~ 💎 WEEKLY POWER GOALS 💎🔥 60→1ch | 100→2ch | 200→5ch ⏰ Resets Monday! Thanks!
Luo Wei had barely escaped back to the Rose Castle when she found a lonely silver-haired girl waiting for her.
"Gladys, what are you doing here?"
Gladys was crouched at her door, arms wrapped around her knees, still wearing the dress Luo Wei had given her.
"Luo Wei, you took forever at check-in." Gladys looked up at the sound of footsteps, eyes full of reproach. "I waited all morning."
"Why were you waiting for me? Is something wrong?" Luo Wei helped her to her feet, fished out her key, and unlocked the door. "Come in and sit down. It's cold out here."
"Not cold. Hot." Gladys followed her inside. "My brother went to see the headmaster."
"Your brother?" Luo Wei wiped the dust off a chair and gestured for her to sit.
"Mhm. I thought he would get lost, but he didn't." Gladys seemed genuinely puzzled by this.
"Maybe someone showed him the way." Luo Wei pushed the window open to let in some air. "Isn't it good that he arrived on time? The headmaster said he needed to see your guardian. If your brother hadn't come, the punishment couldn't be cleared."
"It's good, and also not good." Gladys frowned. "The headmaster said I'm disobedient and told my brother to hit me."
Luo Wei turned around, eyebrows drawn together. "The headmaster said that?"
Headmaster Morrison always seemed so wise and measured. Had he really told Reginald to hit Gladys? Did he actually believe in corporal punishment?
"What exactly did he say? Did your brother really intend to hit you?"
Gladys nodded, indignant. "He said: 'Reginald, knock some sense into your sister. If she continues to be unable to fit in, I'll have no choice but to expel her.'"
"After my brother heard that, he wanted to knock my head, so I ran."
Luo Wei: ...
How had she believed a word from a simple-minded little wolf?
"'Knock some sense into,'" she said, covering her face. "You know what that actually means, right?"
"Yes," Gladys nodded firmly. "He wanted to knock me and hit me!"
"Alas." Luo Wei sighed and sat down beside her. "Gladys, you misunderstood both the headmaster and your brother."
"'Knock some sense into' means to point out someone's mistakes so they can reflect and correct their bad habits. It's a figure of speech."
Gladys stared at her. "Is that what it means?"
"Of course it is." Luo Wei kept her voice patient. "Think about it , someone as refined and gentle as the headmaster, do you really think he'd tell your brother to beat you?"
"And when your brother went to knock your head, he was just playing around. He definitely wouldn't have used real force."
Gladys blinked. "Is that so? He bent two fingers and I thought he was going to gouge my eyes out."
...The little wolf's imagination was genuinely terrifying.
Luo Wei found herself halfway agreeing with Headmaster Morrison. If Gladys kept on like this, expulsion might actually be the kinder outcome.
Hall and Theodore were also Non-human Intelligent Races, but they could pass for human when they needed to. Gladys couldn't. Her wolf nature ran too deep, and she had no instinct for disguise. She couldn't follow the logic of normal human behavior, and anyone paying attention would see right through her.
Luo Wei liked fluffy things. She also liked Gladys's bluntness and her uncomplicated honesty.
She'd made so few friends since arriving in this world. Privately, she didn't want Gladys expelled.
She needed to think of something. Not a way to corrupt Gladys's straightforwardness with human pretense , just enough to make her look normal at a glance.
Gladys needed a persona.
The feral loner act she already had was a solid foundation. It just needed sharpening.
"Gladys?"
"Mhm?"
"From now on, speak less in front of strangers. When you do speak, keep your sentences short. Remember , you are an aloof silver wolf."
"Aloof," Gladys repeated, nodding. "Yes. The ice plains are high and cold."
"Right, but for exactly that kind of sentence, you don't need to answer at all. Just nod once."
As long as Gladys kept her mouth shut, that world-weary face of hers could drive off eighty percent of people who might otherwise try to probe her.
"Let's practice. Gladys, you are an aloof silver wolf."
Gladys looked momentarily blank, then gave one slow, heavy nod.
"Pfft—" Luo Wei ducked her head fast and pressed her lips together.
Why. Why did she suddenly feel like she was looking at a husky?
Gladys had the face for it , that defiant, world-weary expression, the naturally arched brows that always looked faintly furious. And then those eyes, completely unable to hide a single thing she was feeling.
Forget it. One step at a time.
"Let's try again. Gladys, eyes fiercer. Pretend I'm a brown bear. Look at me."
"Hah—" Gladys bared her teeth and huffed at her.
"Yes! That's it!"
...
By the time they finished, Luo Wei's throat was dry and Gladys looked like she'd run a marathon. It happened to be mealtime. The two exchanged a look and wordlessly agreed to head to the dining hall.
On the way, they ran into Laura, wearing the worried look Luo Wei was starting to recognize as her default expression.
"Good day, Miss Luo Wei. Gladys." Laura greeted them.
"Good day, Laura. What happened to your forehead?" Several red welts stood out on Laura's skin, the kind that looked like something had pecked at her.
Laura touched her forehead. "Professor Tobias's owl got me a few times."
Luo Wei pieced it together immediately. "You went to apologize to it today?"
"Yes, but it doesn't seem willing to accept it." Laura rubbed the bumps with a pained expression. "I might need to try again."
"I don't think it'll accept your apology no matter how many times you try." Luo Wei said it plainly.
Nobody forgave their natural predator. Asking an owl to make peace with a mouse wasn't reconciliation , it was just lunch with extra steps.
"Then what am I supposed to do?" Laura fretted.
"Bring it a gift," Luo Wei suggested. "Owls like field mice. Catch a few and give them to it."
Laura's eyes lit up. "That makes sense. I'll go tonight!"
"You want to sneak out again? You haven't even finished your last punishment."
"But field mice only come out at night..." Laura said, caught between the two problems.
"I'll have someone catch them for you. You stay in."
"That's too much trouble—"
"It's no trouble."
The three of them drifted into the dining hall, ordered on the first floor, and settled in to eat.
The food was exactly as bad as always. The stew had the consistency of paste, and the beef was tough and gamey. Luo Wei had made her peace with it, more or less. She'd discovered that if she swallowed fast enough, her brain didn't have time to register how unpleasant it was.
After dinner, Laura brought Luo Wei to check on her mulberry saplings and silkworm babies.
Some eggs had apparently been jostled around during the sea crossing. Only a little over fifty had hatched. The newly emerged silkworms were unsettling to look at , small as ants, and covered in coarse black hair.
Ugly little things. And every single one of them was worth a fortune.
Luo Wei made herself look at them with something resembling appreciation. She managed about thirty seconds before her skin started crawling.
She really, truly could not make her peace with caterpillars.
➤ Next: Opening Day Grand Cleaning
───── ⊹ ⊹ ─────
📖 Read up to 300+ advanced chapters on Pat reon
🔍 Search: p a t r e o n(.)com/BZDXG
───── ⊹ ⊹ ─────