Mist Empire’s Rise: Fake Noble to Fog Queen

Reginold and Gladys were fraternal twins with separate placentas, which directly caused their mother to fail to recognize Gladys.

The careless mother cradled the wailing Reginold in her arms while cheerfully carrying the weakened wolf cub and dead snow rabbit, planning to treat herself to a special meal.

If Gregory Sharp, the leader of the Ice Wolf tribe, hadn't been so traditional in believing wolves were sacred tribal totems that shouldn't be eaten, Gladys might have ended up cooked and served on a platter.

After her narrow escape from the cooking pot, the wolf cub was kept by the chief and his wife as Reginold's pet and playmate.

The wolves of the ice plains were notably aggressive and larger than ordinary snow wolves.

In his spare time, Gregory trained the little wolf to pull sleds, hoping to raise her as his son's sled dog.

His wife trained the wolf cub to stand guard, wanting her to become a watchdog for the tribe when she grew up.

By the time Reginold was two years old, the chief and his wife began noticing something unusual about the wolf cub.

Ice wolves typically reach adulthood at two or three years old, but Gladys was still just a tiny ball of fluff.

When Reginold was just a tiny infant, she was already the size of a small rabbit; by the time Reginold had grown to nearly a meter tall, she was still only rabbit-sized, having barely grown at all.

Though puzzled, the couple never considered that the wolf cub might be a human reverting to ancestral form. They simply assumed they weren't feeding her enough meat for proper nutrition.

Reginold adored the little wolf, and the couple couldn't bear to abandon her, so they kept feeding her meat, hoping she would grow quickly and become strong.

In the harsh environment of the ice plains, a slow-growing wolf cub without self-defense abilities was vulnerable.

But the little wolf didn't understand their good intentions. She was extremely picky, eating only three pounds of meat daily and refusing more, which drove Mrs. Sharp to chase after her trying to feed her every day.

The little wolf resisted fiercely, refusing to open her mouth.

Mrs. Sharp would hold the little wolf and pry open her pointed muzzle, letting Reginold spoon minced meat into her mouth.

Mrs. Sharp knew to progress gradually and wouldn't feed the little wolf too much at once.

She started by feeding half a pound extra on the first day, increased it to one pound the next day, and by the tenth day, it had become ten pounds.

The little wolf's belly was stuffed round with meat every day. Suffering from indigestion, she could only run wild parkour around the yard to burn off the excess energy.

When Mrs. Sharp saw how lively and energetic the little wolf was, she thought her meat-feeding method was showing results!

She quickly chopped up a big bowl of mutton, held Gladys firmly in her arms, and had Reginold continue feeding her.

Stuffed with raw meat, Gladys howled desperately, kicking her four legs frantically, until finally, tormented by her confused adoptive mother and complicit brother, she burst out in human speech.

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One "No more!" left Mrs. Sharp thunderstruck and speechless for a long while.

When Gregory returned from hunting and heard what had happened, he immediately fell into the same strange silence as Mrs. Sharp.

The family sat stiffly around the weak and pitiful little wolf all night, and only near dawn did they have to accept the reality.

—The little wolf might be a disabled half-beast.

She could speak human words but couldn't transform into human form.

Perhaps this was why she was abandoned by her mother at birth.

Even then, they didn't realize the little wolf might be their child.

Later, when Gladys was seven, because her front legs weren't agile enough, she lost a chicken leg to her much taller brother. In her anger, she suddenly transformed into a little girl and went crying "Awooo" to the chief and his wife to complain.

When the chief couple saw the little girl who looked exactly like their son, they nearly had heart attacks.

The little white wolf, whom they had raised as a pet for three years and then as a disabled werewolf for four years, turned out to be their biological daughter - this would drive anyone mad.

The chief beat his chest in remorse, his wife wept heartbrokenly, and they both held Gladys, sobbing uncontrollably.

Just thinking about all the hardships their little daughter had endured over the years left them choked with emotion.

They named their little daughter "Gladys," meaning "princess," wanting to raise her like royalty.

But Gladys had been raised as a wolf for too long; many of her habits were different from humans, her speech wasn't fluent, and she would howl "Awooo" when agitated.

It took them great effort to break their daughter's howling habit, but other habits proved impossible to change.

Reginold sighed, "The Ice Wolf tribe has bred for thousands of years, and our ancestral bloodline had long been lost. If it weren't for Gladys's birth, we wouldn't have known our ancestors were werewolves."

Werewolves were different from beast-folk. Beast-folk were an intelligent race, like dog-folk and cat-folk, while werewolves were descendants of the Wolf God.

The Wolf God was a dark deity, and werewolves were also embodiments of evil.

In many folk tales, werewolves were portrayed as violent, bloodthirsty, filthy, and ugly dark creatures. They had been hunted to extinction by the time the wasteland people landed on the Western Continent.

Who could have imagined that the Ice Wolf tribe still retained a trace of werewolf blood, and would give birth to an ancestral werewolf two thousand years later?

Although the Ice Wolf tribe was strong enough to protect Gladys, the chief couple still worried frequently - what if something happened to them? Who would protect their little daughter from bullying?

"That's when I suggested to them that rather than relying on others, she should rely on herself, and should be sent to a magic academy to study magic."

"Werewolves naturally have an affinity for the lightning element. If Gladys could become a powerful mage, father and mother wouldn't have to worry all the time."

Reginold spoke with fatherly concern, despite being her brother.

"After much consideration, we decided to send Gladys to Siria Magic Academy."

"Gladys didn't want to go to school, so I had to tie her up and take her to Siria. I guess that's why she's afraid of me."

Luo Wei: ...

She wasn't sure if she should say it, but she didn't believe Gladys would be afraid of him just because of something so minor.

Besides, after all that build-up, for Reginold to conclude that Gladys feared him simply because she didn't want to go to school - she couldn't believe it.

She'd rather believe it was because he used to force-feed her meat when she was little, leaving her with psychological trauma.

Poor Gladys.

Luo Wei looked back - they had been talking for so long without waking the little wolf in the room. Gladys really was a sound sleeper!

How enviable.

"Young Master Sharp, should I go in and wake Gladys?" she turned and asked.

"No need," Reginold shook his head and said politely, "Just call me by my name, Miss Luo Wei. Are you heading back to Siria?"

Luo Wei: "Yes, school is starting soon. We'll set out at dawn."

Reginold asked sheepishly, "Miss Luo Wei, could I quietly follow behind you to Siria?"

"The terrain outside the ice plains is too complicated, we're afraid we might get lost."

So that's it, Luo Wei suddenly understood.

Speaking so euphemistically, he was actually just directionally challenged, wasn't he?

She had been wondering why Gladys went to the trouble of running away, since her brother could just follow her to school anyway.

Now she understood - people from the ice plains were all directionally challenged.

"I'm sorry, I can't make decisions behind Gladys's back," Luo Wei said apologetically. "You should wait until she wakes up and ask her yourself."

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