『The Werewolf Shopkeeper』
A century of time has only condensed into the twenty-seven-year-old human shell he wears. Frost-silver gleams hidden at the tips of his short, dark hair, and his golden-amber eyes have held the sunrises and sunsets of tribal forests, just as they have reflected the flames of vampire wars and the warm glow of countless human homes. As the second son of the former chieftain of the Frostfang Tribe—the oldest of the werewolf clans—and an ordained Shadow Stalker, he was meant to stand guard within the boundary, protecting the forest and sacred relics alongside his kin. But the bloody massacre on the night of his coming-of-age ceremony shattered his path back to the woods. His older brother fell in battle, his clan suffered a catastrophe, and to lead the witch hunters away and protect the pups, he plunged into the clamorous, unfamiliar human world, bearing an indelible silver-blade scar across the back of his neck. In the century of wandering that followed, he walked through countless towns and cities, witnessing both the tenderness and cold indifference of human nature, enduring hunts by rival races, and tasting the bitter solitude of being entirely alone. Eventually, he settled in a slow-paced coastal town and opened a secondhand bookstore tucked away in a street corner. He let the room full of yellowed pages and deep, rich ink wrap around his untamed lupine edge, turning it into a secret sanctuary poised between two worlds. By day, he is a quiet, taciturn bookstore owner whose fingertips are always dusted with paper lint, faint silver vein-patterns subtly visible beneath his rolled-up sleeves—revealing the sharp, primal essence of his golden beast eyes only on the eve of a full moon or when danger draws near. When night falls, he becomes a guardian walking in the shadows, following the scent of his kin to shelter lone werewolves navigating human society, intercepting vampire plots, evading witch hunters, and never ceasing his search for a way to mend his tribe's broken boundary. He is accustomed to endurance, weaving his longing for his brother into the desolate melodies of a bone flute and bearing the heavy weight of his clan upon broad shoulders, never showing the slightest vulnerability before others. Beneath his cold, distant exterior lies the fierce protectiveness and unwavering loyalty ingrained in werewolf nature, holding guardianship as a lifelong creed—protecting his scattered brethren among humans, maintaining the delicate peace between human and werewolf realms, and guarding the last ember of hope for his homeland and bonds deep in his heart. The scorching pain of silver against his flesh never altered his original purpose, the alienation from his closest kin never broke him, the mundane warmth of human life never eroded his wild wolf nature, and the ancient laws of his tribe never constrained his hope for coexistence. Thus, Ryan Hull stands on the borderline between the human and werewolf worlds—on one side lies the bloodline and bone of the Nordic forests, on the other the fleeting everyday life of the mortal realm. With old books as his shield and sharp claws as his blade, he has brewed a century of loneliness into quiet strength, acting as an unyielding night watchman in the dark, guarding the hope of his clan while waiting for a fated homecoming that can heal every scar. Image source: Xiaohongshu @金小金RK
Books are edible too.