Chapter 474: 445 Mi Xiang—Chuihai Chapter The End
He glanced over and then withdrew his gaze.
Her name was Mi Xiang, and she was the only one who had discovered him in this cave.
She was said to be ten, but she looked no bigger than the palm of a hand.
There was a blue birthmark on her right cheek, covering a quarter of her face and encircling her right eye like a panda with unevenly applied makeup.
From the bottom of his heart, he despised her ugliness.
Mi Xiang dragged some food over to him. As soon as she loosened her grip, the weak cloth bag fell to the ground, and a few rotten apples rolled out in front of Qing Luo.
"I’ll go fetch some water to help you wash the fruit!"
After saying that, Mi Xiang cheerfully took an old, worn, and cumbersome wooden basin.
Holding the basin with both her small arms, she scooped up half a basin of water from the waterfall’s edge and wobbled back, spilling some water with every step...
Qing Luo remained cold-eyed, staring steadily at this one-eyed panda as she happily smiled at him, making him feel uncomfortable all over.
"Bam!"
She put down the wooden basin with a thud, and some water splashed out.
She picked up the fallen rotten apples and carefully washed them, scooping out the rotten parts, making Qing Luo frown repeatedly.
Seated cross-legged on the ground, Mi Xiang washed the apples and said,
"I don’t have an orchard at home. The village doctor said that injured patients should eat more fruit! I begged these from the old man at the apple garden; they’re a bit rotten, but rotten apples are very sweet."
She wore very coarse clothes that didn’t fit properly, looking like hand-me-downs from her brother or sister.
"Here! For you!"
After washing an apple, Mi Xiang reached out her hand to give the apple to Qing Luo.
Seeing that Qing Luo didn’t accept it, she stood up, walked in front of him, stubbornly pried his hand open, and placed the apple in his hand,
"My hands are very clean now, no bacteria, you eat!"
Qing Luo pursed his lips and reluctantly took a bite.
Since entering, Mi Xiang had been busy non-stop. Though her arms and hands were little, she worked in an organized manner.
She dumped out everything from a burlap bag she had dragged along, which contained clean coarse clothing, a bag of cooked chestnuts, as well as some bananas, tomatoes, and pears.
As he watched items continuously being taken out, the bag seemed much heavier than he had imagined.
"Ah, there’s also this!"
Mi Xiang took out five big steamed buns from the bottom of the bag,
"Eat this, this will make you fuller."
Qing Luo watched her indifferently as she moved things around, talking to herself.
She had dragged in quite a few things today.
"I need to help with the work in the fields for the next couple of days, so I might not be able to come, eat these sparingly! I’ll come over after the work is busy."
She would help with the farm work?
After speaking, Mi Xiang walked toward the hole she had crawled through. Qing Luo’s mouth moved as if to call out to her but he remained silent.
He looked at the food and the very simple, crude daily necessities scattered around him.
It was the tenth day since he had fallen.
The bullet that Song Lili had fired hadn’t hit him; he had just ducked reflexively, never expecting to actually evade it. That one-tenth of a second, the bullet passed by right in front of his eyes, with its sparks and scorching heat.
He had dodged the bullet but had never considered that he might survive.
It wasn’t exactly a bottomless abyss, but the height from which he fell was certainly lethal, not to mention the rapid river below.
Yet, against all odds, he crashed into a tree branch on the cliff face, which broke his fall and saved his life, before he landed in the water and was swept towards the giant waterfall.
He unwound the self-rescue rope from his waist, hooked it onto the side of the cliff, and was spared from being swept away by the powerful falls.
After discovering a cave behind the waterfall, he hung on the rope and charged into the cascade, where the force of the falling water nearly made him lose his grip, grinding deep bloody gashes into his palms.
His left leg was broken, his right thigh bore a gash over ten centimeters long, and his arms and body were covered in bruises and injuries.
Immobile, taking refuge here probably meant he had nothing left but to wait for death.
Who would have known that after he lost consciousness for two days, he would wake up to see that one-eyed panda, Mi Xiang, dressing his wounds.
Even though the makeshift splint she tied around his broken leg with rope meant it would likely never heal correctly, she had, in effect, saved his life.
It’s just...
Her chin propped on her hands, drooling as she grinned sheepishly at his sorry state made it very difficult for him to feel grateful.
"Ah! You’re awake! What’s your name? You’re so handsome; you must be my Prince! Hehe!"
"..."
These were the words Mi Xiang said to him when he woke up, words so startling they jolted him awake from his sleep time and again.
It had been ten days, and she came almost every day, though she never stayed long.
The Chuhai Mountain Area was home to many mountain villages, an area relatively underdeveloped in the country of M, neglected by the government due to inaccessible mountain roads and lacking targeted regional planning.
The mountain villagers could even be said to be self-sustaining.
When he led the Cross Army to take up positions here, he didn’t monopolize the entire Mountain Range District. Without the necessary techniques, manpower, or finance, he simply chose areas that were best suited for encampment and transportation.
In the three main villages, men were conscripted into the Cross Army, women and children were driven into the mountains, forbidden from communicating with the outside world.
To achieve this, many lives were lost.
He didn’t know which village Mi Xiang hailed from... The place was quiet, but in recent days, he could still faintly hear the distant sound of artillery.
Mi Xiang also said it was someone setting off fireworks... Either she didn’t understand, or the whole village was isolated, unaware of what was happening outside.
He knew the Cross Army would be defeated.
Song Lili was providing intelligence to the government army, Wen Nian was the President of country G, and Ling Lan and Hui Yan stationed in Chuhai were no match.
Staying in this cave these past days, Qing Luo didn’t feel too wretched compared to the humiliations suffered in his childhood within the Royal Family; it was not even one tenth as bad.
He listened to the distant artillery fire, from restless sleeplessness to detached indifference...
He didn’t know how many had died in the war, scenes of bodies strewn across the land perhaps over just two mountains, yet he felt not a twinge of sorrow or stirring.
To die was to be at peace, to die was to be clean.
Mi Xiang... was very ugly, and in these ten days, he hadn’t spoken a word to her; it was all her own monologue.
Yet, she was pure.
Qing Luo took a deep breath. Just as he closed his eyes, he heard an irritating noise rush in, and instinctively turned to see Mi Xiang dragging a meter-long branch inside,
"Use this as a walking stick! You have to learn to walk! Otherwise, if something happens to me, there won’t be anyone to take care of you!"
Mi Xiang left the branch within his reach and smiled at him with her hands behind her back, "I’m off, bye!"
With that, she hopped away cheerfully.
Where did such a girl... get her optimism from?
Qing Luo looked at the fairly sturdy branch, tugged the corner of his mouth slightly, and reached out to touch it...
———————— "Chuhai Segment" —— The End ——————