Chen Yan watched the men fall one by one. She said nothing, but thousands of thought ran through her head.
As she listened to the miserable deaths of these fodder, she began to wonder if they were still safe here.
Not just because they might be considered murderers by affiliation, but the possible vengeance of the group they were from.
She did not know who these people were, nor the people mentioned in their dying breaths. Personally, she didn't care. They had nothing to do with her or her sister. She should mind her own business.
But her sister was different. She had just seen several people die right before her eyes. Even now, they were speechlessly watching Xiaohei dig into their chests and remove their hearts.
Does he alway do this? Eat the hearts like this? Does he just eat the hearts or does he eat everything else.
"Why are you just sitting there? I've generously given you a portion of my prey. You should eat to regain your strength. Don't bother me, I've already taken my favorite part." Xiaohei urged lazily. What was he saying? His prey? Eat? Is he telling us to eat these people?
"Ling'er, go to your room now, I need to speak with Xiaohei." She needed to teach him some common sense. But then Chen Ling raised her head.
"Xiaohei, What... did you do to them?" Chen Ling suddenly asked. She seemed to not have heard the last line, fortunately. Chen Yan looked at her sister worriedly. The little girl was heavily disoriented by the amount of blood shed before her. This was the first time she had seen people die in front of her. She couldn't gather her emotions at the moment, and she looked dizzy. It was already good that she hadn't passed out.
"I killed them, like you told me too. Also they were about to hurt you, and that's not something I could ignore. Now hurry and eat while it's still fresh." He said, in the midst of chewing on the human heart he harvested. But Chen Ling shook her head vigorously.
"That's not what I meant, I didn't want them to die! Why couldn't you just chase them away?" She said, tears already falling. Chen Yan decides to let this play out, she had already asked the question, and he was the only one who could answer, as her own thoughts weren't yet clear enough to forge an appropriate answer for a girl her age.
"That's not what you meant? You said to kill them, what else could you mean? Does it have more meanings in your language?." He answered bluntly, with no consideration for the other party's youth, maybe there was no such thing where he came from, consideration that is.
"N-no... But, did they have to die? Their time hadn't come yet, right sis?" She lifted her teary eyes, and looked to Chen Yan and hadn't yet come to terms with the concept of killing to live. Though Chen Yan gave her the talk about dying, and where people go where they die, that was from the natural death of a fish they once kept. Now people who slaughtered before her in cold blood, and the youth couldn't really understand why.
"Because they were your enemy. Living makes you stronger. If they were spared, they would become stronger and then return to hurt you again. If they do not die, then you will." This was his experience from the Abyss. Older beings live longer because they walked longer on the edge of life and death. A stray from a herd he slaughtered later got strong enough to give him severe wounds. These are all old stories.
Chen Ling no longer said anything, only looking down in thought.
"Xiaohei, this is not the Abyss, or wherever you came from. Here there are consequences to killing people, you will be punished." She tried to instill some knowledge in him now.
"Then how do you eat meat if you can't kill?"
"We don't eat human meat, this is the meat from domestically grown animals, which are animals we grow in captivity for the sole purpose of eating them." She did not forget to explain her terms.
"So you enslaved a species for the sole purpose of consuming their kind? How cruel and merciless!" He exclaimed in shock. If you put it like that, it does sound pretty bad.
"S-so anyway, you can't kill humans! Not unless we allow you too! If you don't listen, we'll get in trouble, and we won't be able to help you with anything then!" She was embarrassed for the sake of humans and thus reminded him that murder is off limits.
"Hmm, I understand, then we must quickly get rid of the corpses of these humans." By now, he had eaten all the hearts and was now nibbling on one of the corpse's arms.
"You're right, but where will we hide them?" She said to herself, she didn't think this tiger would know anything about hiding bodies, not to that she did either.
"Well isn't it obvious? We eat them. Strange how humans are so tender..." he suggested something outrageous, before commenting something just as outrageous.
"What?! No we can't eat other humans!" She refused vehemently on behalf of her sister as well, and had already pushed her into her room.
"Why?"
"Because that's cannibalism!"
"What's that?"
"... it's when you eat one of your own species! And that's bad!
"Why?"
"Ehh? Well... you wouldn't eat another tiger or something that was the same species as you right?" She tried to get his understanding.
Then he looked her dead in the eye and said,
"Yes, I would and I have. Hmm, can you perhaps use some of your 'cooking' magic?" Then he continued to nibble on the human body while asking something absurd.
"No! And stop eating that!"
"Why?"
"... Because that's a human! You can't eat humans!"
"Why, they're already dead, what else would you do with them?"
"...bury them!"
"And waste it? You humans are so weird"