It was raining again when little Xiaolei arrived at the watchtower. It was eerily quiet. When she began to step towards the ruin, a wolf appeared before her.
That wolf was one of the wolves that almost ate her the first time she saw Chen. She was Chen's pet and Xiaolei had grown a liking to her since the day Chen let her touch her.
She even named her Big Gray because of her dark gray fur.
"Big Gray!" Xiaolei didn't know why but she was suddenly emotional when she saw her. The wolf walked towards her, dragging her feet, making sad, whining noises.
When Xiaolei realized that the wolf was wounded, she knelt down and worriedly checked its leg. It appeared that her leg was shot.
Little Xiaolei teared up, looking at the wolf's horrible wound. Wiping her tears, the determined little girl, used the wolf's sharp fang to tear the edge of her shirt and used the cloth to wrap up Big Gray's wound.
"Where is Chen?" she finally asked before she walked towards the entrance. Big Gray just silently followed her, almost as if she was looking for him too.
"Chen-ge?" she called out as soon as she was inside the secret house, but a feeling of desolation welcomed her. It looked like there was no one inside.
"Chen-ge… Nine… Ten…" she called out again as she searched the rooms one by one but to no avail; she couldn't even sense their presence anymore.
She started to sob. She stepped out of the house and looked around the meadow before she started calling out for Chen.
"Chen-ge! Where are you?!!!"
Her voice echoed in the forest but there was no response. The meadow where she and the three boys used to play in, with huge smiles on their faces, now made her feel so lonely. Once filled with happy times, this place she loved the most now felt desolate, cold and empty.
Thinking that Chen was waiting for her on the rock, little Xiaolei ran towards the forest again. She was crying hard, tears running down her cheeks, calling out his name. She could barely see the path in front of her through the tears but she kept going. She was determined to find him.
Big gray was still following her, even though the big wolf now looked like he was getting weaker.
The girl fell many times. Her wounds from yesterday reopened but it seemed like she couldn't even feel the pain anymore. The rain didn't stop falling, as if the heavens were crying with her.
"Chen-ge!!" she kept calling out once she arrived by the rock. She knew that the only places that Chen ever went to were the ruin or this rock. That was why it made her heart sink when she didn't find him at either place.
"Where are you?!!! Chen-ge!!" her cry was getting louder. Her voice had already become hoarse but still, the boy didn't appear. At that moment, the words she told him yesterday suddenly echoed in her ears and that look in his eyes as he retreated away replayed in her head. It made her felt like she couldn't breathe. "Chen-ge… you know that I didn't mean those words, right?! I… didn't mean those words! Those were lies… they told me they would send me to the city if I don't stop seeing you so I said that to show my grandpa that I don't like you anymore. Come out now, please. I'm sorry!! Where are you?"
But it appeared that Chen wasn't there anymore. She could feel it. His presence was no longer in this place. He left her. And she couldn't accept it.
She was sobbing hard as she hugged big gray for a long while and then, she stood up and ran again. She thought that maybe, the boy was waiting at that spot where they ate their first meal together.
Big gray tried her best to catch up to her when…
"Ahhh!!!" little Xiaolei's scream echoed in the forest. She fell on a slope again.
…
Back at the village clinic,
The nurse was now frantic. The little girl never returned and her grandparents were now here to get her.
As soon as Xiaolei's grandfather found out that she was missing, the old man immediately realized that she must have gone to the woods. "That damned brat! After telling her so many times not to go out there, she disobeys me time after time!" He fumed.
It was already near twilight so people were starting to get worried. Many people went to look for her but they couldn't see her anywhere in the woods, until a big wolf appeared in the backyard of Xiaole's grandparent's house.
The wolf howled and the folks were terrified. The hunters, along with Xiaolei's grandfather began chasing the wolf. Shooting her ferociously as they did when they were hunting their prey. The already wounded wolf struggled and once again, she was shot.
But the wolf continued walking. Her dripping blood created a red trail on the ground. The amount of blood the wolf lost surprised the men following her. They were surprised that the wolf was still moving and they began thinking about some superstition again – that maybe, the wolf wasn't ordinary.
However, as soon as they reached the end of the blood trail, what they saw shocked them to their core.
The wolf was dead and right next to her, was an unconscious girl. They realized that the wolf had come out to call them out to lead them to her. They never would have imagined that this was the wolf's purpose. They shot her because they feared her but despite being shot, she still dragged her wounded body until she reached the girl lying under the tree. This wasn't a wild beast. This creature, they realized, was intelligent and had they not let their fear take over them, they would have realized it sooner.
The hunters were simply astonished. They couldn't speak for a long while, but it was too late for them to regret anything, because the wolf was already dead.