A slender pair of hands pushed open the floor-to-ceiling glass window of the study, and the girl walked to the balcony with her long thick bright red hair, comfortably propped up on the beige stone railing, letting the warm sun and cool breeze of the winter afternoon slowly blow.

Jumping out from the upper floor of the old mansion, it was a valley of vast fields and hills, backed by a branch of the Rocky Mountains, with several streams and small rivers running through it.

The old Howlett house on the outskirts of Edmond sits on a flat hillside and still retains the architectural style of an 18th-century European castle.

In addition to the continuous bluestone city walls along the mountain, the towering castle main building, there are several oriental pavilions with flying eaves and corners.

Looking down the hill are hundreds of detached or townhouse houses, each forming a small-town scene, paving along the slope of the castle.

The plains to the west were covered with a thick layer of snow, but there were still sturdy and tall horses strolling their hooves, and fat cattle and sheep strolling on the turf beneath the snow to change the taste of recent days.

Jean Grey wore a long blue dress, casually put on a white sweater, lazily covered her mouth, and yawned.

During the vacation days in Laura's old mansion, life was extremely comfortable, and even Jean was cultivated the habit of taking a nap, she blew a cool breeze for a while, woke up, and paced in this quaint study with great interest.

Remarkable enamel mahogany and unknown black wood bookcases fill the spacious room, with a faint smell of wood in the air, and in addition to thousands of old books, there are also many antique firearms and knives on display.

Jean's eyes searched for books of interest, and her green fingertips swiped across the spine of the tome, and there were even many scrolls made of paper or leather.

This study is easily forbidden to people on a daily basis, and even Laura played in it when she was a child, scratching the sofa or chair with her claws, and was slapped by James on the ass.

Except for his wife, Emma, or Mr. Butler, who sometimes cleaned it lately, this study, which has almost completely preserved the environment of James's childhood, has always been his favorite space to be alone.

But James knew that Jean Grey was a girl who loved books, and told her that she could come and go as she pleased.

"Huh?"

On the reddish-brown sunken wood desk lay a booklet with an elaborate cover, but somewhat mottled by its age, which seemed to have been read by Mr. Howlett here last night.

Qin curiously opened the cover page, and it turned out to be a photo album.

Picking up the booklet and leaning against the table, the deer-like smart and delicate eyes lit up with the pages of photos.

From the black-and-white photographs of Mr. Asazzo as a child in Mr. Howlett's arms, to the gradual transformation of pages into color as he grew up.

Most of the people in the first photograph were Mr. Butler and some heroic men, but as time went on, except for Mr. Howlett who was always as young and handsome as he was in the first photo, the people behind him gradually disappeared from the image.

Then more familiar faces of Jean Grey appeared, the young Mr. Magneto was a little young and shy, the teacher of her girlhood, Mrs. Emma Howlett had a bit of the noble and elegant bearing she has now when she was so old, and the first thin and short Mr. Rogers......

"Hee-hee, hahahaha..."

James has more and more people around him, and every few years a new member is added to the family portrait, until the familiar Laura and Kurt appear. Jean looked at the last page, probably when Laura was seven or eight years old, when she was pulled up by the collar of Mr. Howlett's neck, and she was crying, and she couldn't stop laughing.

「... What is this?"

At the end of the album, a corner of the leather book cover was exposed, and Qin carefully pulled it out, and it turned out to be a photograph that had been rubbed on all sides for a long time, and the image was somewhat blurred.

Judging from the drab white color and the costumes worn by the characters inside, it is older than all the previous photographic eras, and it seems to be the fifties and sixties of the nineteenth century.

In addition to a gentleman's dress, she has delicate short hair

Mr. Howlett stood at his side a reckless man who was more than half a head taller, with long messy hair flowing on his thick arms, and a very impatient glance ahead between his eyebrows.

And there was a young lady wearing a floral dress next to James, happily holding his arm, that beautiful and pretty appearance, Qin looked at it, but it felt more and more familiar...

"--Jean! Come on!"

Jean Grey, who was distracted for a while, almost dropped the album on the ground, but she didn't hear that Laura had come to the door, she squeaked twice in a little panic, and hurriedly stuffed the photo back into the book cover.

"Quick! Come with me to the stable, Sister Anya is delivering a foal in childbirth!"

Laura shouted loudly, wearing a denim jacket and wide-legged trousers, full of boyish pulling on the wrist of the piano, the two of them jumped off the balcony floating out of the study, and ran over the shortcut.

.........

"Shhhhhh Hush... Lori, good girl, relax... Don't worry, don't worry..."

In the wide and somewhat exaggerated stables of the old mansion, Anya Lanshel's long brown hair was casually coiled, strands of hair fell from her forehead, and small beads of sweat faintly floated on the tip of her straight nose.

She wore a long coarse cloth dress, and knelt on a thick straw mat made of hay, gently comforting a stout and beautiful black mare, whose sleeves and skirt were stained with black and red.

The horse's coat was shiny and shiny, and it lay on its side on the ground, its belly bulging high, and from time to time you could even see a bulging lump on its belly, and it was humming and neighing in pain.

"Anya! Sister Anya, we're coming! We need to do something!"

Laura, who was in a hurry, jumped on the side, impatiently wanting to help, but saw Anya Lanshell glaring at her with wide eyes, and immediately quieted down.

"Be quiet, don't scare Lori, her baby came out at the wrong angle, and the little hooves rushed out first... You help me hold her down."

Anya wiped her sideburns and tucked her long hair behind her ears, not minding that her face was dyed with elegance, she took a linen cloth towel, and put her hands into the mare's body.

"Purr... Whew.."

Jean and Laura carefully suppressed the trembling and neighing horse, and seeing Anya comforting Lori in her mouth, her hands groped in the horse's belly for a moment, and soon tied the two small hooves with cloth towels and dragged them out of the body little by little.

"Alright Lori, good girl, hard! yes, it's coming out... Okay!"

The white foal, covered in black and red liquid, was born from the mare's womb, and its thin limbs swayed to its feet, and Ren Anya picked it up and placed it beside her mother.

"Hehehe, okay, now the truth is revealed, 'White Shadow' and 'Red Mang' are arguing with me that Lori's child will be it, it seems that Xiaohong will be disappointed after all."

A tall, stocky white stallion walks up to the mare Lori and the foal with his hooves outstretched, sticking out his tongue and licking it, as if to express his joy and comfort.

Jean had silently made up a bloody drama that belonged to the horses, watching both horses arch their heads gratefully to Anya, licking the back of her hand and humming softly. Immediately Anya Lanshel said a few more words with the two big horses, washed her hands and face in the copper basin beside her, and walked out by the hands of her and Laura with a plain face.

"The horses here all have a history, and they have been bred from generation to generation by the horses that grandpa's grandfather raised when he was still alive."

"I know! My father said that there was a stallion called 'Black Mountain' at the beginning, and then the one he liked very much was called 'Panda'. Doesn't that sound like a panda now..."

The three girls strolled hand in hand towards the old mansion, Anya was the only one in the family who was lower than Laura, but she had always called her sister, and Eric's eldest daughter preferred to stay close to nature than life in the academy or in the city.

"Sister Anya, Jean and I are going to live in the 'Wolf's Lair' for a few days, do you want to come with us! It's a good time to see the Northern Lights."

Laura hummed beside Anya

Dao, apart from her father and mother, only Anya can make the little wolf girl so obedient.

She beckoned, and the cattle and sheep in the wilderness came over happily with their hooves, and Anya rubbed Laura's head and shook her head with a smile:

"I'm not going, the wolf's nest is all iron bumps and cold, and it's not time for the seals to breed yet."

As soon as she finished speaking, Anya paused and suddenly hugged the qin, and said inexplicably:

"People and animals are the same, we follow a certain pattern, like the ebb and flow of the tide, what should come will always come, and what should go will always go."

Although she is the eldest daughter of the third generation of the Howlett family, she is only a year older than Sharon Rogers and six or seven years older than Laura.

But Anya, who is mature and showy, is more like an elder, and often says some things that make people misty, and it seems that only James can chat on the same channel with Anya.

After speaking, Anya smiled and walked away with the cattle and sheep, like a nomad left over from the most desolate era, walking not through the vast grassland, but through endless time.

.........

There was a small buzzing sound overhead, and the blue-black flying machine flew over the heads of the three girls and slowly landed in the open space outside the old mansion owner's building.

This was the carrier plane that took them to the wolf's lair, and Mr. Butler commanded several old servants to send some salutes to Laura and Jean, and James was already standing at the door of the mansion, watching his daughter jump and walk.

"Mr. Howlett."

Jean nodded gracefully to James in greeting, and couldn't help but suppress the doubts in the mysterious sister's words, and connected Mr. Howlett in gray casual clothes in front of him with the appearance of clothing characteristics from different eras in his photo.

Except for a faint change in temperament, there is really no change in appearance.

"I'm going to the wolf's lair with you, and I happen to have some things in the past."

James patted his daughter's back and said casually, Laura had already jumped into his arms, turned her head and looked at him strangely:

"Dad, are we going to go on the Wolf, Where's Kurt?"

"Well, you should know him, he loves to run around as much as your brother." James said with a chuckle.

Jean Grey, who was standing aside, seemed to remember something, and politely took the initiative to take the package in the servant's hand, signaling that there was no need to bother, and hesitated:

"I've heard Kurt mention that Warren is not doing well, he has been recovering from his wing injury for so many days, but it still doesn't improve."

After hearing this, James remembered the little guy who was very resilient in his heart, he looked at Jean and Laura, and then looked at an eagle that happened to be flying and dancing in the distant mountains, hooked the corners of his mouth and said softly:

"The eagle must break its wings before it can truly fight in the sky."