Chapter 3: Blood of the Silver Wolf
Her fingers hovered for a moment above the cold, sticky blood before making contact.
Lin Youyou could hear the roar of blood rushing to her head and the frantic pounding of her heart against her eardrums.
The flashlight beam shone steadily on the deepest wound on the silver wolf's back. The sight up close was even more horrifying than from a distance—the flesh was torn and grotesquely splayed open, the edges an ominous grayish-white. Deep within, the faint whiteness of bone was visible. Dark red blood, not yet fully clotted, seeped slowly from the depths of the tissue, joining the ever-expanding, starkly vivid pool beneath it on the cold rock.
Fear, like invisible creeping vines, tangled around her limbs, making her want to drop everything immediately, flee to another corner of the cave, and curl up until the storm passed.
After all, this was a beast that could easily tear her apart, even if it was currently clinging to life.
In that moment of hesitation, the silver wolf seemed to sense the slight disturbance in the air from her hovering fingers. Its massive body twitched almost imperceptibly, and another low, gravelly whimper, so faint it was barely there, escaped from deep in its throat.
The sound was too weak to be a threat; it was more an unconscious moan of pain from a life slipping away. It didn't even have the strength to reopen those heart-stopping silver eyes.
That whimper acted like a needle, abruptly puncturing the balloon of fear filling Lin Youyou's heart.
A more primal, purer emotion—compassion and pity for a living being—surged up.
She remembered rescuing an injured stray cat during university. She had been just as afraid of being scratched then, but seeing the small creature's wet, pain-filled eyes, she had thrown caution to the wind.
This giant beast before her, though massive, mysterious, and fraught with unknown danger, was in essence no different from that stray cat in its suffering. It was bleeding, too. Enduring immense trauma and solitude, alone.
"I can't just stand by and let him die." The thought surfaced clearly, instantly overwhelming the chaotic fear. She bit her lower lip hard until she tasted a metallic tang, using the pain to force herself to calm down.
No longer hesitating, she snapped one end of the iodine swab, letting the dark brown liquid soak the cotton tip.
Then, holding her breath, she began, with extreme gentleness, to dab the iodine-soaked swab onto the relatively intact skin and fur around the edges of the wound.
The cold sensation seemed to make the wolf flinch, its muscles tensing momentarily.
Lin Youyou's heart clenched in response, her hand freezing mid-air, ready to pull back.
But the expected violent reaction didn't come. After that brief tension, the wolf relaxed weakly again, as if it had exhausted even the strength for a defensive response. Only the faint, almost undetectable rise and fall of its chest proved its tenacious will to live.
This discovery gave Lin Youyou a sliver of courage.
She became more absorbed in the "surgery." She used clean gauze to carefully blot away excess blood and pus around the wound, her movements as light as if handling a fragile piece of art. Each dab was accompanied by her own rapid heartbeat and the wolf's occasional, unconscious muscle spasms from the sharp pain.
The cleaning process was slow and arduous. Several pieces of gauze from the first-aid kit were soon saturated with blood.
The real challenge began when she started on the deepest, most terrible wound. Embedded deep within were tiny fragments of gravel and dirt that had to be removed to prevent infection.
She took out the small tweezers, her hand trembling slightly, and tried to pick out the foreign objects.
This action clearly caused sharper pain. The wolf's body shuddered violently, and a suppressed, pained growl rumbled in its throat. Though not loud, it echoed in the silent cave, full of a wild, potent force, startling Lin Youyou so much she nearly dropped the tweezers.
"Sorry... I'm so sorry..." she murmured apologetically, her voice cracking.
"Has to be clean... or it'll get infected... Just bear with it a little longer... almost done..."
She didn't know if it could understand, but her rambling was more to soothe her own frayed nerves.
Focusing again, blocking out distractions, she drew on the steady hand and exceptional patience honed from drawing. With the tip of the tweezers, she meticulously picked out the tiny pieces of gravel, one by one. Each small piece removed made her exhale in relief.
During this process, she became more acutely aware of this silver wolf's extraordinary nature. Its muscle fibers were incredibly dense, and its bones seemed harder than those of ordinary animals.
Moreover, even in its unconscious state, its body seemed to instinctively reject external intrusion; the muscles around the wound contracted slightly, trying to close, but were too severely damaged to succeed.
Finally, the surface debris was mostly cleared.
She carefully poured the remaining iodine into the depths of the wound for disinfection. The wolf's body trembled violently from this, but it still didn't wake up, or lacked the strength for a more vigorous reaction.
Next was stopping the bleeding and bandaging. She placed a thick stack of sterile gauze over the largest wound and began carefully wrapping the bandage around its massive frame.
This process was extremely physically demanding. She had to half-crouch, reaching her arms around the wolf's body to pass the bandage round. The wolf's body heat, a burning fever clearly caused by the wound, transmitted through its thick fur onto her arms.
Up close, the silver-white fur was breathtakingly beautiful, each strand seeming to hold a moonlit radiance, now marred by blood and grime. It carried a scent... an indescribable one, not merely the smell of a wild animal, but something colder, more ancient, like a mix of cedarwood and frost.
Using almost all her strength, she finally completed the basic bandaging. Though her technique was clumsy and the bandaging somewhat haphazard, at least the main bleeding points were covered under pressure. She was utterly exhausted, her forehead beaded with fine sweat mixed with spatters of blood, leaving her looking disheveled.
She collapsed onto the ground, leaning against the cold cave wall, breathing heavily as she looked at the silver wolf, now trussed up like a giant mummy. Her feelings were complex and indescribable.
She had done it. In this isolated, desperate situation, she had performed a critical rescue for a mysterious and dangerous creature.
Outside, the blizzard's roar seemed endless, like the fury of a trapped beast, completely sealing off this small cave from the world.
Inside, only the flashlight beam outlined the silent figures of the girl and the wolf, and the air was thick with the lingering scents of blood and iodine.
Hugging her knees, Lin Youyou gazed at the silver wolf's face, which even in unconsciousness held a certain dignity and aloof pride.
What was it? An ordinary wolf could never possess such size and presence.
Why was it so grievously injured? Attacked by another beast, or... had it encountered something even more terrifying?
Countless questions swirled in her mind, without answers.
She only knew that on this stormy night, she and this mysterious life had been bound together by fate.
She had saved him. But what lay ahead for them? Fortune or calamity?
The flashlight beam began to flicker weakly, warning of its dwindling power.
A jolt of alarm shot through Lin Youyou, and she quickly switched it off. The cave was instantly plunged into near-total darkness, save for a faint, dim grayish light reflecting off the snow at the cave entrance.
In the utter darkness and silence, the silver wolf's weak but steady breathing became clearly audible.
That sound became the only thread tethering her to sanity, reminding her that she was not entirely alone.