Chapter 44: CH 44

Not far from the small body of water, the two of them found a small cave that was very suitable for hiding. The cave’s entrance was located on the wall of a small mountain. It was only the size of half a person and could only accommodate one person entering or exiting at a time, but the space within it was about 10 square meters large. After Chen Qi helped Aze into the cave, he gathered some soft branches and leaves and spread them out to form a simple mattress. Then he placed some cattail leaves over it before letting Aze lie on it.

Even though they had only walked a short distance, Aze’s wound still bled a lot. The willow leaves may have had an anti-inflammatory effect, however the hemostatic effect was obviously not very good, especially for a wound that covered such a large area.

“I’m fine.” Aze raised his head slightly. He spoke slowly but clearly. Right now, lying on his side put him in a position where he was unable to see Chen Qi’s expression. “This kind of injury will be fine after lying down for a while.”

“En.” Chen Qi crouched down and patted Aze’s hand, comforting him. “Then why don’t you lie down and sleep for a little while?”

“Okay.” Aze replied and obediently closed his eyes.

Chen Qi gently moved aside a few wet strands of hair that had slid over Aze’s forehead before turning and leaving the cave. He gathered some thorny brambles and set them as barriers to seal the cave entrance, leaving only a small gap near the mountain wall for ventilation. Then he found some dry branches and lit a small fire in the cave. Fortunately, the lighter Aze kept on him was waterproof. Otherwise, if Chen Qi had been expected to drill into wood to start the fire, there would have been a half hour or more where there’d be no fire.

Not far from the river bank, there were many plantain herbs. Chen Qi harvested a lot of them and brought them back. He mashed them with stones, and then applied it over Aze’s wound after removing the willow leaves. The shirt-turned-bandages had always been wet. Chen Qi dried them by the fire before re-tying them back on. Aze’s original hide clothes were also set to dry and then placed under Aze to add another layer to the mattress. The cave was kept warm with the fire and there were no worries of it being too cold.

Aze did not sleep well. Whenever Chen Qi made some slightly larger movements, he’d open his eyes to check that Chen Qi was fine before slowly closing them again and falling back to sleep. Chen Qi was a little helpless. He could only keep his movements light and try not to make any sounds.

Crossing  to Live in the Wilderness Plains (CLWP)  is translated by Betwixted Translations. The site you’re reading this chapter on stole our translation.

After a bout of work, it was already getting dark. Fortunately, Chen Qi found a rice berry tree and a laiche fruit tree beside the cave. The rice berry tree was relatively tall. Chen Qi used a long branch and, with some difficulty, stabbed at a few of them until they fell to the ground. The end result was that, because the rice berry’s husk was not that hard, two of them broke when they hit the ground and the white viscous liquid flowed all over the ground.

Chen Qi couldn’t help it. He picked up the other two rice berries that had not broken, as well as the laiche fruits and returned to the cave. The sky was completely dark. In the middle of the forest, the trees covered up the moonlight. The night insects started their unbridled night parties.

Chen Qi rearranged the thorny brambles to make sure that the fire light would not be visible from the outside through the thorns. In such a forest, sometimes a fire was not a universal weapon to drive away predators, but instead became bait to attract predators to come and check it out. Chen Qi did not dare to take any risks.

When harvesting the plantain herbs, Chen Qi had found a wild ginger. He chopped the wild ginger into pieces, poured the rice berries into the laiche fruit husk, mixed in the chopped ginger and slowly boiled it over the fire. If just the rice berries were boiled, the rice paste was too thick and pasty. Chen Qi added the laiche fruit and boiled them together. Soon the cave was filled with a rich rice fragrance. Chen Qi dipped his finger into it a little and tasted it. It was very similar to rice porridge he had eaten before, except that the rice fragrance was a little stronger, and adding the laiche fruit gave it a sweet taste. The taste was decent.

Chen Qi let the cooked rice paste cool, then slowly fed it to Aze with a newly-made wooden spoon. Aze ate very slowly, but as long as Chen Qi asked him to open his mouth, he would open his mouth, which was very different from the cold image he usually gave off. Very obedient.

After eating a little less than half of the rice paste, Aze stopped eating it and turned his head slightly to the side to show his refusal. Chen Qi could only let him lie back down and sleep. He ate the rest of the rice paste in a hurry and then cooked another one. He set it by the fire and warmed it slowly, intending to wait for Aze to feel a bit better before feeding it to him.

Even though Chen Qi had paid close attention to Aze’s condition, Aze started to burn up without warning in the middle of the night. After running around all day, Chen Qi had tiredly closed his eyes and fallen asleep. He was woken up by a muffled and uncomfortable sounding groan. He found Aze’s face was oddly flushed and reached out to touch his forehead. It was surprisingly hot.

“Aze, Aze, what’s wrong?” Chen Qi called Aze’s name softly. Aze frowned with discomfort and did not respond to Chen Qi’s call.

Chen Qi took a deep breath and calmed himself down. He cut off a sleeve from his coat with the dragon-horn knife and used it as a towel to wipe away the sweat produced from the fever.

After finishing that, he quickly made a small torch. He was very glad that they’d chosen a place that wasn’t far from the river bank. Chen Qi sharpened a wooden stick for self-defense, then took a laiche fruit husk to fetch water from the river.

Crossing  to Live in the Wilderness Plains (CLWP)  is translated by Betwixted Translations. The site you’re reading this chapter on stole our translation.

The rest of the night was destined to be a sleepless one. Chen Qi made several trips, back and forth, between the cave and the river bank. Aside from a few falls due to rough terrain, he did not encounter any predators he couldn’t have dealt with. As dawn approached, Aze’s temperature slowly fell. Chen Qi used cloth strips stained with laiche fruit juice to moisten Aze’s cracked lips.

Aze slowly opened his eyes. After falling into the water yesterday, he’d been only half conscious for a period of time. Later, even though his eyes were closed, he was conscious and had a clear awareness. He knew when Chen Qi left the cave and when he came back; When he changed the medicine on him; When he fed him food and water; When he wiped his burning hot body with cold cloth and so on. He’d wanted to wake up and tell him that he was okay, but his eyelids had seemed to weigh a thousand pounds. No matter how hard he’d tried, he just couldn’t open them.

“You’re awake?” Chen Qi’s voice was a bit hoarse since he hadn’t rested all night. Seeing Aze wake up after a night’s rest, the stone in his heart finally fell.

“En.” Because of his illness, Aze’s voice was similarly hoarse and unpleasant to hear. When he noticed that his voice sounded off, he pressed his lips together and stopped talking, but his eyes didn’t leave Chen Qi’s haggard face with heavy dark circles under his eyes for a long time.

“Hungry? Do you want something to eat?” Chen Qi asked softly.

With complicated emotions stirring in his eyes, Aze nodded. In his memory, even his dad had not spoken this gently to him.

Chen Qi brought over the rice paste that had been warming all night and he added some bits of plantain herbs into it. Now that the fever subsided, Aze was barely able to sit up. Chen Qi asked him to lean on him and fed him with a spoonful of food.

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“You should eat some too.” The rice paste moistened his dry throat so Aze’s voice was not as hoarse as before.

“I’ll eat after you finish your food.” Chen Qi coaxed.

Chen Qi’s originally good-looking coat had long been torn to pieces by his own self, and there were a few bruises on his exposed skin. The corner of Aze’s eyes reddened when he saw this. He shook his head and insisted that he would not eat unless Chen Qi ate too. Chen Qi had no choice but to feed Aze a mouthful and then spoon himself a bite as well. Naturally, one laiche fruit husk’s worth of rice paste was not enough for the two adult men. Chen Qi let Aze lean against the cave wall to digest his food, then made more rice paste in another fruit husk.

After they had eaten their fill, Chen Qi asked Aze to rest first. The rice berries had already been eaten so he wanted to use the day time to find a few more. Aze was a little worried, but in his current physical condition, he couldn’t stop him. So he could only tell him to be careful and not to go too far from the cave. After Chen Qi responded, Aze closed his eyes and rested. After getting injured, the fastest way for a beastman to recover was to let the body sleep.

Crossing  to Live in the Wilderness Plains (CLWP)  is translated by Betwixted Translations. The site you’re reading this chapter on stole our translation.

Chen Qi did not dare to go too far anyway. On the one hand, he was worried about Aze, and on the other hand, he was afraid of encountering predators. He cleaned up last night’s traces from where he’d walked, and also found some strong-smelling weeds to pile up around the cave to cover their scents. He gathered enough rice berries and laiche fruits for today’s meals. Then he harvested a lot of plantain herbs again before going back to reapply another round of medicine on Aze. After adding new firewood to the fire, Chen Qi, who had been busy all day, was exhausted. He leaned against Aze and fell asleep almost instantly.

When Chen Qi woke up, it was already night time. He didn’t expect to have slept so long. In the forest, this kind of lack of vigilance could prove to be fatal. Fortunately, there were no traces of animals approaching during this period, and Chen Qi couldn’t help but to feel grateful.

Aze was able to sit up on his own and he seemed much better than he was in the morning. He stared at Chen Qi with a burning gaze.

Chen Qi massaged his arm, which was sore and numb from sleeping in the same position for a long time, and asked apologetically, “Are you hungry? I’ll cook you some rice paste?”

Aze nodded, “Okay.”

Chen Qi poured the rice berries into the laiche fruit husk for boiling then went to check on Aze’s condition. The wound had actually already begun to show signs of healing. Chen Qi inwardly breathed a sigh of relief then replaced the crushed plantain herbs again and asked, “Are you feeling any discomfort?”

Aze shook his head. “I’m fine.”

Chen Qi smiled, “It’s good that you’re fine.”

The two men ate rice paste again then Aze suggested going home tomorrow. Chen Qi was a little worried, “But your body isn’t well enough to travel yet, right?”

“I’ll be fine after one more night of rest, don’t worry. In another two days it will be winter, and we cannot be in the forest when it comes.”

Winter. Chen Qi recalled the cold he’d felt when he’d first arrived in this world. The temperature of winter here was not just a little bit lower than during the first snow. With their current situation, they would only end up freezing to death if they stayed in the forest when winter came. Chen Qi was silent for a moment and did not object. “Then you should have a good rest and we’ll see how you feel in the morning. If you can move well, we will head back.”

“En.” Aze slowly laid back onto the mattress covered with hide clothes. He looked at Chen Qi as he checked on his wound again for any signs of tearing then said in a very small voice, “I’m sorry.”

Chen Qi was dazed for a moment, then ruffled Aze’s soft hair with a little amusement. “What are you saying? You don’t need to apologize to me.”

“I didn’t protect you well. You even had to take care of me because I was injured.”

“You protected me from the locust dragon.” Chen Qi comforted. “Don’t think too much. Get a good night’s sleep. I still need you to take me home tomorrow. I can’t tell which direction we need to go to leave the forest.”

“En. Yes. I’ll take you home tomorrow.” The corner of Aze’s mouth rose slightly, and he then fell asleep. He needed to regain his strength as soon as possible.

Miiya: Sorry another late post! There will be post 1 of 4 Kofi extra chapters this coming Sat though!

Translator: Miiya

Editor: Jakie/MushroomNight73

Proofreader: Yume

Editor stepping into the realm of MTL translating, starting with CLWP. Support this translation with a Ko-fi. Three Ko-fis will add an extra chapter from the stockpile to the next weekly release.

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