He Sanlang swallowed his last mouthful of meat and tossed the bones to one side. Then, he looked up at Chu Lian and narrowed his eyes. “I hunted this wild pheasant.”
Chu Lian couldn’t come up with anything to say to that.
She tried her utmost to calm her anger. He was right; he had been the one to catch it. She had only added a little bit of work to cook it. If he wanted to snatch it from her, she had no right to stop him at all.
In the end, Chu Lian could only give him a fierce glare.
From that whole pheasant, Chu Lian only managed to get one drumstick and a few pieces of tender meat. The rest of it went down He Sanlang’s gullet.
Chu Lian rubbed her bloated tummy while complaining under her breath that He Sanlang had eaten too much and that she hadn’t gotten her fill.
Meanwhile, He Sanlang leaned against the cave wall, too lazy to even look at the two-faced woman.
Chu Lian hadn’t realised it yet, nor had He Changdi himself. When the two of them had shared the roast pheasant, apart from the first drumstick that He Sanlang had eaten, he had given the best parts of the pheasant to Chu Lian. It was only after Chu Lian had eaten enough that he had gobbled up the rest of it.
Chu Lian was helpless against a forceful, food-stealing tyrant like He Sanlang. When the two of them finished eating, Chu Lian turned to look at the other pheasant that had been moved off the fire. She inwardly lamented. They couldn’t waste food like that.
In the end, she took the remaining half-cooked pheasant and seasoned it before wrapping it up in clean dry leaves, setting it off to one side. It would be their breakfast tomorrow.
When Chu Lian looked out towards the cave entrance, she noticed that the sky was slowly turning dark. She then shot a careful glance at the beardy. Who knew if he had any assurance that he would be able to bring her out of this desolate forest?
Chu Lian secretly made a decision: if the beardy didn’t mention leaving at all tomorrow, she would have to start a frank discussion with him.
Night fell once again. This time, Chu Lian was very careful. She set down her cloak across the fire from the bearded man and slowly laid down. She even turned her back to him.
He Sanlang inwardly snorted and wasn’t bothered at all by Chu Lian’s caution. He simply laid down on the floor and placed his arms behind his head. He wasn’t feeling well in the first place, so he quickly fell asleep.
However, Chu Lian tossed and turned and was unable to join him in slumber. Even by the fire, the cold in a cave in winter was enough to make her curl up like a shrimp.
When she thought back to the warm slumber she had yesterday, Chu Lian felt rather pathetic.
Her body shrunk into itself and she hugged her knees, almost transforming into a round, human ball. Chu Lian forced herself to shut her eyes and get some rest.
Luckily, she was successful with coercing herself to sleep. Thanks to the fatigue she had racked up during the day, she quickly fell into a sweet dream.
Chu Lian woke up blearily to the sound of someone talking after sleeping for an unknown period of time. The fire next to her had already been extinguished; she had woken up from the cold.
She wrapped her cloak tightly around herself and used the weak moonlight streaming in from outside the cave to feel her way around and add some dried branches to the fire. When the cave was illuminated once again, Chu Lian realised that the sounds she had heard in her dream had been made by the beardy across the fire.
She stayed where she was and carefully stared at the beardy for a while. When he didn’t seem to react, she used the cave wall as support to limp over to his side.
When Chu Lian finally reached the bearded man, she realised that the half of his face illuminated by the fire’s light was completely red. A few loose strands of his hair were stuck to his face thanks to the layer of sweat on his skin. Chu Lian suffered a shock and quickly reached out to touch his forehead.
She had only touched it for a mere second before taking her hand back; it was just too hot.
Now Chu Lian was starting to panic. Although the beardy was very annoying, she couldn’t let anything happen to him now. If he didn’t survive, she would never be able to leave this forest, ever!
Chu Lian gritted her teeth and squatted by the fire. She fashioned a crude torch for herself and hobbled out of the cave.
If she remembered correctly, there was a small brook about fifty metres away from the cave.
By hopping on one leg, Chu Lian took half an hour to cover the total distance of a hundred metres or more.
She covered the beardy’s boiling hot forehead with a damp cloth before taking off the armour and tunic he had on, revealing his muscled chest.
They were currently in a state of emergency, so Chu Lian had no mood to admire the body exposed to her eyes. She quickly used the damp cloth to wipe down his chest and hands to lower his temperature.
However, He Sanlang’s skin was really nice. Even though he was training outdoors every day in the northern border, getting whipped by the wind and tanned by the sun, he hadn’t gotten that much darker. There wasn’t much difference in the colour of his skin compared to when he had been in the capital. If he hadn’t specially kept a beard and gone out with his full set of armour, no one would believe that he was the son of a military official, let alone an officer in the army.
While his chest was buff and muscled, it wasn’t bronzed like those of many other men in the army. His skin was still rather fair, but not the sickly pale skin of someone who rarely saw the sun; it was a healthy and natural light colour.
As expected of someone with the nickname of ‘He Sanlang the Fair’.
Chu Lian wiped the bearded man down three or four times in this manner. When she checked his forehead again, his fever seemed to have subsided a little.
Chu Lian sighed in relief. As long as his fever continued subsiding, the beardy would probably survive the night.
It was at this time that the man started to talk in his sleep.
“You wicked woman! I’ll never forgive you! You… dream on!”
