***
Hao Xuan was hunched over the rekindled campfire putting in more wood from the nearby pile while fanning the flame with his hand.
Ma Jiang was just a few inches to his left, shivering due to her previous state trying to get even closer to the flame.
"Tsk, sit back down. You're gonna fall in if you keep leaning in so close!" Hao Xuan scolded loudly, startling her enough to make her almost tip over.
She backed up and repeatedly punched his arm with a scowl, "Nooo, you almost made me fall over! Are you trying to kill me? Mhm?"
To him her punches were not even comparable to mosquito bites but he still pretended to get angry over it and lunged forward, "You little, I save you and this what I get?! Come here," picking her up he held her over the open flame jokingly.
"Is that good enough? Huh? Is that close enough? If you want I c-could-" but when he noticed the quite real tears forming around her doe-like eyes he stuttered and swiftly placed her back down.
"Hey hey, I was just kidding. Why are you crying?"
"I'm not crying!!"
She turned her head away to wipe the tears with her sleeve. Hao Xuan felt bad so he was about to apologize but just then her loud thoughts drilled into his mind.
'Hehehe, I'm such a great actress. And he is so stupid! Hah! This is a great opportunity to guilt him into making me something super delicious! Is he still looking….?!'
She slowly peered back expecting him to be wallowing in 'despair' but saw his expressionless face a few inches away, scaring her once again.
"Aaah! W-What?! Do you want to throw me into the fire again? Huh? Is that what you want, Mr. Savior? Hmm?" she doubled down, leaving Hao Xuan speechless.
He shook his head, sighing at her shamelessness but gave up relatively quickly.
*Sigh*
"You win. What do you want? I'll make it if I can."
"!!!"
"T-Then I want…" she mulled over various choices and answered, which left Hao Xuan stupefied.
"Two slices of venison fillet served on a dill encrusted parmesan tuille with a wild black cherry & spiceberry vinegar gastrique. One medium well and the other medium rare….please…"
For a few seconds Hao Xuan's brain stopped functioning altogether. It was similar to when a computer was fed far too much information making it overload.
'I understood like, three words out of that…isn't venison meat? Yea there is some here I think…'
He turned around with a deep frown and went through everything that was available to him.
There were basically just a few slices of dried jerky in his storage space but thankfully there was fresh meat that had been left over in the camp from a few hours ago so he took that out and held it in front of Ma Jiang's face.
"There are three slices of this meat, smells like…frog? I don't know. And I think there are a few berries around here somewhere. Wait, I'll go check," Hao Xuan scurried off, leaving an astonished Ma Jiang behind.
She leaned back into her chair and closed her eyes, lowering her expectations to anything that wouldn't kill her outright. The exhaustion soon took over and despite being starving she fell asleep.
As expected, she dreamt of being back home, sitting at the dinner table while her beautiful mother brought out one dish after another. She couldn't eat any meat because of her physique but since Ma Jiang liked it so much there would always be a few dishes made just for her.
Despite being a princess and belonging to the highest tier of royalty, she always made all the food herself while Ma Jiang watched in amazement.
"Mama, when will papa come home?"
"Soon my love. Come you should start eating first."
"But I want to wait for papa…"
"He will be back later honey. If you keep waiting the food will get cold which is?"
"Bad…"
"And why is it bad?"
"Because they died so we could eat, so we should not waste anything."
"Exactly. Now go own."
"Yes!"
Ma Jiang was about to take her first bite when a loud knocking coming from the front door stopped her.
*BANG*BANG*BANG*
Her mother's expression turned grim as she grabbed Ma Jiang and ran into the main bedroom.
*BOOM*
*GASP!*
Ma Jiang jumped out of her chair fists swinging but and realized she had been dreaming.
She laughed hoarsely, "It was just…a dream."
"What was, honey?"
She turned around and saw the rotting corpse of her mother sitting in her chair. She was flayed from head to toe and the remaining flesh was falling off the bone. She picked up some of it and placed it on a plate, handing it to Ma Jiang.
"Eat before it gets cold honey. Otherwise, I would have died for nothing."
