“Tsk tsk tsk.” Lea clucked his tongue as he shook his head in shock. “The methods of those females are truly…”

Gu Mengmeng chuckled. “There is no smoke in a woman’s battlefield, but the fighting is far more vicious that a man’s.”

Lea nodded profoundly.

Lea felt amazed just by hearing Gu Mengmeng describe the methods those 16 valued females had said they wanted to use against Maya. He always thought the snow foxes were good at scheming against others, but he now realized their so-called scheming were only used if there were benefits to be had. So as long as their victim could figure out the gains, they could follow the trail back to the perpetrator.

Even someone as perverse as Cole only manipulated people to a certain end. As a result, his intentions were always traceable.

But when a female wanted to be vicious… her sole motive would be just to hurt you. She did not care to benefit from it at all. Her goal was so pure as to render one speechless. Even after the deed was done and you tried to work backwards to find a solution—it was impossible as the end result was just the suffering of a certain person, with no one profiteering from anything…

Lea held his forehead as he pondered over this, suddenly feeling as if all those earlier “fluke accidents” within the tribe—which he had previously overlooked—might not be as simple as he thought…

Gu Mengmeng didn’t continue talking about that but just took up her bowl of meat to start eating. She then spoke up again, “With those 16 valued females ‘taking care’ of Maya, I think she will not be bored even when I am not in Saint Nazaire.” Maya would not have the time and energy to interfere with Gu Mengmeng’s plans anymore.

After she finished her food, Mandy looked up at Gu Mengmeng. “Gu Mengmeng there’s something I should tell you about.”

Gu Mengmeng returned Mandy’s look with a questioning gaze.

Mandy said, “When I went to meet the 16 valued females this morning to instigate them against Maya, I heard something rather strange.”

“Mmm?” Gu Mengmeng prompted Mandy to continue.

Mandy carried on. “During the rainy season last year, many people from the other tribes came to Saint Nazaire to steal our food. But it seemed like Maya was always not around every time an attack occurred. And though it was clear that she had a lot of her food supplies stolen—we discovered that she had not lost weight at all over the winter, while all her partners were still around.”

The meaning was clear. Maya didn’t have much supplies left but she still made it through winter with adequate food—and it was not at the expense of using her partners as food.

Gu Mengmeng chuckled. She was not at all surprised at this news. She just exchanged looks of mutual understanding with Lea.

Oakley wanted to make use of the water source to push Sauder to the brink of chaos, so as to coerce Cole. Meanwhile, Cole used food to drag Saint Nazaire down to share the turmoil. Since Maya was under Cole, he would naturally tip her off. Basically, most of the males who came to snatch food were already partnered. There was a high possibility that they would kill Maya during the raid, so that their own females would not starve.

After all, as long as Maya died, all her males would suffer counter-damage from their mating contracts. In this way, all the food in her household would be free for anyone to plunder and steal.

Maya was an important pawn in the game of chess between Cole and Lea. Cole would naturally not let Maya die unnecessarily, and so would tip her off on when to avoid the attacks.

Since he couldn’t let those raiders kill Maya, he also would not let her starve to death over winter.

Ha, Maya had a really good backing.