Beams of light came through the tree tops and focused on patches of grass. The chirps of morning birds echo throughout the forest as I walk forward with the feeling of a slight burden. My entire body has slight aches from our nightly hunt, but they weren't for nought. I raised my wrist up and the number 76 appeared. We had killed a variety of beasts last night and a good number of them gave out more than a single point.
Just seeing the number almost made me forget my fatigue and unconsciously the corners of my mouth raise into a bright smile. I had almost tripled the number I had from yesterday. Another vision of my request came to mind and gleefully without realizing it my smile widened once more.
"Sister Xue, this is the first time I've seen you smile, and so brightly at that! Ah! You're looking at your number, well you have to thank me for that, now don't you?"
Hearing his voice immediately cut off my little delusion and my mood soured along with it. The smile I had for just a few moments vanished into thin air as if I never had one.
Glancing to my side I saw him smiling at me. Well he had a point. I don't know how, but he managed to attract plenty of monster beasts last night. The number I had was mostly because of the person next to me right now. He hasn't even laid a single hand on me yet.
Maybe I judged him too harshly?
No, what a stupid thought! Even if he did help me, it's not out of the kindness of his heart. It's most probably because of an ulterior motive, and the most probable one is my body.
But, in the end he did help me. There's no denying that. At the very least I should thank him for this.
"Thank you… for this."
I had to force those words out my mouth as it seemed that I was really adverse to saying that.
"Wow! Thanks Sister Xue, it seems like you finally know how to thank someone! Looks like you're a little shy though, don't worry it's ok with me!"
He did a few exaggerated movements before pointing his thumb toward himself with a smug face.
I saw his whole act with a sideways glance before ignoring him to look ahead.
…
After another 4 hours we killed some more beasts along the way and my fatigue only increased. My movement was starting to slow down as my energy depleted. It wasn't to the point where every movement I made was sluggish, but I was starting to trudge along.
Right now it was only physical exhaustion, but once it started to hit my mental capacity I knew things would take a dive down. If I can't make decisions then how would I be able to protect myself against this man?
..
Another hour passed and by now it was close to the middle of the day.
Now even though I could still walk the speed and steadiness were quite obviously impacted.
"Sister Xue, are you okay?! Do you need help?"
"N-no, let's keep going."
"I don't think you're okay! Here let me help you!"
He reached his hand out toward the shoulder farthest from me and had another hand coming close near my stomach.
"No! Get away!"
Quickly I whacked his hands away before he managed to reach me.
"Sister Xue, I'm just trying to help you! What kind of man do you take me for?"
'The Lustful kind! Ugh…'
At this point I think my mental capacity was finally starting to fail on me.
"I, I don't need your help okay? Just leave me alone. I'll be fine."
"...No"
"What? What do yo- A-ah! S-stop!"
Halfway through my sentence he suddenly had a burst of speed and managed to touch me. He raised my arm over his head and across his shoulders to support me.
'This, this! He, he touched me! The bastard!'
"Look! Look! I'm only helping support you okay? I haven't done anything else, okay? Stop resisting! You don't even have the strength right now to escape me, if I wanted to do something to you I would have, okay?"
I suppose he made a point, but there was no way I was trusting him. At least he's following through with what he's said. I guess he's not too bad, but I still can't take any chances. For all I know this could just be his plan for me to let my guard down.
'There's no way I'm letting this happen! Where's that pill at!? Who cares about the foundation if this is what I have to suffer for it!'
As I was looking through my storage ring for it There was a howl as another monster beast approached. He set me down near a tree as it appeared. Finally, after a little bit I found it and a small flash later it appeared on my palm.
I brought it near my mouth, but just before I could place it in a hand tightly grabbed onto my arm.
"What do you think you're doing? Do you have something in your hands? Let me see it!"
With one hand grasping onto my wrist and another trying to pry open my hand he was entirely focused on my hand. My mind was blank except for the thought of clenching my fist as hard as I could. With my mental capacity draining this one action was all I could concentrate on.
"Come on! Open your hand up! Is it a pill? It could be dangerous so you should let me check it first!"
After several moments of him struggling to open my first it was finally becoming loose. He was peeling back my fingers one at a time and I sat there panicking internally the entire time. The pill was peeking out from between my fingers. My fingers were losing strength and his own strength seemed to be increasing.
Suddenly, there was rustling coming from the bushes nearby. That alone seemed to be enough of a distraction for this man and with the rest of my mental capacity I came up with an idea.
While he was still distracted I lunged my head forward and engulfed the pill in my mouth.
"H-huh!? D-did you eat it already?! Damn I wasn't paying attention! Open up your damn mouth and spit that out!!"
Releasing my arm he looked like he was going to grab my mouth and force it open, but then a slightly deep voice was heard, stopping his drastic actions.
"Hey! What are you guys doing over there?"
Once again Ye Chen was distracted and using all I could I forced myself to swallow the pill. I could feel it as it entered my body; it left almost like a trail of warmth behind it as it reached my stomach. The trail it left behind began to radiate outward; almost immediately it began to re-energize my body both mentally and physically.
Once I felt that warm feeling I just laid back against the nearby tree.
"Hey, what were you doing to that girl just now?!"
I looked over at the newcomer and realized it was another man. He wore a red robe and had a slight noble air to him. had a sword drawn as his sight flickered between Ye Chen and I.
"I was only trying to help her out! She's really tired from fighting monster's all night. She can barely stand or walk, just look at her!"
He took another long look at me before looking back at the bastard.
"Don't believe him! He's not trying to help me at all!"
I stood up by myself and glared at the bastard. The little bit of good will I had for him disappeared the moment he tried to stop me from recovering with my pill. There was no way that he didn't know I was trying to get better at that point.
The newcomer looked back at me before pointing his sword at that bastard.
"Let the girl go! She doesn't seem as tired as you say she is. I think that you may be holding her hostage. Girl, leave this place. I, Hao Fang, shall guarantee that you will leave safely."
"Hey! I've been with her the entire night and half the day prior. I didn't do anything to her during that time! Why are you here to 'free' her?"
"Girl, do you wish to leave this place?"
"Yes! But I wish that I could accompany you."
"Me? Why would you want to accompany me?"
"I don't wish to be alone and possibly encounter this man again. What if he tries to ambush me?"
"Hey, come on Sister Xue, I wouldn't do that to you!"
"Stop calling me that! I'm not your Sister!!"
"I… suppose that's a fair point. Come let's go, but you stay there for another half an hour! Only then can you move." He seemed to hesitate for a moment in whether to accept or not, but although it lasted only a single moment I noticed that his gaze looked down.
I stared daggers at the bastard as I walked over to that Hao Fang. I didn't trust the man, but it had to be better than him. He tried to hide his gaze unlike the bastard some distance from us, so that at least means that wants to keep up his face.
As we walked away from that bastard I kept glaring at him and he looked at me. His gaze was a little different though. He was angry, but it didn't seem like his anger was directed at me. When I inevitably looked away from him toward where Hao Fang was going I felt an odd sense of confusion.
'He's clearly angry, but not at me? In fact it looks like he's angry at Hao Fang for some reason. If there was any reason for anger shouldn't it be directed at me?'
***
(Jing Xueying POV)
After a whole night of enjoying ourselves at this little party we finally decided to come back. It wasn't too steamy, especially since there were people watching. We only did a little bit of kissing and then went back in to get a few refreshments. Occasionally, there were people who came up to speak with us, but if they were trying to get connections from us we would immediately ignore them.
But there were a couple of people who only spoke with us. Perhaps they saw everyone else get turned down or were simply innocent people, but everyone else there, besides the Hao family, were barely able to speak more than a sentence,
"Darling! Darling! Come here! Let's watch what Jinzi is doing now! They don't have much time left before the competition ends so we might as well watch the finale."
Dragging my man by the sleeve I quickly showed him the jade tablet I had on our bed. It was the very same one I used to look at Jinzi. I grabbed it and injected some strands of Qi into it. All of a sudden a projection started appearing. It slowly became more and more solid as time went on and the picture within became clear.
Within the image Jinzi was clearly shown, but she seemed to have slightly darkened eye bags from when I last saw her yesterday. After taking another look there also seemed to be a man nearby, but it wasn't that hateful one from before. This one had a red robe, but I couldn't quite see his face since he was walking ahead.
'Huh? What happened? When did Little Sister Jinzi separate from him? Oh well, it's for the better. I wonder why she's following him now though?'
"Oh! Ying'er, look at that man's robe. That robe design is usually only worn by the Hao family. This must be that Hao Fang that Old Wang was telling us about earlier."
Within the projection they mostly walked, but every once in a while they did encounter a monster beast which they fought..