That realization made Lin Huahua stop walking.

Her friends all stopped too.

Then Lin Huahua lowered her head.

Tu Xiaotao’s mouth slowly closed. Mao Qingyue’s gray ears turned forward. Even Lang Yinzhi’s wolf tail stilled a little.

Lin Huahua drew in a breath and said, very sincerely, "I am sorry."

No one spoke.

So she continued, because once she started, she knew she could not stop halfway and pretend the apology was enough. "I was stupid in the past. Very stupid. I made everything about that peacock, and I treated you badly when you were trying to help me. I acted like an idiot, and because of me, we fell out. I really am sorry."

Her voice grew softer by the end, and because her little white ears had drooped and her tail was curled close around her own leg, she looked so small and sincere that even Lang Yinzhi’s expression lost some of its hardness.

Tu Xiaotao’s bright eyes widened first. Then she made a strange tiny sound as if she had not prepared herself properly for this moment, because she had spent so long waiting to be angry and triumphant that an actual heartfelt apology from Lin Huahua had caught her right in the chest.

Mao Qingyue stared at her for a long second, and then her soft gray ears flicked once. "Something is strange," she said at last.

Lang Yinzhi narrowed her eyes. "Very strange."

Tu Xiaotao leaned in closer and looked at Lin Huahua’s face. "Wait."

Then she looked harder.

Mao Qingyue also stepped closer.

Lang Yinzhi too.

The three of them suddenly surrounded Lin Huahua so closely that even the three males behind them instinctively began moving forward, though slowly, because whatever this was, it did not look dangerous yet.

Mao Qingyue was the first to say it aloud. "How come you are so much prettier?"

Lin Huahua blinked. "What?"

Tu Xiaotao’s rabbit ears bounced as she stared. "No, wait, she is right. Yesterday was too messy, so I did not look properly, but now that I am looking..." She leaned even closer and reached out until one finger hovered beside Lin Huahua’s cheek. "Your skin. Your hair. Even your lips. Aiyo, why do you look like this?"

Lang Yinzhi frowned deeply and looked Lin Huahua up and down. "You looked pretty before too, but this is different. The more I look, the stranger it feels."

Lin Huahua’s face heated again, though this time from confusion more than embarrassment. To her, she looked the same as the placeholder. Maybe softer because her real self had grown up in another world, but still the same enough that she could not understand why they were reacting like this.

"I always look like this," she said.

All three of them immediately said, "No."

Tu Xiaotao grabbed her own face dramatically. "Look at us."

Mao Qingyue lifted one hand and touched her own cheek. "Our skin is rougher."

Lang Yinzhi looked down at her own arm. "Scars too."

Now that Lin Huahua looked properly, she understood what they meant. None of her friends were ugly. Far from it. They were attractive beastwomen in their own ways, with lively eyes, beautiful ears and tails, strong bodies, and the kind of natural charm that came from surviving in a primitive world.

But their skin showed the life they lived. There were little rough patches from sun and wind, tiny scars from daily work, hair that was healthy but still carried the natural coarseness of women who spent their lives in a wild place.

Then there was Lin Huahua.

Her skin was pale and smooth in an almost unfair way, her lips soft, her hair better than it should have been, and even the red on her feet from walking the day before looked strangely delicate instead of rough.

Tu Xiaotao looked at her legs next and gasped. "Even when your feet get red, they still look prettier than they should."

That was somehow the most embarrassing sentence yet.

Lin Huahua wanted to deny it, but because she could not explain the truth, she had to quickly think of something else. So after one breath, she said, "Maybe when I got lost in the forest, I encountered some kind of good luck."

All three of them stared.

Tu Xiaotao was the first to recover. "That sounds fake."

Mao Qingyue tilted her head. "But possible."

Lang Yinzhi shrugged. "Strange things happen."

Primitive beast world logic won again.

So, although they were still suspicious, they did not press harder. Tu Xiaotao, being incapable of staying on one topic too long when a more exciting one appeared, suddenly remembered something and clapped once.

"Anyway," she said eagerly, "next week is the beast mating season."

Lin Huahua blinked. "What is the beast mating season?"

All three women stared at her.

Actually stared.

Tu Xiaotao’s rabbit ears nearly crossed from confusion. Mao Qingyue’s tail stopped moving entirely. Lang Yinzhi looked at Lin Huahua as if she had just asked what water was.

Before any of them could speak, another voice came from behind.

Feng Yiren.

The fox had heard enough to realize where this was heading, and because the one thing he absolutely did not want was for the whole tribe to start thinking too seriously about how different Lin Huahua had become, he stepped forward at once.

His red fox ears were high, his expression lazy in that fake careless way of his, and though the last of the bee marks still made him look slightly ridiculous, his confidence had fully returned.

"She hit her head in the forest when she ran away," Feng Yiren said easily. "She lost a big chunk of her memory."

The moment he said that, Tu Xiaotao reacted exactly as one would expect. She grabbed Lin Huahua by both shoulders and started checking her face as if the lost memory might be hiding behind one ear.

"Really? That explains why you have been so strange! Are you alright? Does your head still hurt? Can you remember me clearly? If I hold up two fingers, will you know that is two?"

Lin Huahua stared at her.

Mao Qingyue looked worried too, though in her own quieter way, and Lang Yinzhi’s expression sharpened because, for all her roughness, she cared too.

Lin Huahua then turned a very slow glare toward Feng Yiren.

That fox only lifted his chin slightly as if he had done her a favor.

She wanted to bite him.

Still, he had also given her a very useful excuse, and she could not exactly stand here and announce that she was from another world. So she could only look back at her friends and say, "I am okay."

Tu Xiaotao, who clearly did not believe that one sentence was enough, still fussed over her for another moment, but in the end Lin Huahua had to pat her hand and say it again until the rabbit beastwoman finally calmed down.

Then Tu Xiaotao drew in a breath, straightened, and said with great seriousness, "Fine. Since your head is like this, we will explain the beast mating season to you."