Chapter 65: Blood

Hamoyin went out today, carrying all his hunting tools to kill Gongduo.

Nagu, clearly worried, tried to persuade Hamoyin to take her to the market with him, but unexpectedly, he cold-heartedly said, “I won’t let you come with me. If you don’t listen, I’ll tie you up.”

She understood that Hamoyin would really tie her up, so she eventually gave up on the idea of following him. But how long would he be gone?

Nagu lay on the platform outside the treehouse, looking out.

Would he and Duogaluo be successful? Nagu lay there, thinking about it. She knew Hamoyin was very capable and reliable, but she couldn’t help but worry. Duogaluo too—if he also wanted to kill Azuran, how long would it take?

Only if Azuran died could she and Hamoyin leave. Thinking of this, Nagu couldn’t help but sigh. She finally felt a strong impatience towards Azuran, whom she had barely met. It was all because of him that Hamoyin wouldn’t leave with her.

So annoying…

After lying on the platform and eating a few fruits, Nagu felt extremely bored. Hamoyin had left at dawn; would he not return until after dark?

But she was wrong about that. Hamoyin hurried back in the afternoon with some unwashed blood on him and several animal carcasses strapped to his back and waist.

“You came back so early.” Nagu looked at the man in surprise as he unloaded the small deer from his back. “I thought…”

“I hurried back as soon as I could.”

And he brought back so much game as well? Nagu even began to suspect that Hamoyin hadn’t gone to the market at all. “Did Duogaluo say anything else today? And what about Gongduo? Did you kill him?”

Hamoyin grunted in response and started dealing with the game he had brought back.

Nagu wanted to ask about the details, but Hamoyin didn’t answer her. His method of handling the game was hurried and restless, which made her uneasy. “Are you feeling unwell?” She squatted beside him, watching him pull out the innards of the game. Normally, Hamoyin was very methodical when handling game, never like this.

Hamoyin shook his head.

It seemed like he was in a bad mood today. Nagu pouted and remained silent for a while, then cautiously asked, “Did something happen?”

“No.” Hamoyin’s tone was somewhat stiff, and he cut the meat even faster. “I’ll cut the meat, and then I’ll go out… to dig up some food. When it rains, put the bucket on the platform to collect rainwater. I’ve left some extra firestones on the platform, and don’t open the skylight.”

“Huh?” Why was he suddenly giving such instructions? Nagu felt even more uneasy. “What do you mean? Why are you telling me this?”

“I’m going out for a few days. You’ll stay here alone.” Hamoyin stood up and turned to walk inside. Naturally, Nagu stood up to follow him, but he pushed her back a few steps, causing her to fall heavily to the ground.

“…”

Nagu had never expected to be pushed so roughly by Hamoyin. At this moment, she was more shocked than upset. With her eyebrows drooping and her voice unsteady, she asked the equally stunned Hamoyin, “Did I do something wrong?”

“I’m sorry… I just, just these past few days, you…” Hamoyin kept retreating as he spoke. Normally, he would have rushed over to pick Nagu up, but now he had no intention of helping her. “You should stay away from me.”

Feeling wronged, Nagu got up from the ground, her butt still aching a bit. “Why?”

Hamoyin looked at the girl in front of him, her eyes slightly red, and swallowed hard. He just shook his head and retreated into the house.

Something was really off. What was going on? Despite her experience of being pushed down, Nagu still worriedly approached Hamoyin. “Is it that medicine making you feel unwell? If you’re not feeling well, we can go ask Duogaluo?”

“No, don’t come any closer.” Afraid he might push her again, Hamoyin clenched his fists tightly behind his back. Sweat was already beginning to bead on his forehead. “Listen to me.”

“But what’s wrong with you?” Seeing Hamoyin like this, Nagu had no choice but to stop. “You suddenly say you’re going away for a few days. Where are you going? Are you abandoning me?”

“No!” Hamoyin raised his voice in urgency. “No… I just, I just need to go away for a while. I’ll be back in a few days, five days at most, really.”

Nagu pouted. “At least tell me the reason. What’s going on?”

Hamoyin shook his head again, his fists clenching tighter. He should have known that the medicine for treating his severed limb would force his shedding time to come early, and naturally, other things would follow…

Seeing Nagu’s worried and upset expression, he felt tormented. Besides his usual desire to cherish her, those rough instincts were also surfacing uncontrollably. Today, he could still hold back, but in a couple of days, it would be different.

“It’s just that I can’t stay with you these days. It’s too dangerous.”

Hamoyin said hoarsely. “But I won’t be far. If you call out loudly from outside the house, I’ll hear you.”

“Hamoyin.” Seeing how uncomfortable he looked, Nagu couldn’t help but move a bit closer to him. But with every step she took forward, Hamoyin would take a step back, like trying to catch a pigeon on the roadside. “What’s wrong? Just tell me, or I’ll keep worrying.”

“No…” Hamoyin hadn’t expected that the same thing would happen again today after being forced to hide his tail and retreat into the house yesterday. He regretted applying the medicine so early. He stared intently at Nagu, afraid she might suddenly pounce on him and hug him. “There’s no need to worry. It’s normal.”

“Normal? But you’re sweating and wanting to leave. I don’t think that’s normal!”

“…It’s really normal. This happens every once in a while.”

“Every once in a while?” Nagu repeated, frowning. “Every once in a while, you have to go out? Is it because of the shedding?”

“No.” Hamoyin resisted looking at Nagu. He felt humiliated, but if he didn’t say anything, Nagu would keep worrying and pestering him, making things even more complicated. “I… like other animals, at certain times will…”

His voice grew quieter.

“…go into heat…”

It took a lot of courage for Hamoyin to tell Nagu this. He knew Nagu accepted him as a monster, but this kind of thing felt like something she shouldn’t know about, fearing she would find it disgusting. “So I have to go outside. I can’t stay here.”

Nagu’s mouth hung open in shock. After a long pause, she stammered, “So, so… so you… you need to go outside to find other, uh… other people to mate with?”

“No!” Hamoyin immediately refuted. “I’m not going out to do that.”

“Then why do you need to leave?” Nagu’s mind was overloaded, realizing that all of Hamoyin’s actions were symptoms of being in heat. Her whole body started to heat up. Duogaluo was right; Hamoyin really does have a mating season…

Hamoyin finally looked directly at Nagu, unconsciously licking his dry lips. “Before, it was just me here. I could endure it for five days, and it would be fine. But now that you’re here, I can’t stay.”

Nagu was once again in a daze.

“I won’t go far. If anything happens, just call me. I can hear you.”

“It’s a normal phenomenon, so don’t worry.”

As he spoke, Hamoyin lowered his gaze again, grabbed a few sharp wooden arrows, and quickly walked along the edge of the room toward the door.

Nagu watched Hamoyin’s back. Perhaps because his body was in a sensitive period, his usually straight back was slightly hunched as if he was enduring something. She remembered Duogaluo once saying that Hamoyin ultimately had the blood of a beast, and his instincts were an inherent flaw he couldn’t suppress.

Couldn’t he suppress it? Hamoyin had even hurried back after realizing he was in heat, bringing back enough game for several days so he could leave for a few days to endure his heat rather than losing control like an animal.

“Hamoyin,” Nagu called out as she watched him prepare to climb down from the platform outside. Her cheeks were flushed, turning her light brown skin a different shade. “I can help you…”

What do you mean by help me? Hamoyin paused, looking at Nagu in confusion. “What?”

“…I mean,” Nagu twisted her fingers, her eyes blinking at Hamoyin. “You need that, right? That… mating?”

Hamoyin felt like his head was about to explode.

Chapter 66 Rationality

“No.” Hamoyin forced himself to calm down. On the first day of his heat in previous years, he had never felt so tormented, at most just dry mouth and a dizzy head. But now, the female he desired was standing just a few steps away. If he relaxed even a little, he might have already pounced on her.

“Why not me?” Nagu looked at Hamoyin, who was about to climb down the tree, feeling both shy and anxious. “Don’t you like me? Are you going to find another girl? Is that why I can’t?”

“No…” There were no other girls. Hamoyin looked at the even more anxious Nagu, feeling his chest tremble. At this moment, her scent and the sounds she made seemed to be magnified several times. He knew this was because his sensitivity to the opposite sex increased during his heat. Now, every move Nagu made was attractive to him. “I… I won’t look for anyone else.”

“Then why can’t I?”

By now, Nagu had lost all sense of shame. She rushed over and grabbed Hamoyin’s wrist. Only after getting this close did Nagu notice the subtle differences in Hamoyin’s body. The initially light golden eye color had turned somewhat closer to a golden brown, and the beast-like slit pupils seemed to have become sharper.

Moreover, it seemed like he was emanating a kind of cloying scent, not exactly a fragrance but not unpleasant either, a sweet and somewhat musty smell with a hint of bloodiness.

Is it to attract potential partners that they emit this kind of scent?

Nagu felt that she had become addicted just by smelling it once. She couldn’t help but sniff a few more times, and Hamoyin naturally noticed this subtle action.

The place where she was caught felt like it was burning, her scent mingling with his and flooding into Hamoyin’s nostrils. Her flushed cheeks, her voice trembling with urgency, her pupils filled with his reflection, and the fine sweat emerging from her palms.

Hamoyin felt like he was going crazy, instinctively trying to take over his rationality, forcing him to pin Nagu to the ground, bite her neck, and compel her to accept him, continuously possessing her until her entire body was filled with only his scent, making it impossible for anyone else to get close.” Y-you… let go of me.”

Hamoyin stared intently at the wrist held by Nagu. In fact, if he really struggled, Nagu’s strength wouldn’t be enough to hold him. It was just that his body wouldn’t cooperate; he didn’t want to shake off Nagu’s hand, even though he kept telling Nagu to let go.

Nagu tightened her grip even more: “If you want me to let go, answer me one question.”

“What is it?” At this point, Hamoyin’s voice was as hoarse as two dry branches rubbing against each other. His mind and eyes were filled only with Nagu, and he considered it a miracle that he could maintain his sanity in such a situation.

“Here, women can choose their preferred male partners to reproduce after they come of age. If I choose another man, would you mind?”

“It wouldn’t be… It’s perfectly normal for you to choose a human man.”

“Then I’ll choose a strong man, have his children, maybe not just one, but two or three.” Nagu said while watching Hamoyin’s increasingly furrowed brows. “Is that perfectly normal for you?”

‘Yes, perfectly normal,’ the words stuck in Hamoyin’s throat, unable to go up or down. Just thinking about another man pressing his Nagu under his body made him want to snap that man’s neck and scrape all the meat off his bones.

Seeing Hamoyin pressing his lips together without speaking, Nagu persisted. Today, she wanted to know exactly what she meant to Hamoyin: “Tell me the truth. After you tell me the truth, you can go wherever you want. I won’t stop you.”

“I…!” He heard the disappointment in Nagu’s tone, so he tightened his grip on her hand. “I don’t want to go anywhere, I… I…”

In the end, the man who had always held firm gave up. He looked unwaveringly at the girl waiting for an answer: “I mind. I don’t want you to choose someone else. Before… you and Duogaluo, I really didn’t like him being so close to you.”

“Even though I’m a monster, I’ve fantasized because you were always so good to me, never minding what I am, so I fantasized that maybe you might choose me.”

“I, I really like you. I hope to be the one who takes care of you and protects you forever, but…”

“No buts!” Nagu suddenly hugged the still-stuttering Hamoyin tightly. “I heard you say you like me!”

Hamoyin, who was being hugged, felt dizzy. She hadn’t gained much weight yet, so she felt light and thin when hugged, but very warm, with that familiar scent.

“I like you, and you like me too, so since you’re in heat, I naturally should help you!” Nagu, fearless, rubbed against Hamoyin in her arms. “Otherwise, what if you can’t hold back and go find other women later?”

“I don’t have anyone else…” The tension that had been holding Hamoyin together finally broke when the girl in her arms kept squirming. With a hoarse voice, she firmly grasped Nagu’s waist and, before she could react, pinned her down on the grass mat. “I only have you.”

Mixed with that faintly sweet and fishy scent, it sprayed onto Nagu’s face. Before she could even gasp in surprise, her mouth was already firmly bitten by Hamoyin.

I was kissed!! Kissed by Hamoyin!!!

Nagu didn’t care how roughly Hamoyin was sucking on her lips; she felt so happy she could faint. It turned out Hamoyin liked her, too.

“I discovered something.” Nagu, slumped in Hamoyin’s arms as he helped her wash her body, was sitting in the shallow water. They had gotten all sticky from their earlier antics, so Hamoyin had carried Nagu to the riverbank.

“What?” Hamoyin hadn’t reacted much earlier, but now he blushed with shame.

“You are right-handed, aren’t you?” Nagu looked up at Hamoyin’s chin. “But you like using your left hand!”

“……”

Hamoyin was so embarrassed he was almost steaming. He didn’t answer Nagu, just lowered his head to scoop water and wash the back of the person in his arms.