Chapter 33 The Little Wolf Cub
Memory yanked me hard, back more than ten years.
Back then I was still the Qin Ye who said one word and that was law in the west of the city. He was the Little Wolf Cub I had picked up.
When he first came home with me, he was thorns all over.
Even sleeping at night he stayed on guard. The slightest sound would jolt him awake.
Later, I didn't know from when, he slowly eased up.
Sometimes I drank too much entertaining people and came back in the middle of the night, and I would see him curled on the sofa with a book, waiting for me.
When he heard the door open, he lifted his head. In those pretty eyes there was a concern that was hard to catch.
His mouth, though, was stiff. "I thought you died out there."
Once he ran a high fever, burning until he was muddled, and I watched him for a night.
He grabbed my wrist. The strength was shocking. His scalding forehead pressed against the back of my hand, and he mumbled, out of it, "Qin Ye... don't go..."
And on his eighteenth birthday, I gave him a watch that wasn't expensive, but practical.
He didn't say much, but the light in those always stubborn eyes—I still remember it.
Back then, he would still occasionally look at me with that kind of dependence, even... trust.
Only later... everything changed.