A Former Police Officer Who Died And Get A Second Life!-Chapter 60: The Old Woman in the Forest

It was so close that all he could see was the color.

Once it was pulled away, he then sat up.

He didn’t know how much time had passed, but it felt like he had slept deeply for the first time in a while.

"So? What the... Why are you so filthy?"

While Joa had taken his eyes off him for just a moment, Qiong Xing somehow ended up with dirt on his hands and feet and even his face was slightly dirty.

"That doesn’t matter. Look at this! This is a tomato, right?"

What he showed off so happily was a bright red tomato.

"Yeah. Where did you find it?"

"Over there. Let’s go there together."

After that, guided by Qiong Xing they arrived at the place where the tomatoes were supposedly growing, but...

"Qiong Xing, where did you wander off to? You didn’t get lost again, did you?"

"Don’t worry, I’m fine."

I’m fine? So he did get lost after all!

It was lucky they hadn’t been that far apart, but just imagining what could have happened made his blood run cold.

"Well, well, that one over there is quite large. And those ears... how adorable."

When Joa heard that, he turned his gaze in that direction and saw an elderly woman standing there.

And she was human.

For a moment, he tensed at realizing she was human, but even when the elderly woman saw Joa’s large and imposing build, she merely looked surprised.

The way she looked at them was gentle without any sign of wariness.

"You..."

"It’s all right, don’t worry. I may be human, but I have no intention of trying to capture you."

After she say that, the old woman chatted amicably with Qiong Xing among the field where the tomatoes were growing.

"They look delicious, don’t they? This person here is the one who grows them."

"...I see."

She was showing them off happily, but there was one thing he felt he had to point out.

"But you know, that one isn’t ripe yet."

"Huh?"

"......"

"......"

Qiong Xing’s wide eyed gaze went back and forth between Joa and the tomato resting in his palm.

"...It’s red, though?" 𝒻𝑟𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝑛𝘰𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝘤𝘰𝘮

"Yeah. It’s red."

That redness was precisely proof that it wasn’t ripe yet, but Qiong Xing didn’t seem to understand and just stared intently at the tomato.

"Heehee, I knew you hadn’t noticed. You were so happy saying how red it was that I gave it to you, but if you eat it like that, it’s too sour to enjoy."

"Is that... so? Even though it’s... this red..."

There were plenty of things Joa wanted to say, like how could he not know something so basic, or why he was so fixated on the color red, but seeing Qiong Xing gaze at the tomato with such disappointment, he found himself unable to say anything at all.

"It was on the table this morning too, wasn’t it?"

"I thought those were just tomatoes that happened to be that color."

In a strange way, Qiong Xing’s reasoning made sense.

It seemed he had assumed that the green fully ripe tomatoes in the salad they had eaten that morning were simply another variety of tomato.

"Standing around talking out here isn’t ideal. Why don’t you come inside? I live alone, so it’s a bit messy, but please don’t mind it."

"No, we..."

"Excuse us."

Joa hesitated, thinking it might be unwise to enter her house, but Qiong Xing walked in without a second thought.

Joa who is panicking quickly chasing after him.

When they followed her inside as guided, the house, though simple, turned out to be fairly spacious.

"You appeared so suddenly. I thought some child had wandered in and gotten lost."

"I sincerely apologize for that. It seems getting lost is a bad habit of mine hehe, so I think I would stopped acting on my own from now on."

"Please do so."

Joa who was sitting in the seat beside him in the room they had been led to admonished him quietly.

Since Joa had been sleeping so comfortably, Qiong Xing had thought it would be a shame to wake him, but it seemed that had only caused even more worry.

"Have you lived here for a long time?"

As Qiong Xing accepted the tea that had been served to him, he asked why she was living alone in a place like this.

"It’s not exactly a convenient place, but it’s perfect for hiding from the people in town."

"Hiding?"

He tilted his head, unable to imagine that such a gentle woman would be disliked by the townsfolk.

"Hehe. You see, my husband was a wolf beastman."

"Really? Ah, but... was?"

"He passed away. It must have been about ten years ago now."

"......"

"......."

He had never imagined that there would be a human so close by who, like Qiong Xing, had taken a beastman as a mate.

Joa also looked at the woman with clear surprise.

"I was a slave once, you know. But as I grew older, they said I was useless and abandoned me in the forest. I was beaten, kicked, badly injured. I could barely move... I thought I was going to die there."

It seemed that was when he had saved her.

Through his desperate care, she had managed to survive, and afterward, she began living together with him and hidden away from humans.

It seemed that it had only been a matter of time before she developed romantic feelings for the man who had saved her life and she said that she eventually confessed her feelings to him, who had always treated her so gently.

"At first, he refused me. Well, of course he did. I was twenty five at the time, but he was ninety seven. He looked young, so I hadn’t realized it, but that was when I learned that beastmen live for a long time. To him, I must have seemed like a granddaughter."

"But you called him your husband."