Free Web NovelThe moment that thought rose up, Wen Yuzhi startled himself with how bold it was.
But he pressed his lips together. After hesitating again and again, he still chose to walk carefully down toward the bottom of the pit.
When he reached a spot not far from the giant beast—feeling the increasingly cold gaze above his head—Wen Yuzhi stopped in time. Keeping a distance that both of them could feel was safe, he set down a bottle of emergency spray.
Pointing at the bottle, Wen Yuzhi looked at the giant beast and slowly said, "This can treat wounds."
As he spoke, he demonstrated by using the emergency spray on the scrape on his palm.
While doing this, Wen Yuzhi had no idea whether the giant beast could understand what he meant.
But the first step of communication was often to show goodwill first.
And that, for Wen Yuzhi, wasn’t difficult. His body had shrunk by a whole size, and along with it, his voice had returned to what it used to be—his voice turned thin and soft, sweet and sticky, so that saying a single sentence made it seem like he was acting cute.
Paired with that snow-white, soft face, his whole person looked weak and harmless to the extreme.
If the people standing in front of him right now were those noble ladies from great families, they probably would have already been unable to resist pulling Wen Yuzhi into their arms, calling him "sweetheart" and "darling" over and over.
Unfortunately, the giant beast was not one of those easy-to-talk-to ladies.
It did not respond to Wen Yuzhi’s attempt to please.
His usually unbeatable tactic of acting cute hit a wall. Wen Yuzhi blinked, but in his heart he didn’t feel much discouragement.
After all, he had never expected that just one sentence would move the giant beast.
"I’ll leave the medicine here."
Wen Yuzhi continued to maintain that harmless posture. He left the emergency spray behind, and along with it, he also set down two beautifully wrapped fruit candies.
This was also a way of currying favor with the giant beast.
As for whether the other side would like fruit candy... Wen Yuzhi didn’t know. But he put himself in its place for a moment and thought: when you’re in pain, if there’s a little sweetness in your mouth, it should feel a bit better, right?
Even though Wen Yuzhi also knew very clearly that the giant beast was very likely to look down on his two candies.
And for the giant beast’s size, those two candies were ridiculously tiny. But thinking of how it was covered in wounds, how it was obviously in so much pain yet still enduring without making a sound...
Wen Yuzhi still couldn’t help ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) doing something that, in other people’s eyes, might look unbelievably ridiculous.
Anyway, he was leaving things with the intention of pleasing this giant beast. Leaving one was leaving, and leaving two was leaving.
Wen Yuzhi simply left the candies he often carried with him as well.
The two tiny fruit candies and that bottle of emergency spray were placed neatly on the ground, right beside the giant beast.
The giant beast had no intention of moving them, and it also didn’t throw them away.
It closed its eyes to doze, as if it had fallen back into sleep.
As for the goodwill offered up by the human cub, it lay there on the ground, all alone.
Tonight’s cold wind was still sharp enough to pierce bone. It was hard to say whether it was just an illusion, but aside from the bloody stench it had long since grown used to, there seemed to be a faint, sweet fruit fragrance in the air.
It was just that this hint of sweetness was far too weak. It didn’t last long before it was quickly covered up again by the rank reek of blood.
...........
A dreamless night.
Wen Yuzhi curled up inside the shelter he had built and slept for a night.
Perhaps because there was only that one stray beast nearby, Wen Yuzhi didn’t run into any sudden incidents afterward. He slept fairly steadily inside his shelter.
The first thing he did after getting up was turn on his light-brain.
As expected, there was still no signal.
He went into the escape pod to look again. The instruments in there were basically all scrapped, and the caller was the same as yesterday—so broken it couldn’t be more broken.
Wen Yuzhi had been mentally prepared for a long time. He wasn’t too disappointed by this result. At least there were still some usable things inside the escape pod.
He picked through things, not sitting around waiting to die, continuing to gather anything that could be used.
Whether there would be rescue was still an unknown. He couldn’t place all his hope in other people’s hands.
When he passed through the area where the giant beast was, Wen Yuzhi glanced that way.
The other side still maintained the posture of sleep.
But Wen Yuzhi still keenly sensed that its condition seemed even worse than yesterday. Many of the wounds exposed on that enormous body had already worsened.
Yesterday it had been night. With the light so dim, Wen Yuzhi had only gotten a rough look, nowhere near as clear as in the daytime today.
The giant beast’s body could almost be described as covered in wounds.
—Scales fallen off, flesh split open.
To be honest, this picture wasn’t beautiful at all. It even felt a little bloody, the kind of thing that, at a single glance, could make someone feel physically uncomfortable.
Wen Yuzhi had thought he wouldn’t be able to take it. But unexpectedly, his mood was very calm, and his face didn’t show any disgust or fear.
Only when his gaze touched those mottled wounds did it pause slightly.
But Wen Yuzhi didn’t say anything. He knew the giant beast didn’t need anyone’s pity or sympathy.
He walked forward silently and placed the fruit he had picked in his arms beside the emergency spray and the candies.
Then, without making a sound, he left again.
The third day after that, the fourth day, it was the same.
Wen Yuzhi was like someone paying respects to a mountain boss. Every time he found something good, he would split off half and bring it to the giant beast.
Fruit, leaves, mushrooms, wildflowers gathered by the roadside...
The "offerings" piled up beside the giant beast grew more and more, gradually stacking up like a small mountain.
But the one being "worshiped" remained cold and indifferent. Although it never refused Wen Yuzhi coming to deliver things, it also never showed any intention of accepting them.
Wen Yuzhi didn’t mind. With the giant beast staying here, no living creature dared come near. For several days straight, he slept comfortably and soundly.
And since he was benefiting from someone else’s presence, it was only right to send a little something in return. Anyway, most of what he gave the giant beast was stuff he happened to find by the roadside. It didn’t take any real effort.
So, with one side insisting on giving and the other side defaulting to ignoring, a strange kind of balance formed between Wen Yuzhi and the giant beast.
That balance lasted for a long time, until one day, it was suddenly broken.
.......
Today was the seventh day since the escape pod crashed.
As a young master who, for the past several decades, had never so much as gotten his ten fingers wet with real work, Wen Yuzhi was now already starting to gradually get used to this life of wandering outside.
This past week, he had been thinking up every possible way to call for help from the outside world, but the results had been minimal.
He didn’t know whether rescue was simply too difficult, or whether this place was just far too remote. In any case, these past few days, Wen Yuzhi hadn’t seen even a shadow of rescue.
He was trapped on this unfamiliar planet, cut off from the outside world, completely reduced to an isolated island.
That kind of loneliness was terrifying. Fortunately, there was still another giant beast nearby that could breathe. That gave Wen Yuzhi at least a little comfort.
—At least he wasn’t the only living organism here.
Even though the other side was always cold, never communicating with him at all, Wen Yuzhi instead felt very relaxed with this way of getting along.
Today’s weather looked pretty good. Bright sunshine, not a cloud in the sky.
While the weather was this good, Wen Yuzhi also planned to go out and look for materials he could use to build a proper shelter. As for drinking water and food, he wasn’t urgently short for now. The supplies equipped inside the escape pod were still enough to support him living out in the wild for a month.
What he lacked most right now was a shelter that could block wind and rain.
The original escape pod had already been wrecked beyond recognition by the impact of the crash.
Wen Yuzhi had tried to salvage it, but every attempt ended in failure. With no choice, he could only give up this thing that should have been the most suitable shelter, and instead build a place nearby himself by leaning stones together.
"Wood planks, nails, iron sheets..."
Walking among the scarred ruins, Wen Yuzhi muttered the things he needed under his breath while he carefully rummaged through all kinds of trash with his hands.
It seemed that not long ago, someone had once lived here.
Wen Yuzhi dug out many daily-use items with obvious personal traces. The ones in relatively good condition and still usable, he sorted into a pile. When it was time to leave, he would pick through them again carefully and choose what he thought was useful to bring back.
This process had long since become second nature to him. His sorting speed was fast, too—because for the past few days, this was exactly what he had been doing.
Even picking through trash in a ruin pile—something that the wealthy nobles of great families would see as extremely undignified—Wen Yuzhi did it without the slightest psychological burden.
He even found it somewhat enjoyable.
If someone could open a god’s-eye view right now, they would discover that these past few days in this stretch of ruins, the teenager was like an ant moving house, little by little carrying the treasures he dug out of the garbage back to his small nest, constantly improving and expanding that crude living space.
Today was no exception. Wen Yuzhi found quite a few good things he could bring back and use.
It was just a shame the heavens didn’t seem to cooperate.
Just a moment ago it had still been a clear, brilliant sunny day. Out of nowhere, a dark cloud drifted in. Before Wen Yuzhi could bring his things back, rain suddenly started falling from the sky.
At first it was fine threads of rain drifting down. Then slowly, slowly, that steady drizzle turned into a downpour. frёewebηovel.cѳm
Raindrops larger than soybeans pounded onto the boy’s thin body. In no time, his clothes were soaked through. The thin shirt clung to him, outlining the boy’s attractive figure while also making Wen Yuzhi’s body feel heavy and weighed down.
In this situation, there was obviously no way to keep working outdoors. He hurriedly grabbed a wooden plank and held it over his head, then started rushing back with quick steps.
But even though Wen Yuzhi’s speed wasn’t actually slow, by the time he returned he was still drenched from head to toe.
Water stains trailed across the ground under his feet, and his wet black hair was still dripping water.
Wen Yuzhi covered his chest as he panted, his face pale. The sight of him was unusually bedraggled.
"Not good."
He patted his cheeks. Cold rain clung to them, and the temperature against his palm was especially icy.
Not daring to delay any longer, Wen Yuzhi quickly changed out of the wet clothes, then lit the firepit beside him.
Orange-red firelight crackled as it burned. The flames climbed rapidly, and the heat they gave off brought a precious trace of warmth to this tiny shelter on this cold rainy day.
Sitting in front of the firepit, Wen Yuzhi wrapped himself tightly into a ball with his clothes. There was no mirror here, so he couldn’t see just how pale his face was at this moment. That pretty face, still young and immature, rested on his drawn-up knees. His brows were faintly knit, and there was almost no color at all on lips that should have been rosy.
Cold...
Even though he was sitting closest to the firepit, Wen Yuzhi still felt like he had fallen into an ice cellar. Cold seeped through his whole body. Even his hands and feet were icy, like no matter how much he warmed them, they just wouldn’t heat up.
"Mm..."
The little Omega huddled inside the clothes, head lowered.
Thick, pitch-black lashes drooped over his lower eyelids, like a listless butterfly. His expression was sullen.
Wen Yuzhi guessed he had probably caught a chill.
An Omega’s delicate constitution clearly couldn’t adapt to the wind and rain outside a greenhouse. Just one sudden downpour had knocked him flat.
Wen Yuzhi stared at the bright firelight, but his consciousness gradually grew heavier and heavier. Even the airflow he exhaled through his nose carried an unusual burning heat.
He didn’t know whether it counted as finding amusement in misery, but the first thought that surfaced in Wen Yuzhi’s mind the moment he realized he was sick was—
Today, it seemed like he wouldn’t be able to go bring things to that big one.
Tomorrow... maybe tomorrow the rain would stop.....
