27: Injuried

Xuan Mo gazed at Bai Yao's startled profile, and the persistent irritation in his heart surfaced once more.

Why was she afraid of him?

He couldn't understand.

He drove away the threat for her, he protected his mate; this was an instinct etched into his bones, the eternal law of this forest.

At the same time, he demonstrated his strength and cleared the potential danger, so why did he receive deeper fear in her eyes instead of reliance?

“In the future, can you stop killing people so easily?”

Bai Yao's voice trembled slightly with the relief of surviving a disaster, as she cautiously made her request.

She was genuinely afraid that this sudden, unannounced death might fall upon her next second.

Xuan Mo looked at her pale face and finally nodded. “Alright.”

This promise seemed to have some effect; her tense shoulders relaxed slightly.

“Is your foot injured?”

Xuan Mo's gaze dropped, landing on her ankle, which was covered in mud and bloodstains, and he stiffly changed the subject.

Before Bai Yao could respond, Xuan Mo had already crouched down, and his icy fingers extremely carefully lifted her ankle.

Xuan Mo’s icy fingers lifted her ankle, and his fingertips repeatedly rubbed against the skin of her calf, as if greedily drawing that bit of warmth.

Immediately after, Xuan Mo performed a move that made Bai Yao's scalp tingle—he lowered his head, and his forked, scarlet snake tongue extended, aiming to lick the wound.

“Hey, what are you doing?”

Startled, Bai Yao abruptly tried to pull her foot back, her cheeks instantly flushing red.

Xuan Mo raised his head, his face showing pure confusion, even a hint of bewilderment at being stopped: “Cleaning the wound. Saliva can disinfect.”

This was the most primitive and effective way for beasts to heal wounds.

“Don't do that!”

Bai Yao quickly hid her foot behind her, her heart racing. “I want to apply medicine, applying medicine is enough.”

“Medicine?”

Xuan Mo looked at her flushed earlobes, seeming to vaguely touch upon a boundary—his Female seemed to blush easily?

“I’ll go find some.”

As soon as he finished speaking, he vanished at the cave entrance.

Bai Yao looked in the direction he had disappeared, feeling complicated.

She actually had the Spirit Spring, but the ability to heal instantly was too strange, and she dared not expose it.

Xuan Mo quickly returned, carrying mashed Herbs. He crouched down again and applied the lump of greenish paste to her wound, his movements stiff but extremely gentle.

“Hiss...”

The coolness and sting of the Herbs made Bai Yao gasp lightly.

His movement immediately stopped. He looked up, his brows tightly furrowed: “Does it hurt?”

He lightened the pressure of his hand even more, applying the paste almost entirely with his fingertips, while unconsciously murmuring softly, “I clearly remember this is how it was done.”

He remembered clearly that the male fox had taken care of the injured Female fox this way.

“What are you saying?” Bai Yao couldn't hear what he was muttering.

“Nothing.”

Xuan Mo focused on finishing the bandaging.

Although the finished product was crooked and looked like a knot tied around a rock, at least it was complete.

Looking at his lowered eyelashes, Bai Yao suddenly asked intentionally:

“My name is Bai Yao, what about you?”

“Xuan Mo.”

He answered simply. To him, a name was merely a symbol used by other creatures in the forest to refer to him.

He had no parents, no companions; all his survival skills came from long, solitary observation and imitation of the outside world.

Watching his clumsy bandaging, it was hard for Bai Yao to connect the beastman in front of her with the terrifying existence who could turn another beastman into paste with a flick of a finger.

“Your wounds, your body, only I will be allowed to handle them from now on.”

“I will make you a pair of beast hide shoes and Beast Clothes.”

Xuan Mo suddenly spoke these two seemingly irrelevant sentences.

Bai Yao widened her eyes: “You can?”

A faint, unnatural flush crossed Xuan Mo's face. “Yes, your beast hide shoes and clothes are broken.”

He turned and retrieved a piece of animal hide from the corner of the cave and handed it to her.

Unexpectedly, the animal hide was quite clean, free of blood and decay, and instead carried a faint fragrance after being washed with plants.

“Who did you learn this from?” Bai Yao couldn't help but ask.

“I saw it.”

He had once seen a beastman use a frothing fruit to clean fur, so he remembered it, and silently imitated it after every hunt, treating the animal hides to be clean and soft, storing them in his lair.

Bai Yao sat on the stone slab, watching Xuan Mo pick up a Bone Needle and Beast Sinew and begin sewing.

His movements were extremely awkward; the sharp Bone Needle pierced his own fingertips several times, but he paid no mind.

Finally, he presented her with a set of shoddily stitched animal hide clothes and shoes, his eyes holding a trace of almost imperceptible anticipation.

Bai Yao looked at the clothes, which were barely more than a skirt and two leather covers, and fell silent.

This was even more... primitive than she had imagined.

“This... will be cold to wear.”

“It's uncomfortable to wear and easily bitten by insects. Here, and here, it needs to be longer, preferably covering everything.”

Xuan Mo frowned even harder.

Females, as expected, were as troublesome and fussy as the legends claimed!

But he still picked up the leather material, preparing to modify it.

“Let me do it.”

Bai Yao took the items from his hand. She skillfully threaded the needle and modified and reinforced the clothes according to her own ideas.

Xuan Mo watched silently from the side, then suddenly spoke: “They say Females don't work.”

Bai Yao didn't even lift her head: “That's because they haven't seen a Female who can work.”

Soon, a pair of more covering Animal Hide Pants and a pair of simple shoes were finished. Bai Yao looked at her work with satisfaction.

“What do you want to eat?”

Xuan Mo's voice interrupted her self-appreciation. He walked to the corner and retrieved the Basket Bai Yao had previously lost; inside lay several sweet potato she had been longing for.

“Eat these?”

He actually found them!

Bai Yao's eyes lit up: “I want to eat roasted sweet potato.”

“Roast?” Xuan Mo was unfamiliar with the word.

“I'll do it...”

“Ouch...”

Bai Yao tried to step down as she spoke, but forgot about the injury on her foot and cried out in pain.

“Don't move.”

Xuan Mo held her down. “You tell me, I'll do it.”

The first step to making a fire was obtaining the flame... Bai Yao explained carefully, and Xuan Mo's brows furrowed tighter and tighter. Fire was dangerous and uncontrollable to them.

When the flame shot up, he abruptly pulled Bai Yao behind him and fully entered an attack posture, letting out a threatening low hiss from his throat, his vertical pupils fixed on the fire pit.

“Extinguish it!”

He commanded. It wasn't until Bai Yao explained that it was merely a tool that he slowly relaxed, but the vigilance in his eyes remained undiminished.

Bai Yao saw his caution when making fire and thought, “Does he also have something he fears? Maybe I can use this weakness later.”

Following this, Bai Yao instructed him to bury the sweet potato in the fire pit.

Xuan Mo stared intently at the pure joy on her face, which didn't look like she intended to attack him. His anxious heart slowly settled, and he did as instructed.

Before long, an unprecedented sweet aroma filled the cave.

The roasted sweet potato were soft, sticky, and sweet. Bai Yao took a satisfied bite, feeling that the exhaustion of the entire day had been soothed.

“Wow, this is delicious.”

She handed him a piece. Xuan Mo took a bite. To him, the taste was bland and strange, offering far less satiety than raw meat.

But watching her satisfied expression as she squinted while eating, he silently swallowed it nonetheless.

“If you like these things?”

Xuan Mo suddenly spoke. “Tomorrow, I'll take you to the Market. The Vegetarian Beastmen’s Market has a lot of these.”