On the northern edge of Graycliff Town, there stood an abandoned ranger's observation post. It was a half-rotten wooden stilt house, its timbers riddled with holes from termites and damp fungi. This was Rowan's designated "neutral zone"—a gray area neither belonging to the absolute wilderness nor to a human town.
Seventeen-year-old Rowan crouched in the shadowy base of the observation post, her movements more focused than six years ago, like a rock blending into the shadows.
She needed antibiotics.
A week ago, while tracking an injured red fox, her right leg was deeply cut by a piece of rusty barbed wire. Despite using copious amounts of lichen and crushed herbal dressings, the wound had inevitably developed a severe infection. A burning fever, like a venomous snake, relentlessly gnawed at her consciousness.
She knew that the forest's natural healing power alone wouldn't be enough to survive the winter.
"Hello? Is anyone there?" A hoarse male voice, heavy with the smell of tobacco, rang out in the clearing.
That was old Harry, the town's only apothecary apprentice and a hopeless gambler. He was the only person in town willing—or rather, daring—to do business with the "wild man of the forest." He'd discovered that some rare plants the girl had brought were fetching astonishing prices on the black market.
Rowan didn't immediately leave. She coldly observed old Harry's every subtle movement: his trembling hands, worn down by years of alcoholism, and the black cloth bag behind him filled with cheap medicine.
Only after confirming he was alone did Rowan rise from the shadows.
She was now almost the size of an adult male, her limbs covered in incredibly taut, cable-like muscles from years of wilderness survival. She wore a cloak patched together from rough animal hides, her cheeks flushed with a sickly fever, but her wolf-like, cold eyes remained menacing.
"Did you bring the stuff?" Rowan's voice was hoarse and strained, like two pieces of dry wood rubbing against each other. She hadn't communicated in a human sense for far too long.
Old Harry spat out a thick wad of phlegm, his eyes greedily scanning Rowan's leather pouch. "Where's what I wanted? That 'Blue Queen' (an extremely rare variant of aconite)." Rowan extended his left hand, his fingertips pinching a plant emitting an eerie blue glow. This plant grew on the edge of the most precipitous cliffs; its sap, just a fraction of a milligram, could stop a strong man's heart from beating within three minutes.
Old Harry's breathing quickened. He pulled two boxes of expired penicillin and a bottle of high-proof alcohol from his cloth bag, tossing them carelessly onto the muddy ground.
"That's all?" Rowan looked down at the cheap aluminum foil packaging, a dangerous glint in his eyes.
"Heh, little savage, don't be ungrateful," Old Harry sneered, noticing Rowan's weakness. He took a step forward, with a nauseating arrogance typical of the town's adults. "This drug is heavily regulated in the county now. And look at yourself, you're practically delirious with fever! Without me, you'd be dead in that pile of rotten leaves tonight." Rowan stared at the alcohol on the ground, her only lifeline.
"Give me the rest," she said, pointing to another box of broad-spectrum antibiotics peeking out of Old Harry's bag.
"That'll cost extra." Old Harry's eyes began to lewdly and restlessly. He looked Rowan up and down; though she was covered in mud, her raw, wild, and explosive physique held a forbidden allure for a man like him, a long-time fixture in filthy taverns.
"Or, you can trade something else. Like, let me see what you're hiding under your cloak..." Old Harry reached out his filthy hand, trying to touch Rowan's tangled, vine-like hair.
This was a fatal offense.
Rowan's instincts reacted faster than her conscious mind. A split second before old Harry's fingertips touched her hair, she slightly shifted her body, her right hand flashing out like lightning, grabbing his wrist.
"Crack." That was the sound of bone breaking.
"Ah—!" Old Harry let out a pig-like scream, collapsing to his knees on the muddy ground, utterly exhausted.
Rowan showed no extra emotion. She snatched the black cloth bag, simultaneously delivering a powerful knee strike to old Harry's abdomen.
Old Harry curled up on the ground, vomiting bile. He couldn't believe this seemingly sickly girl possessed such terrifying strength and an overwhelming hunting instinct.
"Remember," Rowan bent down, her voice icy cold, devoid of warmth, like reciting some natural law, "This is the north slope. Here, I am the predator, you are the prey."
She didn't kill him. Not out of mercy, but because a dead medicine merchant would attract a police search of the mountains, a problem she couldn't currently handle. Rowan picked up the antibiotics and alcohol from the ground and, under the watchful gaze of those fearful and resentful eyes, quickly retreated into the depths of the forest.
That night, in a secluded cave in the redwood forest, Rowan lit a tiny fire.
Gritting her teeth, she poured the bottle of high-proof alcohol directly onto the festering wound on her right leg. The intense pain caused her body to convulse violently, cold sweat instantly soaking through her animal-skin cloak, but she still didn't utter a cry. This pain was far clearer and purer than the stone Julian had hurled at her years ago, or the sticky, malicious gaze of humans.
She swallowed the expired antibiotics.
At that moment, she felt the microscopic war waged by the drug against the bacteria within her body. She realized that humanity's only strength lay not in their bodies or souls, but in these cold, meticulously crafted chemical compounds.
From that day forward, Rowan began her mad experiments on various highly poisonous plants in the forest. She no longer merely gathered fungi to fill her stomach; she began systematically extracting, concentrating, and mixing spores and sap powerful enough to paralyze the nerves.
Since humans used drugs to control life, she would learn to defend her territory with natural toxins.
This failed "borderline deal" became Rowan's last tentative contact with the civilized world. For the next eight years, she completely sealed off all paths to Graycliff. She no longer needed salt, no longer needed matches, and no longer needed humanity's hypocritical drugs.
She herself was the most incurable virus in this forest.
And in that extremely luxurious office, Julian Carter stared at the broken "Blue Queen" that old Harry had brought back, listening to old Harry's exaggerated descriptions of the "forest monster."
The fuse of greed and revenge was ignited at that moment.