Chà Chà Novel

A vast mountain rose behind the farm. The insectoids’ temporary leader was crossing it with a dense swarm of its kind.

“Get everyone out! Run toward the city!”

The farm owner stood frozen, trembling uncontrollably. Wen Shilan gave him a shove to get him moving, then shouted to the people still inside the farm.

“Run! Hurry!”

His voice sounded muffled behind his mask. Irritated, Wen Shilan pulled off both his hat and mask, revealing the face that had been all over the newspapers and television not long ago.

The owner grabbed his wife’s hand, their child in his arms. Even as he fled, he looked back at Wen Shilan.

“Why aren’t you—General… General Wen!”

He recognized Wen Shilan at once, and a sudden sense of calm settled over him.

Seeing him still standing there, Wen Shilan snapped, “Go!”

“Yes. Be careful, General Wen!”

The owner drove off with his family. Others began streaming out of the farm as well. They were startled to see Wen Shilan, but there was no time to dwell on it; they ran for safety. Fortunately, few people lived near the farm. If the insectoids could be held off until Tang Wan arrived, the nearby residents should be safe.

Qi Yan saw Wen Shilan head toward his car and was about to follow. But Wen Shilan didn’t get in. He opened the trunk, where a curved blade lay in its sheath.

Wen Shilan drew it, its edge gleaming coldly. His eyes were colder still. Rather than leave, he walked, step by steady step, toward the advancing swarm. Against the mass of insectoids spreading across the landscape, he looked impossibly small. Yet when the fleeing people glanced back, he seemed immense to them, as though he alone could hold back nearly ten thousand insectoids.

Qi Yan realized what he intended to do. “Wen Shilan! Have you lost your mind?”

Wen Shilan had no mental power now. He couldn’t even summon his divine stone. At most, he was a good-looking ordinary man, yet he was walking into that darkness without hesitation.

To Qi Yan, it was no different from suicide.

Wen Shilan was throwing his life away!

Even Qi Yan might not win against so many insectoids on his own. What chance did Wen Shilan have?

He strode forward and seized Wen Shilan’s arm. Leaving now was their best option.

“You’re going to get yourself killed! We need to leave. Now!”

Qi Yan was strong enough to pull Wen Shilan off balance. Wen Shilan stumbled, then wrenched his arm free. His expression remained composed, but his voice was unshakable.

“Qi Yan, I can’t leave.”

It was the first time Qi Yan had heard Wen Shilan say his name. It had to be now, of all moments.

Wen Shilan met his eyes. There was no fear in those striking, bright eyes of his. He repeated, “Qi Yan, I can’t leave.”

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to. He couldn’t.

Qi Yan watched the dark swarm draw closer, his face tightening. His fear stripped the restraint from his words.

“You’re an ordinary person now! You couldn’t beat a soldier with even a little mental power, and you think you can fight that many insectoids with one blade? You’re mad. You’ve truly lost your mind!”

Qi Yan couldn’t understand what Wen Shilan was thinking. All he could see was a man too stubborn to change course.

“You’ve alerted the Federation. Their helicopters will be here soon, half an hour at most. Let’s get away from here first.”

Half an hour. The insectoids weren’t fast, but that was enough time for them to sweep through several nearby villages. It wasn’t enough time for Wen Shilan to evacuate everyone.

So Wen Shilan evaded Qi Yan’s reaching hand once more and tightened his grip on the blade. The curved sword that had once felt light as a feather in his hand now had a weight to it.

He glanced at the insectoids drawing ever closer, then turned to Qi Yan. Pointing his blade toward the villages behind the farm, he spoke in a cool, even voice.

“Qi Yan, look at those villages. They’re part of Silan, and the people who live there are my people. I can’t leave. I can’t stand by and watch them die.”

Utterly foolish!

Qi Yan couldn’t change his mind. Frustration reddened his eyes, and his words came faster and faster.

“Do you think you’re still the God of War with immense mental power? You don’t have any of that now! If you insist on staying, all you’ll accomplish is getting yourself killed too! Will you come to your senses?”

Unlike Qi Yan’s mounting panic, Wen Shilan spoke quietly, almost gently. There was no agitation in his voice. He simply held Qi Yan’s gaze, unwavering.

“I am thinking clearly. I know what I’ve lost. But I once wore that uniform. Even though I’ve left the Federation, I can’t turn my back on the people behind me. I’ll protect Silan until my last breath. I’m Wen Shilan. I would rather die on a battlefield than run from one.”

Fine. Just fine…

Wen Shilan really was something. He knew staying would get him killed, yet for Silan and its people, he was going to stay anyway.

How noble. How righteous. Qi Yan hated him for it!

He hated it so much!

Even more than he hated being called a puppy!

Qi Yan watched Wen Shilan walk toward the insectoids. He gritted his teeth and clenched his hands so tightly that the veins stood out across their backs. Closing his eyes, he let out a sigh of resignation.

In the next instant, silver-white fur spread from his hands across his entire body. The ill-fitting soldier’s uniform tore apart.

An enormous shadow fell over Wen Shilan from behind. Then came a low, thunderous howl.

“Awooo!”

This howl was nothing like the cub’s cries before. There was no trace of youth in it. An overwhelming force swept toward the insectoids with the sound, stopping tens of thousands of them in their tracks.

Wen Shilan looked back. A gigantic wolf stood behind him, silver-white from head to tail, its fur so lustrous it almost glowed. Its deep-blue eyes burned with a fierce readiness for battle.

It was enormous, almost frighteningly so. Wen Shilan didn’t even reach its body; he wasn’t as tall as one of its legs.

Qi Yan didn’t lower his head to look at him. His fierce gaze stayed fixed on the insectoids ahead as they began to move again. His sharp fangs looked ready to sink into an enemy’s throat.

After one glance, Wen Shilan turned back. His expression didn’t change, but he quietly nudged Balala in his mind.

“He’s… that big?”

It was almost absurd. Wen Shilan had expected a werewolf to be about the size of an ordinary wolf, not this immense.

Balala was eating a lollipop made of code and sounded proud on Qi Yan’s behalf. “Cool, right? I told you the Lord God could win this battle all by himself.”

Before arriving, Wen Shilan had asked Balala to compare Qi Yan’s combat strength with the insectoids’. Qi Yan alone proved stronger than the entire swarm in front of them.

Only a little stronger, but stronger all the same.

Balala had said Qi Yan could win. He hadn’t told Wen Shilan that winning would still leave the Lord God with some injuries.

Why keep that to himself? Hehe. The Lord God had given Balala specific instructions this time: as long as he wouldn’t die, there was no need to prevent him from getting hurt.

“All right. He does look pretty cool. Take a picture for me—no, don’t. Save this whole scene from the world. I want to keep it.”

After all, this was a limited-edition werewolf version of Lu Yan.

In the time it took to exchange those few words, the insectoids had closed in. Wen Shilan raised his curved blade toward the nearest one.

He had lost his mental power, but his skill with a blade remained. The weapon moved easily in his hand. In the blink of an eye, the insectoids’ distinctive blue blood coated its edge and dripped to the ground.

Wen Shilan was formidable, but beside Qi Yan, his strength hardly seemed to count. Blue blood already drenched the giant wolf’s claws.

Wen Shilan glanced at him once and then looked away, throwing himself into fighting off wave after wave of insectoids around him.

He had no idea how many he had killed or how long he had been fighting. His body was too weak. A faint, rusty taste had risen in his mouth, but even then he didn’t stop. Like a machine, he kept repeating the same movements.

Qi Yan watched Wen Shilan constantly, though he kept his distance. He was afraid of knocking into him.

He was too large. Wen Shilan’s body couldn’t withstand it.

A moment later, regret overwhelmed him. The strain of fighting had begun to drain Wen Shilan, slowing his movements by a beat. That single second was enough for an insectoid to rake a bloody wound across his back.

“Awooo!”

“Shilan!”

“General!”

The two human voices rang out together, but Wen Shilan heard neither Tang Wan nor Wu Yi. Qi Yan’s piercing howl drowned them both out. His legs finally gave way, and the curved blade plunged into the ground as he sagged against it. It took the last of his strength to keep from falling to his knees.

He could feel something warm and sticky across his back. His blood. With this much of it, the wound had to be deep.

Luckily—luckily he had asked Balala to block the pain beforehand.

But blocking pain hadn’t dulled his other senses. Darkness crowded his vision. He couldn’t move. He had no strength left at all…

One step away. Qi Yan had been only one of his own strides from Wen Shilan—more than ten meters—and that distance had forced him to watch Wen Shilan get hurt.

In an instant, Qi Yan’s wolf form swelled even larger. He let out a piercing howl, and the insectoids surrounding Wen Shilan were torn to pieces by the force of it.

Even Tang Wan, who had been running toward Wen Shilan, stumbled to a halt and nearly lost his footing. Wen Shilan alone was untouched.

Qi Yan had sheltered him beneath his body.

When the deafening sound finally died away, less than half the insectoid swarm remained on the mountainside. Tang Wan recovered himself and shouted to the soldiers behind him.

“Kill them all! Don’t let a single one escape!”

He immediately ran toward Wen Shilan, but he was too late. Qi Yan had already lifted Wen Shilan gently in his jaws, settled him on his back, and withdrawn from the battlefield.

“Let him go!”

Qi Yan didn’t so much as look at him, as though he couldn’t hear Tang Wan at all.

Let Wen Shilan go?

What right did Tang Wan have to say that? Whether at the Federation or here, his words were laughable. If Qi Yan hadn’t been so anxious about Wen Shilan’s wound, Tang Wan would no longer have been standing there to speak to him.

Qi Yan didn’t return to the villa. In his current form, he couldn’t enter the city. Instead, he headed for the forest beyond the mountain.

Tang Wan was sick with worry, but the remaining insectoids had yet to be dealt with. He gritted his teeth. Wu Yi was every bit as frightened, yet he knew the werewolf wouldn’t hurt Wen Shilan. He would even save him.

Wu Yi couldn’t say why he was so sure. He simply was.

The urgent task was to finish off the insectoids. Only then would they have time to search for Wen Shilan.

Wen Shilan lay on Qi Yan’s back. The silver-white fur didn’t prickle him at all; it felt wonderfully soft. In a weak voice, he said, “Put me down at the little cabin up ahead.”

Why was there a cabin in the middle of the forest? Balala had redeemed one, of course. Along with the cabin, he had also prepared the clothes Wen Shilan had requested.

Qi Yan shifted back into human form and dressed. Then he tore open the clothes of Wen Shilan, who was lying facedown on the bed, to examine his wound.

Several claw marks cut down to the bone near his left shoulder blade. Qi Yan’s face darkened. After a few deep breaths, he raised his hand, and silver-white energy gathered above his palm. He turned his hand over, letting it sink into the wound on Wen Shilan’s back.

Lying facedown, Wen Shilan felt waves of warmth flow slowly from his back into his bones. Even his fingertips, icy from blood loss, began to warm. His whole body felt so comfortable that it was as if every pore had opened. He couldn’t see the wound on his back closing little by little. He simply lay there as sleep gradually overtook him.

By the time Qi Yan withdrew his energy, Wen Shilan was fast asleep. Qi Yan hid his faintly trembling hand behind his back, then carefully turned Wen Shilan onto his back. He sat in the chair beside the bed and stared at him, almost in a daze.

He was remembering the overwhelming fear and heartache he’d felt when Wen Shilan was hurt.

For an instant, he had hardly been able to breathe. The blow wouldn’t have killed Wen Shilan; at worst, he would have needed ten days or two weeks to recover. Yet in that moment, Qi Yan’s mind had gone completely blank.

He lifted his hand. Pure silver-white energy curled around his fingertips, and he remembered something his father had told him long ago.

“Not every werewolf awakens their super beast form. Most never show it in their lifetime. But if the person you most want to protect—the person you love most—is ever in danger, I’m sure you’ll awaken yours then. So could you please get out of your mother’s and my room now?”