The Savage Within

Chapter 9: This Young Man Is Pretty Shy

Leaving the rental house and stepping onto the street, Ethan felt as if he were seeing the world anew. Everything around him seemed strangely fresh and vivid.

He focused his attention on his hearing, letting in every sound from his surroundings.

It was as if his ears had been fitted with a high-powered receiver—every detail was crystal clear.

The sound of a passerby farting, a voice message playing on someone’s phone, the friction of shoe soles against the pavement—he could even distinguish shoe types by their sound.

“This is incredible!”

Like a curious child with a new toy, Ethan roamed around, eagerly soaking in every sound.

Then he shifted focus to his sense of smell. A flood of odors rushed in—farts, body odor, sweat, bad breath, sewage. The overwhelming mix nearly made him gag, so he quickly shut down the heightened sense, returning to normal.

“Disgusting. I’d better be careful with this ability.”

During these sensory experiments, Ethan noticed another troubling change in his body.

As he walked the usual route to and from work, he kept feeling an urge to relieve himself against the roadside trees and corners of walls.

When he reached the alley near his building, he instinctively unzipped, ready to urinate on the corner wall. Luckily, he snapped back to his senses in time and avoided humiliating himself in public.

That day, Ethan only needed a routine checkup—not a biopsy—so the results would be available quickly. After the morning tests, he could return in the afternoon to collect them.

But on his way back, the urge to urinate in public grew stronger. The more he resisted, the stronger it became. By the time he reached his car in the company parking lot, he was nearly wetting himself. The urge only subsided once he drove away.

“This is insane!”

Ethan loved watching nature documentaries, and he knew that both carnivores and herbivores in the wild had strong territorial instincts. His sudden impulses felt eerily similar to an animal marking its territory.

Back home, he urinated into a plastic bag in his room just to ease the pressure. It helped, but it didn’t feel right. Without marking a spot outside, something inside him still felt unsettled.

Another unsettling realization struck him: he hadn’t eaten for two full days and nights. Not only wasn’t he hungry—he felt perfectly fine, bursting with energy. That defied all logic.

A body needs energy to function. Without food, survival is impossible.

“Lucky weighed over thirty kilos. If I take out the bones and organs, that still leaves maybe fifteen kilos of meat. Could it be that my body is still burning through that?”

With this in mind, Ethan sat down at his computer again, searching for information about wolves.

He wasn’t a biologist, but maybe wolves held some answers.

After an hour and a half of research, combing through encyclopedias and a research paper, he found unsettling parallels between wolf behavior and his own changes.

Wolves are nocturnal, most active a few hours after sunset and again before dawn. Ethan’s own transformations had flared up right after sunset. His frenzy that morning might have been triggered by waking from sleep.

Wolves can also go long stretches without food—sometimes up to two weeks—without losing strength. Ethan, after two days without eating, still felt fine, not hungry at all.

“It seems I really did awaken some wolf genes. That night I killed Lucky… it must have been triggered by hunger. Meaning the next time I feel that hunger, I might lose control again.”

The thought chilled him. Killing a dog was bad enough. But if he lost control around people? The consequences would be unthinkable.

If his mutation were exposed, and he killed someone, he’d be locked up like a zoo panda—studied until death, dissected, maybe even stuffed for display.

That was not a fate he wanted.

“Wolves are carnivores. Maybe if I eat enough meat, I can stave off the hunger longer.”

Even though he didn’t feel hungry, two days without food left him craving the taste of meat. To test his theory, Ethan shut down his computer and headed for the Xiucun Market, planning to buy some cooked meats.

Near noon, the market was bustling.

Stepping inside, he instinctively activated his sense of smell.

A flood of scents hit him—so many that his sharp senses nearly reeled.

But one scent stood out, electrifying his nerves. It came from just a few steps away.

He turned his head and saw a plump, fair-skinned woman in a black qipao, bent over as she picked vegetables. The intoxicating scent was coming from her.

Ethan swallowed hard, his eyes fixed on her bent figure. An intense, primal urge surged through him—an urge to mount. His mind was suddenly filled with obscene, animalistic flashes.

The vendor noticed his odd behavior and warned the woman. She straightened up, turned, and caught him staring.

To his surprise, she didn’t seem offended. She smoothed her hair shyly, as if a bit flustered.

Realizing what was happening, Ethan quickly turned away and walked off in a hurry.

The woman watched him leave, then asked the vendor, “Who was that young man?”

“He works nearby. Comes here every morning for breakfast.”

“Oh.” She nodded thoughtfully, lost in her own musings.

“You’re still turning heads,” the vendor teased. “Even at your age, a young guy’s checking you out.”

“Don’t say that…” she replied coyly, but her hands lingered distractedly on the vegetables. She knew exactly what had just happened—that young man had reacted to her.

Ethan had no idea how much his behavior had rattled her. He himself was shaken.

“Damn it, I really am turning into a beast. I just had a primal mating impulse.”

Recalling his earlier research, Ethan quickly pieced it together.

The qipao woman was likely ovulating, and his heightened senses had picked up her pheromones. That explained the overpowering reaction.

“Damn it, I have to be careful with this sense of smell. If I lose control, I could do something monstrous.”

From then on, Ethan kept his head down, avoiding eye contact with anyone. He made his way straight to the deli.

After buying food, he deliberately took a different exit to avoid running into her again.

But fate wasn’t so kind. At the exit, he bumped right into her.

“You went to buy braised meats?” she asked with a friendly smile.

Her plump figure filled out the qipao elegantly, a flash of pale thigh showing through the slit. With her confident grace and lingering gaze, she had the allure of a mature woman.

But Ethan had no interest. Flustered, he muttered, “Yeah, that’s right,” and fled.

“This young man… he’s pretty shy,” she murmured, watching him go with a trace of disappointment.

She sighed, then swayed off gracefully, her curvy figure drawing the longing gaze of a butcher standing nearby.