Wolf King

In the dream realm, deep in the night, on the cool and breezy grassland, Lin Feng faced a huge black wolf, standing as tall as a person on all fours. Both sides were somewhat shocked, and they were still experiencing the aftershocks of this unexpected encounter.

Just now, Lin Feng thought the black wolf was a "wild animal," but it spoke, articulating its words with clarity and sharpness, sounding somewhat like the accent of the Holy Capital. Of course, this final detail should be credited to the powerful intelligent translation system. Lin Feng firmly believed that no matter how bizarre the dream realm was, it couldn't possibly produce a big black wolf with a mouth full of slang from the capital. However, even with the intelligent translation, he could be sure that the wolf had spoken human language just now, not a translation of beastly howls by the system. This had been tested; the translation system couldn't translate Muyun's "woof" into words... It could only handle higher-level languages with linguistic structures.

Lin Feng sat cross-legged on the grass in his pajamas, still enveloped in a faint glow. He didn't dare to casually remove the rigid shield because the surrounding wolf pack didn't seem very friendly. He glanced at the big black wolf in front of him, sounding slightly surprised, "You can really talk? Do all the wolves here speak?"

"It depends on the community." The big black wolf looked warily at the transparent film covering Lin Feng's body. The feeling of being hit by a fist covered in this film was like being struck on the head by a steel pillar. It had only just recovered from the stars in its eyes, so it cooperated with Lin Feng's question, "Some wolves on the grassland can speak, like us who have bone plates on our bodies—we are a superior breed, much smarter than those stupid creatures who only howl at the moon! But where did you come from? You haven't even seen talking wolves before? We are the most famous community on this grassland!"

Lin Feng's mind was in chaos. He had no idea about the situation in this dream realm, so he could only follow the advice of the data terminal and Raven 12345, treating everything he saw as natural and trying not to show too much surprise. Judging from the way the big black wolf spoke, he inferred that the other party had extremely high intelligence, perhaps even comparable to humans. So, he put aside the idea of tricking the other party as a beast and nodded sincerely, "I can't say where I came from. I just passed by this place. You can think of me as a traveler."

"A traveler? To this grassland?" The big black wolf looked at Lin Feng suspiciously, with an expression of incredulity on its face, "Very few humans come here. This place is useless to you. You can't grow crops, there are no specialties, and there are no... um, minerals. There were some herders here before, but they moved away recently. There are too many wolves here, and their livestock wasn't enough to feed them."

After the big black wolf finished speaking, under Lin Feng's vigilant gaze, it approached and sniffed the smell on Lin Feng's body, "You don't look like a traveler. You don't have that strange smell from not bathing for a long time. But it doesn't matter to us. We are just wolves."

Lin Feng wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, wondering if wolves this intelligent were still considered "wolves"?

"Why did you attack me?" Lin Feng asked awkwardly. He felt that he must look very silly, chatting earnestly with a group of wild animals, but then again... who would have thought that wolves could speak better than humans?

"Why not attack you?" The black wolf's voice was even more surprising, "We want meat. Although you don't look like you have much meat, it's enough to feed a few of our pups. We don't have big appetites. But I originally thought you would be easy to deal with. You're not wearing that hard clothes and you don't have weapons in your hands—turns out you're even more powerful than those guys. I'm not happy about that."

This wolf was different from humans in one respect: it was straightforward in speech, saying whatever it thought. Lin Feng was speechless for a few seconds about his status as "food" in the eyes of the other party. But considering the race of the other party, he couldn't bring himself to be angry and could only dryly laugh and say, "Do you still want to eat meat now?"

"No more." The black wolf shook its head, "Too tough, tougher than those people wearing hard clothes, and I can't beat you. It seems we really can't just fight humans casually; there are always too many strange things on you, very dangerous."

At this moment, another slightly smaller black wolf suddenly spoke up, "Boss, wasn't it your idea to eat this person in the first place?"

Lin Feng looked surprised at the black wolf in front of him. He realized that this guy was actually the leader of the pack, and he had chosen the perfect target when he instinctively went to beat him up.

"Why did you wake up hungry in the middle of the night?" The leader of the black wolves roared, "You ate so much meat in the afternoon, and as soon as the moon came up, you started yelling you were hungry. Among us, you're the biggest glutton! Because of this, I lost a tooth from being beaten!"

"Boss, you only lost one. There are a few unfortunate ones over there who are about to lose all their teeth." The slightly smaller gluttonous wolf pointed its nose at several black wolves squatting outside the circle. They were the unfortunate ones who had previously attacked Lin Feng. These unlucky guys had bitten onto Lin Feng's rigid shield and now, having regressed back to their youth, they were left with the dental health of a baby—the best-case scenario was that they had two rows of back molars left...

Those unfortunate wolves were covered in blood, squatting outside the circle, comforting each other by licking each other's fur, looking pitiful.

The wolf king sighed, "Consider today unlucky. Human, can we go now?"

"Oh." Lin Feng nodded subconsciously. But just as the group of wolves sighed and helped each other prepare to disperse, he suddenly remembered something and quickly called out, "Wait! There's something else!"

The wolf king stumbled, turned his head with a stiff neck, and stared angrily at Lin Feng, "Don't take advantage of wolves too much! I also have a backbone and dignity! You haven't really suffered a loss. Is it necessary to be so stubborn?"

Lin Feng choked on a mouthful of sarcasm, almost choking himself to death: just because of the sentence "Do you dare spare me?" earlier, this wolf king wasn't even fit to say "dignity." But he just shook his head, pointing in the direction of the horizon, "I want to go over there. Can you give me a lift?"

The dark shadows of several suspected artificial buildings looked distant. Lin Feng felt that in his current state, it would probably take him until tomorrow morning to run there barefoot. He had limited time in the dream realm, so he wanted to find a convenient way.

"There?" The wolf king looked up and said in confusion, "

Didn't I say? The herders have all left, and now there are only a few mud huts left."

It turned out that was where the herders the wolf king mentioned had lived before. Lin Feng nodded, "I just want to go and take a look."

Whether there were people or not didn't matter. What mattered was the traces left by human activities. Lin Feng was extremely curious about everything in the dream realm now, willing to take a look at anything.

The wolf king murmured in his throat for a while, then turned around, "Alright, come up. I'll carry you over."

Lin Feng was a little surprised. He thought he would have to persuade the wolf king, but he didn't expect him to turn around and let him climb up. This was different from what he had imagined. As he climbed onto the wolf king's back, he muttered, "So generous? I thought creatures like you wouldn't want people to ride on you? It's about dignity, you need to pass a test or something..."

"Dignity? What's that for?" The wolf king found Lin Feng's words strange, "You humans think about things too complicatedly, studying things unrelated to filling your stomachs. We indeed don't like people riding on our backs because it's troublesome to carry things while walking, but what does that have to do with dignity? It's just uncomfortable... Hey, move forward a bit or lean back a bit more. Don't sit on my waist, I can't run properly like that."

As Lin Feng adjusted his posture, he felt embarrassed. Humans really had their minds set on the wrong things. Whether it was in novels or movies, they always judged everything by human standards. If a wolf didn't want you to ride it, it was because it was proud. If a wild horse didn't want you to ride it, it was because it was proud. If a unicorn didn't want you to ride it, it was because it was not only proud but also noble—probably all nonsense...

The only reason animals didn't want you to ride them was because it was troublesome. Who would want to suddenly carry dozens of kilograms of useless waste that couldn't eat or drink? Even Vivian only tied luggage to Muyun when he was sleepwalking.

Lin Feng couldn't help but think, if unicorns could communicate, maybe if you gave them a few cookies, they would let you ride them. For animals, what did the human "dignity theory" mean?

"Are you seated properly?" The wolf king suddenly interrupted Lin Feng's random thoughts, "Hold on tight, let's go!"