baili family, to kill her beloved. She saved another dying child, but committed suicide in front of her lover's body." Drop by drop, wax trickled down the candles like tears and accumulated into a puddle on the platform. Her father continued heavily, "This is the solution. From then on, the Baili family does not allow the birth of female infants. So when it came to your great-grandfather's generation, in the name of hunting down the only remaining golden lion tribe, your great-grandfather left China. Since then, our family has shunned the world and lived in seclusion here. It was to protect his daughter, so she wouldn't be secretly killed by the Baili family due to the curse."

Baili Weibu felt a biting chill run down her spine. She had never known that behind her seemingly simple family, there was such a gruesome and cruel secret.

"We only set up a barrier here and didn't hunt down these last golden lion tribe," her father lowered his gaze and chuckled self-deprecatingly. "It's because we've always felt guilty."

"Dad..." Baili Weibu tightly held her father's hand, her heart suddenly constricted. "Ten years ago, did something happen in our family? That's the year my sister went missing!"

Her father patted her hand gently and said rather helplessly: "So what if you feel guilty, the power of the curse still exists. The reason your great-grandfather gave to have chosen to be 'neighbors' with the Golden Lions was surveillance, but in fact it was to protect them from being hunted by the Baili family again. At the same time, he also warned his children, especially the daughters, not to approach them. In short, for a long time, there was peace between our family and the Golden Lions. We even thought for a time that the curse might have faded away."

Baili Weibu quickly went over the events from ten years ago in her mind, the memories both clear and fuzzy, and a horrifying thought suddenly emerged. "Don't tell me... my sister fell in love with a Lion man?"

"That curse has never disappeared; it's like a ghost haunting the members of the Baili family. We never know when it will strike," her father said, his head hanging in anguish. "None of us expected that Weiqing would fall in love at first sight with that young Golden Lion man. By the time we realized it, it was already too late." He looked at his daughter. "Your memories of that winter ten years ago must be quite hazy because you had a high fever for a long time, and your little brother, Weiyu, has been bedridden since then."

"So, my sister..." Baili Weibu couldn't believe that her sister, who always had a gentle smile, would kill her own lover. But if she hadn't done so, according to the pattern of the curse, Weiyu wouldn't have survived to this day.

"She didn't kill him. That year happened to be the day when the Nine-Color Sunflower blooms once every ten years. These flowers are grown using the blood of centaurs, and when the juice from the stamens is used to coat our arrowheads, they are no longer ordinary golden arrows of the centaurs but Flame Crystal Arrows, capable of killing Golden Lions with a single touch. Only these arrows can truly kill the golden lion tribe. The Flame Crystal Arrow's power lasts for twenty-four hours. That winter, our fellow clan members from China arrived, starting another hunt under the pretext of saving your little brother. However, your sister used her own blood to set up various blocking barriers in the forest, delaying our time. When we finally found that Golden Lion man, it was already late in the evening of the next day, and the Flame Crystal Arrows were about to lose their power. At the critical moment, several Flame Crystal Arrows aimed at the target were blocked by another Golden Lion who suddenly leaped out... his mother. We ultimately lost the opportunity to hunt him and also lost Weiqing. She disappeared," her father said, looking at the ancestral memorial tablets towering in the shadows. "They extracted the blood of that lioness, cut her flesh, and combined it with various herbs to brew a potion, which they made Weiyu drink. While this medicine couldn't cure the root cause, it could at least prolong Weiyu's life, allowing him to survive until ten years later, when the Nine-Color Sunflower blooms again, and the Flame Crystal Arrows reappear. We can then kill the main culprit, completely breaking the curse's evil power," he continued, his eyes filled with complex emotions. "This year's Christmas Eve is also the day when the Nine-Color Sunflower blooms again."

Baili Weibu slumped to the ground, murmuring, "Why... didn't you ever tell me all of this…"

"This is not a good thing," her father's tone was heavy with guilt as he sat down as well. "Your mother and I only wished for you to live like ordinary people. But... the fate of hunters and the curse of the lion tribe has left us with no choice but to face it."

"That man... no, that lion, is he still in the forest?" Baili Weibu suddenly asked.

Her father gave a wry smile. "Silly girl. The person who brought your bracelet back is him!" He paused, "The Nine-Color Sunflower is about to bloom, and our kin arrived as scheduled. On the second day after their arrival, while 'strolling' in Biluo forest, they encountered a young female Golden Lion, who should be his younger or older sister. They seriously injured her with arrows. Although ordinary arrows cannot kill her, the arrows of our centaur clan naturally possess extraordinary power. Once she's hit, her entire body will be wracked with unbearable pain. Unless she is treated with our unique arrow wound medicine, she will suffer to the point of wishing for death."

"Are you saying he used my safety as leverage to get the arrow wound medicine from you?" Baili Weibu suddenly realized that the "classmate" who appeared out of the blue and their "chance meeting" was actually part of a hidden agenda.

"If I'm not mistaken, he lured you into the forest, created an invisible barrier with the golden lion tribe's magic to keep you circling in the woods, making sure you couldn't get out. We couldn't find you. Then, while you were asleep, he took something personal from you to bring it to me in exchange for the arrow wound medicine."

"Did you give it to him?" Baili Weibu asked in a low voice.

"I gave him a bottle," her father nodded. "I've already lost Weiqing, and I don't want anything else to happen to you. If necessary, I'll do things I don't want to do. I don't want to repeat the mistakes of the Baili family, but I have to protect my family." His expression changed, the soft lines on his face becoming cold and hard.

"Dad..." Baili Weibu's eyes welled up with tears, and she rested her head on her father's knee, just like when she was a child.

The candle had burned halfway down, and in the silence of the room, the flickering candlelight enveloped the closely bonded father and daughter, illuminating an infinite serenity before the storm.

The wooden box on the shrine shimmered, like a solemn and watchful eye, observing them in the room.

"Is there really no other way... other than hunting..." Baili Weibu felt that her head was heavy. As she murmured to herself, all she could see in her mind was the playful smile of that man when he looked at her, his concentration as he tended to the brown bear's wounds, and his hidden sadness she sensed in the cave...

The scent of his jacket still lingered on her body.

Even though he had deceived her, she couldn't bring herself to hate him, truly.

---

Footnotes:

[1] 成事不足，敗事有餘 (chéngshì bùzú, bàishì yǒuyú): Idiom - always failing, never succeeding; plenty of failures, but not much success.

[2] 婦人之仁 (fùrénzhīrén): Idiom - excessive tendency to clemency; soft-hearted [pejorative].

[3] Emperor Wu of Han was the seventh emperor of the Han dynasty from 141 to 87 BC.

[4] Kangxi is considered one of China's greatest emperors, reigning from 1661 to 1722.

---

Translator:

So the Bailis hunted down the Golden Lions for nearly 1800 years. That's genocide... 

Happy Halloween!👻

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Lion Hunting - Part 6

"Don't move!" Cen Kaiwen pressed down on Baili Weibu's hand, which was clutching the Swiss Army knife, and turned his head alertly. "Listen!"

Several meters away in the thicket behind them, there were rustling noises and heavy breathing. The frigid air carried a faint scent of blood.

While their eyes were still searching, a massive black shadow suddenly burst out of the bushes, landing heavily less than five meters away from them. It had two faintly crimson eyes that blinked like small lanterns.

Baili Weibu gasped - it was a young brown bear that was not yet fully grown, but was already ferocious enough.

By convention, these big guys should have hibernated by now. As far as Baili Weibu knew, the only reason a bear wouldn't hibernate was if it didn't have enough food reserves.

Under the moonlight, the brown bear suddenly stood up. Its enormous body twisted strangely in the darkness as it let out a roar.

Baili Weibu slowly moved in front of Cen Kaiwen and whispered through her clenched teeth, "Don't move randomly. If I tell you to run, run quickly and don't look back!"

Cen Kaiwen's eyes held a hint of surprise. After a moment, he tugged at Baili Weibu, who was acting as if facing a mortal enemy, and said softly, "It doesn't seem like it's here to attack us. Look at its left front paw."

On the paw raised high by the brown bear, there was a ring of coldly glistening iron pieces. Upon closer inspection, it was stained with blood.

Animal trap?!

Baili Weibu had seen this crude but effective contraption before. In Romania, hunting is legal.

Based on the biting force of this simple implement, if it were a deer or some other more fragile animal, once it ran into the trap, the iron teeth on the trap would have directly snapped their limb or neck upon impact.

"It's just injured," Cen Kaiwen said solemnly and took a step toward the brown bear.

Baili Weibu grabbed him and scolded him in a low voice: "Are you crazy?! An injured brown bear is ten times more ferocious than an uninjured one. You..."

The brown bear slumped down, sitting on the ground like a puddle of mud, panting heavily with labored breaths. Its injured front paw trembled in pain in front of it.

Cen Kaiwen turned a deaf ear to her warning. He pulled her hand away and walked towards the brown bear without any hesitation.

Surprisingly, the beast's eyes gradually lost their hostility as it looked at the approaching human. It stopped snarling and instead issued whimpering cries from its throat.

Cen Kaiwen walked up to the bear and even stooped to stroke its head as if trying to soothe it, murmuring something under his breath.

The brown bear gradually calmed down, its tongue slowly licking the wounds on its front paw.

Though the nerves of her whole body remained tense, Baili Weibu couldn't help but wonder at the bear's behavior, which seemed to defy common sense.

"It'll be fine soon," Cen Kaiwen said as he crouched down and firmly gripped the trap deeply embedded in the brown bear's flesh. He frowned slightly and exerted force with both hands in opposite directions.

There was a crisp snap, which was especially harsh in the silent forest.

The iron animal trap shattered into several pieces in his hands and fell powerlessly from the bear's paw to the ground.

Hot blood poured profusely from the bear's wound, staining the hands he held over the wound a deep red.

The brown bear let out a low growl, perhaps from pain or perhaps from the relief of being freed. Baili Weibu had no intention of distinguishing between the two. What she was concerned about now was the man in front of her and what kind of power, or perhaps courage, had driven him to perform such a fearless act.

It should be noted that with a simple, effortless swipe, the bear could easily have swatted off half of his head like hitting a soccer ball. Yet, he'd been fearless from start to finish, no fear whatsoever. As a newcomer and an ordinary person, this was illogical.

He tore a sleeve from his sweater and rolled it into a makeshift bandage, carefully tying it around the bear's wound to stop the bleeding.

After doing all this, he breathed a slight sigh of relief and patted the bear on the head: "Seeing as you are so strong, you will be fine in a few days. Be careful from now on, you may not be so lucky every time. Now go."

The brown bear shook its head, turning its bulky body as it got up. After a few attempts, it put its front paws on the ground, then limped away into the woods. After taking a few steps, it looked back at Cen Kaiwen, and its eyes were actually a bit wet.

Baili Weibu was sure she must be hallucinating. A wild brown bear that could understand human speech and even cried...

Cen Kaiwen waved at the bear, hinting it to leave quickly, his face devoid of any superfluous expression.

When the brown bear's figure and scent disappeared into the night, Baili Weibu rushed to him in a single big stride, looked him straight in the eyes and asked, "Who are you?"

"I'm not human," he suddenly smiled evilly. "This answer should be the most logical one."

"You..." She was left speechless by his response.

"Just like you're naturally unafraid of ghouls and bogies, I'm naturally unafraid of these animals." He put away his joking expression and said seriously, "Whether it's small animals or ferocious beasts, they're all quite friendly toward me. Perhaps they sense that I have no intention of hurting them, so they don't feel threatened by me. Animals all have their own spirituality," he added mysteriously.

"Really?" She was dubious.

"We're both freaks^[1]," He laughed heartily and then added, "It seems we won't be able to go home tonight. Let's hope we can find a way out after dawn."

"Let's hope we don't freeze to death before dawn," Baili Weibu said as she wrapped her jacket tighter. "Let's go to the cave we passed by earlier. It's better than standing out here like fools anyway."

Soon, the two of them found a sheltered spot inside the massive cave. The silence inside was so profound that you could hear a pin drop.

"You're so brave." After a brief silence, Cen Kaiwen gave Baili Weibu a playful thumbs-up, "Most other girls would definitely have fainted on the spot on seeing such a huge bear."

"Not as brave as you. Not only are you unafraid, but you also dared to treat the bear's injuries. You seem like such a refined person, but your hand strength is quite astonishing. You actually crushed the trap with your bare hands!" Baili Weibu turned her head to scrutinize him curiously. "How did you do that?"

"I suppose it was a spur-of-the-moment thing," he said, leaning comfortably against the cave wall. "Getting something like that stuck in your flesh hurts quite a bit. Humans should try it themselves; they'll know what it feels like."

Baili Weibu distinctly saw a chill in his eyes.

He stared blankly at the faint light coming in from outside and said to himself: "They just want to live quietly in their own homes. But even that isn't possible. Humans keep doing things that destroy homes and wipe out entire species—deforestation, hunting, it never ends. How disgusting." He turned his head to look at Baili Weibu, a different kind of smile playing on his face as he asked, "Isn't that right?"

Baili Weibu was stunned for a moment, then thought about it, nodded, and whispered: "It seems...like this."

She thought of the local hunters who used various methods to hunt and kill the animals in the forest. She recalled how they laughed proudly as they posed in front of the camera with the prey they'd caught, prey that had not yet completely died and their still bleeding wounds, taking photos in various victorious poses to keep as souvenirs. She remembered the brown bear's mournful cries earlier.

Suddenly, a heavy weight seemed to settle in her heart. It wasn't painful, but it felt suffocating.

There was another long silence between the two.

Baili Weibu leaned against the cold, hard stone wall, and waves of fatigue washed over her uncontrollably. She could no longer hold on and finally closed her eyelids, which felt as heavy as lead.

In her dreams, someone was calling her name. It was a woman, anxious and sorrowful, calling again and again... Weibu... Weibu…

It made her feel overwhelmingly sad.

It must be her sister, the sister she hadn't seen in so many years...

Cen Kaiwen looked at her, already slumped on the ground in sleep. Due to the cold, she instinctively curled up into a ball, shivering slightly. Her red lips occasionally moved as she talked in her sleep, murmuring words that no one could understand.

He took off his coat and gently covered her with it.

The whole world sank into a state of complete silence. He stood up and left the cave. He returned after a while, holding a bright red berry in his hand and gently placed it next to Baili Weibu. A refreshing, sweet smell wafted from the fruit and got into her slightly twitching nose...

---

Footnotes:

[1] guài wu: monster/freak/eccentric person. Kevin might've meant monsters considering their other identities.

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Lion Hunting - Part 5

Ten years ago.

Snowfall as dense as goose feathers; thick white blanketed the entire forest, stretching from the ground to the sky.

In Biluo forest, a man and a woman raced swiftly on the accumulated snow.

On the snow-covered ground they tread on, there were intertwining traces of crimson and dark green, vivid and heart-stopping.

Behind them, in places hidden from their sight, there were flickering flames, and there were surging figures beneath those flames, each urgent, each fierce.

After a while, the man and the woman stopped in front of a massive karst cave. The woman hurriedly pushed the man into the cave, her beautiful face filled with pain and reluctance: "Leave the rest to me; I won't let them hurt you!"

"Are you crazy? You can't go! I don't need a woman to protect me!" The man chased after her, blood flowing from a wound on his shoulder, green like flowing jade.

"The Nine-color Sunflower has already bloomed, and the Flame Crystal Arrow has emerged. You cannot match the centaurs! Once they find you, there will be no way out but death!" The woman tightly held the man's hand, her face flushing red, "Believe me, I'll find a way to avert this disaster."

"No!" The man firmly opposed, gripping her wrist. "Let's leave this place, leave Romania, and go far away!"

Tears welled up in the woman's eyes as she gazed at him. "Have you forgotten that you cannot leave this forest? You cannot break the barrier set up by the Baili family."

"Let me try!" There was a resolute and uncompromising determination in the man's eyes stronger than the Carpathian Mountains.

"I can keep them from hurting you!" The woman pleaded urgently. "You have to trust me! You'll be safe once tonight is over!"

"I don't need it!" The man's anger erupted in an instant.

In the midst of their argument, neither of them noticed the sudden appearance of two shadows behind them.

With a muffled thump and a lightning-quick strike, the man's neck went numb. His gaze froze on the woman's face as he slowly fell to the ground.

A middle-aged couple, wrapped in black robes and expressionless, helped him up—or more accurately, restrained him firmly.

"You..." The woman was initially startled but then bit her lip and said resolutely, "I'll handle this. Trust me. He'll be fine."

The couple ignored her, supporting the unconscious man and turning to leave. They were unwilling to say a word to her. In their eyes, there was only suppressed grief and indignation with a hint of helplessness.

"You… Please trust me!"

The falling snow grew heavier and heavier, so heavy that it drowned out the woman's voice along with the sound of her departing footsteps.

In the opposite direction, two lions with golden fur ran like the wind through the forest. Their dazzling colors resembled a sun leaving behind this world. On the back of one of them lay a man with closed eyes, murmuring, "Weiqing..."

In the basement of the Baili family, a shadow slipped in cautiously.

The beam of a flashlight strafed haphazardly across the ground as the figure stumbled through the winding corridor and stood before a tightly closed wooden door.

The glistening key sparkled in the darkness, and with a tinkling sound, the wooden door creaked open.

A beam of light illuminated a shrine-like pedestal behind the door. On it, a black lacquered wooden box adorned with intricate gold filigree sat prominently in the center. The smooth surface of the box seemed to have a flowing, water-like blue light, radiating an aura of untouchable solemnity.

The figure approached slowly, and the blue light on the wooden box gradually illuminated the frightened but still beautiful face.

She stood blankly in front of the wooden box, slowly extending her hand...

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Lion Hunting - Part 4

Today felt somewhat strange. On the shortcut she had walked countless times before, Baili Weibu got lost.

She led Cen Kaiwen back to the same spot multiple times. No matter which direction they took, they kept ending up in the irregular clearing surrounded by uneven spruce trees, sandwiched between a karst cave and a small lake.

Baili Weibu clearly remembered that every time she walked to this clearing, if she continued east for twenty minutes, she should be able to see the rooftop of Dati’s Restaurant.

But today, why were they going in circles? Moreover, every time they walked a certain distance, the fog in the forest grew thicker. Initially, it was as thin as gauze, but then it gradually became as thick as smoke. Standing by the lake, they could barely see within a ten-meter radius.

"I mean...did you perhaps take the wrong path?" Cen Kaiwen stopped and awkwardly cleared his throat.

Baili Weibu frowned and scratched her head in puzzlement, saying, "No way! I've walked this route countless times." She took a couple of steps forward and said doubtfully, "There shouldn't be such dense fog at this time. This is really strange."

"We're dead." Cen Kaiwen said with a helpless look at his watch, "It's already half past six." He raised his head and looked around, his face darkening before he suddenly lowered his voice and said to Baili Weibu: "I heard that there may be evil spirits or monsters that go against people in the forest after sunset. They use their powers to trap people in the forest, making them keep walking in circles and unable to get out."

"There's a vampire version too," Baili Weibu replied, turning around and pulling a face while deliberately showing her little tiger teeth, "This Romanian specialty likes to trap people in the forest and then sneakily bites their necks."

"Aren't you afraid at all?" Cen Kaiwen stared at her, raising an eyebrow.

"Not at all," she nodded earnestly. "I was born unafraid of these so-called ghouls and bogies. Strange, isn't it?" She rolled her eyes. "You boys just like to scare girls with these stories. Boring."

Cen Kaiwen looked into her crystal clear eyes, smiled, and didn’t say anything.

"But now I'm really stumped," Baili Weibu took a long breath. "No matter the reason, we're indeed lost now. After dark, the forest is full of dangers. You've just arrived and don't know how serious it can get here."

"So what should we do? Should we try to backtrack?" Cen Kaiwen looked at the dimly lit path that seemed to stretch endlessly into the dense forest and pulled out his phone as he spoke.

"You don't happen to want to call for help, do you?" Baili Weibu waved her hand at him. "There's no signal here."

Cen Kaiwen ignored her, tapped his phone a few times, then held it high and walked back and forth in the open area, saying, "I'm using the GPS on my phone to determine our current location. Hopefully, it will help."

However, he walked back and forth for a while and eventually lowered his hand in frustration, shaking his phone while muttering, "Shit! Can't even pick up a single signal bar."

"Don't bother searching anymore. Let's try another path," Baili Weibu picked up a few small black stones from the ground and arranged them into a triangle under a tree on the left. She turned to Cen Kaiwen and said, "Make a marker so we don't walk in circles. Let's go."

But thirty minutes later, they found themselves back at the lake.

The sky had turned completely dark. The forest at night was as dark as the abyss, and a pallid moonlight on the horizon made everything in front of them eerie and cold, unlike the human world. Cen Kaiwen was breathing slightly heavily, and he struck a nearby tree trunk with his fist, unable to conceal his frustration.

Baili Weibu sat down her butt under a tree, totally exhausted from their repeated rapid attempts to move forward.

"Are you still not afraid?" Cen Kaiwen leaned against the tree trunk, observing Baili Weibu's exhausted yet composed profile under the moonlight, with a hint of a deeper meaning in his eyes.

"I don't have time to be afraid," she stuck her tongue out at him and said straightforwardly, "I led you into this forest, so it's my responsibility to get you out."

"You've got quite the spirit," Cen Kaiwen smiled faintly. "But what can you do now? We've almost explored every path in this forest."

The eerie howls of wild beasts echoed, sometimes far, sometimes near. In this forest, they were not grand humans who dominate everything but potential prey in constant danger of losing their lives.

Baili Weibu stood up and looked up at Cen Kaiwen, who was a head taller than her. Something moved in her eyes and she seemed to have made a major decision, abruptly asking, "If I had a bow and arrow hidden in my hands, do you believe it could lead us out of this maze?"

Cen Kaiwen stared blankly for a moment and then responded with a smile: "Are you reciting poetry from some poet?"

Baili Weibu didn't respond. Instead, she fished out an exquisite and compact Swiss Army knife from her school bag, and opened it with a snap...

A glint of gold suddenly flashed in Cen Kaiwen's eyes.

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Lion Hunting - Part 3

For three consecutive days, Baili Weibu did not run into her new schoolmate, the guy named Cen Kaiwen, at school.

Could it be that he chose another school? Or perhaps he fell ill due to the change in environment? Or...

Wait, whatever for should she care about an inconsequential person?

Baili Weibu swept back her hair, carried a stack of books in her arms, adjusted the strap of her school bag, bid goodbye to a few passing classmates, and yawned as she walked out of the school gate.

For the third time in her life, her family had visitors again. It wasn't the beautiful Chinese woman from years ago; this time, there were five Chinese people – an elderly man with gray hair, a middle-aged couple, and two young men who were not yet thirty. They were all dressed in double-breasted Tang suits, and reticent.

Her parents treated these guests with a warmth tinged with a different kind of respect.

Looking at these visitors, Baili Weibu vaguely remembered that they seemed to have come ten years ago. She must have seen them, but she wasn’t too sure as that memory was too vague.

The five of them stayed for ten days without any sign of leaving, as if they were waiting for something. She asked her parents why these people were there and when they would depart, but her father only said they were relatives from China on a trip, and they would leave once they were done sightseeing.

However, on the evening of the day after their arrival, while she was in the attic getting something, she heard an argument coming from her parents' room.

"But...for so many years, they've been content with their lot," her mother's voice sounded weak.

"Have you forgotten that curse? Look at Weiyu's^[1] current state, do you think your son can survive another ten years? On Christmas Eve, the Nine-color Sunflower will bloom, and we have no choice." The voice was elderly and deep, not to be defied.

Curious, Baili Weibu stopped at the door, intending to eavesdrop further. Unexpectedly, the door suddenly swung open, and the middle-aged woman appeared in front of her with a stern face.

She chuckled awkwardly a couple of times and tactfully headed downstairs.

In truth, she had no interest in prying into their seemingly senseless conversation. She had no real interaction with these uninvited guests. Apart from politely addressing them as "grandfather" or "uncle" or "aunt," Baili Weibu had no communication with them at all. She only hoped they would leave soon.

She genuinely didn't like these people, even if her parents claimed they were relatives.

After leaving school, Baili Weibu didn't go home but headed to a nearby clinic. When she came out, she had several packets of red and white pills in her hand.

"Are you sick?"

Her line of sight was completely blocked by a tall figure.

"You think appearing and disappearing unpredictably like a ghost is fashionable?" She glared at Cen Kaiwen, who had once again appeared out of nowhere. Today, this chap was wearing a black coat, a black sweater, and black jeans. Coupled with his figure and facial features, he looked as cool as the Grim Reaper in a movie, strangely handsome.

"I haven't completed the admission procedures yet, so I can only start school next week." He shrugged helplessly, "I'm on my way to the Kaya Hotel at Sinaia Sanatorium to find someone, and I was asking for directions when I saw you."

"Kaya Hotel?" Baili Weibu chuckled. "You're lucky to run into me. The restaurant where I often work part-time is just a five-minute walk from the Kaya Hotel."

"Where is the restaurant where you work?" Cen Kaiwen looked a bit embarrassed. "I'm new here..."

"Let's go!" Baili Weibu patted his shoulder. "Only someone with my impeccable character would personally escort you to your destination."

He looked at her playful and exaggerated expression, slightly taken aback, and then smiled and shook his head.

The weather had grown colder, and pedestrians outside were all bundled up in thick coats, hurrying home.

Baili Weibu led him, intending to cross through the Biluo forest. She had walked this path countless times, and it was the shortest route to the sanatorium.

The footsteps of the two of them echoed on the forest path as they stepped on fallen leaves and dry branches, making a rhythmic crunching sound. The sun had already sunk halfway below the horizon, casting a dim light in the quiet forest.

"You still haven't answered me. Are you sick?" Cen Kaiwen asked as they walked.

Baili Weibu shook her head. "These are medicines for my younger brother. He had a serious illness ten years ago, and his health has been poor ever since. He has to take medication year-round."

"How old is your brother?" he inquired.

"He's four years younger than me, thirteen years old."

"That's really unfortunate," he said, suddenly sounding a bit distracted.

"He's an adorable little medicine jar^[2]," she smiled and optimistically tilted her head back. "There must be a way to cure him."

The last glimmer of the sun pierced through the treetops and fell onto Cen Kaiwen's face, casting mottled shadows that concealed his expression.

---

Footnotes:

[1] 未雨( wèi yǔ): wei is not yet/future, yu is rain. So, Weiyu can be interpreted as "preparing for future rain" or "making provisions for the future."

[2] 药罐子: pot for decocting herbal medicine; (figurative) chronic invalid.

---

Translator:

And the award for Crappiest Namers goes to...the Baili family🏆 

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Lion Hunting - Part 2

Roxana High School was a no-name school in the city of Sinaia, with a total of only one hundred students. It was an ordinary school with ordinary teachers and ordinary students, just like a snowy winter - all the same^[1].

The first time Baili Weibu met him was on the rooftop of the main teaching building.

She skipped class. The blackboard filled with formulas and numbers, and the math teacher splattering spittle everywhere, made her drowsy.

On a late autumn afternoon, hiding on the rooftop to bask in the sun was a great pleasure. Baili Weibu propped herself up with her hands on the ground, squinting her eyes as she looked up, and swayed comfortably with her feet dangling outside the guardrail.

"You might fall if there’s a gust."

Beside her, a slender figure appeared at some point, blocking the sunlight coming from the side. The sudden voice was gentle, but it startled her, and the earphones of her iPod, stuck in her ears, were pulled halfway when she turned her head.

"Relax, I'm not a teacher coming to catch you." The person beside her looked at her with amusement. A pair of eyes with attractive double eyelids twinkling like lake water, and his thin lips curved slightly, forming a charming smile.

He seemed to be Chinese, at least his appearance was Eastern. He was not older than twenty, with a height no less than 180 centimeters. He was wearing a well-tailored white shirt and jeans with a light blue plaid sweater draped casually on his shoulders. His black hair, reaching down to his neck, had a natural slight curl, and in the sunlight, there were a few strands of reddish-gold color hidden within. The combination of understated black and flamboyant gold complemented each other perfectly.

He stood at the edge of the rooftop, tall and confident, speaking fluent Chinese.

Baili Weibu had never known of any other Chinese person in the school besides herself.

"Who are you?" She pulled her feet back, scrambled to her feet in a fluster, and stared at him warily.

"Your gaze is like you're looking at a kidnapper," he turned towards her, took a step closer, and fixed his gaze on her. "Do I look that scary?"

"All beasts in human skin look good!" Baili Weibu blurted out, and told off as she backed away, "Who are you anyway? Stay right there! Don't come any closer! Or I'll call for help!"

Ignoring her warning, he took a swift step forward and unexpectedly grabbed her arm. With a gentle tug, she collided with a warm and broad chest.

Baili Weibu was momentarily stunned and cursed: "You loathsome scoundrel!" Then she promptly pushed him away, her face turning as red as a tomato.

"Being a scoundrel is better than watching you fall from this high up," he said without a trace of anger. There was obvious tolerance in his deep black eyes as he lifted his chin to point behind her. "Look for yourself."

Baili Weibu turned around skeptically and saw that there was a gap in the railings behind her, which she hadn't noticed before. If she had taken one more step back, she might really have fallen from a high altitude.

"You... I..." She wanted to say thank you, but the words just wouldn't come out. If it weren't for him suddenly appearing, she would still be comfortably sunbathing.

"My name is Cen Kaiwen^[2], but everyone calls me Kevin. I just came from China and plan to study at Roxana. Today, I'm here to go through the formalities and decided to explore a bit," he said, holding out his hand towards her in a friendly manner, "What's your name? We'll be schoolmates from now on."

Baili Weibu breathed a sigh of relief, her expression much better than moments ago. She said in rebuke, "There are beautiful rivers and mountains everywhere here, why did you have to come to this lousy rooftop! My name is Baili Weibu."

"People surnamed Baili are quite rare," Cen Kaiwen remarked with some surprise, then added with a smile, "But you're very cute."

What does a surname have to do with being cute? This person's words were really inconsistent. However, being genuinely called cute by someone was always a pleasure.

Checking the time, Baili Weibu stuck out her tongue and waved to him, "Alright, take your time exploring. I have to go back. Since we're both Chinese, I won't hold today's incident against you. If you ever need help from a fellow countryman in the future, just come find me." Then she hurried downstairs.

Cen Kaiwen watched her hurriedly leave with a smile on his face. It took a miniscule time for the smile on his face to solidify and fade away.

He walked in silence to the rooftop's edge, gazing at the silhouette of the distant mountains, and spoke into the air, "I found her. Zero-level reaction, zero-level resistance, zero-level lethality, a completely unawakened hunter."

As the sunlight gradually dimmed, the wind coming towards him blew his fine hair away from his forehead, revealing an S-shaped golden mark, faintly glowing on his forehead.

A profound and even worldly aura, completely at odds with his age, permeated every line on his body, making him seem like an entirely different person from moments ago...

He took a deep breath and jumped off the rooftop.

---

Footnotes:

[1] qiān piān yī lǜ: Idiom - stereotyped and repetitive; once you've seen one, you've seen them all.

[2] The word cén means small hill. kǎi=joyful; kind. wén=language; culture; writing; gentle. So, Kaiwen can be interpreted as "amiable and cultured" or perhaps "friendly and knowledgeable."

---

Translator:

No points for guessing who Kevin is🦁

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Lion Hunting - Part 1

On the way home from Dati's Restaurant, Baili^[1] Weibu^[2] had to traverse a snowy forest every day, walking alone along the brook that never fully froze. Occasionally, the commotion from unidentified animals could be heard amidst the tall spruce trees.

In the early winter of Bucegi Mountains, aside from the constant flow of tourists at the Sinaia Sanatorium, there was grand silence everywhere.

Today was December 23rd, the last day before Christmas Eve. Baili Weibu, carrying a huge backpack, hurried deeper into the woods. She looked around warily as she walked.

She had to see him before Christmas Eve arrived!

Roxana High School started its winter break last week. On the second day of the school break, Baili Weibu rushed to find a job at Dati's Restaurant near the sanatorium. The restaurant owner, Raphael, was a kind uncle who resembled KFC’s Colonel Sanders. He always used his loud voice to praise Baili Weibu to the diners as the Chinese angel sent to him by God - smart, beautiful, and most importantly, hardworking.

When others showered her with compliments, Baili Weibu would just smile sweetly and not say much.

The Baili family had a motto consisting of just two words - "low-key."

Speaking of the Baili family, Baili Weibu had always found it hard to understand her ancestors. She was a pure-blooded Chinese, with her great-grandparents, grandparents, and parents all being Chinese. A century ago, the Baili family had migrated from China to Romania, settling in a remote area of the Bucegi Mountains on the outskirts of what is now Sinaia. For a century, the family had lived a secret and low-key life in a three-story Chinese-style building hidden in the dense Eastern Europe forest. Except for essential activities such as work, school, and shopping, the people of the Baili family almost never ventured outside. For a hundred years, they have always stuck to this forestland called "Biluo^[3]" with an unknown perseverance and persistence.

The name of this forest was given by her great-grandfather.

"He searched thoroughly up in the blue beyond, as well as down in the Yellow Springs below the earth, but did not spot her in the vastness of either place." - Baili Weibu knew the name of the forest came from Bai Juyi's poem^[4].

It was indeed an unusual pairing to give an ancient Chinese name to an Eastern European forest.

From Baili Weibu's birth until now, seventeen years had passed, and her family had only had guests three times. The most memorable was in the summer when she graduated from primary school. A Chinese woman with long black hair, a beautiful face, and graceful figure, dressed in a black dress. She talked to Baili Weibu's parents in hushed tones, so Baili Weibu didn't know what they discussed.

Baili Weibu frowned as she looked at this unfamiliar woman. From the woman's radiant smile, she sensed a hesitation to speak.

When the woman left, Baili Weibu hid behind the door, watching her mother tightly hold the woman's hand and reluctantly ask, "Is there really no other way? We've already lost Weiqing^[5]. I'm afraid that in the future... Weibu will end up like her sister."

She also saw her father, who always had a gentle smile, frowning for the first time as he looked at the woman with an eager, expectant gaze, as if hoping for a rescue.

"I just came to see an old friend today." The woman smiled and said calmly, "Since you named her Weibu, let her choose every step of her own future."

Then, Baili Weibu distinctly saw the woman turn her head and capture her surreptitious glance with a captivating, deep gaze. The woman's light rose-colored lips moved slightly.

Was she speaking to herself? She had only moved her lips slightly, but a clear voice resonated in her ears - "Summon your true courage, hunter."

After the woman left, there was a long period during which no outsiders came to her home. To be precise, even if they wanted to come, they couldn't. Baili Weibu never invited classmates over to her house to play. Some meddlesome boys had once tried to secretly follow this Chinese girl, but they ended up getting lost each time. As soon as Baili Weibu stepped into "Biluo," those stupid chaps could no longer see her trace. The tall trees seemed to come alive, blocking their path.

The Baili family did not permit outsiders to enter.

Because in their veins flowed the blood of centaurs. They were natural-born hunters, isolated from the world, existing only for their own destiny.

---

Footnotes:

[1] 百里(Baili) is a surname. But as a noun, it means long distance or literally, a hundred li(unit of distance).

[2] 未步: Wei means not yet/future, bu means step/pace/walk. So Weibu can be interpreted as "steps for the future" or "journey ahead."

[3] 碧落(Blue Sky): generally refers to the Sky (Heaven).

[4] 上窮碧落下黃泉，兩處茫茫皆不見. From the Song of Everlasting Regret in 806 CE, by poet Bai Juyi. It details the events surrounding the death of the lady Yang Guifei in 755. She was the beloved concubine of the Emperor Xuanzong of Tang. You can read the translation here.

[5] 未晴: Wei is not yet; qing is clear; fine(weather). So Weiqing can be interpreted as "not yet clear" or "waiting for clear skies."

---

Translator:

Centaur x Golden Lion, wow! 

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Lion Hunting - Introduction

I was awakened by the alternating howls of Fatty and Skinny.

The moon was half covered by clouds, dyeing the night sky in a mist. A cluster of gardenia flowers in the backyard was trampled at a crazy angle by some barbaric force. Under the eaves of the kitchen, there was a pile of cracked tiles stained with moss lying in disarray. Fatty and Skinny were cowering in the corner, their faces filled with terror. Skinny tried his best to squeeze behind Fatty, pushing and drilling in, saying: "The fat one is delicious! The fat one is delicious!"

I straightened the crooked nightcap on my head and carefully examined the colossus standing in the backyard clearing—

A lion.

Alive.

It stood less than three meters away from me. Its massive body had the most perfectly sculptured lines in history. It was steady and solid, as motionless as a mountain. Its long mane danced in the night breeze, subtly displaying the arrogance and wildness of the king of beasts in its rhythmic undulations.

The lion's fur was the color of gold, filling my eyes with its brilliance.

Even in the dim night, its radiance could not be diminished. If it were daytime, under the blazing sun, this creature before me would undoubtedly be the center of everyone's attention.

In my eyes, a tree demon with a fanatical possessive desire for gold, it was not a lion, but simply a moving, breathing nugget of gold.

The lion's eyes were more captivating than any obsidian I have ever seen, possessing a deep, swirling blackness that seemed to have the power to draw the soul of anyone who met its gaze into a bottomless void.

As a fairly well-traveled tree demon who has encountered countless wonders and oddities, I have to admit that even I was left in awe this time.

A lion as beautiful as this, with a color as dazzling as gold, and eyes as black as gemstones, hey, could it be...

Hold on! Regardless of its origin, my "Unceasing" is just a dessert shop, and I have no intention of transforming it into a zoo.

My shop only welcomes customers who come to taste desserts and enjoy a cup of Fleeting Life tea. It does not welcome a lion, especially not a reckless lion that appeared out of the blue so late at night, smashing my roof tiles and trampling my flowers to death!

The "frozen" lion suddenly shook its head, and its golden mane was like a shining sun. It seemed to take a deep breath, locked its gaze on me, and then approached me step by step.

The lion's face became clearer and clearer, and I could even see my reflection in its eyes. Waves of hot air exhaled from its mouth and nose, gently warming my skin.

The feeling of being approached by a live lion was neither fun nor romantic.

From its sub-zero gaze, I couldn't discern its true intentions. All I could see was a layer of anxiety cloaked in danger and some kind of desire.

It was getting closer and closer to me.

Behind me, Skinny, who was fleeing ignominiously, was yelling: "Boss, hold on! We'll go call 110, 119 and 120^[1] for help!!"

The moon was completely swallowed by the clouds, and the last traces of light in the sky vanished...

---

Footnotes:

[1] Emergency numbers in China. 110 - Police; 119 - Fire brigade; 120 - Ambulance.

---

Translator:

What a sight it would be! A golden lion...

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