Chapter 263: 第261章_1

The truth was, his female mother had done it on purpose. She had long since wanted to get rid of Xiao Ya, to abandon that "monster."

But she was afraid Xiao Ya would seek revenge.

She was also afraid Hu Tu would try to stop her.

Because from the moment Xiao Ya was born, Hu Tu had treated her as his own dear sister.

He treated Xiao Ya exceptionally well. No matter what she did, in his heart, she was always his little sister.

And Xiao Ya, for her part, had never harmed him.

He knew that when Xiao Ya killed, it was only when she wasn’t in her right mind. When she was lucid again, she never remembered a thing she had done.

Not long after Xiao Ya was abandoned, Hu Tu’s female mother passed away, following his Father.

From that day on, Hu Tu began his search for his sister.

For Xiao Ya was his only family left in the world.

But after searching for more than a decade, there was still no news or trace of Xiao Ya.

That is, until his men reported that in a village on the border of Ye Country and the K Empire, people were being found dead, their bodies drained of blood.

He followed the lead from that village, crossing several mountains until he found Xiao Ya in Luoxi Town.

The very first time he laid eyes on Xiao Ya, he recognized her. That girl, bound in iron chains and covered head to toe in filth—that was his sister.

So his sister had been living in Luoxi Town all that time, for the past ten years.

Chained up with iron links by those beasts in Luoxi Town.

They had never once treated her as a person. They had taken her in only to chain her up and raise her to be a breeding mare for the males in their town.

They wanted to use her as a birthing tool!

Day in and day out, they kept her locked in a pitch-black cave, their only interactions with her being beatings and curses. When he found her, she was curled up against the dark wall of the cave, her clothes in tatters, her body covered in wounds.

Her flesh was festering all over.

His heart ached unbearably.

He feared those animals had long since driven his sister insane!

But when he offered her the food in his hands, she actually managed to say, "Thank you."

When he looked at her, she even smiled back.

He understood then—his sister hadn’t changed!

She was only bloodthirsty and brutal when she wasn’t lucid. At all other times, she was no different from any ordinary girl.

From that day forward, for Xiao Ya’s sake, he ascended to the position of City Lord of Li City. He swore an oath to make it up to his sister and give her the best life possible.

He began to visit her frequently, just to talk with her.

It wasn’t until one day, when he heard her recount the story of those lost decades with his own ears, that he truly understood just how much she had suffered after his female mother had abandoned her.

Back then, Xiao Ya had wandered the mountains, searching everywhere for her mother, searching for the way back home.

Then she encountered several Gray Wolf Beastmen. Seeing she was a child all alone, those male Gray Wolves tied her up and sold her off to a Snake Beast Tribe.

The Snake Beast Tribe was composed entirely of males. When they saw little Xiao Ya, they looked at her as if they wanted to devour her whole.

At night, they would coil their bodies around her. By day, they dragged her through the forest with their tails, evading the pursuit of other tribes.

During that period, she was treated as a plaything by the members of the Snake Clan.

They would hang her from trees and starve her, whip her with their tails, and even bite her with their venomous fangs, only to give her the antidote afterward!

Then one day, she awoke to find that every single Snake Beastman in the tribe had died of blood loss.

Only then was she finally free.

Once again, she wandered the mountains alone, trying to find her way home.

Then, while she was asleep one day, she was captured by the Gray Eagle Clan from Luoxi Town and taken back to their settlement.

From that point on, she lived in Luoxi Town, beginning a decade of abuse and beatings.

But for the sake of having a place to shelter her from the wind and rain, she didn’t fight back. She could only endure it all in silence.

She said she had to grow up strong, so that one day she would be able to leave those mountains and find her brother and her female mother.

It was only when he heard Xiao Ya say this that Hu Tu realized she had never forgotten them.

She remembered she had a brother, and she remembered she had a female mother.

In her memory, her female mother was someone who loved her, someone who had taken her out to play, and she had only gotten lost by accident.

She said that she had been too mischievous and hadn’t kept up, and that was why she had been separated from her female mother for so many years.

She said her female mother must have been heartbroken when she disappeared, and must be searching for her everywhere.

At that moment, Hu Tu’s eyes turned completely red.

He had never imagined that his sister, after all the suffering and injustice she had endured, still never once suspected she had been abandoned by their mother.

In that moment, he revealed that he was her brother, and that he had been searching for her all this time.

He remembered it clearly: Xiao Ya was as happy as a child, hugging him and crying.

She asked about their female mother, asked if she had ever looked for her.

She asked why their female mother had walked away so quickly that day, so fast that she couldn’t possibly keep up!

He couldn’t bring himself to tell her such a cruel truth.

So he took the blame upon himself. He told her that he had failed to look after her that day, that he had been the one to take her out to play and had lost her!

He claimed their female mother had only left to find him after he’d run off, which was why Xiao Ya couldn’t keep up and got lost!

After hearing this, Xiao Ya had a good cry and then wouldn’t leave his side.

But when she learned that their female mother was also dead, she blamed him even more. She hated him for his negligence back then, which had separated her from their female mother for a decade and prevented her from seeing their mother one last time.

She hated him for causing it all, hated him for making her endure so much pain.

From that point on, she rarely saw him, and her personality grew withdrawn.

He often went to the cave to see her, wanting to bring her back to live in the City Lord Mansion, but she refused every time.

Later, he discovered that she would often leave the cave, disappearing for an entire night. He started posting men to watch the cave and the area around Luoxi Town.

That is, until the men he sent out began to disappear one by one, leaving no trace.

Only then did he begin to realize something was wrong.

Hearing this, Shen Yue finally understood where the letters about Xiao Ya, the ones stored in the secret compartment, had come from.

They were the reports sent to Hu Tu by his subordinates while they were watching Luoxi Town.

He started going to Luoxi Town to follow her himself, until he saw with his own eyes as she transformed into a bloodthirsty, savage giant rabbit that roamed the forest wantonly, hunting for food.

Only then did he understand that his sister’s body concealed such a terrifying side.

In the course of following her, he had the misfortune of being discovered by her several times.

Each time, just as the giant rabbit was about to drain him of his lifeblood, he would call out her pet name, A zhi, and it would stop and let him go.

He knew that no matter what his sister became, she would never harm him.

After that, so he could visit her more often, he had a secret underwater tunnel dug in the West City Forest. It saved a great deal of time on the journey to Luoxi Town.

And from there, Xiao Ya could also freely roam the dense forest to hunt.