Chapter 36: Information About the Blackwood Family

Chapter 36: Chapter 36: Information About the Blackwood Family

The first rays of dawn crept through the curtains, painting Azura’s face in pale gold light. She woke with a jolt, disoriented, her brain still half-submerged in dreams about werewolf politics and suspiciously handsome triplets.

She blinked at the ceiling.

"Jonathan. I was supposed to wait for Jonathan."

She had stayed up last night, determined to interrogate her brother about the Blackwood family—the triplets, their uncle, their mysterious appearance near the Crimson Crest pack. But her body had betrayed her, and she’d passed out before he even came home.

She slapped her own cheeks. Hard.

"FOCUS. I can still catch him this morning. And I have other questions too. Like WHY DOES EVERYONE LOOK AT ME LIKE I’M DYING AND HOW DO I STOP IT."

She dragged herself to the bathroom, splashed water on her face, and then marched to the kitchen with the determination of a woman on a mission.

Azura thought about the past three mornings. Pancakes. Sandwiches. More pancakes. More sandwiches. Western breakfasts that felt like a betrayal to her Chinese soul.

"I miss congee," she whispered, clutching her chest. "I miss jianbing. I miss youtiao so much it PHYSICALLY HURTS."

Her stomach growled, and she made a decision.

"No." She rolled up her sleeves with the determination of a warrior preparing for battle.

"I have been isekai’d, betrayed by my own sleep schedule, and forced to live in a world where nobody appreciates a good bowl of congee. But I REFUSE to let my taste buds suffer any longer. Today, WE COOK."

She raided the kitchen like a woman possessed. Rice? Found. Chicken? In the fridge. Scallions, ginger, sesame oil? Present and accounted for. Flour for buns? She had to dig through three cabinets, but she found it.

And so, for the next two hours, Azura poured all her frustration, all her confusion, and all her barely suppressed existential dread into cooking. She chopped, stirred, kneaded, and steamed with the focus of a Michelin-star chef who’d been personally insulted by the concept of bland food.

---

Jonathan stumbled out of his room, still half-asleep, his hair a mess, his expression that of a man who had not yet fully accepted that he was awake.

He shuffled toward the kitchen, planning to grab his usual coffee and stare blankly at a wall until his brain booted up.

What he found instead nearly sent him into cardiac arrest.

There, on the dining table, was a spread that looked like it belonged in a five-star Chinese restaurant. Chicken congee, golden and fragrant. Youtiao, crispy and perfectly fried. Steamed buns, fluffy and inviting.

And standing behind the table, wiping her hands on an apron like she hadn’t just committed a miracle, was his sister.

Azura. Azura Williams. The same woman who once asked if rice grew on trees.

Jonathan’s brain short-circuited.

"..."

He blinked.

Rubbed his eyes.

Blinked again.

"...Did I die in my sleep? Is this heaven? Because there’s no way my sister—who once burned water—made ALL OF THIS."

Azura’s head snapped up, and she immediately broke into a wide, slightly manic grin.

"Jonathan! Perfect timing! I just finished making all this!! Hurry up and sit down—this food is perfect for breakfast AND a long, productive chat!"

Jonathan moved like a zombie, his legs carrying him to the chair across from her. But his eyes never left her face. They were the eyes of a man who had just witnessed the impossible.

"You. Can’t. Cook. I’ve seen you try to make instant noodles and you almost burned down the kitchen. SINCE WHEN can you make CONGEE? And BUNS? This isn’t ’first time cooking’ food. This is ’I’ve been a chef in a past life’ food."

Azura’s smile froze.

Her eye twitched.

Then she let out a laugh so forced it could have cracked glass.

"HAHAHA! Oh, Jonathan! What are you saying? I practiced last night! Yes! Last night! I stayed up and practiced! And it turns out I’m a GENIUS cook! A CULINARY PRODIGY! I just unlocked my hidden talent! Like in those video games where you randomly discover you’re actually a master blacksmith after one try!"

She gestured wildly at the food.

"Just eat it! Taste it! Tell me if it’s delicious! Everyone has hidden talents that just suddenly activate when they’re in SERIOUS MODE, okay?! I was in SERIOUS BREAKFAST MODE!"

Jonathan stared at her like she’d just claimed to be the reincarnation of Confucius.

"...You’re scaring me."

"EAT THE CONGEE, JONATHAN."

Jonathan stared at the bowl of congee like it was a grenade with the pin pulled out.

It looked good. It smelled good. It even had a little garnish on top that looked almost artistic. But this was Azura. The same Azura who once tried to boil eggs and somehow ended up with a small kitchen fire. The same Azura who thought "seasoning" was just a suggestion.

His hand hovered over the spoon.

His survival instincts screamed at him.

"Don’t do it, Jonathan. You have so much to live for."

But then he looked at Azura’s face—that eager, slightly unhinged expression that said "I will cry if you don’t eat this and I will never forgive you." And his resolve crumbled.

He took a spoonful. Closed his eyes. And braced for the worst.

The congee hit his tongue.

His eyes snapped open.

"...This is delicious."

Azura, who had been shoving a youtiao into her mouth like a woman possessed, paused mid-chew. Her chest puffed out with pride as she swallowed.

"OF COURSE it’s delicious! I told you! GENIUS. CULINARY GENIUS. I should open a restaurant! ’Azura’s Amazing Congee Emporium!’ We’ll have lines around the block!"

Jonathan didn’t even argue. He just grabbed a steamed bun and bit into it, making a sound that was dangerously close to a moan of pleasure.

"Mmph. This is... really good."

"I KNOW."

For a few minutes, they ate in peaceful silence. The only sounds were the clinking of spoons, the occasional satisfied hum from Jonathan, and Azura’s aggressive crunching of youtiao.

---

Finally, Azura set down her spoon. She dabbed her mouth with a napkin, took a deep breath, and fixed her brother with a look that was trying very hard to be casual.

"Hey, Jonathan. So, funny story. I heard that the Blackwood triplets and their uncle are in the Human City near our pack. Do you... know anything about that? And do you know anything about them? My friends keep spamming the group chat about them, and I’ve gotten curious. Like, CURIOSITY curious. Not DANGEROUS curiosity. Just... normal, healthy, encyclopedia-level curiosity."

She kept her expression neutral, but internally, she was screaming.

I need to confirm if they’re the male leads. I barely remember their names. I think they all start with the same letter. C? K? Maybe J? Why didn’t I pay more attention to the novel?!

Jonathan’s hand froze mid-reach for a second bun. His eyes narrowed with the precision of a detective who had just spotted a clue.

He set the bun down slowly.

"Why do you want to know about the Blackwood triplets?"

His voice was careful. Measured. Suspicious.

"Don’t tell me you—"

"NO!" Azura’s response was immediate and slightly too loud. "No! Absolutely not! My friends started a FAN CLUB for them! They BEGGED me to get information because you’re a beta and betas know more about alphas from other packs! I’m just being a good friend! A helpful, selfless, TOTALLY NOT INTERESTED friend!"

Jonathan stared at her.

She stared back, eyes wide, smile frozen.

The silence stretched.

Jonathan picked up his bun again, took a bite, and chewed slowly—deliberately—as if savoring both the food and her discomfort.

Finally, he swallowed.

"...The Blackwood triplets are dangerous, Azura. All three of them. And their uncle, Kyler Blackwood, is even worse. If your friends are starting a fan club, tell them to join a knitting club instead. It’s safer."

Jonathan leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms with the gravity of a man about to deliver classified intel over breakfast.

"Truthfully? Their arrival in this area is suspicious as hell. Sure, we heard that Alpha Kyler came for some big corporate project—something about land development and ’strategic expansion.’ But the triplets? They showed up with no clear purpose. No meetings announced. No pack diplomacy scheduled. Just... three big alphas wandering around like they’re on a vacation no one invited them to."

He picked up a piece of youtiao, dipped it in his congee, and took a bite before continuing.

"Our informants only caught wind of their arrival yesterday afternoon. Which means either our intelligence network is slipping, or the Blackwoods are so good at moving in the shadows that they made us look like amateurs."

He set down the youtiao with a frown.

"There are rumors—and I stress, RUMORS—that they came on pack business. Specifically, to form an alliance here. With the Silver Fang Pack. You know, our rival. The ones who’ve been eyeing our territory like hungry wolves eyeing a wounded deer."

Azura’s chewing slowed.

"The Midnight Hollow Pack—the triplets’ pack—and the Blood Pride Pack, which is their uncle’s pack, are the largest and strongest in the western region. If they really do back Silver Fang..." He let the implication hang in the air. "We might have a problem. Big trouble. The kind of trouble where you start updating your resume and looking for a new pack to join."

Azura nodded along, her face the picture of attentive listening. But inside, her brain was doing gymnastics.

NOT THE INFORMATION I WANTED. NOT THE INFORMATION I NEEDED. I NEED TO KNOW IF THEY’RE THE MALE LEADS, NOT THEIR POLITICAL AGENDA.

But then her brain caught up.

Wait. Biggest pack. Strongest pack. Wealthy. Powerful. Mysterious.

THAT’S THE MALE LEAD CHECKLIST! Handsome? Probably. Strong? Obviously. Rich? Duh. Powerful? They literally just said "biggest and strongest in the western region"!

She bit into her bun aggressively, chewing like she was punishing the dough for her own lack of novel knowledge.

So ninety percent sure. NINETY. The Blackwood triplets and their uncle are the male leads. The ones who treat Selena like a human sex toy. The ones who—

She stopped chewing.

Their arrival in this area... Could this be the big plot point? The moment where they meet Selena for the first time? And when they find out this pack has been bullying her for years... they’ll use the Silver Fang Pack to DESTROY us?!

Her eyes widened.

Oh no. Oh no no no. From now until the next few days, the MAIN PLOT of this novel is about to start. The porn female lead meets her harem. And I’m stuck here, in the villainess body, with no memory of the actual plot because I only read the SMUT ChapterS!

She took another bite of her bun, this time more hesitantly.

"Um... Jonathan?"

"Yeah?"

"Is there... a chance they’ll come to our pack?" 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ

Jonathan’s spoon stopped mid-air. He looked at her like she had just asked if the sky might occasionally turn into pudding.

He set the spoon down slowly.

"Why would they come to OUR pack?"

"I don’t know! Maybe they want to... see the sights? We have a nice lake. And that one tree that looks kinda like a chicken."

Jonathan stared at her.

"That tree looks nothing like a chicken."

"It does if you squint!"

"Azura."

"What?!"

Jonathan pinched the bridge of his nose, sighing deeply. "If the Blackwoods come to our pack, it won’t be for sightseeing. Or chicken trees. It will be for something serious. And if they’re already cozying up to the Silver Fang Pack..." He trailed off, his expression darkening. "Let’s just hope they don’t have any reason to visit us."

Azura’s brain short-circuited.

She sat there, bun halfway to her mouth, staring at nothing as her mental gears ground against each other like two rusty cogs trying to start a lawnmower.

If they haven’t come to this pack... how did they meet Selena in the novel?!

She racked her brain. Ransacked it. Turned it inside out like she was looking for loose change in an empty couch.

But all she could remember was Chapter 69. And Chapter 420. And a lot of positions that should have required a chiropractor on standby.

She stared at the remaining half of her bun like it held the answers to the universe.

Selena was basically a prisoner here. The pack was terrified she’d bolt the second someone blinked in her direction. There was no way they’d let her wander off to the human city for a casual meet-cute.

So how?! How did the female lead and her harem of horny Alphas cross paths?! A secret rendezvous? A mysterious summons? Did she fall from the sky into their arms?! Did a magical fairy guide her to their dicks?!

Her brain smoked. Literally. She could feel a single, lonely brain cell working overtime, spinning on a hamster wheel of confusion, going nowhere.

She took a deep breath.

"Uhm... Jonathan?"

"Yes?"

"Are you... absolutely sure they won’t come here? Like, one hundred percent? No chance? Not even if they get lost and take a wrong turn and end up at our gate by accident?"

Jonathan’s spoon clattered into his bowl.

He set it down again with the slow, deliberate precision of a man who was trying very hard not to strangle his sister at the breakfast table.

"Why," he said, his voice dangerously calm, "do you sound like you’re hoping they will?"

"I’M NOT HOPING!" Azura slammed her hands on the table, making the bowls jump. "I’m ASSESSING! Threat level analysis! Strategic planning! As a concerned and totally responsible pack member who definitely hasn’t been lying awake at night wondering what four ridiculously handsome alphas look like in person!"

Jonathan stared at her.

She stared back.

The silence was deafening.

"...Azura, if you join their fan club, I’m disowning you. I will change the locks. I will tell everyone you moved to Antarctica to pursue a career in penguin husbandry."

"I don’t even know their names!" Azura wailed, throwing her hands up. "I only know their uncle’s name because YOU just said it! I’ve never seen them! I don’t know what they look like! I don’t know if they have horns or tails or third eyes or—"

"Third eyes?!"

"IT’S A POSSIBILITY!"

Jonathan looked like he wanted to crawl under the table and never emerge.

Azura, meanwhile, chewed her bun with renewed fury.

She wished—WISHED—she had actually read the plot instead of just skimming for the smutty Chapters. If she knew how Selena met the male leads, she could intercept. She could sabotage. She could build a literal wall if she had to.

Because Selena still didn’t believe Azura’s "redemption arc." Every kind word was met with suspicion. Every gift was inspected for poison. Every smile was interpreted as the prelude to a trap.

And if the male leads—who would probably kill her without a second thought in the future—ever met Selena, while she still didn’t believe Azura had repented...

Absolutely not. No way. Not on her watch.

Beside, she was Azura Williams now. Selena’s sister. And as her sister, it was her DUTY to make sure Selena didn’t become the communal stress toy of four handsome alphas.

She had to keep them apart. Permanently.

A lightbulb flickered in her head. Then it blazed to life like a supernova.

She turned to Jonathan with a grin so wide and bright that Jonathan instinctively reached for his phone to call their pack therapist.

"...Why are you smiling like that?"

"Like what?"

"Like you’re about to suggest something that will get us both killed."

"I’m not going to suggest anything that will get us killed."

"Azura."

"...It might get only me mildly maimed."

"A Z U R A."

*

*

Meanwhile, in a luxury hotel in the human city, Caesar and Caelian were sprawled across the couches in Caelus’s suite, papers and maps scattered across the coffee table as they discussed their brilliant, foolproof plan to kidnap their crazy stepsister later that day.

Caelus sat at the desk in the corner, tablet in hand, reviewing quarterly reports from the pack’s financial holdings. His face was a mask of stoic calm.

But his eye twitched.

Then twitched again.

He didn’t know why.

He didn’t know that, miles away, two idiots from the Crimson Crest Pack were currently slandering his family name, accusing them of conspiring with a rival pack they had never even spoken to.

He didn’t know that they were being painted as villains in a story they weren’t even aware they were starring in.

He DEFINITELY didn’t know that one of idiots was currently grinning like a possessed hyena while planning to ruin his love life.

All he knew was that his eye wouldn’t stop twitching, and it was really starting to piss him off.

If he did know about their baseless assumptions... well.

Let’s just say the Silver Fang Pack might suddenly find themselves with a very unexpected, very powerful ally—not because of any grand strategy, but purely out of spite.