Chapter 439 - 385: Emptied Out the Family Savings for Her
Chapter 439: Chapter 385: Emptied Out the Family Savings for Her
As evening approached, lights began to switch on one by one across the city districts. The streets were more crowded than ever, even busier than during the day.
The 12th District was considered a tourist city. It was not only a major producer of seafood but also a natural cold storage, making it easy to store food and other supplies that required low temperatures. Besides Zone 19 to the far Northwest—the most remote of all districts—the 12th District was the Beast Alliance’s northernmost and most distant region. However, its development was in a completely different league from Zone 19’s, thanks to various forms of support from the Beast Alliance, as well as its highly sophisticated logistics and transportation systems.
Trucks of all sizes transported goods day and night, exporting the district’s own specialties while importing all sorts of supplies from other regions, especially fruits and vegetables.
At night, there was no curfew. The Ice and Snow City Wall, with its entrances and exits open twenty-four hours a day, would light up with a brilliant glow from top to bottom, inside and out. It was like a silver ring encircling the Inner District, turning the city into a metropolis of ice, snow, and night.
As the wall lit up, the city lights spread from the inside out, merging with the Ice and Snow City Wall to form a continuous sea of light.
Snowflakes drifted from the night sky into this sea of light, landing on one of the shimmering "dots of light."
`BZZT...` After a few soft crackles of an unstable current, the streetlamp on the corner went `POP!` and illuminated the SUV parked by the roadside and the Beastman leaning against it.
He had a casual, relaxed posture, as if he were the owner of the vehicle waiting for a companion to return.
Passing Beastmen didn’t notice anything unusual. Most ignored him, paying no mind to an ordinary SUV parked on the side of the road.
From an angle that passersby were even less likely to notice, Kaper pressed his left hand against the car door. A faint silver light spilled from the hand, which was wrapped in black cloth. The silver-blue patterns rooted in his arm began to flow, pouring like water into the seam of the door.
After finding the door locked, the silver threads spread all the way to the control console, located the car’s keyhole, and slipped inside.
Kaper kept his eyes lowered, concentrating on picking the lock. After no more than five or six seconds, there was a soft `CLICK`, and the car door opened.
The silver threads quickly retracted into his left hand. The patterns flared brightly for an instant before dimming, and the pain subsided along with them.
Kaper was long used to this. He tightened the black cloth strips wrapped around his wrist, pulled open the door, and slid into the passenger seat, pulling the door shut behind him.
The air inside the car was a mixture of scents: the stench of a wolf in heat, the smell of a few young pups, and a cloying perfume. It was as if someone had deliberately saturated the car with their scent, and the combination was so strong it was almost suffocating.
Kaper pulled the mask he had just lowered back up.
Then, as if he suddenly realized something, he pulled the mask down again and sniffed the air inside the car.
Besides Cook’s scent, there was another, faintly familiar smell.
It was familiar... but not quite. And... there was another scent mixed in with all the male musk—the faint smell of a female.
Kaper’s gaze swept around the car’s interior and quickly located the source of the scent—the glove compartment next to him.
He opened the glove compartment and took out a lunch box.
The food inside the lunch box had been eaten clean. Kaper put it down and pulled out a half-eaten... apple.
’Good. I’m hungry.’
Kaper took a large bite from the uneaten side of the apple and continued to rummage through the glove compartment for more food. Suddenly, both his chewing and his searching came to a halt.
He paused for two or three seconds, swallowed the apple in his mouth, then turned it to the bitten part. He sniffed it first, then took another bite.
The source of the scent was on this apple.
It wasn’t just the apple that had that faint, strange fragrance. Kaper found a pink water bottle in the glove compartment, sniffed the spout, then unscrewed the cap and took a swig.
...
`Cough!` The water bottle was actually filled with warm milk.
Kaper leaned back, finished the apple in his hand in a few bites, and then emptied all the food from the glove compartment. After picking through it and putting a few items back, he tore open a package of meat jerky and began to eat at a leisurely pace.
The trophy wasn’t in the car; he’d known that the moment he got in.
The trophy was gone, but the box containing his life savings was there.
Kaper’s gaze fell on the familiar wooden box by the driver’s feet. He glanced at it for a moment before continuing to unwrap his snacks.
He grabbed a large handful of potato chips and stuffed them into his mouth. ’These snacks they packed are actually pretty good,’ he thought.
But he didn’t need tasty food; he needed food that could quickly replenish his energy. These snacks were too low in calories.
Kaper tipped the rest of the chips into his mouth, then noticed several small dolls hanging from the roof and nudged them with his hand.
They were all little wolf dolls of various designs.
A row of little wolf toys in different poses was lined up on the dashboard.
Kaper’s eyes fixed on a roly-poly doll in the middle, which depicted a Wolf Beastman hugging a black-haired female. He poked it with his finger, watching the Wolf Beastman rock back and forth with the female in his arms. He grabbed the doll to stop it from wobbling, thought for a moment, and then stuffed it into his pocket.
After eating most of the snacks from the glove compartment, Kaper drank the last of the milk from the water bottle. Only then did his stomach, which had been empty for days, feel a little better.
He had no money, so he had to save where he could. This group wouldn’t miss a few snacks.
After he finished eating, he stuffed the empty wrappers into his pocket, took out a small spray bottle, and sprayed every surface he had touched. Then, he picked up the box of Crystal Stones from the driver’s side floor.
Kaper patted the box, then twisted off the lock with a slight effort from his left hand and opened the wooden chest.
A faint blue light flickered in Kaper’s eyes, illuminating the dark interior of the car.
This box of Crystal Stones was his life savings, accumulated over ten years. He had started working odd jobs at fifteen—pulling sleds, making deliveries, fishing in the North Sea, and dealing with those difficult-to-communicate-with Fish People.
Back then, he’d dreamed of saving enough money to apply for a mate at the Pairing Center once he came of age. Then he, his mate, and Cook would go buy a house in the Inner District. He had a plan for every single Crystal Stone and couldn’t bear to waste even one.
After he grew up, reality washed away that naive and simple childhood dream.
’Applying for a mate wasn’t as easy as he had imagined.’
Cook’s regression, the targeting and suppression from his clan and others around him—all of it made having a mate an even more impossible fantasy.
’And in his current situation, it was completely out of the question.’
Kaper ran his fingers through the full box of Crystal Stones, then closed the lid, preparing to get out of the car with the box in his arms.
This group didn’t need the money. ’That stupid puppy Cook must have been sweet-talked by someone. Bringing people he barely knows back to his den, handing over all our savings to them... He’s getting a beating for this one way or another.’
As he thought this, the female’s low, soft voice surfaced in his mind.
’It had to be her.’
Mixed Breeds are naturally drawn to females. ’That puppy probably gave her all our savings just to win her favor.’
An image of the young female spouting nonsense from earlier flashed through Kaper’s mind, making him even more certain that she was the one who had coaxed Cook.
He pushed the car door open a crack, then paused. He closed the door again and reopened the box.
’Forget it.’
’I’ll just take a little.’
Kaper grabbed a handful of Crystal Stones and stuffed them into his pocket. He closed the lid, put the box back where he found it, pulled up his hood, and slipped out of the car, melting into the crowd.
After walking about ten meters forward with the bustling crowd of shoppers, Kaper stopped. His gaze swept across both sides of the street, precisely locking onto several Beastmen.
These Beastmen were dressed in simple, common clothes and didn’t look special in any way. Some had bought food from a street stall and were squatting down to eat, one was leaning against a utility pole looking down at a terminal, and others were weaving through the nearby crowd, browsing the wares at the roadside shops.
These were the same Beastmen who had been watching Cook’s group before he’d even gotten out of the truck.
They were all unfamiliar faces, and he couldn’t tell which faction they belonged to. But judging by the other Beastmen popping up from time to time in the alleys, there was likely more than one faction involved.
Kaper tugged the brim of his hood lower and continued moving with the flow of people. As he passed one of the Beastmen, he stuck out his foot and tripped a burly Beastman walking next to him.
The burly Beastman stumbled forward, crashing into the very Beastman Kaper had been watching.
While they were cursing and shoving each other in confusion, Kaper slipped past them and planted the empty snack wrappers from his pocket into that Beastman’s pocket.
Then, he repeated the process, planting the snack wrappers on the other Beastmen who were watching Cook’s group with ulterior motives.
Seeing the female emerge from a roasted chicken shop in the distance with Cook and the others, Kaper dusted off his hands. His gaze lingered on the female for a few moments before shifting to the bulging satchel on the Black Wolf next to her, which had a little Black Wolf doll hanging from it.
’The trophy is in there.’
Kaper pulled the brim of his hood even lower and moved closer to them with the flowing crowd.