Chapter 19: Fear Of Fire
At this time, Su Ran and the werewolf’s campfire was more than twice as big as the previous one.
After seeing the branches on the campfire burning steadily, Su Ran drew out a burning branch from the outer side of the campfire, preparing to light the other two newly built campfires nearby.
As a result, the moment she turned around holding the burning branch, she was stunned by the scene behind her.
She saw that the beastmen, who had just been busily helping gather branches and process prey under the werewolf’s teaching, had suddenly all hidden several meters away from her.
At this time, seeing her turn and walk over, they actually began retreating repeatedly one by one!
Some of the quicker ones had even bounded and jumped onto the trees behind, with two winged beastmen hovering overhead, looking like they wanted to approach but didn’t dare.
Su Ran was stunned, momentarily unable to react to what the beastmen’s actions meant.
It wasn’t until she took two more steps forward and noticed that the beastmen’s gazes were fixed on the burning branch in her hand that she suddenly understood.
These beastmen fear fire.
Su Ran blinked, feeling even stranger.
But why hadn’t the werewolf shown fear toward fire at the beginning?
She turned her head to look at the werewolf standing to the side, ao wu ao wu calling something at a few beastmen, and increasingly felt that the werewolf had used fire before, but for some reason no longer did later.
The remaining two campfires were soon lit as well.
Probably seeing her freely moving around the campfires without issue, plus the werewolf’s “lobbying,” the beastmen watching from afar gradually relaxed their vigilance.
Bold beastmen began slowly approaching the campfire, but still kept more than two meters distance.
After lighting the fires, Su Ran began inserting wooden sticks around the first campfire to make a roasting rack.
Three campfires required at least twelve sets of racks, and the wooden sticks for the racks were very thick, needing to be hammered into the ground with stones to fix them.
At this time, she couldn’t do it all by herself, so Su Ran looked up at the werewolf not far away, opened her mouth, but paused midway—she hadn’t named the werewolf yet.
Finally hesitating for a moment, she had no choice but to call out to the werewolf: “Hey…”
Then seeing the werewolf turn its head with a puzzled look at her, she couldn’t help but put a hand to her forehead.
She felt she should quickly give the werewolf a name and let it know, otherwise calling “hey” every time to get its attention would be too awkward.
Otherwise, if called too many times, the werewolf might take “hey” as its own name, which would be even more embarrassing.
Although the werewolf didn’t understand what Su Ran’s “hey” meant, it quickly ran back upon seeing her beckoning gesture.
It was already familiar with the action of building wooden racks, and upon seeing Su Ran’s demonstration and understanding that this time the racks weren’t to be placed on both sides of the campfire but around the side, it quickly grasped the key point.
The campfire’s base was circular, with wooden sticks inserted at the side, and prey placed on every two sticks, perfectly suspending the roast meat over the flames.
Although it would roast a bit slower in this position, it could roast more than before with one campfire per roast.
After all, there were too many beastmen, and their appetites seemed large, so Su Ran didn’t dare give each one a campfire to roast their own.
After finishing the wooden rack for one campfire with the werewolf, Su Ran walked to the pile of cleanly processed prey skewered on branches by the beastmen and picked a slightly larger one.
The prey was very large, probably one hundred twenty or thirty pounds, and Su Ran couldn’t lift it down by herself.
She looked at the beastmen gradually gathering over, scanned the crowd, then suddenly raised an eyebrow and beckoned in one direction: “Xiao Ju!”
“Meow woo~”
Xiao Ju, the orange cat in the crowd who had been watching Su Ran’s actions, immediately perked up her ears upon hearing the call, responded energetically with a sound, and trotted over bouncing and jumping.
Su Ran watched her approach, then pointed to the branch with prey in her hand: “Help me lift this.”
With that, she lifted one end of the branch, making a motion to pick it up.
From the moment Su Ran spoke, Xiao Ju’s expression became exceptionally serious, as if trying hard to understand what Su Ran was saying.
But after waiting a while, it was clear from her face that the little one still didn’t understand Su Ran’s meaning.
With no other choice, Su Ran set down the branch in her hand, stepped forward, and took Xiao Ju’s hand.
Probably not expecting Su Ran to hold her hand, Xiao Ju flinched a little, but once she realized, she immediately happily perked up her tail.
Su Ran placed one end of the branch skewering the prey into Xiao Ju’s palm and tightened her grip on her hand.
Xiao Ju’s golden eyes blinked, her black pupils gradually dilating to fill her round eyes, her golden ears on top of her head twitched, then she gripped her hand and looked at Su Ran with her mouth slightly open: “Meow? Ran… Ran?”
Hearing Xiao Ju call her name suddenly, Su Ran was stunned.
She had almost forgotten at this point that Xiao Ju could already say her name.
After so many days, hearing her own name suddenly without mental preparation stirred an inexplicable emotion from the bottom of Su Ran’s heart.
It was the longing for family that she had suppressed deep inside.
“Mee woo~”
Xiao Ju’s pink little face had at some point come right up close, her two black pupils occupying her entire eyes like a clear bottomless pool, reflecting Su Ran’s figure inside.
Su Ran saw deep worry and tension in them.
Beastmen have a strong ability to sense emotions.
“It’s okay.”
Su Ran smiled as if nothing was wrong, reached out to pet Xiao Ju’s top of head, then continued the previous action with her.
But what she didn’t see was that the werewolf, not far behind with its back to them, had its big tail sweep behind it while its ears were straight toward them.
Su Ran gripped the other end of the branch and lifted forcefully; following her action, Xiao Ju instinctively gripped the branch and lifted it too.
Su Ran quickly used the leverage to lift the prey off the meat pile, then led Xiao Ju toward the campfire.
The moment Su Ran lifted the prey toward the campfire, Xiao Ju immediately understood, so she exerted a little force, lifting the branch in her hand higher, and Su Ran instantly felt her arm lighten considerably.
After reaching the campfire, Su Ran placed the branch in her hand on one of the racks, then turned to look at Xiao Ju.
This glance almost made her burst out laughing!
She saw Xiao Ju standing at the other end of the branch, but positioned at a right angle to the campfire.
She held the branch with one hand, her arm stretched out long, her ears on top of her head flattened like airplane ears, and her eyes showing fear of the firelight.
Seeing Su Ran look over, she immediately shook her shoulders and called out to her:
“Meow ao~”
